GOD'S ETERNAL DECREE AND YOUR TRAUMA

I.    Introduction  

Q. 7. What are the decrees of God?

A. The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.[Ps. 33:11; Isa. 14:24; Acts 2:23; Eph. 1:11-12]

In numerous passages throughout the Bible, there are places where Scripture speaks of God’s “purpose” (Acts 4:28), His “plan” (Ps 33:11; Acts 2:23), His “counsel” (Eph 1:11), “good pleasure” (Isa 46:10), or “will” (Eph 1:5). In one way or another, each of these designations refer to what theologians call God’s decree. The Westminster Confession famously characterizes describes God’s decree as follows: “God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.”1

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1 Mike Riccardi, "I Will Surely Tell of the Decree of the Lord," the Cripplegate, August 28, 2015).

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II.    God's Decreed Purposes Are Eternal and Unconditional

A.    They Are Eternal

Q. 7. To what do the decrees of God point?

A. The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he has determined from eternity past whatsoever comes to pass. (Eph. 1:11-12) (My translation)

From Genesis 3 to the present, no man can glorify God. Sin, Satan, and death render this aim impossible. God, therefore, has mercifully chosen to deliver us from His coming wrath. No man can deliver himself from his sin. 

This chapter will explore God’s one eternal plan or purpose as rationally conceived in the Bible. We must grasp the security God’s eternal plan provides for every believer. God saves sinners. He doesn't make salvation merely possible and leaves it up to sinners to decide. The Lord carries out our salvation according to His part. This plan gives more than everlasting “fire insurance” so we don’t end up in Hell. God has provided humanity with salvation that guarantees redemption to the uttermost. God’s decrees originate without our input. We cannot get at them to alter them.  

I have stated elsewhere that traumatic stress is not your most significant problem, not by a long shot. This chapter tells us how God, who decreed all things whatsoever come to pass, determined to overcome our greatest need: sin’s enslavement and salvation in Christ. God’s deliverance of Israel from their bondage in Egypt is a perfect picture of enslavement and deliverance from sin by God’s power alone. By faith alone, we believe God unites us with Christ, who leads us into a new life. True, we participate by the divine gift of faith, but God alone saves sinners.

Notice the way Paul described God’s plan.

Eph. 3:8-11 To me (Paul), the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, 9 and to enlighten all people as to what the plan of the mystery is which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things; 10 so that the multifaceted wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, (emphasis added)

Paul’s mission concerned all men, Gentiles, and Jews. God chose Paul as His vessel to bear His name before the Gentiles and Kings, as Luke wrote in Acts 9:15. God’s Gospel2 would illumine men’s eyes so that they might trust this Gospel by faith, by governing the hearts and minds of men. Wisdom is a synonym for this plan, and Jesus Christ unifies all the various parts of the one eternal decree of God. In my experience, God has wisely made traumatic stress an integral aspect of bringing Him glory and personal enrichment. This mystery included the Jews and Gentiles coming together into the same family. The Gospel destroyed the wall that divided them, making them one nation, adopting them into Christ Jesus so that they became partakers of the same promises by faith. 

Sin and the vagaries of life filled Paul’s world with grievous burdens. That historical era had the same diseases and mental struggles we have today. Those societies worshiped everything under the sun like we today do. Their needs, wants, and dreams were comparable with ours. The ubiquitous Roman soldiery certainly wrestled with traumatic stress, as seen in Part One, A Brief History of P.T.S.D.

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2 Know that you, dead in sin and unable to keep any of God’s law, have been saved by the perfect person and work of Jesus Christ. Your forgiveness is not contingent upon the quality of your holiness, the sincerity of your repentance, or the strength of your faith. Your forgiveness, assurance, and rest are freely given to you in the promises of Jesus Christ and made effective because of the object of your faith. This is the gospel. This is what we declare to you—that there is good news! The God that you have offended with your sin has forgiven you. The righteousness He requires of you, He has also provided for you in the meritorious work of His Son, Jesus Christ. Think of it like this: what God demanded of you in His law, He has provided for you in His gospel. Believe and rest in that by grace alone through faith alone, on account of Christ alone, you are forgiven! (Theocast. Rest: A Consideration of Faith Vs. Faithfulness (Kindle Locations 422-429). 

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II.     God’s Decree/s Are One in Christ

The Greek word pro-thee-sin (purpose) in Ephesians 3:11 can also be translated as ‘plan’ or ‘resolve.’ Figuratively speaking, God predetermined his one plan with the intent or design to call men in general to salvation (Rom. 10:18ff; 2 Pet. 2:5). Comprised of many particulars, God’s decree was His “eternal” purpose (lit., “purpose of the ages,” 1 Pet. 1;20; Acts 15:18). Since God’s decrees are eternal, “therefore it (the decree) cannot depend upon a condition which takes place only in time.” To bring any alteration to the eternal decree affecting events occurring in time would mean God’s unalterable counsel had changed. The Scriptures deny any such possibility (Isa. 46:10; Eph. 1:9). 

God’s decrees are immutable or changeless, determined outside of time and according to His unchangeable nature. “So far is God from changing his decrees to suit the changes of men, that on the contrary, every change of human acts proceeds from the eternal and irrevocable decree of God (who in this way brings to pass what he had decreed should take place through promise and threats).” Once man fell historically, he could not meet God's conditions. “There was never a moment when God’s mind went blank about His plan concerning you and me. Never was there a time when God’s plan, with its constituent parts, was not fully determined. He never ‘finally made up his mind’ about anything in His plan. The plan is not ordered chronologically, per se, but we must view it logically or teleologically (goal-oriented),” as discussed above. 

The person and works of Jesus Christ are significant because God “accomplished” or “effected” this eternal plan “in the Christ, Jesus our Lord.” You cannot separate the purpose from Christ or Christ from the eternal goal. In Ephesians 1:9, Paul states, “The mystery of his [God’s] will is according to his good pleasure.” He purposed to put the plan into effect in Christ, which pleased Him to do so. Christ Himself is at the beginning, the center, and the end of His eternal purpose. Why? God's “purposed good pleasure” was “to bring all things in heaven and on earth under one Head in Christ.” God’s eternal plan governs all his ways and works in heaven and on earth, and he purposed to fulfill His ways and works in Christ. This singular plan includes a veteran’s combat tour, a First Responder’s devastating emergency calls, or a veteran's wife’s struggles with a hurting spouse she can't understand or fears. Consider God’s eternal plan as the divine universal, and combat et al., as part of the plan’s various particulars. Hang in there with me, ok?

III.  God's Freedom and Right to Decree All Things in and Through Christ

In virtue of God's creation of all things, He retains the right to do with His creatures as He pleases. This prerogative or right is the consistent testimony of Scripture en toto. In virtue of man's rebellion against God's revealed will (Gen. 2:16-17; 3:1-7), man has sought to usurp the Kingship of Christ, the divine Son and Creator, and elevate himself to an exalted status. One of the vehicles by which humankind has attempted to accomplish this is the doctrine of man's free will.  

In light of this truth, man has sought to exalt himself over His creator. Nowhere is this fact more visible than in the writings of James Arminius and Charles Wesley.

A.    God the Creator's Sovereign Right over All Mankind

To accomplish His holy ends, God exercises His right over men sovereignly. “And Paul registers his appeal to God’s sovereignty without qualification even though he fully understands that the ‘man who does not understand the depths of divine wisdom, nor the riches of election, who wants only to live in his belief in the non-arbitrariness of his own works and morality, can see only arbitrariness in the sovereign freedom of God.’ This feature of the potter metaphor then lays the stress on the divine will as the sole, ultimate, determinative cause for the distinction between elect and nonelect.” God’s right to discriminate and choose between one person and not another ultimately determines His dealings with men and women. And if God has chosen His elect’s end as union with the Son, they can be assured He will carry it out to the end (Rom. 8:28-30). 

The risk involved exposes God’s election to salvation to arbitrariness or capriciousness. I think Paul took that chance as it related to God’s election of Jacob and His hatred of Esau (Rom. 9). According to Paul, God's choice was from eternity past. The charge of God’s caprice in choosing one man over another is answered in God’s will, not according to anything they had done or didn’t do. In eternity past refers to the infinite past. Neither boy could have done anything back then. God discriminated before either son was born. Reformed theologians “insist that God always acts in a fashion consistent with his prior, settled discrimination among men and that his prior, settled discrimination among men (Jacob and Esau) was wisely determined in the interests of the grace principle (see Rom. 9:11–12; 11:5).”

Why is this so? If you or I are allowed to be the decisive factor in receiving grace’s benefits by faith, that is, if God must “hold His peace” until we decide if we want union with Jesus Christ, God is held hostage to our will. We ultimately have become more powerful than God. To conceive of salvation in this fashion removes the emphasis on God’s grace alone as the only source of all spiritual good in man.

B.    God’s Decree/s Ensure His Elect’s Salvation

 What God decreed about you was mandated without your input since His decrees were from all eternity. It pleased Him then to choose whomsoever He would. The Lord wrote His chosen ones’ names in His book in eternity past (Rev. 13:8; 17:8). God will, therefore, keep them unto and including eternity future. He stored His elect’s inheritance in heaven, safe and secure. No devil could “break” into God’s vault, if you will, to steal a Christian’s inheritance. You could not get your polluted hands on it to alter God’s council. No distressing trial you face in history can modify it or distort what the Triune God established in eternity past. Peter emphasized this in his first letter, chapter one. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (emphasis added)

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:37-39). If God elected us to salvation, He chose us to be holy and blameless (Eph. 1:3-4). He will continue our sanctification, our daily regimen toward holiness in this life, as surely as Jesus came to earth and died a criminal’s death.

IV.    How Does This Knowledge Assist Us in Our Struggle with Combat Trauma? 

If you are a child of God by faith in Jesus alone, through grace alone, the most comforting news in the world is that God has decreed your salvation. Nothing can interfere with or destroy this gift. God has chosen, adopted, and united you with His Son. John recorded Jesus' words: 39 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of everything that He has given Me I will lose nothing, but will raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” . . . 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. . . . Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. . . . 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who believes has eternal life (Jn. 6).

We have the assurance that Jesus has given us eternal life, and no one can take it from us. He and the Father will do what they say, raise him up on the last day. His presence goes with us daily, "and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt. 28:20). And, Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU,” (Heb. 13:5; cf. Josh. 1:5).

Let me go on to greater heights. There was given to me (Paul) a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! 8 Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. 9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in distresses, in persecutions, in difficulties, in behalf of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

These verses might not sound too appealing now as you consider your traumatic stress, but having gone through so much personal trauma, I can assure you the apostle's words will breathe life into your mortal bodies. God's pathway is not around the tribulations of combat stress but through the river that leads to life. God has decreed the goal and all the means to achieve that goal. Now rest in that.