We were inspired to write this article by a sermon preached by a Reformed Baptist pastor on YouTube. He asserted the typical reformed view that there are at least two wills. There are NOT two wills in God's mind, there is only one all-inclusive will - his eternal purpose and will that existed before the foundation of the world - ed.
"And so Jesus is saying to Peter none of your business. What I'm gonna do with John? None of your business how he's gonna die. That's not for you to know. So here, here's what he leading up to, There are some things Jesus is saying that I will make known to you, and there are some things I will not make known to you. This leads to the third assertion about the sovereignty of God. God has two wills. Not one. That seems to be what Jesus is arguing here, that God has two wills, not one. He has a secret will, what we would call a secret will, and a revealed will. I like the terms secret and revealed because Deuteronomy 29.29 literally uses those terms. "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that have been revealed belong to us and our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law". So here are those two categories. The secret things belong to the Lord, which means they're secrets. He's probably not gonna tell you. And the revealed things, that is, the things in scripture, those things that he has made known belong to us and our children, that we may do all the words of His law. So it seems Jesus is working under these two categories. Let me show you in the text, verse 22, He said to him, if it's what my will? If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? That's the secret? Well, he's saying. It's my secret will Peter. I'm not gonna tell you when John's gonna die, but then what is the revealed will? You follow me. So the details of John's death, which don't affect Peter's responsibility to obey the Lord, are secret. You follow me, Man of Christ is revealed because it does affect. Peters's obedience to the Lord. And so these are the two categories for the will of God that we need to understand. Now I don't wanna lose this here, but I wanna say something I think is important. Some of y'all know this, it may not be helpfulto some, others may find it more helpful."
Where did this view of the two wills come from? Did it come from the Bible? No. It came from the teachings of men, specifically in the Synod of Dordt. We show here an example:
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"But I want to come back to the problem of evil and suffering for a minute with those two wills of God because I think this is important. Many people have talked about this. Stephen Charnock, A Puritan was a chaplain of. Henry Cromwell, he argued. In what's probably the best book on God's sovereignty ever written. He said this. "God does not will sin directly. Because he is prohibited by his law. God does not will sin simply to approve it. But he wills it in order that the good of his wisdom will be brought forth. He will not sin for itself but for the bigger event. So think about the death of Jesus. That's a big good event, but a lot of evil and sin happened in the process. Here's how Jonathan Edwards. Spoke about this about 80 years after that quote I just read. He said that when a distinction is made between God's revealed will and secret will. It's taken in two senses. The secret will is not his will in the same sense as his revealed will. Now listen to how he explains this with what we'll call a narrow lens and a wide lens."
Like a good Reformed pastor, he is impelled to quote the "Reformers", even those (Zwingli) who killed Baptists! He quotes Stephen Charnock, whom he considers the greatest defender of the sovereignty of God. He quotes his book titled The Holiness of God, from which we quote the passage he quoted:
God doth not will directly, and by an efficacious will. He doth not directly will it, because he hath prohibited it by his law, which is a discovery of his will: so that if he should directly will sin, and directly prohibit it, he would will good and evil in the same manner, and there would be contradictions in God’s will: to will sin absolutely, is to work it (Psalm 115:3): “God hath done whatsoever hes pleased.” God cannot absolutely will it, because he cannot work it. God wills good by a positive decree, because he hath decreed to effect it. He wills evil by a private decree, because he hath decreed not to give that grace which would certainly prevent it. God doth not will sin simply, for that were to approve it, but he wills it, in order to that good his wisdom will bring forth from it. He wills not sin for itself, but for the event. To will sin as sin, or as purely evil, is not in the capacity of a creature, neither of man nor devil. The will of a rational creature cannot will anything but under the appearance of good, of some good in the sin itself, or some good in the issue of it. Much more is this far from God, who, being infinitely good, cannot will evil as evil; and being infinitely knowing, cannot will that for good which is evil. Infinite wisdom can be under no error or mistake: to will sin as sin, would be an unanswerable blemish on God; but to will to suffer it in order to good, is the glory of his wisdom; it could never have peeped up its head, unless there had been some decree of God concerning it. And there had been no decree of God concerning it, had he not intended to bring good and glory out of it. If God did directly will the discovery of his grace and mercy to the world, he did in some sort will sin, as that without which there could not have been any appearance of mercy in the world; for an innocent creature is not the object of mercy, but a miserable creature and no rational creature but must be sinful before it be miserable. [Italics and Bold are mine]So here we have the origin of this doctrine of two wills. There is a "private" decree and a "positive" decree. Where do we see this distinction in Scripture? Where does Charnock show these decrees? But what he does do is show how the "all" in Psalm 115.3 cannot include evil because God "cannot work it". So we are told by Charnock the nonsensical notion that God created a "law" that he himself MUST obey! Of course, this concept flies in the face of Isaiah 45.7: " I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." This also flies in the face of passages where God sends a lying spirit to Ahab (I Kings 22.22). We could show many more examples, but we suffice with these. Our Reformed Baptist pastor goes on to entangle himself into further difficulties:
"So when God looks at a painful or wicked event, through his narrow lens he sees a tragedy or sin for what it is, and he's angered and he's grieved. Because he's looking through a narrow lens, he says, I do not delight in the death of the wicked as an example. When he looks through the narrow lens he he feels and and is affected by those things in a different way than when he looks at a painful or wicked event through a wide-angle lens where he sees a tragedy or a sin in relation to everything leading up to it and everything coming from it. So he sees the innumerable connections that affect this kind of masterful mosaic that he's building throughout all of redemptive history, and he's weaving together all of these things in a fallen world to accomplish his great glory. These are mysteries."
This "narrow lens wider lens" dichotomy did not come from Jonathan Edwards. It came from a book by John Piper titled, Desiring God. Piper has used this quote in many places. We have no evidence that it came from Jonathan Edwards like this pastor said it did. Edwards may have "inspired" this thought, but these words did not come from him.
But let us examine these words. God "looks" at things through different "lenses". Really? Does he cite any scripture for this view? None that we can discern. This is how he explains passages like Ezekiel 33.11. It never occurred to him that this message was strictly to God's people and had no reference to the second death but a physical death. Like Gilbert Beebe wrote:
This message was addressed to the house of Israel, and to no other people under heaven, and had no reference to eternal life, which is alone through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; nor to the endless perdition of the ungodly, which is called the second death. For the full article click here: https://welshtractpublications.blogspot.com/2023/10/ezekiel-3311-beebe.html
Another problem with his statement is that it is implied that God has to "look". Why? God has an all-inclusive plan. He does not have to look, he "sees" all things at once from all perspectives! When God asks the question, why will you not turn and live, He has ordained their blindness and will, at his timing, change their hearts toward him if he wishes!
May we know and trust in our Lord and his plan for us!
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