It is important for us to understand that the Counsels of God are not theoretical – they are real and they are binding on God’s creation. By that I mean that they accomplish real things. these are not the musings of an impotent Being who sits in heaven wishing that His creation would shape up and do what He wants them to do while all the while they do as they please.
Oh no! This is a sovereign God, much to the chagrin and the irritation of the secular, unredeemed world. Much, as well, to the consternation of the unsaved world. This is a God that they cannot figure out. They insist on holding Him to human standards and trying measure Him by human measurements, and then are angry and/or frustrated when those measures come out cockeyed. Their verdict then is this God is either unjust or non-existent. Neither could further from the truth. He is simply not a man and cannot be measured by our standards.
Yet it IS important to remember that God is going about accomplishing His plan for His creation. So, just what is it that these counsels and purposes of God are accomplishing in the world? Well, the specific acts of God would, of course, be too numerous to list in this context. But we can do some talking in a “heading” manner. I see at the least four general headings [1] that we can group the actions of under.
1. God Acts in Human History
First we could say that God acts in History. Just in one grand example, Is. 46:10-11 says:
10 Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure,’
11 Calling a bird of prey from the east,
The man who executes My counsel, from a far country.
Indeed I have spoken it;
I will also bring it to pass.
I have purposed it;
I will also do it.
Those two verses are full of sovereignty language, aren’t they? People who reject the authority of the Bible will argue that this passage, and others like it were written after Cyrus came and conquered Babylon and returned the people of God to their land. Their assumption is that such knowledge is not possible a century and a half (that is when Isaiah lived) is not possible and thus this text had to be written after it happen by some Pseudo-Isaiah after the fact.
But such assumptions only do more to show our own spiritual state than they do to argue for the truth of the text of Isaiah. The fact of the matter is that there is ample evidence that this passage was written in the 8th century along with the rest of the Book of Isaiah. It is not unreasonable to accept what is, really, a wealth of textual evidence, for the genuine authorship of Isaiah at that time.
Given that truth, we see a marvelous demonstration of the sovereignty of God in these two verses. He says that Cyrus the Persian will come, even calling him by name (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1) and that he will overthrow the Babylonian Empire.
All of this, doing “My counsel”. God says “I have spoken it, I will bring it to pass”. This very clear language. “I have purposed it, I will also do it”. Using poetic mechanism, God uses a doublet to underscore the truth that His sovereign power will accomplish in human History what His counsel has purposed in His mind.
2. God Acted In Accomplishing The Death of Christ
This is certainly no surprise to most believers. That God delivered up Christ by His own purpose, a determined purpose that according to foreknowledge is one of the tenets of the Christian faith. Acts 2:23 says:
Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;
This is one of those verse that we take great care over. Every word in this verse is significant and we need to take more care, really, than we have time for in this short space. But we do have time for a few relevant comments.
First, “determined” is a verb and a participle. It has two primary meanings[2]. When it used in the active sense it means “to decide, or determine as seen in Ac 11:29. 2. When it is in the passive voice, that is when the verb indicates that the object of the sentence is being acted upon and not doing the action, it means “to appoint, to set, or to decree”. This is the use here. Christ did not do the delivering, He was delivered.
Further we would note both that this delivering was a finished act, referring, of course to the act of sacrifice on the cross of Calvary; and that this action was an action accomplished by the Father in a determined action.
This decree occurred, we’re told according to God’s “foreknowledge”. Actually what the passage says is that all of this occurred according to the plan that God foreknew. “Foreknew” is a noun in this case (there is also a verb that means “to foreknow”). In this context it mean to have knowledge of or to plan out. Note the use of the word “counsel” just before. That was what was foreknown. It was His plan! Christ was crucified according to the foreknown plan of God. God saw to it that what occurred was exactly what He had planned would occur in eternity past.
From eternity past God predetermined that Jesus would die an atoning death as part of the His pre-ordained plan.[3] Our calling is a holy calling according to grace given before time began. 2 Tim. 1:8-9:
8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, 9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,
The names of believers are written in the “Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the Foundation of the World”. Rev. 13:8:
…And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. 8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
The early church preached that the crucifixion of Jesus was according to foreknowledge of God as well. Acts 4:27, 28:
27 “For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together 28 to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.
There was no question in the minds of the Apostles and the early church the the death of Jesus fulfilled the prophesies of the OT. Acts 13:27–29:
27 For those who dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they did not know Him, nor even the voices of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath, have fulfilled them in condemning Him. 28 And though they found no cause for death in Him, they asked Pilate that He should be put to death. 29 Now when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb.
All of this demonstrated that God acted in fulfilling His counsels in the death of Christ. As He did in history in general, He did in this specific aspect of history – He moved with power and authority as the One Who controls all things to do as He had decreed in eternity past to bring about that which He desired – the salvation His people.
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[1] Thomas Nelson Publishers. (1995). Nelson's quick reference topical Bible index. Nelson's Quick reference (156). Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
[2] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Greek (New Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLG 3988, #2). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
[3] MacArthur, J. J. (1997, c1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed.) (Ac 2:23). Nashville: Word Pub.
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