Grace Gate

Premise:  

The question here is this, “Is God completely free to do whatever He wills, or is He limited in His freedom by what humans choose to do?”  If God is dependent even 0.000001% on the choice of any other being, then He can not logically be completely free.  Some would argue that releasing a small amount of His sovereign will to the decisions of humanity is not relinquishing the free-will of God; that He is “sovereign over His own sovereignty.”  But by logical definition, for God to release control of His complete freedom is to no longer have 100% complete freedom.  The premise of “(B-1) The Freedom of God” is to show that God is revealed in the Scriptures to be 100% completely free to do with humanity as He has decided in the mystery of His eternal counsel.  He is not “The Great Responder”, but is free to write all of human history and decree the movement of every molecule and the fate of every person; to His glory, never limited, stymied or thwarted by an overruling decision of man.

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ITEM 1 OF 4

From The Properties of God’s Decrees Explained, by Thomas Boston

They are most free, according to the counsel of his own will; depending on no other, but all flowing from the mere pleasure of his own will, Rom 11:34, “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?” Whatsoever he decrees to work outside of himself is from his free choice. So his decrees are all absolute, and there are none of them conditional. He has made no decrees suspended on any condition outside himself. Neither has he decreed any thing because he saw it would come to pass, or as that which would come to pass on such or such conditions; for then they should be no more according to the counsel of his will, but the creature’s will.

God’s decrees being eternal, they cannot depend upon a condition which is temporal. They are the determinate counsels of God, but a conditional decree determines nothing. Such conditional decrees are inconsistent with the infinite wisdom of God, and are in men only the effects of weakness; and they are inconsistent with the independence of God, making them depend on the creature. 

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ITEM 2 OF 4

I Will Be Gracious to Whom I Will Be Gracious, by John Piper

Exodus 33:12-19

Moses said to the LORD, “See, thou sayest to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found favor in thy sight, show me now thy ways that I may know thee and find favor in thy sight. Consider too that this nation is thy people.” And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If thy presence will not go with me, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in thy sight, I and thy people? Is it not in thy going with us, so that we are distinct, I and thy people, from all other people that are upon the face of the earth?”

And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “I pray thee, show me thy glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”

In Exodus 33:18 Moses pleads with God, “Show me thy glory!” And God answers, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, YAHWEH! and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.”

God’s Glory and God’s Name

Moses asks to see God’s glory. God proclaims to him his name. In other words, if you grasp the name of God, you have seen his glory. God is not playing games with Moses when Moses cries out, “Show me your glory!” and God answers, “This is my name!” The names of God are the manifestations of his glory.

The name in verse 19 is Yahweh, the same name we saw last week (the LORD, in your versions). But this time the name is given a different explanation, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.”

In Exodus 3:14 the name Yahweh was explained with the words, I AM WHO I AM. Here it is explained with the words, I WILL BE GRACIOUS TO WHOM I WILL BE GRACIOUS. Notice how these sentences are both built in the same way. In Exodus 3:14 the focus was on the existence of God—that he is what he is without anything outside himself determining his personality or power. In Exodus 33:19 the focus is on the gracious action of God—that he does what he does without anything outside himself determining his choices. This is what God reveals about himself when Moses asks to see God’s glory.

The Glory of God Is His Sovereign Freedom

Therefore, I would draw out this doctrine for us this morning: It is the glory of God to be gracious to whomever he pleases apart from any constraint originating outside his own will. Or another way to put it would be that sovereign FREEDOM is essential to God’s name.

God is utterly free from the constraints of his creation. The inclinations of his will move in directions that he alone determines. Whatever influences appear to change his will are influences which ultimately he has ordained. His choice to show mercy to one person and not to another is a choice that originates in the mystery of his sovereign will not in the will of his creature. And Exodus 33:18–19 teaches us that this self-determining freedom of God is his name and his glory. If God ever surrendered the sovereignty of his freedom in dispensing his mercy, he would cease to be all-glorious, he would no longer be Yahweh, the God of the Bible.

Moses’ Astonishing Request

Before we unpack some of the practical implications of this doctrine, let’s put the context into better focus. This will help us see just what implications this doctrine had for Moses.

Back in chapter 32 the people of Israel had rebelled against God by making a golden calf to worship. God says to Moses in Exodus 32:9, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people; now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them.”

Moses responds to God (in verses 11–13) with a desperate prayer for the people. He makes his case not on the basis of Israel’s worth but on the basis of God’s worth. “Your name will be profaned among the Egyptians, and your word to the fathers will fall.” God relents. Instead of destroying the whole people, he appoints the sons of Levi to kill 3,000 men (32:25–29) and sends a plague among the people (32:35).

Then God resumes his purpose to send the Israelites to the promised land. In verse 34 God says to Moses, “But now go, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you.” But Moses will not be satisfied with an unknown angel. In 33:15 he says, “If thy presence will not go with me, do not carry us up from here.”

This is an astonishing request. For God had said in 33:3, “I will not go up among you, lest I consume you in the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” In other words God had said that if he goes up with them, he will wipe them out along the way. But Moses says that if God will not go up with them, he won’t go either. Moses is holding out for something unspeakable—that a holy God will have so much mercy upon a stiff-necked people that he will not only go up with them to the promised land, but also, as it says in 33:16, that God would make them distinct among all the peoples of the earth.

If Moses’ request was unthinkable, God’s answer in Exodus 33:17 was doubly so. He simply says, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” In other words, God says Yes, he will go up with this stiff-necked people. He will let the grace that he gives Moses flow over onto this rebellious people. You can see from Exodus 34:9 that this decision of God to go with the people is pure grace. There Moses says, “If I have found favor in thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray thee, go in the midst of us, although it is a stiff-necked people.” The people do not deserve the blessing of God’s presence. They are stiff-necked. But in mercy God is going to give them another chance to follow him in obedience.

Why Does Moses Request This?

Now the question rises why in 33:18 Moses prayed to see God’s glory? “I pray thee, show me thy glory.” I think the reason was this: Moses knew that his request for God’s presence with a stiff-necked people would never succeed if it were based on any qualification in himself or in the people. (In 34:9 he included himself in the sin and iniquity of the people.) So for Moses to have assurance that God would actually be this gracious to Israel, he needed to see some basis in God and not in himself or the people. He needed a glimpse into the nature of God.

He knew God was an all-glorious God. But was this glory of such a nature that it would encourage Moses to believe that God would really be gracious to a stiff-necked people? So Moses says, Show me your glory. Let me have a glimpse into your divine nature. Let me see the meaning of your great name. Show me the foundation of this amazing promise. Give me some assurance that you will indeed grant your saving presence to this stiff-necked people!

To this God responds in verse 19, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name YAHWEH; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” In other words, when Moses asks to behold God’s glory, God reveals as of first importance his name, which he explains with the words, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious.”

So in its Old Testament context the declaration of God’s absolute freedom to be gracious to whomever he pleases is intended to give Moses hope and assurance that God indeed can and will be gracious to the stiff-necked people of Israel and go with them to the promised land.

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ITEM 3 OF 4

The Decrees of God, by Samuel Willard and modernized by William Carson

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ITEM 4 OF 4

Scriptural Support for God’s Freedom

“I am the LORD, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides Me. I am the LORD, and thereis no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD Who does all these.” Isaiah 45:5-7

…so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Is. 55:11

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. Is. 40:28

Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? Lam. 3:37-38

Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” Ex. 4:11

Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Ps. 119:89

“Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ Is. 46:8-10

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. Rom. 11:33-36