God’s Will (thelema) & God’s Plan (boulema)

God’s Will (thelema) & God’s Plan (boulema) or
God's Revealed Will and God's Ultimate Intention

I would like to share with you Stephen Jones' take on this thought about the revealed will versus the ultimate intention or plan of God. I think this is foundational to understanding God's sovereignty and the overall blueprint for history.

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God's Will (thelema) and God's Plan (boulema)

The will of God is in a way subordinate to His Plan (ultimate intention), or Blueprint of History. The Greek words to describe each in the NT are thelema (will) and boulema (plan). The word thelema is used about 60 times in the NT. It is usually translated "will". It denotes the will in the sense of the desire or wish. However, the word boulema refers to one's resolve. It goes beyond a mere desire. It denotes the actual plan, the intention, or the outworking of the will. It is only used twice in the NT, but in both cases we can note its distinction from thelema.

For example, in Acts 27: 43 Paul was being taken prisoner to Rome. A storm had arisen, and the ship was grounded on a reef. The soldiers wanted to kill the prisoners to prevent them from escaping. 27. But the Centurion, willing (boulomai, planning or intending) to save Paul, kept them from their purpose (boulema, the plan, or intention). Fortunately for Paul, the Centurion had more than a willing desire to save Paul. He also had the power to plan and to carry out his plan (boulema). This indicated more than a mere desire to save Paul's life. He carried it out as part of his plan.

The second passage where boulema is used is much clearer, for we already quoted it in Romans 9:19, in regard to Pharaoh; 19. Why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will (boulema, plan or intention)? You see, the will (desire) of God was expressed in Moses' statement: "Let my people go". Pharaoh was able to resist God's thelema will, or desire. The story of Pharaoh makes that obvious. But there was a boulema plan or intention, that Pharaoh knew nothing about, and this he could not resist, for this was in the mind of God, not the will of man. It was bound up in the sovereignty of God, not the authority of man. And this plan perfectly expressed in verse 17, where Paul quotes from Exodus 9:16:

16. And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee My power; and that My name may be declared throughout all the earth.

It was God's will for Pharaoh to let Israel go. But it was in God's plan that Pharaoh resist God's will. Thus, God hardened Pharaoh's heart, in order to carry out that plan. This may seem like a terrible contradiction. Why would God create His own opposition and harden Pharaoh's heart, causing him to resist the will of God? It is no more contradictory than with the two covenants. The Abrahamic covenant gave men the inheritance by unconditional promise; while the Mosaic covenant made it conditional. This is not contradictory, but rather a paradox. As a consequence, man is judged only on the level of his obedience to the thelema of God, for this is the level of his authority or understanding.

That which God does according to His Plan, the boulema, He takes full responsibility for. Yet because the boulema of God is a primal force which directly determines man's ability and desire to obey God's thelema (will), God holds Himself ultimately responsible and liable for the actions and salvation of His creation. That is one reason why He came to pay the penalty for sin Himself, and we will deal with that topic later.

The Tension in Creation

"We begin by quoting the Apostle Paul in his comment about the problem of creation in Romans 8:19 - 22 19.
For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
20. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope [in expectation] 21. that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

Paul makes it clear that the creation was NOT subjected to "futility" or to "its slavery or corruption" by its own will, but by the sovereign will of God alone. Paul also says that the creation will be set free as the sons of God are set free from the corruption of death.

Inherent in Paul's writings is the concept that "the all" (ie., creation) is laboring under a kind of bondage to corruption, death, mortality, the law of Entropy (decay). God subjected it to such "futility" by His own sovereign will. "Futility", or "vanity", or "emptiness", is a word used to describe a plan of conduct that appears to go nowhere; it simply "peters out" into nothing. This word precisely describes the Law of Entropy, or decay. By this law, all things are subject to corruption, and man himself lives only a short time before petering out in death.

Paul says specifically (above) that it was NOT done by the will of creation. When Adam sinned, his sin was imputed to all mankind. We all became liable for Adam's sin, and thus we are all mortal, paying for a sin which we did not commit. And not only mankind, but Paul says that ALL OF CREATION was subjected to this corruption. It is contrary to the divine law for anyone to impute a father's sin upon the children.

Deut. 24:16 says:
16. The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin. This law is repeated in

Ezekiel 18:20.
20. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son..

And yet this is precisely what God did with us. The fact that all of Adam's children are born mortal proves that we are paying for a sin commited by our father. (Rom. 5:12). Adam's children were put to death for the sin of their father Adam. Did God know that this was unjust? Of course He did! After all, He had prohibited such injustice by His own law, revealed to Moses and confirmed by Ezekiel. This raises the most basic question about the justice of God, because that death imposed upon us outside our will is the root cause of all personal sins after Adam's original sin. We cannot hide this issue and hope it goes unnoticed by God's critics. Nor can we theologize it away after God clearly takes the credit for doing these things. We must first have faith that He is just, and that He knows what He is doing. We must align ourselves with His plan, rather than attempt to alter His plan to fit what we think He should have done.

In looking at the way God imputed Adam's sin to his descendants, and the divine law which prohibits such behavior, we do not hesitate to call God's action a "temporary injustice, which is the direct cause of the "Tension" in the history of creation. Tension is the result of injustice or disharmony while it is yet unresolved. It has many applications. When a nation wrongs another, tension is set up, often leading to war. When an individual wrongs another, tension is in the air until restitution is made. Tension always demands a resolution. In music there are certain chords which contain conflicting or discordant notes. These chords set up an emotional tension until the chord is resolved. This is a very common musical technique, used to play upon the emotions of the listener and draws him into the music by forcing him to psychologically demand harmony. Discord torments the mind of the musician, in order to maximize the feeling of relief when the harmonious chord is struck. It is much like the cliff-hangers in books of TV programs. All are temporary tensions designed to make the listeners demand a resolution.

God, too, has employed this technique in the music of the spheres and in the book of history. Imputing death and corruption to mankind and to creation in general has produced a judicial tension that demands resolution. Paul says that God will certainly not leave creation hanging. The disharmony and injustice that cause the tension will be MORE THAN COMPENSATED when the final chord of history is struck. And so Paul reminds us in

Romans 8:18
18. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. And again, he says in

2 Cor. 4:17 17. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

Paul is reminding us that the injustices of life are not only temporary, but will be more than righted at the last day when He restores all things." Stephen Jones


The Definition of Sin

another installment from Bro. Stephen Jones. [a little refresher course ]

"The Definiton of Sin"

MAN SINS BECAUSE HE IS MORTAL. He is mortal because God made him liable for the orginial sin of his father Adam. Therefore, God is the direct cause of man's weak (mortal) condition and the indirect cause of his personal sins. The question is: Does this make God a sinner? We immediately answer, NO. Is God liable in any way for man's sin? We immediately answer, YES. This is one reason why He paid the penalty for sin Himself. We do NOT agree that this makes God a sinner, but only that He is ultimately liable.

To prove this, we must first look at the meaning of the word that is translated "sin" in the scriptures. The Hebrew word for "sin" is khawtaw. It is translated "sin" in over 400 Bible passages. Yet the word literally means "to miss the mark", or "to fail to reach a goal." In the physical sense, the word can be used in the case of an archer who misses his target.

Judges 20:16 16. Among all this people there were 700 chosen left-handed; every one could sling stones at an hair breadth and not miss (khawtaw Heb.)

In the moral sense, the target, goal or standard is the divine Law (I John 3:4) Any transgression of the Law is "sin", because the Law is God's standard of righteousness. A sinner is one who has fallen short of perfection as defined in the Law. Paul alludes to this meaning when he writes in

Rom. 3:23 23. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

The glory of God here is the target. We have all fallen short of the target, failing to attain to that perfect goal. Essentially, then, sin is a failure to reach a particular goal. God created His own goal, to express mercy and grace to all of His creation. How could He do this without having a creation that needed Grace and Mercy? The only way would be to first subject all the creation to vanity and sin (Rom 8:20), and then to save them. And so we ask ourselves: Will God fail to carry out His plan? Must He reach for plan "B"? If so, then God is a failure, hence a sinner. [by missing his own mark]

It was in God's plan to create a temporary injustice and to spread it out on a finite timeline which we call history. Yet in the spiritual realm where God abides, this "injustice" is immediately offset by its solution, for all time is one, and all of history is a single image in the mind of God. These things are difficult for the soulish mind to comprehend. Ultimately it boils down to a matter of faith. Yet I believe it is quite clear that God, having never failed, is not a sinner.

The Laws of Creation and Liability The book of Genesis knows only the overriding Law of Creation, which says the that the Creator is always greater than the creature. This is so, because a creator owns and is responsible for that which he creates. And so, by the law, we find that men are liable for the actions of the animals they own. (Ex. 22:5) If a fire destroys someone's property, the one liable is he who started the fire, for he is the creator and owner of that fire. It is self evident that man was created with a potential to sin. It was not a mistake or an oversight on His part. In fact, it was necessary.

Most Christians construct their philosophy of the origins of good and evil on the argument that God did not force Adam to sin, but only allowed it, and that such permission on God's part is necessary to preserve God's merit, of course, on the human level. However, it only reduces the problem, it does not resolve it. James 4:17 gives us a general principle of divine law that is applicable here:

17. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. When applied to man, whose goal is obedience to God's thelema will, failure to keep this law is sin.

My comment interjected here: [the thelema will is the revealed will of God or what man is presently conscious of, but it is not His ultimate and, many times, hidden intention. And an illustration of this is in 1 Cor. 2 : 7 & 8

"But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the HIDDEN WISDOM, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory."]

When applied to God, however, it is a little different, because he operates on boulema, the divine plan, the overall intention, the Blueprint for history. And so we must keep in mind that although God deliberately incurs liability, it is within His plan to do this. Therefore it is not sin to him, so long as He does not fail. This law on the prevention of evil is further expanded in the liability laws of Ex. 21.

The Ox in the Pit Ex. 21:33-34
33. And if a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein; 34. The owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them, and the dead beast shall be his.

The owner is liable even if he did not force the ox in the pit. The fact remains that he allowed it by opening the pit. He created the opportunity for the ox to fall into the pit. And so, the divine law rules that the man who opened the pit is liable and pay restitution to the animal's owner. In applying this law to Adam's situation in the garden, God is both the owner of the pit, and owner of the animal. First, God dug a pit and did not cover it. That is, God created an opportunity for Adam (the ox) to fall into the pit (sin and death). That made God liable and created a "Tension" that demanded a resolution. So He had to go to the owner of the ox, which again is God, and BUY THE OX, "and the dead beast shall be his" (vs. 34). Is not this why Jesus came? He fulfilled the law to the letter, purchasing Adam's dead race. God's left hand paid restitution to His right hand.

This law was not only made to regulate men's liability; God enacted it deliberatly to make Himself liable, so He could fulfill the law and resolve the Tension.

Consuming the Field
This principle is found again in Ex. 22:5, to which we shall add some phrases that appear in the Septuagint version, but not the KJV.

5. If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and shall (deliberately) put in his beast, and shall feed in another man's field he shall surely make restitution out of his own field according to the yield thereof; and if the whole field be eaten, of the best of his own field, and of the best of his own vineyard, shall he make restitution.

The owner of the ox is liable. He cannot say, "Well, I didn't force the ox to eat; the ox did it all by himself." No, the owner is liable simply because he is its owner. So how is the liable party to pay restitution? The law says, "an eye for an eye", which is in this case is "field for field".

Jesus said that the "field is the world" (Matt. 13:38 - God allowed one of the "beasts" or creatures (the serpent) to feed in another man's field. Furthermore, the "whole field" was eaten, for all men have been consumed by sin. What kind of "grass" did this beast consume? It was Adam and Eve and ultimately all of mankind, for "all flesh is a grass" (1 Pet. 1:24) Here was another temporary injustice, a Tension that needed to be resolved to harmonize the spheres. God honored and upheld His own law of liability, and "the best of his own field" (Jesus) was given to man as restitution. "

From Creation's Jubilee by Stephen Jones