The decrees of God

A purpose formed before time

God does not improvise or scramble to repair events after they happen. "My purpose will stand," he says, "and all My good pleasure I will accomplish" (Isaiah 46:10); "the counsel of the LORD stands forever" (Psalm 33:11). Paul names him in these terms:

In Him we were also chosen as God's own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will,

Ephesians 1:11

The word for ‘counsel’, boulē (βουλή), means a considered plan. Theologians often speak of God's decrees in the plural, but explain that in God they are one undivided eternal purpose. The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines it:

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.

Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 7

The next answer adds that God carries out his decrees "in the works of creation and providence" Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 8: the decree is the plan in God, and creation and providence are its working out in time. God's decree concerning the salvation of human beings is called predestination, and Reformed covenant theology also describes God's saving purpose as an eternal pact between the Father and the Son, the covenant of redemption.

The plainest case is the cross. The church in Jerusalem prayed that Herod, Pilate and the people "carried out what Your hand and will had decided beforehand would happen" (Acts 4:28). One event holds God's holy purpose and real human guilt together, which is why the decree is not fate. Its hidden depths are not ours to dig out: "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever" (Deuteronomy 29:29), and we live by what is revealed, praying and obeying.

Where the traditions differ

Reformed and Presbyterian churches confess that God "from all eternity did … freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass", yet so that he is not the author of sin, no violence is offered to the will of creatures, and the liberty of second causes is established rather than taken away Westminster Confession 3.1. They add that although God knows all that could happen under any conditions, he decreed nothing because he foresaw it. Within the Reformed family, supralapsarians place the decree of election first in logical order, while infralapsarians hold that God chose from among humanity already viewed as fallen.

Lutherans confess that God's foreknowledge extends to all things, good and evil, without being the cause of evil, while his eternal predestination concerns only his children who are saved Formula of Concord, art. 11. Jacobus Arminius set out God's decrees in order: to appoint Christ as Mediator; to receive those who repent and believe; to provide sufficiently the means of grace; and to save those whom he foreknew would believe and persevere, and to condemn those who would not Arminius, Declaration of Sentiments. The Wesleyan tradition likewise understands God's saving decree as his will to save those who believe. All these traditions confess that God's purpose stands and that he is not the author of sin. The lesson God's decree and predestination takes this further.