# God changes his will ? (jona 3:4 & 3:10)



## Mayflower (Aug 31, 2008)

*Jona 3:4*
And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown 

*Jona 3:10*
And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. 

How must we view the will of God here ? 

First said God that He would overtrown or judge Nineveh, and later on we read that God repended and changed his will in that. 

It almost look that God's will changed by the acts of men ? 
Any thoughts or help ???


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## CarlosOliveira (Aug 31, 2008)

Ralph, Fairbairn has a discussion about the conditional element in the prophecy in his commentary on Jonah from page 206ff here.


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## moral necessity (Sep 1, 2008)

I think God is speaking on our level here. From our perspective, this is what is taking place. From God's perspective, his sovereign will was playing out all the time. Isn't it neat that he appears to act and be persuaded through the means of man? It gives us great encouragement that our prayers and requests are heard by him, even to the point of being that medium through which he is willing to filter his actions and behavior!

Blessings!


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## Scott1 (Sep 1, 2008)

Generally, concerning the thread proposition about God's "will."

One way to look at this is that we can mean different things when we use the word "will."

1) Decretive will- something God decrees that must come to pass because God is sovereign.
E.g. If God has chosen to redeem someone, that person will be redeemed.

2) Preceptive will- God's commands, it is His will but we can disobey.
E.g. God says Honor the Sabbath Day and keep it Holy, it is His will for us but it can be disobeyed (there are consequences to disobedience) but it can be disobeyed.

3) Will of disposition- What pleases God, that which makes God happy, but not necessarily what actually happens. E.g. It pleases God for all the bretheren to dwell together in peace and unity. It doesn't always happen, but it is pleasing to God, His "will" that they do.

Some people, in trying to understand Calvinism think it says God violates His own will or that man can change God's will.

God never violates His (decretive) will and man, as a creature of God, cannot make God not do something He has decreed. Not even possible.

Both preceptive and dispositive will involve, on a secondary level, the actions (and free will) of man.


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## sotzo (Sep 1, 2008)

Scott1 said:


> Generally, concerning the thread proposition about God's "will."
> 
> One way to look at this is that we can mean different things when we use the word "will."
> 
> ...



So does this mean that God does not decree the events involved in his preceptive will? For example, my actions I take on the Sabbath are outside his decretive will so that his sovereignty acts in a way to provide for me to be truly free here versus his sovereignty acting in a way to control what I do?

I've struggled with the question in the OP too.


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## Contra_Mundum (Sep 1, 2008)

Someone has put it well, regarding Nineveh, asking Why "a space of 40 days" if not space for repentance? And clearly that's how the Ninevites took it.

Why did Jonah run away? Because he was _afraid_ that God would be merciful to Ninevah, that he would use the preaching to turn them! If he hadn't been concerned of that, don't you think he would've taken the FIRST caravan to Nineveh in order to gleefully obey the Lord's command, to let those rats know it was all over for them?

So, evidently Jonah understood there was a *implied* condition to God's threat. And honestly, this is God's typical way of dealing with us. He told Adam and Eve they would die the day they ate the forbidden fruit. And they did die that day, but primarily spiritually, and death overtook them bodily starting that day, and finished much later. And God announced to them his salvation plan after the fact, none of which he told them before they disobeyed. Does that mean that he was scrambling around for a plan B rescue, once they ate of the TKGE? Did they "change" his plans?

When we see God "respond" to men in the Bible, and "change", we need to understand that 1) MAN changed, God fundamentally did not; 2) God ordains the means of execution, not only the ends. So, for instance, God ordains our prayers, for the purpose that he might "reply" to them. He ordained the Ninevites repentance, and Jonah's preaching to bring it about, that he might withdraw his threat, and show himself merciful.


To answer Joel's query, I don't think you quite understood what was proposed. The PRECEPT is a law, so "preceptive" will is God's will of commandment, such as "thou shalt not kill". That is God's absolute moral will, which he may nevertheless ordain that person X will violate, that is actually flout or disobey, thus "defying" God's will.

But no one ever violates God's decree. It is fixed. He knows the end from the beginning because he planned every tiny bit of cause-and-effect, every contingent thing, and every free act of the will of the creature.

If God plans it, how can it be my free act? Because he's God, and he can do things we can hardly imagine. He can ordain both your willful sins and good deeds, so that you are the principal responsible party, and yet none of those things be in any way uncertain. The sinfulness of such acts proceed from the sinful nature of the sinner. But God is not embarrassed or ashamed to acknowledge his control over the specifics:Is. 45:7 "I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity [lit. 'evil'], I am the LORD, who does all these things."​


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## sotzo (Sep 1, 2008)

Contra_Mundum said:


> To answer Joel's query, I don't think you quite understood what was proposed. The PRECEPT is a law, so "preceptive" will is God's will of commandment, such as "thou shalt not kill". That is God's absolute moral will, which he may nevertheless ordain that person X will violate, that is actually flout or disobey, thus "defying" God's will.



So, God sometimes uses his decretive will to ordain our disobedience of his preceptive will? If so, is the reason this doesn't violate his own character because it is we as creatures who are the ones doing the disobedience?


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## ChristianHedonist (Sep 1, 2008)

sotzo said:


> Contra_Mundum said:
> 
> 
> > To answer Joel's query, I don't think you quite understood what was proposed. The PRECEPT is a law, so "preceptive" will is God's will of commandment, such as "thou shalt not kill". That is God's absolute moral will, which he may nevertheless ordain that person X will violate, that is actually flout or disobey, thus "defying" God's will.
> ...



I would answer yes; we are responsible for the sins we commit, though God ordains them. The way I understand this philosophically is that God does not need to force us or directly cause us to commit a sin he has ordained. Because we by nature are prone to sin apart from the grace of God, if God does not supply us with the grace we need then we will willfully choose to sin, according to God's sovereign will, and God is absolutely free to dispense his grace when, where, how, and to whom He pleases. Thus, God can ordain people to sin, yet he does not force or cause (directly) people to sin; people are fully responsible for their sins.

Consider Acts 2:23:
"this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men."

This verse demonstrates God's ordaining the event of Christ's crucifixion, yet it places the responsibility for the sin fully on the people who committed it.

Also, consider Acts 4:24-30, especially verses 27-28, which I've bolded:"
Act 4:24 And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, "Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, 
Act 4:25 who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, "'Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? 
Act 4:26 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed'-- 
*Act 4:27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 
Act 4:28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.* 
Act 4:29 And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 
Act 4:30 while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus."


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## Contra_Mundum (Sep 1, 2008)

As sinners, all we can do is sin. God ordains one sin or another (so far as his secret course for our lives) it makes no ultimate difference, for we can be no more or less condemned than we are already in Adam, or justified in Christ.

Our experience every day teaches us the reality of our own reasoning and decision making, so we know quite well that we have made every decision to sin without any apparent coercion. We've desired every act of rebellion, to some degree--certainly enough for culpability and proper guilt.

God makes our sins serve (contrary to our own evil intent) his holy and good ends. As Bahnsen once said, God has a "morally sufficient reason"--morally sufficient as measured by his own will, which is the ultimate standard of good--to include certain "evils" in his decree that go contrary to his precepts and his disposition.

While we don't know all the reasons, nor are we permitted to demand answers for ourselves, yet we see revealed to us, for example, in the judicial murder of Christ (an ultimate evil) God bringing readily apparent goods out of those events. The same sort of thing is made quite clear in the story of Joseph. "You *intended* evil against me, but God *intended* [the very same actions] for good, as it is this day, in order to save the lives of many souls" (Gen 50:20).


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