Three Things You Thought God Wanted ... But He Didn't (part 1).

Keith D. Stanglin

Peter Lastman (1583–1633), "David Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab"

Someone might object to the very premise of these posts: “Isn’t that a bit presumptuous?  How do you know what God didn’t want?”  It’s a fair point to raise and consider, so let me make a few preliminary observations.  First of all, to state the obvious, it’s no more or less presumptuous to say what God doesn’t want than to say what God does want.  In either case, we’re talking about God’s will.  So how can God’s will be known?

How can anything about God be known?  We know God through his revelation, which is often distinguished into general and special.  That is, according to the first type, we know about God through nature and creation, especially his great power and invisible qualities (Rom. 1:18-20).  In addition, we know more specifically about his will through the revelation of the prophets, the apostles, and the Son (Heb. 1:1-2).  This special or specific revelation clarifies and supplements the deliverances of natural or general revelation.  For instance, the natural design in the universe implies also moral design, an innate sense of the good (Rom. 1:21-32), and this moral law is revealed with greater precision in Scripture.

I want to explore three things that God may seem to have wanted—in fact, the Bible is full of testimonies of their approval—but, I would argue, he didn’t really want in the first place.  I don’t mean simply that he wanted these things in the Old Testament but not in the New, which would assume too much discrepancy within the one God’s will.  I mean, he never really wanted them at all.  At the very least, Scripture seems to offer a mixed report about these three things: God loves it; he loves it not.  Which is it, and why?

As a final preliminary point, before introducing the three things in question, I want to suggest three points about each of these three things:

1) First, with each thing, as I’ve already stated, God didn’t want it.  Through his prophets, he warned against it and highlighted potential problems.  People wanted it, but God didn’t.  The negative language in Scripture expresses the original divine intent about these things.

2) Second, although God didn’t want it, God accommodated the people’s desires anyway.  He regulated the thing in question.  With these regulations and restrictions in mind, he even could be understood as commanding the thing.  He would end up using the initially unwanted thing to accomplish his will.  The positive language in Scripture should be seen as God accommodating the people’s desire but not as an expression of the original ideal.

Divine accommodation, by the way, is a principle we see throughout Scripture, so it should not surprise us with regard to these three matters.  For example, the Mosaic law, like legal codes in general, is filled with accommodation.  Turtle doves, hewn stones, a certificate of divorce, just war—none of these are the ideal.  They are situational accommodations, better than some conceivable alternatives.  At other times, God accommodates the request and lets humans have their way—think of Pharaoh’s hardened heart or when God “gave them over” to their desires (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28)—and they suffer the consequences.  More positively, the words of Scripture are accommodated to human capacity, communicating divine matters within the bounded constraints of specific human languages, cultures, and limited intellects.  John Calvin, channeling the early church fathers, likened Scripture to God’s baby talk to us.  The incarnation itself is accommodation, the eternal Word made sensible and intelligible to material creatures, so that we may see and know and love God and become accommodated to him.

3) Finally, each thing, initially unwanted but eventually accommodated, found its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ.  That is, it was filled up, completed, and continued in the person and work of Christ, finally rendering the thing in question—at least, in its literal and original form—obsolete for God’s people.

What are these three things?  Any guesses?  I’m sure there are more than three, but which three do I have in mind?  Hang with me, and stay tuned for subsequent posts.

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