What is the “Good Pleasure of God’s Will”?

Ephesians 1:5

“…having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,…”   

Having discussed the basic meaning of the first few words of the phrase, we can now begin to suggest some applications for us to think about.  “Of His Will” is a simple phrase that describes the ability of God to act in a determinative fashion.  His “Will” is that which prompts His activities.  It is that which facilitates the transfer from His intent to His action.  This is precisely the same as it is in human beings (or, more properly, our will functions in the same fashion as His does, as we are created in His image in this regard).

What we are left with here is that God’s Will can have a quality that is described as “Good Pleasure”.  We need to think a bit about just what this is. 

God’s will is His purpose.  The word refers to a wish, want, or a desire.  It is here that we need to be careful to remember that God is not a Being like us.  He is different in many regards.  When we speak of God having a desire, we do not mean it in the sense that we would say that men have a desire.  Men can have something they want, but yet have no capacity to achieve that desire.  Their desires can be frustrated and prevented from occurring.  Men often have desires that they have no business having.  All of these ideas are expressive of the will in men, but they are none of them expressive of the idea of the will in God; at least not in the same way that they are active in men.

God’s will does not function in the way that man’s will functions. This is because God is not a man. We are made in God’s image, not vice versa. That is an important distinction to be made. Many make the mistake, a common one, of anthropomorphizing God. That is, they try and understand him as if he were a man. This is a bad mistake. We need to remember that, though there are many areas in which is helpful to think of God in human terms, there are also very many areas in which is extremely damaging to a tribute to God human characteristics.

This is especially important when we think of the term “good pleasure”. This is not meant to imply enjoyment on God’s part. Now, it is true that God is capable of enjoying things just as we are. However, this phrase is not meant to indicate that God elects and predestines based on what He enjoys or on the pleasure that He takes from the action. Rather, we are to understand that this election and predestination were an expression of the normal out working of His character. It is God’s nature to act in a determinative fashion. This He does in absolute accordance with what He is. The phrase “good pleasure of his will” is simply an expression of the truth that what God was doing was the natural expression of his character. He was not doing something that was foreign or that was a violation of His character. His electing and predestinating of his children to adoption was a natural function of His nature to put His plan and purpose into action.

It’s satisfied and was in complete concurrence with His character to elect and predestine His people to adoption. The “good pleasure of his will” underscores further meted was a free act on God’s part. In other words, there was no other force acting to influence God’s choice and cause it to move in either one direction or the other. God’s choice was not forced nor was it determinatively influenced by anything outside of Himself. This simply stands to reason. There is no force in the universe that is stronger than God. By definition, nothing can “force” God to do anything. God’s will is the only will the entire universe that is absolutely independent of any outside coercion.

The good pleasure of his will but, then, speaks of God’s deliberate action taken completely independently and unforced by any force outside of Himself. This is a freedom that God enjoys that you and I do not. We are never completely free of outside influences that have a real impact but one what we do, say, and think. This is another area where God is different than we are. But

We’ll think more about this at a later time.