Can God Ever Fail To Do What He Desires?
Genesis 1:7
That is a more "thorny" issue than most people think. It has implications for the entirety of the character of God in all of its nuance. We need to carefully think about our answer to this question, lest we be guilty of rashness and our understanding of this, and other, perhaps more theologically significant passages, suffer.
The "God said...and it was so" dynamic that is present in creation is wonderful. I like that I serve a God Who accomplishes what He sets out to accomplish. God gets what He wants - and He gets all of what He wants. To assert any less is to do damage to the character of God and, essentially, make Him "needy" or changeable. Here, we must use extreme caution.
The Bible presents us with a God Who is utterly sufficient within Himself. He needs nothing from the outside to complete or add to His own sufficiency. To put it another way, He has no "needs" as we have. This passage, actually, illustrates that very point. God purposed to create man. This "decision" He made was made in eternity past when there was nothing else but God. Acting upon His desire to have a creature to love Him, serve Him, and fellowship with Him, He created. He spoke and "it was so". There were no outside agencies, no exterior causes, no materials list, and no helpers. Everything that He created (which, indeed, is everything that exists) God made from resources that were entirely self-contained.
He is not creative in the sense that we are creative. We take what is already there and we make something of it. Even musicians and artists, to some degree, make something of things already existing. The basic building blocks of their work are things that already are, or come from things that already are.
God is not thus. He has the capacity to accomplish whatever He wishes. He is not limited in any regard by anything exterior to Himself. Thus, the book of Genesis (and the entire rest of the bible) proclaims "God said...and it was so". How could it be otherwise? How could that which the true and all-powerful God wishes fail to come to pass? To think otherwise, I believe, is to doubt the very integrity and power of our great God.
Some will object "But what about passages that tell us that god wants something that won't happen. One could point to passages like those that tell us that God desires all men to be saved and conclude that God does not get everything He wants. What must be remembered is that there are different kinds of "wanting". God does desire all men to be saved. However, if that desire was the kind of desire present in Genesis 1, all men would be saved because God would speak, and the reply would be "it was so". As I have said, we must be careful to consider the full implications of a passage or concept lest we go off half-cocked and make a mess of our doctrine!
The universal testimony of the Scripture is that God always accomplishes what He purposes to do. No man can frustrate God. No circumstance can overwhelm Him. No enemy can thwart His intended purpose. We serve a God Who's very word is law! When God speaks - the response can be no less "it was so"!
Care To Respond?
Other Devotionals: