GOD IS PURPOSIVE

GOD IS PURPOSIVE

 

The Bible further declares that GOD IS PURPOSIVE. This is another aspect of the personality of God. This fact is not only implicit through­out the entire fabric of Scripture, but it is also clearly declared in passage after passage.

1. The Biblical testimony is abounding. Some passages make a clear declaration. "This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?" (Isa. 14:26-27). "And we know that all things work to­gether for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). "According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Eph. 3:11).

In expressing this fact, the Scriptures do not always use the word purpose. But there are many other words that express the same idea. In ad­dition to the word purpose (Isa. 46:11), there are the words pleasure (Eph. 1:5, 9), please (1 Cor. 12:18), determine (Acts 17:26), will (Eph. 1:11). But this list does not by any means exhaust the list of words that serve in some way to set forth the idea of purpose.

Since the idea of purpose can be expressed by the relation of words in many ways, it is important to realize that such introductory expressions as "that" (Dan. 4:25, 32), "to the intent that" (Dan. 4:17), and "to" (Eph. 1:6), to say nothing about many like expressions that are also used.

2. Purpose is one of the distinctive marks of personality and is therefore expected as distinguishing God from His creatures, from the brute creation in kind and degree, and from men in degree though not in kind.

Though it may be said of the animal that it has purpose of a kind, yet in the strictest sense of the word it does not possess purpose. Certain natural endowments lead it to make some provision for the future, but its general responses consist of reaction to external stimuli constituting an immediate situation. This falls far short of what is meant by purpose in its highest degree as present in God.

With man purpose begins to approach that in God, at least in kind, though not in degree. Men react not only to the stimuli of an immediate situa­tion, but also to the stimuli of some future goal which exists only within the context of his own mind. This is purpose. But within the mind of man the future goal may be very indistinct and vague, and his moral responses may be dull, so that purpose is limited mentally in conception and by laxity in moral constraint.

Men differ widely from animals in this respect. Both man and ani­mal may be hungry. The animal eats without regard to the essential quality of the substance, without consideration of any ethical values, and without any con­cern for the eventual outcome. But at this point man differs from the animal because of purpose. The man will be concerned for the essential quality of the substance of the food. There may be matters of morality related to eating that he must consider. The eventual outcome of eating may be such that he must measure his eating or perhaps even desist altogether. All this grows out of his concern for a future goal as controlled by purpose, unless perhaps he is like Esau (Gen. 25:29-34).

3. At this point a working definition of purpose is in order. The following is suggested as tentative and generally true. Purpose is the reaction of an intelligent being to some future goal, a goal which exists only in the mind, as if that goal were already present. The God of the Bible is purposive in this personal sense. God has an ideal in His mind for the world and for each one of us. That goal for believers is that they be saintly, and therefore He calls them saints. God reacts to that future goal and treats believers as such in the pre­sent.

In the area of purpose God is the perfect personality. Men never rise completely above the immediate and the temporal. But God always reacts to the stimulus of eternal purpose. Through Peter, believers are urged to display growth in grace, for those who display such virtues are neither barren nor unfruitful. Those who lack such are blind and cannot see afar off. Diligence will make calling and election sure, and will guarantee an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 1:5-11). God reacts to this goal for the believer by exercising long-suffering toward His own in the seeming delay of the return of Christ, so that all may have plenty of time in which to come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:8-9, 15).