Sunday, June 18, 2017

I Thessalonians 4:3 – “Your Wish Is …”


As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

3For this is the will of God, your sanctification …

I’ve been studying this passage all the way down to verse 8. As a unit of course it is addressing the issue of sexual purity, but I’d like to pause at the gate, so to speak, and record some thoughts about these first few words. And I don’t believe my thoughts at all extraneous to a proper understanding of the whole passage. Here’s what I’m thinking:

“The will of God” – what kind of images do those words conjure in your mind? As a Christian cliché, of course, we can all act like the words are a warm fuzzy, talk about it, preach about it, sing about it. But I think to too many people, the real truth is that the words invoke thoughts of harsh rules, of God’s sternness. Even at the head of a passage about sexual purity, it’s easy to see it as, “Okay, now God’s going to lay down the law. Everybody straighten up. No more fun.” “The will of God” – ultimately He’s the great “Cosmic Kill-Joy.” I strongly suspect from listening to and observing other people and from tracing the progress of my own spiritual growth, that this underlying attitude is a huge part of why so many even Christian people give so little attention to the Word and invest so little of their hearts in actually knowing God. Hopefully I can explain what I mean.

What is this verse really talking about? The Greek word for “will” here is a noun form of the verb thelo, which fundamentally means “to desire.” There is another Greek word boulomai which is a very close synonym to thelo, but means fundamentally “to purpose.” Even in English, the two thoughts significantly overlap. If I “desire” something, or wish it, that very easily spills into “purposing” or resolving that I will do it. On the other hand, the normal reason I “purpose” to do something is because in some way I “desire” or wish it. So the two concepts significantly overlap. However, even in English, they do not mean exactly the same thing. I can “desire” something, but for whatever reason, choose not to pursue it. On the other hand, I can resolve to do something, even though I personally may not find it desirable. (That of course happens all the time at work!) So, although intimately related, there is a difference between “desiring” and “purposing,” and I hope to show that understanding the difference is integrally important to our relationship with God.

Now, I need to (quickly) inject here the acknowledgment that I am on very thin ice. If a person does any amount of research on their own on these two words, thelo and boulomai, “desire” and “purpose,” they’ll find a good deal of what is written which would say they are essentially synonyms, that there is no difference in meaning. I beg to differ even though I’m reminded of John Eadie’s words, “Interpretations are generally false in proportion to their ingenuity.” I have been watching the two words for nearly 40 years and, in every occurrence I have ever observed, if you let the two words retain their distinctive meaning, the passages would make perfect sense, in fact even better sense. And so, deeply aware of John Eadie’s warning, I remain convinced what I’m saying is true – though very similar and possessing considerable overlap, the words are different.

“So what?” you ask. Well, the phrase “the will of God” in the Bible invariably is the word thelo, and so could be translated, “the desire of God.” When the word occurs in the Bible, whatever He’s talking about, He hasn’t necessarily “purposed” anything. It is expressing His desire, like when Paul told Timothy the Lord “wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (I Tim 2:4). It is expressing His desire, not necessarily His purpose. What we’re talking about with the “will” of God is actually understanding His heart. As a person who has been captivated by His grace and love, when I hear the “desire” of God, I immediately want to know what it is and I’ve already embraced it, whatever it is, because I love Him. This is relationship stuff. I would like to suggest, the idea of “the will of God” being a stern list of all the harsh do’s and don’ts comes from a heart that isn’t loving Him. When we’re in love, it isn’t hard to say, “Your wish is my command.”

I’d like to reinforce this with some more word study. One verse that really demonstrates this is Hebrews 10:7, which is a NT quote based on Psalm 40:8. In the NT it says, “Then I said, ‘Here am I … I have come to do Your will.’” The “will” here is a thelo noun. This of course is Jesus speaking, and He is telling the Father that He has come to do His will. What He is saying is that He has come to do what the Father desires. Again, it is a “Your wish is my command” sort of expression.

This is even more apparent looking at the verse in its Hebrew original in Psalms. There it says, “I desire to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within my heart.” “Will” in Hebrew is the word ratzon and actually means “pleasure, delight, favor.” Jesus is saying to the Father, “I desire to do whatever pleases and even delights You.” And what is even more interesting is that the word translated “desire” itself speaks of delight. Jesus is saying, “I delight to do Your will.” It is the Hebrew word kafatz, which, as a verb, means “to delight in, to be pleased with, to desire.” And it even goes a little deeper than that. TWOT says, “In the case of kafatz, the object solicits favor by its own intrinsic qualities. The subject is easily attracted to it because it is desirable … [the word] means ‘to experience emotional delight.’” Jesus is saying He Himself sees the Father’s will – what the Father desires and delights in – as something very desirable and delightful to Him! The verse could be translated, “I delight to do whatever delights You.”

I hope by this point, anyone reading this can see that what is going on here is an intense love relationship. This is not the expression of a groveling servant bowing to the commands of His harsh, demanding king. The people who know their God find in Him an ever growing love relationship and, the more and more we see how good and wise He is, the more we realize that whatever He has planned, whatever He wishes of us, is not only good, but actually desirable and even delightful! We delight to do His will. We delight to do what delights Him. As it says in Psalms 1:2 of the godly man, “His delight is in the Law of the Lord.”

Back to our passage in I Thessalonians, Paul announces, “This is the will of God for you …” As he goes on to explain exactly what that is, will we hear it groveling or will we hear it with hearts wide open, eager  and even delighted to hear whatever it is that our good, loving God wishes of us?

Once again, it is all about relationship. Grace sets us free to fall into the arms of this wonderful Savior God and King. Grace means life is simply not about some list of rules we must bow to. Grace means it is about knowing the heart of my Lover and actually finding delight in whatever He desires, conforming my life to what I know He wishes. Love means His wish is our command – and we’re happy about it!

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