God’s Decretive Will | Costi Hinn | EP 154 

God has decreed or planned everything that happens, and he has also made known what pleases him through his commands to us of what we should and should not do and how we will be treated for obedience and disobedience. So the only conclusion we can arrive at biblically in consideration of these truths is that God has planned a lot of what will displease him to be committed by us, yet it all has a purpose that aligns with what he commands us to do and not do and that is not contradictory but gives us a more in-depth scope of who he is and what his plan ultimately is. While it would please God for everyone to always and only obey him, he has planned that we not do that, and deeper than that, for only some to be saved. This must mean that there are outcomes that will result in the disobedience and rebellion of many that will ultimately please God more than if everyone obeyed him and would be saved in the end. So the mystery is "Why did it please God more to decree that some will perish in their sin than if everyone was ultimately saved and lived a life of righteousness and how can those things be reconciled?" The closest thing to a plain biblical answer I have come to is that God desired before creation not to just share his love with many creatures but to share his love in a way that makes it as precious and appreciated and satisfying to the recipients as possible, therefore he had to make the delivery of his love be shown to be completely undeserved, exclusive, and magnified against the fate of what it is like to be unloved so that those who are loved feel as special as they possibly could yet not at all because of themselves but all because of God's freedom and willingness to show it to them particularly for some unrevealed reason when they were no more worthy than those rejected. God's salvific love is a marital love which is special because he does all the choosing, we depend totally on him to receive, and we are chosen while others are not, just as when a man takes a woman to be his wife and rejects the rest of the world thus making that one wife the most precious in his sight / heart. If you want, see Romans 9:10-29 (especially that 19-23 section) and Romans 11:30-36 in the NLT for insight into where I got this conclusion.

Hi, thank you for you comment on this really sensitive issue, and you are right that Costi's approach is not sufficient for the conscience and hearts of people really struggling with this and needing answers from the Bible that swttle them. Unfortunately, your conclusion is not quite biblical, I'm afraid. The Bible is clear all over that the concept of free will as many understand it does not exist. God has ordained / predetermined all things and that's how he knows everything in advance. Also, according to Romans 8, we are all born in captivity to Satan through our sin nature that disables us to love and obey God until he removes it without our permission or assistance in a miraculous event known as the new birth or regeneration when we are exposed to the Gospel. When that happens then we are enabled and compelled to repent and embrace Jesus and we belong to him from then on. Ultimately though, everything we do and don't do is planned by God and we can only ever do what he has predetermined so no one can resist, change, or thwart it, as is mentioned earlier in the video. The question is "Why would God plan things that are sinful and that displease him and then judge us for doing them when we could not have freely chosen otherwise?" This is the one raised in Romans 9. The answer is that God planned sin so that his love could be demonstrated at the cross by Jesus bearing all of our sins on himself and dying and then rising from the dead to give us salvation that we could not earn, have never deserved, and also could not be withdrawn based on our actions because it is given based on God's sovereign prerogative which no one can resist, not even us when we sin as born again Christians. Everything good that we receive from God is based on his free, unaroused choice to give us mercy and grace therefore we are more grateful and reverent to him than we would be if we did deserve it based on our free will choices instead of God's infallible plan to bless us. We will not be able to fully grasp and embrace this because of all of the horrifying implications within time and because of our finiteness and renaining sinfulness as human beings that prevents us seeing this as God sees them, but based on many passages in the Old and New Testament this is as close to an accurate view as I have seen. Hopefully it gives some clarity.

God’s secret will can be translated as man’s excuse of logical contradictions.

YES, unfortunately Costi is deceived! He means well but CALVINISM is HERESY!!!

Amen brother