After much thought, I would like to re-address my response to you. I am often clumsy with words with expediency as an excuse. My summations are often clear to me, but vague or lost in print; for this I apologize.
What I was getting at is basically the “
will” of God. His decrees, commands and commandments (Decalogue) are simply outward declarations of His bigger aim. To summarize the
“will of God” is not easy, but His Will has been achieved up to this point in history and continues.
My initial point was clumsily framed by using the term “command,” and there are several words translated as such with contextual variations. I would have been better to use the term, “The determinate will of God” to more appropriately say what I really meant. In studying the issue since I have come across an article that I think better states my assertion that the commandments of GOD must be tempered with the will of God to see the reality of God’s intentions. I hope this clarifies my original assertions; this is from an article by: Philip H. Towner
God's Will and the Plan of Salvation.
Receiving special emphasis is the place of the plan of salvation within God's will. The adoption as children (
Eph 1:5) and inheritance of the blessings of redemption (v. 11) are according to God's counsel and will. The basis of salvation, the crucifixion of God's son Jesus, is explicitly described as the outworking of God's will (
Acts 2:23;
4:28;
Gal 1:4). In this way, Jesus' death becomes integral to God's plan, rather than being an unforeseen event to be fit in whatever way possible. Furthermore, the redemptive will of God, which began long ago in the promises to Abraham, has proceeded without change through each stage of the plan (
Heb 6:17). Like Abraham, others played significant roles in the outworking of God's will to save (
Acts 13:36); at each point God's will was determinative and could not be circumvented (
Luke 7:30). Paul viewed his own call to apostleship, which was to bring salvation to the Gentiles (
Titus 1:1), in precisely these terms. Nearly all of his letters emphasize that it was God's will that established him in his ministry (
1 Cor 1:1;
2 Cor 1:1;
Eph 1:1;
Col 1:1;
2 Tim 1:1; cf.
Gal 1:1;
1 Tim 1:1;
Titus 1:1).
Does the New Testament teach that it is God's will that all be saved, and therefore none will be lost? Two passages relate God's will to the expansiveness of the salvation plan. First Timothy 2:3-4 states, "God our Savior wills (thelei) all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." Second Peter 3:9 expresses a similar sentiment: "The Lord does not will (boulomenos) anyone to perish but that everyone might come to repentance." It should be emphasized that neither text says that all will be saved regardless of their disposition toward the gospel. In the first text, "to come to a knowledge of the truth" is a formula that means to make a rational decision about the gospel, that is, to respond to the gospel message. The second text similarly relates God's will to save the all-inclusive "anyone" to the volitional element involved in repentance. Consequently, while these texts tell us that God's will to save extends to all people, and that he desires to save rather than to condemn, they do not remove the necessary element of the faith-response to the gospel.
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