Permissiveness

Have you ever heard someone argue about the permissive will of God, that God has two levels of Will? The reasoning goes that there is the perfect will of God and then there is the unperfect will of God and both are acceptable to the LORD and it is up to believers to decide which is right for them.

And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” ¹

The Pharisees were both traditionalists and legalists endeavoring to enforce both the traditions of all the religious elite who came before in their interpretations of the Law and the tiniest details of that Law. They were unconcerned about the intent of God in what He said and what He meant. When they come to Jesus asking, ‘Is it lawful’ and Jesus asks, ‘What did Moses command,’ their answer is a side-step to the question of Lawfulness. ‘Moses allowed’ quickly is pointed out as correct only because of the ‘hardness of your hearts’ and was not either Lawful or Commanded. The intent of God was in the joining and not separating. And so is the ‘permissive’ will of God. Loopholes are our efforts to have it our way rather than the LORD’s Way. You find several times when the legalists challenged Jesus on points of the Law where they immediately break off the confrontation as Jesus focuses on the intent of their questions. The woman caught in the act of adultery,² the issue of support for family being corban,³ and any of the Sabbath challenges all collapse into issues of the hardness of their hearts to acknowledge God’s Will as His intended.

Romans 12 is a proof text for those who want to argue that God’s will has three levels of varying perfection when Paul writes:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. ⁴

This arguing of multiple levels of God’s will has distinct problems: First, the subject is ‘The Will of God’ and not wills of God. Second, ‘what is’ is singular in agreement with The Will being singular. ‘Good and acceptable and perfect’ are three views of one will; the ‘and’ is a conjunctive connecting each adjective into one classification defining the Will of God. ‘Good’ carries the content of beneficial, ‘acceptable’ has the thought of well-pleasing or able to fulfill its purpose, and ‘perfect’ is that which finishes or completes. Each one is part of the same Will and not some ascending order.

Permissive is not part of who the LORD is; He does not condone sin nor anything less than His ultimate desire for His creation. Anything less than full agreement is called sin, the missing the mark of hitting the Will of God. He has a higher design for those who would come back into fullness in Him being complete, without sin in Jesus, living wholly in the Holy Spirit, walking in agreement with Him. Anything less would be us insisting upon living in the ‘hardness of our heart’ apart from His heart’s desires for us.