THE IDIOM OF PERMISSION
By Ivan Maddox
West End Bible Fellowship
Atlanta, GA
As a general rule, the Bible is to be understood literally whenever or wherever possible. This does not mean that it is always to be taken literally. It is not to be taken literally where it indicates that what is said is not to be understood literally; nor is it to be taken literally where what is said cannot be taken literally without destroying the integrity of the scriptures. Either of these situations suggests that a figure of speech is being used which involves departing from that which is literally true in order to emphasize some truth.
One very important figure of this type that we need to recognize and understand is the idiom of permission. There are places in the scriptures where God is spoken of as actively doing something that seems to be contrary to His nature, or that seems to be contrary to the testimony of other scripture on the same subject. In some of these cases, God is spoken of as actively doing something that, in reality, He only permitted to happen. This is the idiom of permission.
A good example of this figure is found in I Kings 22. In this record, God is spoken of as authorizing the telling of a lie.
I Kings 22:19-23
19 And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left.
20 And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner.
21 And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him.
22 And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade [him], and prevail also: go forth, and do so.
23 Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee.
In this record, the prophets of Ahab, about four hundred of them, had prophesied victory in the coming battle. Micaiah, the prophet of Jehovah, alone prophesied defeat for Israel, and death for King Ahab. To explain the discrepancy between his prophecy and the prophecies of the four hundred, Micaiah described this vision from the LORD, in which God met with His angels to discuss plans for persuading Ahab to go to battle and get himself killed. Finally, one angel made a proposal acceptable to God: he volunteered to be a lying spirit in the mouths of Ahab’s prophets. The LORD approved of this plan, and commissioned this angel to persuade Ahab with a lie.
There are at least two major problems with interpreting this record literally. First, it speaks of God receiving advice and counsel from His angels. But this contradicts the testimony of Isaiah the prophet.
Isaiah 40:13
13 Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or [being] his counsellor hath taught him?
14 With whom took he counsel, and [who] instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?
The reason you and I seek counsel is because our knowledge is limited and our wisdom is imperfect. God doesn’t have these problems. He has no need for anyone to inform Him of things He doesn’t know; nor does He need anyone too make up for the gaps in His wisdom. The LORD needs no advisors, for He has no lack of understanding.
The second problem is even more serious. God is pictured here as approving of, and even participating in, a lie. This is not the only such record in scripture.
II Thessalonians 2:8-12.
8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
9 [Even him], whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
In this instance, God is not said to send the lie; instead, He is said to send a strong delusion upon people to cause them to believe the lies of another.
What is God’s true attitude toward lying? Does He actively help lies along, even when He is not Himself responsible for them?
Proverbs 12:22
22 Lying lips [are] abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly [are] his delight.
So what is the truth? Does God do that which is hateful to Himself when it suits His purposes? That can’t possibly be the case if the testimony of the scriptures is true.
Titus 1:2.
2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;
According to Paul, God CANNOT lie. Thus, when we read elsewhere that God has participated in a lie, we are expected to understand that this is not literally what came to pass.
If Micaiah’s vision did not literally take place, what did? Micaiah was giving a vivid, final warning from God to Ahab, letting him know that the prophets who had prophesied so confidently to him had received their words from a lying spirit. The message was in the form of a parable, for maximum effect. The spirit that lied was not one of God’s angels; nor did God authorize its mission. Nevertheless, God permitted it to carry out its mission. To that extent, He was responsible for what had happened.
We see another example of the idiom of permission in I Samuel 16:14.
14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.
The LORD does not send evil spirits; Satan does. Nevertheless, because God permitted this to happen, the sending of this spirit is attributed to Him.
An even better example of this idiom is found in the record of David’s numbering of Israel. There are two records of David’s decision to number Israel.
II Samuel 24:1
1 And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.
In this record, it seems clear that it was God who provoked David to disobey Him by numbering the people. But the other record of this decision reads quite differently.
I Chronicles 21:1.
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
Here the very same action is attributed to Satan. Who actually provoked David? God or Satan?
James 1:13
13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
God doesn’t tempt men with evil. Yet in Samuel we read that God moved David to do evil. This cannot be literally true. But why, if Satan was the one who tempted him, was this attributed to God? A clue is found in the first chapter of Job.
In this chapter, a series of calamities that happened to Job and his family is described.
Job 1:13-19.
13 And there was a day when his sons and his daughters [were] eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house:
14 And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them:
15 And the Sabeans fell [upon them], and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
16 While he [was] yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
17 While he [was] yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
18 While he [was] yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters [were] eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house:
19 And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
In a single day, almost everything that was important to Job was lost. What did Job do in the face of such overwhelming tragedy?
Job 1:20-22.
20 Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,
21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
Job attributed all that had happened to the LORD, and in the face of all that had happened, he continued to praise the LORD. But was it God who brought these things to pass?
In this first chapter of Job, the heavens are opened and we are given a behind the scenes look at what was going on.
Job 1:6-12.
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that [there is] none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath [is] in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
Here it is made clear that it was Satan, not God, who was behind the tragedies that struck Job. But that is not all we see here. Any illusions we may have had that Satan is in some way God’s counterpart are destroyed here. God and Satan are clearly not at all in the same category. This is not a conflict of equals. Instead, God clearly has and exercises the right to limit, restrict, and even overrule the activities of Satan against men.
The book of Job ends without God ever revealing to Job who was really behind the attacks against him. So far as Job was concerned, his problem was with God, and it was to God he went to solve it. For all practical purposes, this was enough; Job was able to get deliverance from even so massive a catastrophe as this by dealing only with God.
The nation of Israel, unlike Job, was told by God about the existence of Satan. Nevertheless, little was revealed to them about the scope of his activities, or his role in the affairs of men. If the revelation contained in the scriptures given to Israel is any indication, what the devil did was, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant. God wanted Israel to focus its attention only on Him. If Israel dealt with God in accordance with His instructions, their problems with evil and disaster were already taken care of.
A similar lesson is seen in the record of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 and 3. God allowed these two to be attacked by the adversary without so much as letting them know beforehand that there was a devil. They were given no information about his goals and purposes, and none about his wiles and methods. Nevertheless, they were given everything they needed to handle the situation they were placed in: they were given in advance precisely the right solution to the problem the devil intended to confront them with. In short, all they had to do to overcome the devil was obey God. So long as they did that, what the devil did was, ultimately, unimportant.
The idiom of permission is many times appealed to as a means of keeping God from being blamed for things attributed to Him in the scriptures that people believe that He would never do. This seems commendable at first; but what we sometimes forget is that it is God Himself, in at least some cases, who has been responsible for this misplaced blame. We must never forget that one of the functions of the idiom of permission is to transfer blame and responsibility to God for things that were actually done by others. Far from trying to escape this blame, God has, at times, encouraged it.
The practical result of the idiom of permission is to emphasize to God's people God's sovereignty over all things, including evil. One does not escape from the authority of God even by rebelling against Him. Regardless of what man purposes, and regardless of what the devil and his forces purpose, it is the counsel of the LORD that shall stand (cf. Psalm 33:11; Proverbs 19:21). This means that things are not out of control, no matter how evil they may seem at the moment. God holds even the evil in this world in check, so that not so much as one sparrow falls to the ground without our Father (Matthew 10:29).
Joseph, the son of Jacob, epitomizes the attitude that we ought to take toward adversity in his forgiveness of his brothers.
Genesis 50:20.
20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; [but] God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as [it is] this day, to save much people alive.
Joseph's brothers did certain things to him because they intended evil against him. In spite of this, God purposed good toward Joseph in allowing these very same things to happen to him. In the end, what his brothers intended was irrelevant. It was what God intended that came to pass; and God intended good toward Joseph. And God had no trouble using the very same evil that Joseph's brothers meant for harm in order to accomplish His own righteous and beneficial purposes in Joseph's life.
Romans 8:29 (NIV)
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
We must also keep in mind that not everything God does that looks like darkness to us is the idiom of permission. When the angel of the LORD killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers outside Jerusalem in a single night (II Kings 19:35), that was at the command of the LORD for the defense of His people; that was not the idiom of permission. And when the firstborn of the Egyptians were slain by an angel, this was at the LORD's command for the deliverance of His people; this is not the idiom of permission. We must be careful that we do not read this idiom into records where it is not being used.
Rightly understanding the idiom of permission can help us keep straight in our own minds the things that God does do and the things that He doesn't. At the same time, the idiom itself serves to help us to keep our focus squarely on God Himself, rather than on our problems, circumstances or even our adversary.