THE WILL OF GOD
[p. 188] THE WILL OF GOD
Romans 12:2; Ephesians 1:5 - 12; Genesis 8:15 - 21
I am thinking, dear brethren, of the will of God, first as seen in Romans and secondly as seen in Ephesians; the latter I wish to illustrate from Genesis.
Romans presents the kingdom, the object of which, in the main, is subjection; involving sometimes severe struggles, both on the part of God and on the part of the subject of His will. Ephesians does not contemplate this side, but rather that, in the exercise of His will, God is occupied with material already prepared. This is according to the principle of the building of the temple: the stones were brought as already prepared, so that no sound of hammer or axe or any instrument of iron should be heard. But a great deal of sound was heard in those quarries whence the stones came! There were stonesquarers, and those men had to use hammers without regard to the ears of those who may have stood by. And so we have examples in certain believers, descriptive of all of us, of the service God thus renders, having in view prepared material; and He is very patient in this process.
We find men like Jacob, Moses, David, Peter, and Paul, who are but types of us all, in the preparation of whom there were many struggles; but in result the finished product appeared. With Jacob, for instance, as he went into Egypt, you have his family from four mothers. Not in any way conducive to good material is the plurality of mothers; but God would show that He carries on His work in spite of the most adverse conditions. If there was a family in which conditions were adverse, it was that of Jacob, not only on account of the plurality of mothers, but because of the difference in their social status, affording occasion for jealousy [p. 189] amongst the children, for obviously the children of Leah and Rachel had an advantage over those of the maidservants. But those of the maidservants were all Jacob’s children and were to go through the process also. And so we find that the struggle went on and on. I need not go into detail. There was much in them that was shameful, but the work of God went on in spite of that.
At length the time came for Jacob to move into another realm — and that is what I had in mind; to show how we move out of one realm into another. In what condition is God going to accomplish this, are we to be finished, or are the conditions too adverse to admit of finishing? No! for nothing is impossible with God. He deliberately selects certain conditions to show that He can complete His work in spite of the most adverse conditions. And so we find that when the time drew nigh for Jacob to go into Egypt, he goes down in a spiritual manner; that is, in the recognition of Isaac, typically the risen Man. The line on which we leave one realm for another is in relation to the One who has gone before; He represents every perfection under God’s eye. Are we then to detract from that as we go into our proper realm where He is? Indeed not! It is a question of God’s ability to make us like Him, to conform us to the image of His Son.
Joseph had gone before. What a model for the family of Jacob to come up to! Think of that young man as he stood before Pharaoh after the extraordinary experience of thirteen years of suffering under the ordering of God. Scripture says he “stood before Pharaoh”, (Genesis 41:46). Was there anything lacking in Joseph? No, he was, so to speak, a finished product of the school of God. What is recorded shows how fitted he was for the great place he was to occupy and the service he was to render. It was a standard to which the remaining members of the family of Jacob had to come, for they, too, were to appear before Pharaoh; and we find they were equal to it — at least Jacob himself and five of his sons.
[p. 190] Jacob goes down to Egypt on a high level. He offers sacrifice to the God of Isaac. Isaac here, typically, is the risen Christ, God’s beloved Son. God had said to Abraham, “Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, Isaac, and ... offer him up for a burnt-offering”, (Genesis 22:2). We are told in the New Testament that he received him from among the dead, in figure. Jacob moves in the light of resurrection and God says, “I am God, the God of thy father”, (Genesis 46:3). He is owned thus typically in relation to a risen Christ. That is the idea here. This takes place at Beer-sheba, when Jacob was departing. He was going into another realm in the light of what Isaac (Christ) is to God. His sons too are with him; they carry him down. They, with their father, are ‘perfected’ in the divine school, and are here called “the sons of Israel”, (Genesis 46:5). They are no longer merely the sons of the four mothers, but are a spiritual generation, the sons of Israel going down in dignity to Egypt! Exodus 1:1 confirms this: “These are the names of the sons of Israel ... with Jacob had they come”. They are actually in Egypt in this dignity. This brings out the great patriarchal principle established in Genesis, when it says, “With Jacob had they come”. They are in Egypt fully recognising the responsibility attaching to their relationship to the patriarch — with him had they come.
That is the great result of God’s education, beloved brethren, and one could multiply illustrations of it, for that process goes on, so that as we emerge, according to God, from one realm into another, we do so in full growth. And so in the book of Numbers, the numbering was of persons from a certain age, not from the little ones, but from those who were twenty years and upwards. The Levites, indeed, are numbered from a month old, emphasising God’s rights over us; but for actual service, a mature age is required in each case.
I want now to speak a word about Romans, for the reason that most of us are experimentally there. We are [p. 191] in the struggle period to which I have referred. I do not speak of that in any depreciative way; because we find that no less a personage than Jacob was at one time struggling — a man wrestled with him. He wrestled with a man to the breaking of the day, and prevailed so as to secure the blessing (Genesis 32). Such struggles do not belong to heaven, though heaven is greatly interested in them. I call them struggles, for I believe that most of us are in the struggle period, which is an important one, for it is the making period. What comes out too is that the Lord is stronger. Thank God for that! That is clearly brought out at Corinth where the will was at work, the word is, “Are we stronger than he?” (1 Corinthians 10:22). We also shall find out, if will is at work with us, that we are not stronger than He. Romans confirms this thought; so that we may as well make up our minds to it, that God will not give up what is before Him regarding us, for His testimony is involved in what He is doing; so that the struggle period is to culminate in complete subjection. But to whom? To the One who loves. It is said that “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us”, (Romans 5:5).
In Romans all things are made to work together for good to those who love God. So that things are brought in, and circumstances arise from one quarter and another, all to one end; viz., to bring about complete subjugation so that there is obedience “from the heart”. God has no use whatever for obedience which is only from the neck up, from those who bow their heads like the bulrush! God has no interest in that; He aims at the heart. So that it says, “Ye ... have obeyed from the heart”, (Romans 6:17). And then we are enjoined in this twelfth chapter to prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Mark you, it is what you prove; for the finishing of the work implies that you are not like a lifeless stone that the squarer makes fit, but are living material. And so I allude to Peter, for we have in him that idea: “Thou art Peter” (Matthew 16:18); that is what I am for God’s use. But then the Lord says, “Thou shalt be called Cephas”, (John 1:42). What I am called is my dignity. It is a name given, but such as corresponds with my characteristics. That is how I am to regard the brethren. They are material for God’s building, but each also has his own distinction in which he is to shine; it is his character, by which he is known. And so one looks abroad among the brethren and thinks of them not according to the name given when born or baptised, but according to what they are in spiritual character. By and by I shall be called by what I am, for I shall be known as I am, and not beyond that; for what I am here spiritually I shall be in heaven. That is the idea, as I apprehend, of a name given by the Lord.
Now, having said so much in regard to Romans I would ask, Is it not worth your while to prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God? Once I have proved that the will of God is good, perfect, and acceptable, I cease struggling. If we come into the assembly as strugglers, we are sure to be troublers. As a matter of fact, Jacob was wrestling in his mind with Esau before the angel wrestled with him. How very different from Esau was that ‘man’ who wrestled with Jacob till the breaking of the day! Very often we wrestle with one another in our localities. Is it not so? One says, I am not getting my due; I am deserving of more recognition. Would I thus wrestle? God says, as it were, ‘I will wrestle with you’. Let Him have an opportunity to wrestle with you. It says that he wrestled with Jacob “until the rising of the dawn”, (Genesis 32:24). It was then that the light shone in. After that Jacob put Joseph before Rachel (Genesis 33:7). Rachel was the object of his tenderest affection, but now he puts the little boy, Joseph, before her. This shows he is learning; he has got a little glimpse of Christ, as one might say, and in that measure Christ displaces the natural. I give up struggling as Christ is on the scene;
[p. 193] there is a gradual relinquishing of all struggling as He takes things in hand. That is the history of Jacob; things pass on to Joseph and then all is settled. This is our history, too, for there is a cessation of the struggling and a quiescence in what God is. My outlook is now changed; as I accept that His will is good and acceptable and perfect, then what more can I wish? Nothing more. I begin to leave all that seems adverse in God’s hands, and I prove that in His hands things become for me instead of being against me, for Romans 8:28 says that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to purpose”. These “all things” are educators for us, and so of great value. In God’s school there are many elements of education; we cannot afford to be without any of them; therefore we must suffer loss if we resist even one of them. We can never overcome by opposition when it is a question of God’s will. The point is: “That ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God”. When I come to that, it makes me restful; and it is the restful man, upon whom the iron tools no longer have to be used, that God can employ. The stonesquarer’s work is finished at the quarry; nor could such work be done at the temple site, for no sound of a hammer or of an axe or of anything of iron, was to be heard there.
What I read in Ephesians presents to us three beautiful features of the will of God. First we have, the good pleasure of His will. This does not imply a subject for the stone squarer, the hammer, or the axe. God has marked us out beforehand for sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself; this is said to be “before the world’s foundation”, which suggests to my mind the question as to how we should regard God, for I am afraid most of us have a very poor idea of God. God has to be apprehended in absolute Deity: “Dwelling”, it is said, “in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor is able to see”, (1 Timothy 6:16). We have to begin with that. He is in a [p. 194] realm beyond our creature understanding. Then we have to apprehend Him in the realm of purpose; again, in what is mediatorial, and in which last we must apprehend Him as actually working. Now I mention these three features so that we may have God clearly before us in view of our entering into the realm of purpose. He has a Man in His mind: whether we know Him as the Word, or as the Son, or as Jesus Christ: that blessed Man is in the mind and purpose of God. In relation to Him I am on known ground. I am on ground on which God has been pleased to come within my range. And the wonderful fact comes into my soul that I have had a place on that ground as purposed from eternity. Think of God looking on through these myriads of thousands of years to this very moment! For God is God. And having marked us out, what pleasure He has in us in Christ! God has stepped into the realm of the purpose of His love, in the centre of which is a Man known as “the Beloved”, and has taken us into favour in Him! He has “marked us out beforehand for adoption [sonship] through Jesus Christ to himself”. This is one of the instances in which a name, Jesus Christ, attached to our Lord in time, was in the mind of God before the world. Here it is not in Him, but through Him; it is therefore a mediatorial thought. He has taken us into favour according to the good pleasure of His will. It is His will, but it is the good pleasure of it. Think of all the delight that God had in us as marked out for sonship, as accepted, and graced in Christ, the Beloved. The Beloved is mentioned as if there were not another; as if in the whole universe there is only one. Not that we are not beloved, but the Beloved is One, and there is not another. Jacob and his family were accepted by Pharaoh, as it were, in Joseph. But I speak now of ourselves, of the wonderful fact that, in the realm of purpose, God “marked us out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will”.
[p. 195] The second thing is the mystery of His will. This is in view of the labyrinth of evil which marks this world. In the midst of it God has a mystery; it is the mystery of His will. It is sure to go through because it is a question of God’s will. This mystery is not made up of immature persons. It must be viewed from the standpoint of God, and of what is in His mind and will, and of what He can use in His government; for His purpose is to head up all things in Christ; the things in heaven and the things on earth, even in Him. You will see, therefore, the great importance of spiritual maturity, of coming up to manhood, that we may be available to God, that iron implements may be no longer necessary, but rather that He can use us silently. Although the gospel is announced publicly, God is not making a noise to call the attention of men to the mystery. He is working silently, but effectively, surely; so that the world will be amazed when God displays this wonderful thing. It is already “made known to us”; as a christian I belong to it and am, or should be, initiated into its secrets; then why should I seek to shine in this world? Rather let it be a question of the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, which I have proved in my little way. But we ought to see that the mystery of His will is to head up all things in Christ. God will lift all that He has been developing out of the labyrinth of evil here and set it in the clear light of day. Everything will be headed up in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth. We also read later: “And gave him to be head over all things to the assembly, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all”, (Ephesians 1:22 - 23). That is the mystery of His will. And what an immense thing it is to be quiet in the knowledge of the dignity of our position as marked off as sons of God; to go through this world in obscurity, in the knowledge that we have part in that mystery which, when brought into display, will amaze the universe.
The third point is “the counsel of his own will”. You have the little word ‘own’ here, which does not appear earlier in the passage; it is, “his own will”. We are marked out in that connection, as you will observe in verse 11: “In whom we have also obtained an inheritance, being marked out beforehand according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will”. How very precious are these words, “we have also”! May we not take them to ourselves? No doubt the apostle referred to the Jews, but then we also have part in the inheritance. It is according to the counsel of His own will; He did not take counsel with another. He took counsel in regard of Adam, saying, “Let us make”, (Genesis 1:26). There it is God in the plural expressing absoluteness.
In closing I would say that Genesis affords illustrations of what I have been saying, that God in taking us from one realm into another, would have us there in maturity. We are awaiting this transfer. Indeed, we are on the very threshold of another world — “that world”, (Luke 20:35). But how are we transferred? Finished! So that the ark which Noah built was preservative of the thoughts of God expressed livingly. That is the idea. There is no idea of increase of the family of Noah or of the rest of creation that was in the ark. What we find is: “Thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee”, but no children. And similarly in regard of all the creatures, there is nothing said about an offspring with them. The idea is that God has complete thoughts, and these thoughts are expressed livingly. If we take an elephant, it expresses a thought of God, or a lion, or whatever creature it may be. Noah expresses a thought of God, and so does his wife and each of his sons and their wives. They are all mature, for God is not carrying over immature things. We should, therefore, be exercised that we should “be no longer babes”. They are normal to a point, but abnormal beyond it. There were no babes in the ark. What went in came out and nothing more. The increase [p. 197] would be afterwards, because it was a question of another world. I am speaking of the will of God; what that will is, and of how it should be recognised. Noah removed the cover of the ark for observation, but he did not move out until he was told to do so (see Genesis 8:13,15). He and his wife, his sons and his sons’ wives were to go out; then, “Bring forth with thee every animal which is with thee, of all flesh”. It is clear from the facts given that all came into the renewed earth in maturity. This has an instructive significance, as I have been pointing out.
That is what I had in mind, dear brethren; and my hope is that the result of these meetings will be that we all shall go on to full growth. May God grant it!
Pages 198 - 317 “Eternity to Eternity”, Readings and an Address, Bristol 1931. (Volume 109).