GOD’S PURPOSE, COUNSEL AND WILL

No more fit subject could possibly come before the mind of man than that which is contained in these three words of Eph 1: 11: “ according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will”.

Whatever trouble may be before you is included in these “all things” and behind them all GOD is working! Your matters must of necessity become subservient to these three words. This must be evident to any thinking mind. They may all three be briefly summed up, I think, in one word. That word is Christ. A question of vital moment for each child of Adam today, then, must be, “What think ye of Christ?” Matt 22: 42. But along with God’s purpose concerning Christ comes in also His purpose of blessing for man. Here the church does, and must also of necessity, come into view.

But who can compass God’s purpose and “the counsel of his own will”? How shall the finite mind of man grasp any of the thoughts of the Infinite? Reader! even this is made possible to us. God, who knows our feebleness and proneness to self-occupation, seeks to help us in this knowledge of Himself, and to this end He has given to the believer “of his Spirit”. It is only thereby that His thoughts can be made ours. But this is His desire for us, see 1 Cor 2: 9-13.

And even then the “purpose” of God only comes before us, as it were, in threads. Like the single threads of some exquisite piece of tapestry-work, each of which is (because of being God’s) infinitely beautiful and perfect in itself. By the Spirit we trace the thread—God’s purpose, counsel and will—now appearing, now disappearing to our finite vision, but continuously intermingling with the whole design of the fabric, and ever adding beauty and life to it.

I desire to set before the reader one such thread, a thread of God’s “purpose”, which I think comes before us in the gospel of Matthew, and to trace out a little.

A THREAD OF PURPOSE

It appears, then, first in these words—“The generation of Jesus Christ”, Matt 1: 1. This book is “the book of the generation of Jesus Christ”. The thread is a ‘new generation’. Is it an accident or the distinct design of God that this book is the first in the canonical order of the New Testament? It appears to me that no accident is here.

The Old Testament is the book of the old generation. It is the book of the first Adam and of his posterity. The New Testament is the book of the new generation, that of “the last Adam” (1 Cor 15: 45), and of His posterity. In it God begins again, and we have to admit that the beginning, which is Christ, and the continuance and the end of this new generation, which are both Christ, introduce us to perfection (see 1 John 3: 2), just as the history of the past generation—the old—introduces to us the sad history of imperfection, 1 John 5: 19. In the one we have righteousness and life, in the other unrighteousness and death, and both are in evidence, and both actually and morally.

In Matthew and in the new generation all is established for God in Christ. God begins, and wholly apart from man, in the virgin. Here is the beginning. It is of the Holy Ghost, see chap 1: 18-20. Then God begins in persons on earth, what is right.

The next point is that Christ identifies Himself with the godly of that moment and with what is right God-ward. “Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness”, Matt 3: 15. Man was taking his only right place before God. “They were baptised of him [John] in Jordan, confessing their sins”, v 6. Christ did not need it, but it was right for the man of the old generation, and it is the first right step that any man of the old generation takes before God, and Jesus identifies Himself with it, chap 3. It is God’s work in any soul which leads it to desire to do what is right.

The next thing we see is that any man of the first Adam generation who thus seeks to respond to these movements of God in him, leading him to desire what is right, will have to meet the whole power of the devil, chap 4. This is true of every man. But note the resource—Jesus is the Man before us now.

And Jesus is already with each, however feeble, who is seeking to follow what is right. “God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim 3: 16) has identified Himself with man! As the Spirit says in chap 1, “They shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, GOD with us”, see also chap 18: 20 and chap 28: 20)

Now if this be so (and it was then so, as it is today) the devil will be met, vanquished and overcome. The kingdom is established now and in power. But, before this, He will bind the “strong man” and then proceed to the spoiling of his house. The “stronger than he” is here (chap, 4: 21, 22), the enemy is defeated, and the needy one gets from Him the gospel of deliverance.

He “calls” the brothers Peter and Andrew and James and John, and they respond. They both leave the ship, and the last two leave also “their father”. To respond to the call of Christ in the gospel is to leave the old generation, here fitly and not accidentally called “their father”. Jesus owns all such among the “whosoever” of Matt 10: 27 and 12: 48-50. They are characterised, He says, by doing the will “of my Father who is in the heavens”. He did this. Note the word my “Father” here as indicating, limiting and defining the ‘new generation’.

But Jesus having called to Himself in the gospel all those in whom God had wrought, they respond. Those who truly received John’s testimony, John commended to Christ. “He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (chap 3), and they received Christ, in whom all was right!

The next step is that those who come to Christ get the Holy Spirit and the teaching of Christ. For the gift of the Spirit see John 4: 14. As for the primary teaching of Christ we have it in these three chapters of Matthew (5, 6 and 7).

But in order to profit by this teaching we have to leave this scene and to reach Christ who gives it. In Jesus leaving the multitudes, who followed Him from curiosity, and in Jesus being followed to the top of the mountain only by His disciples, we have a figure of His death, resurrection and ascension, The Holy Spirit leads us away from this world and from the mere empty profession by the multitudes of His name, to Himself where He is now. They followed Him there, and so do we in spirit now. And it is there that we get those instructions and that teaching from Him in the light of which and in the practice of which He walked here on earth among men where we also have to walk!

What comes before us in these three chapters is, all those principles of the kingdom in its present form in the rejection of the king. These form the subject of the first teachings of Christ.

Your Christianity begins in the kingdom. We have here the teaching, which, being His, must insist on what is today agreeable to God on the earth, and, by contrast, must unhesitatingly condemn everything which is not this as offensive to God. That which is found in the present kingdom is power, see Matt 16: 18, 19 and also 18: 18. It is for the new generation to observe this, the instruction which is before us is addressed to them. As of the new generation we are seen here walking amidst the men of the old generation, and as Christ also walked. He is the Head and model of the new generation, as Adam was head and model of the old, and again let each ask and answer the question, What do I think of Christ? If “the world itself could not contain the books” (John 21: 25), had they been written, describing only the Lord Jesus in His earthly path, what shall we say of God’s “purpose, counsel and will”—the universal establishment, and of all things according to God, in heaven and on earth in and by Him? I am only indicating one thread of it, one seen here on earth today—our thread of association with Christ—this ‘new generation’.

It is of them that He says, in the end of the book, “And, behold, I am with you all the days, even until the completion of the age”.⁷ We have His presence assured to us today, see Matt 28: 20 NT. We address Him in prayer. For this thread of God’s purpose—a ‘new generation’—and Jesus with them—and the “babes”, who are of it, see Matt 11: 25 to end.

May the “babe” trace this thread—that is, GOD working behind everything in one’s chequered path—which now runs through the whole New Testament, and get the present good of it in his own soul down here. If the contemplation of one thread is so blessed, so restful to the soul, what will the whole fabric of God’s ways in Christ be?

“For of him, and through him, and to him are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen”, Rom 11: 36.

From Helps for the Poor of the Flock—vol 9, 1904