Sometimes the will of God is presented to us in Scripture as that which He desires His people to do, and at other times it is that which God has determined to do, and which will be assuredly carried out in spite of all the opposition of the enemy and the failure of His people. It is a blessed privilege for His people to have the knowledge of the will of God, so as to act in the light of it, and to be in this world for God’s pleasure as seeking to do that which He desires us to do, and to be what He wills. The will of man is diametrically opposed to the will of God, and although God in His infinite wisdom allows man to carry out his will at the present time, the day is surely coming when God’s will will be done on earth, even as it is done in heaven.
God’s Will in Relation to His Son
In the Book of God’s eternal counsel it had been written concerning the Son of God, “I delight to do Thy will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8), and to carry out God’s will a body had been prepared for the Son of God. The psalm shows plainly that the death of Christ was in view, for verse 6 says, “Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire; mine ears hast Thou opened,” or, as it is interpreted for us in Hebrews 10:5, “a body hast Thou prepared me.” It was necessary for the Son of God to come in incarnation that God’s will for the securing of His own glory, and the blessing of men, according to His eternal counsel, might be carried out, and this by the laying down of that holy body in death, and by the shedding of His precious blood.
While on earth the Son of God said to His disciples, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work” (John 4:34). What sustained the Lord Jesus in His path of service for His God and Father was the knowledge that all that He was doing was for the will of the Father, and the accomplishment of all that He had given Him to do. In every moment of His holy and perfect life the Son had the Father’s will before Him, and at the close He gave up His holy body as a sacrifice of love for the Father’s will, but also for those that the Father had given Him out of the world, for He said to His disciples at the paschal supper, when introducing His own supper, “This is my body which is given for you” (Luke 22:19).
The Character of God’s Will for Us
The Epistle to the Romans unfolds the “mercies of God” for us, who once were sinners far from Him, but who have been justified, cleared from all our sins, and brought into right relations with God. According to God’s purpose, we have been called by His grace in the Gospel, and soon we shall be conformed to the image of His Son, being gloried with Him (Rom. 8:28–30). The practical exhortations of Romans 12 are based upon the divine mercies brought out in the first eight chapters. In the light of all God’s mercies, the Apostle exhorts the saints to present their “bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (verse 1).
Reasonable, or intelligent, service for the Lord begins with our laying down every member of our bodies at the disposal of God. We may not be asked by God to become martyrs, giving up our bodies in death in love for Christ, but we are asked to live for God’s will and glory, our every movement, whether it be our walk or that which we do, being directed for the pleasure of Him who has so richly blessed us. So often saints of God walk in the ways of the world, and act for their own gratification, instead of ever having before them the will of God.
The men of this world seek to please themselves, but knowing what God has done for us, we are not to be “conformed to this world;” we are to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, and so prove “what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (12:2). The body will only be presented a living sacrifice as the mind is renewed, as it thinks God’s thoughts, and this will produce the divine transformation from living for self to living for God. God’s will is not attractive to the flesh, indeed the flesh abhors it, but the renewed mind sees God’s will as pleasurable, and proves it to be “good, and acceptable, and perfect.”
God’s Will in Relation to His Purpose
Having spoken of himself as “An apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 1:1), Paul launches out into the deep of the eternal counsel and purpose of God. The Christian is viewed altogether apart from his responsible life as chosen in Christ by God “before the foundation of the world,” and this that we might be “holy and without blame before Him in love.” We are blessed in the heavenlies, where there can be no breakdown, and we are “in Christ,” in an entirely new state, with the nature and character of God Himself, and there loved by Him.
The good pleasure of His will. In verse 5 we are viewed as predestinated by God “for adoption through Jesus Christ to Himself,” and for the good pleasure of His will. God desired to have sons before Him in the enjoyment of His love, and this for the satisfaction of His heart. It was not our will to be in this relationship with God, it was the fruit of His own purpose, that which He willed for His own pleasure. The prodigal of Luke 15 would have been satisfied with the place of a servant, but this would not have satisfied his father’s heart. Nothing less than the place of a son would give the father pleasure.
Angels are spoken of as sons in Job 38:7, and Israel is viewed by God as His son in Exodus 4:22-23, but the sons of God who are the fruit of His purpose have been brought into this relationship with God “through Jesus Christ to Himself,” and this distinguishes our relationship with God. We are sons through Jesus Christ, the Man of His purpose, and we are also sons with God’s Son “And because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). The nearness and intimacy of the relationship is emphasised in the words “to Himself.”
The mystery of His will. This wonderful secret of what God is about to do concerns His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:9-10), but God has made it known to us, who have been brought into the relationship of sons with Him. God takes pleasure in taking His sons into the secrets of His heart concerning His Son. He would not hide from His friend Abraham that which He was about to do to Sodom, nor has He hidden from His many sons that which He is going to do when man’s day is over. God has a purpose, and He will not allow man to frustrate its accomplishment, a purpose that gives Him great pleasure, for it will display the glory of His Son.
This blessed secret is in regard to “the dispensation of the fulness of times,” the last of the great dispensations of time, when man has been allowed of God to manifest what he is. Man was under probation until the cross, and since then he has still shown that he will not have God or His Son. In the millennial age Christ will reign, all things will be headed up in Him, the things on earth and the things in heaven, but the close will show that in spite of all the benefits received under Christ’s reign, he is still the same, utterly incorrigible.
Yet the dispensation of the fulness of times will be a time for manifesting the glory of Christ. Men have utterly failed to order the things of this world, but God will show that He has a Man the Second Man, the Last Adam, who will order all on earth, and also all in heaven for His glory, and for the benefit of all. Everything in the world to come will be under Christ’s headship; He will order, sustain and control all. Nebuchadnezzar was a universal head, so far as this world was concerned, but he showed himself to be as a beast. Adam failed as head and Noah failed as governor, but Christ will reign and govern all, the King of kings and Lord of lords, for the full satisfaction and glory of God.
The counsel of His own will. The inheritance that belongs to Christ, and that He will enter into in the coming day, is a vast inheritance. All belongs to God, but Christ is the Heir, and God has marked His many sons out to share the inheritance with Christ. Therefore it is said, “in whom also we have obtained an inheritance” (verse 11). We have nothing outside of Christ: all our blessings now, and all that we shall have in the coming day, are “in Christ,” in association with Him, and dependent upon Him who has procured all for us by His death upon the cross.
God had His eternal purpose, and to secure it He had His counsel, the counsel of His own will, the plan to bring to fruition that which He had purposed, and in wondrous grace He gave us a place with His Son in the great inheritance of the coming day. In the prayer, God desires that we might know what are “the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (verse 18), that which He will have for His own heart. To secure all for that day, God “works all things after the counsel of His own will.” Whatever may take place among men, the hearts of God’s saints can rest quietly in this, that behind all that is passing, God is working all to secure what He has determined to have for His own pleasure and the glory of His Son.
The Full Knowledge of God’s Will
Saints of Old Testament times had some knowledge of God’s will, but it was not until the Son of God came, completed redemption, took His seat at God’s right hand, and sent the Holy Spirit, that there came to light the full knowledge of God’s will. It was given to the Apostle Paul “to complete the word of God” (Col. 1:25), and this gives us in the Holy Scriptures the full knowledge of all that God has done, all He is doing, and all that He will do. God’s will centres in Christ, His well-Beloved Son, and even with regard to what He wills for us, all is viewed in relation to Christ. God’s will for us now is to represent Christ in this world, and to be occupied with Christ where He is at His right hand.
As the Apostle is about to present the Son of God’s love in a wonderful cluster of His glories, he prays for the saints at Colosse desiring that they “might be filled with the full knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Col. 1:9). It is a blessed thing for the saint of God to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, for it displaces from his thoughts all relating to his own will and the will of any other man. There is no room in the heart and mind for the will of man when we are filled with the knowledge of God’s will. The full knowledge of God’s will is that which God has made known of His will in Christianity, and we can only obtain this knowledge through reading God’s word in communion with Him. The Spirit of God will bring this full knowledge into the heart as we commune with God in relation to the divine revelations of Christianity.
Wisdom and spiritual understanding are essential for the application of this wonderful divine knowledge of God’s will that He has communicated to His saints, and necessary for taking our steps aright so as “to walk worthily of the Lord unto all well-pleasing” (verse 10). This knowledge, held in divine wisdom and spiritual understanding, will also enable us to bear “fruit in every good work,” fruit for the pleasure of the Father, and also produce growth “in the full knowledge of God.” The more we grow in the knowledge of God, the more capacity there will be for fruit to please the Father, and to clearly show that we are the disciples of His Son (John 15:8).
Perfect and Complete in God’s Will
Epaphras belonged to Colosse, and was a servant of Christ (Col. 4:12). He was evidently with Paul when he wrote his letter to the saints at Colosse, and had told the Apostle of their state (Col. 1:6–8). This dear servant of the Lord had evidently caught Paul’s desire for the saints, as made known in his prayer in chapter 1, so that when he joined in prayer for them, he also prayed in relation to God’s will, always earnestly combating for them in prayers, to the end that they might “stand perfect and complete in all the will of God” (4:12).
In God’s sovereign grace we stand before Him in Christ, accepted in the Beloved, and in the work that He has done, but God would have us to stand in our responsible life as true Christians, those who have learned the full knowledge of His will, and whose desire it is that nothing that we have learned of that will should not have an answer in all our walk and ways, whether in relation to our individual lives, or in regard to the maintenance, of what is due to God in His assembly.
May there every be the desire with us to answer to God’s will for us, whether as expressed in the prayer of Paul in Colossians or in the prayer of Epaphras in Colossians 4.
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