God Working Out His Own Will
“Having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will.’’ — Eph, i. II.
IN the Epistle to the Ephesians we have three passages concerning the will of God. The first, in chapter i., points us back to the eternal mystery of that will in God, and tells us how, as God purposed it in Himself, so He Himself works it all out. The second, in chapter v., calls us to seek to understand what the will of God is. The third, in chapter vi., brings us down into practical life, and teaches us how the most common drudgery of daily duty may all be done as the will of God. As in the heights of heaven and of eternity, so down into the conduct and the heart of the humblest Christian, the will of God claims supreme authority. Let us begin and study it in its origin and work before the foundation of the world.
Paul writes — Eph. i. 5 — of God having “predestinated us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His zvill, according to the riches of His grace, which He made to abound toward us, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleastire, which He purposed in Him, ... in whom also we were made an heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will,” Each expression has its significance. The good pleasure of His will — that means the absolute liberty of God, the perfection of whose will knows no higher reason than that it so pleased Him. In Him the predestination, and election, and foreordaining of God’s children had its origin. The mystery of His will — that suggests that it was hidden in God, that we can only know as much of it as He reveals, and that even what He reveals still has its mystery beyond our comprehension. The purpose of His will — that refers to the great plan or scheme to be carried out which His holy will formed for itself. And the counsel of His will reminds us of the Divine ‘’ wisdom and prudence” (verse 8) holding counsel with itself, and ordering all so as to prove that His good pleasure is indeed all that is most right and good and perfect. In the secret depths of God’s will and its predestinating purpose lies hidden the salvation of His Church, and of every member of it.
“Having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will.” What God has willed, He also Himself works out. The counsel of His will is too high and holy; none but He can work it out. The will is a working power, a determination to act; even a man who really wills a thing seeks to overcome every obstacle to that will being realised. We need, as we study and worship the will of God, to give full scope to the conviction that God Himself works out all things after the counsel of His will. The eternal purpose is what guides all His work: all that the eternal purpose fixed must and will be wrought by Himself. This faith will teach us some most precious lessons.
It inspires the assurance that God’s purpose will he performed. We are so apt to look to ourselves and our feebleness, to men and to circumstances, and by these to measure what appears possible. We need to remember that God’s sovereign will is a Power that will, as much in the great whole as in the minutest detail, infallibly secure the fulfilment of His plans. Whether in our own heart and life, or in the service of His Kingdom in which we take part, we need definitely to know Him as the ‘’ God who worketh all in all.” We speak of man’s relationship to God as that of co-operation. But Divine operation ever precedes human co-operation — the former as unceasing and continuous as the latter, drawing it forth and inspiring it. All feebleness in the Divine life, all failure in spiritual work, is owing to this one thing: we do not make room for and wait on the Divine operation. We seek to do the Divine will without the living faith in Him who Himself worketh all things after the counsel of His will.
This faith will teach us to live and work in entire dependence on God’s working. It will waken and strengthen us in that root of all true Christian virtue, Humility. It is through this that the angels kept their first estate — they live in entire dependence upon God’s willing and working in them. It was for this that the Son assumed the robe of creaturehood, to teach us that the life and glory of the creature consists in every moment receiving from God what we are to be, to will or to do. He did nothing of Himself but what the Father showed Him. He judged nothing of Himself but as He heard so He spake. The connection between God and us is to be one of never-ceasing receptivity, God every moment imparting the life and strength we need. As we learn to know God thus, we shall fear nothing so much as taking His place, by our work hindering His, and so under the guise of doing His will making it impossible for Him to do it. Oh! let us in deep humility and reverence worship and wait on the God who worketh all things after the counsel of His will. This faith will lead us to true diligence in God’s service in the blessed confidence of being indeed able to do all His will, because what He wills He works Himself. At first sight it appears as if this entire unceasing dependence upon God will hinder us in our work. That is only as long as we do not understand or believe it fully. But to the upright, who wait on God, light will arise. It will be with this even as with the truth of faith without works for justification. At first it appears as if this would discourage good works in the believer. But as we indeed give ourselves away to the blessed truth of faith without works for acceptance, we find that it is this very faith that is most abundant in producing good works as its fruit. Even so, as we accept fully the truth of which we were afraid at first sight, that we can do nothing of ourselves, and that God must do all, we shall experience that the most absolute and unceasing dependence is the secret of the most eflfective service. As works before faith only hinder, while faith with no Thy Will Be Done
i’ otit works is most fruitful of works, so the attempt to work without the fullest and most entire dependence upon God leads to continual failure, until ceas- ^’ing from ourselves and our works has brought us to yield ourselves unreservedly to God’s working, there to learn what it means to say: ‘’ I labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily,” The faith of our entire impotence and dependence upon God becomes the power for our highest activity.
‘’ Foreordained according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His will.” Believer! the purpose according to and for which you have been foreordained, is that of a God who works all things after the counsel of His will. Let every thought of the will of God be accompanied by the faith that He is a God who Himself works all things that He wills. All goodness and power are His, to be received direct from Him alone through Christ I Jesus. Worship Him with a holy fear, lest, like I Martha you grieve your Lord by your much serving, instead of waiting, like Mary, for what He can work in you. What God hath joined together let no man put asunder: God working His will in man by the Holy Spirit; man working out the will of God has wrought in him in secret, into daily life and duty.
XVII
“Be not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is,” — Eph. v. 17.
IN the preceding chapter I spoke of the three passages in this Epistle on the will of God. The first lifted us up into the eternal glory, to worship God, of whose glory that will is the revelation, and who Himself works it out in time. The last will lead down to the hut and the burden of the slave, and show us how even there in the most commonplace everyday life, the will of God may be done on earth as in heaven. Our present subject stands between the two as the indispensable link. It is only as I know the will of God, both in the place it has in His life, and is to have in mine, that I can appreciate the blessedness and fulfil the duty of ever only doing the will of the Father. It is the danger of neglecting the careful study to know all that God’s will implies, that makes Paul write, “Be not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”
‘’ Be not fooHsh,” In our conceit that, with our
Christian education, our common sense, our daily Bible reading, we know well enough what God’s will must be, we prove that we are as fools, without the wisdom of God guiding us. ‘’ Let no man deceive himself. If any man thinketh that he is wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. If any man thinketh he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.” Let us beware of the folly of thinking we know the will of God. Let us become fools indeed, in the sense of our great ignorance, and seek the Divine teaching which alone can rightly reveal the Divine will.
“Be not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.’’ To understand a thing means, not only to know its outward form, but something of its true nature, its inner meaning and working. It is only as the believer seeks a spiritual insight into God’s will, that the doing of it will become the heavenly joy it is meant to be. Let us consider what are some of the chief elements of the true understanding of God’s will.
Think of it, “first of all, in connection with God Himself. His will is the power by which He determines what He is to do and what is to be done by His creatures. In that will all His goodness and wisdom, love and power are revealed; the knowledge of that will opens to the creature the very heart of God. In the surrender to and worship of that will angels and men rise into living fellowship with God. Over the carrying out of that will God Himself watches. What the Divine Wisdom has planned, Divine Power will perform. Never for a moment can the will of God be separated from God Himself; if you would understand that will, never think of it but as the symbol of the presence of the Living God Himself. Always seek to see God in His will.
Think of it then as made known in His Word, The words of Holy Scripture for the most part are plain and simple, so as to be understood of all. And yet because they contain the mystery of Divine wisdom, the understanding of the meaning of the words does not at all ensure the real spiritual understanding or apprehension of God’s will. The words need to be taken into the heart, into the faith and love and obedience of man’s whole being, and God’s Divine working through them needs to be waited for, before we can fully understand God’s will. The very same Spirit which, having searched the deep things of God, inspired the Word, must give His light and life in the depths of our heart too, if the will of God is really to become our will. Without this all our knowledge is merely intellectual and superficial. It is only God working His will into our will, and our will accepting it heartily, that can fit us to understand what the will of the Lord is. The will, the intense desire and determination to do all God’s will, is the secret of knowing it.
Think of that will specially as embodied in Christ Jesus, He is the Word of God, the visible image of the hidden glory of God’s will. As man, He came to show us how it is the calling and the blessedness of the creature to give itself up wholly to the will of God, and do nothing of itself, and how it may count most confidently on God Himself working in it both ’ to will and to do all His will. As our Redeemer, He died to deliver us from our own will, and now leads us in the path of dying to self, to live and do God’s will alone. Any attempt to understand the will of God, apart from its intimate union with the Son of God our Saviour, ends in foolishness. It is in living union zmth Jesus alone, that either light or strength for knowing and doing the Father’s will can come.
Understand what the will of the Lord is. Think of its claim on your whole life. You cannot attempt fully to yield to or rejoice in that claim until you see that it rests in the New Testament upon the fact that the renewed will is a ray of the Divine will itself, taking possession of you, of your inner being, and from within enabling you to love God’s will as wholly and as naturally as you formerly loved your self-will. The Three-One God has begun His own life in you; His will and the power that works it out are in you; in the faith of that admit heartily the claim of God’s will to have complete dominion. See, and say, that there is to be nothing in your life that is not to be under the control, or rather, the inspiration of God’s will. In the faith of this living root of God’s will possessing you, your will and His inextricably intertwined, look upon the Word with its exceeding breadth covering every possible position, and upon your daily life with its innumerable needs and duties, and understand how the will of God can be carried out through all. ‘’ Created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath foreordained that you should walk in them,” you can count upon the Holy Spirit to lead you into all God’s perfect will.
Understand what the will of the Lord is. To sum up all, think of God’s will not only as having come forth from an Infinite Love, as revealed and embodied in the written and the Eternal Word, as claiming your whole life down to its minutest details, but, above all, as the promise of what God Himself mill work in you. Understand! the will of God is so ii6 Thy Will Be Done
Divine, and holy, and perfect, only God Himsell can work it. You can only work it as He works it in you by His Holy Spirit. The stronger and more unceasing and more joyfully confident your faith in God’s working all His will in you becomes, the more will you know that it is possible for you to do that will. “According to your faith be it unto you,” will in this also be made true in you. Standing in the full light of the eternal love as it shines on you from heaven, you will find that light is cast upon the whole of the Word and of life. And you will then begin to understand what the will of the Lord is. The most wonderful, beautiful, blessed thing in the universe. The one thing to be sought and loved, to be done or suffered. The one thing worth living and dying for.