Post by Admin on Oct 17, 2024 15:36:51 GMT -5
3. GOD’S WILL AND MAN’S WILL
“Cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as
the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in Mine hand” (Jer.
18:6).
Much of the present controversy is concerning the will of God — on
this point many questions have arisen. The chief one is that which
touches on the connection between the will of God and the will of
man. What is the relation between these? What is the order in which
they stand to one another? Which is the first? There is no dispute as
to the existence of these two separate wills. There is a will in God and
there is also a will in man. Both of these are in continual exercise.
God wills and man wills. Nothing in the universe takes place without
the will of God. This is admitted. But it is asked, Is this will first in
everything?
I answer, yes. Nothing that is good can exist which God did not will
to be, and nothing that is evil can exist which God did not will to
allow. The will of God goes before all other wills; it does not depend
on them, but they depend on it. Its movements regulate them. The “I
will” of Jehovah is the spring and origin of all that is done
throughout the universe, great and small, among things animate and
inanimate. It was this “I will” that brought angels into being and still
sustains them. It was this “I will” that was the origin of salvation to a
lost world. It was this “I will” that provided a Redeemer and
accomplished redemption. It was this “I will” that begins, carries on
and ends salvation in each soul that is redeemed. It is this “I will”
that opens the blind eye and unstops the deaf ear. It was this “I will”
that awakens the slumberer and raises the dead. I do not mean that,
merely generally speaking, God has declared His will concerning
these things, but that each individual conversion (nay, each
movement that forms part of it), originates in this supreme “I will.”
When Jesus healed the leper, He said, “I will, be thou clean.” So
when a soul is converted, there is the same distinct and special forthputting of the Divine will, “I will, be converted!” Everything that can
be called good in man, or in the universe, originates in the “I will” of
Jehovah (see James 1:17-18).
I do not deny that in conversion man himself wills. In everything that
he does, thinks, feels, he of necessity wills. In believing he wills. In
repenting, he wills. In turning from his evil ways, he wills — all this is
true. The opposite is both untrue and absurd. But while fully
admitting this, there is another question behind it, of great interest
and moment: Are these movements of man’s will toward good the
effects of the forth-putting of God’s will? Is man willing because he
has made himself so; or is he willing because God has made him so?
Does he become willing entirely by an act of his own will, or by
chance, or by moral suasion, or because acted on by created causes
or influences from without?
I answer unhesitatingly that he becomes willing because of another
and a superior will — God’s, that has come into contact with his,
altering its nature and its bent. This new bent is the result of a
change produced upon it by Him who alone, of all beings, has the
right, without limitation, to say in regard to all events and changes, “I
will!” The man’s will has followed the movement of the Divine will.
God has made him willing. God’s will is first, not second, in the
movement. Even a holy and perfect will depends for guidance upon
the will of God. Even when renewed it still follows, it does not lead.
Much more an unholy will, for its bent must be first changed. And
how can this be, if God is not to interpose His power?
But is this not making God the author of sin? No! It does not follow
that because God’s will originates what is good in man that it must
therefore originate that which is evil. The existence of a holy, happy
world proved that God had created it with His own hand — the
existence of an unholy, unhappy world proves that God allowed it to
fall into that state — but it proves no more. We are told that Jesus
was delivered by “the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God” (Acts 2:23). God’s will was there. God permitted that act of
darkness to be done. Nay, it was the result of His determinate
counsel. But does that prove that God was the author of the sin of
either Judas or Herod? Had it not been for the eternal “I will” of
Jehovah, Christ wouldn’t have been delivered up, but does this give
proof that God compelled either Judas to betray or Herod to mock,
or Pilate to condemn the Lord of glory? Still further, it is added in
another place, “For of a truth against Thy holy child Jesus, whom
Thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the
Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do
whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done”
(Acts 4:27-28). Is it possible to pervert this passage so as to prove
that it has no reference to predestination? Does it make God the
author of the deed referred to? Must God be the author of sin
because it is said that Israel and the Gentiles were gathered together
to do what His counsel had determined? Let our opponents attempt
an explanation of such a passage, and tell us how it can be made to
harmonize with their theory.
It may be argued that God works by means in changing the will. It
will be said that there is no need for these special and direct forthputtings of His will and strength. He has ordained the means, He has
given His Word, He has proclaimed His gospel, and by these means
He effects the change. Well, let us see what amount of truth there
may be in this. I suppose no one will say that the gospel can produce
the alteration in the will so long as the will rejects it. No medicine,
however excellent, can operate unless it is taken. The will of man
then rejects the gospel, it is set against the truth of God. How then is
it made to receive it? Granting that in receiving it there is a change,
yet the question is, How was it so far changed already as to be willing
to receive it? The worst feature of the malady is the determination
not to touch or taste the medicine. How is this to be overcome? Oh!
It will be said, this resistance is to be overcome with arguments.
Arguments! Is not the gospel itself the great argument? Yet it is
rejected. What arguments can you expect to prevail with a man that
refuses the gospel? Admit that there are other arguments, yet the
man is set against them all. There is not one argument that can be
used which he does not hate. His will resists and rejects every
persuasive and motive. How then is this resistance to be overcome,
this opposition to be made to give way? How is the bent of the will to
be so altered as to receive that which it rejected? Plainly by his will
coming into contact with a superior will, a Will that can remove the
resistance, a will like the one that said, “Let there be light!” and there
was light. The will itself must undergo a change before it can choose
that which it rejected. And what can change it but the finger of God?
Were man’s rejection of the gospel occasioned simply by his
misunderstanding it, then I can see how resistance could cease upon
its being made plain. But I do not believe that such is the case. For
what does it amount to but just that the sinner never rejects the
truth. It is only error which he rejects, and were his mistake rectified,
he would at once embrace the truth. The unrenewed man then, far
from having enmity to the truth (according to this view) has the very
opposite! So little of depravity is there in his heart, and so little
perversity in his will — such instinctive love of truth and abhorrence
of error is there in him, that as soon as the truth is made plain to
him, he embraces it. All his previous hesitation arose from the errors
which had been mingled with the truth presented! One would think
that this was anything but depravity. It might be ignorance, but it
could not be called enmity to the truth. It is rather enmity to error. It
would thus appear that the chief feature of the sinner’s heart and will
is not enmity to truth, but hatred to error and love of truth!
Man’s heart is enmity to God — to God as revealed in the gospel, to
God as the God of grace. What truth can there be in the assertion
that all the sinner’s distrust of God and darkness of spirit do not arise
from his not seeing God as the God of grace? I grant that oftentimes
this is the case. I know that it is very frequently misapprehension of
God’s merciful character, as seen and pledged in the cross of Christ,
that is the cause of darkness to the anxious soul, and that a simple
sight of the exceeding riches of the grace of God would dispel these
clouds. But that is very different from saying that such a sight, apart
from the renewing energy of the Spirit upon the soul, would change
man’s enmity into confidence and love. For we know that the
unrenewed will is set against the gospel. It is enmity to God and His
truth (Rom. 8:7). The more closely and clearly truth is set before it,
and pressed home upon it, its hatred swells and rises. The
presentation of truth, however forcible and clear, even though that
truth were the grace of God, will only exasperate the unconverted
man. It is the gospel he hates, and the more clearly it is set before
him, the more he hates it. It is God that he hates, and the more
closely God approaches him, the more vividly that God is set before
him, the more his enmity awakens. Surely, then, that which stirs up
enmity cannot of itself remove it. Of what avail, then, are the most
energetic means by themselves? The will itself must be directly
operated upon by the Spirit of God: He who has made it must
remake it. Its making was the work of Omnipotence; its remaking
must be the same. In no other way can its evil bent be rectified. God’s
will must come into contact with man’s will, and then the work is
done. Must not God’s will then be first in every such movement?
Man’s will follows.
Is this a hard saying? So some in these days would have us believe.
Let us ask wherein consists the hardness. Is it hard that God’s will
should be the leader and man’s will the follower in all things great
and small? Is it hard that we should be obliged to trace the origin of
every movement of man towards good to the will of God?
If it is hard, it must be that it strips man of every fragment of what is
good, or of the slightest tendency to good. And this we believe to be
the secret origin of the complaint against the doctrine. It is a
thorough leveler and emptier of man. It makes him not only nothing,
but worse than nothing, a sinner all over — nothing but a sinner,
with a heart full of enmity to God, set against Him as the God of
righteousness, and still more against Him as the God of grace, with a
will so bent away from the will of God, and so rebellious against it, as
not to have one remaining inclination to what is good and holy and
spiritual. This man cannot tolerate. Admit that a man is totally
worthless and helpless, and where is the hard saying? Is it hard that
God’s blessed and holy will should go before our miserable and
unholy wills, to lead them in the way? Is it hard that those who have
nothing should be indebted to God for everything? Is it hard, since
every movement of my will is downwards, earthwards, that God’s
mighty will should come in and lift it omnipotently upwards,
heavenwards?
If I admit that God’s will regulates the great movements of the
universe, I must admit that it equally regulates the small. I must do
this, for the great depends on the small. The minutest movement of
my will is regulated by the will of God. And in this I rejoice. Woe is
me if it is not so. If I shrink from so unlimited control and guidance,
it is plain that I dislike the idea of being wholly at the disposal of
God. And I am wishing to be in part at my own disposal. I am
ambitious of regulating the lesser movements of my will, while I give
up the greater to His control. And so it comes out that I wish to be a
god to myself. I do not like the thought of God having all the disposal
of my destiny. If He gets His will, I am afraid that I shall not get
mine. It comes out, moreover, that the God about whose love I was
so fond of speaking is a God to whom I cannot trust myself implicitly
for eternity. Yes, this is the real truth. Man’s dislike of God’s
sovereignty arises from his suspicion of God’s heart. And yet the men
in our day who deny this absolute sovereignty are the very men who
profess to rejoice in the love of God. They are the ones who speak of
that love as if there were nothing else in God but love. The more I
understand of the character of God, as revealed in Scripture, the
more shall I see that He must be sovereign, and the more shall I
rejoice from my inmost heart that He is so.
It was God’s sovereign will that fixed the time of my birth. It is the
same will that has fixed the day of my death. And was not the day of
my conversion fixed as certainly by that same will? Or will any but
“the fool” say that God has fixed by His will the day of our birth and
death, but leaves us to fix the day of our conversion by our own will.
That is, He leaves us to decide whether we shall be converted or not,
whether we shall believe or not? If the day of conversion is fixed,
then it cannot be left to be determined by our own will. God
determined where and when and how we should be born. And so He
has determined where and when and how we shall be born again! If
so, His will must go before ours in believing. And just because His
will goes before ours, we do become willing to believe. Were it not for
this, we should never have believed at all!
If man’s will precedes God’s will in everything relating to himself,
then I do not see how any of God’s plans can be carried into effect.
Man would be left to manage the world in his own way. God must not
fix the time of his conversion, for that would be an interference with
man’s responsibility. No, He must not at all fix it so that he is
converted, for that must be left to a man and his own will. He must
not fix how many are to be converted, for that would be making His
own invitation a mere mockery, and man’s responsibility a pretence!
He may turn a stray star into its course again by a direct forthputting of power, and will be unchallenged for interference with the
laws of nature, but to stretch out His arm and arrest a human will in
its devious course, so as to turn it back again to holiness, is an
unwarrantable exercise of His power and an encroachment upon
man’s liberty. What a world! Where man gets all his own way, where
God is not allowed to interfere, except in that way that man calls
lawful! What a world! where everything turns upon. man’s will,
where the whole current of events in the world or in the church is
regulated, shaped, impelled by man’s will alone. God’s will is but a
secondary thing. Its part is to watch events and follow in the track of
man’s! Man wills — God must say, Amen.
In all this opposition to the absolute will of God, we see the self-will
of these last days manifesting itself. Man wanted to be a god at the
first, and he continues his struggle to the last. He is resolved that his
will shall take the precedence of God’s. In the last Antichrist, this
self-will shall be summed up and exhibited. He is the king that is to
do according to his will. And in the free-will controversy of the day,
we see the same spirit displayed. It is Antichrist that is speaking to us
and exhorting us to proud independence. Self-will is the essence of
anti-Christian religion. Self-will is the root of bitterness that is
springing up in the church — and it is not from above, it is from
beneath. It is earthly, sensual and devilish.
“Cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as
the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in Mine hand” (Jer.
18:6).
Much of the present controversy is concerning the will of God — on
this point many questions have arisen. The chief one is that which
touches on the connection between the will of God and the will of
man. What is the relation between these? What is the order in which
they stand to one another? Which is the first? There is no dispute as
to the existence of these two separate wills. There is a will in God and
there is also a will in man. Both of these are in continual exercise.
God wills and man wills. Nothing in the universe takes place without
the will of God. This is admitted. But it is asked, Is this will first in
everything?
I answer, yes. Nothing that is good can exist which God did not will
to be, and nothing that is evil can exist which God did not will to
allow. The will of God goes before all other wills; it does not depend
on them, but they depend on it. Its movements regulate them. The “I
will” of Jehovah is the spring and origin of all that is done
throughout the universe, great and small, among things animate and
inanimate. It was this “I will” that brought angels into being and still
sustains them. It was this “I will” that was the origin of salvation to a
lost world. It was this “I will” that provided a Redeemer and
accomplished redemption. It was this “I will” that begins, carries on
and ends salvation in each soul that is redeemed. It is this “I will”
that opens the blind eye and unstops the deaf ear. It was this “I will”
that awakens the slumberer and raises the dead. I do not mean that,
merely generally speaking, God has declared His will concerning
these things, but that each individual conversion (nay, each
movement that forms part of it), originates in this supreme “I will.”
When Jesus healed the leper, He said, “I will, be thou clean.” So
when a soul is converted, there is the same distinct and special forthputting of the Divine will, “I will, be converted!” Everything that can
be called good in man, or in the universe, originates in the “I will” of
Jehovah (see James 1:17-18).
I do not deny that in conversion man himself wills. In everything that
he does, thinks, feels, he of necessity wills. In believing he wills. In
repenting, he wills. In turning from his evil ways, he wills — all this is
true. The opposite is both untrue and absurd. But while fully
admitting this, there is another question behind it, of great interest
and moment: Are these movements of man’s will toward good the
effects of the forth-putting of God’s will? Is man willing because he
has made himself so; or is he willing because God has made him so?
Does he become willing entirely by an act of his own will, or by
chance, or by moral suasion, or because acted on by created causes
or influences from without?
I answer unhesitatingly that he becomes willing because of another
and a superior will — God’s, that has come into contact with his,
altering its nature and its bent. This new bent is the result of a
change produced upon it by Him who alone, of all beings, has the
right, without limitation, to say in regard to all events and changes, “I
will!” The man’s will has followed the movement of the Divine will.
God has made him willing. God’s will is first, not second, in the
movement. Even a holy and perfect will depends for guidance upon
the will of God. Even when renewed it still follows, it does not lead.
Much more an unholy will, for its bent must be first changed. And
how can this be, if God is not to interpose His power?
But is this not making God the author of sin? No! It does not follow
that because God’s will originates what is good in man that it must
therefore originate that which is evil. The existence of a holy, happy
world proved that God had created it with His own hand — the
existence of an unholy, unhappy world proves that God allowed it to
fall into that state — but it proves no more. We are told that Jesus
was delivered by “the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God” (Acts 2:23). God’s will was there. God permitted that act of
darkness to be done. Nay, it was the result of His determinate
counsel. But does that prove that God was the author of the sin of
either Judas or Herod? Had it not been for the eternal “I will” of
Jehovah, Christ wouldn’t have been delivered up, but does this give
proof that God compelled either Judas to betray or Herod to mock,
or Pilate to condemn the Lord of glory? Still further, it is added in
another place, “For of a truth against Thy holy child Jesus, whom
Thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the
Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do
whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done”
(Acts 4:27-28). Is it possible to pervert this passage so as to prove
that it has no reference to predestination? Does it make God the
author of the deed referred to? Must God be the author of sin
because it is said that Israel and the Gentiles were gathered together
to do what His counsel had determined? Let our opponents attempt
an explanation of such a passage, and tell us how it can be made to
harmonize with their theory.
It may be argued that God works by means in changing the will. It
will be said that there is no need for these special and direct forthputtings of His will and strength. He has ordained the means, He has
given His Word, He has proclaimed His gospel, and by these means
He effects the change. Well, let us see what amount of truth there
may be in this. I suppose no one will say that the gospel can produce
the alteration in the will so long as the will rejects it. No medicine,
however excellent, can operate unless it is taken. The will of man
then rejects the gospel, it is set against the truth of God. How then is
it made to receive it? Granting that in receiving it there is a change,
yet the question is, How was it so far changed already as to be willing
to receive it? The worst feature of the malady is the determination
not to touch or taste the medicine. How is this to be overcome? Oh!
It will be said, this resistance is to be overcome with arguments.
Arguments! Is not the gospel itself the great argument? Yet it is
rejected. What arguments can you expect to prevail with a man that
refuses the gospel? Admit that there are other arguments, yet the
man is set against them all. There is not one argument that can be
used which he does not hate. His will resists and rejects every
persuasive and motive. How then is this resistance to be overcome,
this opposition to be made to give way? How is the bent of the will to
be so altered as to receive that which it rejected? Plainly by his will
coming into contact with a superior will, a Will that can remove the
resistance, a will like the one that said, “Let there be light!” and there
was light. The will itself must undergo a change before it can choose
that which it rejected. And what can change it but the finger of God?
Were man’s rejection of the gospel occasioned simply by his
misunderstanding it, then I can see how resistance could cease upon
its being made plain. But I do not believe that such is the case. For
what does it amount to but just that the sinner never rejects the
truth. It is only error which he rejects, and were his mistake rectified,
he would at once embrace the truth. The unrenewed man then, far
from having enmity to the truth (according to this view) has the very
opposite! So little of depravity is there in his heart, and so little
perversity in his will — such instinctive love of truth and abhorrence
of error is there in him, that as soon as the truth is made plain to
him, he embraces it. All his previous hesitation arose from the errors
which had been mingled with the truth presented! One would think
that this was anything but depravity. It might be ignorance, but it
could not be called enmity to the truth. It is rather enmity to error. It
would thus appear that the chief feature of the sinner’s heart and will
is not enmity to truth, but hatred to error and love of truth!
Man’s heart is enmity to God — to God as revealed in the gospel, to
God as the God of grace. What truth can there be in the assertion
that all the sinner’s distrust of God and darkness of spirit do not arise
from his not seeing God as the God of grace? I grant that oftentimes
this is the case. I know that it is very frequently misapprehension of
God’s merciful character, as seen and pledged in the cross of Christ,
that is the cause of darkness to the anxious soul, and that a simple
sight of the exceeding riches of the grace of God would dispel these
clouds. But that is very different from saying that such a sight, apart
from the renewing energy of the Spirit upon the soul, would change
man’s enmity into confidence and love. For we know that the
unrenewed will is set against the gospel. It is enmity to God and His
truth (Rom. 8:7). The more closely and clearly truth is set before it,
and pressed home upon it, its hatred swells and rises. The
presentation of truth, however forcible and clear, even though that
truth were the grace of God, will only exasperate the unconverted
man. It is the gospel he hates, and the more clearly it is set before
him, the more he hates it. It is God that he hates, and the more
closely God approaches him, the more vividly that God is set before
him, the more his enmity awakens. Surely, then, that which stirs up
enmity cannot of itself remove it. Of what avail, then, are the most
energetic means by themselves? The will itself must be directly
operated upon by the Spirit of God: He who has made it must
remake it. Its making was the work of Omnipotence; its remaking
must be the same. In no other way can its evil bent be rectified. God’s
will must come into contact with man’s will, and then the work is
done. Must not God’s will then be first in every such movement?
Man’s will follows.
Is this a hard saying? So some in these days would have us believe.
Let us ask wherein consists the hardness. Is it hard that God’s will
should be the leader and man’s will the follower in all things great
and small? Is it hard that we should be obliged to trace the origin of
every movement of man towards good to the will of God?
If it is hard, it must be that it strips man of every fragment of what is
good, or of the slightest tendency to good. And this we believe to be
the secret origin of the complaint against the doctrine. It is a
thorough leveler and emptier of man. It makes him not only nothing,
but worse than nothing, a sinner all over — nothing but a sinner,
with a heart full of enmity to God, set against Him as the God of
righteousness, and still more against Him as the God of grace, with a
will so bent away from the will of God, and so rebellious against it, as
not to have one remaining inclination to what is good and holy and
spiritual. This man cannot tolerate. Admit that a man is totally
worthless and helpless, and where is the hard saying? Is it hard that
God’s blessed and holy will should go before our miserable and
unholy wills, to lead them in the way? Is it hard that those who have
nothing should be indebted to God for everything? Is it hard, since
every movement of my will is downwards, earthwards, that God’s
mighty will should come in and lift it omnipotently upwards,
heavenwards?
If I admit that God’s will regulates the great movements of the
universe, I must admit that it equally regulates the small. I must do
this, for the great depends on the small. The minutest movement of
my will is regulated by the will of God. And in this I rejoice. Woe is
me if it is not so. If I shrink from so unlimited control and guidance,
it is plain that I dislike the idea of being wholly at the disposal of
God. And I am wishing to be in part at my own disposal. I am
ambitious of regulating the lesser movements of my will, while I give
up the greater to His control. And so it comes out that I wish to be a
god to myself. I do not like the thought of God having all the disposal
of my destiny. If He gets His will, I am afraid that I shall not get
mine. It comes out, moreover, that the God about whose love I was
so fond of speaking is a God to whom I cannot trust myself implicitly
for eternity. Yes, this is the real truth. Man’s dislike of God’s
sovereignty arises from his suspicion of God’s heart. And yet the men
in our day who deny this absolute sovereignty are the very men who
profess to rejoice in the love of God. They are the ones who speak of
that love as if there were nothing else in God but love. The more I
understand of the character of God, as revealed in Scripture, the
more shall I see that He must be sovereign, and the more shall I
rejoice from my inmost heart that He is so.
It was God’s sovereign will that fixed the time of my birth. It is the
same will that has fixed the day of my death. And was not the day of
my conversion fixed as certainly by that same will? Or will any but
“the fool” say that God has fixed by His will the day of our birth and
death, but leaves us to fix the day of our conversion by our own will.
That is, He leaves us to decide whether we shall be converted or not,
whether we shall believe or not? If the day of conversion is fixed,
then it cannot be left to be determined by our own will. God
determined where and when and how we should be born. And so He
has determined where and when and how we shall be born again! If
so, His will must go before ours in believing. And just because His
will goes before ours, we do become willing to believe. Were it not for
this, we should never have believed at all!
If man’s will precedes God’s will in everything relating to himself,
then I do not see how any of God’s plans can be carried into effect.
Man would be left to manage the world in his own way. God must not
fix the time of his conversion, for that would be an interference with
man’s responsibility. No, He must not at all fix it so that he is
converted, for that must be left to a man and his own will. He must
not fix how many are to be converted, for that would be making His
own invitation a mere mockery, and man’s responsibility a pretence!
He may turn a stray star into its course again by a direct forthputting of power, and will be unchallenged for interference with the
laws of nature, but to stretch out His arm and arrest a human will in
its devious course, so as to turn it back again to holiness, is an
unwarrantable exercise of His power and an encroachment upon
man’s liberty. What a world! Where man gets all his own way, where
God is not allowed to interfere, except in that way that man calls
lawful! What a world! where everything turns upon. man’s will,
where the whole current of events in the world or in the church is
regulated, shaped, impelled by man’s will alone. God’s will is but a
secondary thing. Its part is to watch events and follow in the track of
man’s! Man wills — God must say, Amen.
In all this opposition to the absolute will of God, we see the self-will
of these last days manifesting itself. Man wanted to be a god at the
first, and he continues his struggle to the last. He is resolved that his
will shall take the precedence of God’s. In the last Antichrist, this
self-will shall be summed up and exhibited. He is the king that is to
do according to his will. And in the free-will controversy of the day,
we see the same spirit displayed. It is Antichrist that is speaking to us
and exhorting us to proud independence. Self-will is the essence of
anti-Christian religion. Self-will is the root of bitterness that is
springing up in the church — and it is not from above, it is from
beneath. It is earthly, sensual and devilish.