The Christadelphian August 1941, John Carter

“What God Wills”

“The elementary doctrinal principles of religion are few and simple; and no other reason can be given for them than that God wills them” (Elpis Israel, page 167). It is true that the fact that God wills is a sufficient reason for obedience, and indeed the only reason. But we may find why God wills from a consideration of some statements of Scripture. Because this is so, bro. C. C. Walker added the following footnote to Dr. Thomas’ words quoted above:

The fact that God wills the elementary doctrinal principles of religion is all sufficient, but here and there allusions in the Scriptures suggest reasons why He so wills them. For example, when Nadab and Abihu set aside His will and offered strange fire He struck them dead, and Moses recognised the reason. “This is that the Lord spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come night me, and before all the people I will be glorified” (Lev. 11:3). Moses himself afterwards died on Mount Nebo (as Aaron had previously died on Mount Hor) without entering the promised land, and God said it was “because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel” (Deut. 32:51). The Lord’s prayer, in its opening words, places the same principle in the forefront: “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed by thy name”. “If I be a father, where is mine honour?” said God to apostate Israel (Mal. 1:6). “I am a great King, saith the Lord of Hosts, and my Name is dreadful among the heathen” (verse 14). God set forth Jesus as a Mercy seat, not only for man’s sake, but that “He might be just” and “boasting” on man’s part might be “excluded” (Rom. 3:4, 25–27). He committed the treasure of the truth to “earthen vessels” that “the excellency of the power might be of God” and not of man (2 Cor. 4:7). Thus He “chose the base things of the world” . . . “that no flesh should glory in His presence” (1 Cor. 1:29). These and similar scriptures convey the idea that the reasons of God’s appointments in His principles of religion are that, in the first place, He may be “justified”, “honoured”, “sanctified” and “hallowed”; and next, that man, taking this truly reasonable, humble and obedient attitude, may be saved from death and live for ever. No-one more strenuously upholds this doctrine than Dr. Thomas.

No one can question the prerogatives of God; but neither can anyone question the divine will in what is written. “Man honours God in believing His word and obeying His laws”, as Dr. Thomas says on another page in Elpis Israel. If God has revealed it to be His will that men must believe the gospel and be baptized as conditions of salvation, we honour God in believing it. We have no right to say there is any other way to salvation, or that men who do not comply with the conditions may yet be saved. Indeed, when we examine the Scriptures to find out why God so wills, we begin to realize that any who seek to enter some other way are not honouring, sanctifying, justifying God. For the rite of baptism has a significance, and its meaning embodies a recognition of the principles of God’s dealings with sinful men. To submit to a symbolic death is a confession that we are under the dominion of death as the result of God’s righteous decree. God has always required this acknowledgment as a condition of approach since the days of Eden, although the form in which it had to be expressed has varied. To God belongs the right to say how men may draw near to Him. When He has said, that is His will until He changes the conditions.

Men call upon the name of the Lord, not when the name of the Lord is taken upon their lips, but when they believe as the result of hearing the word of God preached. “How shall they call”, asks Paul, “on him in whom they have not believed?”; and he adds that belief comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Rom. 10:8–17).

For a clear and vigorous exposition of the subject we know of nothing better than what is written in Elpis Israel, Part 1, chapter 5.