KNOWLEDGE OF GOD'S WILL IMPOSES OBLIGATION.
6. "Knowing the will of God" means more than simply knowing about God, that he created heaven and earth and gave the Law, and so on, a knowledge even the Jews and Turks possess. For doubtless to them has been revealed that knowledge of God and of his will concerning our conduct which nature—the works of creation—can teach. Rom 1, 20. But if we fail to do God's revealed will, the knowledge of it does not benefit us. Such mere mental consciousness is a vain, empty thing; it does not fulfil God's will in us. Indeed, it eventually becomes a condemnatory knowledge of our own eternal destruction. When this point has been reached, further enlightenment is necessary if man is to be saved. He must know the meaning of Christ's words in John 6, 40: "This is the will of my Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on him, should have eternal life"; and in Matthew 18, 14: "It is not the will of your Father, that one of these should perish, which believe on me."
7. Since we have not done God's will according to the first revelation and must be rejected and condemned by his eternal, unendurable wrath, in his divine wisdom and mercy he has determined, or willed, to permit his only Son to take upon himself our sin and wrath; to give Christ as a sacrifice for our ransom, whereby the unendurable wrath and condemnation might be turned from us; to grant us forgiveness of sins and to send the Holy Spirit into our hearts, thus enabling us to love God's commandments and delight in them. This determination or will he reveals through the Son, and commands him to declare it to the world. And in Matthew 3, 17 he directs us to Christ as the source of all these blessings, saying: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him."
SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE ENJOINED.
8. Paul would gladly have a spiritual knowledge of these things increase in us until we are enriched and filled—wholly assured of their truth. Sublime and glorious knowledge this, the experience of a human heart which, born in sins, boldly and confidently believes that God, in his unfathomable majesty, in his divine heart, has irrevocably purposed—and wills for all men to accept and believe it—that he will not impute sin, but will forgive it and be gracious, and grant eternal life, for the sake of his beloved Son.
9. This spiritual knowledge or confidence, is not so easily learned as are other things. It is not so readily apprehended as the knowledge of the law written in nature, which when duly recognized by the heart overpowers with the conviction of God's wrath. Indeed, that more than anything else hinders Christians and saints from obtaining the knowledge of God's will in Christ, for it compels heart and conscience to plead guilty in every respect and to confess having merited the wrath of God; therefore the soul naturally fears and flees from God. Then, too, the devil fans the flame of fear and sends his wicked, fiery arrows of dismay into the heart, presenting only frightful pictures and examples of God's anger, filling the heart with this kind of knowledge to the exclusion of every other thought or perception. Thus recognition of God's wrath is learned only too well, for it becomes bitterly hard for man to unlearn it, to forget it in the knowledge of Christ. Again, the wicked world eagerly contributes its share of hindrance, its bitter hatred and venomous outcry against Christians as people of the worst type, outcast, condemned enemies of God. Moreover, by its example it causes the weak to stumble. Our flesh and blood also is a drawback, being waywardly inclined, making much of its own wisdom and holiness and seeking thereby to gain honor and glory or to live in security a life of wealth, pleasure and covetousness. Hence on every side a Christian must be in severe conflict, and fight against the world and the devil, and against himself also, if he is to succeed in preserving the knowledge of God's will.
WE MUST PRAY FOR SPIRITUAL LIGHT.
10. Now, since this knowledge of the Gospel is so difficult to attain and so foreign to nature, it is necessary that we pray for it with all earnestness and labor to be increasingly filled with it, and to learn well the will of God. Our own experience testifies that if it be but superficially and improperly learned, when one is overtaken by a trifling misfortune or alarmed by a slight danger or affliction, his heart is easily overwhelmed with the thunderbolts of God's wrath as he reflects: "Wo to me! God is against me and hates me." Why should this miserable "Wo!" enter the heart of a Christian upon the occasion of a little trouble? If he were filled with the knowledge of God as he should be, and as many secure, self-complacent spirits imagine themselves to be, he would not thus fear and make outcry. His agitation and his complaint, "O Lord God! why dost thou permit me to suffer this?" are evidence that he as yet knows not God's will, or at least has but a faint conception of it; the wo exceeds the joy. But full knowledge of God's will brings with it a joy that far overbalances all fear and terror, ay, removes and abolishes them altogether.
11. Therefore let us learn this truth and with Paul pray for what we and all Christians supremely need—full knowledge of God's will, not a mere beginning; for we are not to imagine a beginning will suffice and to stop there as if we had comprehended it all. Everything is not accomplished in the mere planting; watering and cultivation must follow. In this case the watering and cultivating are the Word of God, and prayer against the devil, who day and night labors to suppress spiritual knowledge, to beat down the tender plants wherever he sees them springing up; and also against the world, which promotes only opposition and directs its wisdom and reason to conflicting ends. Did not God protect us and strengthen the knowledge of his will, we would soon see the devil's power and the extent of our spiritual understanding.
12. We have a verification of this assertion in that poetical work, the book of Job. Satan appears before God, who asks (ch. 1, 8): "Hast thou considered my servant Job? for there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God." And Satan answers on this wise: "Yea, thou hast surrounded him with thy protection and kept me at bay; but only withdraw thy hand and I venture I will soon bring him around to curse thee to thy face"; as he afterward did when he afflicted Job with ugly boils and in addition filled him with his fiery arrows—terrifying thoughts of God. Further, Christ said to Peter and the other apostles: "Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not." Lk 22, 31-32. In short, if God hinders him not, Satan dares to overthrow even the greatest and strongest saints.