THE WILL OF GOD
Message One
The Mystery of God's Will in the Universe Ultimately Being to Head Up All Things in Christ through the Church as the Body of Christ
Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:5, 9-11; 3:11; 5:17; Col. 1:9; Rev. 4:11; 21:1-2, 9-11
I. We need to understand what the will of the Lord is—Eph. 5:17; Col. 1:9.
II. God's will is what He wants and what He intends to accomplish—Eph. 1:5, 9, 11:
A. God has an eternal will, which is the source of His eternal purpose—v. 11; 3:11.
B. Since God is eternal, without beginning or ending, His will is also eternal; it lies at the heart of the origin of the universe—Rev. 4:11.
C. God created all things for His will so that He might accomplish and fulfill His purpose—Eph. 3:11.
D. The will of God is concentrated in Christ and is for Christ to have the first place in all things; Christ is everything in God's eternal will—Col. 1:15-18; 3:4, 10-11.
E. God wants to have Christ with the church; the will of God is to obtain the church as the Body of Christ—Eph. 5:32; 1:9, 22-23; 2:21-22; 4:16.
F. God in Christ as the Spirit is now working within us to accomplish His eternal will to have the New Jerusalem—the wife of the Lamb filled with the glory of God for His eternal expression in the new heaven and new earth—Phil. 2:13; Eph. 3:14-21; Rev. 21:1-2, 9-11.
III. According to the good pleasure of His will, God predestinated us unto sonship—Eph. 1:5:
A. God has a will, in which is His good pleasure; God's good pleasure is of His will and is embodied in His will, so His will comes first—vv. 5, 9, 11.
B. God's good pleasure is what makes God happy—it is the desire of His heart; the living, loving, and purposeful God surely has a heart's desire—v. 5.
C. God predestinated us to be His sons according to His pleasure, according to the desire of His heart—v. 5:
1. Before the foundation of the world, God chose us to be holy; to be made holy—to be sanctified by God through His dispensing Himself into us and then mingling His nature with us—is the process, the procedure—v. 4.
2. To be sons of God is the aim, the goal, and is a matter of our being joined to the Son of God and conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God so that our whole being may be "sonized" by God—v. 5; Rom. 8:29; Col. 1:15.
IV. We have been "predestinated according to the purpose of the One who works all things according to the counsel of His will"—Eph. 1:11:
A. God's will is His intention, and God's counsel is His consideration of the way to accomplish His will, His intention.
B. According to His will, a council was held by the Trinity before the foundation of the world to make a counsel, a decision, which is His determined will—1 Pet. 1:20; Rev. 13:8; Eph. 1:11.
V. God's will was hidden in Him as a mystery, so Ephesians 1:9 speaks of "the mystery of His will":
A. In eternity God had a will, but this will was hidden in Him; hence, it was a mystery—v. 9; 3:3-5, 9.
B. In the pleasure of His heart and in His wisdom and prudence, God made this hidden mystery known to us through His revelation in Christ, that is, through Christ's incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension—1:9; John 1:14; Rom. 1:3-4; 4:25; 8:3, 34.
VI. Ultimately, God's will in the universe is to head up all things in Christ through the church as the Body of Christ—Eph. 1:10, 22-23; Rev. 21:1-2:
A. God's eternal intention is, in the economy of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ, who has been appointed to be the universal Head—Eph. 1:10, 22.
B. Through the dispensations of God in all the ages, all things will be headed up in Christ in the new heaven and new earth; this will be God's eternal administration and economy—Rev. 21:1-2.
C. Satan's goal is to corrupt God's creation and to cause confusion—Rom. 8:19-23:
1. The entire universe is a heap of collapse caused by Satan injecting himself as the factor of death into God's creation—Heb. 2:14; Rom. 8:20-21.
2. God is working to liberate His creation from bondage and to bring it into liberty by heading up all things in Christ—Eph. 1:22, 10.
3. We all need to be delivered from the heap of collapse and headed up in Christ—Col. 1:12-13.
4. God's salvation is to save us not only from our fallen, sinful condition but also from the heap of collapse—vv. 12-13; Eph. 2:1-8, 21-22.
D. God will subject all things under Christ by heading up all things in Christ through the church as the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 15:20-28:
1. God is heading up His chosen ones to be the Body of Christ with Christ as the Head—Eph. 1:4, 22-23:
a. Christ's headship is being transmitted to the church; this means that, in a sense, we can share the headship of Christ over all things.
b. The church is under nothing but Christ Himself; we are above everything else because we are the Body of the One who is over all things.
c. The first step in the heading up of all things in Christ is for God to bring His chosen ones, His sons, out of the universal collapse and to place them under the headship of Christ—v. 22; 4:15; 5:23; Col. 1:18; 2:10, 19.
2. When the church takes the lead to be headed up in Christ, God has a way to head up all other things—Eph. 1:22-23, 10:
a. The church is the vessel used by God to solve His problems and to fulfill His purpose, which is to manifest Himself through man by mingling Himself with man—3:9-11.
b. Eventually, the Body with Christ as the Head will be the universal Head over all things—1:22-23.
3. The church life is a life of being headed up—4:15; 1 Cor. 11:3:
a. In the proper church life we are being headed up in Christ.
b. If we do not know what it is to be headed up in Christ, we cannot know the church.
c. In the church life we are taking the lead to be headed up in Christ; for this we need to grow in life—Eph. 4:15.
d. We are headed up through the divine dispensing—1 Tim. 1:4; 3:15; Eph. 1:1; 3:2, 9, 16-17.
e. God is working Himself into His chosen and redeemed ones through an administration that is a sweet dispensing, an intimate stewardship, a comfortable household arrangement—1:10; 3:2; 1 Tim. 1:4; 3:15.
E. The heading up in the church life is by life and light— John 1:4; 8:12:
1. God's way of recovery is Christ versus Satan, life versus death, light versus darkness, and order versus confusion.
2. The collapse comes from the factor of death; the heading up comes from the factor of life—Ezek. 37:4-10.
3. God's way to recover the oneness among His creation is to impart Himself into us as life—Rom. 8:6, 10-11, 19-21.
4. In order to be delivered from the heap of collapse in a practical way, we need to grow in life; the more we grow in life, the more we will be headed up and the more we will be rescued from the universal collapse—Eph. 4:15; Col. 2:19.
5. When God comes into us as life, the light of life shines within us— John 1:4; Eph. 5:8-9:
a. This life swallows death, and this light dispels the darkness— John 8:12.
b. If we are in the life and under the light, we will be delivered out of confusion and brought into order, harmony, and oneness.
F. In the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem as the center, all things will be headed up in Christ; this will be the complete fulfillment of Ephesians 1:10—Rev. 21:2-3, 23-25; 22:1-2a:
1. In the New Jerusalem everything will be saturated with life and will be under light—v. 1; 21:23.
2. In Revelation 21 we see the Head, the Body surrounding the Head, and all the nations walking in the light of the city; the whole universe will be headed up in the light shown through the transparent city—v. 18.