The Will of God (Part 3)

By Bob Myhan

The four facets of the will of God can, perhaps, be better comprehended in the context of the eternal purpose of God, which is to give eternal life to all those who choose to receive it.

¹⁰ “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

²⁷ “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. ²⁸ And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” (John 10:27-28)

¹ Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledg­ment of the truth which accords with god­liness, ² in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time be­gan (Titus 1:1-2)

⁸ Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His pris­oner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, ⁹ who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began (2 Tim. 1:8-9)

⁸ To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the un­searchable riches of Christ, ⁹ and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mys­tery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; ¹⁰ to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, ¹¹ according to the eter­nal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph. 3:8-11)

Though the angels in heaven are a higher order of being than man (Psalm 8:4-6) and though they were created before man, they were created with a view to their being used by God as intermediaries between Him and man.

¹⁴ Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation? (Heb. 1:14)

Though man was the last of God’s physi­cal creatures in point of time, he was the first in point of plan. God wanted a being who was capable of choosing to be like Him in character. Therefore man, as he was first created, was as much like God as a physical creature could be.

²⁶ Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." ²⁷ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Gen. 1:26-27)

²⁹ “Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, But they have sought out many schemes." (Eccl. 7:29)

Adam and Eve were, indeed, created up­right. Everything they needed was provided for them—even responsibilities, both posi­tive and negative. The man was to tend and keep the garden. The woman was to be his helper. And they were to refrain from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:15-18; 3:1-3).

Just as the earth is far enough away from the sun not to be burned up by it yet close enough not to freeze, man had to be placed far enough away from God that he could not “walk by sight” but close enough to God that he could “walk by faith.”

²⁶ "And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the bounda­ries of their dwellings, ²⁷ so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; ²⁸ for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own po­ets have said, 'For we are also His off­spring.'" (Acts 17:26-28)

⁷ For we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor. 5:7)

Adam and Eve failed to walk by faith and were cast out of the garden (Gen. 3:1-24). Abel was the first in a long line of individuals to walk by faith thereby pleasing God (Gen. 4:1-4; Heb. 11:4-40).

In order to be able to choose to remain holy, man also had to be able to choose to sin. Thus, we have the ideal will and inciden­tal will of God.

Knowing man would sin, God pro­vided a means whereby man could regain the holi­ness he lost through sin. This He did in the giving of His only begotten Son on the cross of Calvary. It is the circum­stantial will of God that man avail himself of the means, which He revealed in the Bible.

Those who do not choose to be in fellow­ship with God in this life will forfeit fellowship with Him eter­nally because it is the ultimate will of God to reward with eternal life those who choose to receive it and to deny it to those who choose it not. He who desires to be left alone will be. He who de­sires fellow­ship with God will never be left alone but will be with God and the righteous forever. &

The Circumcision Made Without Hands

By Kent Heaton

The covenant of circumcision was first given to Abraham in Genesis 17 and became a sign of the covenant be­tween God and the children of Israel. The early church had numerous problems with Jewish converts trying to impose circumci­sion upon Christians (Acts 15). When the Law of Moses was abolished, the covenant of circumcision was also abolished. How­ever, Paul uses circumcision to describe the avenue of salvation for all men. “In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead” (Colossians 2:11-12).

While the circumcision of Abraham was a fleshly act, the covenant described by Paul was one “made without hands” signifying a spiritual cutting off the old man of sin. “Knowing this, that our old man was cruci­fied with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin” (Romans 6:6). The necessity of circumcision was imposed upon the chil­dren of Israel as the sign of God’s grace and mercy. “And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My cove­nant" (Genesis 17:14). This same imposition is implied by Paul in the circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh.

The circumcision of Christ is the antitype of the circumcision of Abraham as a sign of the covenant between God and His people. Without the circumcision of Christ man can­not enjoy the blessings of the covenant. When a Jewish male was circumcised on the eighth day (Leviticus 12:3) he entered into covenant with God. When someone seeks to be saved today they must also enter into a covenant with God through the act of the circumcision made without hands. Paul de­scribes this circumcision in Colossians 2:12 as baptism.

“Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united to­gether in the likeness of His death, cer­tainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6:3-5).

When one obeys the gospel of Christ through faith and is baptized for the remis­sion of sins (Acts 2:28) they become the “true circumcision, the people who are in covenant with God” (Wilbur Fields).

The act of fleshly circumcision involved blood and through the spiritual act of cir­cumcision (baptism) the blood of Jesus Christ redeems us and makes us blood bought people in covenant with the Father. “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant” (Hebrews 13:20; see also Matthew 26:28; Hebrews 9:16-10:18). Without the circumcision made without hands there is no covenant and without a covenant there is no salvation. Obedience requires submission to the cove­nant requirements of the law of God. &