Please see the previous articles for six (6) previous lessons of background material. If you do not have copies of the articles, please ask someone where they can be found.
Earlier studies have presented an orderly outline of the scriptural processes involved in Determining God’s Will. The lessons have moved from the most basic principles to the application of them. Here is what we have studied:
If we have properly understood the will of God, we will be united in several matters of paramount importance. First, we will be in agreement that the ultimate source of all truth is God. His will, so evidently manifest in the divinely human person of Christ, is immutable and all encompassing.
Next, (2) we will be in agreement that the expression of the Divine will is through His word. That word was revealed in the Spirit to His delegated apostles and prophets, and it is through their written and spoken record, in its abbreviated completeness, that we learn what God expects of us. That being true, (3) we must handle that record in an honorable way, letting it speak for itself and for God (2 Timothy 2:15). When we see how God reveals His specific desires, in commands or statements, apostolic examples and necessary inferences-none of which have their origin in the human mind-we will know of a surety what is expected of us.
We must (4) agree that God’s specific will is implemented by means of any number of so-called "generic options," in which what God has said is done in ways that are reasonable and effectual, and which reflect in their doing ~everything~ God has specified.
Here, an important principle is of paramount importance: We may not always agree on which generic options are the most reasonable and effectual, but we must always agree that all of these generic options directly flow from what God has specifically said. Any other view is either tyranny, the imposing of one’s will either cruelly or unjustly to force others to comply with that will; or anarchy, the actions of those who are without rule so that disorder and confusion or lawlessness reigns.
When we understand that generics are actually the functions of God’s specific will in keeping with many cultures, nationalities, circumstances and opportunities, we will agree that (5) God’s expressed specific will, acting according to many generic options, limits us in that what God has not so authorized is not available to us to either believe or practice. Thus, we must agree that what God has not authorized is forbidden to us. If we move into that, in our belief or practice, we are doing so lawlessly. In other words, if we have not been instructed to act, then we act without God’s will and thus commit sin (or lawlessness, see Matthew 7:21ff with 2 John 9).
Finally, that being true, surely we can agree that, as it is not our right to do what God has not commanded, (6) we are also not permitted to regulate what God has not regulated, other than by agreement and in such ways as edify God’s people. If God has authorized us to act; and reasonable, and effectual methods and ways of doing that will are weighed and considered, we need to be so striving for unity and mutual agreement that none of us is ever disposed to tyrannical imposing of our own will.
Just as generic options flow out of and are subject to specific authority, our attitude toward all generic options must also flow out of and respect God’s specific word. This is where tradition, being otherwise good and proper, flies in the face of unity: If we impose generic options because that is the way we’ve always done things, then we supplant God’s specific will with our own, and substitute puny and insubstantial selfishness for His imperial authority.
Clearly, to ask the question is to answer it. Consider the following:
It is not enough for us to pay lip service to the overreaching principles of unity in the Spirit, we must earnestly strive for it. For too many years—indeed, centuries—God’s people have fragmented and dimmed their powerful witness for truth, simply because we lost the driving desire for the precious unity about which David wrote in the 133rd Psalm:
"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity! 2 It is like the precious oil upon the head, coming down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard, coming down upon the edge of his robes. 3 It is like the dew of Hermon coming down upon the mountains of Zion; for there the LORD commanded the blessing—life forever."
Unity is both good and pleasant. Furthermore, it is a precious thing that is to be done by Divine decree. It is there, in unity with Him and His eternal nature that you and I, joined together in all-consuming fellowship as we do His will, receive His Holy blessing of being heirs of "life forever."
Brethren, it is time for God’s people to leave off every expression of self-desire and factionalism, "For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing" (James 3:16). We ought rather to be bearing the pure, peaceable, gentle, reasonable good fruits (James 3:17f) that can only bring honor to God and peace to His people.