What Does “The Will of God” Mean? . . .

SOMEONE POISONED THE CANDY

It was such a tragic story coming out of Pasadena, Texas. A little boy sampled some of the candy out of his Halloween trick-or-treat bag, and went into convulsions almost immediately. He died at the hospital shortly afterwards. The neighbors in the upper-class suburb were shocked that such a thing could happen on their street. Police waited for the father, who had accompanied his son and other children on their fun night, to regain his composure so that he could retrace the route they had taken and thus begin the search for the unconscionable soul who would drop poisoned candy into a child’s bag.

The following day the news from Pasadena was even more shocking. The child’s own father was in jail, charged with the murder of his own son. The man’s friends were stunned in disbelief. His neighbors could not conceive of such horror. His associates at the near-by Baptist Church where he was a member, including the pastor, insisted that they could not believe it until they heard it from his own lips. But the authorities were sure of their evidence, that the man had murdered his own flesh and blood for the sake of insurance money.

Facts like these cause us to marvel at the mystery of evil, and it chastens us in regard to the nature of man. Have you ever wondered if you yourself might be capable of such gross cruelty, or if our own nation could sink to the degradation of Nazi Germany? Not only does the apostle speak of “lying wonders,” but of those who wander so far from God as to be “without sense, without honour, without natural affection, without pity” (Rom. 1:31). What kind of a creature does man become when he is senseless, pityless, and has no affection for his own offspring? We cringe at even claiming kin to such a one, and we can’t allow ourselves to accept the fact that even some men are like that. To say that such a one is sick doesn’t help much, for all the camouflages of psychology cannot hide the ugly truth of man’s capacity for gross evil.

One unacceptable interpretation coming out of such tragedies is that It is the will of God. We hear this around every corner, however dark human existence becomes. A young mother is struck down by cancer, leaving several children who need her so badly. A man loses both hands in an accident shortly after graduating from dental school, left bewildered because he cannot repay his aged parents who made such sacrifices to put him through school. A wife has to hear the bitter news that her husband has been killed in company with another woman, leaving her wracked as much by his infidelity as by his death. An athlete is paralyzed for life in one fatal moment on the field, and all his hopes and dreams are gone forever while still just a boy.

How can anyone believe that any of this, with all the compounded evils that life has to dispense, is the will of God. How can anyone lay a hand on the shoulder of that lonely woman in Pasadena, whose son is dead and whose husband is in jail for murdering him, and say to her, God has willed it Not only is it senseless, it is brutal. We can say that our heavenly Father cares and understands, and that He suffers with her. But not that it is His will.

Someone poisoned the candy! It is so descriptive of much of human experience. Multitudes starve because they were born in the wrong place. Vicious rumors destroy good reputations. Deception violates sacred trusts. Even innocent neglect sometimes allows a fatal disease to take its toll. A single misadventure can wipe away a fortune. Many businesses fail that almost made it. Many a person failed who really deserved to make it. Many have to cope with life who are naturally too ill-equipped for the ordeal. They hunger even while sitting at the banquet of life.

Since we are to be light in this kind of a world, we must seek to relate the will of God to the human predicament. What do we as the earth’s salt have to say about God’s will to all those who are battered by inexplicable tragedy?

A generation ago Leslie Weatherhead wrote a little book on The Will of God, which deals beautifully with the problem I have raised. He writes from the heart to those who are distressed and perplexed, and who are asking How could God ever allow such a thing to happen? There is entirely too much thinking about the will of God, he says, which can leave one with a fatalistic view of life. Rather than to use “the will of God” indiscriminately, which is so often the case. Mr. Weatherhead suggests a threefold distinction: the intentional will of God, the circumstantial will of God, and the ultimate will of God.

He illustrates this distinction by pointing to the Cross, which he cannot see as God’s intentional will. God intended that men should follow Jesus, not murder him. The discipleship of men was His intention, not the death of His Son. This might be called His ideal purpose.

When men’s evil came into conflict with God’s loving purpose, the circumstance was such that the Cross was the only way out. The Cross was now God’s will, His circumstantial will. In the garden Jesus seems to shrink from the Cross as something alien and evil, but he accepts it as God’s will. Though nothing is more tragic than the Cross, it became the means whereby the ultimate will of God is realized, the salvation of lost humanity.

The lesson is dramatic, for it shows that God is able to bring good out of evil. Surely He doesn’t poison anyone’s candy, and it is not His intention that anyone else do so, but we can believe that somehow He will work everything for good for those who seek His will.

It is God’s intentional will that your baby daughter grow to womanhood, marry and bear children, be a busy and blessed mother and grandmother, live a long and fruitful life, and then go home to the Father. But things may go wrong, whether it be your daughter’s fault or not. She may become mentally or physically crippled; she may die in the bloom of youth. Or, less tragically, she may never be a wife or mother. It is hardly likely that God ordains spinsterhood or widowhood. But it happens in the kind of world He ordained. So, when this happens to one of his children, his circumstantial will takes over, ‘find your daughter, now a spinster, is under God’s will to find her fulfillment in a different direction, maybe in teaching or social work or business. In any event, if she looks to Jesus, God’s ultimate will for her will be realized through all eternity.

However we express it, we must believe that God’s will is always centered in love. His will is to bless, to bestow life and health and peace. Jesus says in Matt. 18:14: “It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.” All that Jesus did and said show that he considered death and disease and all human suffering as opposed to God’s purposes for man.

But ours is a world in which people are lost and where misery does seem to have the upper-hand. God’s will has to operate in a sinful world. He has not created us to be automatons. In giving us freewill He could not help but allow for the consequences of that freedom, which are evil as well as good. The culprit in it all is the evil will of man. This evil in man must be checked by the will of God, else the world would be swallowed up by lawlessness. So Paul writes in Col. 2:5: “Put to death, therefore, every part of you that is earthly: fornication, unchastity, passion, evil desire, and exploitation (for this is idol-worship); because of these things the Wrath of God is to come upon the disobedient.”

Lam. 3:33 makes it clear that “God does not willingly grieve nor afflict the children of men,” but the evil will of man makes afflictions a dire necessity. This is the eternal conflict between good and evil, and this is the reason for the Cross. Because of the danger of Paul’s pride, the Lord allowed a messenger of Satan to strike him with a thorn in the flesh. God used this evil circumstance in the apostle’s life to make His strength perfect through weakness. We can believe that He will act just as graciously in the life of any of us.

Man’s evil does prevail, but it cannot forever. God’s intentional will is often frustrated, but we believe that even here He meets His children in the frustration and “works for their good.” Ultimately evil will be destroyed and the ideal in God’s mind will be realized. Our part in all this will be determined by the way we respond to the kind of world we are part of. That response is to trust God’s goodness and wisdom. It has to remain an unfathomable mystery as to why God created the kind of world He did and gave to man the kind of nature he has. Our part is not to “reply against God,” as the apostle warns against, but to accept in child-like faith His will in our lives, believing that in whatever circumstances He has a plan for us, and that in the end His eternal purpose will be realized. That is what religion is all about.—the Editor