We need to prove by our experience that the will of God is indeed what Paul tells us it is, that is, that it is good, pleasing, and perfect. We need to check it out. Moreover, it is by checking it out that we will begin to find out what it actually is.
We need to prove by our experience that the will of God is indeed what Paul tells us it is, that is, that it is good, pleasing, and perfect. We need to check it out. Moreover, it is by checking it out that we will begin to find out what it actually is.
The will of God that we are talking about is good, pleasing and perfect. In other words, it teaches about the nature of God’s will for us as well as the fact that God has one.
In this verse “will” is to be interpreted in its context, and the context indicates that the will of God that we are encouraged to follow is the general will of offering our bodies to God as living sacrifices, refusing to be conformed to the world’s ways, and instead being transformed from within by the renewing of our minds. It is this that we are to pursue and thus find to be good, pleasing and perfect, though, of course, if we do it, we will also find ourselves working out the details of God’s specific will for our lives.
I find it significant that this is where Paul’s statements about being transformed by the renewing of our minds, rather than being conformed to the patterns of this world, end. They end with proving the way of God to be the best way and the will of God to be perfect.
The doctrine of redemption—the fact that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)—infinitely intensifies man’s value, because it teaches that even in his fallen condition in which he hates God and kills his fellow creatures, man is still so valuable to God that God planned for and carried out the death of His own precious Son to save him.
If human beings are more important and more valuable than the humanists imagine, why is it that things are so bad? The answer is the Christian doctrine of sin, which tells us that although people are more valuable than secularists imagine, they are in worse trouble than the humanists can admit.
If we are to have renewed minds, we need to stop thinking about ourselves and other people as the world thinks of itself and others and instead begin operating within a biblical framework.
Canadian Committee of The Bible Study Hour
PO Box 24087, RPO Josephine
North Bay, ON, P1B 0C7