Created for Good Works

Ephesians 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” 

There is one more aspect regarding the will of God that I must mention, which is God’s will regarding His saints. We have already seen that God has His perfect will and that He has His permissible will. We have also already established that based on God’s foreknowledge of His saints that He predestines them for salvation. But it does not end there, for based on God’s foreknowledge of His saints He also knows which will serve Him wholeheartedly and which will not. In other words God knows our potential. And so based on that knowledge God then predestines the lives of each one of His saints accordingly. He does that by preparing specific good works for each of His saints to complete while they are on the earth. These good works form part of God’s perfect will for each one of our lives. The Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul teaches us this truth in the passage of scripture quoted above. But we have also seen that God does not create robots. And so even though God has already prepared good works for each of us to complete while on the earth, this does not mean that we will automatically walk in those good works. Notice that the scripture says that we “should” walk in those good works, not that we “would” walk in them. In other words in this life our free will still reigns supreme, and so God will not override the free will of His saints. Nevertheless to those who seek His will for their lives, God reveals His will to them. Sadly many of the Lord’s saints never take the step to find out His will for their lives. Those who do seek His will however, and then are obedient to do His will are the ones who walk in the perfect will of God. All saints who choose not to walk in God’s perfect will however, automatically then walk in His permissible will. For the saint who completes God’s perfect will for their lives, they can expect God’s perfect rewards, whereas for the saint who chooses to walk in God’s permissible will, it is obvious that they cannot expect to receive God’s perfect rewards. And so we see that even among His saints, that in this life the will of man reigns supreme in the makeup of man. For it is as an act of our free will that we choose to walk in God’s perfect will or to walk in His permissible will.

Hidden things belong to God

Acts 13:48 “Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.” 

Although God knows everything He does not reveal all of His knowledge to men. And so while it is true that based on God’s foreknowledge of men He decides who is appointed to salvation and who is not, He does not reveal that knowledge to us. In the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit speaks of those whom God had appointed to eternal life. While the apostle Peter in his writings speaks of those whom God has appointed to disobedience. In other words these individuals have been appointed by God to destruction (1 Peter 2:7-8). And so we can clearly see from these passages of scripture and others in the previous section, that God decides who is appointed to salvation and who isn’t.

Mark 16:15-16 “And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.  (16) He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” 

Nevertheless, even though God knows exactly who will and will not be saved, in His wisdom, He does not reveal that knowledge to us. And so God instructs us to preach the gospel to all men, thus giving all men the opportunity to repent and believe in the gospel. We do that in obedience to Him and God then adds to His church those whom He has appointed unto salvation. The reason that I have mentioned this in this section is because there are those who take the doctrine of predestination to the extreme. They do so by stating that it is not necessary to give people opportunities to respond to the gospel message, because if God has predestined them for salvation then He will get them saved and we don’t have to do anything about it. As revealed in the passage of scripture quoted above however, that is completely contrary to the instruction that our Lord Jesus has given to His church, for we are to go into the entire world and preach the gospel to every creature. One of the reasons we do that is because we do not know who will and will not respond to the message of salvation, only God does.

Michael E.B. Maher

The Will of Man

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