A Believer’s Will 571
the command beforehand; out of righteousness, he would not force
man to do what the latter did not wish to do. For man to obey God, it
requires a willingness on his part, because God never compels him.
He could verily employ sundry means to make man willing;
nevertheless, until he gives his consent God will not make His way
into the man.
This is an exceedingly vital principle. We shall see later how the
Creator never works against this principle, whereas the evil spirits
consistently do. By this can we distinguish what is of God and what
is not.
The Fall and SalvationUnfortunately, mankind has fallen. By this plunge man’s
unfettered volition suffered prodigious damage. We may say that
there are two massive contradictory wills throughout the universe.
On the one side stands the holy and perfect will of God; on the other
is arrayed the defiled, defiling and opposing will of Satan. In
between subsists the sovereign, independent, free will of man. When
man listens to the devil and rebels against God he seems to render an
eternal “no” to God’s will and an abiding “yes” to Satan’s. Since
man employs his volition to choose the will of the devil, his volition
falls captive to the devil. Therefore all his acts are governed by
Satan’s will. Until he overturns his early subjection, mad s will
remains unquestionably oppressed by the enemy power.
In this fallen position and condition man is fleshly. This flesh—by
which his will, together with his other organs, is ruled—is
thoroughly corrupted. How can anything pleasing to God ever result
from such a darkened will? Even his questing after God springs from
the realm of the flesh and therefore lacks any spiritual value. He may
invent many ways of worshiping God at this time, yet all are his own
ideas, all are “will-worship” (Col. 2.23 ASV), totally unacceptable to
Him.