02.02. The Will Of God

God wills our sanctification. Of that there is no doubt. It is not a doctrine of man to be accepted or declined. We are called unto holiness, and God requires His people to be holy because He is holy. His holiness is the pattern, and His people are to be holy because He is holy, and His holiness is the pattern and standard of His demand. Absolute holiness belongs to God alone, and when He commands that His people be holy as He is holy, it means that every quality of holiness in Him must be in them, even as Jesus commanded, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48) What He wills He commands. "For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath given unto us his Holy Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 4:7-8). To reject the call is to reject God -- to despise God. To deny the call is to deny the Holy Spirit. The will of God is our sanctification. Will implies purpose, purpose is dependent upon power, and power assumes provision. What God wills to be He must be able to do; what He requires He must make possible. Will implies freedom, our freedom as well as His. God cannot make saints as He makes worlds. When He wills man’s sanctification, another will is involved. Man cannot be sanctified even by God apart from consent and without cooperation. The thirty-sixth chapter of Ezekiel is the chapter of God’s "I wills." At the end of the chapter God says: "I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it," (Ezekiel 36:36) and immediately adds another "I will": "Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." (Ezekiel 36:37) God’s will waits for man’s will; and God’s power is conditioned upon man’s consent. His will is plainly our sanctification.