From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We are still considering, as most of you will remember, the first two verses in the 12th chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

We have reached the stage at which we have got to consider that last phrase: "that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." I've been trying to show how in these two verses, the Apostle introduces the great theme of Christian living. Having outlined the great doctrine in the first 11 chapters, he now comes to application, which he introduces with this word "therefore." Here, in this summary, we are given the great principles of Christian conduct and Christian behavior.

First of all, he gives us the motives for Christian living: "therefore," the doctrine, "mercies of God," what he's done for us, and a sense of gratitude. There is the motive. Then, he came to consider the way or the manner in which we live the Christian life. There, he deals with the body—that we present our actual physical, material bodies as a living sacrifice to God, holy, acceptable, and well-pleasing in his sight, which is our intelligent, mental service and worship of God. Then, that we be not conformed to this world, the realm of human relationships, but positively, that we be renewed in our minds. That's the manner or the way of Christian living. It affects body, soul, and spirit—the whole man.

Having done that, he ends here by telling us the real reason for doing all this, the aim, the object, or the objective which we should have in our minds, and which is, in essence, the ultimate reason and motive for doing all that he has been exhorting us to do. This is the ultimate object and objective of it all, and he introduces that to us by this word "that": "be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that," in order that.

The authorities argue a good deal about this. They say this word "that" can be taken in two ways. It can indicate the object of doing all this, the thing to which all this is going to lead, or it can be interpreted as the result of doing all that. He is saying, "If you do all that, well then, you will prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." I believe that the two ideas are surely included. The one leads to the other quite inevitably. So, instead of saying the one or the other, I think it's better to take both. This is why we should be doing all this, and it is only as we do all this that we can arrive at that.

Here again, we are confronted by a vital statement introducing a vital principle. We can show the connection between this and the immediately preceding statement in this form: the Apostle has told us that what marks out the Christian from everybody else is that he has a new mind. He doesn't any longer mind earthly things, but he minds spiritual things. He's got a new way of thinking and a new approach to every problem. The mind is renewed altogether in the Christian, and he has to do everything he can in his cooperation with the work of the Holy Spirit in him to renew that mind more and more.

Now, the Apostle says that this has to happen in particular in one great respect: in our understanding of and appreciation of God's will with respect to us. We have to have this new mind with regard to everything in this life and world. But he says the ultimate object of the new mind is that we are able to understand and to appreciate the will of God in a way that we've never been able to before. This is the thing that differentiates Christianity from everything else. We must never take up the position merely of saying that the Christian teaching is better than everything else. That's not what we say. What we say is that it's entirely different, that it's unique. It isn't in series with anything else. It isn't the chiefest or the highest or the best of the moral, ethical systems. It's entirely different. Its whole basis is different.

You see, the Christian teaching about behavior is not only interested in conduct. It is interested in conduct, of course, but only as conduct is an objective manifestation of an ultimate attitude. It isn't merely a matter of conduct or that we should be generally good. That is where the kind of religion introduced about 130 years ago was so violating Christian teaching. This idea that the Christian is just a good little gentleman is morality; it's got nothing to do with Christianity, and it's a contradiction of this essential principle.

What is Christian conduct interested in, then? It's interested in this: conformity to the will of God. Not that I should be pleased with myself, or not that I should please others, or not that I should be able to be above criticism or suspicion. It isn't that. It’s not that I should be a good citizen of Great Britain. It includes all these things, but that isn't the thing that Christianity is concerned about. What is it? Conformity to the will of God. It doesn't look at it from the human standpoint; it's not interested in that. The Christian is not interested in what people think or say. What he is interested in is what God says. The ultimate objective of the whole of the Christian life is to bring us into conformity with the will of God.

That is to be always our view of salvation. Many of our troubles and difficulties in the Christian church, even amongst evangelical people today, are due to the fact that we have not always been careful to remember that and to emphasize it as we should. We must never view our salvation in a negative or in a partial manner. Some people seem to think that salvation is merely a question of forgiveness of sins. It starts with that and includes that, but to think of salvation solely in terms of forgiveness is to miss this glorious emphasis that we have right through the New Testament.

To think of it merely in terms of a very happy experience is not enough. Many stop at that. They say, "I'll never forget it, that wonderful experience," and they go on talking about that change in the life. "Whereas I was miserable, now I'm happy. I used to get this trouble, and I no longer get it. I've had this wonderful change." Of course it's there, and it's a vital part of Christianity. But the mere fact that you may be happy now, whereas you used to be miserable, or that you've got joy, that's not the whole of this Christian salvation. It's very wrong indeed to think of it in those terms.

It's still worse to think of Christianity merely in terms of deliverance from particular sins. It does that, but it doesn't stop at that. Many people come and really give me this impression: they seem to think that if only they could stop doing one particular thing, all would be well with them. There's one thing that's always getting them down. This thing that's spoiling their lives, that's making them miserable and unhappy, this thing that always defeats them—they're interested in this one thing. This statement is a terrible condemnation of all that. It's a negative approach and a negative view, and it reduces the Christian salvation in its glory to something small. Salvation is never small. It's neither small nor negative; it's always positive. It's always big and great.

What is the object of salvation? Is it merely to deliver me from hell? No, it is to make me conform to the will of God. I can be a man who's not guilty of certain sins, I can be highly moral and ethical, but I can still be utterly hopeless in the sight of God. You remember what our Lord said about the Pharisees: "Ye are they that justify yourselves before men." Highly moral—there's the ideal of the world and its systems. But he goes on to say, "But God knoweth the hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God."

That is the trouble with the so-called good pagan, with your moral, ethical person, your so-called Christian agnostic. There's no such thing. They think of it merely in terms of decency and good moral living and ethics and so on. But the Christian teaching is concerned about conformity to the will of God. Here, the Apostle brings us up to that level, showing us the essential characteristic of this great teaching.

This is what you may describe as the one big theme of the Bible. This is what the Bible is about. It tells us that we must get the right view of man and that all our troubles are due to the fact that we've got the wrong view of man. What is this? Well, it tells us that man was made in order that he might glorify God. That's why God ever made man, and that's especially why he made him in his own image and likeness. Man was meant to be the representative of God on earth; he was to be the lord of creation. He was meant also to be the companion of God. God made man for himself in order that he might commune with him and have companionship and fellowship with him.

There is the thing that's basic in the whole of the Bible, and God has made this quite clear: that man, therefore, was to live in a particular way and manner. You get it, for instance, in the Ten Commandments. That's man as he should be, conforming to the will of God. Man was made in order that he might conform to the will of God, and in the Ten Commandments, you see that will. Or you can take the summary of all that, as our Lord put it on that occasion when he was asked which was the first and the chiefest of the commandments. He said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and mind, and soul, and strength." That is the first and the chiefest commandment, and the second is like unto it: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

The men who asked that question had a great shock. They were interested in the various details, as moralists and ethical people always are. But our Lord lifts it right up. He says, "This is man. This is how man is meant to live: loving God with the whole of his being in perfect conformity to the will of God." Or you've got another summary of it, which you'll find frequently in the Old Testament and quoted in the New. It's a staggering one, but if you want to know what a man is meant to be like, here it is: "Be ye holy, for I am holy." That's it. You are to be holy because I am holy, says God. There, you get the whole idea of the image and the likeness put in a very practical manner.

So, we are not simply in the realm of "shall I do this" or "mustn't I do that." I refuse to reduce the whole of this glorious gospel of liberty and this perfect law of liberty to a mere matter of rules and vetoes and prohibitions and restraints. What I am told is this: that I am to be holy because God is holy. Here is the principle that the Apostle teaches here. This is the object of salvation: "that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." We are meant for nothing less than that. As the Apostle puts it in writing to Titus, he gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Or as the Apostle Peter puts it, "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people." What for? "That ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." His praises, his excellencies, his virtues, his power—that's how the Christian is to live. He's to live in such a way that men, looking at him, will glorify God. Well, again, our Lord has summed that up for us: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, but glorify your Father which is in heaven."

Man is meant to live according to the will of God and to rejoice in it. Here again, we quote the answer to the first question in the famous shorter catechism: "What is the chief end of man?" Is it just not to go to hell? Is it just not to get drunk or not to commit adultery? The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. "That ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." There it is.

The Apostle says you must pay great attention to this renewing of your mind because if you don't, you will never prove what God's will is. Here again is a vital statement. What he's really telling us is that man by nature does not prove what God's will is. Isn't that the whole trouble with man? The trouble with man is not that he commits particular sins; the real trouble with man is his whole attitude to God. It's entirely wrong.

The Apostle has reminded us of that in the 8th chapter in the 7th verse of this great epistle, where he has told us, "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." That is the essential trouble with man. Or as he puts it elsewhere, "You were enemies and aliens in your minds by wicked works." This is the sort of thing that isn't emphasized. We are so interested in particular sins and particular problems. We've got to have a renewed mind; we've got to view it in an entirely different manner.

The trouble is not merely that man is wrong in the whole of his thinking. He is particularly wrong, and exceptionally wrong, in the whole of his thinking about God and about the will of God for him. That is man's most essential trouble. It is only as a man is saved and born again that he is given this new mind and outlook, and he's got to develop it as much as he can.

There, you see, we are given the measure of the Fall of man. What a terrible thing the Fall was. It wasn't just a matter of eating an apple. What really happened there was this: man's whole thinking about God and his holy will went wrong. The devil suggested it: "Hath God said?" That's the will of God. God has said you mustn't touch that fruit, and God has said that because he wants to keep you down. It was a query about the will of God—the rightness, the goodness, the holiness, the acceptability of the will of God. Man listened to the devil, and his whole view of the will of God has been wrong ever since. It is at this point we see most acutely the devastating effect of the Fall of man. Over and above all that it leads to in practice and in conduct and in detailed behavior, this is the most terrible thing of all: that man has got an entirely wrong and perverted view of the will of God with respect to him.

So, here, the Apostle is saying, "Pay great attention to this renewing of your mind because it is only as you renew your minds and cooperate with the work of the Spirit within you that you will come to prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." Now, let's look at this. Take this word "prove." What does this mean exactly? The word means to test, to try, to examine, and ultimately to approve. Everybody's agreed that that is the essential meaning of the word: to prove, to test, in order to come to approval.

We can translate it in many different ways. You can say to test and thereby to understand and prove for ourselves. Or you can say it means the power to distinguish between what pleases and displeases God. "Renew your mind," says the Apostle, "in order that you may develop the power of distinguishing between what pleases God and what displeases God." It means a clarity of moral perception. If you like, it means a kind of tenderness of conscience. Now, that is the content of this word "prove."

But in order to make this clear, let me give you some other examples of the use of this same word which the Apostle used here. You've got it, for instance, in the epistle to the Romans itself. He's already used it in the 2nd chapter and in verse 18. He's dealing here with a Jew: "Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law." There's one example of it.

But then we go to another, in the 5th chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians and verse 10: "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: proving what is acceptable unto the Lord." Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. Exactly the same idea.

And then you've got it once more in the epistle to the Philippians and in the 1st chapter and the 10th verse. The Apostle says in verse 9, "And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent." Which someone says should be translated, "discriminate between things that are different." And so, decide what is excellent and what isn't excellent: "that ye may be sincere and without offense until the day of Christ."

Now, what the Apostle is therefore telling us is this: that the man who renews his mind in the way we've been considering and obeys the leading and the prompting of the Spirit, he shall be able to discover certain things about the will of God. This is the most important thing that a man can ever do. Our trouble fundamentally as sinners is that we do not understand and approve of the will of God, and what salvation does for us is to enable us to do so.

Our Lord himself once put this very clearly. You'll find it in the 7th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John in verse 17. They were questioning him about his doctrine. Jesus answered and said, "My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." And it's virtually the same thing. He says, "Now, if you only do what I'm telling you, then you will prove, you will know, whether my doctrine is only my own or whether it is, as I claim it to be, truly the doctrine of God." But you notice he says you've got to do something about it. You can't, as it were, look theoretically at the will of God and come to certain conclusions; you'll never do it that way. You've got to put it into practice, then you will.

Or take another illustration of very much the same thing. Take that well-known statement at the end of Hebrews 5. The author is anxious to tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ as a great High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. But this is what he says: "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." Now, the word "discern" comes from the same root as this word "prove" that we are dealing with here in Romans 12:2. And you see what he's saying: you will not be able to discern both good and evil unless you use your senses, unless you renew your mind. You've got to do it, and as you renew your mind, you will be given this understanding which will enable you to discriminate between good and evil.

Now, that's exactly what the Apostle is telling us at this point. He's exhorted us to renew our minds. Why? Well, he says, if you do so, you will discover certain things about the will of God. And you will see that the great salvation in Christ has undone all the worst effects of the Fall of man. What does it do? Well, the first thing we'll discover is this: renew your mind, think spiritually, study the Scriptures, get hold of these doctrines. What will you find? The first thing you'll find is this: that the will of God is *good*.

That's a wonderful discovery, and there is no greater proof of the fact that a man has been converted, born again, than that he has changed his mind about the will of God. Man by nature always feels that God is against him and that God's ways are bad for him. He dislikes God's law. There it is again: "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." The natural man hates the law of God. Of course, when he identifies the law of God with his own little morality, he thinks he loves the law of God. But that isn't the law of God. When the natural man really knows what the law of God is, he hates it. That's why the bitterest opponents of the Christian faith have generally been Pharisees, good, moral, religious people. When Christ showed them what the law really meant, they hated him for it.

The natural man always hates it, and he always feels that God's laws are against him. The old trick of the devil with Adam and Eve is repeated. And he feels this about God's dealings with him. Instinctively, when things go wrong, man asks the question, "Why should God do this to me?" Or, "What have I done that God should treat me like this?" That's it, you see—that's a manifestation of this natural enmity. Man by nature feels that God's will is bad, and he thinks he can live a better life without God. That's what the world is doing tonight; that's what the majority are doing in this country. God's will is bad; man's will is the thing that's right. Man knows what's best for himself, and he can run his world in a manner that shall be very good and very excellent. Man is altogether wrong. He must be.

Man thinks that God's will is bad because man's got a wrong view of himself. His view of himself is that he's an animal, and therefore he wants plenty of food and drink and sex, wants plenty of money, plenty of enjoyment—that's man, that's life. Wonderful! That's what they're glorying in. Isn't life wonderful, they say? And that's all because they've got such a deplorable view of man himself. That's why man thinks that God's will is bad. It cuts across what he thinks about himself and what he thinks is best about himself. He regards the will of God as bad because he thinks it militates against his highest interests. He says, "Surely you're not going to be religious? You're not going to lose all the pleasures and the enjoyments and the happiness of life? You're not going to take up that narrow way of living? Surely not," says man. "Oh, it'll cramp your personality. You really should be expressing yourself. You're not going to allow yourself to be cramped in that way." Isn't that the argument: that Christianity is something that fetters us and that it's been the greatest hindrance to the development and the advance of the human race?

Man says things like that and thinks them because his whole idea of man is wrong. And another way in which he shows it is this: man's one criterion always is happiness. And if a man puts happiness as his ultimate criterion, he's bound to go astray. Here, holiness is the criterion, not happiness. Holiness, not happiness. And man is wrong all along the line. He thinks that when he dies, that's the end of him. He doesn't see himself as a citizen of eternity, one going on beyond death and the grave. And it's because of all this wrong thinking about himself and all that's going to happen to him that he comes to the conclusion that the will of God is bad. It's a bad will, he thinks, that God is against him, and the thing for man to do is to emancipate himself from the incubus of religion. Get rid of this notion of God and all this morality and sin and all its teaching in the Bible. That's what man thinks, and he's been putting it into practice.

What the Apostle tells us here is this: that when our minds are renewed, our whole attitude towards the will of God changes. And far from regarding the will of God as bad, we come to see that it's *good*. That's the content of this word "prove": "that ye may prove" the will of God. You try it, he says, you test it with this new mind of yours, you conform to it in this new way, and you'll discover, you'll find, you'll prove that it's a good will.

Notice how the New Testament gives expression to that. There is, of course, that great expression of it we found in the 8th chapter in the 28th verse, where the Apostle puts it like this, as a great assertion: "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." We know that! God's will is always good—all things, without any exception, work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Only a Christian can talk like that, and nobody but a Christian ever does talk like that. It's the exact opposite of what the man of the world says. But look at the way in which the Psalmist really had anticipated this and was able to say things like this. "Teach me good judgment and knowledge: for I have believed thy commandments. Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word." But he's able to rise to this height: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes." Here's a man who's saying, "I now thank God the things went wrong with me, that I was in trouble, that I've been afflicted." He thanks God for it! He says the will of God is so good. "I didn't realize it at the time, but I do now. I thank God that I've been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes."

Oh, there's a great deal of this in the Bible. Listen to Paul putting it in 2 Corinthians 1, starting at verse 8: "For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life." He obviously had been desperately ill and had many other problems in addition. "But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us." You see, this is the Christian. The will of God, he says, is always good. Even if I'm at death's door in a sickness, still the will of God is good. I don't always see it at that point, but I know it is. And I'm always able to say eventually, "It was good for me that I have been afflicted." All things work together for good to them that love God.

And let me give you one final quotation under this heading in the 12th chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, a famous passage which deals with this very thing. These people were grumbling and complaining because they were being chastised and were having a difficult time. He says, "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." But this is the one I wanted to emphasize: "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." It is always for our good. He said, "We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" Whatever my God ordains is right. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Of course he must; he can never do wrong because he's God. His will is always good, and it is always right. That's what you'll prove. That's what you'll discover. You'll be revolutionized in your thinking of the will of God in general and with respect to yourself in particular.

Let's hurry to the second phrase. He says, "what is that good," and then "acceptable." Now, what is the meaning of this? Well now, again, the learned commentators seem to be in trouble over this. They say it cannot mean that man approves of the will of God. That's the sort of thing you mustn't say. They say it can only mean this: that it is something that God approves of. But I cannot simply bring myself to accept it. It seems to me to be tautology to say that the will of God is acceptable to God. Of course it is, because it is the will of God. I can understand the hesitation of Hodge and Haldane when they hesitate to say that this is expressive of man finding God's will acceptable.

But you know, my friends, I think the Bible teaches that, and to me, there's something rather wonderful about it. It isn't that I, in a pompous manner, say, "I have come to the conclusion that God's way is right rather than man's way," as if I were a judge sitting on the bench. Of course it isn't that; that's verging on the blasphemous. But if you look at it from the experimental standpoint, I think there's a very deep meaning here which I would put like this to you: that man not only now finds, having renewed his mind, that God's will is good. He even begins to like it. He approves of it in the sense that he really desires it and, if you like, rejoices in it.

The Psalmist was able to say, "O how love I thy law!" He's there expressing his approval. Or take what you get in the first Psalm. Surely the same idea is taught there when it's put like this: "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord." He not only sees that it's good and right, but he delights in it. You get that even in the Old Testament saints, this delighting in the law of God.

Then, I read to you that statement in Romans 2:18, where surely you've got the same idea: "And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent." Surely, it's precisely the same thing. But then, I think there's teaching about this in the Gospels. Take, for instance, John 3:33: "He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." Now, that's an extraordinary statement. "He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." As if to say that man is setting his seal upon what God has said and done. Now, that's the thing that Hodge and Haldane are afraid to say, but I'm suggesting to you that the Scripture says it. In a very odd way, we can put it like this: that when a man is converted and yields himself to the will of God, he is giving his approval to it; he's setting his seal to it.

Or if you like, take it again in 2 Corinthians 1:20, where you've got much the same idea but not put quite so clearly. "For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us." It's the same idea: that we are saying our "yea" to the "yea" that has been said once and for all in the coming of the Son of God.

But let me give you a still stronger statement of this by the Apostle John in his first epistle and in the fifth chapter, in the third verse: "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." Now, there it is. To the natural man, the unregenerate, the commandments of God are grievous. He hates them, and he finds they're hard, and God is a hard taskmaster. But, says John, if a man is born again, the commandments of God are not grievous to him; they're acceptable to him. "That he may prove" the will of God, that it is good and acceptable. No longer grievous, no longer against the grain.

Hadn't the poet something like that in his mind when he wrote these words: "I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on; I loved to choose and see my path; but now lead Thou me on. I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, pride ruled my will; remember not past years." Pride ruled my will, and it was opposed to the will of God. He says, "I'm not like that. That's gone, that was the old."

Or take it as another has put it: "Teach me, O Lord, thy holy will, and give me an obedient mind; that in thy service I may find my soul's delight from day to day." "Renew your mind," says Paul, "and you'll not only find and prove that the will of God is good; you'll find it highly acceptable. It's no longer grievous; you love it, you delight in it, and you'll want to know it and to carry it out more and more."

So you know, you find out that the will of God is good and that it is acceptable. But ultimately, you discover that it's *perfect*. And this, of course, is the ultimate climax. It is a perfect will because it is the will of God. But you know, it's perfect in another sense: that all it proposes with respect to us is perfect. What is God's plan for man? And the answer is: perfection. God cannot plan anything less for us than perfection. God's will for man is not just that he shouldn't go to hell or that he should stop committing certain sins. No, no, perfection. He's bringing us to perfection's height, nothing less.

The Apostle has already said this several times in this great epistle. Take, for instance, and let this, my friends, be your meditation if you like at this Christmas season: Romans 8:3-4: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled"—filled to the full—"in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit." Or take it again in the 29th verse of that 8th chapter: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate." What for? What has God predestinated for those of us whom he knew before the foundation of the world? It's this, and nothing less than this: "to be conformed to the image of his Son." The spotless, sinless, perfect Son of God. The will of God for us is perfect. It doesn't stop short of this; it is this ultimate perfection. Perfect, perfect conformity to the image of his dear Son.

Or take that beautiful way in which the same Apostle puts it in Ephesians 5, in connection with the relationship of husbands and wives, which he applies to the Lord's relationship to the church: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Perfect! This is it.

Or our Lord, you remember, had said the same thing: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." The will of God for us, my dear friends, is perfection. So, the Apostle in writing to the Colossians says, "I'm a preacher, whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." Nothing less than absolute perfection. Oh, let's go on. 1 Thessalonians 4:3: "This is the will of God, even your sanctification"—entire sanctification. I'm not discussing where that happens; I'm telling you the ultimate objective is our entire sanctification. 1 Thessalonians 5:23: "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly"—completely—"and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Or take that glorious benediction in Hebrews 13:20-21: "Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ." And Jude in his little epistle of just one chapter is not to be outdone. Listen to him: "Now unto him who is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever." Oh, my friends, we are marked for perfection, absolute perfection. The will of God is our perfection.

And so, we get a picture, you see, of heaven. Revelation 21:27: "And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life." There is a city bright, closed are its gates to sin; naught that defileth shall enter in. That's the object. That's what it all leads to. "Renew your minds," my friends, "give diligence to this, do all you can to develop this new thinking because as you do so, you will make these grand discoveries of the will of God: that it's always good, always right, always best for us and has our highest interests at heart. It's always perfect, and we'll be content in nothing in us until we are not merely and not only restored to the perfection that was in Adam and which he lost and which we have always lacked, but to something even higher—something even higher. In him the tribes of Adam boast more blessings than their father lost. Partakers of the divine nature, to be like him, to be without spot or wrinkle or any kind of blemish." That's what you will discover.

Are you ready then to say something like this? Here's the test of whether you've appreciated all I've been trying to say. Are you ready to say: "Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee! E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me; still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee." Whatever's happening to me. You remember that hymn goes on to describe a man asleep and dreaming; it doesn't matter where he is nor what's happening to him. In all circumstances and conditions, he still says, "Nearer, my God, to Thee."

That's the test of whether we've understood this teaching, these two great verses: that we are ready to say this, "Thy way, not mine, O Lord, however dark it be! Lead me by Thine own hand, choose out the path for me." Beloved people, renew your minds. Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds, in order that you may prove concerning the will of God that it is always good, always acceptable, always perfect.

O Lord our God, we humbly pray Thee that Thou wouldest give us all a teachable mind. Make us as little children. O Lord, by Thy Spirit show us these things so plainly and so clearly that our minds being renewed, we shall rejoice in Thy law, never again find it to be grievous, but to find it our heart's delight, to know Thy dictates and obey. Hear us, O Lord, and do this blessed thing within us all, and enable us by Thy grace increasingly to have this renewed mind which enables us to say: "Only to do Thy will, my will shall be." And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit, abide and continue with us each and every one now and evermore. Amen.