Realizing God's Plan In Life # 2

Realizing God's Plan In Life # 2

This is the ground of hope and joy that makes Romans 8 so different from Romans 7. We are in league with God. God's grace is not an excuse for doing nothing. It is rather the reason for doing all. In religion as in nature we are co-workers with God. We plant the seed and plan the plant and hoe it and harvest it. But God gave us the seed and the soil and sends the rain and the sunshine and supplies that wondrous thing that we call life and makes it grow to perfection. "God has more life than anybody," said a child. It is idle to split hairs over our part and God's part. We must respond to the touch of God's Spirit else we remain dead in sin. Jesus is the author and the finisher of faith (Heb. 12:2), of our faith, but we must believe all the same and keep on looking to Him, the goal of faith and endeavor. There is no higher standard of rectitude than God's good pleasure, by which He regulates our lives. Happy is the man who finds God's plan for his life and falls in with it.

Cheerfulness Under Orders (verse 14)

Having committed our lives to the control of God's will we are under orders. It is unmilitary and peevish to fret at God's commands. "Do all things without murmurings." The allusion may be to the conduct of Israel in the wilderness (Exodus 16:7; Numbers 16:5, 10). The Israelites murmured bitterly against Moses and against God repeatedly and with dire results. "Neither murmur ye, as some of them murmured and perished by the destroyer" (1 Cor. 10:10). These inward murmurings against God's will would easily turn to grumblings towards each other. People do not usually stop with resentment against God, but wish to blame somebody. Disunion had already manifested itself in the church at Philippi. If God is supreme and does all things why did He allow this thing to happen? It is easier to ask than to answer that question?

The next step is to become sour towards one another. "Without disputings." This word is used for questionings, then doubtings, then disputings. This is the usual course of our intellectual revolt against God. Probably the moral revolt (murmurings) comes first. The skeptical spirit follows resentment against some crossing of our will by God's will. The final result is "intellectual rebellion." Thoughts of hesitation or doubt turn to distrust. Distrust ripens into open disputes when a public stand is taken with others against God. Doubt leads to dispute even over trifles. So then, as good soldiers, Christians are to carry out the orders of the Captain of their salvation. Explanations, if they come at all, come after obedience, not before. 

Into the valley of death rode the six hundred. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die." Soldiers go to the charge with a smile on their faces.

Perfection in the Midst of Imperfection (verses 15-16)

Paul here expresses his purpose about the Philippians. It is a double purpose, their own highest development and the greatest service to others. The first is a prerequisite to the other, though they can not be wholly separated. They are to become "blameless and harmless." They are not so in the state of nature and do not easily become so in a state of grace. Certainly none are absolutely free from blame in the eye of God and men can usually find some fault with most of us. But, at any rate, we can give men a little ground as possible to pick flaws in our character. Whimsical critics cannot be satisfied, but we do have to regard the sober judgment of God's people in ethical matters. Lightfoot takes "harmless" to refer to the intrinsic character as in Matthew 10:16 "harmless as doves." The word means literally "unmixed" or "unadulterated" like pure milk or pure wine or unalloyed metal.

In Romans 16:19 Paul says: "I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple unto that which is evil," a noble motto for young and old. It is a great mistake to feel that one must know evil by experience in order to appreciate good. An unsullied character a man wants in his wife and the wife equally so in her husband. It is this sheer simplicity of character that is so delightful in children and, par excellence in the "children of God" in the full spiritual import of this term. The children of Israel,k when they murmured, were not acting like children of God. Paul here quotes Deuteronomy 32:5 and applies it to the Philippians. The children of Israel were full of blemish, while the Philippians are to be "without blemish" like the freewill offering (Lev. 22:21). The Israelites had themselves become "a crooked and perverse generation." But the Philippians must not fall to that low level, as they will if they give way to inward discontent. They must exhibit marks of perfection "in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation." It is an indocile or froward and so "crooked" generation. The word was used of crooked paths and so of crooked steps and crooked ways. The word "perverse" means twisted or distorted and is a bolder word like the Scotch "thrawn" with a twist in the inner nature. Surely our own generation is not without its moral twist and means many straight men when so many are crooked, twisted out of shape.

~Archibald T. Robertson~

(continued with # 3)