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with redemption. In the revelation of the purpose that is "according to the good pleasure
of His will", we find no mention of sin or death (Eph. 1: 3-6). In this first section we find
"blessing", "choice", "predestination", and "acceptance", but no suggestion that in this
choice and predestination sin would find a place. The blessings are all "spiritual"; the
choice is "in Christ"; the predestination is that we should be "holy and without blame
before Him"; the acceptance is "in the Beloved". The accomplishment of this purpose
did not involve sin and death, which form no part of the "good pleasure of His will". The
second section, however, brings before us "the mystery of His will", which is
"according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself", and concludes
with another reference to that predestination which is "according to the purpose of Him
Who is energizing the all things (ta panta) according to the counsel of His Own will"
(Eph. 1: 11). In this second section sin is prominent, and redemption is revealed as the
one and only way of escape from it.
What is the Lord's intention in discriminating here between "His will" and "the secret
of His will"? This is so important that the reader must allow us to restate what has
already been brought forward for the sake of new readers.
Nothing can be plainer in Scripture than that it was the will of God that Israel should
be a kingdom of priests. Moreover, nothing can be plainer than that when Israel sinned
they failed of their high destiny. Sin is transgression, disobedience, a missing of the
mark. If, therefore, it had been God's will that Israel should fail, their failure would have
been in obedience to His will, and could not have been called sin. Their actions under
these conditions could not have been regarded as blameworthy or meriting punishment.
When Israel "came short of the glory of God", the wisdom of God was made manifest by
the fact that, although Israel had failed, God had not failed. In such a prophecy as that of
Daniel, we get a glimpse of the "secret of His will", which provided against the
contingency of Israel's fall.
All through the Acts of the Apostles, the Lord's attitude to Israel was that expressed in
Rom. 10: 21:
"To Israel He saith, All day long have I stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient
and gainsaying people."
If God had definitely "willed" the non-repentance of Israel. His stretched-out hands
would but have mocked their fated blindness, and their predestined refusal could not have
been called by a God of truth, disobedience or gainsaying. Rom. 9: and 10: do not leave
us without light upon the reason for Israel's failure:--
"Because they sought it (i.e. righteousness) not by faith, but as it were by the works of
law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone . . . . . for they, being ignorant of God's
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God . . . . . Have they not heard? Yes, verily . . . . .
did not Israel know?"
It is quite impossible to read Rom. 10: and still believe that Israel's failure arose from
any decree on the part of God. It arose from their own ignorance and unbelief. The