How can we be filled with the knowledge of His will (Colossians 1:9)?

In this great matter, Colossians 1:9 always has been an encouragement to me. It deals with important issues related to this matter of understanding God's will: (1) Is it not through close communion with God, through the study of and meditation on His Word, that we may become exercised and also informed about a particular area in our lives or about a specific point? (2) Is it not through prayer, the expression of communion and dependence, together with the study of His Word, that we receive a confirmation or indication about the way we should go? (3) Is it not, also, through the work of the Holy Spirit, using the Word and prayers (our own and others'), that we get peace of mind with regard to the carrying out of God's will? (4) Is it not our conscience, exercised and formed by God's Word and Spirit, that would also be a tool for the indication of God's will? (5) Do we not rely on the good advice of

those we know are living in close communion with the Lord, that we find further help? (6) However. we have to compare counsel and advice from others with the Word. and with the leading of the Spirit in our lives. In the same way we have to check our own thoughts. David's prayer in Psalm 139, when we make it our own, is a real help in this process. (7) This means practically also that we have to take time, in order to come to a conclusion regarding God's will in our lives. Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength! (Isa. 40:31).

As the Apostle is about to present the Son of God’s love in a wonderful cluster of His glories, he prays for the saints at Colosse desiring that they “might be filled with the full knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Col. 1:9). It is a blessed thing for the saint of God to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, for it displaces from his thoughts all relating to his own will and the will of any other man. There is no room in the heart and mind for the will of man when we are filled with the knowledge of God’s will. The full knowledge of God’s will is that which God has made known of His will in Christianity, and we can only obtain this knowledge through reading God’s word in communion with Him. The Spirit of God will bring this full knowledge into the heart as we commune with God in relation to the divine revelations of Christianity.

Wisdom and spiritual understanding are essential for the application of this wonderful divine knowledge of God’s will that He has communicated to His saints, and necessary for taking our steps aright so as “to walk worthily of the Lord unto all well-pleasing” (verse 10). This knowledge, held in divine wisdom and spiritual understanding, will also enable us to bear “fruit in every good work,” fruit for the pleasure of the Father, and also produce growth “in the full knowledge of God.” The more we grow in the knowledge of God, the more capacity there will be for fruit to please the Father, and to clearly show that we are the disciples of His Son (John 15:8).

The apostle Paul prayed that the saints at Colosse might be filled with the full knowledge of God's will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, for only thus can we carry out the mind of God for us. If this blessed knowledge is to fill heart and mind, other things will have to be displaced; nor shall we desire to carry out our own will, or the will of any but God. Diligent enquiry in the Scriptures will result in the acquisition of the knowledge of God's will; and this knowledge will have its proper place in the thoughts as it is held in communion with the Lord. The Lord Jesus was perfectly acquainted with God's will, and lived by every word of God. Our knowledge of God's will is very limited at best, for we are poorly instructed; and in our practical life, we live by few of God's words. Still, the whole scope of the truth is before us, and where there is desire, there will be spiritual increase. When upon earth, the Lord said, "If any man will to do His will, He shall know of the doctrine."

The will of God is to govern everything for us; hence the knowledge of His will necessarily comes in the first place. The word used for knowledge here is a very strong one really meaning full knowledge, and with that full knowledge they were to be filled. The apostle would not be satisfied with anything short of this. The will of God was to possess all their thoughts and fill up their horizon. This is an immensely high standard truly, but then the divine standard and objective never is anything but immensely high.

Further our knowledge is to be in spiritual understanding; that is, understanding acquired by the Spirit of God and not by a merely intellectual process. It is possible to acquire Biblical information in much the same way as one obtains historical or geographical information, and in such a case one may be able to analyse and expound the Scriptures and yet be quite a stranger to their experimental bearing and their power. Also our knowledge is to be in all wisdom. The wise man is he who is able with good judgment to apply his knowledge to the circumstances that he has to face.

So what the Apostle desired for the Colossians, and for us, is that we might gain full knowledge of God's will by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, for in that way we shall ourselves be governed by what we know and also be able to apply our knowledge to practical details in the midst of the tangled circumstances that surround us.

In many passages the will of God has reference to the eternal counsels of God, as we read, "Who works things after the counsel of His own will" (Ephesians 1:11). In other passages the reference is to God's will for His people in their daily path (1 Thessalonians 4:3; 1 Peter 2:15, etc.). It is so in this passage where the will of God evidently refers to our practical walk. The discernment of God's will for our path, while calling for a knowledge of God's mind as revealed in the Word, is made to depend upon the spiritual state of the soul, implied in the words "wisdom and spiritual understanding". The Apostle does not suggest that the full knowledge of His will can be gained by an intellectual knowledge of the express commands of God, as under law. Still less can it be gained by the advice of others, though brotherly counsel is not to be despised. "Wisdom and spiritual understanding" would rather imply, as one has said, "a perception of what is good and wise in God's sight, apart from its being His express command". "Wisdom" is acquaintance with truth in contrast to the lack of wisdom or intelligence (see Romans 1:14). "Spiritual understanding" is rather the discernment or spiritual insight that makes a right application of the truth to the particular circumstances.

Next follows a prayer, Paul being only the instrument of the utterance of the Spirit of God. And it is a prayer fully adapted to the conditions of the Colossian Christians. It is still the prayer of the Holy Spirit for all the people of God. The leading petition in this prayer is for the knowledge of the will of God--"that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding." All the other requests may be looked upon as the results of a spiritual understanding of the will of God. What is the meaning of the will of God? It is that will of God of which we read so much in the first chapter of Ephesians and concerns those who are in Christ. What we possess in Christ, what God has made us in Him and given to us with Him, according to the good pleasure of His will, is that which believers need to know. What God has willed for those who are redeemed by the blood of His Son, how they are constituted in Him holy, put into the place of sons, accepted in the Beloved, heirs of God, sealed and indwelt by His Spirit, is the knowledge with which Christians should be filled. This the Colossians lacked.

The full knowledge of that will would have kept them from listening to the enticing words of false teachers, who promised them wisdom, knowledge and other benefits, which are only found in Christ and which the believer possesses in Him. And this knowledge of His will is a growing knowledge and must govern the walk of the believer. It is needed "to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing." Such a walk is only possible by enjoying constantly the relationship into which the gracious will of God has brought the believer; the more we enter into all grace has done for us and lay hold of it, the more we shall walk worthy of the Lord. And this walk is "unto all pleasing." With a true Christian, God may be displeased, though He condemn not; and there is a lack of felt fellowship. Only as walking worthily of Christ can we abound in obedience to God, and be as children intimate with their father. Every Christian's habitual question should be, not, "What must I do to escape censure, or win wages?"

But now he says, "For this cause we also, since the day we heard it [heard of this living witness to the power of the gospel], do not cease to pray for you." This is a beautiful expression of the Apostle's love which, spite of fear which he justly entertained about the tendencies of these Colossian saints, still only drew him out in prayer for them the more. "And to desire (or ask) that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will." They had shown rather the reverse of this; they had proved a void in their hearts, which they had in vain sought by legal ordinances and philosophy to fill up. Nothing but an intelligent and growing acquaintance with Christ can satisfy the renewed heart. The very mercy that delivers a soul becomes a danger unless Christ Himself be the maintained habitual object. Alas! the freedom which the gospel brings may be used to take things easily, and, more or less, retain or gain the world; but where this is the case, it is seldom a soul possesses any large measure of spiritual enjoyment, and it is never accompanied by solid peace. The soul becomes thus unsettled and uncertain. These oscillations may go on for a certain time, until God carry on the work more deeply in the heart. The Colossians were in some such state; they had not steadily advanced to a fuller knowledge of God's will; consequently Satan found means to trouble them. They had seen the first precious display of grace; it was real but not deep; for knowing the grace of God in truth is not the same thing as being filled with the knowledge or full knowledge of His will.

The law never gives that in the least degree; it is a righteous interdict upon man's will. Thus there is only one of the commandments — I mean the law about the sabbath day — which has not distinctly this character. Negation never can form a Christian's ways. We want the bracing of the man morally to all that is good. How is this to be effected? As there is in Christ the communication of life, so also from Him comes the filling with the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. The believer is not treated by God as a horse or a mule which have no understanding, but as an intelligent and loving being who is brought into fellowship with God. He would not be a delivered man if his own will ruled him; but this is the very reverse of being filled with the knowledge of God's will, and therefore it is that the Apostle prays for them that they may be.

In Ephesians, though we read in wonderful terms about God's will (Eph. 1), the Apostle did not as here require to ask the knowledge of it for them. There was an apprehension of heart in them that did not need that the Apostle should thus pray for them. He does desire for them both a deeper knowledge of their standing, and a richer enjoyment of Christ within, that they might be filled with the fullness of God — "strengthened with might by his Spirit." But to be filled with the knowledge of His will, as we have it here, evidently has to do with practical walk, "that ye might walk worthy of the Lord." In other words, in the Colossians there is an important practical bearing upon the walk; it is more the forming of the child; it is the strengthening and guiding of one that can but feebly walk, to help it along. In Ephesians, it is the communication of the God and Father of Christ to His children, who are now no longer babes, but full-grown men. Hence, there we have the family relations, feelings, estates, interests, responsibilities, and very fully. The Colossians had been misled by the thoughts of teachers who were themselves far astray. Though the saints there were earnest, still there was something that blinded their eyes. "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." They must have been governed by their own thoughts, else they would surely have rejected these false notions. It is a simple truth, but very important to observe, that what is presented as God's will necessarily forms the mind, and consequently the walk, of a Christian man. If I am misled as to the mind or objects of God, the effect will be most fatal practically; and the more earnest, the farther one goes astray. But the Apostle had prayed for the Colossians, and still continued, "that they might be filled with this full knowledge of him." I do not the least doubt that in this passage there is a contrast with the walk of one who, however well-disposed, is under law. The more the Christian knows about God's will, which is gracious as well as holy, happiness grows and strength too; whereas law works so as to produce misery and convince of utter weakness. No doubt, if there were a deep sense of the presence of God, it would make but little difference with whom we might be, worldly men or children of God. Of course there would be a difference in our bearing to them according to their relation to God or ignorance of Him; but as a fact, we are always deeply influenced by the company which we keep; we affect and are affected by those we are thrown with. Therefore, it is evident that when Christ was a revealed Person before the soul, and just in proportion as the believer realized his right relationship to Him, so would his walk be. If I know my place as bound to Him and Himself as my Head and Bridegroom, having Him as the object of my heart, it is clear a totally different walk will be the result. The measure and character of the walk among the children of God is formed by the measure of our acquaintance with Christ, where the flesh is sufficiently judged to enjoy it.

466 Take another verse of which I said but little. The ninth. "For this cause we also since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding." How often we say these words, and yet what have you been seeking in the wilderness? Is it not just your own comfort - your own will? No wonder then that you do not know what God's will is. Where is there a right path in this world apart from His will? I do not know one: and there cannot be one, I am bold to say. Suppose a child has left his father's house, he never can go right till he has first got back there. He is not a thief in South America perhaps. He may have a very good character there; but he ought to have a bad conscience, and he never can have a right one until he goes back to his father. There is no path for me in this world as such, but the moment I get Christ then there is a path. You go and walk after Him! Poor followers we may be, but "He has left us an example that we should follow in his steps." "Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, in whose heart are the ways." If only my heart is in the way following Christ, I shall be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Mark the wisdom of the Lord in this. Suppose I get a director - well, he directs me aright, I get no credit at all; and so there is no wisdom or spiritual understanding in me. But God has taken care to provide for me in His own way. Oh, but, says some one, I do not see the Lord's mind clearly. Then I ask, Is not your body full of light? Then your eye is not single - that is a clear case. Whenever I find that I do not see clearly what to do, there is something that is not single-eyed in me.

We get the new practice of a Christian if we go back now to verse 9. "That ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding." As a believer, it is your privilege to know and to do the will of God. Christ Himself came to do the will of God, and you are filled with the knowledge of all that He desires. "Filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual under. standing." You have a sense of what suits the Lord. You have His mind. You have learned the meaning of Ecclesiastes 10:9-10. "He that cleaves wood shall be endangered thereby. If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength; but wisdom is profitable to direct." Or you are like the two hundred men of Issachar. Of them we read, "And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do" (1 Chr. 12:32). You get the mind of the Lord, and you have to walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing — pleasing the One who has delivered you. The new nature delights in this. I confess that I do like to do what I like. How is this? Because I like to do what the Lord wants me to do. The new creature delights in the will of God. But perhaps you will say, "You will put him under law, won't you?" No; for the old man was regulated or bound by no law, and the new man requires no law to bind him, because he is a divinely regulated being, a new creature in Christ Jesus. People are fond of being under the law, because it speaks of themselves, and occupies them with themselves. The gospel is all about Christ from first to last.

You will need wisdom and discretion. Therefore you must give the Scriptures their proper place. The will of our Master and Lord is therein expressed; our business as disciples is to search out that will in dependence on the Holy Spirit's teaching. The Scriptures must therefore be to us the Word of God, and we must make them our careful study.