6. "Knowing the will of God" means more than simply knowing about
God, that he created heaven and earth and gave the Law, and so on, a
knowledge even the Jews and Turks possess. For doubtless to them has
been revealed that knowledge of God and of his will concerning our
conduct which nature--the works of creation--can teach. Rom 1, 20.
But if we fail to do God's revealed will, the knowledge of it does
not benefit us. Such mere mental consciousness is a vain, empty
thing; it does not fulfil God's will in us. Indeed, it eventually
becomes a condemnatory knowledge of our own eternal destruction. When
this point has been reached, further enlightenment is necessary if
man is to be saved. He must know the meaning of Christ's words in
John 6, 40: "This is the will of my Father, that every one that
beholdeth the Son, and believeth on him, should have eternal life";
and in Matthew 18, 14: "It is not the will of your Father, that one
of these should perish, which believe on me."
7. Since we have not done God's will according to the first
revelation and must be rejected and condemned by his eternal,
unendurable wrath, in his divine wisdom and mercy he has determined,
or willed, to permit his only Son to take upon himself our sin and
wrath; to give Christ as a sacrifice for our ransom, whereby the
unendurable wrath and condemnation might be turned from us; to grant
us forgiveness of sins and to send the Holy Spirit into our hearts,
thus enabling us to love God's commandments and delight in them. This
determination or will he reveals through the Son, and commands him to
declare it to the world. And in Matthew 3, 17 he directs us to Christ
as the source of all these blessings, saying: "This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him."