Who Determines God's Will For Us Today?

This is a question that deserves our close consideration, in view of the importance of God’s will for our temporal and eternal security. For the answer we must take a quick look at how God has chosen to work among human beings.

After redeeming the human race, the incarnate Son of God wanted to perpetuate the reality of his great redemptive act in future generations. He established a new covenant with the men and women he had redeemed, who became known as Christians. He gathered them into a Church where they could find order, security, and strength; he knew that his kind of structure would be needed – just as a body needs a skeleton, without which it would collapse in a heap of flesh and skin. He established his Church on a “rock foundation” and even renamed its first leader to make the point: Simon became Peter, which means rock. “On this rock I will build my Church,” he then solemnly proclaimed (Mt 16:18).

To this internal security Jesus added external protection by endowing the Church with the strength to repel the onslaughts of the evil one. “The gates of hell will not prevail against it”” (Mt 16:18). Immediately after conferring this double security, he granted to the new leader of the new Church the awesome authority to formulate laws that would articulate God’s will for its members: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven: (Mt 16:19). Jesus then authenticated his actions by alluding to his divine messiahship (see Matthew 16:20), ether by reminding his apostles, the new hierarchy, that he had the power to grant such authority.

Finally, after commanding his followers to expand this Church by “Making disciples of all nations,” Jesus added a final commission, another security measure: “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20). Obedience to God’s Church, along with obedience to God’s Word, now provided a double measure of security for his people.

With this magnificient arrangement, God’s people received a special kind of security, inasmuch as they could not know God’s will clearly and precisely. Furthermore, this security was to last for all time, since Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to guide the Church “into all truth” (Jn 16:13) and to remain with it himself “to the very end of the age (Mt 28:20).

The implications of Jesus’ promise are positively overwhelming. It means that even today Jesus speakes to us clearly of God’s “signified” will for us in countless matters, not only through his revealed words in sacred Scripture but also through the Church that he founded. Personally commissioning the seventy-two disciples as the Church’s earliest hierarchy (see Luke 10:1), Jesus established their vicarious authority: “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me” (10:16).

John, one of the apostles who first received this God-commissioned authority, wrote in his first epistle: “We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood” (1 Jn 4:6). John, of course, could attribute the spirit of falsehood to those who rejected God’s will and truth found in the Church’s teaching because he had heard Jesus say, “If anyone refuses to listen to the church, treat him as you would a pagan” (Mt 18:17) –that is, as not authentically Christian.

Clearly, God has chosen to present his will for us through his Church in matters of both doctrine (things to be believed) and discipline (things to be practiced or avoided), And according to his revealed Word, God intends to convey his will not only by his continued spiritual presence down through time but also down through the Church’s continued chain of command, through the bishops and pastors he delegates (as, in earlier times, he delegated authority through others: from Moses to Joshua, for example, and from Joshua to his field commanders - see Joshua 11:15).

Because of the higher authority they represent, all God-commissioned shepherds deserve respect: “Respect those who work among you, who are over you in the Lord, and who admonish you. Hold them in highest regard for their work” (1 Thes 5:12-13).

Scripture shows that the subjects’ obedience nd the shepherds’ accountability are correlative: “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden” (Heb 13:17).kk

Occasionally, of course, there are leaders who abuse their authority, either by unjust or malicious commands, or by ignorance or error in doctrinal matters. But all shepherds, whom “the Holy Spirit has made overseers” (Acts 20:28), will be held severely accountable to God if they should ever bastardize their sacred authority: “I am against those shepherds and I will hold them accountable for my flock” (Ez 34:10).

Meanwhile, there is security in knowing that God’s will is not violated when we obey unjust but non-sinful commands (Acts 5:29) or when we disregard obviously erroneous teachings (Gal 1:8). There is also security in knowing that the Church itself and its chief shepherd enjoy doctrinal infallibility, “coextensive with the deposit of revelation” (Vatican II: Lumen Gentium, art.25) and granted by Jesus himself (see Matthew 16:17-19); 18:18).

And so even in this modern age, Jesus truly speaks to us – for he promised to be with us always – and delineates with remarkable explicitness his will for us in countless matters. He does this through all the regulations and revisions in canon law and liturgical law, through the documents of ecumenical councils, and through papal proclamations on issues such as priestly celibacy, artificial birth control, the make priesthood, Marian devotion, marriage requirements, and obligations regarding receiving the sacraments.

We should have a consummate respect for al the mandates of the gospel message, as well as for all Old Testament ordinances that are still current under the new covenant. With equal respect we must also lovingly and joyfully accept the Church’s rules, regulations, and teachings, while being grateful for the security of knowing that God’s will is clearly revealed in all those norms. If we are “cafeteria Catholics” who choose only the beliefs that suit us, we are not in God’s will. And if we deny or reject God’s will thus expressed, we are praying hypocritically when we plead, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Of course, salvation is not essentially the result of good works such as acts of obedience to God’s law, although our obedience does dispose us for it. Jesus “became the source of salvation to all who obeyhim” (Heb 5:9), and “the man who does the will of god lives forever” (1 Jn 2:17). Our sanctification, however, is directly related to how we obey God’s will. “If anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him,” John tells us. “This is how we know we are in him” (1 Jn 2:5). In other words, those who strive to fulfill God’s will perfectly more rapidly toward spiritual maturity.

This excerpt is from the book The Art of Loving God by John H. Hampsch, C.M.F., originally published by Servant Publications, 1995. This and other of Fr. Hampsch's books and audio/visual materials can be purchased from Claretian Teaching Ministry, 20610 Manhattan Pl, #120, Torrance, CA 90501-1863. Phone 1-310-782-6408.