As JB Stoney explores the experiences of Jonah and others in Out of Death into Life, he shows us that "WILL is the real cause of the restlessness, and of the absence of full joy in souls...the only true place of happiness for a believer is to be without a will of his own..." and how the enjoyment of our salvation depends on us appropriating the death of Christ.
What did Eve, Jonah, the Rich Young Ruler and many, many others in scripture have in common? They had a will of their own that was against God; God wanted them to go to the left and they wanted to go to the right.
Even the Apostle Paul, who had thought himself so incomparably good, had found that he had a will that was against God, (so that he calls himself afterwards the chief of sinners). But after he appropriated the death of Christ "He has been turned round, as it were; he has learned that the old Saul has gone in the cross... It is not only that his sins are gone, but he himself is a gone man, gone in the death of Christ. He has gone to his own funeral in that sense, and is glad to be free of himself."
An EChristian, Inc production.
