This Purpose Was A Mystery
It is good to know that God has a purpose and that we live
in a time when that purpose has been made known to humankind. Until Pentecost
Sunday (Acts 2) this purpose was a mystery (1 Corinthians 2:6-7, Ephesians
1:9-10, Ephesians 3:6, Ephesians 5:31-33, Colossians 1:27, Colossians 2:2-3).
But now we know that God's purpose in the Creation was three-fold. It is all to
do with Jesus and bringing glory to our heavenly Father.
Firstly, our Father, the Father of the original family,
wanted to give a bride to His eternal and beloved Son Jesus. We are that bride,
we the Church, the "ecclesia", the gathered ones (Revelation 19:7).
We are
adopted as children of Father God when we are saved and become Christian (Romans 8:16), we
are part of the "new Jerusalem" (Revelation 21:2). God's purpose is that we Christians
shall be Jesus' bride, His wife for eternity, and to share in His life and His
work here on Earth.
"Yet to all who
did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become
children of God" (John 1:12).
“The kingdom of heaven
may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son"
(Matthew 22:2).
Secondly, our lovely Lord Jesus wanted to give His Father
many children, to bring them into the glory of God. Often in Scripture the word
"son" or "sons" says that the person has all rights and is
fully in the family's inheritance. When used like this in the New Testament the
word includes daughters, not just the boys, everybody equally (Galatians 3:28), in Christ.
"For it was
fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons
to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through
suffering" (Hebrews 2:10).
Thirdly, glory: "To
our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen" (Philippians
4:20). Yes. Everything is to be for our Father's glory! Hallelujah!
I was at a prayer meeting and my (long ago) theology teacher
was there, I asked him if I was on track with my understanding of God's purpose
.. he grinned broadly, (clearly happy with his student), and said: "Yes ..
Yes .. And it is all for the Father's glory". Paul's letter to the
Ephesians tells us of God's purpose, as we read, say Ephesians 1:3-12, we can
catch something of Paul's excitement at being able to share the good news.
(These verses are in Favourite Scriptures at the end of this post).
God's purpose flows from His character and nature. Amongst
God's many attributes we know that:
• God is love (Ephesians 1:4-5, 1 John 4:8, 1 John
4:16)
• God is spirit (John 4:24); God is the Spirit of
truth (John 1:17, 16:13, 1 John 4:6)
• God is relational; God is One (Deuteronomy 6:4)
yet at the same time Father, Son and Spirit.
• God is personal; although infinite and
omnipotent, God deals with each one of us in a personal way (Isaiah 49:15, John
10:28). I know that I am God's child
and that Jesus is my brother!
• God is holy (Psalm 99:9); "sacred,
consecrated, hallowed, sanctified, divine, blessed, dedicated".
• God is omniscient; of infinite understanding
(Psalm 147:4-5).
• God is immutable; He does not change in His
essence - He is eternally the same - "Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews
1:12,13:8).
As we get to know more about who God is, we can deduce that
His purpose will always be good
(Psalm 145:9), indeed, "very
good". His purpose brought about the Creation where matter and
physical life first became extant; time and history began. God created over six
days then rested. Almost all the creation came into being when God said
"Let there be"; and God declared it all to be "good".
Then
when a vast and beautiful environment had been established, people were brought
into being with the words: "Let us
make humankind in our image, in our likeness .." (Genesis 1:26).
Humans were to be fruitful and to rule and have dominion over all the creation; to be stewards and care for it.
God considered this to be "very good" (Genesis 1:31).
"Then the Lord
God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the
breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being" (Genesis 2:7
AMP); here "living being" can be translated from the Hebrew as
"speaking spirit"; we humans have language and can speak.
We are the ultimate created beings; humankind. We are not
part of any other "kind", like monkeys, spiders or whales. Humans are
unique in the universe because each of us is created in "the image and likeness" of God. This tells us why, of
all the creatures, we are spiritual beings, God is spirit (John 4:24); our
spiritual life is the most important part of us. (More than 80% of the world's
7.6 billion people believe that the spiritual world is real and that humans are spiritual beings; that is, more than four out of every five people believe this). It also explains why we are so creative and also so
varied; we have free will just as God does, and, in part, we can see the end
from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). We can visualise things and then make them: art, music, books, sticky date pudding, aircraft, puffer jackets, bridges, football
.. No other creatures do any of these things ..
The Creation centres on family. Family takes the shape of
the God-head:
• Lord God, or Jehovah, or Adonai is Father.
• The Son, Jesus, is Son.
• Holy Spirit is the enabling power, the counselor and the
helper in the Trinity (John 14:16).
They were family and are family, the original family. This
is why family seems natural and desirable to us, and is the building block of
every human culture in the whole world, and has been so throughout all of
history.
We can get a sense of the wonder of the original
Creation, and the purpose behind it, when we look at Adam and Eve before the
Fall. Often when people talk about these first two humans it is to talk about
the Fall and sin; but before that terrible day they were living the life we've
all been designed to live. They were
in loving and intimate relationship with God and would walk and talk with Him
in the garden at the end of each day. They had been given authority to rule
over all the creatures, to raise a big family with lots of babies. They were to
subdue the earth and look after it, "using all its
vast resources in the service of God and man" (Genesis 1:28
Amplified), this would have been their work and would have been part of the "very good", (John 5:17), advancing
the They would have been so very satisfied: spiritually, emotionally and
physically. They didn't even need or desire clothes. They would not have had
any wants, or need to strive for anything. Just as God rested on the seventh
day, Adam and Eve would have lived their lives from a place of rest (Genesis
1:26-2:3, 2:8-15).
When Adam and Eve believed Satan's deceitful (John 8:44)
promises, trouble came (John 16:33): the glory and majesty of their life was
taken away; work became toil, they even had to work for food; having children
became painful; they became ashamed of their bodies; death came into the world;
they lost a son in awful circumstances.
Worst of all they lost their intimate relationship with God. Yet they
continued to fulfill God's purpose, they persevered and continued in their life
together, having more children and stewarding their environment. They found
that love is a doing word and relationships often need conscious effort to hold
together.
Now, as Christians, we see glimpses of life as it was before
the Fall (Matthew 5:3-12,1 Corinthians 13:12). We are blessed as being children
of God, we are included in Jesus' inheritance, we have been given great
spiritual authority (Luke 10:19), and are participants in the earthly work of
our lovely Abba Father God, our Saviour Jesus and our counselor and helper
Holy Spirit. We are included in the inner circle.
We can emulate them, and many,
many others who have gone before us; missionaries, evangelists, and teachers,
pastors and youth leaders, and simple, loving, helpful Christian people who have been a unique blessing to us.
The Purpose Of Jesus'
Incarnation
For many years I did not understand how Jesus fitted into
God's plans and purposes. I now see that God's purpose in bringing Jesus to the
Earth was two-fold and very simple:
"You know that
[Jesus] appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin"
(1 John 3:5).
"Whoever makes a
practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the
beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the
devil" (1 John 3:8).
The Bible says "He
appeared" because Jesus is God and has always been .. He called Himself "I
AM" (Exodus 3:14). Forever our God had been three Persons in one God,
(Elohim is a Hebrew word for God and is used throughout the Creation
narrative, it is a plural word, yet
does not mean "gods", this
name helps us understand the Trinity): Father God, Abba, loving, generous,
just, logical; and His Son, Jesus, who Scripture tells us is the great Creator
(Colossians 1:15-16, Psalm 8:3), and Servant (John 5:19); and Holy Spirit who
makes all things possible (John 14:16).
So, unlike us, Jesus did not begin his
existence in His mother's womb at conception, (like us (Ecclesiastes 11:5 ESV)); this is all part of the miracle
of His becoming human, incarnate, (in the image and likeness of Elohim). So "He appeared".
" .. I have come
that they may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10b).
Favourite Scriptures
"Praise be to the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly
realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and
blameless in his sight. In love he
predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with
his pleasure and will - to the praise of
his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and
understanding, he made known to us the
mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in
Christ, to be put into effect when the
times reach their fulfillment - to bring unity to all things in heaven and on
earth under Christ. In him we were also
chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out
everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put
our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory" (Ephesians
1:3-12).
"If you love me,
keep my commands. And I will ask the
Father, and he will give you another counselor to help you and be with you
forever - the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither
sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in
you. I will not leave you as orphans; I
will come to you. Before long, the world
will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will
live. On that day you will realize that
I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you" (John 14:15-20).
"The Spirit and
the bride say, 'Come'. And let the one who hears say, 'Come'. And let the one
who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without
cost" (Revelation 22:17).
Amen.
Amen.
Permalink
https://www.psalmsofjohn.com/2018/04/purpose.html
Amen.
