There are things concerning God that the natural man is capable of discerning, if he is at all disposed to ponder what he sees in the creation. Of this, the Apostle Paul writes in Romans1, "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse" (verse 20). But God Himself, in His nature of love, is not to be known from the study of the creation; only by the revelation of Himself in His Son could God be known. Nor can man apprehend the purpose of God apart from divine revelation; and without the knowledge of God and His purposes, man must take his way in darkness through this world; but the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is not in darkness, for he has been enlightened with the knowledge of God through faith; and the purpose of God has been made clear for us in the holy Scriptures.
How blessed it is for us that God has revealed to us His purpose that we might be affected by it even in the difficulties and trials of everyday life. In Romans 8:26 the Apostle writes, "We know not what we should pray for as we ought;" then in verse 28 writes, but "We do know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to purpose." Often, in perplexity regarding the circumstances and conditions of our life, we can but groan in the presence of God. Yet, the groaning in the Spirit is intelligible to God, who knows how to answer it for His own glory and for our good.
But we do know that all the complex circumstances of life work together for good to them that love God. This is common Christian knowledge, even though we may not be in the good of it as we should be. Sometimes clouds may hide from us this precious truth, but the truth remains for our comfort whatever we may be passing through. We cannot understand all God's ways, but we can ever rest assured of their perfection, and that they are directed by a hand of infinite skill and a heart of perfect love.
And how good it is that the Apostle writes "to them that love God." We might have put down, To them whom God loves. But God delights in the affections of His people. Our love to God springs from His love to us, love that has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us; and, as John writes, "We love, because He first loved us." Another reason for our loving is that we are the called of God according to purpose. We are not here viewed in our weakness and failure, but as the called of God; and as such we love God. The call of God has put us into a place of richest blessing and favour, as saints, and as belonging to the fellowship of His Son,
It must be evident that those who are called according to divine purpose had nothing whatsoever to do with their call. All originated in the purpose of God. This purpose tells us what God had determined to do, and those called of God are blessed that God might carry out what was in His heart and mind. God's purpose is not an afterthought; we read elsewhere that it was eternal; but even here we read of those that God foreknew. Those who were to be called into divine blessing were foreknown of God before they had any being. The purpose of God must be sovereign. He sets Himself to do something, and He will do exactly as He wishes, blessing whom He will; and none can be allowed to frustrate His will. He may allow Satan to enter Eden, and to secure an apparent triumph there, as also in the cross, but what appears to be victory for Satan is but the means of securing the purpose of God.
Those whom God foreknew, "He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son" (Rom. 8:29). What a wonderful destiny awaits the saint of God! All this rich and amazing blessing was purposed for us before the ages of time, and for the satisfaction of the heart of God. God desired to have sons with Him in his own house for ever, and sons who should be in the nearest possible place of intimacy and relationship.
There were angelic sons with God, who "shouted for joy" (Job 38:7) when the foundations of the earth were laid; and Israel was God's son among the nations of the world; Solomon too having the place of son as having the special favour of God, and as typifying His Son who was to come into the world. But God desired sons, like His own Son; who would be conformed to His image; and a new creation work was necessary for this. This was something entirely new, but it belonged to the purpose of God in eternity.
Believers are already the sons of God, even as it is written in this chapter, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God … but we have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." Rom. 8:14. But we have not yet entered into the full blessedness of this relationship, nor can we until we are conformed to the image of God's Son. This is what we are waiting for, even as we read, "waiting for the adoption (sonship), the redemption of our body." Rom. 8:23. Our glorified bodies will bring us into all that God has prepared for us, according to His purpose.
Our being brought to the image of God's Son will surely be for our richest blessing. but the object of God's purpose is that He, God's Son, "might be the Firstborn among many brethren." In the midst of that great company, where every one is like the Son of God, He shall be the admired object of all, the One from whom each and all take character; the object of their adoration and praise, for it is on account of His work on the cross that all are there to share His place before the face of the Father, and to be His companions in the near relationship of sons to the Father, and as His brethren. This is what God has desired from eternity, and what He shall surely obtain.
Romans 8:30 gives us the links from our being marked out for this wondrous place, until its full accomplishment. Already we have had God's purpose as the starting point, then our being foreknown, now we learn, "Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified and whom He justified, them He also glorified." To us, it is a long way from our being predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son, till its accomplishment; but God's presentation of it to us speaks of what is yet future as already accomplished.
Predestination takes us back to eternity, to the counsels of God; but His calling brings us into time. It was after the Son had come to reveal God, and to carry out the work of redemption, that we were called of God. Christ had taken His place on high, and the Spirit of God had come from heaven, and God, in His grace, sent out His Gospel to call us to Himself. Having answered to the call of God, we find ourselves before Him in Christ, cleared from every charge of guilt, and standing in His favour.
Soon, we shall be glorified, brought to the image of God's Son, to be with Him forever before the face of the Father. But God views this as already done, for He says that we are glorified. The God who knows the end from the beginning, and who foreknew us from the beginning, speaks of His great end as already achieved. Whatever may come in during our earthly sojourn cannot in the least affect what lies in the purpose of God. Though our being justified is on the principle of faith, we are justified because God called us in His grace to have part with His own Son.
In Ephesians 1:7 the Apostle writes, "In whom we have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace." We have been accepted before God in the Beloved, and it is in Him we stand before God with our sins forgiven. Forgiveness has come to us in the rich grace of God, for we had no merit of our own to plead for being forgiven. But the same grace that forgave us our sins has also "abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence." How rich indeed is God's grace! Not content with forgiving He also takes us into His confidence, communicating His own thoughts, thoughts of divine wisdom and intelligence.
Here are divine secrets of which the great of this world know nothing. God has not communicated His thoughts to the wise of this world, to the religious, to the noble, or the great; but to forgiven sinners. How good it is to take the place of forgiven sinners. Paul himself rejoiced in the grace that forgave him as the chief of sinners; and we can rejoice in the God who, in His grace forgives us, then opens out to us the most marvellous secrets of His heart. Wisdom and intelligence are found in the secrets, and we must have the Spirit of wisdom and revelation to enter into them, but for this the Apostle prays at the end of the chapter; and we can surely pray for this for ourselves as well.
God, in the riches of His grace, has "made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself" (verse 9). How good it is to be in the secret of the will of God. We may not know much about the secrets of creation, though we know the God who created all, but we know secrets that are of much greater import. God has told us His intentions, the things that are going to give Him pleasure. These things were decided by God the Father Himself in the past eternity.
He set up Adam in Eden as the head over the lower creation, and God pronounced all "very good" (Gen. 1:31), and He rested in the work of His hands. Alas! Adam failed, and brought the lower creation into ruin with him. But God had an eternal purpose into which ruin could not come, a Head that Satan could not overcome; indeed, One who has overcome Satan, and God was to find His pleasure in setting Him over the creation; not only over the things "which are on earth," but also the things "which are in heaven."
Having established His kingdom, and having set aside all evil, He will reign from the river to the ends of the earth. As Head, He will be the great resource of the nations, and of the wide universe, supplying all that is needed by all, and bringing His infinite wisdom to bear on every problem, which He will solve for the glory of God, and the blessing of the creature.
This is the day of which prophets have written, so far as the earthly side of Christ's reign is concerned; but they knew not of the heavenly Christ, under whom all in heaven would also be brought. This formed no part of the prophecy of Scripture, but it lay in the purpose of God the Father, and has been revealed to us that we might take our way through this world in the light of God's will. God has instructed us in His will for our walk down here, and for the conducting of His house now, but He has also told us what His will is in regard to the coming day.
What rest of soul there is for those who dwell on the purpose of God, and who are conscious that they have been called of God according to His purpose. Such can quietly take their way through this world of unrest and uncertainty in the sure knowledge that nothing can hinder the accomplishment of all that God has set His heart upon, and what He is doing with a view of bringing it all to pass. Earthly kingdoms break up and pass away; the great institutions of men dissolve; and those who have been prominent in world affairs are removed by the cold hand of death, and their memory soon fades; but the purpose of God remains, and He works all things after the counsel of His will so that His purpose might be brought to full fruition.
In Ephesians1:9 and 10 we have considered the place that the Lord Jesus has in the purpose of God. He is the Man of God's purpose, in whom He will soon head up the whole creation of heaven and earth. This will be in the "dispensation of the fulness of times," the divine era towards which God has been working during the ages of time. Headship has been foreshadowed in Adam, governorship in Noah, priesthood in Aaron, kingship in David, Solomon and Nebuchadnezzar, the last being a universal and absolute monarch. All that has been indicated in these and other outstanding figures will be fully displayed in Him who is the Head of all things, when He comes forth in the dispensation of the fulness of times.
Although the Christ of God will have His own unique place in that day, God's purpose has shown us that Christ will also have companions to share His place of glory. Therefore it is written, "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will." Ephesians 1:11. Everything that God has given to us now is "In Christ;" and everything we shall have in the coming day will be with Christ.
While waiting to share the inheritance with Christ, we now possess it "in Christ." How vast is the inheritance that Christ is given! It comprehends "all things … which are in heaven, and which are on earth." Israel's inheritance was earthly, and although both rich and beautiful, a land flowing with milk and honey, it was very limited. But the inheritance given to Christ as God's Heir, and to those who have been made "joint-heirs with Christ," far surpasses in every way the earthly possession of Israel.
Paul, who entered into God's thoughts in an outstanding way, prayed that the saints at Ephesus might know something of the "riches of the glory of God's inheritance in the saints" (verse 18). God took up His earthly land in His earthly people; but He is about to possess His vast universal inheritance, which is both rich and glorious, in His many sons, those whom He has called according to His purpose, and united to His dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Our place as God's sons has been marked out for us, even as it is written in Ephesians 1:5, "Having predestined us unto the adoption of sons, by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will." In our verse (11), we read, "being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will." So that our place and relationship as sons of God was in the purpose of God before time began. He would have sons to take up His inheritance for Him, "to the praise of His glory."
How God's glory and His grace will be praised when His many sons are seen in possession of His inheritance. In ourselves we were ruined, guilty sinners; but God's purpose was to have us before Him as sons, and He has done all in bringing us into suitability for our destined place. His Son has died, and in redemption has laid the basis for the securing of all that was in His heart. And while we wait for the inheritance, God has given us His Spirit as the earnest of it, so that we can have it in present enjoyment in our hearts.
In Romans 8 and Ephesians 1 we have been occupied with God's purpose in relation to the future, both as regards the place His Son will occupy among His own and in the wide universe, and the place He has given to His saints. But Ephesians 3 gives us to see the present bearing of God's eternal purpose in Christ Jesus. God is working in the present time to bring to pass what is in His heart, and, as we have learned from chapter 1, He makes all things subserve His will. Man may think he is doing his own will, and Satan may think he is using man to do his will; but behind all God is working, and what He does not directly rule He overrules to bring His own will to pass.
God has been working since the beginning of the ruin of the old creation to bring in the new, even as the Son said when here, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." After Christ had taken His seat on high, God sent His Spirit to secure the church for His glory, and He took up the most unlikely instrument, Saul of Tarsus, the arch-persecutor of the church, to be His chief instrument in preaching the Gospel to the nations, and to form the assembly.
A double ministry was given to Paul, "an administration of the grace of God," wherein he was minister of the Gospel, and minister of the assembly. Peter and John had each his own work to do, but it was given to Paul to "preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ" (verse 8). He preached of the Son of God in heaven, a heavenly Christ in whom all the resources of the Godhead resided, and in whom all the saints of this present period are blessed. The richest of heavenly blessings belong to the saints as blest in Him whose riches are unsearchable.
Paul's mission was also to "make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things … to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God." The church has been formed on earth for the pleasure of God, and it was given to Paul to enlighten all with what was according to God's mind for the assembly. We do not have assembly administration from Peter or John; that was given to Paul to make known.
The mystery itself was hid in God from eternity until Christ took his place in heaven. This is indeed a great secret, concerning Christ and the church. Peculiar blessings and privileges belong to the church, and of these there is nothing revealed in the Old Testament. The inheritance of the saints, their relationship to each other in the body of Christ, and their possession of eternal life, are all peculiar to the present dispensation. All this was hid in the heart of God till the Spirit came and made it known.
Then we are informed that one of the objects of the creation was that in it, at this time, when the church had been formed, God might display to the great beings of heaven the richness of His all-varied wisdom. This is what God had purposed in eternity. Other things, as we have already seen, are connected with God's purpose, things that belong to the coming day, but how wonderful that God had the present day in His thoughts and purpose in eternity.
When the men of this world look at the professing church they do not see God's all-varied wisdom. Down the ages they have seen ostentation, strife, persecution, corruption, and grasping for gold and for power; but all the while, the true church has been hidden from their eyes; but heavenly hosts have seen what men could not see, the manifold wisdom of God. Divine wisdom in the forming of God's new creation in vessels of the old creation, is something that angels never saw before. The sons of God shouted when the foundations of the world were laid, but great and varied as is God's wisdom in the old creation, (and it is beyond us, whether in regard to what is made or in relation to God's ways) the wisdom of God as seen in the church is of a far more remarkable character.
In Romans 8 the truth of God's purpose is introduced for the encouragement of the saints in circumstances of perplexity and testing; but in Ephesians1 and 3, the Apostle opens out God's purpose to enlighten the saints as to the mind of God in relation to the dispensation of the fulness of times, and also in regard to this present time. When Paul writes to Timothy, he introduces the subject of God's purpose in chapter 1 of his Second Epistle to encourage a servant of the Lord who seems to have been discouraged by all the opposition to the testimony of God.
When things are very difficult, that is the time for the servant of the Lord to stir up the gift that God has given him; and when the enemy is attacking, that is the time for realising that "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:6-7). Paul was in prison, but it was for Christ's sake, and Timothy was not to be ashamed of his chain, but to partake in the afflictions of the Gospel, not as having any power of his own, but according to the power of God. The power of God would enable him to stand in any circumstances, for it was a power that nothing could resist.
This is the power that God uses to give effect to His eternal purpose, the power that hath saved us from the hand of the enemy, from the clutch of death, and from the dominion of sin. It was in God's eternal purpose to save ruined sinners, and to call them with a holy calling. As called of God to Himself, and to all the blessings of the Gospel, we owe all to what God purposed before time began. We were not called of God because of anything good about us, not because our works were good, for we were little different from the chief of sinners; but because of God's purpose and grace.
God's purpose did not come from the ruin of the first order of things, but existed long before Adam was made; and in eternity the grace that has now reached us was there in God's purpose for us. So that we might have all that was in God's eternal purpose for us. Christ came; He appeared in this world, and with Him there was made known the grace that God had in reserve for ruined sinners. Salvation has come in a Saviour, in the Person of Jesus Christ, God's own Son, and this in richest grace. There was no power in man to save himself; he was altogether dependent on the unmerited favour of God.
Through His death, Jesus has abolished death, not only taking its sting away, but taking all its power from it. Death has been vanquished, and the evidence is found in the Risen Christ. Death is not yet destroyed; that is coming, but being overcome, and robbed of its power, it has no terror for the Christian. God would never have allowed death to come into this world had He not resources to meet it, and to defeat it. We cannot understand all the deep mysteries connected with God allowing sin to enter this world, but this we do know, that in God's purpose there was the resource in Christ to deal with it for His glory, and to deliver His own from its power.
When Adam sinned, the tree of life was immediately guarded, and Adam excluded from the garden where the tree of life was. God would not have the life of sinners perpetuated in this world for His eternal dishonour. But it was not till Christ abolished death, and brought life and incorruptibility to light through the Gospel that it was known what lay in God's purpose. True, there was the promise, or announcement regarding the seed of the woman; but the great and wonderful thoughts that lay in God's purpose concerning Him could not be fully known till His great work was done.
In the light of the cross, and of the resurrection of Christ, we can plainly read, as taught in this Scripture, the blessed fruit of the purpose of God. Life that death has no claim on; life that death has no power over; eternal life in the Son of God, has come to light through the Gospel; and this is the life that God has given to us, and that we shall have with Christ in heaven, according to God's eternal purpose. Death brought with it corruption, and man's physical condition has been subject to corruption since sin entered Eden; but a new condition of incorruptibility has been brought into evidence through the Gospel, which tells us of Christ coming out of death, and of the prospect that belongs to every Christian, of having a body of glory, like Christ's body of glory.
The Man Christ Jesus
That you too are taking up the Gospel of Luke is interesting. I feel confident that we cannot but benefit by considering the One who suffered the contradiction of sinners, was pressed on all sides, and yet maintained both a humble and a royal dignity in every personal and collective contact. Dependent ever, as Man, for wisdom and power from above, and thus "standing in the plain" or at "the bier" meeting the enemy on his own ground with all the resources that belonged to Him, and displaying before all the glory of His person. How comforting to see Him taking His own with Him in every place and circumstance, so that when He left them they might be acquainted with the character of the pathway and the resources available to them in it.
(Extract from a recent letter.)