There are actually very few things
which men can know about the purpose of God. He has plainly
said, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your
ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts. Paul has captured this very point
when he said, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom
and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments
and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of
the Lord? Or who hath been his counselor? His ways are indeed
past finding out. It is sheer folly and ignorance
of his glory that would cause men to think that they have any
means or grounds upon which they might describe his limitations.
or to express what he could or could not do, and still be just,
right, and good. While we do not have the means
or the right to speculate on the things which God might do
or has done, we can rejoice in His purpose which He has been
pleased to reveal unto men. This purpose is singular and
shows itself throughout the Word of God from beginning to end,
that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of
His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Some
of the great philosophers and Bible scholars postulate that
God created the world as a grand experiment. placing man in a
moral utopia and hoping that all would continue in this fashion.
But they tell us that Adam was given a free will that God had
no control over, and alas, he messed up the whole thing by
sinning, thus causing God to have to come up with some other
plan for a now tainted earth. Thus, he concluded that he would
redeem that fallen creation, in spite of the failed original
experiment, by sending his son into the world in hopes that
some folks would agree to be saved by using the same free
will that brought about their downfall in the beginning. This
all sounds reasonable enough to the natural man and certainly
fits with human reasoning. The only problem is that such
a scenario requires a God who is at the mercy of men to fulfill
His will, rather than man being at the mercy of God. Contrary
to modern philosophy, the psalmist understood that man has no intrinsic
value, but is rather made and blessed according to the good
pleasure of God. A man cannot gain any blessing
which God is pleased to withhold from him, nor can he forfeit
any blessing which God is determined to bestow upon him. The glorious
message of the gospel of Christ is that God, who is rich in mercy,
has created the world in order to manifest the glory of His
grace and the giving of His Son as a perfect Savior for those
whom He has loved with an everlasting love and appointed as heirs of
salvation. He has purposed to bring these
sons, whom He has subjected unto vanity as it pleased Him, into
the glory of His presence through the redemptive work of that perfect
Savior. He was under no obligation of
any type to redeem any, but determined to magnify the glory of His grace
in the manifestation of this perfect redemption and the application
of this salvation, wherein it might be shown that He is both
just and the justifier of those which believe in Him. Thus we
believe that redemption is not the result of a response on the
part of God to a dilemma which man found himself in, but is
rather the purpose for which he created the world. It is in
this redemption that God would manifest the glory of His grace
and exalt His Only Begotten Son as the central figure of this
display of mercy. In order to have a perfect redemption,
it must of necessity be carried out by a perfect Redeemer. Christ
is that perfect Redeemer, both by suffering and personal holiness,
fulfilling the law in every jot and tittle. He accomplished the
salvation of His people by standing in their room and place as a
perfect offering and spotless substitute. Thus He bore their
sins and carried their sorrows. He is the captain of their salvation.
A good leader does not do so by simply giving orders, but
rather by example. Thus our Captain has not merely
decreed our salvation, but has purchased it with his own blood.
He has finished the work which he came to do. We see him as
the rightful heir of all things, who made himself a little lower
than the angels to destroy him that had the power of death. Email us at 4the4 at windstream
dot net.