The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"The Eternal Purpose"
"We see the most wicked atrocity ever committed by human hands as serving the most righteous action ever performed by Divine hands, that service involving the exaltation of the Lord Jesus."
The Apostle Paul affirms in his epistle to the Ephesians that God has a purpose, "the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Ephesians 3:11). This means that everything our Heavenly Father does, "from everlasting to everlasting" involves His beloved Son and our beloved Savior (Psalm 90:2). The Lord Jesus constitutes the center and circumference of all God's doings.
"He is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence" (Colossians 1:18).
If sometimes we wonder about God's determinations and allowances in the world and in our lives, many reasons may serve as subsidiary answers. All, however, operate within the scope of the one overarching intention of His heart and mind. To reveal and honor the Lord Jesus serves as our Heavenly Father's primary "Why?" regarding "all things."
This truth illuminates the wonder of God's coordinating abilities regarding everything that occurs in His creation. Certainly, that which He directly causes fits into His eternal purpose in Christ. However, much happens that our Father does not originate or perpetuate. Unlike ruthless dictators, God does not require absolute control of all details to fulfill His intentions. He rather administers applied coordination in accordance with His goodness and greatness. This includes matters of our lives personally, and events outside ourselves. In the wonder of His wisdom, knowledge, understanding, power, and involvement, God is able to weave all into His ultimate intention regarding the Lord Jesus. This includes the greatest of all human evils, the wicked injustice of Christ's suffering and death by "wicked hands" (Acts 2:23). God's "determinate counsel and foreknowledge" no less served as the prevailing influence resulting in such sorrow and loss as the Lord Jesus bore God's wrath for our sins. Our Father did not cause the sin that led to the cross, and as James teaches, did not even tempt those who condemned Christ to commit their evil (James 1:13). He nevertheless acted amid all of Calvary's horror to fulfill His eternal purpose through "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8).
How such an enigma resulted from the synthesis of Divine purpose and human sin, no one knows. We do understand, however, that the cross confirms God's eternal purpose to glorify His Son. Indeed, will anything that ever occurs throughout eternity more reveal the glorious wonder of the Lord Jesus than the cross? Moreover, will anything more confirm God's eternal purpose being centered in Christ's glory and revelation as the reason for everything our Father does? Certainly not. Thus, we see the most wicked atrocity ever committed by human hands as serving the most righteous action ever performed by Divine hands, that service involving the exaltation of the Lord Jesus. Yes, if ever we wonder "Why?" God acts and allows as He does, this will always be the primary answer, and sometimes, the only answer upon which we can rest our hearts and still our minds.
"God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
(Philippians 2:9-11)
Weekly Memory Verse
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man.
(James 1:13)
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