We are fortunate to live AD. We know where God's great salvation plan is heading. He has already plotted the route to redemption. We are just retracing it. With one day until our reading plan begins I therefore thought it worth reminding us of our destination. This is helpful as it makes better sense of some of the landmarks we'll pass and the choices we'll see God made with respect to the route.
Essentially God's great goal can be summed up as "Christ over all." Paul puts this wonderfully in Ephesians 1v3-14. Read it here, noting especially v10.
Scholars have thought much about whether there is a key theme upon which the Bible's storyline can be hung. Paul's words here suggest that ‘the
But there are many wonderful truths Paul weaves in. First, the
Perhaps the most striking detail however, is that the Lord is doing all this that these people might be "for the praise of his glory" (v12,14) and especially of his grace (v6). God's "glory" is the display of his excellence just as the glory of a view is its beauty on show. So God's purpose throughout is that his excellence is displayed. It is this truth, perhaps more than any other, which gives some explanation as to why history unfolds as it does.
We instinctively feel seeking one’s own glory is to rather lack the humility we see in Christ. However, we recognize that it is an injustice for someone's name to be defamed by the press. It is therefore a reflection of the fact that God only does what is right that he seeks his own glory. And we should remember that this is to our benefit.
Before beginning our Bible overview we might therefore attempt to sum up God's great purpose in history as something like this: God's purpose in history is to glorify himself by displaying his character and grace in saving and blessing a people to image him in his world and know him through his Son.
In his excellent Bible overview "Gospel and Kingdom," Graeme Goldsworthy summed up the
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