28 Dec 2022

(A)

As we come to the end of 2022, a year of conflict, pandemic, climate change catastrophes, economic setbacks, the threat of recession, as believers, we may be wondering how all these fit in, into the big picture of God’s eternal purpose. Surveying the sufferings, the sorrows, the untimely deaths of many, and the depressed mood in many contexts, we need to re-focus on the eternal purpose of God for believers, for the church, and for humanity as a whole.

Scripture reveals that God’s eternal purpose is to create through Jesus Christ a new society and humanity; one characterised by life in place of death; unity and reconciliation instead of division and alienation; righteousness in place of corruption and wickedness; peace and love in place of strife and hatred; by a continual conflict with evil and the evil one, instead of a weak compromise with the latter.

This vision and purpose of God stand in deep contrast to the realities of sin and lovelessness in so many of our churches; those who call themselves the churches in our contemporary society are often guilty of dishonouring the Master, contradicting the nature of the church and depriving the Christian witness of integrity and truth.

Man has striven through the years to form a new society; politicians with the ideology of the ‘new man and society’ have campaigned for such a vision and dedicated themselves to the realisation of a classless society. This, however, is not feasible, given people’s selfish desires and the corruption of the hearts of many.

Some pursue the solution in economic terms; others called for revolution in society, whether it be a call for more democracy or more freedom in improved international relations, but all these to now avail. The human predicament is even deeper than the injustice in the world and the lack of equality and opportunities among various ones. God presents a greater vision and a more radical solution – a new creation! He purposed to recreate a new single humanity in place of the old – the new man and the new society are God’s creative work – it is beyond the capacity of human power and ingenuity – through Jesus Christ God is recreating men and women in His own image in true righteousness and holiness.

God the Father chose us in Christ before the creation of the world – our being chosen by God should never be thought as apart from Christ. We who are chosen to be saved were never contemplated by the Father apart from Christ or apart from the work Christ was to do for us. Union with Christ is there from the outset, even in the plan of God. All human merit is excluded; union with Christ has its basis in Christ’s redemptive work; Christ came to earth to carry out this redemptive work for His people. It is only because He did all these things for HIs people that actual union between Him and His own people become possible. Through union with Christ believers receive every spiritual blessing. Christ not only died for us on Calvary’s cross many years ago, He also lives in our hearts, now and forever. Union with Christ has its source in our election in Christ before the creation of the world and its goal in our glorification with Christ through eternity. This union was planned from eternity and is destined to continue eternally.

The role of Christ takes on a cosmic dimension with the sphere in the heavenly realm in which the principalities and power operate. Christ shed His blood in a sacrificial death for sin, was then raised from death by the power of God and has been exalted above all to the supreme place in both the universe and the Church. Believers, who are in Christ, organically united to Him by faith, have themselves shared in these great events.

We have been raised from spiritual death, exalted to heaven and seated with Him there. We have also been reconciled to God and to one another through Christ and in Him. We are nothing less than God’s new society, the single new humanity which He is creating – hence we are to live in a manner worthy of this new calling, demonstrating unity and diversity in our common life, purity and love in our daily behaviour, mutual submissiveness and care in our relationships at home and at work, and stability and steadfastness in the fight against the principalities and power of evil, and in service unto God. In the fullness of time, God’s purpose will be brought to completion under the headship of Christ, and God will be all in all.

God who is holy has called us to be a holy people, to belong to Jesus Christ, and to enter into the fellowship with Him and all the saints who have been called throughout all generations. It is a call to be a united people characterised by love, crossing all boundaries of race, class and gender, in Christ Jesus, who is the head of the body, and Lord of the new community. We are called to enjoy the peace of God as one body, to live a life worthy of this wonderful calling. But we should also be aware of the opposition of the unbelieving world and the attacks of the evil one in various forms. Hence, we are called to Christ and holiness, to freedom and peace, to suffering and glory (the path to glory is through the path of suffering).

Understanding our call (in the context we are in today) is a great impetus to persevere and to endure in the midst of persecution and pain, and to look beyond our sufferings and struggles to the glory which will one day be revealed. Note that it is not a call or a hope to us individually; it is a call to many to collectively form the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, the temple of God, a new society, a new humanity now and in a new heaven and new earth.

Nothing is more powerful than God causing a man to be ‘born again’, delivered from his dreadful sinful ways and destiny in hell, to be transformed to be like His Son in body and character, and to be placed with many others throughout all generations in the new heaven and new earth, where only those who are holy like the Lord Jesus can enter and dwell eternally. Only such a divine power can overcome the formidable power of the evil one and change the hearts of sinful men and women! Even the angels and those in the spiritual realm marvel at the wondrous unimaginable wisdom of God who can do such an ‘impossible’ task!

To Him who is able to keep us from stumbling and falling, and to present us before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy – to the only great and wise God and our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and for evermore! Amen (Jude 24,25).

(B)

We have noted in the previous sharing on re-focusing on God’s eternal purpose that God’s eternal purpose is to create through Jesus Christ a new society and humanity.

God chose us in order to sanctify us; divine election is the foundation of sanctification – everything depends upon God taking the initiative. The Triune God is involved in this choice and initiative – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all involved in transforming us – He does so as God the Trinity {1 Peter 1).

Consecration and sanctification are rooted in the reality of our justification by grace alone through faith-union to Christ alone. The Christian life begins, develops, and ends with grace – with the mercy of God – we never grows out of it or beyond it; we never cease to need it. Romans 12:1-2 was preached in the previous worship service. It is helpful to note that when Paul starts to apply the call to consecration in chapter 12, he has expounded in the first eleven chapters the gospel, its meaning and its implications. Then verse 1 of chapter 12 begins with “Therefore”, indicating that the call to consecration, holiness, and presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice pleasing to God depends on what was expounded and explained by the Apostle in the previous 11 chapters.

Paul took pains to explain and preach the total gospel – we are chosen by the Father before the creation of the world, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ. The Father, Son and Spirit are always working – the entire being of God in the fellowship of the Trinity has this great purpose in mind for us; chosen by the Father, we will be saved by the Son, and sanctified by the Spirit to be a chosen people of God, holy and transformed into the image of the Son of God.

However, the call to holiness and godlikeness is in the context of a fallen unholy world – there would be a struggle and battle in this transformation. However, God is with us; He is behind us; and He is not only at our side but on our side. Whatever opposition there may be from the world, the flesh and the devil, God the Trinity has determined to pour His energy into making us like Jesus Christ. It is His settled purpose. Holiness means knowing God, the Holy One, and reflecting and expressing His character – having fellowship with Him in such a way that, as His bride, His people become like their Husband, the One with whom they lived. Holiness means being reserved for God. Understanding this involves coming to appreciate the price He has paid in order to possess us. It also means that we realise that we have been set apart for Him; He has claimed us for Himself. Hence Apostle Paul stated that we no longer live for ourselves but for Him who died for us and rose again.

But growth in holiness means that we will encounter various trials (1 Peter 1:6). God knows what He is doing in our lives – we are His workmanship. He knows He can rely on and test His own works. Most of us do not like tests, especially if they involve pain. But growth requires it. Difficulties, trials, opposition, suffering, together constitute one of the chief instruments that God uses in the process of refining, sanctifying and strengthening His people. Affliction produces glory!

(C)

In the previous sharings on God’s eternal purpose, we noted how God has in mind a recreation of a new humanity, a gathering of God’s new people, through the sacrifice and mediation of His Son, and a transformation of life and character by the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

“The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

We need also to note that from all eternity, it has been God’s gracious plan, purpose, and pleasure to restore the cosmos to perfection at the end of the day through the mediation of the “last Adam” (Jesus Christ), the God-man. All the decisive events in God’s plan except the last have now been played out on the stage of world history.

Reviewing God’ plan from Scripture:
The key to understanding God’s plan, as it affects mankind, is to see that by God’s appointment each man’s or woman’s destiny depends on how he or she stands related to the two representative men, Adam and Christ. God planned to exercise His kingship over His rebel world by bringing in His kingdom – that is, a state of bliss for sinners, who repented and returned to obedience to Him; who then experienced freedom and relief from sin’s guilt, power, and evil effects. In this new kingdom, Jesus Christ would be God’s vice-regent and head; and trusting and obeying Christ would be the appointed way of returning from sin to the service of God.

God, having achieved world redemption according to His plan through Christ’s death, raised him to life and set him on the throne of the universe, where now he reigns, furthering his kingdom by sending the Holy Spirit to draw men and women to himself and by strengthening them for faithful obedience in the face of mounting and increasing opposition until the day dawns for his return to judge all men and women and finally to renew all things.

In summary, the goal of God’s action is to glorify Himself by restoring and perfecting His disordered cosmos, and the gospel call is to abandon rebellion, acknowledge Christ’s lordship, thankfully accepting the free gift of forgiveness and new life in the kingdom, enlist on the victory side, be faithful in God’s strength, and hope to the end for Christ’s coming triumph.

This is the glorious story of redemption and the whole of the Bible, from the Old Testament to the New Testament is telling this story.

After the disobedience and rebellion of Adam, recorded in Genesis, God said to Adam: “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, “You must not eat of it,” “Cursed is the ground because of you, through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; from dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Here began the decay of creation and the toil and sufferings of man; we see here also the emergence of death; physical death and spiritual death. Where do we stand in relation to two representatives? Are we “in Adam” or in “Christ”? Are we still in the ‘fallen world’, in the ‘old humanity’ or are we now in the ‘new kingdom of God’, in God’s new humanity, “in Christ”? Will we perish in the fallen kingdom of rebels against God, or are we already in, and progressing towards experiencing God’s eternal bliss in the ‘new heaven and new earth’ with the second coming of the Lord Jesus??

If we conclude that this is just a fairy tale, the Apostle Peter, insisting that “we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in power but we were eye-witnesses of His majesty” (2 Peter 1:16), wrote:
“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare” (2 Peter 3:10).Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.That day will bring about a destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with His promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:11-13).

Notice the re-creation and re-newing of the cosmos and creation, together with God’s people prepared for the new heaven and new earth in their transformation into holiness and into the image of the Lord Jesus. But in the meantime, there would be the increase of sin, of evil, of global physical calamities, of plagues, pandemics, of economic recession, famine, devastating climate changes. Remember that although God allows all these as part of His eternal plan, much of the evil and sufferings are consequences of the rebellion, sin and corruption of mankind after the fall.

In the last book of the Bible, Revelation, is recorded:

“The rest of the people who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshipping demons, and idols of gold, silver,bronze, stone and wood – idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts” (Revelation 9: 20-21)

There is indication that God allows all these negative happenings on earth to cause men and women to repent and to turn to Him: however, despite all these happenings, men and women still persist in their idolatry, rebellion, sin and immorality.

Paul, the Apostle,wrote:
“But mark this: there will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

Surely, this is an apt and accurate description of what is happening today in our fallen world! Without God reaching out to such ones and causing them to be convicted of their sin and to repent, there is no hope for them.