GOD’S PURPOSE REVEALED

‭Ephesians 3:10-11 NLT‬
[10] “God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. [11] This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

God’s plans always turn out to be far bigger than we imagine. In this letter to the Ephesians, Paul traces God’s blueprint, step by step, through the stages of His actions, to its greatest purpose. Salvation, from His perspective, turns out to be far more than saving some people from hell and taking them to heaven.

Let’s follow its path from beginning to end.

The first step began before creation. God decided what He would do to remedy man’s impending rebellion before it happened. He chose people from all nations to belong to Him and He decided what they would become…replicas of His Son in one big family.

After the creation event, He set about building a nation through which His salvation would come. He chose a childless couple to produce a son in their old age, Abraham and Sarah, and promised Abraham that He would bless all the nations through him.

Through many centuries of this nation’s history, including enslavement in Egypt, a covenant God made with them at Mt Sinai to guide them, miraculous rescue and settlement in the land God promised them… and a checkered past of rebellion, idolatry, and restoration… God finally sent His promised Messiah to them to execute His salvation plan.

Despite His credentials and the demonstration of God’s authority and power through Jesus, the Jews rejected their Messiah. They had Him executed as a blasphemer, exactly as God planned, but their scheme to get rid of Him failed. Not only did He rise from the dead as He prophesied, but His Spirit also came, as He promised, to empower His followers to continue His restoration mission.

No matter how hard the Jews tried to get rid of His followers, they could not stamp out this explosive new “Way” as it was called. The good news of Jesus spread from Jew to Gentile until the known world was filled with the message.

Persecution, far from halting the progress of the gospel from Israel to Rome, scattered believers everywhere. They took with them the witness to a new life of peace and unity between Jew and Gentile.

In all these events, there were onlookers in the unseen realm who watched the unfolding story with increasing horror. It meant only one thing for them – judgment and eternal doom.

Who were these unseen onlookers?

Many passages in Scripture indicate that God had created a race of spirit beings to rule over the nations for Him, sometimes called “the great assembly” (NIV), “the gods” KJV, or “heaven’s court” (NLT). In the New Testament, these spiritual beings are called “principalities and powers”.

Ephesians 6:11-12 NLT‬
[11] “Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. [12] For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.”

This startling passage reveals God’s original plan for order and authority in the nations…

Deuteronomy 32:8 NLT‬
[8] When the Most High assigned lands to the nations, when he divided up the human race, he established the boundaries of the peoples according to the number in his heavenly court.

It seems, then, that God divided the human race into nations and assigned to each nation a heavenly being (a god) to rule over them as God’s representatives.

But…

‭Psalms 82:1-2, 5-7 NLT‬
[1] God presides over heaven’s court; he pronounces judgment on the heavenly beings: [2] “How long will you hand down unjust decisions by favoring the wicked?
[5] But these oppressors know nothing; they are so ignorant! They wander about in darkness, while the whole world is shaken to the core. [6] I say, ‘You are gods; you are all children of the Most High. [7] But you will die like mere mortals and fall like every other ruler.’”

God appointed them to manage the nations for Him, but there is evidence in the Word that these rulers – also called princes – rebelled against God and overthrew His authority in the nations. Led by a “god”, who later became known as Satan, they claimed the nations for themselves. Since, in their rebellion and wickedness, they led the nations astray, God condemned them and all their demonic underlings, to death; they were doomed to the eternal fire,

and they knew it.

‭Matthew 8:28, 29 NLT‬
[28] When Jesus arrived on the other side of the lake, in the region of the Gadarenes, two men who were possessed by demons met him. They came out of the tombs and were so violent that no one could go through that area.
[29] They began screaming at him, “Why are you interfering with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torture us before God’s appointed time?”

Only one nation was ruled by God Himself, Israel. He chose Israel over all the nations, to be His personal possession.

‭Deuteronomy 7:6 NLT‬
[6] “For you are a holy people, who belong to the Lord your God. Of all the people on earth, the Lord your God has chosen you to be his own special treasure.”

He gave them His instructions for life so that they would show all the nations around them what their God was like.

However, they wanted to be like the other nations, to worship gods, their rulers, who were wicked, so that they could give vent to their own wicked natures.

God planned His course of action for everything to happen before it happened. Then He set the plan in motion so that, in the end, everyone, both spirit beings and humans, would know that He alone is the Most High God.

To be continued…