And I also know, according to Ephesians chapter 1, that we were predestined to be in Christ from before the foundation of the world, right? Isn’t that what Ephesians 1 says? So I know something of what that conversation was about? They had been talking about redemption and the trinity, or communicating about redemption. And a plan had unfolded in the mind of God, and this was the plan…God perfectly loved the Son, God wanted to demonstrate His love to the Son, and we’ve gone over this in the past, this is a perfect place to insert it, God perfectly loved the Son. He wanted to demonstrate His love for the Son, the pure love that He had for the second member of the trinity, and He determined that He would do that in a remarkable way, that is He would get a bride for His Son. And by a bride He meant He would get a redeemed humanity who would honor His Son, adore His Son, love His Son, worship His Son and serve His Son forever. And literally He would bring that redeemed humanity up to where the trinity lives in the glories of heaven and they would live there forever. That was the plan. Creating the earth and the whole universe and everything that was in it was merely the stage for the plan to unfold.
You say, “Well, was it necessary to do all that creation?” Sure, because that creation spoke about God and who He was and it told man of His greatness and His glory and His power, didn’t it? The heavens declare…what?…the glory of God, the firmament shows His handiwork. And Romans 1 says you look at the earth and you can see that God exists so that His invisible nature is manifest by His visible creation, and we’re without excuse. All of that was to reveal who God is. And you look at the creation and you see His power, and you see His intelligence, and you see His wisdom, and you see His love of beauty, His incredible mind, staggering wisdom. You see His softness and gentleness and tenderness in the petal of a flower. You see His power in the lightning and the thunder and in the massive bodies that careen through endless space in the billions of galaxies that exist out there. You see so much about God there. All of that puts God on display.
But what puts God on display in a specially remarkable way is that He is gracious enough to save sinners, right? And that could never be demonstrated, that God is gracious, God is merciful, God is forgiving, God is kind, God is tender-hearted, that could never be displayed unless there were some sinners out there that God could be gracious to, right? So somewhere before the foundation of the world there was a plan put into place. And God who cannot lie, 2 Timothy 1:9 says, purposed in Christ Jesus to redeem humanity. First He had to purpose to create them.
And so, the plan was we’re going…we’re going to bring to glory a redeemed humanity. We have angels also being created at this time. And they were created for the glory of God. But beyond that there’s no grace shown to angels so God can’t display His grace and mercy and His forgiveness to angels because there is no salvation for angels. Angels were either holy or they were fallen and the fallen ones are irremediably fallen and damned to the lake of fire. God determined at some point before the foundation of the world that He would save sinners, that He would save humans. He would create them, He would save them. He would bring them to glory and they would be a bride for His Son who would serve and love and adore His Son forever and ever and ever and ever and He would populate heaven literally with a hallelujah chorus that would do nothing but praise and serve Him through all eternity.
Now this was something of the trinitarian discussion. It’s just this staggering amazing purpose of God. He didn’t have to create any of us, just like He didn’t have to create anything else. But He created, listen to this, everything else to create a stage to reveal Himself to us. That’s why Jesus said in John 6, “All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me.” He determined out of all of humanity who He would bring and give to His Son as a love gift. And He wrote their names in a book before the foundation of the world. We were predestined before the world was ever created. So I know something about that communication and you can know that when Scripture says “God said, ‘Let us make man,’” this was the moment for which the trinity had planned. Right? This was it. This was it. This was the climactic day six and so now they’re all involved. “Let us make man,” it’s not…let there be…let there be…let there be…in an impersonal way, God gets very personal here because now He’s creating those who are eternal and those who will eternally bring Him glory either in heaven or in hell. This is the apex of everything. Let us make man, and God gets very, very personal.
Now as incredible as we are being made in His image, I remind you verse 7 again, “The Lord God formed man,” He said that, “Let us make man,” and He did it, He created us. And how did He do it? He formed man of dust from the ground. And we’re made of the same basic elements as everything else. The material elements are made of certain chemicals, we’re all made of the same stuff. That’s why bodies decompose and go back to the dust, dust to dust. And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living creature, living being, just like the others who are living creatures, he had mobility and consciousness. He had mobility and consciousness.
Your body is basically formed from the same raw material as the rest of the created order. Remember a few weeks ago I told you your body is made mostly of…what?…nothing. You’re 90 percent nothing…99 point something percent nothing because at least that percentage of an atom is nothing. Your body is formed out of the same atomic raw material as everything else in the created order. And like all the other animals, you were given the breath of life, you were made a living creature in the sense that you have consciousness and you have mobility.
By the way, it says of the animals in Genesis 7:22 that in their nostrils was the breath of the Spirit of life. So this is simply talking about our physical formation in chapter 2 verse 7. We were made out of the dust, we were made out of the same atomic particles as everybody else and every other creature, and we have consciousness like every other living creature. But there’s a huge difference here. That is this, we were made in the image of God. If you want to know what that means you have to come back next week, that’s the main deal, folks. But I look over here, I can’t believe what time it is, and we’ve got to stop. Oh, this is…this is…this is so important, I hate to stop but here I have spent all this time and haven’t gotten where we get to this great point. Well, it will be good for next time, right?
Father, thank You for the Word, thank You for the great hope in our hearts for the future because we trust You as a faithful God, our creator, our Savior, our Redeemer, our coming King. Amen.
© 1997 Grace to You
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
