GOD'S ETERNAL PURPOSE

As I read the words of St. Athanasius on the incarnation, the understanding is beginning to come together.  Over the past months I have been receiving glimpses on our union with the triune God, and as I read the words of St. Athanasius, it becomes clearer.

I will paraphrase what I see.  God created man for Himself...to join in the loving, joyful and amazing relationship that He, (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) shared together.  God's plan for our existence was in the works long before the very foundation of the world.  He had it all laid out.  We would be created in His very image....ONE with Him, as the Father, Son and Spirit are ONE.  We would be part-takers of His very nature.....full of love and all that love entails.  

Yet even in His plan, God foreknew the problem that would arise......the problem of man choosing to go his own way....do his own thing apart from acknowledging his creator.   God lovingly warned man about eating from the tree that would change everything for the bad....but man, with his freedom to choose, chose to do his own thing, to his own detriment.  

The interesting thing is all of this, is the fact that most Christians look back at the fall as a reason for God's wrath and punishment, yet that is so far from the truth.  Man's thoughts and views on this event have been distorted because they have not adequately known the true nature of the Father....who "IS" Love.  Love is His very essence.  It's not what He has, but who HE IS.  

When man chose to go his own way, immediately he became aware of a difference.  God did not change toward man.  He came to the garden like He always had in the past, to fellowship with man, but man hid.  It was man who had changed...not God.  

God putting Adam and Eve out of the garden was not a punishment for disobedience, but an act of love that stemmed from His very essence.  He was protecting His creation whom He loved so much.....protecting him from eating of the tree of life that would forever leave man in his lost state.   EVERYTHING God does is from the standpoint of love.  That is good to remember when we read hard to understand Scriptures.  We need to learn to read through the lens of His love.  It changes everything.  

Over the years sin increased....rebellion grew in the hearts of man.  As St. Athanasius shared, only God can reveal Himself to man in order for man to know Him, and although the grace of being made in His Image was sufficient to give them knowledge of the Word, and through Him, of the Father....man ignored that grace that WAS IN THEM.....choosing to go their own way.  As a safeguard against their neglect of this grace, He provided the works of creation also as means by which the Maker might be known, and He went even further. Man's neglect of the indwelling grace tends ever to increase; and against this further frailty also, God made provision by giving them a law, and by sending prophets, men whom they knew.  All of this was done because of His amazing love toward His creation.

As stated by St. Athanasius, "So great, indeed, was the goodness and the love of God, yet men, bowed down by the pleasures of the moment and by the frauds and illusions of the evil spirits, did not lift up their heads towards the truth. So burdened were they with their wickednesses that they seemed rather to be brute beasts than reasonable men, reflecting the very Likeness of the Word."

Man lost the knowledge of what they once had and who they really were because of the ignoring of grace that resided within them....the Word...Jesus, the Son of God.  Man could not even exist without this grace.

None of this took God by surprise.  His plan for securing His creation was completed long before anything ever existed.  Nothing would deter Him from securing the bride He had created for Himself.  He would have her, no matter what the cost.

In order to reveal to man the image in which they were created, our loving, heavenly Father would send His very image to man....the person of Jesus Christ, His Son.  Jesus is the very image of the Father in human form.  He came to this planet, driven by love, to seek and to save that which was lost.  Jesus came to reveal the Father to man....to bring them back to a knowledge of who He was and who they are in Him.  He wanted them to understand their union with Him....their true identity.

It is noteworthy to share that Jesus did not die on that cross alone.  First of all, Father and Spirit were with Jesus ON THAT CROSS.  Jesus could never be separated from either....they are ONE.    Secondly, the entire human race also died on that cross.....for we too, are one with Him.  Man may have lost the knowledge of this truth, but it was and is true, for man was IN HIM right from the beginning.  We couldn't exist apart from Him.  In Him we live and move and have our being.  All things exist in and for Him.

It was the love of God....Father, Son and Spirit, who came to this planet to restore to man what he had lost.  It was the three in ONE, working as a team to redeem mankind.  They have never lost sight of the eternal plan of bringing us into their circle of love......a life with the "Triune God."

Because of His amazing love, He came as man and would die as man to win back what was taken from man.  God, (Father, Son, and Spirit) could have just wiped us out and continued the marvelous fellowship they shared among themselves, yet the love they had for us would not permit it.  They must have us.  Their heart is to lavish their love on us.  God (Father, Son, and Spirit) are crazy about us.

Man ignored God's grace after the fall.  They refused to consider God in the heavens, and they killed the prophets that He sent.  Jesus was to be the final display of God's glory.....the image of God revealed in man.   But even in this, man was still free to believe or reject.  God loves us that much.

As St. Athanasius stated, "The self-revealing of the Word is in every dimension---above, in creation; below, in the incarnation; in the depth, in Hades, in the breadth throughout the world.  All things have been filled with the knowledge of God."

This is what Paul wants to tell us when he says: "That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the length and breadth and height and depth, and TO KNOW the love of God that SURPASSES knowledge, so that ye may be filled unto ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD."

Everything that took place in the person of Jesus, was all a part of the eternal plan.  Immanuel, God with us.  It was God (Father, Son and Spirit) displaying the very nature of who He is.  It's important to implant the truth in our hearts that it was the "Triune God" who walked this planet....not just the Son.   They were together in this plan and they are inseparable.  

His plan had to be completed to change the corruptible to incorruption.   In Christ's death, we all died.  Sin was taken care of and the eternal plan was back on track.  Now as Holy Spirit lives within us, He is displaying God to those who do not yet know or understand the Good News of their union.  The Good News is not, repent for your sins and be saved.  The Good News is, you ARE redeemed.....Jesus has rescued you.....Believe it, receive it, and live it.  It's true!!!  The sin issue is taken care of, now acknowledge your oneness with Him and enter into that amazing life of love and relationship with God (Father, Son and Spirit).