God's Eternal Purpose

How often do we stop to consider what God's eternal purpose is? Did God create man just to save him? Was He lonely? Was He bored? To say that God created the world and mankind out of some need (i.e. boredom, loneliness) does violence to the nature of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as a perfect, triune, completely self-sufficient Godhead that we see in His word and adopted by orthodox Christianity. This is something we come up with because we think God is like us: finite, needy and broken. It also makes us feel better to think of a God sitting around lonely for companionship who decides that the solution to that need is... drumroll, please... US. 

Ok, so let's say that God wasn't lonely or bored. One prevalent solution is that God created man to receive his grace. Seems logical enough, but this is only part of the answer. This is still too focused on us. The grace shown to us ultimately brings God what he deserves... glory. I think the mistake we most commonly make is the assumption that we, the church, receive God's grace predominantly through means of salvation from sin and our sinful nature or even salvation from hell; the saving work of Jesus Christ is not focused on what we are saved FROM, but what we are saved TO. We are saved TO adoption into the family of God. We are adopted as sons and daughters of God the Father and united to the Son in marriage as his bride. In this we see the eternal purpose of God(Ephesians 3:10-11): 1) a bride for his Son (and a family for the Godhead) and 2) a home for the Father.

We, the church, are being made like Christ through His sanctification to be the spotless bride of Christ(Ephesians 5:25-27). When God sees us, he does not see us, but His Son. This is because of the saving work of Christ on the cross and our regeneration (salvation) from death in our trespasses.

We, the church, are "living stones" who will be formed into a dwelling for God the Father(Ephesians 2:20-22).

In view of God's eternal purpose, the saving work of Christ on the cross no longer appears to be the end, but the means. Christ cannot be united to sin, but through salvation in Christ, God sees us as He sees Christ, not as sinful. We are restored and reconciled to the original radiance and beauty of the bride when she was hidden inside of Christ(Genesis 2:21-24).

I do not claim to fully understand God's purpose or plan, but we should all seek these things out in His word and through prayer. In the first nine verses of Ephesians chapter three, Paul uses the word "mystery" four times. The mysteries of God are just that: mysteries. We cannot understand spiritual things without revelation from the Holy Spirit, and we cannot fully understand God's eternal purpose or will until He returns. We can simply wrestle with these mysteries and submit to God's word in our lives.