Did you know that God is the master of contingency planning. God’s plan was simple enough. He decided to create human beings so He could enjoy a personal relationship with them for all of eternity. God’s plan was to give them free will so they could choose to love Him for who He is. But in giving us free will God also knew that mankind could choose to reject this awesome love and the chance to live forever in perfect bliss.
Well, we all know the story. Adam and Eve chose to listen to the voice of Satan and demonstrate their lack of love and trust in God by being disobedient to God and sinning. But as we also know while God is all loving He is also is infinitely holy. So, because Adam and Eve sinned, God had to hold them accountable and as a result they forfeited eternal life and immediately spiritual death occurred which would one day also bring physical death.
But praise God for His master plan. While God’s holiness demanded payment for sin His love offered pardon. And His plan came in the form of a person – Jesus Christ. I love how John Piper describes God’s perfect plan when he says: “The wisdom of God devised a way for the love of God to deliver sinners from the wrath of God while not compromising the righteousness of God.”1
In this short quotation Piper shares how not only is God all wise and loving, but He is also all holy and righteous. Thus enter Jesus. Since Jesus is God and perfectly holy He became our sin substitute taking on our sins to free us from the bondage of sin. And in return He imputed His righteousness to us. Thus, our spiritual relationship with God was re-established through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The blood sacrifice of Jesus at Calvary became our restoration ticket back into our relationship with God. Our role in this amazing plan is to, by faith, invite Jesus into our heart as our Lord and Savior. Once we do this our eternal destiny, which was shattered in Eden, becomes permanent in Christ because of Calvary.
And while some Christians believe we can lose our salvation, I personally believe that all true believers are eternally secure in Christ. While our sins separated us from Christ, His death, burial, and resurrection made it possible for His love to restore us into a permanent relationship with Him as we read in (Romans 8:38-39): “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
My friends God’s salvation plan is indeed His master plan!
1 TOP 25 QUOTES BY JOHN PIPER (of 464) | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)
“My friends, God’s salvation plan is indeed His master plan!”
When we talk about God as a Master Planner, we are drawn to consider His covenant relation to mankind. So, we see His plan stated before the fall in covenantal terms. Among the requirements of this covenant relationship, Adam and Eve were to dress the garden while avoiding the one tree. They were to establish dominion over the creatures and subdue the earth’s rich resources while multiplying in number. The word “covenant” is not used in Genesis but it is stated in Hosea 6:7 “But like Adam they transgressed the covenant.”
This covenant is often called the Cultural Mandate. God’s master plan was for the sinless world to be developed for His glory and mankind’s eternal blessing.
The Fall brought the curse but nowhere do we read that God terminated His original plan. Before the return of Christ, our labor is not in vain in the Lord. After His return, nations and Kings will bring their glory and honor into the New Earth where we will continue to subdue His creation and have dominion over all the creatures.
For now, we groan, those in Paradise groan, the Spirit groans, and creation groans waiting for all to be restored. God’s covenant requirements are still calling us to action ever since Christ destroyed the works of the Devil and took possession of earth again. Now we wait for the victory to be complete as Christ makes His enemies His footstool. It’s interesting that the cognate root for Gospel is victory.