Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ;
according as He has chosen us in Him before the world’s foundation,
that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love;
having marked us out beforehand for sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself,
according to the good pleasure of His will,
to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has taken us into favour in the Beloved.In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of offences,
according to the riches of His grace,
which He has caused to abound towards us in all wisdom and intelligence,
having made known to us the mystery of His will,
according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself
for the administration of the fullness of times,
to head up all things in the Christ—the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth—in Him.In Whom we have also obtained an inheritance,
being marked out beforehand according to the purpose of Him
Who works all things according to the counsel of His own will,
that we should be to the praise of His glory,
who have pre-trusted in the Christ.In Whom ye also have trusted, having heard the word of the truth,
the glad tidings of your salvation;
in Whom also, having believed, ye have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
Who is the earnest of our inheritance,
to the redemption of the acquired possession,
to the praise of His glory.
For this reason I, Paul, prisoner of the Christ Jesus for you nations—
indeed, ye have heard of the administration of the grace of God
which has been given to me towards you,
that by revelation the mystery has been made known to me,
according as I have written before briefly;
by which, in reading it, ye can understand my intelligence in the mystery of the Christ.Which in other generations has not been made known to the sons of men,
as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the power of the Spirit:
that they who are of the nations should be joint-heirs,
and a joint body,
and joint-partakers of His promise in Christ Jesus by the glad tidings,
of which I am become minister according to the gift of the grace of God
given to me according to the working of His power.To me, less than the least of all, has this grace been given:
to announce among the nations the unsearchable riches of the Christ,
and to enlighten all with the knowledge of what is the administration of the mystery
hidden throughout the ages in God, Who has created all things,
in order that now, to the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies,
might be made known through the church the all-various wisdom of God,
according to the purpose of the ages which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Who has delivered us from the authority of darkness,
and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love;
in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.Who is the image of the invisible God,
firstborn of all creation;
because by Him were created all things,
the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones, or lordships, or principalities, or authorities:
all things have been created by Him and for Him.And He is before all,
and all things subsist together by Him.
And He is the head of the body, the church,
Who is the beginning, firstborn from among the dead,
that He might have the first place in all things.For in Him all the fullness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell,
and by Him to reconcile all things to itself,
having made peace by the blood of His cross—
by Him, whether the things on the earth or the things in the heavens.And you, who once were alienated and enemies in mind by wicked works,
yet now has He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death,
to present you holy and unblamable and irreproachable before Him,
if indeed ye abide in the faith, founded and firm,
and not moved away from the hope of the glad tidings which ye have heard,
which have been proclaimed in the whole creation which is under heaven,
of which I, Paul, became minister.
For in Him—that is, in Christ—dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,
and ye are complete in Him,
Who is the head of all principality and authority.In Whom also ye have been circumcised with a circumcision not done by hand,
in the putting off of the body of the flesh,
in the circumcision of the Christ;
buried with Him in baptism,
in which ye have been also raised with Him
through faith in the working of God, Who raised Him from among the dead.And you, being dead in offences and in the uncircumcision of your flesh,
He has quickened together with Him, having forgiven all the offences;
having effaced the writing in ordinances which stood out against us,
which was contrary to us.
He has taken it also out of the way, having nailed it to the cross;
having spoiled principalities and authorities,
He made a show of them publicly, leading them in triumph by it.
Lord, we are glad that we are in Thy presence. We do thank Thee for Thy precious Word. We pray that Thy Holy Spirit will take Thy Word and make it living and operative to each one of us. We commit this time into Thy hands, and may Thy name be exalted. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.
Our theme is purpose, walk, and warfare, and this will be the last session on purpose.
Our God is a personal God. He is the supreme will of the universe. And even before the world’s foundation, He purposed in Himself a purpose. This purpose is called the eternal purpose of God.
That purpose answers to His very being. It is the most glorious will—the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.
I wonder how much we see that purpose, and how much we are related to that purpose—how much that purpose has arrested us and involved us.
You know, we have this question: are we purpose-oriented or need-oriented?
It is true that, when we come to believe in the Lord Jesus, probably most, if not all, are need-oriented. We come to believe in the Lord Jesus not because we see God’s purpose in Him; rather, we see our need. And that is the way we came to the Lord.
But, brothers and sisters, after we have come, do we continue to be need-oriented? Or are we beginning to move away from our needs to His purpose?
If we are need-oriented, we are self-centred. Thank God, when we are constrained by the love of Christ, we begin to see that we must do His will.
So we begin to ask this question: What is God’s will for me? What is His purpose for me? What does He want me to do? Where does He want me to go? How should I be occupied?
We thank God when brothers and sisters begin to be interested in the will of God for him or for her. But, brothers and sisters, when we are asking, “What is God’s purpose for me?” do you think that the emphasis is still on me?
We are interested in God’s purpose for me—individual purpose, many purposes: God’s purpose for you, God’s purpose for me, God’s purpose for him, God’s purpose for her. You will find countless, numberless purposes of God for each individual.
Now, we do thank the Lord that God does have a purpose for each of us individually. But does it ever come to your mind that there is one purpose of God, which is the purpose of God?
It is not a purpose for time—your lifetime—but it is a purpose for eternity. We call it the eternal purpose of God. It is singular in number: not many wills, not many purposes, but the eternal purpose of God.
Sometimes, as young Christians, when we really desire to know the will of God—what does He want me to do? What is His purpose for my life?—we find that it is very difficult to know the will of God.
You know, wherever we go, we meet people asking the same question over and over again: “What is God’s will? It is difficult to know. What is God’s purpose for me? I do not know.”
Now, do you know one of the basic reasons? It is because you are ignorant of the eternal purpose of God. Whatever God’s will for you, or God’s purpose for your life, may be, it is just a part of the eternal purpose of God.
So if you have the knowledge of the eternal purpose of God, it helps you greatly to know what the purpose of God is for you.
We need to have a vision, a heavenly vision, of the eternal purpose of God, because that will dictate our walk, direct our warfare, and determine our destiny.
We thank God that our God is a God of purpose. He never does anything by chance. Once His purpose is purposed, He never changes His purpose. His purpose is eternal.
It is hidden in Himself; we call it the mystery of His will. But He works patiently according to that purpose.
We mentioned how God’s purpose is hidden in creation, especially in the creation of man. We mentioned how God’s purpose is illustrated in human history, because human history is His story. We also mentioned how God’s purpose is being sung in prophetic songs.
It is there all the time, but it is waiting to be revealed.
Now this morning, as the conclusion, we will fellowship together on God’s purpose consummated in Christ and the church.
But when the fullness of the time was come,
God sent forth His Son,
come of woman, come under law,
that He might redeem those under law,
that we might receive sonship.
During the past three sessions, when we were dealing with purpose, actually we were only trying to catch the shadow. Whether it is creation, history, or song, they are but types and shadows. Now this morning we would like to come down to the reality.
When the fullness of time was come. Now, brothers and sisters, our God is an eternal God. This is one of His fundamental attributes. God is eternal. From eternity to eternity, He is God.
He is not governed or bound by time. You know, time is no factor to God.
When God purposes, He possesses. There is no time gap between His purpose and His possession. Why? Because God has no past, no future—only now.
Even before the foundation of the world, even before time ever began, God purposed a purpose. But as soon as He purposed that purpose, what He purposed was possessed by Him, because there is no time gap there.
God’s purpose is that His Son be the heir of all things, that Christ may have the pre-eminence in all things. And as He purposes it, He has it.
Before God, Christ is always the heir of all things. All things are subjected to His feet. He has the first place over all things. It is there—already there, always there.
The same thing is true concerning the bride. He purposed to give His Son a bride, His like, His helpmeet. And brothers and sisters, can you believe that He has to wait for millions and millions of years before what He purposed He possessed?
No. He is eternal. So, before God, now, the church—the bride of the Lamb—is there. There is no question about the supremacy of Christ. There is no question about the glorious church.
So far as God is concerned, the moment He purposes, the moment He possesses. And brothers and sisters, this is the vision that we must see.
You know, so far as we human beings are concerned, we are creatures of time. We are governed by time. So when we think of God’s eternal purpose, to us all things have not yet been subjected to Christ.
God is working to have all things subjected to Christ. To us, the church is not completed. It has not been made holy and without blemish. Much work needs to be done, and hopefully one day He will come.
But, brothers and sisters, do you know that God works out of His purpose? We think God is working towards His purpose. God created time for man, for us—not for Himself.
He created time that, within time, He may bring everything into a full manifestation of what is already there.
This we call vision. A vision is a seeing of the purpose and possession of God. Having seen this, your faith is strengthened. You are delivered from negativeness, from passivity, and from despair. No matter what happens, you know God has it.
But we are creatures of time, so the Bible says, “When the fullness of time was come.” Thousands of years of human history had passed, and now finally God made His last, final move.
The Word became flesh. God sent His Son into the world to become a man, born of woman. He is the long-promised seed of the woman, born under the law.
Our Lord Jesus came into this world under the law in order to redeem us from the curse of the law and to bring us into sonship.
Christ Jesus is the man that God had in His mind when He first created Adam.
If you read the four Gospels, the four Gospels show us the history of our Lord Jesus on earth. When you read the Gospels, you see the Man, the King, the Servant of the Lord, and the Son of God.
Adam was created in God’s image, after God’s likeness. He was given dominion. He was given a task: to subdue all things—that is, to bring all things back to God’s original purpose, to defeat the enemy.
But Adam lost his image. Instead of subduing all things, Adam was subdued by the enemy of God. He failed. So the Second Man came to the fight.
Christ is the last Adam. He came to conclude the Adamic race. He is the Second Man. He came to restore all things. The heir of all things came into this world to recover all things.
Look at the life of our Lord Jesus, then—how He submitted Himself absolutely to God. He was obedient to His Father, even unto death, and death of the cross.
You cannot subdue all things until you subdue yourself.
Here you find the life of our Lord Jesus: a perfect man. His flesh is holy flesh. His human will is a perfect will. His mind, His thoughts, His emotions, His feelings—everything about Him is perfect. He knew no sin.
Even if He should exercise His own will, even if He wanted to do what He liked, it would be sinless; it would be perfect. And yet you find that He said, “I cannot say anything on My own. I speak because I have heard My Father’s voice. I cannot do anything by Myself; it is the Father Who is doing it within Me. Not My will, but Thy will be done.”
“My time is not in My hand. Your time is always convenient, but My time has not yet come.” Brothers and sisters, you find throughout His life how He subdued Himself. He brought His holy self under the authority of God, His Father. He always pleased His Father. He overcame Himself.
He not only overcame Himself; He overcame all things. He had power over all things. He could still the storm, walk on waters, heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons.
When He was baptized, He gave obedience to His Father to fulfil all righteousness. He had no need to be baptized—that is, the baptism of John, to repent. He had nothing to repent of. But, to fulfil all righteousness, He was baptized.
And when He was praying, the heavens opened, and the voice said, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom is My delight.”
He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Why? Because before He could begin His open, public ministry, He had to deal with the arch-enemy.
He was tempted in all things. The devil exhausted all his wiles, but the enemy was defeated—completely defeated. He had bound the strong man, so He came out to rob the things in the house.
Whether you look at His life—a perfect life, the very image of God—or you look at His work, you find that He subdued all things to God. He is the only man who succeeded.
That is why we say, on the Mount of Transfiguration, it was a very intense moment in the history of mankind. Why? Because a man was finally found. The man that God had in mind was there. He had proven to be that man.
God had said, “I have found My man. My purpose is manifested.”
So you remember when our Lord Jesus took three disciples to the Mount of Transfiguration. He was transfigured. In other words, the years that He was on earth, He was in disguise.
But on the Mount of Transfiguration, for the first and the one time, glory came out in fullness. Moses and Elijah appeared, and they talked about His departure. The word is exodus.
In incarnation, He entered into this world, and now they were talking about His exit—how He would go out of this world.
Very interesting. So far as our Lord Jesus Himself was concerned, He was ready to exit; heaven was ready to receive Him. But for our sake, He did not exit from that mount. He came down, and He went to Calvary.
He has overcome. He is the man that God is after. God’s purpose is fulfilled in Him. But what about us?
Because of us, He refused to return. Rather, He was willing to go to the cross. There on the cross, He bore our curse. He took the whole Adamic race—He took you and me with Him—to death.
On the cross, He destroyed the works of the devil. On the cross, He cast out the ruler of the world. On the cross, He led principalities and authorities in the heavenlies—all the evil forces against the purpose of God—as captives, as His spoils. He made a public show of them by the cross.
Brothers and sisters, there on the cross He overcame for us. He brought us into His finished work. He brings us into His victory, into the purpose of God.
That is the four Gospels: the Man, the Christ. When our Lord Jesus was on earth, He began to gather people around Himself.
Yes, He reached out to the multitudes. He had compassion for the crowds. He loved them so much that He forgot His food and His rest. Yet, while He was on earth, you find that His real interest was gathering some around Him. He called them to be His disciples.
In the book of Acts, you find that there were only one hundred and twenty disciples gathered together in that upper room in Jerusalem, waiting for the promise of the Father to come. Not much there.
They prayed for ten days with one accord. And on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came. The promise of the Father came. It was like the hard breathing of a person—God breathed again.
These one hundred and twenty people were baptized in one Spirit of God into one body.
Brothers and sisters, the significance of Pentecost is not the sound and the sight. We are fascinated by the sound, like a wind blowing, a hard breathing. We are interested in the sight—fire, many tongues falling upon the head. But these are secondary, incidental.
What is primary and fundamental? What happened on the day of Pentecost was this: when the Holy Spirit came, the one hundred and twenty individual believers were baptized in one Spirit into the one body of Christ.
The Head had already ascended, and now He came back in a corporate body to continue to do and to speak. This is the church.
The Gospels give us the thirty-some years of the history of our Lord Jesus. The book of Acts gives us the first thirty-some years of the history of the church. It began small in Jerusalem, and then it began to spread to Samaria, even to the end of the world.
God has made His last move towards the recovery of His purpose.
My brothers and sisters, the facts are here. You have the Gospels. You have the book of Acts. You see the acts of God. But do you understand the ways of God?
God made known His acts to the children of Israel, but Moses knew the ways of God. Even with the acts before us, we see Christ has come, lived, and then He has gone. We see the church begins. But what is it all about? What is the meaning of all this?
We still do not know, and that is the reason we are given the epistles. The epistles are given to explain the facts.
Here you find Paul, in the letter to the Ephesians, saying that the mystery which had been hidden through the ages has now been revealed to the holy apostles and prophets in the power of the Holy Spirit.
By that revelation, suddenly you understand the Gospels and the book of Acts. You understand why Christ came, why the church began. You begin to understand because this is according to the purpose of God which He has purposed through the ages.
What is the purpose of God? If you read Colossians 1, you will find it.
The Son, He is the image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation. Because in Him were created all things—the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones, lordships, principalities, or authorities. All things have been created by Him and for Him, and He is before all, and all things subsist together by Him.
In other words, so far as His relationship with God is concerned, He is the image of the invisible God. So far as creation is concerned, He is the firstborn of all creation.
Now, the firstborn here is not the ordinary concept of the firstborn—that is, first in time. It has a special meaning: first in quality. It means priority and sovereignty.
He has priority over all creation. He has sovereignty over all things. Why? Because all things were created in Him, designed by Him to express His character. All things were created by Him—He was the engineer, He did the work. And all things were created for Him, because the Father gave all things to Him as His inheritance. Therefore, He is the first.
Then it says, “All things subsist together by Him.” He is the centre. He is the One who joins all things into a perfect harmony.
He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, firstborn from among the dead. So far as His relationship with the new creation is concerned, He is the beginning, the firstborn. He has priority and sovereignty.
Every born-again person carries His character from Him. He is the Head of the body. The reason why He is the first of creation and the first of the new creation is because God’s eternal purpose is that He might have the first place in all things.
If you look at Ephesians, you find the same thing. God’s purpose is that He may head up all things. We were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and blameless before Him and receive our sonship through Him.
Now this is God’s eternal purpose: that His Son may have the first place in all things. All things will be subjected to Him. All things will receive their character from Him. He will have His imprint upon all things. All things will manifest and reflect His glory—glorify Him.
That is God’s eternal purpose for His Son. Again, because of God’s love for His Son, He gave His Son a helpmeet, chosen before the foundation of the world for His Son—holy and blameless in love, and receiving sonship. That is the eternal purpose of God.
Our brother T. Austin-Sparks said—and I will follow in his footsteps. I cannot quote him exactly, because Brother Sparks used such deep, big words; it is beyond me. So I have to use small words, just to paraphrase.
The purpose of God is a straight line from eternity to eternity. From the beginning to the end, it is continuous, solid, straight. It does not have any bend or break. It is eternal.
Now this is important to remember: redemption is not in the eternal purpose of God. This sounds like heresy. Redemption is not in the purpose of God.
In the purpose of God, there is no fall. God has no purpose for the fall. It is because of contingencies, because something happened to us, that there is a break, a bend.
Redemption is to bring us back to the straight line. Redemption is not the purpose of God; redemption is in the counsel of God’s will.
He further says, Christ is the bridge that covers that depth. In other words, the will, the purpose of God, is a straight line. It is never broken. Why? Because Christ is the bridge over that gap.
So here, in Ephesians and in Colossians, you find redemption coming in to restore, to recover, us and all things back to the original purpose of God.
In Colossians 1, it continues to say:
By Him to reconcile all things to itself,
having made peace by the blood of His cross;
by Him, whether the things on the earth or the things in the heavens.
And you, who once were alienated and enemies in mind by wicked works,
yet now has He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death,
to present you holy and unblamable and irreproachable.
Brothers and sisters, you find that in the counsel of God, redemption comes into work. Through the blood of the cross, Christ has reconciled and recovered all things back to the Head—that is, to the purpose.
In the same way, He reconciled us human beings by His blood and also His broken body, that we may be holy and irreproachable, without blemish, brought back to the purpose of God.
In Ephesians, some say that the phrase “to head up all things in Christ” means that Christ is glorified as Head over all things. He becomes the centre, the ruler, the life of all things.
Others say this phrase means to sum up all things in Christ. All things have been dissipated, falling to pieces, disharmonised; and now all things are gathered together, summed up around His centre, and brought back to perfect unity and harmony.
Some say the word means to gather up together all the pieces and restore them to that unity and harmony for which they were originally designed.
Brothers and sisters, this is the work of Christ. This is redemption. And what a cost He paid. He recovered not only man, the chief culprit; He recovered all things.
Individually, you find in Romans 8: whom He has foreknown, He has predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that His Son might be the firstborn among many sons. Whom He has foreknown, He has called; whom He has called, He has justified; whom He has justified, He has glorified.
Dear brothers and sisters, are you called? If you are called, you are justified. If you are justified, will you not be glorified?
We may fail. We may resist. We may delay. The Caller cannot fail. His purpose cannot fail. So, brothers and sisters, no matter what happens, God’s purpose in you is glory.
You will be conformed to the image of God’s own Son. How? Today, if you receive the discipline of the Spirit, it matures you. If you do not, someday you will be disciplined, to be matured, to be glorified, because He will lead many sons into glory.
Corporately: the bride.
Brothers and sisters, when will be the time when you can see God’s people have really arrived at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ?
When will be the time? When will we arrive? Brothers and sisters, how different we are in our understanding of the faith. How we fight each other over doctrines—actually, over our interpretations.
How our experiential knowledge of the Son of God is so meagre, so weak, and yet we fight against each other. When will we arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God? It seems to be hopeless.
But Christ loved the church. He gave Himself for it. He is sanctifying it by the washing of water with the Word, that He may present to Himself a glorious church, without wrinkle or any such thing—holy and without blemish.
Brothers and sisters, it is already there; it will be there. So far as Christ is concerned, He already possesses it. So far as we are concerned, we are still on the way. Why does it take so much time? It is because of us.
Oh, how we pray that God will speed it up.
In the book of Revelation—the consummation—the book of Revelation is a revelation of Jesus Christ. You know, it is not merely a foretelling of future events. Revelation is a revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to Him to be delivered to His people.
It reveals Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is coming. He is on His way. He has already taken the book: “Ask of Me, and I will give You all nations as Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as Your possession.” He has taken it.
Now He is driving out the last stubborn forces of the enemy, because the battle was already won on Calvary’s cross. Now, as our brother said, it is mopping-up work. All the events and all the things you see are mopping-up work.
He is doing it in and through the church until finally you see the New Jerusalem, the bride and the Bridegroom. Brothers and sisters, the consummation has come.
The question is: What is the eternal purpose of God to us?
In Romans 8, we are told, “All things work together for good to those who love the Lord, who are called according to purpose.” Brothers and sisters, we are called according to purpose.
Now, if this is what we are called to, is it not essential that we know what that purpose is? Is it not important that we respond to that calling?
The Apostle Paul said, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” He saw it, and he was obedient to it. Can we say the same thing?
Oh, may God give us vision. Deliver us from our petty selves into His limitless glory. May we see the eternal purpose of God: Christ the Head, the church the body; Christ the Bridegroom, the church the bride—and give ourselves to it.
This is something worth living for and dying for. May the Lord help us. Shall we pray?
Our God and our Father, we thank Thee for such purpose that Thou hast purposed in Thyself and in Thy Son. We worship Thee.
It is the desire of our heart that Thy Son shall have the first place in all things—in each one of us and in us together.
We thank Thee for giving us Thy Son. Work by Thy power, through Thy grace, that we may become what Thou hast called us to be, to give pleasure to Thy beloved Son.
In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.