Christ Is ALL - Chapter 8

The Eternal Purpose

"According to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord," Ephesians 3:11, NKJV.

God has a plan and a purpose, an Eternal Purpose, which He has accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. There is a finished work of New Creation which God has established in Christ Jesus, and you and I have been birthed into this Reality. You may hear it spoken of as the "finished work of Christ" or as "the mystery of God" or even the "finished mystery". In whatever language it is all the same, and it is that "which He purposed in Himself" from the beginning of time. "For God has allowed us to know the secret of his plan, and it is this: 'He purposed long ago in his sovereign will that all human history should be consummated in Christ, that everything that exists in Heaven or earth should find its perfection and fulfillment in him.'" Ephesians 1:9,10, Phil.

God has purposed in Himself that we should obtain an inheritance of perfection in Christ. Our inheritance is that we "may be filled with all the fullness of God" -Eph. 3:19. This is what the "finished work of Christ" is all about. Redemption is a finished work and if it is finished then it is not something that we look for to come to pass in the future, it is something that has been brought to pass in Christ Jesus, and we must find out what it is that is finished. When we have found out what it is that is finished we then have to come to a realization of it for it to be manifest in our life. It must become our reality as it is a Reality in God..."As in heaven, so in earth."

A conscious awareness and manifestation of the Finished Mystery that has been hidden for generations is what I am looking for. It was revealed to Paul and taught to the first century church, but it was lost in the dark ages and is now in this seventh day being revealed to us. Jesus said to "walk in the light while you have the light" and this is what happened in the early days of Christianity. For the first three hundred years, or so, the body of Christ was full of the glory and power of God. Eventually the darkness of the carnal mind infiltrated the church and the Truth of Christ became a religion. The teachings of Jesus, Paul, John, and the others were never meant to be a religion, they were meant to be edification to the body of Christ; which is a people who are in a relationship with God in the Spirit through the redemptive work of Christ Jesus.

God's purpose was not to have a new religion in the earth, but to have a people in His image who are "built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit" -Eph. 2:22. Without a doubt, it takes a revelation of Christ to see and understand this truth, and this only comes through a relationship; so you can see why religion has never been able to understand this most holy truth. God was in Christ Jesus reconciling the world unto Himself for this very reason. The death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ is the very thing that brings God's eternal purpose into being.

The eternal purpose of God is the New Creation. The New Creation is not plan "B" or something that God came up with after Adam and the devil messed things up a bit. The New Creation is the manifested Spiritual Creation where God is all in all--everything to everyone. God is a Spirit and the Father of spirits, and He has created a spiritual creation for His offspring to live and move and have their being in. ...Though it does not yet appear what we shall be.

The WORD declares that we are His workmanship, "CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS" -Eph. 2:10. Did you hear that? Created in Christ Jesus! The finished work of Christ is a work of creation. He has created in Himself "one new man" -Eph. 2:15. Out of the two, Adam and Christ, God has created One New Man. There is only One Man, for He "has made both one" and we are in Him, by Him, through Him, and for Him. And there is nothing that exists that is not in Him..."the fullness of Him who fills all in all" -Eph. 1: 23.

The majority of folks in the earth today don't realize that God has a purpose and a plan. Everyone born into the world is born for a purpose, although most will not seek God for their purpose. Most seek their purpose in the natural Adamic life. You can be just about anything you want to be in your individual life if you apply yourself towards it. But being a doctor or an inventor or even a school teacher, wonderful as those endeavours may be, is not your purpose for being born. Many mighty persons have been raised up that have helped the world at large through invention or whatever their skill has been. Many have helped the world with little or no recognition at all. Many have helped just the people in their part of the world, or just the people they have been privileged to know. But none of these things are the reason for us being here. Have you ever wondered why there is a human race on this planet Earth? What is the purpose for our life? The answer is found in the understanding of God's eternal purpose. You have got to see the big picture.

I can hear someone say: "Do you think you know what God's purpose for life is? Of all the religions and philosophies you think you know the plan and purpose of God?" My answer to that would be: "The only Truth I know is that which has unfolded to me within my consciousness, within my understanding." I do not think that I know everything or anything. I only know that as I have listened to anointed teachers, read and studied the Bible, and other books that have been a part of my life--books that have "picked me"--my eyes have been opened to see the things that I am saying. I don't know who is right and who is wrong; I only know that God has a purpose, an eternal purpose, and those who seek after Him will find their place in that purpose, for He is no respecter of persons.

God being infinite and eternal the answers to God would be infinite and eternal as well. We each must seek Him as our path unfolds before us, and each of us can only see and speak out of the revelation that has been opened to us. I personally believe that Jesus the Christ was the Perfect Man, the< Son of God, the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in bodily form. He, being the Beginning and the End, was the purpose of God in Man. God is a Spirit and the Father of Spirits, and His creation is spiritual. The Spiritual Creation of God is the purpose of God. One that He is All in All. Anything less than that is NOT the purpose of God, but may very well be the means to get there.

God's purpose is perfection and completeness, and in Christ Jesus we see this to the full. He was born of Mary a natural Man of flesh and blood able to die. He ascended into heaven a Spiritual Man in the full glory of the Father. This ascended Christ is the purpose of God. He is "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." All things were created through Him and for Him, and He is the end of all God's doing. All of God's purpose and plan is summed up in the Head of the body of Christ, and He is to have pre-eminence in all things; and your perfection and completion is found in Him. Christ in you is the hope of glory.

Death and resurrection is God's plan for creation. Death to the natural personal self and resurrection to the spiritual true Self: Death to the natural man and resurrection to the Spiritual Man. God creates a living-soul , and raises up a Spirit being. "What you sow is not made alive unless it dies", so out of death comes life. When Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they chose a destiny of DEATH. They became a seed sown in the realm of Death. Jesus then being sown into this same realm, a pure Seed, became the Way unto eternal life. Jesus the Christ drew All--all of the natural, sinful, carnal, creation--into Himself and took it into the fullness of Death. All that Death had to offer he took, and He passed through it, destroying it and its power. He was raised a Life-giving Spirit making the WAY that all mankind may be born of the Spirit and enter into the Reality of God.

God declared His purpose and plan in the beginning when He said, "Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion" -Gen. 1: 26. Nothing has changed in God's purpose, and the Man Christ Jesus is the plan whereby He has carried out His eternal purpose.

What Paul calls the "new creation" and John calls a "new heaven and a new earth" are the very plan and purpose of God from the beginning. This is the Spiritual Creation of God where He is all in all. "The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:" Isaiah 14:24, KJV. As God has thought, and as He has purposed, so it shall come to pass and it shall stand. Do you hear that? As God has thought, so shall it come to pass: As God has purposed, it shall stand!

What is it that God has thought? What is it that God has purposed? If we turn to the end of our Bible, Revelation 21 and 22, we see a picture of the completed work...the finished product. But as Isaiah has also said: God declares "the end from the beginning," so we can see the end of God's plan and His purpose in the beginning of His WORD.

"Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, `My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,'" Isaiah 46:9,10, NKJV.

GOD DECLARES THE END FROM THE BEGINNING. He declares from the ancient times things that He has not yet done. He calls things to be as though they were, because in His Mind they are; yet the visible manifestation has yet to take place. In the beginning of your Bible you can see the end of God's plan and purpose. What God has thought is written down in the beginning of the Bible; what He has purposed is there to be found. "It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out" -Proverbs 25:2, NRSV. God's plan and purpose is right there for us to see, but we must see, we must have enlightenment. With "the eyes of our understanding being enlightened" we shall see.

When you read and study the first two chapters of Genesis you see what looks like, and many scholars think so, two stories of creation. At any rate, you do see two accounts of creation. Some say it is the retelling of the same story of creation, i.e. two versions of the same story; some say it is two different creations pictured side by side. What I see in the first two chapters of Genesis is first: what God has thought, and what He has purposed. Secondly: you see His plan begin to take form and then the rest of the Bible is the out-picturing, the unfolding, of His eternal purpose until you have the "new heavens and new earth" manifested where God is All In All.

"The whole Bible is about the creation of the new creation," and in Genesis chapter one through chapter two verse three, the seventh day when God rested, we see as God has thought, what He purposed...the end declared from the beginning. You see a picture of the perfect Spiritual Creation. Beginning in Genesis chapter two verse four, you see a second account of creation, when the visible manifestation takes form and the plan of God begins taking shape.

(If I lost you, you need to go back and read Genesis chapters one and two. See how the first account of creation ends in chapter 2:3; and then the second account begins in 2:4. Chapter two should really begin in verse four.)

I believe Genesis chapter one is the invisible Spiritual Creation as it exists in God, as He has thought, as He has purposed. When this invisible Spiritual Creation becomes visible, when "it has come to pass" that is what Revelation 21 and 22 is about...the "new heaven and new earth." Now understand that God does not make a new heaven and a new earth, rather, He "makes all things new." He doesn't make a new earth and heaven, He takes the one that exists and makes it new. The natural creation of Genesis 2:4 becomes the Spiritual Creation of Revelation 21, that was declared in Genesis one.

All of this is only possible through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Jesus lived out of the invisible realm of Spirit. He said, "My kingdom is not of this world"; He lived in the Reality of Spirit, not in the natural realm of "this world". That which was invisible to humanity was Reality to Jesus. He could see what the Father was doing in the Spiritual Creation, and He would then do that. What was in the Mind of God, in the Spirit; what the Father was thinking, that is what Jesus was about doing. Of His own self He could do nothing, but what the Father was doing, He let be done through Him.

The Light of His gospel is destroying the ignorance of man's darkness, and we are ascending up, being "caught up" into the Reality of this New Creation. The city, the state of God-consciousness, which has always been, is descending out of the heavens and the invisible Truth of Spirit is being manifested as the visible creation...is being made new. As the Word became flesh, so His WORD shall become visible, shall come to pass, and all flesh shall see it.

The God idea of Genesis one is manifested in Revelation twenty-one. The rest of the Bible is pictures of this Spiritual evolution. In all this we can see cause and effect. We can see that God (Cause), is bringing many sons to glory (effect), through this work of redemption: The raising up of the Spiritual Creation into visibility through Christ Jesus. Now, Jesus Christ is the Way of God's plan; He is the Truth of God's purpose; He is the Life of God's Reality: And our ONEness with Christ constitutes our ONEness with the New Creation.

In Genesis 2:4 we see the natural visible creation begin and the creation of man as a living soul, formed out of the dust, which is why the natural man must return to dust..."In Adam all die". But Jesus never returned to dust, even though He was flesh and blood as we are, because He put on His immortality. He ascended into the full Reality of Spirit and His body was changed. Paul said that we too are waiting for the redemption of our body...the redemption of the Body of Christ.

We are called to put on the New Man who is "CREATED ACCORDING TO GOD, in true righteousness and holiness; and who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him" -Eph. 4:24; and Col. 3:10. We were created in Christ Jesus and this is the Truth of who we are.

"However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual." 1 Corinthians 15:46. This is of major importance: The spiritual is not first! Even though God declared a perfect spiritual creation in the beginning, He made the natural one first. The natural creation was not perfect and complete, "very good", for it was subject to what we call "the Fall". If Adam was the "man in Our image, according to Our likeness" with dominion; then he was an absolute and total failure. Can you imagine God making a man in His exact image and likeness, and then this man fails at the first thing he is faced with. Fails to express the perfection of God his creator. This theory makes God look like a frail deity that can make a mistake when He created the man in His image. And then God would have had to come up with plan "B" in order to save man, but God didn't need a plan "B". Everything is exactly the way God purposed and planed it to be, though we are seeing through a glass darkly. We are the ones that do not yet see or understand what it is that God has purposed from before time.

The creation in Genesis one is a perfect creation and is spiritual, not subject to change. It is one that is perfect and complete and all is harmony. God is at rest in this creation, and it is "very good". It is a creation that is "blessed" and it is what God has done, permanent; established in the heavenly invisible realm of Spirit. It is a finished work, His work, and all is well, and shall be well; and nothing is going to change what God has done. The creation in Genesis 2:4, is created " in the day that the Lord God made the earth and heavens." Not the seven days of creation, but in "the day" God created it. "The Day" speaks of that epoch when God brought forth matter into visibility and form. It is not a 24-hour period; there is no 24-hour day in Spirit. The "seven days" of creation speak of the perfection and completion of the Spiritual Creation that exists in Spirit, in God; and no man, or devil, is going to change that.

The man in God's image is the Lord from heaven when He was manifested in the earth as Christ Jesus. The man of earth is Adam, and has always been a man of earth. Adam could have lived forever as a living soul with the presence of God visiting him, but that was not the plan. "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." -1 Cor. 15:44. The natural body is the Adamic body of flesh, the spiritual body is the body of Christ..."to each seed its own body." There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body; and the natural body is sown in corruption and then raised in incorruption. Sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, raised in power. "So that just as we have been made like the material pattern, so we shall be made like the heavenly pattern." -1 Cor. 15:49 Phil. There is two realms of existence. There is a natural creation and a spiritual creation. And we are ascending in consciousness into the spiritual as our Reality by dyeing to our natural beliefs. We die daily to the natural, and are renewed continuously to the spiritual. Death to self--alive to God.

God's pattern for man has always been in the heavens, and we are to bear the image of the Heavenly Man. The eternal purpose of God is in the eternal realm of Spirit. "We know, for instance, that if our earthly dwelling were taken down, like a tent, we have a permanent house in Heaven, made, not by man, but by God. In this present frame we sigh with deep longing for our heavenly house, for we do not want to face utter nakedness. So long as we are clothed in this temporary dwelling we have a painful longing, not because we want just to get rid of these "clothes" but because we want to know the full cover of the permanent. We want our transitory life to be absorbed into the life that is eternal. Now the power that has planned this experience for us is God, and he has given us the Spirit as a guarantee of its truth." 2 Corinthians 5:1-5, Phil. We have a spiritual body from God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. The True condition of Man is in the realm of Spirit, the creation of Genesis one. God declared the end from the beginning.

The natural man is sown in death then the spiritual Man is raised in Life. God declares the end-man in the beginning, He then begins the process by first making a natural man and placing him in a garden. What's True of you is what is true of you in Spirit, but this natural man must first come into being so that the Spiritual Man may be raised up into the fullness of the Christ. First the natural then the spiritual: The natural man is born first, then when you are born from above the Spiritual Man is born. God has declared the end, who you are, from the beginning. Through Christ Jesus and the work of redemption we are created (born) in His image, according to His likeness; and we have His dominion. We are a kingdom of priests, sons in His image, that we may be to the praise of His glory. Glory to God!

All creation is waiting for this Truth to be manifested. This is why death and resurrection are the good news of God. It is death to the natural man and resurrection to the Spiritual Man. It is the bringing into manifestation of the New Creation; and Jesus made the way that we may follow through His finished work. We don't have to have a crucifixion like His, we must learn how to let His death be our death, so that His life will be our life. All that is true of Him, seated at the right hand of God, is true of us, we just don't believe it. Let there be Light!

In Genesis 1:26, God said: "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness: let them have dominion...". This is NOT Adam! Adam is created in Genesis 2:7, and Adam was only a type of the Man that was to come -Rom. 5:14. The natural man is a type man, and the Spiritual man is the True Man in God's image and likeness. Jesus is the head of this Man, and we who believe in Him are the living body of Christ. This Man is a many-membered Man, and is the "them" in "let them have dominion." "As the human body, which has many parts, is a unity, and those parts, despite their multiplicity, constitute one single body, so it is with Christ." 1 Corinthians 12:12, Phil. Christ is ALL--Christ is One! Christ is One Body--One Man. Christ constitutes Jesus as the Head and we as the body, one many membered Man. When God spoke about creating man in His image, He was speaking of Christ. Jesus was the natural manifestation of this Man in His image, and we as the body, with Jesus as the Head, are the spiritual Man in His image; yet this manifestation is still to come into fullness. The spiritual manifestation of the Truth of heaven will come to pass on earth; and we will see the "new heaven, and new earth," the New Creation that has always been true in the Mind of God...in His eternal purpose.

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man (natural man) is perishing, yet the inward man (spiritual man) is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction (living life as a man of the earth realm), which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen (visible realm), but at the things which are not seen (invisible realm of Spirit). For the things which are seen are temporary (for a season), but the things which are not seen are eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, NKJV.

Even though this natural realm lasts for seven thousand or seven million years it is only for a season. This natural manifestation is but the temporary condition until the fullness of invisible Spirit is brought forth into visible manifestation.

"But we should notice that the 'spiritual' does not come first: the order is 'natural' first and then 'spiritual'. The first man came out of the earth, a material creature; the second man came from heaven. For the life of this world men are made like the material man; but for the life that is to come they are made like the one from heaven. So that just as we have been made like the material pattern, so we shall be made like the heavenly pattern." 1 Corinthians 15:46-49, Phil.

The "heavenly pattern" is the Reality that is true in Spirit. It is Genesis chapter one. We are at a time when consciousness is being raised up to see the Truth of Spirit, the Reality as it is in God. This is where we find out who, and what, we are. In a moment, in a flash of recognition, we will be changed. There will come a moment when we will see Spiritual Truth as Reality and we will be changed. Truth is only absolute as it is in Christ--in God--and this is in Spirit. Spiritual Truth is Reality, and it will become our reality as we gain a consciousness of it. To whatever degree we attain this Truth to this degree we will manifest it. I believe the creation of Genesis one exists in Spirit just as it is recorded. But we must put on this Spiritual Truth for it to become Reality to us.

Christ is the image of God -2 Cor. 4:4. "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being," -Heb. 1:3 NIV. This is man in God's image for Christ Jesus is the "express image" of God; and it is in Him, in Christ, that we find our true identity. What is true of Christ is true of us, but we must believe. "As He is, so are we in this world." -1 Jn. 4:17. Do you believe? Do you believe Paul when he says "we are also His offspring"? Do you? "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone--an image made by man's design and skill" -Acts 17:29. Christ is the Truth of individual being, of your individual being and mine. God has birthed us into the kingdom of His Son, and we are created in His image and likeness, and we have dominion just like the Captain of our salvation. Do you begin to see the scope of the big picture of God's eternal purpose to have a family of sons...Man in His image?

The risen Christ, the Faithful and True Witness, is "the beginning of the creation of God" -Rev. 3:14. And "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." -Col. 1:15. Christ Jesus is the first, and the beginning, of what God is doing. He is the eternal purpose of God--man in God's image. Your natural life is like a matrix out of which you will be birthed into the Reality of your True Self that you are in Christ in God.

"Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining." 1 John 2:8, NKJV. It is true in Him and in you. That is why the New Testament is full of incredible statements, because the writers new they were TRUE. The New Testament is full of statements of Truth that most Christians put off as promises that hopefully we will attain someday in the sweet by-and-by; but in fact are the Reality of Being: Reality as it is in Christ in God, which is the only real Reality. This earthen reality we deal with is the temporal condition, and is not Reality, not spiritual Truth. There can be only one Reality. Only what is True in God can be Reality.

"Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." 2 Peter 3:13, NKJV. Jesus made us a promise of a new heavens and earth, and when He sat down at the right hand of God He established forever that promise as FACT to those who will seek first the kingdom of God. Resting in His WORD, abiding in His Truth, is all that remains. Some MUST enter in! Will it be us, or do we leave it for another generation?

When Christ Jesus was raised from the dead the Spiritual Creation became a Reality in the earth. The invisible Truth of Spirit became visible in Christ when God raised Him from the dead. There was a complete manifestation of Truth. This same Truth is what is true of us, and the natural creation is waiting to be delivered from the bondage of this temporal corruption. We must line ourselves up with this Truth, come into agreement with it, for it to be manifest in our life. "Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind." Philippians 3:16, NKJV. We can only walk in what we understand, what we have a conscious awareness of; but we must press on toward the goal of the eternal purpose that was accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord and that we have in God.

"We are asking God that you may be filled with such wisdom and that you may understand his purpose." -Col. 1:9 Phil.

Sentient BEings
Christ Is ALL