When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; (I ask), what is man that Thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that Thou visitest him? For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet - Psalm 8:3-6:  

For in that He put all things in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But yet now we see not all things put under him. But we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man – Hebrews 2:6-9.

Some 3,000 years ago King David looked up at heaven and asked an important question. Seeing the splendour of the sun, moon and stars stretching far out into space, he wondered: What is man that the great Creator God thinks of him and visits him?

What indeed? Compared to the vast reaches of the universe both earth and mankind shrink into insignificance. Yet God’s word, the Bible, reveals there is a reason of huge cosmic importance behind to sustain the man and woman he formed.

So why did God make mankind? To display his glory, yes. To have men and women as his companions, yes. But there is a hidden cause so crucial the Lord kept it secret for most of human history, revealing it only to the imprisoned Apostle Paul nearly 2,000 years ago. Since it is now revealed anyone who reads the Bible can learn about this, God’s once hidden plan. It’s plainly set out in in the Apostle Paul’s last seven epistles.

Sadly few do so because the devil fiercely opposes the risen glorified Lord’s message given to Paul, his appointed apostle to the Gentiles. The reason: In short Satan doesn’t want believers to know they will be the ones to bring about his final doom. Accordingly, he causes many Christians to have a negative knee jerk reaction to the clear Bible teaching that we are now in the dispensation of the “mystery” (Col. 1:25-26). Importantly, this secret was revealed by God only after He suspended his work through the nation Israel at Acts 28:28.

Fact is this message was kept hidden by God as long as Israel was his especial nation and the instrument of his salvation to the world. But when the chosen people were dismissed by God as recorded in Acts 28:28, the Lord then turned to the Gentiles, sending Paul to tell them the long hidden “mystery” is that now “Christ (is) in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Thus, it is through the indwelling Christ that all believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, can now be “...reconciled in the body of his flesh to present you holy, unblameable and unreprovable in his sight” (Col. 1:21-22).

That God could save his enemies worldwide and to such an extent was never part of preaching in the Pentecostal dispensation of Acts, nor was it part of Jesus’s “kingdom” gospel.  Only through Paul does the Lord now proclaim the “mystery”, the long hidden secret God is now finally revealing to all mankind.

But there is more to the “mystery” than just that. There is the “one new man”, a new recreated human race which is “renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him” (Col. 3:10). And that “one new man” is now the body of Christ Himself. For He is the fullness that “filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:22-23). He is now also Head over all things to the church which indeed is his body. The “mystery” here is that his ascended, glorified human body has by a divine miracle been extended to take into Himself believers who have been changed into his image.

Yet there’s still more. This “one new man” - that is believers embedded in Christ and He in them - is now God’s chosen instrument to wage a holy war in the heavens and on earth to universally “set all things right”. And the when and how He will do so is clearly set out in Paul’s prison letters.

So today there can be no higher calling (Phil. 3: 14) for believers than to appear with and in Christ Jesus the Lord when He appears in glory (Col. 3:4). For it is at his appearing that He will take over government of the world and bring in his kingdom (1 Tim 6:14-15, 2 Tim. 4:1). And in doing so when this wonderful “Day of Christ” (Phil. 1:10, 2:16) dawns He will break the chains of darkness with which Satan has long bound the human race and set the redeemed free from them for ever.

And who will be the ones accompanying Him in disarming the dark forces and then ruling with Him over all the world? Why, it will be those who have suffered with Him and for Him in this life (2 Tim. 2:10-12). In Hebrews 2:5 we are told that it is not unto angels God that God has subjected “the world to come”; that is the Day of Christ. But clearly to those saints saved by grace who respond to the “high calling” or calling on high (Phil. 3:14).

Ephesians 4:9-11 sets out the two purposes of the “mystery”:

1. To make all men see what it is.

2. To make the rebellious heavenly powers know it too.

… to make all men see what is the fellowship (Greek: dispensation), which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Christ Jesus. To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church (that of Eph. 1:22-23) the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph. 3:9-11).

 You see, the Lord’s plan to make all of creation right and eternally holy in his sight was actually drawn up by God long before any trouble began way back, that is when the created heavens and earth were still pristine in beauty, before Lucifer rebelled and brought destruction and chaos to both earth and space. 

So, far back in eternity past the Lord foresaw not only that Lucifer would fall from heaven but having been cast down to earth would then mount an assault on heaven itself. It is that assault that flooded the earth and plunged it into chaos and darkness (Gen. 1:2 and 2 Peter 3:5-7).

And though Christ the creator  refashioned the earth for man to live on in the six creative days of Gen. 1:3-31 the final “putting right” awaits his soon coming and imminent appearing (Titus 2:13) to bring in the Day of Christ and his kingdom (2 Tim. 4:1), we being with Him and part of Him.

John Dudley Aldworth

Email: john.aldworth@hotmail.com

Website: https://www.dayofchristmnistries.com/rss/all.xml