It Is An Understanding of What We Have Come Into When We Have Come Into Christ (continued)
The Will In Action
Then we go and take up that word "Will": The Mystery of His will. We are putting that word, "Will," in capitals and in quotes, the "Will" is now moving out into creative action. All we need to say about it is, when we take up our Bibles and begin the history of things in creation, all we need to say is this: 'What is the point in it all?' What is the meaning behind it all? What is it really all about?' it is not just a statement of certain things, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). And then proceeded with everything else - all very interesting, all very wonderful, but what is it all about? It is the "Will" in action! What that "Will" means, what it means is to have this something that corresponds to the Eternal Glory. So that God proceeded with every detail with one object: that it should all answer to, and fall into line with, the Glory of Christ before the foundation of the world.
The very universe exists by the power of God as governed by this "Will": the Mystery of His "Will", the Secret of His "Will", that we are called unto His Eternal Glory. If you like, with all the wresting and juggling that has been done with that word "Eternal", I do believe that it means something more than age. And for me, if God is Eternal, and Christ is Eternal, and Life is Eternal, that does not belong just to an age. So that Glory is not just of an age, it is Timeless. The Glory is as Timeless as God, as Christ, and therefore as Timeless as the "Will" of God. We are brought into being according to the "Will" that we should be eventually glorified together with Him.
If you want to follow what I have said, you can do so especially on that last matter about creation and Glory. There is much Scripture that points to it. Would you like to have just one well known passage? Here it is, here is a light thrown very clearly upon that very matter of the creative work according to the "Will." It is in the well-known eighth chapter of the letter to the Romans, verses 20-22:
"For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him Who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall we delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now".
The Rift in the Glory
Well, it was brought into being for Glory, the rift came, of which we are going to speak in a moment. And because of the rift in the Glory, it was subjected to vanity, put under the reign of vanity; vanity simply meaning: "Inability to realize its destiny." It was put under the reign of vanity until God should get what He is after in a people called the children of God, the sons of God. And when He gets that, when He has got the people for which the creation was made - not the other way round, that way the creation was made for the people - when He has got the people for the Glory, then the creation shall be delivered from its bondage and come into the Glory of the people.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 11
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