Present at the Birth (Part 4): The Creation of Man Reveals God’s Eternal Purpose

God’s greatest purpose: the purpose that overlaps eternity. And we’ve been talking about that all week. It just didn’t get that clear until the last two messages. And I want you to know that when we end today, you and I still will not hear a really clear definition of the eternal purpose, but if you keep coming back, I promise you’ll get real clear. But there is an eternal purpose that is founded, formed in Christ, and it is found in Christ. But I did say there are some places we can look to see the development of this. Where is the first place you look?
God’s purpose, His intent. Where is the first place you look? In the Godhead. Thank you. Into eternity past, into the Godhead. So much of the roots of all of our Christian faith and all the origins and motivations — the motivations are there, the habits are there, brothers and sisters.  Do you understand what I mean by habits? The habits are there, the spiritual habits, the inclination of the way God thinks. The mind of God is there.

Now, I introduced to you yesterday, in the last meetings, another place where you can begin to look for some evidence of His eternal purpose. Now, you tell me what that was. Genesis 1 and 2. Why would we pick on Genesis 1 and 2? Because it’s before sin. And I have said to you again and again, what is it that God planned that has nothing to do with sin? What was God going to do with man if he had never fallen? Never think that all God intended to do is what you find in Genesis 1 and 2 — that He created man to walk with Him in the cool of the garden, and there was nothing more going to happen. God’s plan was being worked out; it was not completed.

There was a tree of life; man never ate of. If he had eaten of that tree of life, we would have begun to see that eternal purpose unfold here in the visibles. Now, I have to come back. I have to go into God. I have to return to that place where there’s no creation, and I have to ask of my Lord, “What’s the provocation here, Lord? Why create? What’s Your purpose? What’s Your purpose for man? What’s Your purpose in creation? What is it You want done?”

Have you considered this this week? Have you been wondering yourself? You’ve been wondering, what is His eternal purpose? Would you like for me to go ahead and tell you what it is? I think I’ll wait until the end of the meeting. I’ll hint at it a little bit, but all that we discussed in the last two messages are clear evidences of those things which reflect His purpose. Each one of them all have their origins back in the Godhead.

For instance, we see life, life as a sharing between God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The tree of life in the garden was an invitation for the sharing of that life to enlarge. It’s just that simple. And in that, we see a real evidence of His purpose — an enlargement of the fellowship of life. It did not happen, but Jesus Christ came to earth. He continued living by that life as He had in the Godhead, and then He invited His disciples to partake of that life. Was that to save them from their sin? No. No, that invitation had been given previous to the fall. When He invited them to take His life and live by His life, He was repeating to them what He had said to an unfallen Adam. A-D-A-M, not A-T-O-M. An unfallen Adam. Okay, so that’s one little indication. Now then, here’s the exciting thing — and that is that you can start in Genesis 1 and 2, and you can trace a line concerning that life all the way through the Old Testament and all the way through the life of Christ, all the way through the history books of the Old Testament and the songbooks — the Psalms — and the prophets, the sermons. The Old Testament is made up of three things: history, the songbook, and sermons. You’ve heard it as — what is the first part usually called? Well, bigger than that — the Law, okay, the Law and the Prophets and the Poetry. But it’s history, songbooks, and sermons. There’s a line concerning the highest life all the way through the Old Testament. And then through the life of Christ, it becomes very clear — seen at first in the Father and the Son’s relationship, carpenter with God the Father. Then you come into the epistles, and you see the life being shared again, and then you break out into Revelation,21-22, and it gets so clear — the line of life.

Now, what were some of the other things on our list? And we’ll just go through them right quickly. Give me your list. Water, huh? The eternal God. Alright, and also, the corporateness of God — “Let us.” As well as man. There is a man. Let me go with the man. There is a man all the way through the Old Testament. Well, sure, there’s a man. There are people all over the place. That’s not what I mean. I mean, there is a man. Now, who is the first man? Adam. No, ma’am. He is not the first man. Well, I don’t understand this fully, but there was a man before there was Adam. Now, don’t go chasing me down on that. I’m just telling you — He was the very first man.

Okay, but there is Adam, and there’s the line of Adam. And there comes the line of the old man, and you can trace it. Boy, he goes through many a trial, danger, toil, and snare, but there is also another line in the Old Testament, and it’s the line of the new man. Now, that is something very, very few people have ever heard about — that there is the old man, and there is the new man. You have to look for him very carefully. But his line, his lineage, is there. His lineage was in Noah’s Ark, but so was the old man. The old man sneaked on — they didn’t know it, but the old man sneaked out. What was his name? Sneaked in so you don’t even know — oh, you ignorant people! The old man and the new man — Ham, right? And then Ham came forth and gave birth to a whole bunch of things — I’ve forgotten what all of them are. What are the other two kids’ names? Shem and Japheth. Okay, and there should have been only two sons on that ship, and then there would have been the Gentiles and the Jews. But there were the Gentiles, the Jews, and the old man. Now, I know this gets very complex, but there is a man all through the Old Testament.

Then in the New Testament, you come to what? What do you come to? A man unlike any other man — the New Man. Now, is the Lord Jesus Christ the new man? Well, you’re a little smarter than I thought you were. I thought you were going to say yes. No, He is not the new man. He’s the Head of the New Man. You and I are also part of the new man, but now then, see what you don’t know is — that’s just not a man tripping through history. Oh, there’s an enormous battle going on and a tremendous fight for God’s eternal purpose, a tremendous battle over what this man is to do and to be. So, there’s a line all the way through the Old and New Testaments — ends in Revelation 21-22. There’s a man there. What a man. Now, there was also the eternal God. He begins in eternity past. You find Him throughout the Old Testament, you find Him in the New Testament and in Revelation, and you find Him in His final state — or at least in His glorious state. Okay, what were the other things we listed?
What? Life? I’ve already touched life, I think. Okay, there’s a garden. There’s a woman.

Whoa! Give me one at a time. There’s a garden for growing things. The garden — you can trace the garden all throughout the Old Testament. “I never heard of a garden anywhere.” You have to be very, very wise to find the garden in the Old Testament, because you have to find not so much the garden as what is being built on the garden or for the garden.

Okay, and there you come to those materials we mentioned. And what are the materials? Gold and bdellium. Bdellium, I’m not going to get into, but those materials stretch all the way across the Old Testament and all the way across the New Testament and are finally found in their final expression. Paul talked about the gold, the bdellium, and the stone. Now, you wouldn’t believe that, would you? That Paul talked about the gold, and the bdellium, and the stone that are in Genesis 1 and 2. In fact, he said, “I build with them.” He said, “I take them, and I build with them.” Are you following me? You look a bit shell-shocked back there. Isn’t that wonderful to believe that those four chapters are separated by well over 1500 years in their writing, and the authors who wrote them — and that so many different men wrote between them — and each of them have these things? And it’s not something you have to pump really hard to get it; it’s there. It’s very evident.

Okay, what was another one? Water. Well, the water — the material is in the water. Okay, the water, of course, is the very nature and content of God as a supply to us. And you find that water appearing again in many different ways, sometimes not as water but simply as supply. And there’s food there. You know, the tree had fruit. There’s food to be eaten and water to be drunk, and that food and that water does go throughout the Old Testament and then really clearly break loose and alive as Christ declares Himself to be the food and the water. And then again, reach their great, revealing, thunderous explanation in Revelation 21-22.