GLORY IS THE GOAL

Defeat of Rebel Angels by Pieter Breugal Sr

At a time before time, a cadre of angels perpetrated a rebellion against God and while it was an unsuccessful coup, the rebel group spun off to infect others. In the broad window of pre-history God determined to create humanity and the world in which humankind would live. The original design and creation was perfectly achieved by the command of eternal God and time began. Humanity bore God's likeness in goodness and innocence. Humanity's participation in God's life and glory was the pre-eternal plan of God. For the briefest of moments there was intimacy between God and the first humans until the supernatural dissidents who had been evicted from God's presence, infected humankind. The faultlessness of the human species was soiled by personal sin that went viral. From that earliest time until now, the disabling effects of sin have dishonored the human story. This was not unforeseen and God did not react to that infiltration of wickedness as if surprised by it. Rather, since pre-eternity is that state of being from which God views all time, past, present and future as the same moment, He simply did what he intended to do. God elected to rescue fallen man through the incarnation and substitutionary atonement by God's Son who came supernaturally and then returned to the glory of his Father’s person. Since sin is viewed as personal liability, only individual faith in Christ's work that leads to salvation will be effective to regenerate a sinful person. Yet that person recreated and lived in by God's own Spirit, the second person of the trio of divine persons, lives with the assurance of entering the glory where God dwells beyond time. Glory is the goal toward which the whole story of redeemed humanity is moving.