20110220

The Church is the prism that unveils God’s eternal purpose, the display of His manifold wisdom.  How does a prism work?  It refracts a stream of white light and produces a spectrum of colours of the rainbow.  The Church is the medium through which God’s wisdom and eternal purpose is manifest to the world and made known even to the principalities and powers in heavenly places.

By God’s salvation plan, He wrought the emergence of the Church.  The Church is the product.  Like a prism, it displays and manifests in a magnificent way, God’s love.  This love of God is the pure-rest of white light and white-est of white.  This light through the completed work of Jesus on the cross and the birth of the Church, should “prism-ed out” His justice, His righteousness, His holiness, His mercy, His compassion and His truth.  How else can we understand and appreciate the multi-faceted character of our Almighty God?  It is by God’s wisdom that He arranges His purposes and plans and devises the means that bring forth the results of His purposes.   The central glory of the gospel is the revelation of God’s eternal wisdom – a demonstration of His love, meted with justice, mercy and compassion.  “Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed” (Ps. 85:10 NKJV).

Thus the Church is “the final and supreme manifestation of God’s wisdom” (Dr Martyn-Lloyd Jones).  This is the essence of God’s eternal purpose!  Until we understand that we, the Church, are to be God’s refractor of His eternal wisdom, we will not function effectively as part of a Body that seeks to achieve this glorious purpose.  We are crafted for this purpose.  We are created to the praise of His glory.  Are we manifesting God’s eternal purpose?

The gospel is personal and always starts with a personal commitment and realisation but it goes beyond the personal to a larger and far greater response.  A Christian is not to be merely interested in personal comfort and solace (which the gospel brings).  The Christian is one who must be concerned about the glory and the honour of God and always seeking to demonstrate His great and holy name.  When we understand the purpose of being crafted by God and when we seek to fulfil His eternal purpose, we will see a new Body and a Humanity emerging that honours Jesus’ sacrifice for our salvation.