By Alan H. Crosby
The Universe
One of God’s purposes in creation is to display His glory! The psalmist looked up with his naked eyes and saw only about six thousand stars, a handful of planets and one moon. Yet his response was, “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork” (Ps. 19:1 ESV). With our modern instruments we discovered that the Milky Way, our galaxy, is made up of billions of stars. Astronomers have found billions of such galaxies. We have also discovered about two thousand planets circling the distant stars in our galaxy and there may be many more!
Humanity
We are not told the details of God’s purposes in creating, only that “all things … visible and invisible … were created through [the Son] and for Him” (Col. 1:16). God’s “plan for the fullness of time [is] to unite all things in Him” (Eph. 1:10). This plan involves the little planet we call “Earth” which circles a minor star we call “the sun.”
Before creating, God had in mind that the earth should be a suitable place for humans to inhabit and that people should be in His own image (Gen. 1:26-27), “holy and blameless before Him” (Eph. 1:4). But Satan seduced man into becoming like him, God’s enemy. To overcome this enmity, God sent His Son to reconcile us to Himself through faith. The Son became a man that “in His body of flesh by His death” we could be made “holy and … above reproach before Him” (Col. 1:22). By this single sacrifice “He has perfected [us] for all time” (Heb. 10:14), making us fit for the glory that Christ gives to His own (Jn. 17:22). Of the blessings we will have, “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9).
In creation, God declared His glory. And when all His purposes are worked out, believers will be blessed with unimaginable blessings! May we ever “praise [God] for His mighty deeds; praise Him according to His excellent greatness” (Ps. 150:2).
