Our God is a God of purpose, and in His creation of the universe and of man He had a purpose. Also, God had a motive for creating all things.
According to the Bible, the motive of God’s creation was to fulfill the desire of God’s heart and to satisfy His good pleasure (see Eph. 1:5, 9). God has a good pleasure, a desire, an addiction: He is addicted to man. God desires to have a man created in His image who expresses Him and represents Him.
For this, God created everything in the universe. The purpose of God’s creation is to glorify Christ, the Son of God and to manifest God Himself in man through Christ. God’s purpose in creating all things is to glorify Christ, His Son, and to manifest Himself especially in man through Christ.
The basis of God’s creation is God’s will and His plan, and the means of His creation was the Son of God and the Word of God – both of whom are Christ Himself!
In other words, God has a good pleasure, a heart’s desire, and according to His pleasure He made a plan to create all things, according to His will. Then, based on His will and plan, God created the universe and man through Christ as the active instrument of creation. God is intimately related to creation, and God’s purpose is fulfilled through His creation.
Hallelujah, our God is worthy to receive the glory and the honor and the power, for He has created all things, and because of Him they were and were created (Rev. 4:11)!
The Purpose of God’s Creation
What was God’s purpose when He created the universe? As revealed in the Bible, our God is a God of purpose, and creation was not a random or accidental thing He performed. The purpose in God’s creation is to glorify the Son of God and to manifest God Himself! Let us get a bit deeper into this twofold purpose of God’s creation:
1. The Purpose of God’s Creation is to Glorify the Son of God
In Col. 1:13 we see Christ as the Son of God’s love, and in v. 15 this One is the image of the invisible God. God is invisible, but the visible part of the invisible God, His visible image, is Christ.
How is Christ the image of the invisible God? How does Christ express God? If you continue reading Colossians 1, you will see Christ’s relationship with the old creation and the new creation. Christ expresses God in both the old creation and the new creation. Christ expressed God not by manifesting the creating power of God but by being the Firstborn of all creation.
Christ is not merely the first, having the preeminence, but He is the Firstborn of all creation, being a part of the creation.
We need to be careful when we speak about Christ being a part of the creation because there is a heretical teaching which claims that Christ is a creature in His divinity. This is wrong! In His divinity, Christ is the Creator; in His humanity, Christ is a creature, and even more: Christ is the means by which the creation was produced.
Christ did not objectively create the universe being apart from it: Christ is intimately related to His creation. Christ as part of the old creation manifests God and became the image of God! Also, as part of the new creation, Christ is the image of God, manifesting God and expressing God in the new creation.
When you combine these two, we have the full expression of God – in Christ all the fullness was pleased to dwell bodily! The expression of God, the image of God, and the manifestation of God dwells in this One, in Christ, who manifests God in the old creation and in the new creation. God created the universe and man to glorify Christ as the Son of God, and Christ fully expresses God!
2. The Purpose of God’s Creation is to Manifest God in Man
How did Christ express God? He expressed and manifested God as a Man (Col. 2:9). The purpose of God’s creation is to manifest God Himself, especially in man through His Son, who is the embodiment and the image, the expression, of God.
The One in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily is a MAN! This Man, Christ, came first in God’s eyes, and then Adam was created in His image and after His likeness. Christ is the Firstborn of the old creation, and according to His image man was created.
God’s purpose is to be manifested in man in a corporate way, just as He was manifested in Christ as a man in an individual way. Christ is the prototype of what man is, and our destiny as God-men regenerated with the divine life is to be filled with and contain the fullness of God to express Him corporately!
Outwardly, the invisible things of God have been seen since the creation of the world (see the beautiful sunset and the amazing sunrise, the Grand Canyon, and all the beauties of the nature and the universe) to manifest God’s characteristics. The Godhead dwelling in Christ bodily and being manifested in Christ verifies God’s existence, and the divine characteristics manifested in the creation also verify God’s existence.
Today, God has a group of people regenerated with His life, and in the church God is corporately manifested in the flesh in glory (see 1 Cor. 3:16). God’s purpose in creating the universe and man is to be expressed through man, and the church will fulfill God’s purpose by being God’s manifestation in the flesh!
The Basis of God’s Work in Creation: God’s Will and His Plan
God has a will. His will is the strongest and most determined will in the universe. Why does God do things? Why did He create the heavens, the earth, the plants, the animals, and man? Because of His will. No one can question His will, and no one can change His will.
God’s will is an extremely great matter. In the Old Testament it was a mystery, but in the New Testament the mystery of His will has been revealed to us in spirit (Eph. 1:9-10). We need to see the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself unto the economy of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ.
God’s will is from the beginning to the end, and it has significance for the entire universe as well as for mankind! God does what He wants: He pardons whom He wills (see Rom. 9), and He is right in His will all the time. According to His will and plan, He created all things.
In eternity past God’s will was hidden in Himself, being a mystery to both angels and later the old creation. But God’s will as a mystery hidden in God issued in God’s economy, His dispensing (Eph. 3:9), revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in spirit.
Today we can know God’s will by knowing God’s economy, which issues from His purpose, His good pleasure, His counsel, His will, and His plan. Because of His will all things were and were created – God willed it (see Rev. 4:11).
Hallelujah, right now, we as believers in Christ and members of the Body of Christ are here and now in the church life because of God’s will! May His will become our wish, and may His desire become our desire!
Thank You Lord for creating us in God’s image and likeness that we may express God in Christ! Thank You for creating us in Your will according to Your good pleasure. Lord, make Your wish be our wish, and make Your will be our will! We want to wish what You wish and desire what You desire. May Your will be done. Gain a corporate expression in the humanity redeemed and regenerated by Christ. We give You all the glory and the praise for Your creation! Praise You, Lord Jesus!
References and Further Reading
- Inspiration: bro. Andrew Yu’s sharing in the message and portions in, Life-study of Genesis (msg. 1), and, The Central Line of the Divine Revelation (msg. 3), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on the Crystallization Study of Genesis (1), week / msg 2, Creation in Christ for the Fulfilment of God’s Purpose.
- Further reading:
# Rom. 1:20 and footnote 1 (His divine characteristics).
# Msg. 10 in, Life-study of Colossians (by Witness Lee) concerning Christ’s subjective relationship with the creation. - Hymns on this topic:
# Our God is a God of purpose, / What He plans, He will fulfill! / Genesis to Revelation / Shows His full and glorious will. / What He’s after is a building. / In creation He began / With a simple garden planted— / This, the setting for His plan.
# God eternal has a purpose, / Formed in His eternal past, / Spreading to eternal future; / ’Twixt these ends all time is cast. / For with time there is the process, / Time for His accomplishment; / And in time we’re merely travelers— / For eternity we’re meant.
# In a time before time, / In an age before the ages, / There was God, all alone, in eternity. / Yet He had a heart’s desire. / And an object He required; / A desire in His heart / For a bride, a counterpart / That was deep inside the hidden heart of God.
About aGodMan
