p. 6 | God's Changeless Purpose by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 2, 1909

God's Changeless Purpose

By C. M. S.

Although the specific plans of God's work may change, his purpose is unalterable. When Jehovah could no longer reach Israel as a nation independent of other nations, he permitted her to be overthrown as a nation, her people to be carried away captives of an idolatrous king, even with the vessels of his own holy sanctuary. There, in their afflictions, he knew they would remember him. They did so, and he again brought them out of bondage with substance. They rebuilt the city and the sanctuary, and re-established his worship in that consecrated place. So it was not a change of purpose, but a change of plan to accomplish the same eternal purpose; and the change of plan was made necessary by the vacillating course of his people. God meant that his people should be a free people. He permitted them to be a subject people in order that he might reach their hearts, and release them from the bond service of sin.

When his people renounced his kingship, and demanded a king of flesh, the Lord still wrought for them through his prophets, and through every king who would heed the counsels of his voice. His purpose was to have a people who would rightly represent him to the nations of this earth that did not know him. When they refused to be that light, the Lord allowed them to go down into the very darkness which they were to have dispelled; and they stayed there until they had found again the light which they had hidden.

The Lord had promised that the scepter should not depart from Judah until Shiloh came; but when Judah dishonored and trampled upon her sacred charge, then God allowed the earthly rulership of Judah to cease. But the promise was not broken. Christ as the prospective offspring of that tribe held that scepter himself in heaven. The nation had so linked itself with the wicked customs and idolatrous practises of heathendom that God could no longer, either in justice to himself or to the world, leave that scepter in the hand of apostate Judah. Lacking a true representative, the scepter naturally reverted to the Giver, and was held in trust, as it were, until he should come personally to exercise it in his own right, tangibly in the earth.

Christ is entitled to sit on the throne of his father David, not merely by the fact of his birth in the tribe of Judah, but also because he had, through his sinless life and his sacrifice, redeemed the entire possession of this earth from the dominion of Satan. That is, primarily, why it is Christ's right. That is, primarily, why the kingdom and dominion under the whole heaven are placed under his control. He 'whose right it is' is soon coming to claim that dominion.

Unrighteousness wrenched the scepter from the hand of Israel's earthly king, and righteousness puts it into the hands of Christ. Unrighteousness sent that nation captive to Babylon, the symbol of confusion and spiritual darkness. Righteousness is releasing a people even to-day from spiritual darkness and soul bondage, and will enable them soon to stand upon the sea of glass, approved of God, without guile, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. Disloyalty to God has cast angels, as well as nations, under chains of darkness to wait for condemnation and execution. Loyalty to him and his holy law will place even frail and faulty men in the place where angels might have stood. 'Here are they that keep the commandments of God' will be said of those who are counted worthy to share in the fulfilment of God's promise to his children. It will be said of those called to fill places left vacant by the 'angels who kept not their first estate.'

The Lord declares that his word shall not return unto him void, but shall accomplish his purpose. He purposed that man should be established in this earth forever; and so, since the fall of man, God has been gathering together in this wrecked and forfeited home of man a company of tried and true children for the peopling of this same earth when it should be restored to its original loveliness. That purpose will soon be accomplished; and Christ himself, who won back the forfeited inheritance of man, will rule that kingdom forever, even forever and ever. He is of the 'seed of David,' the Redeemer of the purchased possession, the Shiloh who was to come, and 'whose right it is' to rule the realm

of righteousness. God's purpose is the same through the ages, though the details of its outworking may change from century to century. His ultimate purpose is the rule of righteousness in every portion of his realm. So sure as God exists, just so certain will he triumph over sin, and he has so arranged it that the frailest mortal that ever stood upon this earth may share in that glorious triumph.

It is a wonderful opportunity given to mortal man; and it is to the glory of God that he can take the weak things of this world and with them overthrow the kingdom and powers of darkness; that he can take sinful men and with them bring in the rule of everlasting righteousness—not because of their sin, but because of their loyalty and submission to him in his unchanging purpose. To have a part in that triumph is the greatest privilege that man could ask, and to share in the glorious result of it will satisfy every redeemed soul.

C. M. S.