The Measure of God's Thoughts Concerning You

I can always go to Michael Horton’s The Christian Faith for inspiration and reflection. He has a beautiful section on The Trinity and Creation. Horton sums it up including a quote from Colin Gunton about the transcendence and immanence of God:

In this Trinitarian economy, God is simultaneously transcendent and immanent, utterly distinct from creation yet actively involved in every aspect of its existence and preservation. Gunton elaborates: “[God] is clearly ‘without’ in the sense of being other, transcendent. He is creator and not creation, but he is also, in realization rather than denial of that transcendence, one who in Christ becomes part of that creation, freely involved within its structures, in order that he may, in obedience to God the Father and through the power of his Spirit, redirect the creation to its eschatological destiny.” Accordingly, the sharp distinction between God and creation never devolves into antithesis. The one and the many, unity and difference, God’s transcendence and immanence, divinity and humanity are never antitheses to be reconciled or synthesized. All things are from God, through God, and to God not because the Creator in an Unmoved Mover but because he is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (331).

What a great subject to meditate on in this advent season. I couldn’t help but think about Hebrews 2:5-10, anticipating the world to come. We do not yet see the fulfillment of man’s destiny given in the original Cultural Mandate to Adam. He failed to procure our reward in the new age, a much greater rule of man even over the angels. But we do see Jesus, who has obtained this for us by becoming a man. “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (2:10). Jesus is both the author and the finisher of our faith, making us co-heirs of his rule in the world to come. The second Adam has come! The first Adam was disobedient; Christ was obedient. Adam chose gratification for himself; Christ chose suffering for us. Adam failed to secure the age to come for us; Christ is the glorified captain of our salvation. As the finisher of our faith, he is where we find our true strength to run the race set before us, persevering until that day when he returns. We are not left to ourselves, but given his Holy Spirit who is applying his work to us from God, through God, and to God. I’ll leave my Christian readers with this encouragement from Arthur Pink in his An Exposition of Hebrews for further meditation:

Ah, brethren in Christ, when you go out at night and view the wondrous heavens, and then think of your own utter insignificance; when you meditate upon the glory of God’s majesty and holiness, and then think of your own exceeding sinfulness, and are bowed into the dust; remember that up there is a Man in the glory, and that that Man is the measure of God’s thoughts concerning you. Remember that by wondrous and sovereign grace, you have been not only predestined to be conformed to His image, but that you should, as a joint-heir with Him, share His inheritance (104).