Blown Away

Have you ever hit a passage in the scripture in your study that suddenly opened up whole new vistas of understanding for you?  That happened for me in Ephesians 3:11 last week.  Verse 11 further explains 10.  As the Body of Christ we demonstrate to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies the Wisdom of God.  My first reaction to that was we are not doing a very good job of that.  But notice that it is not a conditional statement, no, it is a declaration.  It is a fact that the Church demonstrates God’s wisdom.

Then we come to the real mind blower, at least for me.  Paul writes that this demonstration was an eternal purpose carried out in Christ.  I had to ask several questions here.  First, why did God want to demonstrate His wisdom to Satan and his angels in the first place?  Why was the death of His Son necessary to accomplish this?  Why not just wipe them out?  It is what I would have done if I were God.  It is a lot of trouble to go through to demonstrate wisdom to a bunch of angels who have already rebelled.

When I encounter a passage that just does not make sense to me, like this, it is a fairly strong signal that I need to slow down and pay attention to what is being said.  As I thought through this the following occurred to me:

• God does not destroy.
• Death is not destruction it is anguish.  
• The fallen angels would be better off destroyed.
• God does not destroy his creation.  
• He either redeems it or separates from it.
• The separation creates anguish beyond description.

This forms a strong foundation for the gospel.  People who are separated from God will live in eternity in unspeakable anguish for being separated from the source of life.  There are only two options, redemption or anguish.

I wonder if this hits you like it did me.