The Secret Plan

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     "For God has allowed us to know the secret of his plan, and it is this: he purposes in his sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in Christ, that everything that exists in heaven or earth shall find its perfection and fulfillment in him" (Ephesians 1:9, 10).

     The human mind partakes of and assimilates ideas as the mouth introduces food to the stomach. That is why we use such expressions as "food for thought," or "digesting new truths." As food strengthens and nourishes the body, so ideas cause the mind to grow and expand.

     But not all food is equally tasty, and when one gets a morsel which is especially delectable, he wants to hold it in his mouth and swallow it slowly, savoring every bit of it. The same thing is true with the thought-processes, and one of the most wholesome and palatable bits I have ever found is the one in our heading. I never tire of meditating upon it. Here are a few things that thrill my soul about it.

     1. God is the God of a plan. Our universe is not the result of blind chance. It did not result from a mere fortuitous concourse of atoms. We have not been

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condemned to a meaningless meandering or a senseless striving from the cradle to the grave. Everything in creation is composed of related systems, and all of these combine to former greater systems. In the physical body the digestive system, the nervous system, the genito-urinary system all inter-relate to form the body, and each would be functionless outside of the ultimate combination.

     By the same token, the planetary system, the terrestrial system, and countless others, are part of a grand design. Can we deny that all that is made, visible and invisible, is not linked together by the Maker into an unfolding pattern which some day will reveal itself in such transcendent beauty that man must have a transformed nature to even appreciate it?

     2. God is the God of a secret. Parents sometimes have a noble desire to make their offspring heirs of such wealth as will provide them happiness and security beyond their fondest dreams. But they dare not disclose their ultimate aim while the children wrestle with the struggle toward maturity. The closely guarded secret must be kept without disclosure until the children are ready to understand and appreciate it.

     Thus it was with the secret of the ages. God sent his children to the primary school of the patriarchal economy, then to the elementary school of the Mosaic economy with its governors and child-conductors, and finally to the preparatory high school conducted by a special tutor, John, the son of Zacharias and Elisabeth. Then, when the children graduated he told them the great secret. So it is written, "You must realize that so long as an heir is a child, though he is destined to be master of everything, he is, in practice, no different from a servant. He has to obey a guardian or trustee until the time which his father has chosen for him to receive the inheritance."

     We are fortunate indeed to live in the age of the shared secret. Paul writes, "This secret was hidden to past generations of mankind, but it has now, by the Spirit, been made plain to God's consecrated messengers and prophets." Again he says, "that sacred mystery which up till now has been hidden in every age and every generation, but which is now as clear as daylight to those who love God."

     3. God is the God of human history. The march of mankind is not a tramp through the darkness with no definite starting place and without a designated destination. It is not an upward groping from flecks of spume or slime in primordial ooze, or the reaching out of fleshy tendrils or tentacles to clamber up to a rocky shore from the depths of a sea of gaseous mud. Instead, it is the ongoing procession of men made in the image of God, with that image soiled and defaced through sin, but always tending toward "the hope that in the end the whole of created life will be rescued from the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in that magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of God."

     There is no question about the terminus of our existence. It is determined according to the purpose grounded in God's will, and that will is sovereign, not subject to external or changing conditions. Man is not in a rat race. He is part of the human race, come from God and destined for fellowship with the Eternal One. It is not always easy for one who is caught in the eye of a hurricane to see the way out, but we need not be too concerned for the One who watches over us does not slumber nor sleep.

     Human history will be consummated in Christ. This is the secret. We have now been cut in on it so we know what life is all about. We were made flesh by the Word of God, and then the Word was made flesh to become like us. He shared our lot so we could share his life. He came down that we might be lifted up. He is our existence, our motivation, our ground of being. "In him we live, and move, and have our being." We are because he is! He is not merely God up there or out there, but God down here and in here. He is not just Alpha, but

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also Omega. The alphabet of the divine has its final letter as well as its first, so he is perfecter as well as the pioneer of our faith.

     4. God is the God of fulfillment. There are no dangling threads in the divine pattern but all are caught up in the loom of the ages and woven into the warp and woof of the infinite coverlet of love. There are no spare parts scattered over the workbench of time but all are fitted into the enmeshed gears of the machinery of destiny. Every desire, every thirst, every hunger, every drive which is legitimately a part of our nature finds its fulfillment in him who bridged time and space to fling out the lifeline which drew him unto us by the same act which drew us unto him.

     The secret is out and gone are the frustrations which result from peering intently into the darkness. The secret is out and gone are the fears of hacking our way through a labyrinthine jungle filled with frightening sounds and sights. The storm is subsiding, the waves are receding, the breakers are quieting. The secret is out, and the dawn is coming, and he stands on the far-off shore beckoning. He is the Reconciler of the Eras, the Desire of all nations, the Peace of God. "In my opinion whatever we may have to go through now is less than nothing compared with the magnificent future God has planned for us. The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own" (Romans 8:18, 19). Praise God!