From the Heart

The Purpose of Grace, October 9

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2:8. FH 294.1

The purpose and plan of grace existed from all eternity. Before the foundation of the world it was according to the determinate counsel of God that humanity should be created, endowed with power to do the divine will. But the defection of the human race, with all its consequences, was not hidden from the Omnipotent, and yet it did not deter Him from carrying out His eternal purpose, for the Lord would establish His throne in righteousness. God knows the end from the beginning: “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.” Therefore redemption was not an afterthought—a plan formulated after the fall of Adam—but an eternal purpose to be wrought out for the blessing not only of this atom of a world but for the good of all the worlds which God has created. FH 294.2

The creation of the worlds, the mystery of the gospel, are for one purpose, to make manifest to all created intelligences, through nature and through Christ, the glories of the divine character. By the marvelous display of His love in giving “his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” the glory of God is revealed to lost humanity and to the intelligences of other worlds. The Lord of heaven and earth revealed His glory to Moses when he offered his prayer to Jehovah in behalf of idolatrous Israel and pleaded, “Shew me thy glory.” ... FH 294.3

It is the privilege of every follower of Christ to behold the glory of God, to understand His goodness, and know that He is a God of infinite mercy and love.... Jesus came to reveal the Father, to make His glory known before humanity. No one was excluded from the privileges of the gospel.... FH 294.4

The mystery of the gospel had been spoken in Eden when the lost pair were first in the guilt of transgression, for God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” If Satan could have touched the head with his specious temptations, the human family would have been lost, but the Lord had made known the purpose and plan of the mystery of grace, for “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”—Signs of the Times, April 25, 1892. FH 294.5