Foreordained

 

You were not redeemed with corruptible things,

like silver or gold...

but with the precious blood of Christ,

as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

He indeed was foreordained

before the foundation of the world,

but was manifest in these last times for you

who though Him believe in God,

who raised Him from the dead

and gave Him glory,

so that your faith and hope are in God.

1 Peter 1:18-21, NKJV

 

 

Jesus was always the plan.

 

He wasn't Plan B.  He wasn't the emergency contingency or the backup plan.  He wasn't God's second plan after the first one failed.  He was the beginning of the first and only plan that God ever had for the universe, for humanity, for you and me.

 

Before God brought forth the whirling, cosmic mass of creation, before God lit the stars and set them in place, before God placed a little blue planet in orbit around its average yellow sun, before God caused life to arise from the waters and mud of that third rock from the sun, before there was anything, there was a plan.  Not only did God have a plan to create, but God had a plan to redeem the creation that would be corrupted by the free will choices of His creation. 

 

The plan was going to break His heart.  It was going to require personal sacrifice and pain.  It was going to require the shedding of His own blood, the death of His own Son who would be the physical extension of Himself to a planet and a people who would spin out of control away from Him.

 

But that was the plan.

 

Before time began, the Godhead determined of itself and in itself and among itself that One must die for all.  If We're going to create it, We're going to have to let it have a life of its own, a mind of its own, a will of its own.  If We're going to create it to serve and worship Us, We must give it the choice not to, the ability to refuse and turn away, the power to wound us, to hurt us, to reject us.  And then We must give it a way back through Us.  Through Our love for it.  Through Our deliberate, willing sacrifice for it.  Through Our blood that We will shed for it.

 

We must be poured out.  We must be the price that is paid.  For there will be no earthly treasure great enough, no amassed wealth vast enough, no great and honorable deed worthy enough to redeem them.  No thing done by this creation without Us will be powerful enough to save them from themselves.  We must be the One to save them.  We will make them perfect, We will let them fall, We will teach them truth, We will call them back, We will let them choose.  We will give them earthly life, which they will deliver up to death.  And then We will deliver Ourselves up to death so that We can give them eternal life.

 

It was predetermined, foreordained, decided ahead of time.  The Second person in the Trinity, the One who was the Word, would also be the Son and become the Lamb, to redeem all creation from destruction and save a humanity that may have forgotten, but still needed, a Savior.