Chapter 3 – A Pre-Determined Plan
John the revelator records that Christ was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, (Rev. 13:8). This is an indication of a well thought-out pre-determined plan of action. Many read these verses with little concern for what they actually mean. We know historically that the Son of God was born in Bethlehem a little over 2,000 years ago, and that He forfeited His life on Calvary’s cross at the age of 33 1/2 in the year 31 AD (Some commentators place His death a year or two later). (Matthew, Ezra, Daniel)
Again Scripture records that it was at the fullness of time that God sent forth His Son, (Gal. 4:4). This was a scheduled event (Mo’ed), pre-determined even before the world was created. God could look down the telescope of what we call time and know just the precise moment to insert these particulars necessary for the success of His plan.
God was not caught off guard by the sin and rebellion of Adam and Eve, or even Lucifer’s choice in heaven to turn from His law of love. He did not need to make some impulsive decisions on the spur of the moment. The plan had been well thought out by the Godhead; Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost would all be directly involved with the implementation and success of the rescue plan; plus the angels of heaven would assist fallen mankind in their time of trial.
God is omniscience (all knowing – 1 John 3:20) and so He would have plenty of time to think through the solutions necessary for our Salvation. He would engineer and even orchestrate a precise well thought out plan with cunning precision. At just the right moment according to the heavenly blueprint, major events would occur just as scheduled. Let’s consider now three of the major ones highlighted in each of the three segments of time we posted in the last chapter.
Fifteen hundred and thirty years after sin became a reality for our world, the first of three major interventions would be announced. God proclaimed to Noah, “the end of all flesh is come before me for the earth is filled with violence”… (Gen. 6:13). What would have been your very first question at that point? (Yeah, mine too!) We’d want to know just when and how that was going to take place; physically the world at that time was a paradise. It had been created perfect, all of nature was in perfect harmony. However, sin had taken its toll on humanity and corruption and violence was the rule of the day. God would need to step in to Judge His relatively new creation. This had to seem very odd since Noah and everybody else was living in a virtual utopia, as far as the environment was concerned. The planet was in perfect balance before the flood. God Himself declared His creation to be “very good”. (Gen. 1:31)
Notice though, God did not leave Noah in the dark, prompting him to guess, or imply that He would send signs so that Noah would know the event was near. No, God supplied him with the precise time he had left to prepare for the scheduled event; this direct communiqué should reveal something important to us.
“And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years”. (Gen. 6:3)
God had informed Noah that from the very day of their conversation, he had 120 years to warn the people and make all the preparations for this coming judgment. God in mercy was revealing to Noah what was on the schedule and just when, according to the blueprint, it was going to take place. This scheduled event was the judgment of the Global flood. Please, also notice that God only designated a yearly amount of time, nothing more specific. Noah could count the years, nothing else.
Here we discover the first major intervention on the blueprint, but are there more? The flood event occurred about 1,650 years after Adam and Eve were escorted from their garden home, due to their rebellion. This left the world in a terrible shamble, it would take hundreds of years to recover and it would never display the beauty and splendor it once had before this event. Even today the earth is still wobbling on its axis through space as a result of the catastrophe.
Would humanity learn an important lesson; would they realize that ignoring God’s directives had left the entire planet at risk? For the most part we are a very stubborn and a hard-headed race of people and usually, don’t learn from our mistakes or negative history. This being the case it set the stage for a second intervention. What and when would the next one take place? We’ve already alluded to it; the birth of the Messiah (Christ) in Bethlehem.
Even after the flood event over 2,000 years would pass before the promised Messiah would come, a promise that had been made to our first parents (Gen. 3:15). The probationary time clock had ticked off nearly 4,000 years from the time sin had taken humanity captive. Scripture records that when the second special scheduled time had arrived; the event that had been so long promised; at that exact moment indicated by the blueprint, Christ the Messiah was born. (Gal.4:4)
“But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law”…
God’s personal appearance, in the form of His Son, would be absolutely necessary as part of the plan to save humanity. But not only would a substitutionary role be necessary; playing the role of Kinsman redeemer, but a sacrifice of infinite value to satisfy the demands of the transgression of God’s eternal law would also be required. Many within Christianity today totally ignore this particular of the plan and thus only present half the sacrifice or atonement made by Christ. The Son of God must be willing to make two distinct offerings; one human, one Divine. (Eph. 5:2, 1, John 5:9) This divine offering would be an eternal one; He must offer up His Omnipresence to complete the atonement. This is why our Savior must of necessity be incarnate, both human and divine, He would not only make two offerings but qualify for two priestly ministries, one Levitical (finite), the other after the order of Melchisedec (infinite). (Heb. Chapters 5-7)
**Authors note – details concerning this greater understanding of the atonement can be found in our publication entitled, “The Ark Secret”, which deals with the true location of the Ark of the Covenant and the role It played during the crucifixion.
There is another event of special significance, a third intervention that is on the blueprint, scheduled for just the right moment. God’s word references this event numerous times; Christians often refer to it as the 2nd coming of Christ in the clouds of glory at the end of time.
This event takes place shortly after a time of pre-advent judgment. This is similar to the 120-year review God conducted during Noah’s day, an extra amount of probationary time provided to warn the inhabitance of coming Judgment, with the hopes of inspiring repentance. Noah would also construct the rescue ship (The Ark boat) during this time from a specific set of construction drawings; God was the architect; Noah the master builder.
Just after everyone today has made their choice for or against God’s authority, the door of probation will as well be closed. This is parallel to just what occurred in the time of Noah, with the closing of the door of the Ark. Once the door was closed, no one could get on board, neither could Noah and his family get off (they were sealed in), the final decisions were all made before God closed the door.
What has been pre-ordained on the blueprint is not only these first two interventions, but the last one as well. It would be totally out of character for our loving heavenly Father to provide such warning to other generations and not ours.
Scanning several thousand years of history reflected in the past, we can easily realize and place the first two interventions; however, it is the end of this third dispensation that has been guessed at over the last twenty centuries. The guessing has taken place not because the event is not going to occur, but because Bible students did not notice key markers on the blueprint that specified particular interventions, which suggested a targeted completion year. You will see shortly that the year scheduled is the year 2034 AD.
These scheduled events of major interventions are significant in another manner as well. The plan of Salvation was not only designed to rescue fallen humanity, but teach a lesson for the unfallen worlds (Heb. 1:2), by far the major portion of God’s creation.
Jesus tells a parable of the lost sheep in Matt. 18 and again it is recorded in Luke 15, of a shepherd that had 100 sheep.
One animal wanders away and is lost, but does the shepherd say, oh, I still have plenty and needn’t worry about that little lost one? No, the good shepherd goes out in search of that lost sheep and is determined to find it, and when He does, there is great rejoicing. This is a parable describing what has happened to our little world, we were the little world that wandered away, but the Good Shepherd (Christ), came searching for us and found us, wanting to share His good news to save us, we can only praise God for such love!
This parable introduces a much broader perspective of God’s creation and His interest and love towards a world gone astray. The good Shepherd is intent on rescuing the lost sheep, but must also reassure the 99 safe in the sheepfold, that He has not abandoned them either. The good Shepherd (Christ) accomplishes both in a very ingenious manner. Something very spectacular was occurring with God’s scheduled interventions. Notice that the Plan of Salvation could be summed up with three specific components.
Number One, “The born again experience”, this could be summed up as our response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, repentance and a receiving of Christ, leading to baptism.
Number two – “Growing up in Christ”, walking by His Spirit through Grace, praying, studying and witnessing daily as an ambassador of His Kingdom.
Number three – “Putting on immortality” at the 2nd coming, being changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at that last trump (1 Cor. 15:51-55). Theologians call these three experiences: Justification – Sanctification – and Glorification, big words that mean very little to most people.
The most interesting thing is that God has used His major scheduled interventions to express to His creation the very same three components of the Gospel of Salvation.
God’s 1st major intervention was the flood; why did He use a flood to destroy the world? Think about all the other options He would have had at His disposal, He could have turned out the lights, stepped on the brakes, hit the gas pedal, snapped His fingers or blinked His eyes and have everyone disappear etc. God was not limited in any fashion with a method to eliminate sin from His creation and yet, He did none of those things: He sent a global flood washing the planet clean, why? And I might add that this scheduled event was initiated with the 120 years of special investigative time.
The first component of Salvation is to be Justified. Once we accept the free gift of Salvation, the outward sign of that inward change, is baptism. Baptism symbolizes the old man of sin being put to death and a washing away of sin, a coming up in newness of life, a resurrection of sorts to Godly righteousness. This is just what God did with the entire planet at the flood, the water was 15 cubits above the highest mountain (Gen. 7: 20), He baptized or submerged the world in water, washing it clean, it came forth in newness of life. This first intervention would demonstrate to His creation the first aspect of Salvation, that of Justification.
Just a quick note to inform everyone that the topography and eco-system in the pre-flood world was much different than today, the tectonic plates had not yet been broken up, allowing continental shifting with subduction zones and huge up-thrusts. All of this, plus volcanic activity has allowed for the development of huge mountain ranges. There were no pre-flood mountain peaks nearly 30,000’ (like Mt Everest), which were covered by water. Our geology today is a reflection of the catastrophe of the global flood.
Moving on to the 2nd event brings us to the coming of the Messiah, the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. For over 33 years He would live an exemplary life. Having come in a Justified state (1 Tim. 3:16)
“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory”.
Christ would do always those things that pleased His Father (John 8:29), even as a child He would wax strong in the Spirit,
“And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.” (Luke 2:40).
Christ the Messiah would live a Sanctified life. In this, He became not only our example, but demonstrated to His creation the 2nd component of Salvation, the true process of Sanctification.
Living as a man, Christ walked in the Spirit, drew strength from the grace Heaven provided and was a servant to all. We are encouraged to do the same:
“Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus, for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Phil. 2;5,13). Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Rom. 1:1)
The 3rd major intervention will be the second coming of Christ. Since this is yet a future event, this is the one with all the suspense surrounding it and the one that will catch a mostly unsuspecting world off-guard. Scripture likens this intervention as, “the coming of a thief” (1 Thess. 5). The reality of this event will speak to His creation a message of Glorification. The saints will be changed in a moment at His coming:
“So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory”. (1 Cor. 15:54)
Though we have broadened God’s rescue perspective to His entire creation, we can see from our examples that the three aspects for earthly Salvation, will all be on display before His entire creation, illustrating His marvelous character of love and ability to save. This has and will occur through His major interventions; the flood, an example of Justification – His birth & life, an example of Sanctification – and His 2nd coming, an example unto Glorification. The reason for such organization and interventions? It’s all on the Blueprint!
God’s Major interventions sent an astounding message to all His creation !!!
God’s Blueprint has created a bridge to life eternal!