God’s Secret Plan

Part 5 of God Really IS Great! Religions Poisoned Everything! Series

God told his secret plans to his servants the prophets, and it will all happen... Revelation 10:7

For ages and ages this message was kept secret from everyone, but now it has been explained to God’s people. Colossians 1:26

God knew Adam and Eve would fail their trial in the garden of Eden due to lack of experience, therefore he had a plan prepared prior to the foundation of our world to redeem and eventually restore them and everyone else (1 Peter 1:20). God kept his plan secret for a long time and only revealed the details gradually as was necessary to accomplish his grand design. Today this plan can be explained and properly understood, however many people do not really understand it and are misinformed concerning the principle which permitted God to justly release Adam and everyone else from the death sentence.

I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction... Hosea 13:14

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. 1 Tim 2:5,6

Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Matthew 20:28

Since a man brought death, a man also brought life back from death. As everyone dies because of Adam, so also everyone will be made alive because of Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:21,22

A wise and economical decision in God’s secret plan was to delay a similar Edenic trial-for-life for everyone else. Instead of being born with a "right to life" and placed on trial for life, God decided to place everyone under Adam’s penalty of death. This decision made it possible to redeem everyone and satisfy justice with only one action, otherwise known as the ransom. The Greek word for ransom is antilutron – defined as "a corresponding price." This concept of a corresponding price is a fixed law of God’s universe. It is expressed in Israel’s law, “You shall give LIFE for LIFE, eye for eye, tooth for tooth” Exodus 21:23-24. One perfect man was a substitutionary sacrifice for the perfect man Adam, who forfeited his life along with the human race in him. Since everyone is condemned in Adam to no fault of their own, if Adam is to be restored back to life, it follows that everyone would be restored to life with him. “As everyone dies because of Adam, so also everyone will be made alive because of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:22 God’s justice does not mean “just us”, yet many Christians believe they alone will benefit from Christ’s sacrifice. If this were true, most of the human race would remain condemned under Adam’s death sentence.

None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: Psalms 49:7

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved (from the Adamic death sentence) through him. John 3:17

Jesus was uniquely qualified to lay down his life as the corresponding (ransom) price for Adam’s forfeited life. Anyone born from the line of Adam are born under the Adamic death sentence without a right to life and therefore do not have a life to offer as a substitutionary price. God chose to send his only begotten son into our world to be born of a woman. A perfect human embryo was conceived within Mary by God’s power while she was a virgin. Jesus was born separate from the line of Adam but part of the human family. Mary gave birth to a perfect human being who had a “right to life” so long as he was obedient to God. His sacrifice was acceptable to God as the ransom price because of his perfect obedience unto death as Apostle Paul says, “ ...he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8).

The greatest love you can show is to give your life for your friends.” John 15:13

Alternately, God could have given everyone a "right to life" at birth and placed everyone on an individual trial for life. Failure would lead to certain death and one could only be restored after another person, by their own free will, forfeited their own perfect life in death (life for life). Lacking sufficient experience with evil, it is reasonable to expect many would fail as Adam and Eve failed at a significant cost to restore them. Apostle Paul shows an added difficulty for this alternate proposal when he says “Finding someone who would die for a godly person is rare. Maybe someone would have the courage to die for a good person.” Romans 5:7 Who then would give their life for a bad person?

There was the true Light (Christ) which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. John 1:9

(God) desires all men to be saved (from the Adamic death sentence) and to come to (Greek: an accurate) knowledge of the truth. 1 Timothy 2:4

The ransom ensures the dead will be raised from their “sleep” condition1. Those who have not had a fair opportunity to learn the truth in this age will have an opportunity to do so after they are restored to life on earth. Apostle Paul explains this when he says, “God desires everyone to be saved (from Adam’s death sentence) and (after being restored to life) to come to a knowledge (Greek: an accurate knowledge) of the truth (1 Timothy 2:9). Paul specifies two independent actions - salvation and coming to an accurate knowledge of the truth. Had he intended to make truth a prerequisite for this salvation he would have wrote, "God desires all to come to a knowledge of the truth to be saved". Apostle John says “Christ is the light (of truth) which enlightens (educates) everyone.” (John 1:9) The many religions and superstitious beliefs in the world today should be more than sufficient evidence that most people do not come to an accurate knowledge of the truth in this lifetime. It is credulous to think that everyone has received this truth in their life. How could a baby who died as an infant receive the truth, or how could a mentally ill person comprehend the truth during their lifetime? John must have been speaking about a future time when all obstacles to receive and understand the truth are removed.

Heaven must receive Jesus until the time when everything will be restored as God promised through his holy prophets long ago. Acts 3:21

The restitution, or restoring of the human race back to perfection of life in a perfect environment on earth is the natural outcome of the ransom. All of the redeemed, from the Adamic death sentence, will have an equal opportunity to receive, understand, and act upon the truth during the thousand year reign of Christ, also known as the Millennial age.2 Their reaction to the truth will then decide their eternal fate. “Every person who does not obey that prophet (Christ who professes the truth) will be destroyed and thus removed from the people.” Acts 3:23 There will no longer be any excuse for disobedience since these now have the truth with the additional advantage of experience, unlike Adam and Eve. In addition to learning the truth, there will be equitable punishment meted out for all willful deliberate evil acts committed during a person's lifetime. “All of us must appear in front of Christ's judgment seat. Then all people will receive what they deserve for the good or evil they have done while living in their bodies.” 2 Corinthians 5:10 “God will certainly judge everything that is done. This includes every secret thing, whether it is good or bad.” Ecclesiastes 12:14 Nobody will escape God's perfect justice.

The following is a brief overview for the restitution period.

Establish God’s government in the earth (Zechariah 14:9; Isaiah 9:6; Matthew 6:10)
Restrain the influence of God’s adversary (Revelation 20:2)
Restore earth to a paradise Edenic condition (Revelation 2:7)
Restore all back from the dead (John 5:28,29; Acts 24:15)
Reward the just (John 5:28,29)
Punish the unjust for past evil deeds (1 Timothy 5:24, John 5:29, 2 Corinthians 5:10)
Educate all in an accurate knowledge of the truth (Zephaniah 3:9; Habakkuk 2:14; 1 Timothy 2:3,4; John 1:9)
Provide an individual trial for life (as in Eden) (Jeremiah 31:29,30)
Judge the incorrigible, those selfish and wilfully disobedient (Psalms 96:13; Acts 17:31; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9)

Why the delay? Since Christ Jesus paid the ransom price almost 2,000 years ago everything continues as before. The time between the ransom and the restitution is intentional to allow the human population to grow and fill the earth, allow sufficient history with evil for a thorough experience and to develop a class of sympathetic leaders to assist in the restitution.

God told Adam and Eve to multiply and fill the earth. He desires to have the earth filled with a human family, one that has had a thorough personal experience with the consequences of disobeying his laws. The chart in Figure 1 clearly shows the world’s population has increased exponentially within the last 500 years. There are more people on facebookTM today than were living on the planet just 200 years ago. The ability for people to share experiences is unprecedented. If the restitution began immediately after the ransom (AD 33), most of the human population would not have had a personal experience with evil.

Figure 1. Data from census.gov

All of God’s intelligent creation must learn once - for all time - the horrific consequences of disobeying his laws. People were hopeful that the 20th century would usher in a golden age of peace and prosperity. In reality, this century perpetrated unimaginable acts of extreme evil as leaders took advantage of the growth in knowledge and technology to satisfy their own selfish desires. Jesus spoke about the latter days of this evil age saying, “There will be a lot of misery at that time, a kind of misery that has not happened from the beginning of the world until now and will certainly never happen again. If God does not reduce the number of those days, no one will be saved...” Matthew 24:21,22 We are now capable of self extermination as never before in human history. God’s plan permits evil for a time seeing a greater benefit for his intelligent creation, but this permission of evil is limited by God and will come to an end making earth’s gruesome history a lesson for eternity.

For many (not all) are called, but few are chosen. Matthew 22:14

...He is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. 1 Timothy 4:10

A special salvation is presented in the above scriptures. We have shown how God will save (restore) all from the Adamic death sentence - God is the savior of all people - but there is a special salvation for those who believe today. A wonderful feature of God's plan is the selection of individuals from among the human family which are being tested, trained and developed for future leadership roles as sympathetic kings and priests to help in the restitution of the human family (1 Peter 1:7, Revelation 1:6; 5:10). Only those called by God today have access to this special privilege and even fewer will be chosen (Matthew 22:14). Since God will not overstep a person’s free will, it has taken over 2,000 years to find and successfully develop a relatively small group who today voluntarily choose self denial to follow Christ's example. They will be kings in the sense of having authority over humankind to lead humanity in the restitution and they will be priest to mediate and assist each individual to a full restoration unless incorrigible.

A false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is his delight. Proverbs 11:1

Before we leave this subject, let us consider the popular Christian doctrines for the Trinity and Incarnation against the ransom price. These Christian doctrines cannot balance the scales of justice and is therefore an abomination to God. Both of these popular Christian doctrines are also in direct conflict with Biblical statements on the ransom. The incarnation doctrine states that Almighty God came to earth in the flesh to die for humanity. The Trinity doctrine states that Almighty God is Jesus and they are inseparable. It is impossible to balance the scales of God’s justice by placing Almighty God on one side of the scales and finite humanity on the other. The philosophy for the ransom price when correctly understood is both practical and reasonable. We can easily see how the man Jesus gave his perfect human life to pay the corresponding price, the ransom, for Adam’s forfeited perfect life, precisely balancing the scales of justice.

We can also understand Paul’s reasoning when he wrote, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness”. This is a direct reference to the substitutionary sacrifice God required for the forgiveness and cancellation of the Adamic death sentence. Paul’s statement does not refer to God’s inability to forgive without the shedding of blood. God did in fact forgive individuals and nations (recall Jonah and Nineveh) after they repented of their wrongdoing, however their final condition was not resolved since they were still under Adam’s death sentence.

A wise businessman seeks to maximize his ROI or return on investment. God is all wise and he is perfectly focused on maximizing the potential for success of his intelligent creation while maintaining their freedom to choose righteousness (right principles) and life over disobedience (wrong principles) resulting in evil which leads to death. Experience is the best schoolmaster, so God allowed Adam and Eve to follow their course of disobedience and experience the outcome. He delayed the same trial for life for the rest of the human family to minimize the price required to satisfy justice and save the world. He is developing a special class of individuals today from all the people of the world to become benevolent kings (leaders) and sympathetic priests (mediators) to assist during the resurrection of the world and to ensure each nation will have a representative from their own due to common experiences. There will also be equitable punishment (not eternal torture) for doing wrong during a person’s lifetime. All obstacles will be removed for receiving and understanding the truth. At the end of the Millennial age, everyone will have had their own personal test of obedience assisted by experience and an accurate knowledge of the truth, including Adam and Eve who will also benefit from their own experiences. No longer will one die for another’s choice. Those dying a second time (after being restored to life) will do so by their own choosing. These will never ever live again.

Does this sound too good to be true?

But as Scripture says: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined the things that God has prepared for those who love him." 1 Corinthians 2:9

1. The Bible refers to the first or Adamic death as a sleep condition. When someone is in a deep sleep they are not aware of anything until they awaken from their sleep. “The living know that they will die, but the dead don't know anything.” Ecclesiastes 9:5 “Those who are dead do not praise the LORD, nor do those who go into the silence [of the grave].” Psalms 115:17 See also Acts 7:60; 1 Corinthians 15:6,18; 1 Thessalonians 4:13,15; 2 Peter 3:4

2. Revelation 20:5 is used to promote the idea for the dead being restored to life after the thousand year Millennium. In Revelation 20:5 part of the verse as it reads in the King James Bible is spurious, spurious means that it is not in the oldest manuscripts that we have available. Spurious words are usually added by a copier of the original or of a latter copy of the manuscript, and is most probably done with the best of intentions.

The spurious words in verse 4 are "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." With these words removed the verse originally read: "This is the first resurrection."

Note how well verses 4-6 read without the spurious words:

" And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgement was given unto them and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the world of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years."

It will be seen that the entire 3 verses are really describing the reward for the faithful of Christ and has no reference to the rest of mankind.

The manuscript evidence that the first sentence of verse four is spurious is found in the most ancient of manuscripts, the Sianitic Mss. dating back to the 300's. This is followed by the Syriac Version (Aramaic) and by two Minuscules # 2053 and #2062 both from the 13th Century and in both cases, it is omitted in the Bible text, but not the commentary.