Principle
God ensures that His eternal plan comes to pass.
Explanation
We previously established that GOD has an eternal plan which results in the salvation of His remnant of mankind. It is impossible for us to grasp the complexity of such a plan that would evolve over thousands of years.
Often the smallest “coincidences” and events can result in massive consequences downstream. If this is obvious to humans, with our feeble brains and limited insight, how much more intricate and interwoven the entire history of creation must be! And GOD knows it all. GOD knew it all before any of it even existed, much less happened.
Since GOD has given humans—and angels—free will to choose how to live, and since GOD has a mind-bogglingly complex eternal plan that requires specific things to happen at specific moments, then it stands to reason that GOD is, and has always been, intimately involved with the universe’s happenings.
Some perceive that GOD created everything and just sits back and watches it passively. This cannot be.
King Solomon put it this way:
11 [GOD] made everything beautiful in its time, and He indeed put eternity in their hearts in such a way that man may not find out the work God made from the beginning to the end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 OSB
How can it be that GOD both ensures His will comes to pass (eternal plan) and that He never overrides an individual’s ability to choose their own way?
GOD knows how to align specific circumstances, even down to individual thoughts and ideas, so that specific outcomes will result. He (fore)knows every individual person’s hearts, motives, desires, and what will result if any specific thing happens at any specific moment.
Only an infinitely powerful, wise, intelligent, just, consistent Being could accomplish such.
Future principles build upon these things as Scripture reveals specific cases where GOD intervened to accomplish a particular outcome. Sometimes, we are challenged by what appears on the surface to be inconsistency in GOD’s actions with what we know to be His character. In those moments, possessing this foundation is key to a proper understanding.
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