Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
Matthew 6:9–10
“Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’”
When Christians embark on a study of the Bible’s eschatology (doctrine of last things) for the first time, they may be tempted to jump immediately to the events that will happen at the end of time. Certainly, eschatology includes a look at such things, but it is not limited to that. Our God is a purposeful God, working out all things according to the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11). This means that from the very beginning, the Lord was aiming at a goal to be realized finally in the last days. Consequently, any study of Scripture’s doctrine of the last things must start at the beginning of God’s dealings with creation.
From the start of human history, Scripture shows us that the Lord has sought to manifest His kingdom across the earth in a manner that has human beings, the divine image bearers, serving as rulers under Him to reflect His glory and bring order to creation. We may call this His blessed kingdom. We see it first in Genesis 1:26–28 and 2:15–17, when our first parents are commissioned to take dominion over creation for God’s glory, extending the boundaries of Eden to the ends of the earth, filling the world with image bearers, and obeying the commands of the Lord. This blessed kingdom is to be distinguished from the Lord’s universal reign over creation, by which He foreordains whatsoever comes to pass (Ps. 95:3; Eph. 1:11). God’s universal reign extends over all that He has made and is His sovereign control of all things. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36). On the other hand, the blessed kingdom where the Lord dwells with His people in a special way, as seen in His walking with them in the garden in the cool of the day, existed at first only in Eden (Gen. 3:8). In that kingdom, in the beginning, His law was obeyed willingly.
Mankind was originally commissioned to spread God’s blessed kingdom from Eden throughout the world. The Lord’s eschatological goal was to see His orderly, blessed kingdom, where His will is done happily and willingly, established everywhere. Yet we know that Adam and Eve failed in their calling when they sinned, and the world fell under the curse of sin and death. The Lord’s eschatological goal of bringing His blessed kingdom to the ends of the earth, however, did not change. Only now it would be accomplished through the seed of the woman—the Lord Jesus Christ—and all those united to Him by faith (v. 15; Gal. 3).
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
That God has had a specific goal for creation from the beginning is a comforting truth. It shows us that the Lord has an end in mind and is not haphazard in His plans and dealings with creation. Let us take comfort that the Lord’s purposes have been established from of old and cannot change. Thus, we can trust that He has all our affairs well in hand and is working for our good even in the most difficult of circumstances.
For further study
- Psalm 103:19
- Obadiah 21
- Mark 12:28–34
- Romans 5:12–21
The bible in a year
- Ezekiel 45–46
- 2 Peter 3