GOD'S PLANS HAPPEN

When it comes to God's plans for mankind, what He plans to happen, happens!  The first mention of His plans for us is found in Genesis 1:26:  "And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness...."  The next verse tells us that Adam was created in the image of God, and in Genesis 5:1, we read that Adam was made in the likeness of God.  God did what He said. 

Unfortunately, Adam did not stay in the likeness of God.  When he sinned, he ceased to be in His likeness.  Notice that Adam is never again said to be like God.  We know this because we read in 1 John 3:2 that man will not be like God until we see Jesus in heaven.  There is irony in Satan's temptation of Eve, in that, she sought to be like God, and she already was (Gen. 1:27)!     

Some might say that God's plan was ruined, but they would be wrong.  God knew Adam would sin, and that is why Jesus is described as "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8).  God declared that His Son would one day be bruised, but that He would crush the head of Satan (Gen. 3:15).  Acts 2:22-24 says, "Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a Man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:  Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:  Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that He should be holden of it."  God knew what would happen, and it was all part of His plan to make us like Him!  In Romans 8:29, Paul wrote,"For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son...."  Here, the Greek εἰκών (eikōn), could just as accurately be translated "likeness."

And for all those worrying about the plight of Israel, fear not!  "God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew...And so all Israel shall be saved (Rom. 11:2, 26)!  

 

What God declared He would do in Genesis 1:26, He will complete when we see Jesus!