Man’s Future
Man was not made for the present, and the present was never intended to satisfy man. Whatever might have been man’s destiny had he remained unfallen, we are all aware that his fall was foreseen, and that the One for whom, as well as by whom, all things were made, was not the first man, who was of the earth, earthy, but “the Second Man, the Lord from Heaven.”
It is in association with His glory, hereafter to be revealed, that we find the true destiny of our race; that for which man was created, and for which the Heaven and Earth were formed. When “all things in Heaven and in Earth are gathered together in one, even in Christ,” then, and not till then, will the first and second great ends of creation and of redemption — full glory to God and full blessing to the creature — be consummated. It is not in the present scene of confusion and of darkness, of mystery and of evil, that the glory of God is accomplished and manifested to perfection. Neither is it in man’s hurried transit from the cradle to the grave that the destinies of his being are fulfilled.
The present is leading on, indeed, to the full display of God’s glory in the future; and it is in the present that all the seeds of man’s future are sown. But it is in the future that the harvest shall be reaped, and God be glorified in the result. It is for the future, not the present, that man exists.