6. God’s Eternal Purpose For Dreams
All history is a record of Sovereign Almighty God fulfilling His eternal plans and purpose and the created angel Satan failing to stop Him. God sent His Bible dreams in order to advance His own Kingdom plans and purpose. The key word is purpose, not purposes and that purpose is Jesus Christ.
Paul says, God’s eternal purpose is fully accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.[1] He also said, God,
Has made known to us the mystery of His
will according to His good pleasure,
which He purposed in Christ as a plan
for the fullness of time, to bring all
things in heaven and on earth together in
Christ.
In Him we were also chosen as God’s own,
having been predestined according to the
plan of Him who works out everything by
the counsel of His will, in order that we,
who were the first to hope in Christ,
would be for the praise of His glory.[2]
All Bible dreams concern Jesus in one way or another and the three main characters are always God, Satan and the dreamer. There are only three types of spiritual beings and three sources of spiritual activity.
There is God and His faithful spirits who are always good and holy.
There is Satan and his rebellious spirits who are always bad and evil.
Then there is humanity whose spirit is either good or bad based on whether they are being influenced and ruled by God’s Holy Spirit or Satan’s evil spirit.
Our creator God is eternal from everlasting to everlasting.[3] He is always advancing His own sovereign eternal plans and purpose. Sometimes He uses dreams.
Satan slithered into the Bible in Genesis 3 and is thrown out again in Revelation 20. His sole purpose is to constantly attack and hinder God’s plans and purpose.
The dreamers all have an opportunity to respond appropriately to their God given dreams and so play a positive part in furthering God’s plans and purpose.
Before we slide each Bible dream under the microscope it’s important to grasp something of the bigger picture of God’s plans and purpose. Then, it’s a whole lot easier to see how God uses dreams to advance His agenda.
God’s dreams are always concerned with God’s Eternal Purpose and God’s Eternal Purpose is always Jesus Christ.
We must also remember after we’ve spent a couple of billion, trillion, gazillion years in eternity with Jesus we’ll still only be getting to know Him and His Eternal purpose better.
Having said that, there is a golden cord running from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 about redeemed mankind coming to reign with the enthroned Christ. This was always God’s plan and three things God decided before the foundation of the world help us to grasp this better,
• God loved Jesus before time began.
• God created us to love Jesus before time began.
• God ordained Jesus to be our Saviour before time began.
Jesus said,
I want those you have given me to be with
me where I am, and to see my glory, the
glory you have given me because you
loved me before the creation of the
world.[4]
God loved and delighted in Jesus long before creation. In fact, He delighted in Jesus so much He couldn’t keep it all to Himself. So, He made mankind in His own image and likeness so we too could appreciate the wonder of Jesus. Paul says,
For he chose us in him before the creation
of the world to be holy and blameless
in his sight. In love he predestined us for
adoption to sonship through Jesus
Christ, in accordance with his pleasure
and will—to the praise of his glorious
grace, which he has freely given us in
the One he loves.[5]
God's primary purpose in creating us was to honour His Son. We’re not here to do our own will or seek our own self-centred blessing. We were created to praise Jesus.
The third decision God made before the foundation of the world was that Jesus should redeem us. Peter said,
For you know that it was not with
perishable things such as silver or gold
that you were redeemed from the empty
way of life handed down to you from
your ancestors, but with the precious
blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish
or defect. He was chosen before the
creation of the world, but was revealed
in these last times for your sake.
Through him you believe in God, who
raised him from the dead and glorified
him, and so your faith and hope are in
God.[6]
Before the foundation of the world God decided to create and choose human beings made in God’s likeness who’d be redeemed by Jesus and who’d love and praise Jesus forever.
The entire heavenly host in the unseen realm had to watch on as this drama unfolded over thousands of years. Satan and his army would always try to hinder God’s purpose while God’s holy angels would always help.
Without an understanding of the larger picture of God’s eternal plans and purpose we could end up with a weak and limited understanding of God’s intention for dreams. We could even end up thinking God’s dreams were about our plans, purposes and destiny. That would be a big mistake.
All Bible dreams were sent to solve a problem. They all came in the midst of intense ongoing spiritual warfare. This sometimes made it seem as if God and man are stumbling from one spiritual crisis to another but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
The reality is our sovereign God is always advancing His own eternal plans and purpose. Yet no prophet, priest or king in the Old Testament really knew God’s purpose. Nor did any spiritual being in the unseen realm.
God’s purpose was a total mystery to them. They had no knowledge of the Church of Christ, the Body of Christ or the Bride of Christ.
The word mystery describes something God has hidden for a period of time. Finally one day, God chose to reveal the mystery of His eternal purpose to Paul who wrote,
Although I am less than the least of all the
Lord’s people, this grace was given me:
to preach to the Gentiles the boundless
riches of Christ, and to make plain to
everyone the administration of this
mystery, which for ages past was kept
hidden in God, who created all things.
His intent was that now, through the
church, the manifold wisdom of God
should be made known to the rulers and
authorities in the heavenly realms,
according to his eternal purpose that he
accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In him and through faith in him we may
approach God with freedom and
confidence.[7]
On one level God is putting on a show for the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms and they don’t really understand what’s going on. Peter said, Even angels long to look into these things.[8] Paul similarly says,
No, we speak of the mysterious and hidden
wisdom of God, which He destined for
our glory before time began. None of the
rulers of this age understood it, for if
they had, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory.[9]
Another image that helps us better understand God’s plans and purpose is that of a wedding. At the heart of the Bible there’s a Divine Love Story between Jesus and His beloved.
Genesis began with the wedding of Adam and Eve and Revelation ends with the eternal marriage between Jesus and His Church. Jesus’s first miracle occurred at a wedding and Paul calls marriage a profound mystery similar to the relationship between Christ and the church.[10]
The marvellous truth is our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has always wanted a bride, a wife who will share all things with Him as He fulfils His will in the ages to come. Jesus specifically asked God for this. He prayed,
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also
for those who will believe in me through
their message, that all of them may be
one, Father, just as you are in me and I
am in you. May they also be in us so that
the world may believe that you have sent
me.
I have given them the glory that you gave
me, that they may be one as we are one
— I in them and you in me—so that they
may be brought to complete unity. Then
the world will know that you sent me and
have loved them even as you have loved
me.
“Father, I want those you have given me to
be with me where I am, and to see my
glory, the glory you have given me
because you loved me before the creation
of the world.[11]
God’s covenant promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed through him is still coming to pass as 200,000 new people from all over the word are daily being saved through the finished work of Jesus and are fast becoming part of His everlasting bride.
It hasn’t yet been revealed what marvellous adventures Jesus has in store for us in eternity but you can be sure it’ll be an amazing roller coaster ride in a never-ending love story.
The purpose of this short chapter is to remind us that God had plans and purpose from before the foundation of the world that He worked out in the Bible and that He is still working out today.
So when we slip a Bible dream under the microscope we should always remember this dream has been sent from God to a person for a specific purpose and it’s not merely some random dream without a precise function.
Bible dreams were always sent to sort out a problem and to advance God’s plans and purpose. Interestingly no Bible dream ever speaks about the past. Like the Four Living Creatures in Ezekiel they have one direction. Ezekiel said, Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went.[12]
1 Ephesians 3:11
2 Ephesians 1:9-11
3 Isaiah 48:28.
4 John 17:24
5 Ephesians 1:4-7
6 1 Peter 1:17-21
7 Ephesians 3:8-12
8 1 Peter 1:12
9 1 Corinthians 2:7-8
10 Ephesians 5:32
11 John 17:20-24
12 Ezekiel 1:12
