Is it appropriate to compare God with a manager? Every comparison can describe only some aspects – especially in the case of God.
A lot of people think, that God is not in control any more; they suppose He looks on this earth from a great distance and that He influences the life of very few people only, who want to do be influenced. There is a belief that God doesn’t have any targets any more for this world or that He is not able to reach them. This essay answers these questions through searching basic management-principles in the acting of God. Besides this, it questions if the classical opposites, which a lot of people think are described in the Bible, are in fact there:
God – Satan
Believers – Non Believers
These simplifications have created a lot of hate and religious fanaticism, even having caused many wars. In these pages it will be shown, that there are no biblical basis for this dividing of the spiritual world, but that these concepts were taught in order to bind people to mass-organisations.
Contrary to this, the Bible shows a different picture:
God’s plan to save all mankind
God’s usage of good and evil
God’s way finally to reveal Himself to each human
God’s target with mankind
If you want to understand the actions of people or companies you need to know what they intend to do, what their target is. To understand the actions of God you should ask yourself what His target might be with this world.
There is only one way to find the answer to this question: By reading the oldest enterprise documentation of all, The Holy Scriptures. The target of God is easy to find, because it appears everywhere in this special book:
The target of God finally is to get love and honor from all mankind (Is. 45:23-24, Phil. 2:9-11, Ro. 14:11, Rev. 4:11; 15:4).
There are two ways to reach this:
- The creation of a human race which doesn’t have any contact with evil and which has direct access to God. But how could these people be glad about this condition? You can only be appreciative about a good condition when you have experienced a bad condition before. That leaves only one way:
- “Former of light and Creator of darkness, Maker of good and Creator of evil. I, Yahweh Elohim made all of these things (Is. 45:7); “I created the ruiner to harm.“ (Is. 54:16). Before it is possible to realize the holy attributes of God, mankind has to become acquainted with the contrasts of good and evil. This understanding is not created in mankind, but should be developed in them. How could it be possible for mankind to learn about good when there is no evil in the world at all, when there is no comparison? Because of this it was necessary to put evil into the world. Further, how else would it be possible except through a prohibition?
The story of this world is therefore of a gigantic training-program which involves everybody and which leads step by step to the great goal, “to reconcile all to Him“ (Col. 1:20). God then “subjects all to Him (Christ)“ (1 Cor. 15:25-28, Col. 1:15-17; Eph. 1:9,10,20-23; Phil. 3:21). This life here is a preparation for all mankind “that in the name of Jesus every knee should be bowing … and every tongue should be acclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord, for the glory of God, the Father“ (Phil. 2:11). “We (can) rely on the living God, Who is the Saviour of all mankind“ (1 Tim. 2:4; 4:10). “ These things be charging and teaching!“ (1 Tim. 4:11). Why don’t we hear this really glad message (=evangel) more often?
So God defined His target for His world very clearly. But does He have the abilities to reach His goal? What does the Bible say about this topic?
The competencies of God
It is supposed that God will do great things with His creature. Does He have the abilities which are needed for this? Is He able to reach these goals? Two important abilities of God in this context are His power and His love:
God is almighty
“All that He desires, He does“ (Ps. 115:3). “He is altering the eras the stated times, causing kings to pass away and causing kings to rise, granting wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those knowing understanding. He is revealing the deep and concealed things“ (Dan. 2:21-22). “Is there a matter too marvellous for Yahweh Eloihm?“ (Gen. 18:14).
God is “over every sovereignty and authority and power in this eon, and also in that which is impending“ (Eph. 1:21). Nothing is impossible for God (Luk. 1:37). Why? “Because of Thy will they were, and are created! (Rev. 4:11). He is “one God and Father of all, Who is over all and through all and in all.“ (Eph. 4:6).
Therefore also Unbelief is from God, because “God gives them a spirit of stupor, eyes not to be observing, and ears not to be hearing, till this very day“ (Rom. 11:8); “it [our evangel] is covered in those who are perishing, in whom the god of this eon blinds the apprehensions of the unbelieving so that the illumination of the evangel of the glory of Christ … does not irradiate them.“ (2 Cor. 4:4). The god of this eon (Satan) cannot operate independently of God; God is able to forbid Satan to do anything, as He will do in the next eon: “And he (a messager of God) lays hold of the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the Adversary and Satan, and binds him a thousand years.“ (Rev. 20:2).
Not only that, but Satan can do only what God intends, and nothing more. God even created the devil (Is. 45:7, Is 54:16).
So even figures like Hitler were necessary actors in the plan of God, “who is operating ALL in accord with the counsel of His will“ (Eph. 1:11).
“What, then, shall we declaring? Not that there is injustice with God? May it not be coming to that! For to Moses He is saying, “I shall be merciful to whomever I may be merciful, and I shall be pitying whomever I may be pitying. Consequently, then, it is not of him who is willing, nor of him who is racing, but of God, the Merciful. For the scripture is saying to Pharaoh that “For this selfsame thing I rouse you up, so that I should be displaying in you My power, and so that My name should be published in the entire earth.“ Consequently, then, to whom He will, He is merciful, yet whom He will, He is hardening.“ (Romans 9:14-18, and 20-24).
This is impressive, isn’t it! Even the most powerful man of his age was only an instrument of God. He was needed to display God’s power.
Also the crucifixion was fixed in the plan of God. Nobody was able to prevent it: “Herod and Pontius Pilate together with the nations and the people of Israel, to do whatever Thy hand and Thy counsel designates beforehand to occur.“ (Acts 4:26-28).
“Like rillets of water is the king’s heart in the hand of Yaweh; wherever He desires, He directs it“ (Pr. 21:1).
Our life is going exactly as God had planned: “It is God Who is operating in you to will as well as to work for the sake of His delight“ (Phil. 2:13).
Obviously, on the other hand people don’t become believers of their own independent decision, but “He chooses us in Him before the disruption of the world“ (Eph. 1:4). God “prefers you from the beginning for salvation“ (2 Thess. 2:13). Why? “For in grace, through faith, are you saved, and this is not out of you; it is God’s approach present, not of works, lest anyone should be boasting. For His achievement are we, being created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God makes ready beforehand, that we should be walking in them“ (Eph. 2:9-10).
So everything is already prepared for us; we are only walking in it – nothing to be proud of. “Now we are aware that God is working all together for the good“ (Rom. 8:28), even things, which we think, are negative. Realizing this is the result of an education-process, and it makes us free and able to execute the order of Paul “Be rejoicing in the Lord always! … Do not worry about anything!“ (Phil. 4:4).
God executes His plans with a great precision – a perfect manager. “The One Who planted the ear, shall He not hear? Or the One Who formed the eye, shall He not look?“ (Ps. 94:9). „The former things; behold, they came! And the new things will I tell. Ere they are sprouting, I will announce them to you“ (Is. 42:9).
The Bible says clearly that in this universe every little event, every action and decision of a man has one cause only: GOD! Nothing happens without His will! The “free“ will theory which says that our will is independent from the environment and therefore from God, is neither logical nor biblical.
God is Love
“Love is of God“ (1 John 4:7). He is the source of real love. “God is love“ (1 John 4:8). “ In the son of His love“ God created all, the visible and the invisible (Col. 1:13-17).
As a special display of His love He sacrificed His own Son (John 3:16, 15:13), while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8).
Why was this such an impressive proof of His love to us? “For God does not dispatch His Son into the world that He should be judging the world, but that the world may be saved through Him.“(John 3:17). What does this mean? It becomes clearer in the letters of the apostle Paul: “For if, being enemies [unbelievers, therefore all mankind], we were conciliated to God through the death of His Son, much rather, being conciliated, we shall be saved in His life.“(Rom. 5:11).“Consequently, then, as it was through one offense [through Adam] for all mankind for condemnation, thus it is through one just award [the death of Jesus] for all mankind for life’s justifying.“ (Rom. 5:18, 1 Cor. 15:22).
Is it possible to display the love of God any clearer?
The timetable of God
Everybody who wants to reach a major goal creates a timetable with clear aims in between (milestones), planning exactly what is needed in which period.
God is the creator of time (Gen. 1:14) and therefore able to set the beginning and the ending of all time. He alone is unchanging (Is. 41:4, James 1:17) and incorruptible (1 Tim. 1:17). He alone has foreknowlegde of the future (Acts 2:23, Is. 46:10). It may be that He sees the time like an unrolled film which contains single pictures He created by Himself.
Why, actually, did God create time? With the expression “time“ we mean the measure of changes that occur here in this world. From the perspective of God, changes are only necessary when the perfect condition is not reached yet. Therefore this condition of changing, to which we are so used, will not be needed any more when God will have come to the end of His creation (Romans 8:21).
While this condition is far in the future, the creation of time is far in the past. The timeless condition before this is called “Before the eons“ (1 Cor. 2:7, 2 Tim. 1:9, Titus 1:3).
After this God divided time in accord with the changing of the principles He set for the mankind. His word for these long periods of time is “eon“. In Eph. 3:11 we read of a plan (purpose) of the eons (greek aion, often wrongly translated “Eternity“).
The number of Eons is not explicitly mentioned. Therefore there are different opinions. As a matter of a common sense there are at least three eons, because 2 Peter 2:5 talks about the ancient world and Eph. 1:32 talks about “this eon and the impending“ .
Because two eons are separated by a judgment, the following four eons are reasonable:
| Expressions | Following judgment |
| Creation (Gen. 1:1; Is. 45:18; Deut. 32:4, 2 Petr. 3:5) |
Flood (Gen. 7,8; 2 Petr. 2:5) |
| This eon (1 Tim. 6:17; 2 Tim. 4:10; Tit. 2:12, 2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 2:2; Gal. 1:4) |
Day of anger (Rev. 4-19; Mat. 24; 2 Thess. 1:7-10) |
| The future or impending eon (Eph. 1:21; Heb. 6:5; Luke 18:30; Mk. 10:30; Mt. 12:32). The 1000 year kingdom of Christ on earth (Rev. 11:15). |
Great white throne (Rev. 20:11-15) Heaven and earth in the judgment of fire (2 Pet. 3: 7-12) |
| The eon of the eons (Eph. 3:21, Heb. 1:8; Ps. 10:16) The conclusion of the eons (Heb. 9:26; 1 Cor. 10:11) |
Conclusion : GOD all in all (1 Cor. 15:28; Rom. 11:36) |
God divided eons in smaller units like administrations (greek „oiko nomia“, e.g. Eph. 3:2,9) and seasons (greek „kairos“ e.g. 2 Cor. 6:2), which are designed for smaller goals.
The adjective of eon “eonian“ (aionion) is obviously related to the eons and therefore also to a limited timeframe. Eonian life (instead of the wrongly translation “eternal“ life) is a future one (Titus 1:2;3:7, Mark 10:30) and has an end. But the end of eonian life does not mean death, because at this time there is no death any more.
Consequences in regarding the timetable of God
In the bible there are certain rules and administrations, which are not in place any more (Mat. 23:3, Ex. 20:8-11, Dt. 15:32-36), while others are in place for today (Col. 2:16, Romans 10:4, 14:5,6, Eph. 2:14) and different ones are only given for future times (Is. 11:6, Rev. 20-22). Actually this is pretty clear, because rarely would one say it is necessary today to follow the food-laws of the Old Testament.
But, while this is obvious, for most christians a lot of confusion occurs when rules and orders, which concern the next eon (the millennium) and Israel are applied to the present. These differences are huge:
The worker of God
A human manager needs his employees. He is even dependent on them.
But God created every man by Himself and gave each one special abilities, of which we probably don’t have any clue at all. Therefore God doesn’t search for workers. He created them and gives tasks to them. Which tasks has God given to which workers?
Some tasks
The delegation of tasks is called “choosing“ in the Bible. Christ was chosen to rescue all of us (Luke 23:35). Jeremiah was chosen before his birth, to be a prophet for the nations (Jer. 1:5), which also shows that it is not an award for a good life to get chosen. Chosen people or things are holy (separated for God).
This is the principle “pars pro toto“, that says that a part is chosen by the Creator to bring the entire creation to the target.
The creation of God is divided in two parts (“that in the heavens and that on earth, the visible and the invisible“, Col. 1:16). Therefore God also decided to choose two groups of people to bring His word to mankind. As a result there are two different messages (evangels) from God to these two “departments“. They have in common that they will do this especially in the future.
These two groups are the nation of Israel (with tasks for the people on the earth) and the ecclesia which is the body of Christ (which displays the Holiness of God for the celestials).
The task for Israel
Israel was chosen as the special people among the nations, although they are the least of them (Dt. 7:6-8), to fulfill the promise given to Abraham “to bless all the nations on the earth“ (Gen. 12:3). Jesus was coming much later to this earth to prepare His nation Israel for this great task. Therefore Jesus told the twelve: “Yet going rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel … Now going, herald, saying that near is the kingdom of heavens“ (Mat 10:6). But Israel couldn’t learn its lesson, because “God gives them a spirit of stupor, eyes not to be observering, and ears not to be hearing, till this very day“ (Ro. 11:8) and they even killed Jesus. But did God take away the promise? “May it not be coming to that!“ (Ro. 11:1).
Only some out of the Israel, “the chosen“ (Ro. 11:7) ones, were able to believe God, because “not all those out of Israel, these are Israel“ (Ro. 9:6). They got the promise of eonian life “that everyone believing on Him should not be perishing, but may be having life eonian“ (John 3:14). The eonian life for these chosen people will begin after their raising (John 6:40, 54), because “from those sleeping in the soil of the ground man shall awake, these to eonian life and these to reproach for the eonian repulsion“ (Dan. 12:2) In the coming eon (“and in the coming eon, life eonian“ Mark 10:30), they “will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will be reigning with Him the thousand years“ (Rev. 20:6). The evangel, which is given to the chosen part of Israel, is the “evangel of the Circumcision“ (Gal. 2:7), whose apostle is Peter. Peter addresses the reader of his letters therefore as “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a procured people“ (1 Peter 2:9). Besides the so called evangels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) also the letters to the Hebrews, James, Peter and 1-3 John were written especially for the chosen people of Israel.
The task for the ecclesia (the body of Christ)
This ecclesia was chosen “before the disruption of the world“ (Eph 1:4, 2 Thess. 2:13). Despite this its task and the great target of God with all mankind (the salvation of all) was hidden for a long time. The Bible talks about a secret. It was hidden until it was revealed to Paul (Eph. 3:2-6); therefore this evangel, the evangel of the Uncircumcision, is only announced in the letters of Paul. After this special order to Paul God began with the calling of the members of the ecclesia. The task of the ecclesia is especially “to made known the multifarious wisdom of God among the celestials“, here (Eph. 3:10) and in the future (Eph. 2:5-7). Therefore Paul asks: “Are you not aware that we shall be judging messengers ?“ (1 Cor. 6:3). Our expectation is “reserved in the heavens“ (Col. 1:5), while the chosen people of Israel are waiting for earth-related tasks.
We will be working on these tasks during the eonian life (1 Tim. 6:12), which begins after the resurrection, which is earlier than the raising of the people from Israel. The Bible talks of an “prior- expectation“ (Eph. 1:12).
The contents of both evangels (for the ecclesia on one hand and Israel on the other) differ in many respects, because of these very different tasks. Mixing up the new evangel, only revealed to Paul, and the old one for Israel, is something Paul judges severely (“ let him be anathema!“ Gal. 1:7). Unfortunately the instruction to “correctly cut the word“ (2 Tim. 2:15) was not regarded in the early teaching after Paul died. Instead of the evangel for us we are hearing the stories of the Old Testament and of Jesus of Nazareth in our churches.
The documentation – The Bible
A necessary publication of a large company, a duty task for big companies, is a documentation giving the target of the enterprise, the existing resources of capital and employees; also competencies and strategies are explained.
In this sense the Bible is the oldest publication of all enterprises. But besides that it has a extraordinary meaning as a medium for communication purposes.
Through the WORD (Gen. 1:3) God is communicating with His creation. In the ages of the Old Testament it was given mostly in spoken form, and then recorded in written form.
God has never written by Himself, but instructed people, so that “being carried on by holy spirit, holy men of God speak“ (2 Peter 1:21).
Therefore “all scripture is inspired by God“ (2 Tim. 3:16), and only because of this, it can have a spiritual effect on the reader of the Bible. As with the human author, so for the reader the holy spirit is needed as a link, which transforms the written word of God into a personal communication between God and the reader (1 Cor. 2: 6-10).
Because only believers have the spirit of God, they are the only ones who are able to experience this process:“Now the soulish man is not receiving those things which are of the spirit of God, for they are stupidity to him, and he is not able to know them, seeing that they are spiritually examined“ (1 Cor. 2:14).
Therefore it is very important to use a accurate translation of the word of God.
Links
Concordant Publishing Concern, USA: Publisher of the Concordant Version of the Bible, articles, biblical studies
Savior of All! Read about the graceful God.
Grace Evangel by Bob Evely, a former Methodist pastor
Tentmaker: Articles to get a deeper knowledge of the Bible.
Free download of the „Interlinear Scripture Analyzer“ based on the Concordant Literal New Testament. A great tool!!
Christian Books of Martin Zender like „How to quit church without quitting God“: 7 good reasons to escape the box
All of the quotes are taken from the “Concordant Literal New Testament“ or concordant translations of parts of the Old Testament.