Benchmarks of blessing
The human race has always found it helpful to know the size of things, and especially handy if one could measure by a body part—since such a measuring device is always nearby. Thus the foot, the span, and the cubit (the length of the arm from the fingertip to the elbow). There was also the hand (at 4 inches, still used for the height of horses) or the finger. The difficulty, of course—we are not all issued the same sized body parts.
During the reign of Richard Lionheart, the Assize of Measures in 1196 stated that “Throughout the realm there shall be the same yard of the same size and it should be of iron.” I won’t bore you with the continuing evolution of increasingly accurate ways of calculating such things. But man keeps trying to perfect his measurements of finitude.
Who knows the true measure of things? The Maker of all things, of course. Who has not been nonplussed by the words: “The nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, He taketh up the isles as a very little thing…All nations before Him are as nothing; and they are counted to Him less than nothing, and vanity” (Isa. 40:15-17).
And yet… And yet He does measure His creature man as more than nothing. The Saviour gave us a little hope (without inflating our egos) when He said, “Ye are of more value than many sparrows” (Mt 10:31). And, frail clay pots that we are, He poured into us out of His own bounty, a treasure so breathtaking that it was in every way beyond human calculation.
There are hints, however, that this lavish gospel gift can be at least approximated, but in ways that shrink light years to the insignificance of a glow worm’s beams. The apostle Paul shares with us, by divine inspiration, some glimpse at the Metre of the Divine Archives.
For example, we read: “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:5). If you can calculate the delight of His infinite heart in accomplishing His own perfect will, you may begin to grasp the wonders of His predetermination of the believer’s sonship, His joy in bringing us to glory.
Or think of this: “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (v. 7). You may attempt computing the redemptive value of the Saviour’s blood only if you can measure the “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height” (3:18) of the storehouses of Love’s unsearchable grace. You won’t even come close.
Then try to calculate this, if you can: “Having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself” (1:9). In other words, if you think you can reach back far enough to grasp God’s predestination, then plumb the depths of Christ’s redemption, do you dare attempt to scale the heights of His inscrutable plans?
In all of this vastness, one thing we do know for sure. The plans designed for our eternal bliss have been made “according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (1:11). What He wills, He works. What He plans, He performs. Rest assured.
One more thing we know: “…the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power” (1:19). Behind His purposes there is power (dunamis), exceeding great power; it is according to the working (energeia, efficiency) of His mighty (ischus, strong) power (kratos, force). Power, power, wonder-working power, the real strong force—all to accomplish His will, to lavish His grace, to reveal His mystery to us.