There are many things that we Christians might say to the question of what God is up to in this world. We might say, “He’s saving people.” Or perhaps, “He’s magnifying his glory.” Something along those lines. Those things are true, but they don’t sufficiently answer the question, “What is God up to?”
It seems to me the answer lies further back, seen better from a high vantage point. There is a purpose behind God’s working in this world. It’s one that he not only makes plain to all, but one that he has desired for all people everywhere, of all times, to know intimately. He first spoke it to Adam and Eve. He promised it to (and through) the patriarchs. His prophets yearned for it and chided Israel for their blindness to it. His Son came and established it. The church is now tasked with the glorious work of proclaiming it.
Is it salvation? No. Life through Jesus, being renewed spiritually and adopted by God, is a huge part of it, but it is not completely it. I believe that what God is up to in this world is the same thing he’s been up to since our inaugural forebears.
Yahweh is wholeheartedly about the business of giving his grace to all peoples. He has always desired that his boundless, joy-filled, grace would be known by all of his creation, and by all humans in particular. The patriarchs and Israel were supposed to be a means to deliver that grace to the world. They failed in that role. The church (all-Jew or not-who by faith trust Jesus for redemption) now carry that mantle. We, according to Scripture, are the last instrument of God’s favor to this world. He has, with infathomable glory, blessed we, Christians, to be a blessing to all nations as preachers of the greatest news broken humans have ever heard.
He is, and has been, sending his grace to the nations.
