[Eph 1:3-11]
There is a great line often repeated in the television series Star Trek: The next Generation. In each episode, there is usually some galactic crisis and Captain John Luc Picard of the Star Ship Enterprise calls his commanding officers together to sort things through and form a strategy. After setting out a plan, Captain Picard turns to his number one officer, Commander Will Rikker, and says, “Make is so, Number One.”
That is a great line. It is a faint echo of the eternal Word, which precedes all worlds and time and space, spoken by [God] the Father in conversation with His true and faithful Son in the Spirit. “I want them at-one with Me – make it so, Number One!”
Therein is the necessity of the incarnation and death of the Son of God. It lies precisely in the Father’s heart. It lies in His unflinching determination that we should be blessed and included in the relationship of total belonging love that He shares with the Son and the Holy Spirit. It lies in His unswerving faithfulness to His purpose.
There was certainly a major obstacle standing in the way of the plans of the Father…. You were in the far country and He wanted you at home. You were broken, alien and wrong, and He had determined you to be healed, at-one with and right for Him.
Therefore [the Father said to the Son]…. “Go into the far country, plunge yourself into their ruin…. darkness and estrangement,…. Crucify that false and broken humanity which is so enslaved to the evil one. Revolutionize their whole being and situation – convert it, transform it utterly.”
The Father made up His mind about us from all eternity. And He will not change. He is uncompromising in His love. Thus, in utter opposition to our alienation, He sends His Son to eliminate it.
C. Baxter Kruger.