The history of God with man and of God in man is not a simple matter. God was with man with the intention of coming into man and being one with man. Man was created by God for this purpose. But although God had such a purpose in creating man, man has another, subtle, purpose, and these two purposes do not agree. God has His way, and man has his way. Because of this, even when man cooperates with God, he does this not by God’s way but by his own way. Thus, there are two lines—God’s line and man’s line. God wants to come into man and to be one with man. Man, however, does not take God’s way but insists on his own way. This insistence has caused, and continues to cause, great failure. As a result, in the sight of God man has become sinful, corrupt, and abominable.
Because man, including Israel, has taken his own way and has become sinful and corrupt, God comes in to chastise Israel, His chosen people, and to punish the nations. When God chastises His people Israel, He has no intention of utterly destroying them. On the one hand, God chastises Israel; on the other hand, He has promised not to destroy them completely.
In order to chastise Israel God needs a “rod,” a means of discipline, and this rod is the nations. In Joel 1:4 the nations are likened to locusts in four stages: the cutting locust (the Babylonian Empire), the swarming locust (the Medo-Persian Empire), the licking locust (the Macedonian- Grecian Empire), and the consuming locust (the Roman Empire). Of these four kinds of locusts—Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman—the Roman locusts are still with us today.
Although God allows the locusts to cut, swarm, lick, and consume, He does not permit them to destroy His people utterly. Whenever the locusts have gone too far, acting without regard for justice, God has come in to punish them. Whereas God uses the nations to chastise Israel, He also punishes the nations for going too far.
God’s chastisement of Israel and His punishment of the nations affords a way for Christ to be manifested. Thus, the Minor Prophets speak not only of the chastisement of Israel and the punishment of the nations but also of the issue of this chastisement and punishment—the manifestation of Christ.
The manifestation of Christ has a goal, and this goal is to restore the fallen universe. The fall of the universe was caused by two rebellions. The first rebellion was the rebellion of Satan and the angels who followed him; the second was the rebellion of man. These two rebellions—the angelic and the human—defiled and polluted the universe, so the God-created universe needs a restoration.
This restoration can be brought in only through the manifestation of Christ. Christ’s manifestation implies His incarnation, redemption, and many other matters. The manifestation of Christ has been going on for a long time, and it will continue until the fallen universe has been fully restored. Eventually, in the consummation of the restoration, there will be the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem as the center. In the New Jerusalem we all will enjoy Christ and express Christ for eternity. This is the history of God with man and in man revealed in the Bible.
The history of God in the Bible provides a lesson for us today. God created us with the intention to gain us so that He could come into us and be one with us. However, either we do not care for God or we care for God according to our own way. The result is always total failure. Paul confessed his failure when he said, “Wretched man that I am!” (Rom. 7:24a).
Because we are a failure and because our situation is wretched, terrible, and miserable, we need God’s chastisement. For this reason, our human life as Christians is a life of chastisement through the sufferings caused by different kinds of “locusts.” Our husband or wife, our children, our job, our desire for higher education, our attempts to make more money—all these are locusts that cut us, swarm over us, lick us, and consume us. These “locusts” make our life a life of suffering and our days, days of God’s chastisement. The goal, the purpose, of this chastisement is that Christ would be manifested in us for the restoration of the universe. Eventually, the manifestation of Christ that is the issue of suffering and chastisement will consummate in the restoration of the entire universe.