He Fulfills Our Destiny

He Fulfills Our Destiny

God created humanity with a magnificent destiny in mind:

God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”

So God created human beings in his own image.

In the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.” (Genesis 1:26-28)

Psalm 8 celebrates this magnificent destiny of human beings: “You made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority” (Psalm 8:5-6).

But when we read these verses in Psalm 8, we’re struck that they do not line up with the reality we’re now living in. God made the world and gave it to us to cultivate and nurture. But this was before sin’s ruin entered the world and everything changed. Now nothing is the way it was created to be. Rather than ruling over the earth, we are painfully subject to a cursed creation. Rather than being fruitful, we find ourselves living in futility.

The writer of Hebrews quotes Psalm 8 and confirms the disconnect between our destiny and our reality when he says, “We have not yet seen all things put under their authority.” Then he points us toward the answer, the ultimate, perfect man who has fulfilled everything God originally intended for humanity: “What we do see is Jesus” (Hebrews 2:8-9).

We know Psalm 8 is not yet fully true of us. But it is true of Jesus. And through our identification with Christ, our oneness with Christ, we also fulfill the destiny originally designed for us.

Fulfiller of humankind’s destiny, here I am, living in this in-between time that is marked by tears and pain and death. But as I identify myself with you I can say, “Because I am in Christ, all things will one day be under my authority. I will rule with Christ in glory forever and ever!”