Most often people ask questions like: “What’s God’s eternal plan for us? What’s God’s purpose for us here on earth? What’s God’s overall plan for mankind?” Meanwhile, these questions tend to address the same issue.
However, the primary reason God created man is to rule the earth in partnership with Him. Genesis 1:26-28 clearly reveal this truth. Whereas there are other reasons apart from this, nevertheless they are all derived from this. Kingdom and governance was at the core of God’s intent before the creation of man.
Genesis 1:1 shows that God created the heavens and earth in the beginning. Like you know, the heaven is God’s throne(Acts7:49; Is.66:1). Now the moment God created the heavens, which happens to be His throne, He established His kingdom and kingship in the invisible realms. Because to every throne, there’s a king, kingdom, and citizens. A throne is akin to a seat of authority where a king legislates from. While a kingdom is the domain where the influence of a king covers. Citizenry is a group of people governed by a king. The hosts of angels and other spirit beings happen to be the citizens God governs in the invisible realms.
Before it all began in Time
Before the advent of time, in eternity past, having established His kingdom in the invisible realms, God wanted to extend the influence of this kingdom into the visible realm. But to actualize this, He needed another citizens who can interact legitimately with both the visible and invisible realms.
Thus having created Adam, the vision was handed out to him to internalise and run with the same on the earth. He was to mirror the image of God and administrative system of heaven on earth so that the culture and realities of heaven can find expression on earth. Unfortunately, this project was obstructed for eons due to Adam’s fall.
But because God’s eternal purpose cannot be thwarted, after many eons, He found a way of implementing the same, but this time, through His son-Jesus. Jesus had to come die for the sin of man to redeem man so that man can again fulfill God’s eternal purpose.
If not for want of space, I would have gone deeper. However, in his book: Kingdom Influencers, Samuel Ezekiel, did great exegesis on the subject. You can order for a copy at www.dileesam.com.
In a nutshell, like I have said, God’s eternal purpose for mankind on the earth is governance. God’s intention is for man to rule the earth just as He rules the heavens (Ps.115:16; Gen.1:26-28).