God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
Perhaps the most wonderful thing of all is this: God lifts us not only from what we are by nature to what Adam was in the Garden of Eden, but to what Adam was to become in the presence of God, and would have been had he persevered in obedience. The gospel does not make us like Adam in his innocence – it makes us like Christ, in all the perfection of His reflection of God.
God did not rescue Paul in Asia (2 Cor. 1:8-11) or spare Epaphroditus from death (Phil. 1:27) in order to encourage others to seek a miraculous deliverance from affliction. Rather, these acts of deliverance were intended to encourage Paul and the rest of God's people to endure suffering in their own lives as a profound testimony of God's sufficiency (2 Cor. 1:6; 4:7-12; Phil. 4:6). This side of Christ's return, God does not reveal His power and love in our lives primarily by performing miracles but by enabling us to persevere in the midst of adversity because of our trust in Him. God rescued Paul in the past to teach him to trust God for his future, in order that he might endure in the present.
