The world, then, was created to be a revelation of God, and especially to be a revelation of the perfections of the Divine nature which are grounded in and deducible from Love; and it exists as the self-manifestation and self-communication of God to personal creatures who can know Him and love Him in return. "That which can determine God, absolutely sufficient in Himself, in the production of beings distinct from Himself, is _Love alone_; consequently the creation is nothing else than the free self-communication of God Himself, who could be exclusively in Himself, but wills that others may have being and, in fellowship with Him, eternal life."[182] The world-creating, world-preserving Love of God has this for its ultimate purpose, _that there shall be beings who, in the completeness and perfection of personal existence, shall know and love and resemble God, and have fellowship in his blessedness and joy_ (Matt. v. 8; 1 Cor. xiii. 12; 2 Peter i. 4; 1 John iii. 2). The realization of a perfected humanity in fellowship with God is, then, the final end of creation. We find some intimations of this grand purpose in the sublime record of creation which is given by Moses. We there learn that every thing was created with a view to man--to "man in the image of God." The inorganic world exists for the vegetable kingdom, the vegetable exists for the animal kingdom, and all exists for man (ch. i. 26-30). All its successive changes were a preparation for the appearance of man.[183] The more comprehensive revelation of the New Testament teaches that man exists for the realization of that perfected humanity of which Christ is the model, and which is attained in and through Christianity. The idea of man is the teleological principle of the world, the idea of Christ is the teleological principle of humanity. All things were created _by_ Christ and for Christ. "The good pleasure (εὐδοκία = the benevolent purpose) of the Divine Will" is, in the fullness of time, to gather together in one all things both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Christ, that in the final consummation _God may be all in all_ (Eph. i. 9, 10; 1 Cor. xv. 28). This purpose of Divine Love is an "_eternal purpose_," ordained before the foundation of the world, and progressively unfolded in the creation, government, and redemption of the world. Thus the world, as an actual, temporal world, reposes on an eternal ideal world which has always been present to the Divine cognition. The visible creation is but the realization of the Divine ideal in such modes and under such conditions as shall constitute it a manifestation of God to finite intelligences--the external expression of the mind and character of God, the language of the Deity.