This morning, the verses I have been
considering about eternal life merged with other scriptures focusing on the
power of God. The sense is that, if eternal life is to know God, then one
aspect of knowing God in the real and personal way spoken of in God’s word, is
that there is an experience of power only explained except by its divine
source.
In other words, if we really know the
all-powerful God who created the heavens and the earth, there will be things
that happen in and among God’s children that demonstrate the power of God.
The one Scripture that took most of my
time and attention was Paul’s confident declaration of Romans 1:16-17. Here it
is alongside the other two verses about eternal life:
|
John 17:3
|
I John 5:20
|
Romans 1:16-17
|
|
“And
this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom you have sent.”
|
“And
we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that
we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus
Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.”
|
16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation
to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in
it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is
written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
|
What stands out to me is that the
power of God Paul spoke about was in reference to salvation. We know when the
reality of the gospel touches someone’s heart and soul because salvation makes
them alive in the Lord Jesus Christ.[1]
The same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead reaches into sinners’
lives and raises them from the dead condition of their sin.[2]
A distinctive component of this
salvation is that it reveals a righteousness that is by faith. The righteous
shall live by faith because the powerful salvation of God has made them alive
by faith.
This is why Paul speaks of a salvation
that is “to everyone who believes.”
It does not matter whether a person is Jewish, coming to realize that Jesus of
Nazareth is indeed the Christ who was promised to the Jewish people, or whether
someone is a Greek, or Gentile, or non-Jewish person, coming to realize that
the Messiah promised to the Jewish people is the Savior of the whole world. The
power of God for salvation makes people alive by bringing them to have faith in
Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Savior of the world.
The power of God unto righteousness is
expressed in three beautiful facets of our glorious salvation. In our
justification by faith, we are granted the righteousness of Jesus Christ as a
gift of grace, giving us the standing with God of righteous people. As
mind-bogglingly wonderful as it is, someone can begin the day as a sinner under
condemnation for his or her sin, and end the day with a standing in God’s
presence that is as good and acceptable to the Father as Jesus’ own righteousness.
In our sanctification by faith, God can touch the people he has justified, people who
are not yet as righteous as their justification presents them before God, and
do his work of daily transforming us to be more and more like Jesus. Paul describes
it in this way, “And we all, with
unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the
same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord
who is the Spirit.”[3]
From God’s viewpoint, his daily work
in his justified children is changing us into the “same image” as Jesus Christ our Lord, not from one degree of scumminess
to a lesser degree of scumminess, but “from
one degree of glory to another.” To have the capacity to know such a thing
is possible is a gracious gift of the glorious gospel that has the power of God
to save us, and make us righteous in the sight of our holy God.
In our glorification by faith, God
promises to complete his work of making us as righteous as his Son. He created
us in his image and likeness in the beginning.[4] Through
his gospel he justifies us from sin into the righteousness that is by faith, he
sanctifies us in the daily transformation that constantly makes us more and
more like Jesus, and he has already settled that we will one day be fully restored
to the image and likeness of Christ. One day, the real condition of our whole
being will match the justification-righteousness given to us at our conversion.
The apostle John gives us this
glorious picture of what is yet to come: “Beloved,
we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we
know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he
is.”[5]
This is where we are going. This is
where the hope of the gospel directs our thoughts. This is the promise of the
Almighty God who expressed his glorious power in raising us from the dead. Before
the beginning of time, he set out to make us like his Son. No matter what Satan
has done to stop this work, first luring man to eat the forbidden fruit,[6]
and then constantly working through history to steal, kill, and destroy,[7]
God has the power in salvation to “save
to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives
to make intercession for them.”[8]
Eternal life is to know God. To know
God is to know the power of God. The power of God is for salvation, to restore
us to the image and likeness of Jesus Christ, the glorious Son of God. This
salvation is for righteousness through faith, justifying us, sanctifying us,
and glorifying us so that we are fully like Jesus.
What God wants for his children is not
some personal, self-dependent energy that tries to do good for God, but the
glorious gift of grace where broken and sinful people feel something happening
in them that keeps making them more and more like Jesus without any human
explanation whatsoever. It is the power of God for salvation. If we have the
real salvation of God, and we truly know God in the eternal life that is ours
by faith, we will see this power of God transforming us.
©
2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless
otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy
Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division
of Good News Publishers.)
[1]
Ephesians 2:1-10 shows the whole picture of our dead condition in Christ, our
resurrection from the dead, being made alive in Christ, and presently
commissioned to join God in the work he continues to do around us.
[2]
Romans 8:11; 10:9-10
[3]
II Corinthians 3:18
[4]
Genesis 1:26-27
[5]
I John 3:2
[6]
Genesis 3
[7]
John 10:10
[8]
Hebrews 7:25
No comments:
Post a Comment