Sunday, June 10, 2018 - Ephesians 6:17
The Armor of God, Pt. 28, The Helmet of Salvation, Pt. 7,
The Meaning of Salvation - New Situation, New Self, New
Steps, Pt. 2
Grace Fellowship Church
Pastor/Teacher, Jim Rickard
Stand in Warfare –
Eph 6:10-20.
3. The Equipment, vs. 13-17.
Vs. 17, “And take THE
HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
The Meaning of Salvation, Pt. 2
The benefits of your union with
Christ are described in various ways. We can group the Bible’s many images into
three distinct categories: new situation, new self, new steps. As we have seen
and will see below, salvation in the Bible is a three-dimensional phenomenon,
(Past, Present, Future; New Situation, New Self, New Steps; involving God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit). In this section we are going to
note the categories of new situation, new self, and new steps.
New Situation: - Salvation as objective change.
To be saved means that your legal
status has changed, that you have acquired new rights and responsibilities as a
result of your union with Jesus Christ. Four leading images depict the new
situation brought about by God’s saving work.
1. The image of “Redemption,” is
that of a marketplace where things are bought and sold. It signifies a
transaction where an exchange is made for payment. Cf. Ex 21:30; Psa 49:8.
Redemption means: Jesus’ life was
the “ransom payment” for our sins, giving us the new life we now live in Him.
Mark 10:45,“For even the Son of Man did not come to be
served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Eph 1:7, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the
forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.”
1 Cor 6:20, “For you have been bought with a price:
therefore glorify God in your body.”
2. “Justification,” is an image
drawn from the court of law. To be justified is to be declared innocent.
Justification means: Sinners who
are “In Christ” have been formally pardoned from the guilt of sin and now live
a new life in Christ.
Rom 3:24, “Being justified as a gift by His grace through
the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.”
Rom 5:1, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Cor 6:11, “Such were some of you; but you were washed,
but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
Titus 3:7, “So that being justified by His grace we would
be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
3. The third image is that of
“adoption,” HUIOTHESIA, υἱοθεσία from
HUIOS, “son” and TITHEMI, “to “place,” it means, “to place a son” or
incorporation into the family. In the believer’s case, it is placement or incorporation
into the Royal Family of God. Therefore, to teach the Church Age
believer about His position “In Christ,” Paul draws an analogy to the custom of
“adoption” practiced by the Roman aristocracy.
Roman adoption officially designated someone as an heir,
whether or not that person was related by blood. The Caesars usually adopted
successors who were not their sons. Often, however a father would adopt his own
son, granting him the full privileges and responsibilities of the family name.
The ceremony of adoption also marked the boy’s transition
into adulthood, traditionally at age fourteen. Paul depicts Israel as an
immature son in Gal 3:23, and the
Church as an adult son and heir in Gal
3:25-26. At a dramatic moment in the Roman ceremony of adoption, the new
heir is clothed with the magnificent “toga virilis,” the garment of manhood, Gal 3:27.
Gal 3:27, “For all of
you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
Christians wear the spiritual equivalent of the “toga
virilis” from the moment of salvation, when the Baptism of the Spirit occurs, Eph 1:13.
The significance of our adoption into the family of God is
that the Church Age believer has been removed from the cosmic system as a child
of the devil, and has been placed as an adult son into the Royal Family of God,
of which the Lord Jesus Christ is the Head, Col 1:13-14. Adoption means that the Church Age believer is
spiritual aristocracy now and is intimately related to all three members of the
Trinity.
Col 1:13-14, “For He
rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of
His beloved Son. 14in
whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Through the merits of Christ, Church Age believers are
adopted as adult sons of God and joint heirs with Christ at the first instant
of faith in Him, Rom 8:15-17; Eph 1:5.
Eph 1:5, “He
predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according
to the kind intention of His will.”
Although a spiritual infant in experience, every Church Age
believer is a spiritual adult in position. He is granted the full privileges
and responsibilities of an adult son of God because he is in union with the
Lord Jesus Christ, Rom 8:23; 9:4; Gal 4:5-7; Eph 1:5; cf. Ex 4:22; Isa
1:2; 56:5; Hosea 1:10; 11:1.
Gal 4:5-6, “So that He might redeem those who were under
the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. 6Because you
are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying,
"Abba! Father!"”
The process of adoption is linked
to the work of the Holy Spirit, whom Paul calls the “Spirit of adoption.” The
body of the saved are members of God’s kingdom and God’s family alike. The
believer is not a child of God by nature; the image of adoption emphasizes the
graciousness of salvation. Adoption pictures union with Christ in terms of
enjoying all the privileges that come with one’s status as a legal child of
God, as “heirs of God and fellow heirs
with Christ,” Rom 8:15-17; cf. Eph
1:13-14; James 2:5.
Eph 1:13-14, “In Him, you also, after listening to the
message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were
sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14who is given as a
pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own
possession, to the praise of His glory.”
Gal 4:7, “Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son;
and if a son, then an heir through God.”
Titus 3:7, “So that being justified by His grace we would
be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
Sonship
/ adoption thus relates to the present and also to the future consummation of
adoption and the inheritance of eternal life. At the resurrection of the
Church, also called the Rapture of the Church, the believer will obtain the
full manifestation of his sonship, called the “redemption of the body,” Rom 8:23; 1 Thes 4:14-17; Eph 1:14; Phil
3:20-21; 1 John 3:2.
Therefore, our “New Situation”
speaks of our adoption into the family of God, as sons and daughters, because
of our union with God the Son, Jesus Christ, with all of its privileges and
blessings of an eternal inheritance.
4. Finally, Paul depicts the “New Situation” of the saved
with an image drawn from the domain of personal relationships,
“reconciliation.” The doctrine of Reconciliation first speaks to the removal of the barrier
between God and mankind that kept us from having a personal relationship with
God. Yet, through the salvation work of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross,
that barrier called sin was removed, providing peace between God and man, and
giving man the opportunity to enter into a personal relationship with God.
“Reconciliation,” is the Greek
noun KATALLAGE, καταλλαγή, that also means “restoration to favor,” which is a
picture that assumes a previous estrangement that has been overcome or healed.
In ancient Greek it meant, “the restoration of the original understanding
between people after hostility or displeasure.”
This original understanding is the state in which God created man that
was interrupted by sin in the Garden of Eden.
The root word KATALLAGE denotes
action initiated and completed by God in restoring man to right relationship
with Him through Christ. Redeemed man is the recipient of God’s reconciliation,
Rom 5:11; 11:15; 2 Cor 5:19.
Likewise, the Greek verb KATALLASSO
means, “to change someone from a state of hostility into a state of tranquility
and peace, from enmity to reconciliation.”
All people are by nature enemies
of God because of sin, Rom 5:10; Col
1:21.
Rom 5:10, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled
to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we
shall be saved (delivered) by His life.”
Col 1:21-22, “And although you were formerly alienated and
hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, 22yet He has now reconciled
you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy
and blameless and beyond reproach.”
God is similarly alienated from
human beings because of his righteous anger, Rom 1:18. Yet, it was the death of Jesus Christ that overcame sin
and averts the Divine wrath, 2 Cor 5:19;
Eph 2:16.
2 Cor 5:19, “Namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the
world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has
committed to us the word of reconciliation.”
Eph 2:16, “And might reconcile them both in one body to God
through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.”
“The reconciled” is the expression
of the transformation of the relationship of enmity between God and man, which
has been brought about by the new Adam, Jesus Christ, cf. Rom 5:12ff. Through personal faith in Jesus Christ, the barriers
between man and God are removed and we are entered into right relationship with
God and Jesus Christ, Rom 5:8-11; 2 Cor
5:17-19.
Rom 5:8-11, “But God demonstrates His own love
toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much
more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the
wrath of God through Him. 10For if while we were enemies we were
reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been
reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11And not only this, but we
also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now
received the reconciliation.”
2 Cor 5:17-19, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a
new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 18Now
all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and
gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19namely, that God was in
Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against
them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”
Peace is a
synonym for reconciliation, since being reconciled to God through faith in
Christ establishes peace between God and the believer. Peace is not only a
synonym for reconciliation, but is the only way to completely understand what
God did for us and that there was nothing we could do for salvation. Peace
means that we have His righteousness and His life, Col 1:19‑22.
“The revealed truth of
the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took on Himself our fleshly sins, but that
He took on Himself the heredity of sin that no man can even touch. God made His
own Son "to be sin" that He might make the sinner into a saint. It is
revealed throughout the Bible that our Lord took on Himself the sin of the
world through identification with us,
not through sympathy for us. He
deliberately took on His own shoulders, and endured in His own body, the
complete, cumulative sin of the human race. "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us …" and by so
doing He placed salvation for the entire human race solely on the basis of
redemption. Jesus Christ reconciled the human race, putting it back to where
God designed it to be. And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being
brought into oneness with God, on the basis of what our Lord has done on the
cross.” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest.)
Our Lord commands us to also have
a heart of reconciliation towards our fellow man in the image of our
reconciliation to Him, Mat 5:24, “First be reconciled
to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
Thanks to this reconciling work,
one who is “In Christ,” enjoys restored relations with God and, like Abraham,
may be called, “the friend of God,”
James 2:23.
No comments:
Post a Comment