Truth Received

In the Gospel of John, Chapter 1, we read in the opening four verses the following: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

As we study further in the chapter it becomes clear the Word being spoken of here is Jesus Christ, God the Son, the second person in the divine trinity, the creator and sovereign ruler of the universe. He is presented as the truth of God in human form, the one through whom the glory of God’s person and purposes revealed in the writing of the Old Testament would now be revealed most clearly to the minds and hearts of man in and through the person and work of Christ. (John 1:14).

This Word is at the same time the fulfillment of the promised redeemer, one who through his sinless life and sacrificial death (John 1:29) would save His people from  the power of sin over their lives in this world and from the eternal consequences of their sin and rebellion in the world to come (Matthew 1:21).

This raises a question of most importance, namely, who are His people? We are told in John 1:10-11 that they do not include the whole world as the world had no idea of or desire to know who He was and thus the Roman government executed Him as a common criminal. And Rome, which ruled the known world at that time, did so at the request of God’s so-called chosen people, Israel, who wanted nothing to do with Jesus, rejecting Him as their Savior and LORD.

So, who does that leave as His people?  The answer is found in John 1:12-13, where the Apostle John tells us, But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

His people, the true and only children of God are those who, by the work of the Spirit of God in their hearts (John 16:13:14), receive/embrace Jesus for who He is; believing Him to be both the infinitely glorious eternal God who is worthy of their supreme love, unfailing trust, perfect obedience and exclusive worship; as well as their all sufficient savior from God’s just judgement and wrath, which they have come to acknowledge they deserve.

In Jesus, all the redemptive promises of the Old Testament are fulfilled (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Through His perfectly holy and sinless life as a man, loving God the Farther with all of His heart and soul and mind and strength and His neighbor as himself, Jesus demonstrated the perfect righteousness God requires of all who would live in His presence. Thus, all who believe in and receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, are treated by God as if they lived that same sinless life.  They are reconciled to God –  declared by God to be righteous (2 Corinthians 5:17-21), adopted as one of His beloved children (Galatians 4:5-7) and lavishly welcomed into Heaven at the time of their death (2 Peter 1:10-11).

Through Jesus’ unjust and agonizing death on the cross (Isaiah 53:4-12), all who receive and believe are granted forgiveness of all of their sins, past, present and future (Ephesians 1:7); as on the cross Jesus took upon Himself the penalty for their sin, suffering the wrath and judgment of God in His  body and soul that they would have suffered throughout eternity in Hell.

Through His miraculous resurrection from the dead, Jesus conquered both spiritual and physical death on behalf of those who receive and believe (1 Peter 1:3), wherein He sends God the Holy Spirit to live in them, immediately giving life to their spiritually dead souls (Ephesians  2:4-7),  so that while we are in this world God can begin the process of restoring us to His image and likeness in our nature and character (2 Corinthians 3:18); a process that will be completed at the time of our death  when we enter heaven and see Jesus in all of His perfection of Being (1 John 3:2).  At His second coming, our perfected soul will be united into a glorious physical body like Jesus presently has – a body that will image the beauty and excellencies of God in its appearance and the holiness of God in its actions – a body finally able to enjoy the unimaginable pleasures of God forever (Philippians 3:20-21).

Through His ascension into Heaven, from where He presently rules over all the nations of the earth (Psalm 22:28), all who receive and believe will have Jesus as their advocate, their intercessor (Acts 7:55-56) who will assure that they stay faithful to Him while in this world, (Jude 24-25).  Romans 8:28-32 assures them that all things that occur in their lives while in this world will draw them closer to God, and conform them more and more to His nature and character.

Therefore, God calls men, women and children everywhere to repent of their sin (Acts 3:19-21), and receive, as a gift (Romans 6:23), all that Jesus has done to rescue from Hell and qualify for Heaven all who will passionately pursue Him alone as the object of their deepest love and source of their greatest joy. To do anything less leaves us under the just judgement of God, losing forever the exquisite pleasures, joys and delights that are found only in God, within the glorious life God created us to enjoy with Him (Psalm 16:11).

Grace and Truth ×