December,
the month of Hope! The month we celebrate the birth of Jesus, that hopeful King that came to take away the sins
of the world, for those that would but seek Him. Hope is a very powerful force.
It is actually faith in seed form. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped
for and the evidence of things not seen”. Hebrews 11:1 The scriptures tell us
three things concerning the unconditional good news concerning the gift of
salvation offered by the Son of God. In Ephesians 2 we are told that both
the Jew and Gentile are dead in their trespasses and sin and that by nature we
are all the children of wrath. With this in mind, an unbeliever is not a sick
person, but a dead one. All lost sinners are dead and the only difference
between one sinner and another is the state of decay which is their natural condition. God’s plan was salvation
for all people, right from the very beginning. The anchor of our hope, of our
salvation, of our future is not in us, but in the holy history and promise of
the Son of God. He took humanity and
it’s sin upon Himself and He gave back His life, death, and resurrection, a new
history, a new status, in which mankind no longer stands condemned, but
justified, if they are found in Christ. Romans 5:18 “Consequently, just
as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result
of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men”.
Man’s only hope, no matter who He is, is Jesus Christ and redemption is through
Him alone according to John 1. Paul says in Romans 5 that being justified by
faith we have peace with God: Therefore, since we have been justified through
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So you see you can
have peace. It is possible.
That peace that
Paul speaks about comes only through the gift of salvation that Jesus offers, if
accepted. For Jesus came to bring peace between sinful man and a holy God and
through the gospel and through the acceptance of the gospel, through
justification by faith, that great truth that is what gives us peace with God. In Romans 9, Paul explained very clearly that it is not
merely being a descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that makes a true
Israelite, but it is the qualities of these three men that qualifies one to be
an Israelite. In other words, Abraham stood for faith and, if you have the
faith of Abraham, then you are Abraham’s seed. Isaac stands for being
born from above and, as Paul says to the Gentiles in Galatians 4, we who are
born from above belong to Isaac. And, of course, Jacob really refers to
those whose faith endures. In other words, if you have the faith of
Abraham, if you have experienced the new birth, the birth from above as Isaac
was born from above, and if your faith endures unto the end, then you belong to
Israel. While the Jews were applying the word “Israel” only to those who
had the blood of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Paul was saying, now that the
true messiah had come, that their way of teaching had been removed through
Jesus Christ. Why? Because, in the incarnation, He took unto
Himself, not only the Jewish nation, but He took the whole human race unto
Himself.
The human race is the sum of Adam’s life. When God breathed
into Adam the breath of life, He breathed life into every future life in the
human race God took that corporate life of the human race and joined it
to Christ in the incarnation. Then, by His perfect life and His
sacrificial death and His resurrection, He gave us a new hope, a new history, a
new status in which we have salvation, full and complete, nothing
lacking. That is the redemption of the gospel and the unconditional good
news. And in that redemption, all distinction between man was
removed. Romans 3:22-23. This righteousness from God comes through faith
in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
What more, precious gift could we receive, than the offer that
comes through the birth of the King of hope!
Hold Fast,
Bren
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