MID-WEEK MANNA FROM PASTOR NAT’S DESK:
January 25, 2023
GOD’S SAVING ENMITY-Part 4
“But unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and HATETH INIQUITY; therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows. And Thou, Lord, IN THE BEGINNING hast laid the foundations of the earth; and the heavens are the works of Thy hands: They shall perish; but Thou REMAINEST; and they shall all wax old as does a garment. And as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but Thou art THE SAME, AND THY YEARS SHALL NOT FAIL.” Heb. 1: 8-14, KJV.
Apostle Paul, moved by the Holy Spirit, wrote these holy Scriptures but the real author is Jesus the Word, who is the
“Author and Finisher of our faith,” the “Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End,” “the One altogether lovely” and is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
Apostle John, called “the beloved disciple” in the New Testament (prophet Daniel was also called “the beloved” in the Old Testament), likewise moved by the same Holy Spirit, penned the sublime words of life and truth describing differently, yet in perfect harmony and unity with Paul, who addressed his epistle Hebrews, to the Hebrew-speaking Jews in his time (Galatians was addressed to the Gentile converts to early Christianity).
In the introduction of the the fourth of the “synoptic gospel” books, John wrote of the same “Son whom God the Father addresses as God” (Jesus Himself declared, “I and My Father are one”), in these
“In the BEGINNING was the WORD and the Word was with God AND THE WORD WAS GOD. The SAME was in the beginning with GOD. All things were MADE by Him; and without Him was not ANYTHING made that was made. In Him was LIFE; and the life was the LIFE of men.” John 1: 1-4, KJV (emphasis mine).
Then, following in verse 14, John helps those spiritually-minded to begin grasping the spiritual depths of the “mystery of godliness” (cf. 1 Tim. 3:16)of the mystery of the incarnation:
“And the WORD WAS MADE FLESH and dwelt among us (and we beheld His GLORY, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH.” (emphasis mine).
It is the “glory” of “fulness of saving “grace and truth”—not the luminous, physical-vision-blinding glory—that John and his fellow disciple-apostles “beheld,” i. e., eventually spiritually discerned only after His resurrection and ascension, after the promised descent and empowerment by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Indeed, God’s amazing GRACE in the gospel is “the power of God unto salvation” from the power of sin and Satan and his “seed.” And “the TRUTH that shall “make us free” from the alluring bondage and slavery to our cherished, self-centered, self-indulgent sins is the ENMITY, the new principle of HATRED against INIQUITY or sin, “transgression of the law,” and further described as: “All unrighteousness is sin,” and “to him that knoweth to DO good, and doeth it NOT, to him it is SIN.”
Not until we correctly interpret, properly appropriate and faithfully apply the divine provisions of God’s ENMITY towards sin and God’s GRACE which “MUCH MORE abounds where and when sin abounds,” will the professed Christian become a victorious OVERCOMER over “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” And Jesus the Word made flesh says, and our Example says,” “overcome EVEN AS I overcame,” if you want to “sit down and sup with Me now, then later after My return, to be part of My bride at the “wedding supper of the Lamb.”
So TODAY, if you WILL hear His voice, HARDEN NOT your hearts.”
To be continued next MWM, God willing. Bless all,NMF.