I was extremely frustrated last evening in our consideration of John 7. After the glories of John 6 and our Lord's declaration of our Sovereign Triune Gods' will and purpose in the Perfect Body and Blood of our Incarnate Savior, I had desired to see that same being manifested in chapter 7. Instead we were led to see our glorious incarnate God surrounded by, as Ken called it, the messiness of our fallen humanity. We saw Him encounter the messiness of unbelieving family, the messiness of dead religion, the messiness of hypocrites, a nearly total misunderstanding of His Goodness and Purpose, all of it prefaced by His prophecy of betrayal by a friend! (Jn 6:70-71)
I now see, that was the point. We were seeing our Jesus in His perfectly sinless humanity entering into every area of messiness that this world is defined by. We were beholding His “learning obedience by the things that He suffered.”(Heb.5:8) And this was according to the Will of the Father, the One Who sent Him. “It became Him for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things....to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering.”(Heb. 2:10) He did that, in order that we might in faith, grasp His Union with our affliction, the strength of His perfect humanity in the midst of our helplessness, and that we may experience the mediation and provision of His great High priestly ministry and that we may flee to Him to obtain Mercy, and find Grace to help in our continual time of need.
In the words of an old saint, Octavius Winslow, "this incarnate God is our God. The great truth of the Bible is God manifest in the flesh, the incarnation of the Son of God and the belief of this truth is an essential doctrine of salvation. Claim your relationship to and your possession of this God man. He is bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. You have not one human element that did not enter into his humanity. Nothing that was human was foreign to him. (No sin in Him, because sin is Satanic and not a human element according to Creation. It is the horrible aberration of this fallen world.) It is therefore your privilege to claim Him as your Elder Brother and to run to him with all your afflictions of mind, body, and as your Brother born for adversity.(Prov. 17:17) Every perfection of His Being, every element of His Nature, every pulse of His Life, every fiber of His Heart - His every Thought and Affection and Feeling - is ours. Behold the Lamb of God, behold the Man for this God is yours. Christ loves for you to recognize your personal interest in Him, He is honored by your claim of free Grace to all that He is personally and officially. He is a glorified by your continuous coming to the unsearchable riches of His grace, wisdom, and love, and by your making large and unlimited withdrawals from their inexhaustible fullness. " All things are yours and you are Christ and Christ is God's." (1 Cor. 3:21, 23)"
No matter the mess your in, the betrayal you feel, the judgement and misunderstanding surrounding you, come rest in your Jesus, bathe in the cleansing blood of His walking through the ultimate mess of this world without sin, being assured that “All that the Father gives to Me shall come to Me; and he that comes to me, I will not cast out.
I now see, that was the point. We were seeing our Jesus in His perfectly sinless humanity entering into every area of messiness that this world is defined by. We were beholding His “learning obedience by the things that He suffered.”(Heb.5:8) And this was according to the Will of the Father, the One Who sent Him. “It became Him for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things....to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering.”(Heb. 2:10) He did that, in order that we might in faith, grasp His Union with our affliction, the strength of His perfect humanity in the midst of our helplessness, and that we may experience the mediation and provision of His great High priestly ministry and that we may flee to Him to obtain Mercy, and find Grace to help in our continual time of need.
In the words of an old saint, Octavius Winslow, "this incarnate God is our God. The great truth of the Bible is God manifest in the flesh, the incarnation of the Son of God and the belief of this truth is an essential doctrine of salvation. Claim your relationship to and your possession of this God man. He is bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. You have not one human element that did not enter into his humanity. Nothing that was human was foreign to him. (No sin in Him, because sin is Satanic and not a human element according to Creation. It is the horrible aberration of this fallen world.) It is therefore your privilege to claim Him as your Elder Brother and to run to him with all your afflictions of mind, body, and as your Brother born for adversity.(Prov. 17:17) Every perfection of His Being, every element of His Nature, every pulse of His Life, every fiber of His Heart - His every Thought and Affection and Feeling - is ours. Behold the Lamb of God, behold the Man for this God is yours. Christ loves for you to recognize your personal interest in Him, He is honored by your claim of free Grace to all that He is personally and officially. He is a glorified by your continuous coming to the unsearchable riches of His grace, wisdom, and love, and by your making large and unlimited withdrawals from their inexhaustible fullness. " All things are yours and you are Christ and Christ is God's." (1 Cor. 3:21, 23)"
No matter the mess your in, the betrayal you feel, the judgement and misunderstanding surrounding you, come rest in your Jesus, bathe in the cleansing blood of His walking through the ultimate mess of this world without sin, being assured that “All that the Father gives to Me shall come to Me; and he that comes to me, I will not cast out.
RSS Feed