“And because of him you are in Christ Jesus,
who became to us the wisdom of God,
righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.””
Our life in Christ operates in two scriptural modes. One is grace, the other is faith. Grace is God’s love to us and faith is our response. It is God’s power that makes both effective.
“But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
We have been called by God to be His visible power and wisdom. This is literal context for our verse. Humbling thought? Humbling and sobering!
But, it is absolutely true, we are to be visible containers of God’s power and wisdom (2 Corinthians 4:11). And what does this power and wisdom wisdom look like? It is righteousness, sanctification and redemption, or to put it another way, it is the resurrected person of Jesus Christ seen in us. It is Jesus Himself, in us, bearing His fruit of righteousness, sanctification and redemption through us, in our life. We need to soak ourselves in this reality!! This is why we added verse 31, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Why? Because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, this is the God’s Word. There is nothing in our salvation coming from us, including our faith (2 Corinthians 3:5). Even our ability to believe comes from God. So then, all the things we have been discussing from wisdom to redemption, must come out of Him, secured in His power, producing His righteous fruit (Philippians 1:11). God’s attributes and nature are operating in our life while we are called to make them visible (1 Peter 2:21), in spite of self which is put to death (Romans 6:11). We must allow God’s power effectively working in us, otherwise, it is all about us and not God! If this happens, if it becomes about us, God’s power is not there, it vanishes!
Many years ago I was on a street corner in down town Los Angels. I drew the street corner evangelism assignment for my semester ministry at BIOLA. I was the one speaking, on a street corner facing northwest, standing on something (?) so I could see above the heads of people on both the north and west sidewalks. After some time, I suddenly became aware, a large crowd had formed in front of me, filling the sidewalks in both directions. At the same time I realized people were actually coming to stand and listen. I also, then became aware of myself, and a sense of pride … immediately the crowd thinned out leaving me with our team and a few stragglers.
As soon as we make the switch to human power, God’s divine power vaporizes out of our grasp. There will be residual spiritual knowledge, but no power to produce righteous fruit. We tend to rely upon our own power asking for God’s blessing, not realizing our way is not His way, not discerning He blesses His work in us, not our work in His name. This is why we see a lot of Christianity on many different “street corners” without see the risen person of Jesus Christ.
This is not to say God abandons us when we are in our self mode, absolutely not! More likely, it will come back at another time as a lesson because once we are in Christ, Christ is in us and He will complete in us what He has started (Phil 1:6) at the day of Jesus Christ.
But we want to be found faithful producing righteous fruit which we are called to do (Phil. 3:9). This is why we “drill down” into God’s text. But we must do it in two ways so we discern our will from God’s will. Our first “drill down” (not necessarily in this order) is through reason and knowledge. This is the way we all tend to focus but it is also the way we get ourselves into spiritual trouble.
We like to learn but we also like to know what others don’t know. It is in our pride of life knowing what others don’t. It seems to give us a little edge especially when it comes to spiritual knowledge. This is the reason we have to “drill down” knowledge in tandem with “drilling down” self! In other words, we have to open our heart as well as our mind to the “mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).
We have to “drill down” the treasures of God’s truth, but then, we also have to “drill down” our heart so God’s truth can unlocked our soul in the Holy Spirit. We cannot harvest righteous fruit until first we have tasted His fruit within our own soul. Sometimes the tasting occurs during harvest but first our soil needs to be ploughed, the seeds need watering, and as often as not, some pruning takes place before the fruit is ready. God’s power in us comes from an intimate faith that depends on Him and His working in us (Philippians 2:12-13).
Our verse is written to carnal Christians located in Corinth. A carnal Christian is a person who is in Christ but is learning to discern man’s wisdom from God’s. This is what Paul is addressing in the context of our passage, and specifically, in our verse. We are all carnal Christians, as long as we are wearing carnal souls and bodies. It is simply a matter of degree. But there is a level of carnality fundamentally outside the nature of God’s righteousness, and these Corinth Christians were there.
Paul is addressing spiritual vision. He wants them to “see” the difference between the wisdom of men compared to the wisdom of God. They recognized the miraculous new birth that changed them from the inside out. It wasn’t through the process of reason or the persuasion of men, it was and is God’s power making them spiritually alive. We have to spiritually understand the continuous nature of God’s power working within ourselves. This is knowledge by revelation. It doesn’t come by “drilling down” through reason only.
It is one thing to have a sympathetic notion of God’s sovereignty, it is quite another to contain such a passionate conviction that we become offended by Christians glibly speaking of divine things that cost Jesus Christ, the beloved Son of God, His death on a cross.
It is Jesus Christ who IS the wisdom of God. It is through the work of God the Father, granting us to be partakers of His own nature (righteousness); the Holy Spirit setting us apart by ministering to our personal spirit (sanctification), and the work of Jesus, bodily taking on our sin (redemption), that enables our participating in His work.
God’s grace gives us a consciousness of His truth while our faith grapples within our heart to absorb His power and wisdom. Faith is our effective response to His grace. Revelation 3:20 is written in this context to the church at Laodicea and Jesus is making a personal offer we cannot afford to ignore:
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
Drill down with me just a little! This is Jesus Himself speaking but first a some historical context for this verse.
In Isaiah 5 we have recorded God’s view of Israel. It is His love song of Christ’s vineyard. He had prepared the soil, planted it with choice vines and gave it protection and nurturing care. But Israel, instead of producing choice wine, yielded wild grapes good for nothing. So God removes His protection and takes away the cloud of water and lets it produce thorns and briars.
Now turn to Revelation 19 where we find the great Babylon has been destroyed at the end of the earth’s seven years of tribulation. There is much celebration in heaven and the marriage supper of the Lamb is about to take place. Christ appears on a white horse.
“He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name which he is called is THE WORD OF GOD. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robes and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.” -Revelation 19:13-16.
The church is the bride of Christ. The millennium reign with Jesus Christ is about to begin and afterwards an eternal new heaven and new earth.
Sandwiched in between these two events the church appears and a new covenant relationship is established with the bride to be (the church) and the Lord Christ Himself. Our Revelation 3:20 passage is addressed to the church during this middle period and includes her individual members, you and me.
Do we see the extreme gravity we should give this passage? The One speaking is the same Person riding the white horse in Revelation 19. This is why, at the end of every letter to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, we find this same warning or admonition: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches”. And here again is our verse in Revelation 3:20:
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
This verse is reminiscent of 1 John where the topic is fellowship a believer should have with his God. The focus is on the continuous activity of believers being “in the light” or in harmony with God so that fellowship can be participated by both the believer and God Himself because of their commonality. God provides His nature for the believer’s participation and the believer is to submit himself in the light of God’s word revealed through the Holy Spirit. This is the essence of Rev. 3:20.
In Revelation 3:20 it is Jesus taking the initiative and making the believer aware of his presence. Notice, Jesus is knocking, but more than just knocking, he is identifying Himself so the heart can identify Him by hearing His voice. But the believer must will himself to respond. The believer must be (1) hearing His voice and must (2) open the door. Notice also that the Laodicea church is not in fellowship, they in a state of self satisfaction, not enjoying God’s refined gold (Rev. 3:14-22).
But on the other hand, if they open the door to their heart, He will come in, and not only that, “even more” He will have a reciprocal relationship as spoken about in 1John, … “and eat with him, and he with me.”
In Isaiah 5 we also find that God provided everything necessary for Israel to produce fine wine but they did not do so. So, God withdrew His blessing because of their failure. God extended, rather, the blessing of Abraham to the gentiles and church was born. Now, Christ is knocking on our door!
We are here, now, in the period between Isaiah 5 and Revelation 19. Here we are, Jesus is knocking, are we hearing His voice?
If you will hear my voice…, If you will open the door ….
“We will have fellowship,” I can hear Him say.
“And because of him you are in Christ Jesus,
who became to us the wisdom of God,
righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Our life in Christ operates in two scriptural modes. One is grace, the other is faith. Grace is God’s love to us and faith is our response. It is God’s power that makes both effective.
When we drill down in God’s Word, remember it is more than knowledge through reason we seek, it is knowledge through revelation as well.