“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”
We began GraceNotes this year looking inward at our personal prologue. We probed existence before we where born. Yes, according to scripture our identity existed before we did. God’s grace opens our consciousness to things of the Spirit when we are ‘’born again,’’ i.e., we are born Spiritually into God’s own “I-AM” likeness. Literally, we are born into God’s righteous eternal Life. “Born Again” is a good term because a gifting takes place of spiritual senses not possessed by non-believers.
God’s standard of Life is Spiritual. When man possesses only the breath of a natural soul, he is in God’s view, dead. The first Adam was created with much more than today we naturally possess. He had open communion with God and dominion over the earth. Today, Satan has Adam’s earthly dominion, using it to deceive and beguile mankind into deeper darkness. Mankind is in darkness today unless God’s Light has penetrated our natural fallen state and we have accepted God’s grace, called out of darkness into His glorious light.
Because we think and breathe, because we can love and hate, have children and build cities, because we can do these human things, we think we are alive. Living in the view of natural man is far less than reality in the hands of our creator God. In the natural state of breathing air, we are spiritually dead.
God is Spirit; God’s level of Life is Spiritual. Life with a capital “L” flows out of God’s person into us even while we offensively assert a self will in preference to God’s wisdom and love. We take what God provides, consume it on personal whims turning self away from His loving person. All life is accountable to its creator-maker and we are under judgment because we sin and harden our heart. God is gracious! God is loving and forgiving but He is also righteous and just!
God’s standard for us is “so much greater” than we humanly perceive. Man is intended to participate in Life at spiritual levels qualitatively beyond temporal and corporeal experience. How easily we fall into our own deception and negate God’s provisions but God in mercy provides another way, grace through Jesus our Lord by faith! This is true for both saved and unsaved. Just because we receive God’s Light does not mean we walk in it.
People are written into God’s Book of life as they are being humanly born and are blotted out when they do not accept God‘s grace. God’s Life is beyond our comprehension but grace provides entrance into His divine eternality. God’s gift of faith and Life provides access into God’s heavenly domain so we can have personal fellowship with the Father. This communion is a personal participation in God Himself … even as we wear flesh … if we are willing to accept and receive Him. How amazing is this! But this limited time opportunity is coming to a close!
Our time is limited! If we are not in Christ, our time is coming to an end; if we are in Christ, time to Spiritually mature in Jesus is lessening as God’s clock ticks! In ether case this age of grace is ending with severe consequences to both believer and natural man. The natural man is facing the consequences of sin because he did not accept God’s provision through forgiveness. The believer, on the other hand, has received an appointment to attend a wedding. What do you think we are going to wear at this wedding? The saints are going to our wedding wearing our righteousness deeds!
The King is returning to earth but before He does the wedding takes place in heaven and then the Lamb brings with Him his bride to earth! First, He is going to remove His Church from the earth. The scripture is clear, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command …. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”
Those of us who read GraceNotes are likely among those who are destined to be “caught up together.” We are children of Light needing to be “stepping” in the Light. This means living Life with a capita “L.” We should be intentionally exploiting God’s grace, grasping His provisions, increasing our faith and cultivating all God will bless us to be in Him, see Ephesians 1. The garment of fine linen we will be wearing at our wedding is the righteousness of our earthly ministry. We are in ministry even if we are not ordained by man!
God’s grace allows entrance into His personal domain because of our new birth placing us “in Christ Jesus.” Our new creation is Spiritual. We skim over this not spending the time necessary to understand how distinguishing being Spiritual is from being “natural.” The scripture is replete with examples but perhaps most common is John 3 where Jesus points out to Nicodemus that what is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of the spirit is spirit. This is further described for us in John 1, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, BUT OF GOD.”
When speaking of “Life in His name,” scripture specifically is targeting this unique spiritual creation within us. It is not sufficient to know we are born of God, it is intended also we grow up within the context of our new creation! It is intended we experience individually intimacy in His love and fellowship. It is not about delivering us from suffering, it is “exulting” in suffering because it produces faith, and produces “Life in His name.” We are to produce in our Life, a reality of substance and evidence of what is not seen. The resurrection power of God is operative in our life, we have to learn to make it visible in our corporeal experience. This is the stuff our wedding garment is made out of.
Transmutation. Many Christian believers confuse new creation with transmutation. To many it is about changing who we so we can imitate the Life of Jesus. This can be interpreted as putting on the “new man” and it gives us the sense of “creating” something good out of our own self. This deception takes us out of Christ’s resurrection power because the focus becomes what we do, not what Jesus has already done!
Creation. Creation in scripture is in the ex nihilo sense of creating out of nothing. God created within us a holy dwelling place so that we actually become God’s living temple created in Christ Jesus. Its not that we now contain God, rather, it is being one with Him so that our identity is now “blended in” with who He now is. John tells us as He is in heaven, on the right hand of the Father, so are we on earth. We are a new creation in Christ Jesus, the old has passed away and the new is created in us. We are no longer enslaved by our “old nature” but rather freed from it. The “old nature” is the darkness out of which we have been delivered. Once we see and understand who we are in Christ, we become eager to make Jesus visible in our flesh!
We are not suggesting we become deity, but rather, we become in His likeness spiritually compatible to enter into His nature. This is what Peter is telling us by “being partakers of His divine nature.”
Our new creation in Jesus Christ is our enabler. This amazing, remarkable miracle gives us the capacity to prepare for a grandioso event. One of our callings in Christ is to be righteous. When we appear before our Lord, the Bridegroom, we are to adorn ourselves in our fine linen of righteousness, bright and pure.
Now hang in there a minute … our New Testament κοινονια (koinonia) “fellowship” is a deeper word then our English “fellowship” conveys. The relationship of family in Christ, our spiritual capacity to grow intimately, is because we are not only justified, but (we) have the capacity to actually bring into our mortal flesh the righteousness of Jesus because we are literally in Him. This is one of the amazing events affirming who we are in Christ Jesus our redeemer. He will literally enter into your experience and direct your steps just as we read about in Old Testament stories.
God’s grace enables us to don ourselves in the righteousness of Jesus. We can wear at our wedding with the Lamb, the works of righteousness as fine bright linen. We are right now in preparation for this event. We are putting on our wedding garments. This scheduled event puts us on notice about our life in Jesus Christ right now while we are still wearing flesh. Listen to this language:
“’Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to cloth herself with fine linen, bright and pure’ – for the fine linen is the righteous needs of the saints.” -Revelation 19:6b-8.
(Some expositors have a problem with this passage because it specifically says we will be wearing our righteous deeds. Many expositors argue our righteous deeds are the imputed righteousness of Christ, which is a part of the whole truth. Here is a good example where we need to accept what is stated in the original language as true without interpreting away what is actually said!)
With that being said, We are crucified with Christ, never-the-less we live, but it isn’t us who is living, it is Christ Jesus alive within us! The life we now live in the flesh, we live by faith in Jesus who loved us and gave Himself for US! (Gal. 2:20)
The creation of Jesus’ resurrection Life in us gives us opportunity and responsibility to live Life on a Spiritual basis instead of a corporeal basis! We can’t do a very good job of witnessing, or telling the gospel stories unless we are experiencing it ourselves, within ourselves, understanding what it is to have His Spirit bearing witness with our Spirit that we are children of God, yes, and even heirs and joint-heirs with our loving Jesus.
Being created new in Christ Jesus is about having Life in His name, but it is His Life in us because we have been born again, created new in Christ Jesus. The old is passed away, the new has come. We need to live our Life in Him at this level or we are going to wear thin linen at our wedding!