Light, Salvation, Strength

 

Imagine, if you will, a terrified child who falls into an abandoned well shaft while playing in the woods. One moment he was frolicking in piles of crimson and golden autumn leaves; the next, his young life flashes before him in an instant as he drops through branches loosely covering the opening to the dark pit below.

Thankfully, enough leaves have accumulated in the well to break his fall, but his body is sore and racked with pain. The sides of the well are steep and slippery, and there is no way he can climb out on his own. Nightfall soon approaches, and with it an overwhelming darkness. It is a new moon, and clouds have covered the stars. In the distance, a wolf cries out, as if invoking the child’s certain doom. The boy shivers, more from fear than from the bitter cold.

Suddenly, he hears his name called, and he manages to scream through his uncontrolled sobbing. A search light pierces through the darkness and then directly into the shaft.

“Please save me,” the boy moans with what seems like his last breath.

“Don’t worry, son,” a powerful yet calm voice reassures him. “I’m here – just trust me.”

The boy gladly surrenders all control to his rescuer, who descends a rope ladder into the well, hoists the lad to his shoulders, and carries him out the same way in his own strength. Once reunited with family, the boy grows in physical and spiritual strength, ever thankful to his rescuer and to the God who sent him, with His perfect timing (2 Peter 3:9).

Before we can be saved by trusting in the death, burial and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) of Jesus Christ as the only Way to Heaven (John 14:6), we need to come to the end of ourselves and our own strength, and to realize there is no way we can save ourselves (Ephesians 2:8-9). Like the little boy, we have fallen into a miry pit of clay (Psalm 40:2), as David writes in Psalms, and we cannot escape it in our own strength.  We are sinners (Romans 3:23), all under the curse of Adam and Eve’s original sin (Genesis 3), and we deserve eternal punishment in hell (Luke 16).

While suffering the consequences of his own sin, and fleeing for his life from King Saul who wanted him dead (1 Samuel 18:11), David was gripped by fear, yet released from it by the realization that only God is in control. God’s perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). He is the only Rescuer who can lift us from that miry pit, if we trust Him.

Psalm 27:1: The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

Light, salvation, strength. The “Prince of Preachers” Charles Spurgeon referred to this verse as “a threefold cord which could not be broken.”

Before we can be saved, we must know we are lost, which happens only when the glorious light of the Gospel shines into our heart (2 Corinthians 4:4; 2 Timothy 1:10). Faith comes by hearing the word of God, brought by a witness of the Gospel (Romans 10). By that light, we can see that we are sinners deserving eternal death; that only God is holy and righteous; and that He sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin (Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2; 4:10).

Only then can we be saved by trusting Jesus and His completed work on the cross (John 19:30), which paid in full the penalty for all our sin. He alone is our salvation, our Savior, and once we invite Him into our heart, His perfect righteousness is credited to our account (Romans 4:20-25). When God looks at us, He no longer sees our sin, but only the perfect holiness of His Son, and He therefore grants us eternal life with Him in Heaven (Romans 5:19-21).

Then He adopts us into His family (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5); appoints us as His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20), betroths us to His Son, and makes us joint-heirs with Him (Romans 8:17). We then have access to all His abundant riches in glory (Ephesians 3:20; 1 Peter 1:3; Philippians 4:19; Colossians 1:27), including eternal life (John 3:16), joy in the Lord (Romans 5:11; Philemon 1:20), peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7), and His strength, which is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Truly, then, we have no cause for fear, for there is no match for God’s omnipotence (Revelation 19:6). Nothing can separate the believer from His infinite love (Romans 8:38-39).

The threefold cord of light, salvation and strength mirrors the three Persons of our Triune God: Spirit, Son and Father. A threefold cord cannot easily be broken (Ecclesiastes 4:12). Nothing can pluck us from the saving hand of Jesus Christ (John 10:28-29); nothing can loosen the Father’s grip on the Son’s hand; and nothing can break the seal of the Holy Spirit of promise (Ephesians 1:13).

Before we can be saved, the Holy Spirit shines His penetrating light into our heart, so that we can see who and what we truly are, and what Christ has done for us (John 14:26; 15:26). Then we trust in our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is our only salvation (Acts 4:12). He is also the only Way to the Almighty Father and His strength, for Christ is the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and we are complete in Him (Colossians 2:9-10).

Thank you, Lord, for missionaries, preachers, and your Word that rescue us by shining the Gospel light in our hearts! Thank you for sending your Son to save us from our sins, deliver us from the miry pit, and give us eternal life! Praise you for allowing us to grow in Your strength to be Your lights in this dark world, until You come again!

© 2021 Laurie Collett

Reposted from the archives

Triplets of Grace: God in Three Persons

 

 

God’s ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9), so only He can understand His own nature as One God in Three Persons. Like the mysteries of the Incarnation (John 1:14), the Church (Ephesians 5:32), and the Rapture (1 Corinthians 15:51-52), the Trinity is a great mystery that our limited human minds cannot understand fully until we reach glory (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Yet the Scripture is clear that God is one God, yet a three-part Being – Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19; Luke 3:22). We may not fully comprehend it, but we can have faith that it is so because God’s Word says it (2 Timothy 3:16). Each Person of the Trinity is unique, and yet All are equally God and perfectly aligned in Their will.

God is Spirit (John 4:24), Love (1 John 4:8) and Light (1 John 1:5). The spirit, or mind, of Father God formed a plan (Job 33:4; Psalm 143:10; Isaiah 61:1; Romans 8:9,14,27;; the body of God the Son offered Himself in perfect love to fulfill that plan (John 10:15,17; 15:13; 1 John 3:16). and the light energy of the Holy Spirit empowered that plan (Genesis 1:2). Father, Son and Holy Spirit are self-existent (Exodus 3:14), present from the beginning of time (John 1:1), and each possesses all the divine attributes.

From the beginning of Scripture (Genesis 1:1), the Trinity appears as Elohim, or Hebrew for God -- a plural noun used with a singular verb form, reflecting the constancy of all three Persons of God acting as One Creator. God the Father loved the world so much that to save it He gave His Son (John 3:16), conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20).

When Jesus the Son was baptized, the Holy Spirit descended on Him in a bodily shape like a dove, and God the Father in Heaven voiced His approval of His Son (Luke 3:22). As Jesus died for our sins, He with His last breath recognized that the Spirit was leaving His earthly body and was returning to the Father (Luke 23:46).

Thank God for His Triune nature, for without it, how would the plan of salvation be possible? Jesus suffering and dying as human flesh to pay for our sins would have no meaning or value unless God the Father raised Him from the dead, by the power of the Holy Spirit. All who trust in that as the only Way to Heaven (John 14:6) can therefore have everlasting life (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).

After His death, burial and resurrection, Jesus Christ’s last words to His disciples before He ascended into Heaven were: Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Matthew 28:19).

When a person is saved by placing their faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4), they are indwelled by the Holy Spirit (John 3:5-8; 2 Corinthians 1:22), Who instructs them in the knowledge of Jesus Christ (1 John 4:2). In turn, we can know the Father through knowing Jesus Christ (John 5:37;14:7-9). Paul prayed that the Father of glory would give believers at the church of Ephesus the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:17).

Many of the other epistles acknowledge and recognize the distinct yet unified Persons of the Trinity.  Jude tells us to pray in the Holy Ghost to keep ourselves in the love of God (the Father), looking forward to eternal life through the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ (Jude 1:20-21). Peter says that believers are foreknown by the Father, sanctified by the Spirit, and cleansed from our sins by the blood of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:2).

When we are born again and then baptized as a public act of obedience to God, we are baptized “in the Name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” reflecting the “the fact that all three persons of the Trinity have accomplished our salvation,” as the Prince of Preachers Charles Spurgeon put it (Sermon no. 115; 1 February, 1857). Spurgeon goes on to say:

The Father blots out my sin; the Father accepts me and adopts me into his family through Christ. The Son could not save without the Father any more than the Father without the Son; and as for the Holy Spirit, if the Son redeems, do you not know that the Holy Spirit regenerates? … When you say, “Saviour,” remember there is a Trinity in that word—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, this Saviour being three persons under one name. You cannot be saved by the Son without the Father, nor by the Father without the Son, nor by Father and Son without the Spirit. But as they are one in creation, so are they one in salvation, working together in one God for our salvation, and unto that God be glory everlasting, world without end. Amen. 

There are numerous passages in which Jesus prays to the Father or where He tells the disciples that He will leave but that the Comforter (Spirit) will come, again emphasizing that the Three Persons of the Trinity are distinct yet One in their perfect will. May we be ever thankful to the Trinity for our salvation -- to God the Father Who sent His Son to save us and His Spirit to guide us!

© 2013 Laurie Collett

Reposted from the archives

Son of God: Overview of the Book of John

 

The Gospel of John encapsulates much of Christian doctrine and Christology, for it teaches and shows us Who Jesus Christ is and how to get saved. It is an excellent place for an unsaved person to start reading to learn about God and His plan of salvation through faith in Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) as the only Way to Heaven (John 14:6), and for a babe in Christ to start studying the Bible.

Yet John is full of deeply profound truth for even the most mature believer. An anonymous commentator has described the Book of John as being like “a pool of water, so shallow at the edges that a child could wade, and yet so deep at the center that an elephant could swim.” It is easy to understand at the surface, but with a depth that Bible scholars who have spent their entire lives studying it have not fully exhausted.

The specific purpose of the Gospel of John is that the reader might believe, be born again (John 3:3-8), and have saving faith giving eternal life (John 3:16), as we see when the resurrected Christ encounters doubting Thomas, one of His apostles:

John 20: 27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: 31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

The book of John was written by the apostle John, often referring to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7,20). It is therefore a deeply personal, intimate portrayal of Jesus. John was part of Jesus’ inner circle, along with Peter and James, who were the only three to witness the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:2; Mark 9:2) and various miracles Christ performed.

John was the only apostle who stayed by Christ’s side during the crucifixion; the one to whom Jesus entrusted the care of His mother Mary (John 19:26); and with Peter, one of the first men to witness the empty tomb (John 20:1-10). 

John and his brother James, also an apostle, were called “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17). John wrote five books of the New Testament: the Gospel of John; letters I John, II John, and III John, and the book of Revelation. Historic writers say that John lived longest of all the twelve apostles and was the only one who died a natural death, whereas the others were martyred.

The Gospel of John is probably the last of the four Gospels to be written, likely between AD 85-90, before John’s exile to the Island of Patmos, where he wrote the book of Revelation.

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels, focusing on Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, and on what He taught and what He did, or concrete, physical, bodily things. In contrast, John highlights what Jesus said and did in Jerusalem, but more importantly, on Who He is, or spiritual doctrines.

Events in Jesus’ ministry included in Matthew, Mark, and Luke but omitted by John are Jesus’ birth, baptism, temptation in the wilderness, confrontations with demons, teaching in parables, the Last Supper, praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before His crucifixion, and His Ascension into Heaven.

And yet, in keeping with John’s emphasis on theology, his Gospel gives the clearest presentations of the Trinity, not only among the Gospels but throughout the New Testament (John 14:9-20; 15:26; 16:10-28; 17). Jesus Christ the Son is the only Way to the Father (John 14:6), and He promised to send the Comforter, or Holy Spirit, to those who believed in Him (John 14:16).

The Book of John proves that Jesus Christ is not only the Son of God (John  1:34, etc.) but God Himself. It contains seven “I AM” statements, referencing the Name of God as “I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14). In other words, He is self-existent, not a created being, God Himself, ever present from the beginning (John 1:1).

The “I AM” declarations in John identify Jesus as the Bread of Life (John 6:35), the Light of the world (8:12), the Door of the sheep (10:7), the Good Shepherd (10:11), the Resurrection and the Life (11:12), the Way, Truth and Life (14:6), and the True Vine (15:1). He is also “One that bear witness of Myself” (8:18).

Each of the Gospels emphasizes a different origin of Jesus. Matthew, written primarily to Jews, portrays Him as the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, and gives His lineage from Abraham through David (Matthew 1:1-17). This genealogy is necessary to prove Jesus’ origin from Abraham’s seed, in whom all nations are blessed (Genesis 17; Acts 3:25), and His legal entitlement to the throne of David (Isaiah 9:7; 16:5).

Mark depicts Jesus as the humble Servant from Nazareth (Mark 1:9), and Luke reveals Him to be the Perfect Man and Son of Man (Luke 5:24, etc.), descended from the first man Adam (Luke 3:23-38).Yet John identifies Jesus Christ as God Himself, Son of God (John 1:34, etc.), and Lamb of God (John 1:29, 36), from Heaven.

“Prince of Preachers” Charles Spurgeon wrote: “John is the majestic evangelist. He is the high-soaring eagle with piercing eyes. His is the Gospel of the Son of God. We cannot describe the deity of Christ in clearer language than John uses. He was with God. He was God. He did the works of God, for He was the Creator.”

© 2022 Laurie Collett