New Things Have Come and More Are Coming
Dearly beloved of God, when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, we went from being children of wrath by nature, to becoming the children of God, and having the hope of receiving the glory of God. Now that’s quite a turnaround, isn’t it?!
In Christ, new things have come to us. Some of them are a present tense reality, and others await future fulfillment. It took God nine Church epistles to reveal them to us, so this article will certainly not exhaust them all. Let’s look at a few of them.
God chose us in Christ and by what he accomplished for us and is in us. He determined beforehand (from Genesis 3:15 forward) that Christ would be the solution to the overthrows that previously occurred. He planned it by the counsel of His will; in fact it was the good pleasure of His will to do it for us.
In Christ and by his accomplishments, those who believe on him have peace with God; we are no longer dead in sin, His enemies, headed into the wrath of God, and have no hope. Now it is Christ in you, the hope of glory and we stand in the grace of God toward us in Christ!
In Christ, we are reconciled to God, sanctified, and alive unto God by the gift of holy spirit he sent from the Father. We were made alive with Christ. In Christ we are the children of God, being born of His spirit and have sonship. We are highly favored in Christ.
In Christ, we have access to the Father with boldness and confidence. Now we can pray in the name of Jesus Christ and be confident that He not only hears us, but we have the petitions we desired of Him. We can operate the nine manifestations of the holy spirit for godly profit.
Instead of being condemned under the reign of death dealing sin, Jesus Christ justified us from sin and its sentence of condemnation. He delivered us from the condemnation and guilt of sin, and when he returns we will be delivered from the presence of sin when he transforms us to have glorious new bodies fashioned after his glorious body.
He redeemed us in Christ and we have the forgiveness of sins Christ by the riches of His grace which he abounded towards us. He has cast them as far as the east from the west and He remembers them no more.
In Christ, we were made the righteousness of God; we stand before God clothed in his righteousness. Not only that, he made us holy and without blame, and unimpeachable in His sight.
In Christ, we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ; we will be glorified together with him at his coming. In Christ we are sealed for eternal life. We have an inheritance we will receive when Christ returns on the day of redemption, the gathering together unto him.
In Christ, our Father blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm; he filled us with all in all of us. We are complete in him, completely filled. We are now God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus.
Dearly beloved, in Christ, we are assured, yes, guaranteed of our hope of receiving the glory of God. We will acquire the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, have new bodies like his glorious body, enter the kingdom of God to be glorified with him as members of his body, and it will take our Father the ages to come to display the exceeding riches of His grace toward us in Christ with His loving kindness and tender mercies.
We will partake of the glories of the new heaven and new earth, and there will be no more death, neither sorrow, or pain, or crying; only glory and that forever!
I am sure after reading this that you notice some of these have come and some are future realities.
In Romans 8, God says that those whom He called, He justified, and those He justified, He glorified, also. The Father speaks of the glory we hope for in the future in the past tense (by the use of the figure of speech heterosis) to assure us of the certainty of this coming reality.
Nothing will keep our Father from performing His will and purposes in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We have redemption, and on the day of redemption Christ will return to claim what is his.
He has delivered us from the power of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.
Today we have the birth from above and the spirit of sonship. We have a legal standing in his kingdom and access to the Father; when Christ returns for us we will actually and physically enter the kingdom of our Father, receive new bodies, our inheritance, a new environment, and will see the day when God makes all things new again.
It will all come to pass, dearly beloved! Every word of God will be fulfilled as He has promised! It is written and so it shall be.
Rejoice forevermore!