Names of God; part 24. Being a son in the house of YHVH.

Title: Names of God; part 24. Being a son in the house of YHVH.

 

 

All of God’s sons and daughters are slaves of righteousness. Faith in who they are causes them to purify themselves.

 

Jo 3:1 See how great [Greek: "from afar"] a love the Father has bestowed upon us [permanently], that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

 

1JO 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.

 

It has not been made manifest at any time what we shall be, not to others and not to ourselves. We cannot really imagine ourselves in resurrection bodies in heaven and in the physical presence of our Lord, but when we see Him, and our physical eyes and brains can literally behold His glory, then we will know that we are just as He is.

 

Yet, as far as we can tell, our souls will be just as they were when we left earth. This also reveals that we will not imagine for a second that it all is a dream. The Bible describes physical death as a sleep and when we breathe our last, we will essentially fall asleep. We then awaken, I would imagine in an instant, in the presence of our Lord. Because we will see Him just as He is, something we've never seen before and something that is not remotely a part of the sensory world that we had known to that point, we will not mistake our reality for a dream.

 

It is wonderful and exciting to contemplate, and I highly encourage it from time to time, but we must live in the world we are now in and in the manner that we have been called to live it. When we imagine, to the best of our limited ability, heaven and eternity, we ascend the Mount of Transfiguration, but only for a short time. We must descend back into the valley of the world.  

 

The believer will be literally face to face with Christ in eternity, but he can now behold Him, so that in hope, he may be conformed to His image.

 

John is speaking of our physical likeness to Christ when we are in our resurrection bodies. While we anticipate that day, the Rapture of the church, we can’t help but think of our spiritual likeness to Him in the time we are here on earth.

 

What we shall be in physical likeness to Him is used in a logical argument to choose to follow Him now.

 

Php 3:17 Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.

 

Php 3:18 For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ,

 

Php 3:19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.

 

Paul’s example:

 

Php 3:10 that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;

 

Php 3:11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

 

All believers are guaranteed resurrection. Paul speaks of attaining the life of resurrection.

 

ROM 6:4

in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

 

Paul then gives an impelling and simple reason for why we should follow his example:

 

Php 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;

 

Php 3:21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

 

“Transform” - refers to outward change, not inward. The Rapture has to do with the glorification of the physical body. It is not stated that the inner spiritual life is changed.

 

On this point I quote K. Wuest.

 

‎"The Rapture has to do with the glorification of the physical body of the believer, not with a change of his inner spiritual life. While the saint enters heaven in a sinless state, yet he is not catapulted ahead to absolute spiritual maturity in an instant of time. He grows in likeness to the Lord Jesus spiritually through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit all through eternity, always approaching that likeness but never equaling it, for finiteness can never equal infinity. The change which comes at the Rapture is therefore a physical one. We shall be like our Lord as to His physical, glorified body."

 

It is our desire that we arrive in heaven as mature as possible.

 

There is the inward man and the outward man. In time the inward man is free of all men and a slave only to Christ. The outward man is a slave to all men in service and in the gospel.

 

Christians have tended to get these two aspects of themselves mixed up and changed around. Within we are kings. Within the heart and soul we reign in life and are free of all things. Outwardly we are slaves and the servants of all. Within our souls we are only servants of Christ. When we are transformed to heaven, this outward aspect will change, and all of what the change entails cannot be revealed to us, for our finite minds would be unable to comprehend it. What we can know is that it is beyond our dreams.

 

The inward man is to be conformed to Christ's image now, which is a continual growth. The outward man manifests Him to the world and serves others in the manner of the gospel of Christ. The outward man in this world is a slave to all. The inward man in this live is only a slave to Christ, and is completely free of all men.

 

We should all be reminded, as I was in a supernatural way when I wrote this page, that we do not improve upon the flesh, which in essence would come from our own effort. We do not work to make the flesh better or to make us better. The flesh will never get better. We rely upon God the Holy Spirit to do His work within us. He illumes the mind. He empowers the body to follow through on the will of God. He guides us in the plan of God. When we rely upon Him in faith we do and experience far more than what the greatest self-effort can produce. We produce the fruit of the Father, the fruit of the Vine, the Son, and the fruit of the Spirit. 

 

1JO 3:1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us [perfect tense: it is our permanent possession], that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

 

1JO 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.

 

1JO 3:3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

 

“And everyone who has this hope upon Him …” [literally]

 

Remember how hope is developed in the believer: tribulation, perseverance, proven character (testability) = hope; and hope does not ever disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts.