Names of God; part 28. Being a son in the house of YHVH.

Title: Names of God; part 28. Being a son in the house of YHVH.

 

 

Under our study of the name, The Lord my Shepherd, we have begun a further study into what it means to be a son in the house of the Lord, being guided by the Lord our Shepherd.

 

Psa 23:5 Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; Thou hast anointed my head with oil;

My cup overflows.

 

Psa 23:6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

 

This led us to the voice of the Shepherd Himself.

 

Joh 8:31 Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, "If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;

 

Joh 8:32 and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. " 

 

Joh 8:33 They answered Him, "We are Abraham's offspring, and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, 'You shall become free'?"

 

Joh 8:34 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.

 

Joh 8:35 "And the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.

 

Joh 8:36 "If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

 

This led us to the first epistle of John.

 

1Jo 3:1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, 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.

 

We're not finished with this passage, but we have paused at verse 3 to investigate the truth behind the Christian who purifies himself as Jesus is pure.

 

We have been to a few places in the scripture in order to study the connection between who we are in Christ and the hope that we have in our resurrected future and how those astounding truths impact our everyday lives in time.

 

What does it mean to purify myself? To answer this question we have determined the function of grace in the salvation of man. Salvation is by grace and not by works. Everything that man receives from God could only be had by grace. However, this also means that the new creature in Christ endowed with the grace gifts from God is called to do much work. It is his right and privilege to work the works of God by utilizing the unfathomable grace of God.

 

We appropriate all things from God by means of grace and not by works, but this does not mean that we do not perform works. We perform far more works by means of grace.

 

So we posed the question: How does a believer understand grace and works in the context of the Christian way of life? How is he to become a good son? We explored Rom 11:6 first and now Eph 2:8-10.

 

Eph 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

 

Eph 2:5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)

 

"By grace ye are saved" is an interjection and it is given what is called a periphrastic construction, where more words are used to emphasize a point. Paul uses two action words or verbs where one might have done, but one was not enough to convey what Paul wanted. Paul uses a finite verb and a participle.

 

The participle is in the perfect tense which refers to an action that took place in past time and was completed and which has results in the present time and onward. "Saved" is actually, "you have been completely saved, with the present result that you are in a saved state of being." But Paul is not satisfied with showing the existence of finished results in present time. And so he uses the verb "to be" in the present tense. "You are" present tense, referring to the results of salvation through present time. You are not a saved being put on a shelf, gathering dust until some day in the future when God will grab you, dust you off, and then put you in heaven. The verb to be, you keep on being, refers to the saved person being an active saved person moment by moment, every day.

 

The perfect participle means that you are saved forever because of faith at some point in the past. The act of salvation was completed at that point. It is finished. The present verb to be means that the act of salvation has very real and active significance in the daily life of the believer. He walks through time, lives his life; loves, fights, perseveres, laughs, cries, toils, rejoices, etc. as a saved person.

 

"By grace you have been saved in past time completely, with the result that you are in a state of salvation which persists through present time." [full and complete translation]

 

The unending state of the believer in salvation could not have been put in stronger or clearer language. The finished results of the past act of salvation are always present within us and they affect everything we think, say, and do.

 

Our present state of salvation is dependent upon one thing and one thing only, our past appropriation of the Lord Jesus as Savior through faith. His initial act of faith brought him salvation in its three aspects.

 

Saved: Justified, sanctified, and glorified.

 

Justified - the removal of the guilt and penalty of sin and the imputation of divine righteousness.

 

The perfect participle "saved" means that the Christian has been completely justified at the moment of salvation by faith. The present verb to be means that he goes through everything in life with this at least in the background of his mind and at times directly in the foreground. He will make mistakes, but he is justified. He will see others make mistakes and if believers they are justified. He therefore will not be a judge or one that lives in guilt. He knows that he is free and clear of all condemnation since the one and only Judge has pronounced him justified with all penalties removed.

 

Sanctified - the act of the HS taking the believer out of Adam (sin and death) and placing him in union with Christ (righteousness, grace, and eternal life).

 

The believer is in Christ forever and so eternal life and grace rule their lives forever. The present verb to be emphasizes that the believer must walk in this every day. As he does there is no way that such a truth will not affect his way or his conduct.

 

Experiential sanctification - the progressive act of the HS in which sin is eliminated from the practice of the believer and the fruit of the Spirit is produced, gradually being conformed into the image of the Lord Jesus.

 

Experiential sanctification is a process that goes on all through the life of a Christian and continues all through eternity, and which never is completed, for a finite creature can never equal an infinite one in quality.

 

Glorified - the act of the HS, transforming the mortal bodies of believers into glorified bodies like our Lord's.

 

We might ask how glorification in the future could possibly have present results and we have our answer in the passage we have studied in 1Jo 3. "Everyone who has this hope upon Him purifies Himself as He is pure."