Curtain of Eternity – Part 2
(God) who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel [2 Timothy 1:9-10].
So here’s how the Holy Spirit expressed the duality between time and eternity:
1. which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity
2. but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus
The operative phrases in those two points are these: “from all eternity” vs. “now has been revealed”.
If we would rightly understand the duality expressed by those two points, we must needs recall Rule #1 for Bible study: “a text without a context is a pretext”. Okay, so what is the context in which those two points occur? Let’s mull it over a bit and see what we come up with.
The duality occurs within the framework of two things God did for us Christians:
1. God saved us
2. God called us
God’s call to us came as “a holy calling”. Huh? What does that mean? Well, the word “holy” means that the Christian is set apart to God for His own good purposes. We are both saved from sin and called to live in submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That makes God’s call to be “a holy calling”.
In other words God didn’t merely save us from the penalty of our sins which is death, eternal separation from Him in the Lake of Fire. If God saved us that way and left it at that, we would revert right back to sinning again and be in the same boat from which He saved us.
God saved us out of sin and into newness of life. He not only got rid of the sin but He also replaced it with a new nature which doesn’t sin. That would be the Holy Spirit living within us, and I can promise you the Holy Spirit doesn’t sin!
Thus our salvation comes with a calling attached. We are called to no longer live to please ourselves and make our decisions based on what we think and what pleases us. Instead we are to learn what the will of God is by reading His Word daily and allowing the Holy Spirit to teach it to us. We are then to respond to what He teaches us by obeying what we learn, by putting it into practice in our lives.
Romans 12:2 refers to this as no longer being conformed to the world, but instead being transformed by the renewing of our minds. In plain talk we stop getting our thinking from the evening news and the movies and folks on the street: we instead get our thinking from the Bible as the Holy Spirit reveals its truths to us.
I hear the dinner bell. So we’d best stop now before mom gets mad. Let’s go to chowing down on this concept of being transformed by the renewing of our minds. The best place to do so is at the feet of Jesus.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Genesis: Volume 1 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005PJ761C
https://sites.google.com/site/heavenl...
So here’s how the Holy Spirit expressed the duality between time and eternity:
1. which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity
2. but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus
The operative phrases in those two points are these: “from all eternity” vs. “now has been revealed”.
If we would rightly understand the duality expressed by those two points, we must needs recall Rule #1 for Bible study: “a text without a context is a pretext”. Okay, so what is the context in which those two points occur? Let’s mull it over a bit and see what we come up with.
The duality occurs within the framework of two things God did for us Christians:
1. God saved us
2. God called us
God’s call to us came as “a holy calling”. Huh? What does that mean? Well, the word “holy” means that the Christian is set apart to God for His own good purposes. We are both saved from sin and called to live in submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That makes God’s call to be “a holy calling”.
In other words God didn’t merely save us from the penalty of our sins which is death, eternal separation from Him in the Lake of Fire. If God saved us that way and left it at that, we would revert right back to sinning again and be in the same boat from which He saved us.
God saved us out of sin and into newness of life. He not only got rid of the sin but He also replaced it with a new nature which doesn’t sin. That would be the Holy Spirit living within us, and I can promise you the Holy Spirit doesn’t sin!
Thus our salvation comes with a calling attached. We are called to no longer live to please ourselves and make our decisions based on what we think and what pleases us. Instead we are to learn what the will of God is by reading His Word daily and allowing the Holy Spirit to teach it to us. We are then to respond to what He teaches us by obeying what we learn, by putting it into practice in our lives.
Romans 12:2 refers to this as no longer being conformed to the world, but instead being transformed by the renewing of our minds. In plain talk we stop getting our thinking from the evening news and the movies and folks on the street: we instead get our thinking from the Bible as the Holy Spirit reveals its truths to us.
I hear the dinner bell. So we’d best stop now before mom gets mad. Let’s go to chowing down on this concept of being transformed by the renewing of our minds. The best place to do so is at the feet of Jesus.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Genesis: Volume 1 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005PJ761C
https://sites.google.com/site/heavenl...
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