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Put
on Christ By
For
you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as
were baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Galatians
3:26-27). The
inheritance of the “saints of light” (Colossians 1:12) is a relationship
shared between the Father and His children whom he refers as “sons of God.”
The privilege of being able to cry out, “Abba, Father” (Galatians 4:6) is
found only to those who have willingly given their lives to Jesus Christ. To be
a child of God requires obedience to the will of God (Matthew 7:21). The
apostle Paul outlines the elements of faith in his letter to the churches of Faith
alone cannot save and Paul does not suggest in Galatians that one can be a child
of God through faith in Christ Jesus alone (see James 2:24). It is in the agency
of faith that one is moved to embrace the death of the Lord in obedience to
salvation. Sons of God are found in those who through faith in Christ Jesus are
baptized into Christ Jesus; thereby putting on Christ. The illusion to “put on
Christ” is likened to putting on a garment. Paul uses the same language to
describe putting on the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18). Is
it necessary to “put on Christ” to be saved? If one never “puts on
Christ” will they enjoy eternal life? Faith does not “put on Christ”
baptism does. It does not matter if you are “Jew or Greek” “slave nor
free” “male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are
Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise”
(Galatians 3:28-29). Saved people are the spiritual seed of Abraham (Galatians
3:9). To receive the promise one must be in Christ. The means by which one puts
on Christ is baptism according to Galatians 3:26-27. Putting
on Christ comes from a heart moved by the message of hope found in the word of
God. On the Day of Pentecost, 3,000 souls put on Christ because they believed
the message of freedom and willingly accepted by faith the commands of the Lord
(Acts 2:37-41). The Treasurer of Ethiopia put on Christ when he “went down
into the water” and was baptized (Acts 8:26-40). Saul of Tarsus took off his
robes of Jewish Law and put on Jesus Christ in the city of Paul
uses the figure of “putting on garments” in his letter to Alpha
and Omega By
Gary Henry God
Existed Before All Things, And He Will Exist After All Things Have Reached Their
Destiny: - Jesus said: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning
and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who
thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he
shall be My Son" (Rev. 21:6). Yes,
He is truly the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. And since it is God
Who sent us out on our journey, it is God to Whom we long to return. This
longing is a part of our created nature. We may not choose to reach toward Him
as we ought, but inwardly we have a persistent yearning to do so. We can no more
change the fact that He is our Source than we can change the fact of our
physical parentage. And what He is always asking us to do in this world is
dispense with our denial and deal honestly with our hearts' desire for Him. First
of all, God is the reason why we reach forward. We long for Him because He made
us and put within our hearts a need for Him; we reach forward because He gave us
a nature that tends in that direction. But second, God is also our motive for
reaching forward. The mighty force that moves us is nothing less than this: it
is for His sake that we want to be better than we are. Deep within our hearts,
we want to love God as He has loved us. The third and most important point,
however, is that God is the goal for which we reach. He alone is the answer to
our questions, the fulfillment of our needs. And the sooner we're able to view
God Himself as our goal, the better we'll be able to move forward with our
lives. To
live in the world as it now is, is to be "away" from God. This
is still His world, of course, and He is still very much present within it. But
our sins have come between us and God. Like
Adam and Eve, whose rebellion meant that they had to leave the Garden, all of us
since then have had to live "east of The
Lord’s People (Part 3) By
Bob Myhan Entrance
into the family of God is a simple matter.
First, one must do the will of the Father in heaven (Matt. 12:48-50). But what
does God will that we do in order to enter into His family? He wills that we
have faith (Gal. 3:26; Heb. 11:6). Of
course, those who believe “he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
him” will seek Him diligently. However, it is necessary to seek Him within the
pages of His word; “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”
(Rom. 10:17). But “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:20, 26); therefore
the only faith that will please God is “obedient faith” (Rom. 1:5;
16:25-26). When one has enough faith to repent and be baptized in water for the
remission of sins, he is adopted into the family of God (Mark 16:15-16; Acts
2:38; 10:45; 22:16; Gal. 3:26-27; 4:1-7). Just
as those in the universal family of man are divided into individual, local
families, those in the universal family of God are divided into individual,
local families (Phil. 1:1; Titus 1:5; Acts 14:23; 20:17, 28; 1 Peter 5:1-2). THE
Another
figure Jesus used for the relationship between Him and His Father, on the one
hand, and the Lord’s people, on the other hand, is that of a
political kingdom (Dan. 2:36-44). Let us notice the essential
elements of a kingdom. There
are four essential elements of a kingdom.
First,
there is a king. God the father,
by virtue of His position in the Godhead, is Absolute Sovereign (Matt. 28:19;
Eph. 4:6; Matt. 6:9-10; Mark 1:14-15). He has given all authority in the kingdom
to His Son, Jesus Christ (Matt. 28:18; Rev. 1:9; 1 Cor. 15:23-28). Second,
there are subjects over whom
the king reigns. The subjects are
all those who have been “born again” “of water and of the Spirit” (John
3:3-5) and have been “delivered…from the power of darkness,
and…translated…into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Col. 1:12-13). Third,
there is the territory over which
the king reigns. Inasmuch as the Fourth,
there must be a law, an expression
of the king’s will. The law of the |