Monday, June 17, 2013

Heirs Of God: Adopted By God


Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child,
does not differ at all from a slave,
though he is master of all, but is under guardians
and stewards until the time appointed by the father.
Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage
under the elements of the world. But when the fullness
of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a
woman, born under the law, to redeem those who
Were under the law, that we might receive the
adoption as sons. And because you are sons,
God ahs sent forth the Spirit of His Son
into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”
Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son,
and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Galatians 4:1–7

            An innocent man, one will free will, one that did not have in himself one iota of sin, sinned.  Adam allowed his desire to have that which he feared would be lost, Eve, and listened with his heart and not his brain. God was pushed into the background and all that God was, did, and do for Adam; i.e., create a woman for him, and a new light of day erupted into a new foreground, one that Adam never intended but received do to his desire to have and not to lose. What Adam lost for himself, his wife Eve, and all his posterity, his progeny born from his loins was not his wife, rather it was a lost relationship with God, and eternal life.  This loss of life, even though imposed upon him the day he sinned, was so great that Adam could not pay this debt for it would take one who was as he was before sin, innocent.  Adam was far from innocent now, and neither are we and we too, if our sin would be propitiated, paid, removed forever, must also have the same remedy; an innocent man to die in his innocency and then have his death be accepted as payment to God for sin. God had three options: 1. Do nothing. 2. Send an angel. 3. Come Himself and paid the debt owed to him; not just say that it was abolished for that would not actually abolish the debt of sin.  God would have to die, innocently. To do nothing would make God to be sinful and allow for sin, and therefore be an untrustworthy God because He would do nothing to correct a wrong. Man would remain sinful and all that sin causes would not have a remedy. To send an angel, one that had free will could not be trusted to actually die innocent.  An angel could, and some did and go with Satan, sin and not fulfill the needed payment for debt.  Now if God came Himself then we would all die: “But He said, ‘You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live’” (Exodus 33:20). God is just, not just fair, rather is JUST! His justice must be satisfied: Bur How? If God cannot be seen for to do so will kill the one seeing Him and His justice be satisfied and the debt paid: HOW? Man is under sin, and a slave to sin, his sin, that original sin as well, and man cannot remove that sin, even the stain of sin: so HOW? If God sent just His Spirit, no man could see Him: So HOW? God did this by clothing His Wisdom, Jesus Christ in flesh.  By doing so then the Wisdom of God became literally the Son of God, the Only Begotten Son of God, not created, rather the Wisdom of God is God and one of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, what one knows the others know, what one sets forth is set forth by all three Persons of the Trinity. All three Person are God and all three Persons are involved in the justice of God. Jesus Christ was born of a woman, Mary, a virgin, a woman that so pleased God in every way for she met the legal requirements for Israel that the Messiah would be from the line of King David, and be in the priestly line, and this Mary could provide. Jesus Christ was born under the law of Israel and this for one purpose: to remove sin, and to redeem by this removal of sin those who were under law and then by His coming into the world, living innocently, and dieing innocently, Jesus Christ would meet the demand for justice and payment of sin that man could not do for himself and that this death, resurrection and ascension into heaven this death, this life, this Son of God as mediator, Messiah, would be acceptable to God. God paid the debt Himself, not by an angel and He certainly did not set aside His justice. Jesus Christ bore our punishment, yet was not guilty Himself in order to set us free from our guilt and stain and to bring an end to our punishment. As the Old Hymn states: “I once was lost in sin, then Jesus entered in, and then a light from heaven filled my soul….” This salvation by God for man was God’s idea, God’s will, and God being the propitiator through His Son, to pay the debt owed to Him, makes God the owner of all of those He decides to save. He is the Potter and we are the clay: “But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Dos not the potter have over th clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor” (Romans 9:20–21)?
            Here is the GOOD NEWS! You are not just a lump of clay, you were redeemed, your sin has been paid and we then should live sinless, we should be glad for not only are we declared sinless by God, even though we still may sin in this life, we are more, more, more, for we are heirs, heirs of he kingdom and we are heirs of God because God adopted us through His Son’s death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. Furthermore, God sent forth His Spirit to live in our hearts, and we should do as the Spirit directs: cry out: “ABBA FATHER!”  We are not slaves and have no reason to reenter into slavery, the slavery of sin. Live your redeemer: HE LIVES, HE LIVES! HE LIVES!

For it is written:

Rejoice, O barren, you who do not bear!
            Break forth and shout, you who
Are not in labor! For the desolate has many
            More children than she who has a husband
                                    Galatians 4:27; cf. Isaiah 54:1

How Will You Live For God Today?

Richard L. Crumb

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