How Christ Is for You

Charles Spurgeon wrote: "Jesus will never betray the confidence we place in Him. As you place your faith and trust in Him, remember that He is made unto us 'wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption' (1 Corinthians 1:30)." 

Christ is your redemption. The price paid to set you free from the curse of sin and condemnation is nothing but the blood of Jesus. As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are blood bought. "Jesus paid it all." Every believer's redemption from sin and condemnation is Christ crucified and risen from the dead. 

Christ is your righteousness. Our self-righteousness will never please God. By faith in Christ, every believer receives the only righteousness that can possibly please God. We become righteous by faith in Christ alone. His righteousness is accounted to us. Believers receive the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Christ is your sanctification. Trying to sanctify ourselves is nothing more than self-righteousness. Only the blood of Christ and the Spirit of Christ can surely sanctify you before God. Christ alone is every believer's sanctification.

Christ is your wisdom. He is every believer's Counselor, sharing with us the wisdom of God. His words in Scripture speak wisdom and counsel for your life situations. Read his words in the New Testament and apply them to your life.

Faith that Pleases God

"But without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is" (Hebrews 11:6). The only way that you can please God is by faith, because it is the evidence that God is working in you what is well-pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ (Hebrews 13:20-21). 

Faith that pleases God is in the promises of God. Faith stands upon the word of God (Romans 10:17). God's word promises we are saved by grace through faith. "For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8).

Faith that pleases God is an abiding gift of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 13:13). Faith is focused on the Son of God, who died for our sins and was raised from the dead. That's good news known as the gospel of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).

Faith that pleases God is more than mental assent or human effort. It is a result of the Holy Spirit bringing you to a point of confidence, assurance, and trust in the living God. It's faith that the world didn't give you, and the world can't take it away. The gift of faith comes from the Holy Spirit working in you. "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).

Who We Are In Christ

Christ not only died for us, but according to Scripture, all believers died in him and rose again from the dead in him. God sees all true believers as one body in Christ. Our corporate identity is who we are in Christ. The apostle Paul testified, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). 

John Murray wrote, "This also Paul states explicitly, 'But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more, death has no more dominion over him" (Romans 6:8-9). Just as Christ died and rose again, so all who died in him rose again  with him."

Adam was the representative of mankind in sin and death. Therefore, we are all born with a sin nature and appointed unto death. Christ is every believer's representative in his death and resurrection. We died in Christ. We are risen in Christ. Because he lives forever in a glorified body, we shall be glorified together in him with life eternal.

Baptism displays our corporate identity as believers in Christ. "Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4). The apostle Paul concludes, "For you died, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).

How God Is Sovereign

Dr. J. I. Packer wrote,"God's knowledge is linked with his sovereignty; he knows each thing, both in itself and in relation to all other things, because he created it, sustains it, and now makes it function every moment according to his plan (Ephesians 1:11). The idea that God could know, and foreknow, everything without controlling everything seems not only unscriptural but nonsensical."

When we consider God's sovereignty without including his omniscience, we could come to errors in our theology. For example, we could see sovereignty as arbitrary or even fatalism. Dr. Packer wrote,"God's knowledge is linked with his sovereignty." Understand that God is not arbitrary in his sovereignty, nor is it fatalism.

Dr. Packer understood sovereignty includes God's knowledge. To isolate one of God's attributes without considering the context of others revealed in Scripture could lead to wrong conclusions. All believers should agree with the testimony of the Bible that God Almighty is our sovereign LORD. But, one attribute of God must be considered with others.

God is sovereign over all. Rejoice that God is sovereign, because he alone knows and foreknows all things. So, let us understand Dr. Packer's conclusion: "The idea that God could know, and foreknow, everything without controlling everything seems not only unscriptural but nonsensical."

Christ Our Sabbath

Jesus says to us, Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28). The word Sabbath means rest. It was a day of rest under the Old Testament. It is fulfilled in Christ through the New Testament. Our Sabbath rest in Christ is completely depending upon Him.

Rest in Christ our Sabbath through God's grace. It's about what God has done for you in Christ alone. It's what God is doing in you and through you. That's called grace, and its fullness is found in Jesus Christ your Lord (John 1:16). 

Rest in Christ our Sabbath by faith alone. That means your confidence, trust, and reliance is in His ability to do in your life what you are unable to do by yourself. Only God in Christ can save You. That means you rest in Christ. You rest in God's love, mercy, and grace, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16:30-31).

Works may boast and say, "I can get you to heaven, if you try hard and work to do your best." Christ our Sabbath is the gift of God to be received. We don't work to earn a gift. It is freely received. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). It's not of works, but your faith resting in the finished work of Christ alone. Christ is our Sabbath.

The Blessed of God

The book of Revelation invites all to be blessed in Christ. "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come" (Rev. 22:17). The Holy Spirit uses the Holy Scripture to invite all to come to Christ. The bride of Christ is the church. So, Christ commissioned the church to preach the gospel to all people in all nations. Come to Christ and be blessed.

The book of Revelation declares seven blessings upon the people of God in Christ. These are described as the seven beatitudes in Revelation (Rev. 1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7; 22:14). Those blessings are in this life and the life to come. All the blessings of God are in Christ. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3).

The blessed of God enter a new world. "And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him" (Rev. 22:3). Everyone is either blessed or cursed. The blessed of God are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, at the cross of Jesus. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

The blessed of God "have the right to the tree of life" (Rev. 22:14). We drink from the water of life freely. Both the tree of life and the water of life are symbols of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23). Eternal life is the gift of God received by all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The gift of God is the grace of God in Christ. "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all" (Rev. 22:21).

What Is Redemption?

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:24). Redemption is being justified freely by God's grace. It can never be bought, earned, nor achieved through personal effort. We are justified freely, because Jesus paid it all at the cross. We are justified freely through his shed blood, confirmed by his glorious resurrection. That is our redemption in Christ.

Redemption is new life in Christ. Being justified freely gives us abundant life, and life eternal in Christ alone. Believers may truly say, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Corinthians 15:10). All we are, or ever hope to be, is by God's grace in Christ. 

Nothing else in all the world can change us, but grace through faith in Christ. God's Spirit of grace operates directly on our hearts, to change us from the inside out. Grace changes our mind to understand the things of God. Grace is freely given to change our will to seek God. Grace changes our emotions to have a tender heart for God.

Redemption is by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It's not by our works. It's all of grace, the gift of God (Titus 3:5-7). God's grace is received by faith in Christ. He alone is the One who changes us from glory into glory. Christ in us is the fullness of God's grace. And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace (John 1:16). Redemption is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.