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(This is from my forth coming book: God's Love Never Fails)
In summary
this doctrine shows the glory of Jesus Christ in that He "much more" than
saved us and repaired the original sin that hung around our necks. This doctrine is similar to point three
concerning Christ's righteousness. In
order for our Lord to be a complete Savior, Redeemer or Substitute lamb all He
needed to do is pay the debt so that our negative bank record showed $0. All He needed to do as a substitute was take
on all our sins and then under go all their deserved punishment. But what we have learned is that Christ did much
more that this. He not only paid
off our debt, He added an infinitely valuable treasure of His own righteousness
to be added to our back account. Our
bank record was in the negative, but now not only does our record show our debt
paid but positively that here is billions of dollars to the good. In the Father's own eye, this is pure
delight for Him to see, because we are credited with Christ's merits as our
positive good.
Dear reader, you must believe this! Much of your joy as a Christian depends on
how well you daily and totally believe these precious truths. If you did believe, then where is there room
for worry, discontentment, anger and the like?
Is not our lack of understanding and actual belief in Christ crucified
for us the root of all our problems?
Indeed, if you did believe with a more constant and lively faith, this
world with all its worries, lusts, hardships, and trails would seem but a day
as you eagerly wait to see your Savior face to face, just as He promised you.
Just as profound and active your faith was when you first believe God in moment
of your salvation so it needs be every hour of your life, for this is your
life! You have no life in God apart
from it. After our conversation we
stupidly think we are to mature to other things, when in fact maturing in daily
faith and compete trust in Christ crucified for our sins is still to be our
greatest goal.
See,
Christ not only had our sin transferred to Him, in order to be a faithful
substitute lamb but did much more. He
did this by having His human earned goodness transferred to us as if we
had did it our selves. Now the Father
looks at us with perfect love, for we are wearing Christ's glory over us. It would be as if we could cloth ourselves
with the sun itself. We are shining and
beaming with brilliant beauty because we are clothed with the Son of
righteousness. We are pure beauty in
the Father's eyes because of this. When
the Father sees us He sees the same beauty of His Son shining through us and
this is well pleasing to Him. The Lord
Jesus Christ is the center of His Father's love and we have been implanted into
this love by being implanted into the body of Christ, clothed with the Sun of Righteousness[1]. This is why the woman in Revelation 12,
representing the church, is said to be clothed with the sun.
Dear reader, you must see yourself this way, for
this is the very reason why Jesus died for us.
Indeed, this is His gift to us.
Exercise your faith and believe this every day and enjoy His total
forgiveness, love and kindness. Know
the love of the Father is upon you this moment and forever in Christ our
Lord. This great joy is yours to
have in Christ Jesus every day and every hour; again that is way He did for
us! Are you living here dear
saints of God, for this is the life to which you were called into? This has huge practical implications if you
truly and constantly exercise your faith in this. It means you will possess constant joy, peace and happiness in
life, which nothing can take it away. Furthermore,
if you truly viewed your spouse or fellow Christian this way then you would
jump at the occasion to forgive them knowing God is looking at them this very
moment as like a shining star in Christ's righteousness, and so how dare you
treat them any differently.
This is why Christ appears so glorious
in the eyes of those whom He rescues.
Herein does the Glory of Christ's accomplishments made for us shine
brightest. This doctrine is usually
penned in short hand when the scriptures speak of the Saints being made "one"[2]
into their Savior, or being "members"[3]
of His body, or the "marriage"[4]
of Christ and His church! These
biblical explications concerning Christ and how believers are united to Him are
to showcase the marvelous intensity of how close and intimate this union is! Our Lord has for eternity been the recipient
of the Father's greatest love and highest pleasure. It is owing only to our God's immeasurable grace that He would
not only save us but divinely unit the church into Christ. In doing so just as Jesus Christ God's Son
is the recipient of God's greatest love, so the church the bride of Christ
becomes recipients of this same love.
Romans
5:17, "For if by the one man's offense death
reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of
grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One,
Jesus Christ."
Christ
is much more in that He went beyond merely repairing our wrong against
God in these ways.
Adam' friendship was mutable with God. He was a friend of God as long as he
obeyed. Jesus Christ as our great High
Priest or mediator, the one who answers for us, will never sin,
therefore, the footing of our friendship is immutable. But not only is it immutable, but it even
goes deeper and more glorious than immutable!
Our Lord Jesus is "well pleasing"
or greatly delights the Father. He is
the outshining of His glory and lovingly obeys His Father in a perfect
way. By Christ the lord grafting us
into Him, by death and resurrection, we are looked upon from the Father as in
Christ. God will never again see
you or I as just us! He will
eternally see you and I as "in Christ."
The definition of
who we are has forever changed.
Therefore, by Jesus Christ earning an infinite reward of love from the
Father, we receive by manner of necessity of being part of Jesus Himself. God's love will cover us, flow over us and
flood our very souls with the greatest pleasure imaginable. This is why Jesus is so beautiful in the
eyes or those who know His worth. He
not only saves a sinner from destruction but much more than this also
translates them into infinite love! Colossians 1:13, "He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed
us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." 1 John 3:1-2, "Behold
what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called
children of God! ... we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." This is why God's love is immutable toward
us and why it is so immeasurable toward us. We will be like Christ.
But, remember God's greatest concentration of His love is in His
Son. What do you suppose is God's
feeling for those who are in His Son and like His Son? It is Infinite, immutable love. This is the marvelous, much more than,
salvation Christ accomplished for us in His sacrifice and resurrection for us.
Being grafted in to Christ body
makes salvation and the love of God free for us, and oh so much more! If all Christ did was have our record wiped
clean, then it would have been left up to us to some how find a way to positively
be worthy enough to become the "bride" of Christ, or be made "one"
into His body. After being forgiven we would be left where Adam and Eve were: a
good friendship with God. But Adam was
not Christ's bride. But this is what
Jesus did; He not only restored our friendship back, but also made it much more
than what it was before. He divinely
united us to Himself by making us His bride.
He could do this because we were given His righteousness.[5] His makes us worthy enough to be His
bride. Christ has given us His
righteousness to wear as our own; this makes us beautiful enough to be His
bride! The infinite reward that Christ
earned, for lovingly obeying His Father, is the free gift for us to be filled
with the Holy Spirit in such a way that our hearts are now shinning like the
Sun of Righteousness. This was made
possible because of what Jesus Christ earned for us!
Matthew 13:43, "Then
the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Our glory is like filthy rags! Isaiah
64:6, "All our righteous acts are like filthy rags." After you clean a filthy rag it comes out
clean not sparkling like a celestial star! The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all our filthy dirty
sins. Yet, this does not automatically
make us as beautiful and bright like the sun.
How are we cleansed?
It was declared of old that blood cleanses a human soul. Hebrews
9:22, "In fact, the law requires that nearly
everything be cleansed with blood."[6] Jesus Christ, who's blood is Divine and
having infinite worth cleanse all who come to be washed in it. Hebrews
9:14, "How much more, then, will the blood of
Christ cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may
serve the living God!"[7] Our lord's precious blood cleans our filthy
soul from every sinful stain. But notice
this verse also states Christ's blood cleanses us so much that we are able to
serve the living God. It is stated in
Revelation we will serve the Living God in Heaven with Him in His house! But Adam and Eve did not have this
privilege! They only served God in the
garden, were God did not live! If
Christ's blood merely and only wipes our record clean then we would be no
different that Adam and Eve. This is
why the verse says: "How much more" will
the blood of Christ, not only cleans us, but elevate us to the high position of
serving the living God, even in Heaven where He lives.
The blood of Jesus
Christ, as He pays this physically to the Father[8]
is the manner in which finished His oath of loving obedience to His
Father. "With
His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all." This was no mere symbol, for Jesus Christ
actually with His physical blood entered into Heaven after His death presenting
His blood to His Father.
Symbols do not pay for debts! This did happened. The book of Hebrews
chapter 9 mentions this scene several times.
In this the
Father is infinitely happy to see His precious Son in human form giving Him,
His physical blood that was acquired by crucifixion. Here I am reminded of the hymn, Blessed Assurance, were it says,
"Perfect submission" and "Perfect delight."
This blood is the
physical trophy of His Son's highest love and obedience to His Father. I have tried to imagine this scene many
times and tremble at the thought of the infinite energy of joy the Father must
have felt seeing His precious Son offering His physical blood to Him in Heaven. Here before the Father's eye is the accumulation
and height of His Son's perfect submission and delight to Him. The last time He saw His Son's blood it was
in His wrath punishing Him for our sin.
Now in the mist of the brightest most glorious center of Heaven, before
all the heavenly beings, Jesus in human form for us offers His blood before His
Father to finalize the payment for our sin.
He did this as High Priest to cover the real mercy seat not made with
hands but God's throne itself. Yet, in
the Father's eyes here before Him was infinite love given to Him above all
things. The Father asked of His Son
the most difficult, the most un-heavenly task to do: to step out of Heaven to leave His Father and die (all alone) in
soft human flesh in a hideous crucifixion.
Yet, Jesus without hesitation Delighted to obey His Father's
request; and now Him offering His blood to His Father was like a physical trophy
of how deeply red, how real, and how publicly does the Son of God love with
infinite delight His Father! Words will
never express the delight and infinite energy of pleasure that is shared
between the Father and the Son!
Yet, what also
amazes me beyond words is that being united into the body of Jesus Christ I am
now caught up into this infinite energetic love shared between the Father and
Son! Only time will tell the true
wonders of wonders of what this will in actuality mean.
By this Jesus
Christ earned an infinite reward, which all believers in Christ partake
of. His blood paid to the Father,
purchased the Father's happy agreement for all believers to be robed in His
Son' own righteousness. This makes them
shine brighter than the sun. His blood
also purchased the gift for all believers to have the full measure of the Holy
Spirit to flood their souls. This
flooding of a saint's soul in heaven, by the sweet Spirit of God, is never
ceasing and unwavering. This is what is
meant by the river flowing from the throne of God, which flows like a
river, which waters the tree of life, bearing fruit every month.[9]
See, a person can
only serve or please God to the degree that they shine or make known His Glory
in their own lives. Jesus Christ is the
outshining of God's Glory itself, and so all who have the Son to robe them
in His glory are most equipped to serve the Living God. These are so equipped to serve God that they are
invited to live in His same house. All
who see this, and understand what Jesus Christ saved them from and redeemed
them too, love Him most. Most glorious
does the Son of God appear in the eyes of those who see, with true faith, the marvelous
things He accomplished in His bloodshed for them.
Pray to God that
He would grant you such eyes to see the glory of Jesus crucified. In this our salvation and blessings are not
only free but also gloriously free.
This is why, when it is all said and done that the greatest commandment for all believers is to simply love God with all their heart: to simply worship the Lord of Majesty for
His Marvelous and Wonderful Grace to us!
Our heats should never cease from overflowing with the deepest love and
admiration to Him who has crowned His church with unspeakable riches of grace,
grace and more grace!
His free grace,
accomplished by His bloodshed, is so powerful that it cleanses us of every
sin. Even the most wicked, filthy and
darkened soul can be fully cleansed by His blood. Sin ruins the heart and mind of man much like a car engine being
thrown into a trash compressor. The
inner workings of man have been ruined and severely broken by sin's corrosive
power. Yet, even the most broken, ruined,
tortured and wounded heart is not to far gone that the blood of Jesus Christ
can so fully heal it that it becomes ready to be the bride of the Lord Jesus
Christ! Even the most broken mind can
be so perfectly fixed and redeemed by the Holy Spirit that it is more than
ready to be used in the service of God Almighty in Heaven itself. Even the most happy depraved soul, by the
sacrifice of Jesus, can so overflow with the pleasure of the Holy Spirit, which
flows from the right hand of God that those all those darken years will seem
but a mere moment and forgotten. This
is the glory that belongs to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ the Prince of
Heaven.
May our hearts continually sing in pleasure to
God, for His marvelous grace, the words of John the revelator. Revelation 1:5-6, Jesus Christ, who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and
dominion forever and ever."
[1] Malachi 4:2
[2] John 17:21, "[I pray] that
they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also
may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me."
[3] 1 Corinthians 12:27, "Now you
are the body of Christ, and members
individually."
[4] 2 Corinthians 11:2, "For I am
jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband,
that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ."
[5] 2 Corinthians 5:21, "He made
Him who knew no sin to be sin for us,
that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
[6] NIV
[7] NIV
[8] Hebrews 9:12
[9] Revelation 22:1-3
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