Christmas mystery: part two.(You need to read the previous entry before you read this. It is a sequel.)
This is Christmas day, although it might be boxing day before you get this but as I write it is Christmas, a day set apart to honor the birth of Jesus and it is as big or bigger than it ever was. It is celebrated the world over, even in places where Christianity hardly exists……that is the commercial aspect is and the gift giving as well as the drinking and partying…..so much for Jesus birth. It is the biggest retail event of the year…many retailers just would not make it were it not for this holiday.
What is it really all about anyway? The real meaning is a mystery but don’t lose heart, it is a mystery that has been revealed in the Bible.
In the previous blog entry, I said that this mystery is God becoming man that He might bring us unto Himself. If I did not say it in those actual words that is what I meant. He came to earth to save us from the curse of sin which has had a tight grip on our souls. He came to set us free. In fact it is His grace or His unearned favor that sets us free. His unmerited favor, His matchless favor. He said when the woman was taken in adultery and the law said she had to be stoned to death, “neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more.” That is grace.
Paul was writing again to the Ephesians in chapter 3 verses number 1-7 1 "For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— 2 if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, 3 how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, 4 by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), 5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: 6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, 7 of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power.
"Here is the mystery revealed and here is what the apostle means, that being that Christ died for all men everywhere. Here is what he says concerning the mystery from chapter 3 verses 14-19:14 "For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,[c] 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." That is the real meaning, the mystery is solved, the mystery of Christmas
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2 comments:
This comment is to your last two blogs.
In studying God’s word, we are often at the mercy of the translators in seeking to understand what God is saying. John 1 verses 1 to 14 is a prime example. One of the first English translations was the Geneva Bible in 1560. John 1:15 reads as follows:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and that Word was God.
2 This same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by it, and without it was made nothing that was made.
4 In it was life, and the life was the light of men.
5 And that light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
This translation parallels translations I have read in German, French and Spanish. It was literally the word that was with God in the beginning and not an eternal son. This would harmonize with what God himself says in Isaiah 44:24, “I am the LORD, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself,”
God alone created the universe by speaking it into existence. Nine times in Genesis 1 we read, “And God said.” God speaking was his creative word. In John 1:14 he spoke to a virgin and word became flesh, even as it became light in Genesis 1:3. “And God said, ‘let there be light’, and there was light.”
Nowhere does the Bible say, “God became a man.” That is Roman and Greek superstition that crept into Christianity after the death of the apostles. Paul, in Ephesians in the same chapter from which you quote above, says in verse 3, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” Then in verse 17 he says, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.”
It is obvious in these verses that the one true God is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Paul prays that He give us his Spirit so that we may know him better. Jesus himself went a step further when he prayed in John 17:3, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
The only mystery that Paul speaks of is made clear in Ephesians 3:6, “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.”
Blessings,
Carey Clark
Seldom do I comment on my own blog nor do I make a practice of commenting on another's comment, however I do want to point out that I do reserve the right to disagree on another's comment and this one from Carey Clark, I strongly disagree with, however I am not so dopgmatic as to disallow his remarks. Anything that is not offensive I will allow.I want to emphasize that just because I have published a comment does not necessarily mean that I am in agreement. Randall
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