ROBERT@kontu.utu.fi (Robert W. Johnson) (04/21/91)
This life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life. 1 John 5:11 f. It is a blessed thing to discover the difference between Christian graces and Christ: to know the difference between meekness and Christ, between patience and Christ, between love and Christ. God will not give me humility or patience or holiness or love as separate gifts of His grace. He is not a retailer dispensing grace to us in packets, measuring out some patience to the impatient, some love to the unloving, some meekness to the proud, in quantities that we can take and work on as a kind of capital. He has only one gift to meet all our need: His Son Jesus Christ. The common idea of holiness is that every item of life should be holy; but that is not holiness, it is the FRUIT of holiness. Holiness is Christ. The Lord Jesus is made over to us to BE that. So you can put in anything there: love, humility, power, self-control. Today there is a call for patience: He is our patience! Tomorrow the call may be for purity: He is our purity. It does not matter what our personal deficiency, or whethe it be a hundred and one different things, He is the answer to our every need. 1 John 5:7-8, 11-12 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the father, the Word (Christ, John 1:1), and the Holy Spirit: AND THESE THREE ARE ONE. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. And this is the record, that God HATH given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life (the eternal life, which is Christ, dwelling in him); and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Please notice here that eternal life is not something like "we live forever." Eternal life is nothing less than the life of Christ. Of course Christians will live on forever ON THE EARTH in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2), and the unbelieves will live on forever in the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:15), but we must be careful to distinguish between living forever and eternal life, which is the life of God Himself, which we receive when we are reborn (John 3:6). ----- Robert W. Johnson Computer center, The University of Turku, Turku Finland robert@kontu.utu.fi (InterNet) robert@firien.bitnet (BITNET) The preceeding is my opinion and may not express the opinion of my employer and furthermore has nothing to do with my employment.