Thursday, May 11, 2017
The Heritage of Hope
The Hopeless Heritage: Everything happens by chance. The Big Bang was a random occurrence that created the universe. There is no reason behind life. We live, we die, we decompose; end of story. Graveyard dust is our biological heritage and there is nothing more.
The Heritage of Hope: Jesus Christ came down from heaven and by the power of the Holy Spirit was born of the Virgin Mary which was foretold by Isaiah the prophet some seven centuries earlier. “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”
On Passover Friday, April 7, 30 AD, Jesus was crucified for our sins. He rose from the dead on the third day, the first fruits of the resurrection. After forty days, He ascended into heaven where He is seated at the right hand of God the Father.
Great is the reward in heaven for those who are saved by grace and justified by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Now grace is defined as favour and more specifically, unmerited favour. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, being convinced of things that are unseen.
While believers are justified by their faith, unbelievers will be judged according to their deeds. Because all men are sinners and Christ’s crucifixion is the only sacrifice that atones for sinful deeds, how shall unbelievers escape if they ignore so great a salvation?
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”
“And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
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Jesus Christ came down from heaven. He was the incarnation of the eternally begotten Son of God. The pre-incarnate Jesus Christ wasn’t created like an angel but rather begotten of the Father. He is co-eternal, co-equal, and consubstantial with God the Father. (John 1:1-3,14,18)
ReplyDelete“We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
ReplyDeletethe only Son of God,
eternally begotten, of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.”
The previous passage was taken from the Nicene Creed which was approved by the church fathers at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. Indeed, the true deity of Christ was made an article of Christian faith.
ReplyDeleteBy strict definition, eternal means having no beginning or end while everlasting means having no end. The two words are often used interchangeably.
ReplyDeleteScriptural references: Matthew 1:18-25; Isaiah 7:14; 1 Corinthians 15:20,23; Acts 1:3; Ephesians 2:8-9; Hebrews 11:1; Romans 3:23-24; John 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 2:1-3; John 3:16,18; Ephesians 1:7; Revelation 20:12-15
ReplyDelete