New Message from God

May 17, 2009

Background Scripture: Ephesians 3:1 – 13
Lesson Passage: Ephesians 3:1 – 13

The message of our lesson today is not new; the message is older than time—in fact, it is eternal but the revealing of the message at this time is new. This revelation of God’s purpose in Jesus made known by the Holy Ghost breaks God’s eternal silence concerning what he purposed before the world was created. The Holy Ghost, acting as agent for Jesus Christ, is a revealer of the mysteries of God. Jesus spoke of the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of Truth. He declared to his disciples that the Holy Ghost would guide them into all truth. The message in today’s lesson is one of those previously unrevealed truths that were hidden in God before the world was formed. The message is that both Gentiles and Jews are a part of the same body and both share equally the promised blessings of God in Jesus Christ. The Jews were privy to some of this knowledge through the many covenants God made with their Hebrew forefathers. The mystery unknown to the Jews included Jesus in his two advents, the church age, and the inclusion of the Gentiles as fellow heirs.

The church is God’s wisdom on display for the heavenly host. How can a holy God commune with those who by their very nature are unholy? Although we were conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, yet because of our faith in Jesus Christ, God grants us access into his holy presence. We cannot imagine the depths of this mystery. We are still amazed at God’s salvation by grace. We can comprehend individually that God’s grace has overextended all that we once considered reasonable. This is made clear just by considering ourselves as the object of God’s grace. Who among us truly deserved to be saved? All are guilty before God. Yet, God saved us and made us a part of his divine family. That is well beyond reasonable considering what we deserved. The church, then, must be an even more astounding revelation for spiritual creatures who have known God in his holiness for an eternity already. How is this mysterious wisdom of God comprehended by cherubim and seraphim or archangels or demons? God’s wisdom is revealed through the church. Spiritual beings can behold the richness of God’s wisdom by observing God’s grace on display in the church by Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ, God has both executed divine justice against sin and rescued the condemned sinner from eternal destruction through his faith in Jesus. All who make up the body of Christ are recipients of this amazing grace. The Apostle Paul counted it a blessing to be chosen by God as a vessel to deliver this revelation to the saints, especially the Gentiles who were the object of Paul’s God-ordained ministry. Paul proclaimed the unsearchable riches of Christ among the Gentiles as part of this new message from God, by way of the Holy Ghost, through the apostle, and to the Gentiles.


Robert C. Hudson
May 7, 2009

New Works in Grace

May 10, 2009

Background Scripture: Ephesians 2:1 – 10
Lesson Passage: Ephesians 2:1 – 10

Christians are living proof of God’s work in the earth. There is nothing about people born into this world through nature that equips them for self-reformation. Put another way, we tend to go from bad to worse naturally or by nature. Even well-intentioned people find it impossible to change themselves for the better beyond a given point. At that point, our nature, or that which is natural about us, will prevent any further changes. There is a natural balance within a person between the mind, the emotions, and the physical well being. We change ourselves by creating an imbalance in these and then we attempt to rebalance ourselves at a different norm than before. For those who have tried dieting, this whole process should sound familiar. We can be successful with some diets but habitual changes for the best are another matter altogether. This becomes too much work and we find that we are fighting ourselves. We don’t like to fight ourselves unless it is to avoid negative repercussions. It is much easier to do what comes naturally for us as long as we are not immediately punished for doing it. There is a spiritual problem with those things that are natural for us. What is natural for us is offensive to God. And God will have the final say on everything. The first step in receiving salvation is to come to the realization that what is natural for us is offensive to God. What I refer to here as what is natural for a person, Paul calls it walking according to the course of this world. Paul goes on to say that we all lived this way before we were saved. Our natural life, or normal way of living from birth, could never save us from the anger of God because our corrupt nature is offensive to God. Since we cannot bring about the necessary spiritual changes that would please God, salvation then has to be an act of God independent of human effort. The offer of salvation by God is an invitation for us to be spared God’s vengeance against us and instead become the recipients of God’s manifold blessings. What a wonderful turnabout that is! Through the salvation God offers us through Christ, we go from being God’s enemy to members of God’s family. And all of this is a gift of God. It is impossible for us to earn it. No saved person has anything to brag about concerning their salvation. The fact is God saved us in spite of ourselves. We are saved by God’s goodness as an unearned favor from God. We received salvation through our faith in God and the finished works he did in Christ Jesus. God gives us salvation because we believe God and we put our trust in him to save us.

We understand dimensions of God’s purpose in saving us as we continue to grow spiritually. Each dimension shows us some aspect of the lifestyle God has called us to live. That lifestyle involves doing work that glorifies God through us. The work that God directs us to do can only be done by receiving the strength from God to do it. We have been created to do this spiritual work. God set this in motion before he created the world. The works God ordains for us goes against our old nature. These are new works that are God ordained and directed through those he has saved. These works in grace are a part of our separation from the world and our old nature.

Robert C. Hudson
April 29, 2009