Category Archives: Roger

Ephesians 1:15 -23

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Ephesians 1:15-23

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. 13In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

It’s an interesting study to go through this chapter and see the number of times Paul speaks of being in him or in Christ. Here we see that in Him we have received an inheritance. Later on Paul will describe God’s inheritance, but here we receive an inheritance because of our union with Christ. To describe this idea, Paul says that we were predestined. Predestination is not the same thing as election. Predestined means to determine the destiny or outcome ahead of time. In this passage, that destiny is that we should be to the praise of His glory. In other words, God has determined and planned that we will be to the praise of His glory. He works all things out according to the counsel of His will and if He determines and wills to accomplish it, it will be accomplished. We will be to the praise of His glory, because God knows what it will take in our lives to accomplish that task.

The Ephesians also trusted in Christ after they heard the word of truth, the gospel. That is the way we all come to salvation. It is always and only by trusting in Christ that a person is saved. It is always faith in the Word of God. Salvation never comes except through the Word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. People cannot be saved without the Word, that is why missionary activity and preaching are so important.

Having believed, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Paul describes Him as the guarantee, earnest or down payment of our inheritance. Someone provides a down payment as a pledge that the rest will be forth coming. If the rest does not follow, the down payment belongs to the recipient. In this context, that would mean that if God does not follow through on the rest of His promise, we get to keep the Holy Spirit. It is foolishness to think that God would lose the Holy Spirit because of failure to fulfill the remainder of His promise and that is the point. God’s promise of our inheritance is that secure. The Holy Spirit is the down payment until the redemption of the purchased possession. What is that purchased possession? Us!

All to the praise of His glory.  These things are not for our glory but for His. Modern Christianity has made man the center. God does what He does for His glory including our salvation. Let’s give Him the glory He deserves.

Previously Published June 2005

Ephesians 1:7-10

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Ephesians 1:7-10

Several things come to my mind as I read these 4 verses. I think of the key word “redemption” mentioned in verse 7. Here we have visualized the process whereby a slave is bought back. Someone has been sold as a slave and a kind person pays the price to buy him out of slavery and sets him free. I see that as a picture of how Christ has bought us back and set us free from guilt and sin. In fact that is what the next part of the verse talks about – the forgiveness of sins. There are some people who have no concept of how sinful they really are and therefore may not fully appreciate what forgiveness is. To be completely set free from the guilt and penalty of sin is an amazing thing. As we grow older and study the Word more, we realize how depraved we actually are and as a result we realize all the more the wonder of forgiveness. All of this of course comes from His grace. It is all undeserved by us. Sometimes I think we come to believe that God owes us something. But the Bible teaches us that it’s all because of His amazing grace.

Paul seems to delight in superlatives because he doesn’t just stop with the word grace at the end of verse 7. He tells us that this grace abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. His grace doesn’t come in a trickle. It is abundant and it doesn’t come out of God’s ignorance but through his great wisdom and insight. It’s a result of His character.
Probably the next two verses take a deeper study, but what I see here is an expression of ultimate purpose. It flows down through verse 12. But in this section I see that when time is complete and all of the ages roll together toward their ultimate conclusion, God is and will gather together all things in Christ and make Him the ultimate focus of everything there is. This not only includes the things in heaven but also the things on the earth. I imagine that this is why he tells us elsewhere that every knee will bow. Thinking about this certainly makes a lot of other things pale in comparison and much we focus on in life seems rather insignificant, doesn’t it.

Thoughts on Ephesians 1:1-6

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Ephesians 1:1-6

1Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,
To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus: 2Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.

There are many things to think about just in these 6 short verses. My goal is to choose a few topics which speak to my heart and may also speak to yours. In the process, I’ll pose a couple of questions also which might be able to stimulate some discussion and thought.

Much could be made out of the fact that Paul addresses these people as saints even though they were undoubtedly normal, failure-prone people. When God declares us righteous, we are righteous. The really amazing thing to me though is that in verse three, Paul tells us that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. God is not stingy. I don’t know how many spiritual blessings there are, but it seems like there must be close to an infinite number. God has blessed us with every one. And then I think about the fact that it is not others who have been blessed in this way, it is “us”. I’m included in that.

Then, unlike us, Paul is not afraid to tackle a big issue without batting an eye. He tells us that we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. I have thought about these things a lot and am convinced that even though we don’t understand how this all fits together with our responsibility for what we do, God is the one who chose us for himself long before we were born. What an amazing thing!

Some Questions:
What are some of the “benefits” we receive because of our adoption as sons?
What are some of the spiritual blessings we have been blessed with?

What can we do to become outwardly more of what we are positionally, that is holy and blameless?

(Originally published in 2005)

Dad’s Bible

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I was reading my dad’s Bible the other day and came upon some notes that he wrote related to II Cor 13:4 which says, “For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.”

His notes are as follows:

Because of II Cor 13:4 I need to pray daily:

1. By faith I apprehend and trust in a perfect Christ and His perfect work – but I do so with an imperfect faith. I pray that God will help my unbelief. (Mark 9:24)

2. Pray in trust that God will work in you (me) both to will and to do of His good pleasure – Phil 2:13

3. As I wait in prayer before God, I need to confess the love of whatever sin I may have succumbed to as well as the fact that I have fallen.

4. Daily I need to reaffirm my comprehensive choice, solemnly made before God to live in the NEW nature and refuse to live in the OLD.

5. Daily in prayer, I need to ask God to make real in experience the fact of Rom 6:14 “Sin shall not have dominion over you.”

6. Daily in prayer, I need to ask God to “Gospelize” and spiritualize my obedience.

7. Daily I need to plead: “Lord strengthen me mightily by thy spirit in the inner man against temptations that daily come my way.

8. Daily I should review important matters for prayer – especially those for whom I have promised to pray.

He closes with the words from the hymn Not What These Hands Have Done

Not what these hands have done can save a guilty soul
Not what this toiling flesh has borne can make the spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God.
Not all my prayers and sighs or tears can bear my awful load.

Thy work alone, oh Christ can ease the weight of sin.
Thy blood alone, O lamb of God can give me peace within.
I bless the Christ of God I rest on love divine.
And with unfaltering lip and heart I call this Savior mine.

Notes by Rev. Gerald J. Tuinstra

(Originally published January, 2005)

 

Discipleship

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I’ve been reading a book by Eusebius. He lived in the 300’s and wrote the first history of the Christian Church. What makes it very interesting is that he lived very close in time to the time of the apostles and those who heard them directly.

He tells of Ignatius of Antioch who was ultimately martyred by being devoured by wild animals in Rome. Ignatius wrote a letter to the church in Rome requesting that they not deprive him of his longed-for hope by asking that he be released from martyrdom. He wrote:

From Syria to Rome, I am fighting with wild animals on land and sea night and day, chained to ten leopards—a troop of soldiers—whom kindness makes even worse. Their shameful deeds increase my discipleship, but this does not justify me. May I benefit from those wild beasts that are ready for me, and I pray that they are prompt. I will coax them to devour me quickly, not as with some whom they have been afraid to touch. If they are unwilling, I will force them to do it. Pardon me, but I know what is best for me; now I am starting to be a disciple. May I envy nothing seen or unseen in gaining Jesus Christ. Let fire and cross, struggles with beasts, tearing bones apart, mangling of limbs, crushing of my whole body, and tortures of the Devil come upon me, if only I may attain to Jesus Christ!

———————————————–

And I thought I knew what discipleship was! May this short excerpt encourage all of us to be all that we can be for Christ our savior.

 

(Originally Published January, 2005)

Passion of Jesus Christ

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I’ve been reading a book by John Piper called “The Passion of Jesus Christ”.  An excerpt from chapter 22 is worth noting:
But what just is the ultimate good in the good news? It all ends in one thing: God himself. All the words of the gospel lead to him, or they are not gospel. For example, salvation is not good news if it only saves from hell and not for God. Forgiveness is not good news if it only gives relief from guilt and doesn’t open the way to God. Justification is not good news if it only makes us legally acceptable to God but doesn’t bring fellowship with God. Redemption is not good news if it only liberates us from bondage but doesn’t bring us to God. Adoption is not good news if it only puts us in the Father’s family but not in his arms.
This is crucial. Many people seem to embrace the good news without embracing God. There is no sure evidence that we have a new heart because we want to escape hell. That’s a perfectly natural desire, not a supernatural one. It doesn’t take a new heart to want the psychological relief of forgiveness, or the removal of God’s wrath, or the inheritance of God’s world. All these things are understandable without any spiritual change. You don’t need to be born again to want these things.
The evidence that we have been changed is that we want these things because they bring us to the enjoyment of God. This is the greatest thing Christ died for. “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. I Peter 3:18
(First Published January, 2005)

Message of the Cross – Part 7

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The Bible not only speaks of the Christian’s participation in the cross of Christ, but it also speaks of our having been raised with Him.

“even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” (Ephesians 2:5–6, NKJV)

“buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” (Colossians 2:12, NKJV)

“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4, NKJV)

I believe the referencee to baptism in these verses does not speak of water baptism, but of the baptism of the Spirit in which the Spirit of God places us into the body of Christ. Being part of His body therefore, we have died, been buried and raised together with Him. The passage in Ephesians even says we have been made to sit together with Him in heavenly places. This is the way God sees it. And these truths are the ground of victory in our lives.

We need to reckon or count these statements as true regarding ourselves. We are no longer under the death penalty because that penalty has already been applied to those who believe. We are therefore on the other side of death and into the resurrection side so that, as Paul puts it, “we should walk in newness of life.”

Message of the Cross – Part 6

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“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:5–11, NKJV)

The mind of Christ was such that even though He was God himself, He purposely and consciously took the form of a bondservant and stooped down to serve us, even to the point of death of the cross. As a result, God highly exulted Him and gave Him an exulted position such that every knee will someday bow to Him.

The challenge to us is to have this kind of mind. We are to have a mind to humble ourselves and to stoop to serve others. Since Christ died for all, then all should no longer live for themselves but for the one who died for them. “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” (2 Corinthians 5:14–15, NKJV)

During this Easter season as we consider all the Christ has done for us to rescue us from condemnation, we should realize that we don’t belong to ourselves to live for our own agenda and own interests, but for God and others.

Message of the Cross – Part 5

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“knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” (Romans 6:6, NKJV)

As I mentioned in one of the previous articles, the Bible teaches us that if we have trusted in Christ, we have been placed into Christ. Since that is the case, God considers us to have died with Christ when He died on the cross.

In this passage, Paul writes that when that happened, our old man was crucified with Him. By old man he is referring to the old self. Some people call it the old nature. The Bible says that “if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. Old things are passed away and all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Our passage for today, Romans 6:6, tells us the purpose for this crucifixion of the old man – that the body of sin might be done away with. Some translations say that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, or made of no effect. The ultimate goal is so that we should no longer be slaves for sin.

What we as Christians need to do is to practice believing what God says is true. No matter how we feel about our sinfulness and the power of sin over us, the Bible says that our old man was in fact crucified so that the body of sin would be made ineffective so that we would not be a slave of sin. If we find ourselves in slavery to sin, it’s because we have voluntarily yielded to it, not because it has power or authority of us.

At this Easter season, let’s remind ourselves of what God says is true – our old self has been put to death.

Message of the Cross – Part 4

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“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20, NKJV)

In this passage Paul gives us a very important truth about our relationship and oneness with Christ. Here, just as in Romans 6 and Colossians 2, Paul teaches us that we died with Christ. There are all sorts of practical implications in this truth. In this passage we see that since we have died with Christ, it is no longer we who live, but it is Christ who lives in us. As Jesus himself taught us that he is the vine and we are the branches. The life is in him.

As we live our life then we need to recognize that moment by moment our goal is to live out the life of Christ who lives in us. Our life is a life of faith in the Son of God, trusting him to live his life effectively out through us. Paul says it this way in his letter to the Corinthians: “and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” (2 Corinthians 5:15, NKJV)

I heard Kevin DeYoung quote John Calvin the other night. I think this is a fitting summary of this truth. Calvin said, “We are not our own: let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to our flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours. Conversely, we are God’s: let us live for him and die for him. We are God’s: let his wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God’s: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal.”