Living Water Ministries

VERSE OF THE DAY

John 3:17 (New Living Translation)

Share Audio

God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

We are all sinners believers and nonbelievers it is in us in our human nature of how we were created in masterpiece to God and by the seal that was broken by Adam and Eve

So this scripture is telling us exactly what needed to be done for the rescue of mankind as all God sacrificed his only Son by sending him a man like us into the world in flesh not to judge the world all mankind, but to bring salvation upon the wrath and wrongs against God’s law that we as mankind make thus to save the world as God’s whole creation as a whole through him Jesus God’s son thus giving us the chance of life to not be brought to a catastrophic death by the cards played out by Satan but in Jesus giving the gift of salvation and granting us forever eternal life in him that though our body may die we will live forever at the hand of God in heaven should we accept the death and resurrection of Jesus and his gift of salvation to all believers and nonbelievers alike

——————————————————-

John 3:17, KJV: “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” … John 3:17, NLT: “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.”

John 3:17 NIV

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

What Does John 3:17 Mean? ►

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

John 3:17(ESV)

Verse Thoughts

So many believers are living under condemnation. So many see God as an angry God with a big stick, watching our every movement with a frown on His face – waiting in anticipation for us to do something wrong, so that He can punish us.

If only believers would take what the word of God says literally and BELIEVE what it says – so many would not be living their lives under condemnation but would be rejoicing in the Lord…for God did NOT send His Son into the world in order to condemn the world, but to SAVE the world – through Christ.

It was out of love and not cruelty that God sent His only begotten Son into the world to die for the sin of the world – and once a sinner believes this simple truth he is immediately saved and is NOT condemned. But how many believers continue to live the life under condemnation – simply because they do not read God’s word or believe what they read.

Let us read, mark, learn and inwardly digest God’s Word – and then believe what He says.

My Prayer

Thank You Lord for the Bible and for the truth that it contains. Guide me into all truth I pray- knowing that all I need for salvation and sanctification is contained within the pages of Scripture, in Jesus name I pray, AMEN

Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/john-3-17

What does John 3:17 mean?

Verse 17 is a peaceful footnote to John 3:16. Jesus came for the purpose of saving people, not condemning them. Verse 18 explains that this is because those who do not believe are “condemned already.” According to the Bible, God doesn’t want to see anyone destroyed (Ezekiel 18:23–32). Rather, He would prefer that everyone be saved (2 Peter 3:9; 1 Timothy 2:4). However, He will give us the dignity of our choices.

This salvation is offered to “the world,” a phrase this verse uses three times. This is from the Greek word kosmos, which sometimes refers to the God-hating system of human society. In this context, however, it means “all people.” The meanings overlap in this case, since the people Christ died for were—and are—sinners who are separated from Him (Romans 5:12).

This verse also reiterates the idea that salvation is through Christ—and nothing else. The offer of salvation is for everyone, but only those who accept it will actually be saved.

Context Summary

John 3:16–21 begins with the most easily recognized portion of any holy book on Earth: John 3:16. This is a one-sentence summary of the entire gospel. Still, the verses which follow are just as critical for understanding the Christian message. Christ wasn’t sent to judge the world, but to bring salvation. This is an expression of God’s incredible love. However, those who do not believe in Jesus Christ are condemned in the eyes of God. Human preference for sin causes many to choose darkness over the Light.

Chapter Summary

John chapter 3 is one of the most important in the entire gospel. Many crucial ideas are explained in this passage, including the role of Jesus as Savior. After the loud, public commotion at the temple, John transitions to a quiet, nighttime discussion. These verses make it clear that Christ—and Christ alone—is the means of salvation for the entire world. This text also states that those who reject Jesus are rejecting God

VERSE OF THE DAY

James 1:19 (New Living Translation)

Share Audio

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.

Understand brothers and sisters you must be quick to listen and pay attention in obedience to God’s laws, slow to speak and not over react to fast out of anger, temper, or selfishness and slow to get angry

No hot tempers or outbursts keeping trust in the father and your faith

What Does James 1:19 Mean? ►

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;

James 1:19(ESV)

Verse Thoughts

Too often in life we discover the folly of opening our mouth and responding in careless haste to the words and actions of others and too often we react in annoyance or anger, only to discover that we had misunderstood the facts of the matter, causing us to regret that we spoke so quickly and reacted so hastily.

There are many scriptures that warn of the poison that can fall from the tongue and the damage that unguarded words or fiery tempers can produce, and others that advise us to listen to what is said, to hear what is spoken, to guard our lips in what we say and our reactions in all we do, which can so often spark a fire that harms so many people.

In this passage James was writing to warn believers against self-deception – and in particular he was encouraging them to pay careful heed to the Word of God for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

If our words and actions are to be seasoned with salt and honouring to our Father, we should especially be quick to hear the words of wisdom that comes from the Scriptures and to be wise in our response to God’s voice.

Sometimes we may not like what we hear and sometimes believers have been known to argue with God and become angry at His Word – but the wise man or woman will be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger, particularly in the things of the Lord. 

My Prayer

Loving heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word, and the wise instructions it contains. Help me to be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger, not only with those with whom I have to do – but also as it relates to You and Your Word, even on those occasions when I do not understand. Help me to be quick to hear Your voice – but slow to question Your perfect plans and purposes, in Jesus name

Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/james-1-19

What does James 1:19 mean?

The opening passage of James instructed believers to maintain trust in God, even during hard times. In fact, believers are to consider their hardships as “joy,” since trials are how God strengthens our faith. This raises the question of what it means to remain faithful to God—to continue to trust Him—even when the trials of life come our way. For one thing, those who trust God continue to obey Him. Starting in verse 19, James begins to describe what that obedience looks like.

Those who trust and obey God learn to adjust the speed of their listening and speaking. If God is truly in control, we can afford to take the time to understand. Rather than shooting from the hip, we can respond in a way that is helpful. Doubting that God is in control speeds up our mouth and slows down our mind.

As believers, we shouldn’t be obsessed with ensuring that we are heard and understood in order to get what we want. When we act according to our immediate desires, and our immediate reactions, we feel a lack of control. And when we feel like we’re losing control, we will get angry.

Notice that this is not a command to never feel anger. Anger is a human emotion that everyone experiences, and it can be justified. However, James’ instruction here makes it clear that we can learn to control—or at least slow down—our angry responses. In fact, to refuse to let anger control us is itself an act of faith. It is a choice to believe that the Father is in control, that He loves us, and that He is good.

The next verse makes clear why learning to control our anger is such a big deal.

Context Summary

James 1:19–27 emphasizes that those who truly trust God don’t settle for merely appearing religious. They give up trying to control the world with their words and their anger. They humbly receive the Word God has planted in them, listen to it, and proceed to do what it says. Part of what the Word says to us is that we should keep control over our words, to care for those who are weak and suffering, and to keep ourselves from being polluted by the world around us.

Chapter Summary

How important is it for Christians to trust God? It’s so important, James writes, that we should call our worst moments joyful things, because trials help us trust God more. People who trust God ask Him for wisdom—and then take what He gives. People who trust God make a bigger deal about their rewards in the next life than their wealth in this one. People who trust God don’t blame Him for their desire to sin; they give Him credit for all that is good in their lives. They look into His Word, and they act on what they see there

VERSE OF THE DAY

Romans 12:10 (New Living Translation)

Share Audio

Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.

Love with sincerity to one another in genuine affection and take joy and honor in each other

10 Be devoted to one another in love.(A) Honor one another above yourselves.(B)

Breaking Down the Key Parts of Romans 12:10

It means commitment, being there. Perhaps one way to obey this command would be to find a local church and commit to the people in it. Commit to doing life together so that you can care for one another. See your brothers and sisters in Christ-like your family.Feb 11, 2020

Romans 12:10 Meaning of Be Devoted to One Another in Love

Feb 11, 2020 by Editor in Chief

Romans 12:10
“Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.”

Explanation and Commentary of Romans 12:10

Christians are the only species on the planet that is free. The identity of a Christian is settled. The world’s way is to fight for personal glory that comes from comparison with other people. What’s worse is that this comparison is mostly of outward appearance, compelling humans to break their backs keeping up with the Joneses.

But the Christian identity comes from God. We understand something. We are intrinsically equal to everyone else as image-bearers. We are totally depraved in our flesh until we are saved completely by Christ alone so that there is no boasting whatsoever (Ro 3:27). We know that we have a lot of growing to do, but that the comparison game is over. We know that God has a plan for us to become like his Son, and it is only by his Holy Spirit that we will be able to do that. We know that it is only by God’s grace that we are where we are.

And identity is the foundation for “honoring one another above yourselves.” It costs nothing. It honors God. It cultivates humility. We can be “devoted to one another” because it is “in love,” God’s love. There is no ulterior motive in our devotion, only a command to obey.

Breaking Down the Key Parts of Romans 12:10

#1 “Be devoted to one another…”

What does devotion look like? It means commitment, being there. Perhaps one way to obey this command would be to find a local church and commit to the people in it. Commit to doing life together so that you can care for one another. See your brothers and sisters in Christ-like your family.

#2 “…in love.”

The love of God is the grounds for this commitment. Even in the Church, the temptation would be to use love and service as a means to control people or to gain selfishly. But if the love of God, demonstrated by Christ on the cross (1 Jn 3:16) is our foundation for how we treat others, the devotion can be selfless. When two people are full of the love of God and committed to one another, there is great power.

#3 “Honor one another above yourselves.”

All Christian relationships, even those we have with unbelievers, are meant to be horizontal, not vertical. Even leadership is not meant to be hierarchical as the world thinks of it (Mk 10:42-45). Honoring another above yourself is not because you think you are so horrible and low, which would be only a form of pride, but rather because this person in front of you bears the image of your Father. Your own identity is settled, so you are left able to obey God’s command to honor other people above yourself.

Honoring means showing concern for one another above the circumstances and above yourself (Philippians 2:3-4). It is demonstrating care for others without counting the cost to you.Oct 29, 2017

1a : to regard or treat (someone) with admiration and respect : to regard or treat with honor. b : to give special recognition to : to confer honor on. 2a : to live up to or fulfill the terms of honor a commitment.

What Does Romans 12:10 Mean? ►

Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

Romans 12:10(ESV)

Verse Thoughts

Paul’s weighty epistle to his beloved brothers and sisters in Rome is designed to focus our attention on our great salvation – i.e.-our position as already justified; our conduction as in the process of being sanctified and our assured future, of one day being glorified and made like unto Christ’s glorious body. As Paul draws his amazing treatise on salvation to a conclusion, he ends with a section on how to live the Christian life, in a way that is pleasing to God.

He argues that in the light of the amazing grace of God that has been showered upon us all, and the manifold mercies He has poured upon all His children – including our past justification, our ongoing sanctification and our future glorification – we should live a life that is worthy of our calling. Paul urges us to live a holy life – to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God, to be separated from the world – to be transformed into the likeness of Christ through the renewing of our minds and to use the gifts, talents, abilities and works (which God has foreordained that we should do) – wisely, diligently, cheerfully and in an attitude of love.

It is this attitude of godly love towards one another that comes to its climax with Paul exhortation to us all… love one another with brotherly affection and seek to outdo one another in showing your brothers and sisters in Christ, honour and respect. All who profess to be Christians are called and commanded to love in the same way that Christ loved us. This is not a human love that we have to pump up from deep within ourselves but is a supernatural love that is external to human emotions. It is the very love of God Himself, which is freely available to all believers and is freely given to those who are prepared to die to their own human natures – to take up their own cross daily and to live the only life that is wholly acceptable to God – a spiritual life – a sacrificial life.

Such a life is available to us, by means of the holy Spirit, and expressed through our new life in Christ – but only those who choose God-dependency over Self-dependency can avail themselves of God’s love. Beloved let us love one another, for love is of God. Let us love each another with brotherly affection and seek to outdo one another in showing honour and grace., to all.

My Prayer

Loving Father, thank You for Your love. I pray that You would pour Your godly love into my heart

Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/romans-12-10

Love One Another with Brotherly Affection

• Resource by John Piper Modal Scripture: Romans 12:10    Topic: Life Together

“Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”

Our focus this time is on the two exhortations in verse 10. “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” These are addressed to the church. The “one another” is not everybody, but fellow believers in the church. This doesn’t mean you can’t have affection for an unbeliever. You surely can. And it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t honor unbelievers. You surely should (1 Peter 2:7). But the focus here is on the church. Wherever else you have affection, have it here. And whomever else you honor, show honor here.

Three Questions on Affection and Honor Toward One Another

Link

I have three questions: What? Why? And How? What is affection toward fellow believers, and what does it mean to honor each other? Why is this commanded? Why is it important? And finally, how to you experience it? How do you have affection for a believer you may not even like? How do you honor believers who may do dishonorable things?

1. What?

Link

What is affection? And what is honor? Both of these words (in v. 10a), “love” and “brotherly affection,” are emotion-laden words. They ruin immediately the stoic, Christian notion that we don’t have to like people but we should love them. Of course, it’s true that you can love someone (in one sense) you don’t like. That is, you can do good things for them. You can help them and treat them respectfully, even if coolly. But that is not the kind of love Paul is talking about here.

There are two implications in these words for love. One (philostorgoi = love) is the comfortable at-homeness you feel with a favorite old sweater or a 13 year-old dog, or the chair you’ve sat in for decades, or a friend that you feel so easy with there’s not the slightest thought of self-consciousness about keeping the conversation going or worrying about times of silence.

The other word, “brotherly affection” (philadelphia), is just what it says. It’s the affection of a family that comes with long familiarity and deep bonds. Of course you can have squabbles and get mad, but let some bully pick on your brother, and the family affection shows a powerful side. Or let one of the family members get a life-threatening sickness or even die, and there will be a kind of tears that do not come for others.

This is what we are supposed to have for each other in the church. Don’t react by saying, “I can’t do that. There are too many weirdoes and goofballs and emotional misfits in the church.” Since when are the commands of God supposed to be doable in our own strength? “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

What about showing honor? Verse 10b says, “Outdo one another in showing honor.” What is that? Honor is different from affection. You can honor a person for whom you have no affection. Paul doesn’t want you to choose between these. Do both he says. But they are different. Honoring someone is treating them with your deeds and your words as worthy of your service. They may not be worthy of it. But you can do it anyway. Some honoring means treating people better than they deserve.

For example, Paul says to Christian slaves, “Let all who are under a yoke as slavesregard their own masters as worthy of all honor” (1 Timothy 6:1). They may be scoundrels, but you can “regard” them as worthy of honor. You can count them worthy, the way God counts you righteous. That doesn’t mean you don’t see their faults. But you act and you speak to honor them.

Another example is in 1 Corinthians 12:23. He gives a comparison between weak members of the church and certain parts of the human body: “On those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor.” So showing honor is not always a response to something or someone being honorable.

What does it mean to “outdo one another in showing honor”? I think it boils down to “prefer to honor rather than be honored.” If you try to out honor someone it means you love to honor more than you love to be honored. You enjoy elevating others to honor more than you enjoy being elevated to honor. So don’t be giving energy to how you can be honored, but how you can honor. Put to death the craving for honor. Cultivate the love of honoring others.

And beware of honoring only one kind of person—one race, or one socio-economic class, or one educational level, or one sex, or one age, or one way of dressing, or one bodyweight, or one personality. God gets really angry when he sees this kind of dishonoring in the church. For example, James 2:1-6 shows the kind of failure to honor that really displeases the Lord.

My brothers,show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, 3 and if you pay attention [=show honor] to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” 4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored [!] the poor man.

So, Bethlehem, let us prefer to honor more than we prefer to be honored. And beware of doing it with partiality.

2. Why?

Link

Now, second, why is this so important? Why does it matter that we have affection for each other and that we prefer to honor each other?

I am assuming it matters because the Bible tells us to do it. So now I am seeking to get into the mind of God as it is revealed in Scripture and understand why he commands affection and honor.

2.1. First, God commands that we love with affection and that we honor each other because these two experiences (along with the others in Romans 12) show the reality of our new nature in Christ. In other words, there are behaviors that are natural and fitting for those who are born again and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and are justified by faith and are treasuring Christ and are hoping in the glory of God. These are behaviors that are fitting and natural and proper. They come like fruit. Don’t read into this by saying: if it’s natural and comes out like fruit then it wouldn’t need to be commanded.

Affection is natural because the new birth means that we are all born into the same family. We have one Father, and we are all brothers and sisters. 1 John 5:1 says, “Everyone who loves the Father loves whomever has been born of him.” In other words, love for the Father shows itself in love for the children. Affection for God brings affection for his children. We will spend eternity with each other in the sweetest possible relationships. There will be no suspicion or animosity or resentment or disapproval in heaven. God commands us to live in the light of that family reality now.

And the preference to honor others more than to be honored is also a natural fruit and demonstration that we have been so incredibly honored by God and that nature is in us. We are not honorable in relation to God. We are infinitely dishonorable to God in ourselves. We have brought great discredit on God for how little we love him and how much we prefer other things to him. Nevertheless God has given his Son on our behalf while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:6)—while we were yet dishonoring him—and honored us by rescuing us from sin and death and hell and Satan and by giving us a place at his table. And beyond all natural comprehension the sovereign Son of God not only honored us by washing our feet while he was here on earth (John 13:1ff), but in Luke 12:37 it pictures the second coming like this: “He will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.”

We have been so immeasurably honored in mercy that not to prefer to honor as we have been honored is to betray that we have not tasted the treasure of our salvation.

Loving with affection and preferring to honor are important because they show our new nature in Christ. That is the way children of God treat each other. It’s in their spiritual DNA.

2.2. Second, God demands that we love with affection and prefer to honor each other because this strengthens and confirms the faith of those we love affectionately and honor. When you are on the receiving end of affection and merciful honor in the body of Christ you experience the confirmation that you are indeed in the family. God means for all things to be done for the upbuilding of that confidence and joy (1 Corinthians 14:26). Loving with affection and preferring to honor are two ways of confirming and strengthening the faith of others.

2.3. Third, God demands that we love with affection and prefer to honor over being honored because this displays the glory of Christ, because he is the one who enables us to live this way and this is a portrait of his own character. Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” The tenderness of our relations is rooted in the tenderness of God in Christ. And when we elevate someone by becoming their servant, we are painting a picture of the way Christ was among us. So loving affectionately and preferring to honor displays the glory of Christ.

2.4. Fourth, God demands that we love with affection and honor each other because this lures the world to love him and all that he is for them in Christ. When you magnify Christ by loving Christians affectionately and outdoing each other in showing honor, the world will see and be more inclined to glorify God (Matthew 5:16). When you read the History of Christian Missions by Stephen Neill (Penguin Books, 1966), what you see is that the remarkable growth of the early Church in the Roman Empire was owing, under God, especially to the kind of community they created, not in communes, but in networks of loyal, loving, humble, affectionate, respectful, sacrificial relationships. The fearful and fragmented pagans saw it and were drawn (pp. 41-43).

In other words, there are reasons for why Paul commands us to love each other with affection and outdo one another in showing honor. These things are not like Christmas ornaments on the tree of faith. They are like branches, or fruit, on the tree of faith. They belong to the very nature of who we are in Christ.

3. How?

Link

Finally the question: How? How do you have affection for a believer you may not even like? How do you honor a believers who may do dishonorable things?

Everything in the Bible is written to answer this question. Everything I preach is aimed to answer this question. Because everything God does he does to make his children what we ought to be. So receive everything from God as a means of grace to make you love with affection and honor others.

But let me draw out a few practical things. The most basic I will just sum up together in a sentence. To become the kind of person who loves believers with affection and prefers to show honor rather than get honor you need to know that God commanded this; you need to know that these things belong to the very nature of your newness in Christ (they are fruit not ornaments); you need to admit that you can’t be this kind of person without divine enablement (you can’t create real affection and authentic honor); and you need therefore to pray earnestly and regularly that God would do whatever he has to do to make you more and more into this kind of affectionate and honoring person. Those are the biblical basics. Practically, I would add . . .

3.1. Preach to yourself that other believers, no matter how imperfect, are the children of God, your Father. Tell yourself the truth that they are your brothers and sisters, forever. Remind yourself that Christ shed his blood for them. They are forgiven for all the things about them that make you upset. They are justified by faith alone. Don’t claim that doctrine in word and deny it in your action. If God has clothed them with the righteousness of Christ, you clothe them with the righteousness of Christ. Yes they do bad things. Yes, they have bad attitudes. Yes, they are immature and annoying. But don’t dishonor the blood of Christ that covers all that. Glorify Christ’s finished work by the way you apply it to them. And then let affection grow.

3.2. Look for evidences of grace in their flawed lives. Every believer has evidences of grace. God is at work in every saint. Don’t dishonor the work of God by only complaining about the works of the flesh. Look for the evidences of grace. This is what God is going to do for you at the last judgment. He is going to gather up all the Ds and Fs in your life and burn them. Then he will spread out your Cs and Bs and rejoice over the evidences of grace in your life. (I don’t think there will be many As and certainly no A+s). Do for others now what God will do for you then. Rejoice over every evidence of grace. We do this with our children. Let us do it for each other. Let wideness of grace waken more and more affection.

3.3. Remember you were once utterly alienated from God and cut off without hope (Ephesians 2:12). You were undeserving of all divine affection and all divine honor. But God has given you both in Jesus Christ. In Philippians 2:3 Paul says humility or lowliness (tapeinophrosune) is the key to “counting others better than our selves”—that is, counting them worthy of our service. “In humility count others more significant than yourselves.” So never forget your undeserving position. It’s the seed of true affection for others.

Perhaps the most important answer to the question How can I become this kind of person? is: Wake up and realize and feel the preciousness of God’s mercy to you personally.

Remember how this chapter begins: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers,by the mercies of God” (Romans 12:1). Yes, by the mercies of God, we will love each other with brotherly affection. By the mercies of God we will outdo one another in showing honor. When a person has been plucked from a burning building, or from a sinking ship, or from a dread disease, everything looks precious, especially people. Oh, how affectionate we are to the people on the shore where we have just been saved. Well, that is our true condition. Wake up to it. Revel in it. Revel in mercy. And affections for God’s people will grow and you will love to honor them.

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Providence.

What does Romans 12:10 mean?

Paul is giving a list of short commands to those who are in Christ. He is describing what it means to live as a self-sacrificing Christian. In the previous verse, he wrote that our love for each other must be sincere or genuine.

Now he writes of love as a kind of devotion to a sibling. We must love each other with a brotherly affection. The Greek word used here inspired the name of a city in the United States: Philadelphia, self-described as the city of brotherly love.

Those in Christ are truly brothers and sisters. God adopts us as His children, welcoming us into His family. That family includes everyone who knows God as Father. Brothers and sisters, of course, don’t always get along. In most families, however, they share a loyalty and sense of belonging that surpasses most normal friendships.

Paul’s second command in this verse urges us to compete, in a sense. We’re told to outdo one another in showing honor to each other. If each of us acted on this, every person in the body of Christ would always feel deeply honored by the others and would never be satisfied that we are honoring one another enough. We would be motivated to continue asking, “How can I show more honor than he showed to me?”

Context Summary

Romans 12:9–21 is a list of numerous brief, bullet-pointed commands. Taken together, they paint a picture of what the living-sacrifice Christian life should look like. The unifying theme of the list is setting ourselves aside, to effectively love and serve the Lord, each other, and even our enemies. We must serve with enthusiasm and focus, mastering our emotions to rejoice in our future and be patient in our present. We must refuse to sink to evil’s level in taking revenge and instead overcome evil by doing good to those who harm us.

Chapter Summary

In Romans 12, Paul describes the worship of our God as becoming living sacrifices to our God, giving up seeking what we want from life and learning to know and serve what God wants. That begins with using our spiritual gifts to serve each other in the church. Paul’s list of commands describes a lifestyle of setting ourselves aside. Our goal as Christians is to love and lift each other up. We must focus our expectation on eternity and wait with patience and prayer for our Father to provide. We must refuse to sink to evil’s level, giving good to those who harm us instead of revenge

VERSE OF THE DAY

Romans 15:2 (New Living Translation)

Share Audio

We should help others do what is right and build them up in the Lord.

We are taught to love one another and do what is right removing sin from our worldly selves in this we should help the lost and new believers and others do what is right of God and build them up in the Lord

What does Romans 15:2 mean?

Paul has written in the previous verse that those who are strong in their Christian faith, fully convinced of the grace of God and their individual freedoms in Christ, should not insist on pleasing themselves at the expense of other Christians.

Now he puts it positively: Strong Christians should make it higher priority to please others for their good than to please themselves. They should take on the mission of building up their neighbors. This echoes what Paul wrote in Romans 12:10: that living-sacrifice Christians must outdo each other in showing honor. To put it another way, they must honor each other above themselves.

This is an application of what Jesus called the greatest commandment among human relationships (Matthew 22:35–40). Loving our neighbors as we love ourselves means putting their “pleasing,” or satisfaction, or good outcome above achieving our own good outcome. It’s a lifestyle of sacrificing what I want, to give to others what they want, for their good and growth.

Context Summary

Romans 15:1–7 concludes Paul’s teaching on how Christians with strong faith, those who understand their freedom from the law, should live with those of weaker faith. All Christians must please each other and not themselves. After all, Christ didn’t come to please Himself. With God’s help and encouragement, everyone in the church can live together in harmony and glorify God with one, unified voice, as they serve each other ahead of themselves. They must welcome each other as Christ has welcomed them.

Chapter Summary

Romans 15 begins with Paul’s encouragement to those strong in faith: to please other Christians before themselves so the church can be unified. Christ came to fulfill God’s promises to Israel and about the Gentiles. Paul is satisfied with the faith and practice of the Roman Christians. His work of taking the gospel to unreached regions of Gentiles in his part of the world is completed, and he longs to come see them. First, he must deliver financial aid to Jerusalem, a trip about which he asks them to pray along with him.

VERSE OF THE DAY

Galatians 5:13 (New Living Translation)

Share Audio

For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.

You have been called to live free happy lives righteously with one another. But do not use your freedom to act upon and gloat in sin and bad habits or to live in the flesh of the world. Rather use your freedom to serve one another in love.

Galatians 5:13, NIV: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” … Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”

What Does Galatians 5:13 Mean? ►

For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Galatians 5:13(NASB)

Verse Thoughts

We are not under the Law, but under grace. We were not born under the Law, which was given to pre-Cross Israel, but have been saved by grace, during this post-Cross, church dispensation. However, the church at Galatia did not understand the freedom they had in Christ, preferring to revert to the old legalistic way – which had been set aside by Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross.

We are no longer under the curse of the Law, for Christ was made a curse for us, at Calvary. Rather, we are under the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which.. by faith in Him, has set us free from the law of sin and of death.

The perfect Law pointed its accusing finger at our fallen, sin nature, which caused us to recognise our sin and our great need of salvation. The Law identified our sin, but was insufficient to save us. But Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth as a man, and died to pay the enormous price for our sin – for God, in His grace, sent His own dear Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, as the only acceptable offering for our sin.

He became the full and final sacrifice for the sin of the whole world, and Christ’s offering of Himself freed us from slavery to sin and translated us into His kingdom. But many believers in that Galatian church found it difficult to move from the pre-Cross legalism of the Mosaic Law, to the post-Cross freedom we have in Christ. They felt the need to DO something to make amends for their sin, instead of believing that JESUS paid the price for their sin in full.

Christ’s death condemned sin in the flesh and paid the full price for all sin. We do not have to DO anything. We have to simply BELIEVE that Christ did it all for us. Christ died on our account, so that the requirement of God’s holy Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but have been born of the Holy Spirit of God.

The incredible freedom we received in Christ, released us from the recurring need to offer daily sacrifices to God. It freed us from the annual obligations to have our sins covered for another year by the insufficient blood of bulls and goats. Having been saved through our faith in Christ,  ALL our sins, past, present, and future, are forgiven, and we are to put off our old former ways. We are to live by faith and we are to walk in spirit and truth.

But sadly, there are those that abuse the wonderful freedom we have in Christ during this dispensation of the grace of God. Some seek to turn the wonderful freedom we have in the Lord Jesus, into an opportunity to indulge in sin. Some allow the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life to dominate our mind – catapulting us into an ungodly, carnal lifestyle, that is detrimental to our spiritual growth, disastrous to our Christian witness, and dishonouring to the lovely Lord Jesus, Who bought us with His own blood.

Then as now, some Christians use the incredible freedom we have in Christ to indulge in worldly ways and carnal activities. They exploit our spiritual privileges and pervert the Word of God, by proclaiming that we are free to indulge in whatsoever ungodly acts and fleshly inclinations take our fancy. This is outrageous, and such misappropriation of God’s Word is unacceptable, unscriptural, and should be challenged and changed.

Once we have been saved, and set free from slavery to sin, by faith, we become a new creation in Christ. And although our sin nature is still resident within our mortal flesh, we have received power from on high to mortify our egocentric self, and to keep our sin nature nailed to the Cross – and we can do this through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, Who lives in us and guides us towards the good and away from the evil.

We have spiritual armour to protect ourselves from the ravages of the flesh and we have been given God’s sufficient grace to stand fast in this evil day, and resist the devil and all his worldly temptations. We are to live as Christ lived.. in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life.. and we are to love and serve one another – in the same way that Christ loved us and gave Himself for us.

No wonder that Paul reminded the Christians in Galatia that carnality is equally as abhorrent in the life of a Christian, as legalism, which binds us to keeping the Law which we can never attain. No surprise that Paul reminded them so forcefully that, “you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through

Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/galatians-5-13

Galatians 5:13 Meaning of Serve One Another Humbly in Love

Nov 7, 2020 by Editor in Chief

Galatians 5:13
“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”

Explanation and Commentary of Galatians 5:13

Paul’s great contribution is to explain the doctrine of freedom in Christ by faith in his death and resurrection for the forgiveness of our sins. But lest anyone make the mistake of thinking that God does not care how we act, Paul is quick to remind his readers that our freedom is not intended to cause us to sin, but rather to love God and one another, to be humble, and to serve. This is the essence of the Christian life. Jesus said that it was for freedom that he came. He said that whoever the Son sets free is free indeed (Jn 8:36). This statement and the one by Paul beg the question, freedom from what?

First of all, we have been set free from slavery to sin. The Bible teaches that because of our fallen nature, there is sin in our very flesh that compels us to obey it. Before we are saved, we can really only check one sin with another. For instance, if you are committing the sin of gluttony, you could keep it in check with vanity. But in Christ, we are made alive by his Spirit within us, and another way of saying that is that we are set free from bondage to sin. We still have sin in our flesh, but we have been given power over it by the Spirit.

Additionally, we have been set free from the curse of the law. Paul makes clear that the law was given as a babysitter, a guardian. It shows us a manifestation of righteousness, and in that sense it is good, but since we are unable to keep it, it is a harsh taskmaster who will never set us free, but will be our undoing should we decide to rely upon it.

Breaking Down the Key Parts of Galatians 5:13

#1 “You, my brothers and sisters,”

Paul is addressing fellow Christians. The Greek says only “brothers,” but it is not wrong to assume “sisters” in the same way that mankind includes womankind.

#2“were called…”

We should take great joy in the truth that we belong to the God who calls us chosen. Jesus said that his disciples were drawn to him by God (Jn 6:44), and such, cannot be taken away from him.

#3 “…to be free.”

This is amazing. While it is fine and good for Paul and us to refer to ourselves as bondservants of Christ (1 Cor 7:22), it is a service of freedom.

#4 “But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh;”

This freedom is true freedom. As image-bearers of God, saved and set free, filled with the Holy Spirit, we must still make choices in our freedom, choices for which we will be held accountable.

#5 “rather, serve one another humbly in love

Because we are free, we can serve others with love and humility. It is our bondage to sin, specifically pride, that would prevent us from doing so.

What does Galatians 5:13 mean?

Paul has spent most of this letter to the Galatians calling them to live in the freedom that comes with faith in Christ. With His own blood, Christ has purchased for those who trust Him a freedom from slavery to our sinfulness under the law. We are forgiven. We don’t need to toil under the harsh burdens of the law (Galatians 3:23–29). In his letter to the Romans, expanding on these same ideas, Paul put it this way: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

This raises a new question, though, one that Paul’s enemies surely asked: If there is no threat of condemnation for sinning, what is to keep people from sinning more and more? Without a consequence, won’t people just indulge in every kind of evil practice? Now Paul confronts that idea, too. He warns the Galatians not to use their freedom in Christ as an opportunity to selfishly serve the flesh by only doing what feels good. Instead, they should selflessly serve each other in love.

Again, whether or not we live in Christ is all about where we place our focus. Living under the law, by definition, is about trying to justify ourselves before God, by my own effort, through my own works. We focus on ourselves, and are really seeking our own glory as a result. Salvation by faith in Christ is about what He did, through His works. It’s not about us, at all.

In a similar way, living in the freedom Christ purchased should not be about focusing on ourselves. It is about seeing God’s love for us and striving to serve each other with that same love.

Context Summary

Galatians 5:1–15 focuses on what those in Christ should do with our freedom in Christ. First, we must guard it, especially from those who would pressure us to follow the law. Paul was confident the Galatians would resist the one leading them in the wrong direction. Paul also warns us not to waste our freedom in Christ to selfishly serve ourselves instead of serving each other in love. The entire law is fulfilled in that one word: love. Those who serve themselves, though, will always end up in conflict with each other.

Chapter Summary

Those who trust in Christ have been set free. Paul’s readers were in danger of wasting that freedom, by veering off in one of two directions. On the one hand, false teachers were pressuring them into circumcision in order to be sure of being right with God. On the other hand, freedom can also be squandered on serving only our sinful desires instead of investing it through serving others in love. God’s Spirit gives us the power to do that when we let Him lead us. Life in the Spirit bears powerful and positive fruit in a Christian’s life

VERSE OF THE DAY

James 3:17-18 (New Living Translation)

Share Audio

But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.

The wisdom that is received from heaven is first of all pure. It is completely compassionate and loving full of mercy and yields to others it has no favoritism and self picking as it knows knowledge of all the good deeds.peacemakers will plant seeds of good harvest in righteousness and peace in growth of good deeds.

What Does James 3:17 Mean? ►

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no partiality and is always sincere.

James 3:17(NLT)

Verse Thoughts

James was a man that gave the church much good advice. He reminded believers that God is generous to all and will give wisdom willingly and uncritically to everyone who asks Him for it, in faith. He expands his treatise on wisdom by contrasting the wisdom of the world with the wisdom that comes from above and pointing out that true wisdom is demonstrated by a man’s good and gracious conduct – by his noble works and by his gracious conversation. James also adds that true wisdom flows from a heart that is gentle – and a spirit that demonstrates true humility.

But if a believer tries to hide behind a veneer of heavenly wisdom or puts on a pretence of humility while harbouring bitter jealousies and selfish ambitions within their hearts, they are living a lie and being false to the truth – for to adopt a false façade of godly wisdom is really an exhibition of a hypocritical, carnal nature and a worldly attitude.

How different is the wisdom that comes from the Spirit of God for it is pure and peace-loving, considerate, gentle and submissive. The man or woman that has been filled with the wisdom from God is the one that is full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

Every one of us that submits to the Lord in faith has generous access to the wisdom of God – for the one that walks in spirit and truth will be the one that exhibits the sweet character of Christ, as we rest in Him and He lives in us.

Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/james-3-17

What does James 3:17 mean?

In this passage, James has been describing the so-called-wisdom of the world. It’s not pretty. Typical human philosophy is driven by envy and selfish ambition, and the result is all the disorder and evil we see in the world. Putting ourselves ahead of all others means creating billions of contradictory goals, and making excuses for hurting other people in order to get what we want.

Here, in verse 17, James describes the characteristics of the wisdom from heaven. This is God’s wisdom. This is the wisdom of those who trust God to provide all they need, to continue to give them every good gift (James 1:17), and to fulfill every desire of their hearts for eternity with Him in heaven. As a result, these believers willingly sacrifice opportunities for “more and more” money, pleasure, and power. Instead, those who trust in God make themselves available to serve the needs of others.

The result of submission to God is very different than selfish, worldly ambition. James describes godly wisdom as “pure,” translated from the Greek word hagnē. This means “undivided, chaste, or pure.” This kind of wisdom is refined and focused on exactly one thing: whatever God has called us to.

Godly wisdom is peaceable or peace-loving, putting a high value on easing conflict. His wisdom is gentle or considerate, not ready to fight, but ready to serve. This wisdom is reasonable or submissive, ready to see things from another point of view and do it someone else’s way. True wisdom is full of mercy and all the good things that flow from living this way. This wisdom is impartial, not showing the favoritism James addressed in chapter two. This wisdom is sincere, with no need to fake anything to get what it wants out of other people.

It’s amazing how much easier and more pleasant life becomes when a Christian gives up the requirement of getting what he or she wants at all costs. Without that agenda, there’s less and less need for conflict. And yet, the only way to give up that agenda is to believe that our good God is providing all we need in every moment.

Context Summary

James 3:13–18 questions our concept of who is wise and understanding. James quickly answers: the truly wise, understanding person is one whose faith in God leads to selfless good works. Wise people live in the humility of wisdom, setting themselves aside to serve others. That’s not worldly wisdom, which leaves each person responsible to serve him- or herself first. Earthly attitudes are driven by envy for what others have, and an ambition to take it. The result is disorder and evil instead of the peace, gentleness, and mercy that follow from living by heaven’s wisdom.

Chapter Summary

Human words are powerful. Our tongues are small, but they are capable of wreaking great havoc. Any person who could perfectly control their words would be in perfect control of their entire bodies. Instead, as sinful human beings, our tongues are untamable. Our words are fire, igniting the entire course of our lives. Blessing God and cursing people should not come out of the same mouth; we are corrupted. James concludes the chapter by exploring what it means to be truly wise. True wisdom is not necessarily found in those with the most education, money, or friends. Rather, wise people can be spotted living wisely in humility, participating in good works, enjoying peace, singleness of purpose, and gentle lifestyles.

https://youtu.be/nIFXlHm5QmQ

VERSE OF THE DAY

Romans 11:33 (New Living Translation)

Share Audio

Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!

How great are the gifts of riches, wisdom and knowledge how impossible and imaginable is the decisions and desires of his thoughts.

Transcripts

The following are sermons and messages Dr. Steven J. Lawson delivered through various the books of the Bible. The transcripts and audio of these sermons have been provided for your enjoyment. Please use these sermons to dig deeper into God’s Word as your faith is strengthened. We constantly updating with new transcripts as they are completed, thank you for your patience.

To God Be All Glory – Romans 11:33-36

Dr. Steven J. Lawson

Father, I pray that as we look into Your Word that You would strengthen our hearts, renew really a steadfast spirit within us, and give me the ability to teach this passage. And I pray for all who are watching and listening that You will use these verses as a means of edification in their soul. So we pray now the Holy Spirit will minister in me and through me and to all who are listening to this study. In Christ’s name, amen.

Well, if you have your Bible turn with me to Romans chapter 11, and we’re going to be in verses 33 to 36. Now, I have to say at the outset I know we’re not going to be able to get to all these verses simply because of the profundity of these verses. So I want to begin by reading this passage, which I must tell you has become really my favorite part of Scripture, especially verse 36, which we will save probably for next time. But let me begin by reading the passage. I have entitled this “The Inscrutability of God,” the inscrutability of God.

The Apostle Paul writes, “Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him, that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”

In these verses, we come to the closing doxology of Romans chapters 1 through 11. And the Apostle Paul has just given us the most comprehensive instruction on the gospel of Jesus Christ to be found anywhere in the Bible. I mean, the Apostle Paul has taken us from the depths of total depravity and begun the climb up the gospel of grace through justification by faith alone, and through sanctification, and glorification, and election, and predestination. And till now, as we come to the end of Romans 11:33 to 36, we have climbed the Mount Everest of truth. We have climbed the Mount Everest and scaled the heights of the gospel of God as the Apostle Paul, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, has unleashed his theological genius and has recorded for us the most systematic presentation of the gospel. So we now stand at the very pinnacle as we come to this doxology, and here we have the highest and the loftiest vantage point of the entire, really, book of Romans and the entire gospel of God’s grace. And so from this highest apex, we have the greatest perspective.

Now, verses 33 to 36 is what we call a doxology. A doxology is a short, condensed anthem of praise. It is theologically rich, it is emotionally charged, and it is filled with wonder and amazement that just comes pouring out of the heart of the Apostle Paul as he is astonished at this truth that he has just presented to us, and he wants you and me to be astonished as well. And so Paul really just opens up his heart and lets this praise for God come gushing out, really, like a mighty current of wonder and worship for God. And it is intended to cause our hearts to be ignited with worship for God. And I trust that as you’ve been a part of these studies with us that there has been this building momentum of excitement within your own soul for God and for what God has done in His gospel.

So as we look at this doxology which, I feel like I’m just putting my pinky into or a toe into the ocean of God’s amazing grace. Let me just give you the outline for verses 33 to 36, and we probably will only be able to look at the first heading today. But in verses 33 and 34, I see “The Inscrutability of God.” In verse 35, “The Autonomy of God.” In verse 36a, “The Sovereignty of God,” and then finally in 36b, “The Glory to God.” I think that is a helpful outline for us and as we look at this, I feel somewhat overwhelmed with what we have to deal with here, Kent.

So, I want you to note first, “The Inscrutability of God” in verses 33 and 34. And as we look first at verse 33, it’s really two exclamatory statements. It’s two sentences that end with an exclamation point, I think you can see that in your Bible. And as Paul writes this, his own heart is just leaping out of his chest. Paul is not stoic here, he is not mundane here. Paul is filled with enthusiasm for God. And by the way, the word “enthusiasm” is two Greek words en theos, “in God,” in all true excitement, at the highest level is “in God” and that’s exactly where Paul is here. He can scarcely contain himself as he bursts forth with praise for God.

So look at verse 33. He begins, “Oh,” and that just is a word of deep emotion. “Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” An exclamation point has been supplied by the translator into the English language. As Paul’s soul wells up with deep emotion, there is a depth to the grace of the gospel that Paul has just recorded in Romans 1 through 11 that he is just overwhelmed. It is a depth, he can’t even see the bottom of it. It is a bottomless depth without end, without bottom, to the grace of God in the gospel.

And when he says “riches,” “Oh, the depth of the riches,” the vast, immeasurable wealth contained in the riches of God, it staggers Paul’s mind. We would say it blows his mind, he is awestruck. And I trust that you and I are awestruck with the grace of God. And if we’re not, we just don’t get it. We have missed the message if we’re not overwhelmed in our mind and in our heart and soul. “Oh, the depths of the riches,” the vast riches, “both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.”

When Paul says “the wisdom of God” here, he’s talking about the infinite genius of God that is contained in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The brilliance of God to design the gospel in order to rescue unworthy, perishing sinners from eternal punishment. This wisdom of God is contained in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And just think of this vast wisdom of God just in the virgin birth, in the hypostatic union of Christ, that He was truly God and truly man. Who but God could have thought of this? In the active obedience of Christ to keep the law of God on our behalf, we who were lawbreakers, who but God in His wisdom could have designed this?

Think of the cross, think of the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ upon the cross. There you see the wisdom of God. None of us would have ever dreamed up the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, that all of our sins would be transferred to the innocent Lamb of God. We would have never thought of this, but God did in His wisdom that He reconciled holy God to sinful man through the blood of the cross, there’s the wisdom of God. And that He would be taken down from the cross, buried, raised on the third day, ascended to the right hand of God the Father. Only the wisdom of God could have designed this. It would have never entered our minds, not in a million years.

I want to take us to 1 Corinthians 2 just for a moment, because this will shed even greater light and insight. Because the epitome of this wisdom is found in Christ and in Him crucified. And so in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, beginning in verse 7, he says, “We speak God’s wisdom in a mystery,” and this wisdom he laid out at the end of chapter 1, which is very simply “Christ and Him crucified.” In fact, he said in chapter 2 verse 2, “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” There is the wisdom of God.

If you would turn back to chapter 1 and verse 18, “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.” What is the wisdom of God in Christ and Him crucified is utter foolishness to the carnal mind. And to the unconverted, darkened mind, when they hear the message of the cross it is foolishness. But for us who have now the mind of Christ, it is the jaw-dropping brilliance of God that we can be reconciled to God through the blood of the cross.

If you will, look at verse 21 of 1 Corinthians 1, “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached,” and Paul uses foolishness there in a sarcastic way. It’s foolishness to the world but in reality, it’s the sheer genius and wisdom of God in the cross to save those who believe.

He says in verse 23, “We preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness.” Verse 24, “But to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” This is the wisdom of God in the power of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, come back now to chapter 2, 1 Corinthians 2, and verse 7, “We speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory,” really meaning “to our good.” Verse 8, “The wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood. For if it had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Let’s just pause there for a moment. Even in the wisdom of God, He kept the rulers of the Roman Empire and the nation Israel in darkness so that Christ would be crucified, even that was the wisdom of God.

Now, verse 9 is what I really want us to see. “But just as it is written,” and verse 9 is quoting Isaiah 66 verse 4, and Isaiah 65 verse 17, it’s a verse you’re very familiar with but you’ve probably not seen it in context. “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which has not entered the heart of man. All that God has prepared for those who love Him.” We normally hear this read at a funeral, and normally hear it referred to as what is awaiting us in heaven. That’s not in the context, that’s not in the passage. What this is talking about is the wisdom of God in the gospel of Christ crucified. Eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and it has never entered into the heart of man this wisdom of God to save sinners by the blood of the cross. So what verse 9 is telling us is the inscrutable wisdom of God has designed the cross, and it would have never dawned on us that this would be the plan of salvation.

So as Paul is in Romans 11:33 and he says, “Oh, the depth of the wisdom,” this is what he’s talking about, the wisdom of Christ and Him crucified, the wisdom that God can be both just and the justifier, that God can save sinners yet in no way forfeit His righteousness by failing to punish sin. He has punished our sin in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So let’s come back now to Romans 11, but we had to go to 1 Corinthians chapters 1 and 2 to really grasp the magnitude of this, the riches of the depth of the wisdom of God. Paul also adds “and knowledge,” and this is really overlapping with wisdom. And when he says “knowledge” here, the idea is that as God in His wisdom designed the plan of salvation in the gospel, God was all-knowing, and He took into account every conceivable possibility and every detail and every person who would ever be conceived in the womb and every circumstance of human history, and nothing escaped His knowledge as God took into account every conceivable possibility that lay before Him as He laid out the various options for all of human history and for saving human history, nothing was outside of His knowledge.

And in His wisdom, He designed the perfect, not only plan of salvation in the gospel, but the perfect plan for human history. And all of the circumstances and all of the events in all of the centuries by which He would bring salvation to those whom He will save, God chose the one best plan at the right time, at the right place, with the right Savior, and only God could have designed this. So no wonder Paul says, “Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.” And as He looks into this mystery that has been now made known to us, he is overwhelmed. And I trust that as you consider the height and the depth and the breath and the length of the love of God towards us in Christ Jesus that has been manifested in the gospel in all of these extraordinary doctrines – propitiation, justification, reconciliation, expiation, and regeneration, adoption, all of that – that there would be…we would be overwhelmed in adoration for our great God.

Paul now follows up with the second half of verse 33, and there’s another sentence that ends in an exclamation point. And the exclamation point is added by the translator into our English language that reflects the intensity of feeling that is welling up in the heart of the Apostle Paul and I trust is contagious and spreads to us this morning. He goes, “How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” The second half of verse 33 actually is a restatement of the first half of verse 33, as he’s just drilling down deeper, it’s like Paul just can’t let it go. He has to underscore the emotions that are welling up in him as he is writing this verse.

The second half begins with “how,” and that really parallels the “Oh!” “How” indicates the strong emotion that grips his soul. And let me just say this, true Christianity has this dimension of emotion. I think too many times we are so scared of emotions in our Christian life because we’ve seen the abuse of hyper-emotionalism that we have swung the pendulum so far in this other direction that we’ve ended up becoming a bunch of library nerds, that we’ve just become stoic followers of Christ, and we think our emotions should be neutered. No, that is absolutely wrong. Here we see Paul fired up by the gospel of God’s grace, and I need to be fired up, you need to be fired up. If not, something is wrong with our soul. If this doesn’t light you up, then you need to reexamine really where you are in your walk with the Lord, because as Paul writes this, he literally can hardly contain himself.

“How unsearchable are His judgments,” let’s just look at these words. “Unsearchable” means that they are utterly incapable of being investigated to the full. We can only scratch the surface of this. And please look at the word “unfathomable,” “how unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” This word “fathomable” means that cannot be traced out by man, and it comes from a Greek word that I think is worth bringing to our attention that is a Greek word for “footprint,” like you see someone walking on the beach and leaving footprints. And putting the prefix “un” in front of it means we can’t follow these footprints. They go over the horizon and out of view, and they’re beyond our comprehension. That’s the idea here.

It’s like a hunter. Kent, you’re a hunter. It’s like a hunter losing the track of a hunted animal. You just can’t keep up with the animal in its cunning, in its instincts to escape. And as Paul is looking at the footprints here in Romans 1 through 11, tracing God’s grace again from the valley of depravity to the heights of sovereign election, Paul can’t keep up with the mind of God, the genius of God that’s being unfurled before him, and he can only see just a little ways in front of him. I think of Deuteronomy 29:29, “The secret things belong to God, but the things revealed belong to us,” and what’s been revealed to us is less than even the tip of the iceberg. The vastness of what is below the surface that we cannot even see of how God has all of this wired beneath the surface, it’s just unsearchable, it is unfathomable. And those two words really parallel “the depth of the riches” in the first part of verse 33. So Paul is just stacking up, one on top of the next, superlatives to attempt to express the infinite riches that are found in the gospel of grace.

So, let’s look at these two words, “judgments” and “ways.” We’re still in verse 33, “How unsearchable are His judgments.” The word “judgments” here really has a broader meaning, it’s not referring simply to the final judgment. It’s really referring to all of God’s sovereign, executive decisions. It’s really referring to the eternal purpose of God that takes into account everything that God chooses to do. It’s really synonymous with what we saw in Romans 8:28, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.” That word “purpose,” prothesis, just means “the eternal decree of God,” the eternal purpose and plan of God that is all inclusive of everything that comes to pass from eternity past to eternity future. As Paul has just walked us through sovereign election and predestination and effectual calling and justification, all the way into glorification, it’s as if Paul, obviously he can’t wrap his mind around the totality of all of this, and he’s just reduced to a statement like this, “How unsearchable…unsearchable are His judgments.”

And then he says, “unfathomable His ways.” “Ways” here referring to the path that God has chosen to take. And remember “unfathomable,” meaning those footsteps that just are lost on the horizon, Paul says the way that God has chosen to save a people out of the fallen human race who were in Adam but who are now saved in Christ, Paul says that road that God has chosen to travel throughout the centuries, it just cannot be traced out, you cannot get to the bottom of it. And so, I trust that as we have just gone through verse 33 that there would be a sense in which your mind would feel like a little thimble, and the infinite genius and wisdom and knowledge of God would be oceans of brilliance, and there’s no way it can fit into this little thimble.

I mean, I’ve got the coffee cup here and to try to put the Pacific Ocean, to try to put ten thousand myriads of myriads of oceans of God’s knowledge and genius into this tiny little cup, it would just be laughable to think that you could. And what little God has revealed to us is overwhelming. But there’s, on the other side of the veil known only to God, yet more of how He in His brilliance is working this all out. So, let us be in awe of God. Let us be awestruck by God. Let us feel small, let God be big.

Now this leads us to verse 34, and Paul follows up but by quoting Isaiah 40 verse 13. It says, “For who has known the mind of the Lord,” let me just tell you that’s a rhetorical question. The answer for which is “no one.” No one has known the mind of the Lord, not all of the mind of the Lord. We know a little bit of what He has revealed in Scripture, but really the comprehensive mind of God, no one has known the mind of God. And then he follows up with a second question, “or who became His counselor?” Who is giving God input to help Him in the decisions that He’s making in running the universe? And the answer again is “no one.” God doesn’t go to counseling. God doesn’t have a therapist. God doesn’t need any input. He doesn’t need any input from us even in our prayers. We’re not telling Him anything He doesn’t already know or hasn’t already worked out the solution to what it is. We’re not informing God on anything. He’s not getting updates. He’s not watching the press conferences down here to see what’s the next step. No.

“Who has known the mind of the Lord, and who has been His counselor?” Now to really understand this, we’re having to go back to Isaiah 40. So Kent, let’s go back to Isaiah 40, back to this passage because this is where it is quoted from, and we’re barely going to have time to squeeze this in, but we’ve got to see this in Isaiah 40. Paul is quoting from verse 13, just so that you can see verse 13, “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has informed Him?” Isaiah 40 verse 13.

Let me just give us the larger context here, Isaiah 40 is a monumental chapter that marks a dramatic change in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 1 through 39, chapters 1 through 39, have been filled with judgment upon Israel, Damascus, Samaria, Babylon, Philistia, Moab, Ethiopia, Egypt, Tyre, Judah and all the nations. And all of a sudden, as we come to Isaiah 40 verse 1, the tone and the trajectory of Isaiah suddenly shifts. In fact, liberal theologians actually think that there was a second Isaiah, a Deutero-Isaiah, who wrote Isaiah 40 to the following, because it couldn’t have come from the same man, it’s so dramatically different. Well, we know that it is the same Isaiah because he comes now to the message of the gospel of grace.

And so I want us to work our way up to verse 13. In verse 1 he says, “‘Comfort, O comfort My people,’ says your God, ‘Speak kindly to Jerusalem.'” It’s a double comfort that He offers, and it comes in what he says in verse 2, “Her iniquity has been removed, that she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all of her sins.” That means double forgiveness for all of her sins. Where sin does abound, grace does much more abound. And Isaiah now begins to record the message of God’s grace in the gospel. And so he says in verse 3, “A voice is calling, ‘Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness.'” We know this would be ultimately fulfilled in John the Baptist who would preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” and he’s preparing a way for the coming of Christ who would say, “Repent and believe in the gospel.”

And so we come to verse 6, this gospel is not drawn from the wisdom of the world, or look at verse 7, “The grass withers.” Well, let me do verse 6, “‘Call out.’ Then he answered, ‘What shall I call out?’ All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.” This is a reference to both human life and human wisdom. It’s here today gone tomorrow. It springs up in the morning and by the time the noonday sun comes, whatever little tiny shoot of green springs up, it just wilts under the hot arid sun in the Middle East. And it speaks of the shortness of life, and the suddenness of death and the length of eternity. But it also speaks the same of man’s little puny wisdom that he would have to solve his own problems.

And verse 7, “The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it.” Surely the people are grass, they’re just nothing, and their own solutions to life’s problems are nothing. Who I am, where I came from, where I’m going, what is life about, what is death, what lies on the other side of death? Man doesn’t have a clue to any of the real issues of life. Only God can answer and address those issues. So he says in verse 8, “The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” And contained in the Word of God is the gospel of God that Paul laid out in Romans 1through 11.

So what are we supposed to do with this “word of our God that stands forever?” He says in verse 9, “Well, get yourself on a high mountain, O Zion, bearer of good news,” that means “gospel.” “Lift up your voice mightily, bearer of good news. Lift it up and say, ‘Here is your God!'” The inscrutability of God, the autonomy of God, the sovereignty of God, everything, the grace of God that’s packed into Romans 1 through 11, he is saying, “Shout it from the housetops, take it to the streets, tell everyone of this gospel of grace that there is double forgiveness for all of our sins.”

So, he says in verse 10, “Behold, the Lord God will come with might,” He will come with might to save and to redeem and to reconcile. And all of that was accomplished in the Person and work of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. All of this is pointing ahead to the coming of Christ.

Now, look in verse 11, “Like a shepherd He will tend His flock,” this is speaking of the Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, “In His arms He will gather the lambs and carry them in His bosom. He will gently lead the nursing ewes, the little baby lambs.” It speaks of the Good Shepherd who would come by the eternal will of God and be born of a virgin, live a sinless life, die upon a cross, be buried, be raised from the dead, ascend to the right hand of the Father, and whoever calls upon the Lord Jesus Christ, He is mighty to save His sheep, He laid down His life for His sheep.

So we come to verse 12, “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,” the answer to that is “no one.” “And marked off the heavens by the span?” The answer to that is no man can even begin to measure the outer reaches of outer space. “And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales?” The answer to that is no one has done it because only the inscrutable, incalculable wisdom and knowledge of God could have designed the entire universe and is now micromanaging the entire universe.

There’s not a sparrow that falls apart from the Lord. Every hair of our head is numbered by the Lord. He’s causing all things to work together for good. He knows where every germ is right now on this entire planet, on this coronavirus. He has everything masterminded according to His eternal purpose and plan. And all of this is building up to verse 13, “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord,” and here the argument goes beyond physical creation and physical providence to the affairs of the spiritual kingdom of God to save lost sinners out of this fallen world. “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord,” we could add, “in the gospel of grace.” The answer is “no one.” “Or as His counselor has informed Him.” It’s laughable to think that any of us have had any input into what God’s doing in the world right now.

Verse 14, “With whom did He consult, and who gave Him understanding?” Again, the answer is “no one.” “And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge?” The answer is “no one.” “And informed Him on the way of understanding?” Again, the answer is “no one.” And specifically here, it is dealing with the gospel of grace. God has consulted no one on how to save you, God is taught by no one in how even to order the affairs of your life by which the gospel was brought to you where you were.

Kent, you were in Greenville, Texas, you were in a PCA church. There was a revival meeting and a guest speaker came and preached the gospel, and your father and your mother brought you to church, and that’s when God opened your heart and you were gloriously converted. And God not only designed that gospel that saved you, but God designed all of the steps of providence that surrounded the events whereby you heard the gospel of grace. God could’ve had you born on the other side of the earth with unbelieving parents, and you would have never heard the gospel. So, all of this has been designed by God, and that is what this is teaching us in Isaiah 40.

So, come back to Romans 11 and we’ll wrap this up. And Kent, we’ll talk about some application and if anyone has emailed us. So just let your eyes look at verses 33 and 34 again. I didn’t want to rush through this and just throw in verse 35 and verse 36. We’re going to be here next Thursday morning, and I want to savor verses 35 and 36. But look at these first two verses again, the inscrutability of God, the unfathomable, unsearchable ways of God in salvation. “Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?”

Let me just end with some points of application here and then we’ll talk, Kent.

Here’s the first thing, “look back.” Look back over the first 11 chapters. Don’t forget Romans 1 through 11. Don’t forget each of these sections, each of these verses within each section as Paul has laid out the gospel of grace. Let us continue. Martin Luther said, “Romans ought to be read every day.” We ought to know every word of Romans 1 through 11. Let’s look back and have sealed in our minds these great truths.

Then second, “look up.” Look up and give praise and worship to God. Let this not just be an intellectual cognitive exercise in theology, but let this theology ignite doxology. Let this truth be like gas poured on the fire of our heart that causes us to be fervent and passionate in our love for God.

And then third, “look ahead” at how you’re going to live this out. And we will be coming to Romans 12 and 13 and 14 and 15 and 16 in these future weeks, and we’re going to be here for a while, and we’re just going to march through this. And this is how we are to live out the gospel, on a daily, moment by moment basis. So let us be looking ahead as to how I’m going to live the gospel today.

And then “look within, look inward.” Do I know Christ? Have I committed my life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Have I truly repented of my sin and turned my back to the evil world system and turned my gaze to Christ? Have I truly thrown myself upon His mercy and said, “Lord, save me. I am the chief of sinners.” And if you’ve never committed your life to Christ, now is the accepted time. Behold today is the day of salvation. Where will you spend eternity? Where will you be five seconds after you die? You need to think that through very carefully. And there is only one way for you to go into the presence of God and to find His smile and His acceptance and His warm reception, and that is by believing in His Son, Jesus Christ.

So, may you look inward and if the Lord Jesus Christ is not living inside of you, may you turn to Him and receive Him by faith. And He says, “Him who comes unto me, I will in no wise cast out.” He’s the friend of sinners. He’s come to seek and save that which is lost. Just tell Him you’re lost and you’re sinful and you need to be forgiven, and commit your life to Him. And if you come on His terms, He will save you.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34″For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 35″Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” 36For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Romans 11:33-36 

Lingering Over the Praises of Romans 11:33-36

John Piper | Jan 27, 2021

It is good to linger over the praises of Paul’s heart at the end of chapter 11.

The riches and wisdom and the knowledge of God are unfathomably deep (Romans 11:33). No matter how far down into God’s wealth or into God’s wisdom or into God’s knowledge you go, you never get beneath God. There is nothing beneath God. And there is nothing above God. And there is nothing decisive over against God between his depths and his heights.

So Paul says in verse 33b: “How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” In other words, since God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge are very deep, so that we can’t give him anything he doesn’t have, or tell him anything he doesn’t know, it is no wonder that we are often confounded, bewildered, perplexed, and amazed by the ways and the judgments of God.

Then Paul says in verse 34, “Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” Answer: Nobody. In other words, you can’t give him advice he doesn’t already know.

Then in verse 35, “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” Answer: Nobody. In other words, not only can’t you give him advice he doesn’t already know; but you can’t give to God anything that is not already his. If you could, he would owe you. But you can’t. So he doesn’t owe you anything. And never will.

Finally Paul says in verse 36, “For from him and through him and to him are all things.”

And yet the final design and effect of it all is at the end of verse 36: All things are not only from him and through him, but also “to him.” Therefore, “To him be glory forever.”

Our lives are to be lived willingly to the glory of God. Or we will serve his glory unwillingly in our damnation. We are created and called to make the beauty and greatness of God known in the world. Our reason for being is to make much of God, and bring all the nations to confess that Jesus is Lord “to the glory of God the Father.”

What Does Romans 11:33 Mean? ►

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

Romans 11:33(NASB)

Verse Thoughts

The whole of Paul’s Roman epistle is glorifying the wonderful works of God, while exposing the depravity of man. It details the glorious plan of salvation and the enormous sacrifice of Christ on the cross, whereby fallen man is not only released from slavery to sin; delivered from eternal condemnation and reconciled back to God – but saved by grace through faith in Him; made a new creation in Christ; made a citizen of heaven and a joint-heir with the Son of God; bestowed with the riches of God’s grace; in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit; eternally secure in His gracious love – and so much more.

No surprise that near the end of this letter to the Romans.. Paul breaks into an escalating doxology of praise and worship as he cries out from the core of his being: Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how unfathomable are His ways! They are beyond tracing out.. for they come from sovereign choice of God’s divine righteousness and His everlasting grace.

The Lord is indeed rich in goodness and grace; mercy and love -wisdom and knowledge and power and in Christ we too have been made rich in everything – for He has bestowed on us the riches of His grace in Christ Jesus our Saviour, and by faith, we have a rich reward that is kept for us in heaven.

The riches of His wisdom are unsurpassed and the riches of His judgements are altogether righteous. His ways are incomprehensible; His knowledge is unsearchable; His love is never-ending; His judgements are righteous and His strength is invincible. He carries out great and mighty works, which are marvellous to behold and His glorious deeds are without number. Who can know the mind of God and yet He has made His ways known to the children of men.. through the Person and work of His dearly beloved Son – and by His grace we have the mind of Christ.

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. Everything visible and invisible originate with Him and comes from Him. All things live through Him, and all things centre in Him for He is the Alpha and Omega –

Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/romans-11-33

What does Romans 11:33 mean?

Paul has just concluded a long and complicated discussion of God’s unique relationship with Israel as a nation and with her people as individuals. He has compared and contrasted God’s actions toward Israel with His actions toward the Gentiles. He wrapped it up in the previous verse by declaring, in essence, that both groups have lived in disobedience and that God will show mercy to people from both groups in response to their faith in Christ.

Now Paul delivers a poem, structured much like a hymn, expressing his profound reaction both to God’s ways and to His mercy to sinful human beings.

Paul starts by marveling at the depth of three of God’s characteristics. He is stunningly rich or wealthy. Earlier in Romans, Paul has written about the riches of God’s kindness and patience (Romans 2:4), the riches of His glory (Romans 9:23), and His riches—of mercy—for the world (Romans 11:12). In each case, God’s riches are described as graciously shared and never-ending.

Next, Paul is awed by the depth of God’s wisdom, likely in the expression of His love and power in making mercy available to all people through faith in Christ. This is followed by God’s deep knowledge, perhaps a reference to His “foreknowledge” of all who will come to Him through faith in Christ (Romans 8:29; 11:2).

Paul’s next two lines begins with “how.” How unsearchable or unfathomable are God’s judgments, Paul wonders. In other words, human beings simply lack the capacity to understand why God decides what He does. God’s ways are said to be inscrutable, like a code we can’t break.

One reason God retains the right to do as He will when it comes to showing mercy or not to human beings is that we do not have the capacity to understand His choices. His thoughts, His ways, His decisions are beyond us. We are left to simply yield to Him and to worship Him.

Context Summary

Romans 11:33–36 is Paul’s poetic, hymn-like praise of God and His amazing wisdom. He quotes Old Testament texts such as Isaiah and Job. The prior passage explained how God’s intent for Israel came with some level of mystery. As limited, created people, we will never be able to fully grasp the mind of God. The proper response, when we realize how beyond our understanding He is, is praise and worship.

Chapter Summary

In Romans 11, Paul concludes his exploration of God’s plan for His chosen people Israel. It’s true that as a nation, Israel has rejected faith in Christ, but a remnant of Israelites has believed in Jesus. God has hardened the rest in unbelief, but will bring Israel back to faith when enough Gentiles have come to Him through Christ. Then many Israelites will trust in Christ, as well, and God will renew His covenant with His people. Paul concludes this section with a powerful poem or hymn about God’s independence and how He is beyond our full comprehensio

VERSE OF THE DAY

Psalm 139:13-14 (New International Version)

Share Audio

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

This is a personal verse for me as Psalm139 is my ultimate favorite scripture from the good book.

We all are masterpieces of God’s amazing handy workmanship made in the beginning by God in our mother’s womb and continued in the care of our mother after birth into this earthly world as a child of God our Heavenly Father. I raise my praise and spirit in voice because I am fearfully and wonderfully made by your works you mastered me in the beginning of time in amazing works of wonder I know this over all. No one can master your hand God I am made in great love and great works of thy hand.You have seen the perfect image of me before I was formed you saw this in you God the image of yourself.

The exquisite description of the development of a tiny human form from conception to birth, is a message that speaks of the omniscience and omnipresence of the Lord, during the development of every child in the womb of their mother.

The growth of the unborn baby, is one beautiful example of the manifestation of the Lord’s magnificent wisdom in His unfolding plan of redemption. Indeed, the language and content of this special song of praise, dictates that every unborn child should be treated with great respect – and that God should be glorified in the formation of each little embryo, and every unborn baby.

For the first 12 verses of this well-loved Psalm, the writer lays out the doctrine of God’s omniscience and omnipresence. He outlines the master-plan of our Creator, Who determined at the beginning, that man should be fruitful and multiply, and that he should fill the earth with his seed. God determined from the beginning that a man would leave his father and mother and be united with his wife… and together, they would become one flesh – not only spiritually but physically.

God is the Creator of the human embryo, and speaking of the moment of conception, the psalmist writes, “For thou hast possessed my reins. You formed my innermost parts. You have covered me in my mother’s womb.” This beautifully explains that the Lord is the Originator and Owner of the little life within the womb. God’s supreme sovereignty over every newly formed life, is the meaning behind this verse, “for the Lord formed my inward parts. The Lord wove me together in my mother’s womb.”

God has the ownership rights over every human life, which should be treated with reverence and respect, but too often the Lord is held in contempt by those He knitted together at their conception – and too frequently the value of the unborn is considered inconsequential, or a matter of unfortunate inconvenience.

The womb of the mother should be a place of safety, where the unborn is nurtured. The secret place in the bowels of the mother should be a place of peace and protection, but too often the rights of the unborn are not valued, nor are they treated with awe-struck wonderment.

God in His grace, takes an interest in the life of every conception, for each one is specially created. The Lord forms and fashions every single one, and the psalmist rejoices that God lays out the life-plan of each – and schedules every day of our lives.

Psalm 139 is a most beautiful sacred song, which brings our rapt attention to the hallowed essence of the child in utero, and of God’s sovereign role in each little life. While this Psalm can excite our wonder and praise, it can also stir up much regret and deep-seated grief, in those that may have wittingly or unwittingly participated in an abortion, or been instrumental in the termination of an unborn child.

Though abortion is a sin, and the loss of life through terminating a pregnancy is a travesty, Jesus died to pay the price for the sin of every man and woman, including this one. The Lord offers cleansing and forgiveness for the unsaved sinner, who in recognising their need of salvation, trusts that Christ is the acceptable sacrifice for their sin – including the sin of abortion.

There is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus, for He even gives forgiveness and healing to those who commit this sin, both in their pre-salvation and post-salvation life – for if we, who have been justified by faith, confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness – including this one.

Let us read through this beautiful Psalm of David, and recognise that the life of the unborn is given as a sacred trust, and that God is sovereign over all living things – and let us give Him all the praise and glory for the wonder of life.

Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/psalm-139-13

What Does Psalm 139 Mean by “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made”?

To be fearfully and wonderful made includes every person from the womb to the tomb as human beings who bear the image of God. “Fearfully and wonderfully made” means God intimately knows every person and all humanity belongs to Him.

Dave Jenkins

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139:13-14)

Psalm 139: Its Context and Meaning

In Psalm 139, the closing request, “search me, O God, and know my heart,” echoes the opening statement (“you have searched me and know me”). David, the Psalmist of Psalm 139, uses the word “know” (Psalm 139:1-2, 4, 6, 23) to communicate the Lord’s intimate knowledge of His people.

Then he moves in Psalm 139:7-12 to focus on how there is nowhere in the universe to run away from the knowledge of the Lord. In Psalm 139:13-16, David illustrates this by describing life in a very dark place, the mother’s womb.

Psalm 139:17-18 then exclaims how delightful the knowledge of God is. Then, in Psalm 139:19-22 he affirms his loyalty to the Lord and in Psalm 119:23-24, invites Him to examine his inner life by purging him from all that hinders his walking in “the way everlasting.”

“Fearfully and Wonderfully Made” Meaning 1: God Intimately Knows Us.

Because all humanity is fearfully and wonderfully made, the Creator and Lord knows the hairs on our head and has such detailed and precise knowledge of our lives down to the very nanosecond of when we will be born, live, and die.

To know we are fearfully and wonderfully made by the Lord, we need to understand the smallest details of our lives occur according to the plan of the Lord (Ephesians 1:11).

Psalm 139:14 contributes to our understanding of this subject by highlighting the all-knowing, all-present, and complete knowledge of the Lord. Such knowledge reveals the Lord is not a casual observer who takes knowledge in as we do.

“I will praise you” (Psalm 139:14) because:

• The Lord ordains everything from eternity past to eternity future and everywhere in between.

•

• The Lord who is holy, good, and just also sustains and governs and brings all things to pass from the creation of the cosmos to the functioning of our cells in our bodies.

Now that we have some understanding of who we are speaking about in the Lord, we now can begin to answer the question posed at the beginning of this article.

“Fearfully and Wonderfully Made” Meaning 2: All Humanity Belongs to its Creator, God.

Because all humanity is fearfully and wonderfully made by the Lord, He owns all humanity as well as the rest of the world He created, governs, and sustains.

Psalm 139:13-16 expands upon David’s earlier reference to the divine presence of the Lord, showing how His presence is so intimate that even in the mother’s womb, He carefully knits people together. By using this imagery, the Psalmist pictures the Lord attending to the details of his life as a knitter must pay close attention to knit a blanket to not produce a tangled mess.

The following truths also flow from this beautiful imagery used by David in Psalm 139:

• Because all humanity is fearfully and wonderfully made, all life is sacred (Genesis 9:6).

•

• Because all humanity is fearfully and wonderfully made, humanity is the pinnacle of creation created to resemble God and to fill the earth through procreation with fellow image-bearers of God.

• Because all humanity is fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God, all humanity should be treated with dignity and respect.

We Are “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made” But Need Redemption from Sin.

We also know from Genesis 2:16-17 that Adam was commanded not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Since Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, all humanity are now sinners by nature (Psalm 51) and by choice (Psalm 14:2-3; Romans 3:10-18).

Jesus, the Second Adam, fulfills God’s image-bearing purposes. The image of God in man marred by the Fall can only begin to be restored through faith in the finished and sufficient work of Christ (Romans 10:7-17; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8).

One day the image of God will be fully restored when the people of God shall be entirely like Jesus (Romans 8:31-39). The Apostle Paul speaks to this particular issue when he talks about “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15). Jesus is the image of God that God the Father intended Adam to be in the Garden of Eden. Christians united to Christ by faith are now seen by God the Father as His adopted children, daily being conformed into the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-30) in righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:24).

Let’s now turn to consider how the following three truths relate to our previous points mentioned in the earlier sections of this article and how they relate today to our lives as Christians.

How Can We Live Like You and I Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made?

Christians are the possession of the Lord, the apple of His eye (Deuteronomy 32:10). This reality should cause those who have been made holy by the Lord and whose sins have been forgiven because of the finished and sufficient work of Jesus (1 Peter 1:13-25) to now live rightly before the Lord who is holy and just in all of His ways.

1. Remember your divine Creator.

John Calvin states in his commentary on Psalms 119-150, “One great reason for the carnal security into which we fall, is not considering how singularly we were fashioned at first by our Divine Maker.”

Christians must understand since the Lord is Creator and Lord over His people, they belong to Him, and has every right to intrude into their lives and discipline “the one he loves” (Hebrews 12:6). Since the Lord is just, He will also deliver divine justice against sin (Hebrews 9:27).

2. Speak to others, who are also fearfully and wonderfully made, about Christ.

Christians are taught to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20), to do the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4:5), and to be salt and light (Matthew 5:10-12). Since Christians have been saved by Christ and are the possession of Christ and now have new desires for Christ, Christians should tell others about Christ.

Christians should speak on biblical, ethical, moral, and social issues to point people to the finished and sufficient work of Christ. So, let’s as God’s people get to pointing people to Jesus who is Wonderful, altogether Righteous, and who now empowers His people through the Holy Spirit to tell others of glad tidings and good news of salvation in Christ alone.

“For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well.”

(Psalm 139:13–14)

I love this chapter in the Bible. These verses. Just picture the psalmist overwhelmed by the beauty and the wonder, the majesty of God’s work in the womb. The way he crafted you and me formed our inward parts knit us together. What a picture of what is happening in the womb. God himself is wonderfully forming a child in his image and this is you. This is me. Don’t get over this. Just let it soak in where you are right now. You have been crafted, formed by God himself.

We praise God for crafting us together. He has made everyone fearfully and wonderfully in His image. May we promote the beauty and wonder of Psalm 139 throughout the world.

You know, I think we all have tendencies to think, “Oh, I wish I looked this way. I wish I had this gift. I wish I had what that person has.” Stop, stop and realize you have been fearfully and wonderfully made by God himself. You have been knit together by his hands. I think about the special needs area of our church and the families and children and adults with disabilities that are a part of our church and I see amidst what the world might say is not wonderful. I see the good hand of God creating every single person fearfully and wonderfully. Now to be sure none of our bodies are perfect in this world and there is coming a day when all of our bodies will be resurrected. “For those who have trusted in Jesus will be resurrected perfectly like his glorious body.” 1 Corinthians chapter 15 we cling to that truth. We cleaned that hope. When our bodies are aching, we cling to that truth and that hope amidst special physical needs that we experience in our lives, our families and church family around us, we cling to that hope.

At the same time, we don’t for a second doubt that God has done a wonderful work and every single person he has crafted and created and as a result we work to promote the beauty of this picture. Especially when we think about the sin of abortion. Taking this child being crafted, knit together by God himself and removing its life, interrupting this wonderful work God is doing. And I know there are people listening to this right now who likely have had abortions or encouraged abortions or supported abortions. And I would just encourage you to bring that before God, to confess sin, confess de-valuing and a dishonoring of his work in the womb and to receive mercy to receive mercy. And if you have confessed this before God, to be reminded of mercy. He loves you. He loves you so much. You don’t walk around with a scarlet A on you. You have been forgiven by God according to his abundant mercy, restored to God and all glory be to his name for the beauty you now see in Psalm 139 and the beauty you can promote in the world around us that we all are called to promote.

Like abortion, this is not merely a political issue. This is a biblical issue and it’s not just about children. It’s about beautiful women created in the image of God, who God is doing this work in their womb. It’s about men who are by God’s grace, a powerful part of seeing new life created. This about all of us saying, how can we glorify God in a culture that is missing the beauty and the wonder, in a world that’s missing the beauty and the wonder of Psalm 139.

Oh God, help us we pray. We praise you for creating, crafting, forming, knitting us together and our mother’s womb. Every single one of us. We praise you for the way you have made us. Help us to see ourselves today. I pray this just over everybody. Listen to this life. Help us to see ourselves today as fearfully and wonderfully made in your image by you and, oh God, we pray you’d help us to work. Help us work to promote the beauty and the wonder and the majesty of what we read here in Psalm 139. God, we pray. We pray that right now there would be someone who is considering abortion, someone who is about to perform an abortion, God, that they would not do it. God that by your grace you would keep that life from being taken. Oh, God, we pray for that right now and pray that you’d use our lives, our families, our churches, to work for life, life in children, life in women and men, and who you’ve created us to be as beautifully crafted in your image. To experience the wonder of being made by you. Help us, Oh God, to promote life in children, in women in men as your image bearers, as those who have been crafted and formed in your image. For your glory. We praise you for Psalm 139. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Download the weekly Bible reading plan to follow along with each episode of Pray the Word.

radical.net/biblereadingplan

Get Pray the Word daily by subscribing here.

DAVID PLATT

David Platt serves as pastor at McLean Bible Church in Washington, D.C. He is the founder and chairman of Radical. He is the author of several books, including Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, and Something Needs to Change.

TOPICS

• Abortion

• Gratitude

• The Grace & Mercy of God

• The Sovereignty of God

• Worship & Adoration

What does it mean to be fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14)?

Psalm 139:14 makes the well-known statement, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” This verse is often quoted, especially in discussions regarding the Christian pro-life position, but what does it mean?

First, these words are a clear statement about the amazing capabilities of the human body God has created. Our bodies are made of billions of cells and a myriad of parts that can only be adequately explained by a loving and wise Creator and Designer (Genesis 1:26-27).

Second, this verse gives an indication of our value from God’s perspective. He designed us. Much care is involved in the creation of each human being. As the verses immediately following Psalm 139:14 say, “My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

(Psalm 139:15-16).

Third, this verse reveals the inestimable worth of all human life. A direct application of this verse is the protection of life at all levels, from the womb to the final breath of a person’s life. This is why Christians care deeply about the protection of life in the womb (Psalm 139:13), caring for those mistreated or undervalued by others in society (Proverbs 31:8-9), and for the elderly and those with terminal illnesses. As 1 John 4:19 shares, “We love because he first loved us.”

Fourth, God’s qualities of having all power (omnipotence) and all knowledge (omniscience) are revealed in this verse. God asked Job, “Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind?” (Job 38:36). It’s a rhetorical question; the answer is, of course, “God.” No one else can take the credit for creating every person. No one else knows each person at the most intimate level. The same God who created the universe (Genesis 1:1) also knows the number of hairs on our head (Matthew 10:30; Luke 12:7).

Finally, in this verse we find yet another reason to worship the Lord Almighty. He has created us in such wisdom, power, and love, and the only proper response is to honor Him and glorify His name. As the Psalms note elsewhere, “There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God” (Psalm 86:8-10).

“Fearfully and Wonderfully Made” – What Does Psalm 139:14 Mean?

BY TIFFANY NICOLE

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Beautiful words, right?

More so, the whole passage this verse comes from is full of beautiful poetry. But what does “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” mean?

Is it as simple as it sounds? God thinks I’m wonderful and uh…I guess fearful at the same time. I get it, easy peasy.

Ha, close but no cigar.

The meaning behind this famous verse is beautifully simplistic and also oceans deep. Which could also be true for the entire Bible, which is why we love this extraordinary book so darn much, right? Keeps us on our toes.

The meaning behind Psalm 139:14, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” is honestly ridiculously revelatory and I have to say, my own sense of self-worth bumped up like, 3 notches after doing this study.

I hope it’ll do the same for you because it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are from, you my friend, are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Let’s dive in!

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made Meaning

Have you ever looked in the mirror and told yourself that you are average, inadequate, or not enough? If so, then you’re not seeing yourself the way God sees you.

You are not seeing yourself as a result of God’s divine creation.

Listen to what God says about you:

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.”

Psalm 139:14 (NIV)

This verse is nestled inside of Psalm 139 which might just be one of my favorite psalms because it is full of meaning and comforting passages about how God is an ever-present presence in our lives.

God is constantly aware of our problems and needs.

However, the key verse we want to highlight is, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”. This is probably not a new verse for you. Maybe you’ve heard it before at church, or at least seen it on Pinterest boards, Instagram posts, or perhaps even t-shirts.

But, what does I am fearfully and wonderfully made even mean?

In Psalm 139:14, the psalmist, David, is praising God because he is overwhelmed by the majesty of a God who could create him in such an intricate and unique way.

David is in complete awe of our amazing God.

However, to say, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” while praising God is kind of an odd thing to do, right?

So, let’s look a bit closer at what’s going on here.

The word “wonderfully” is the Hebrew word “pala”, which means to be separate, distinguished, or unique. Basically it means that God made you to be special.

No, I’m not trying to flatter you, it really means that!

There is no one else like you. You are the only you that God has ever created. God made you to be special, distinguished, and unique. 

But this verse doesn’t end with you simply being wonderfully made, it says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. The “wonderfully” part might be easier to understand without needing a deeper level of explanation.

But the fearfully part?! That’s a very interesting word for David to use isn’t it?

The word “fearfully” used in this passage of scripture is the Hebrew word “yare”, which is the same word the Bible uses when referring to have a “fear of the Lord”. 

When the Bible speaks of “fearing the Lord”, it doesn’t mean we are to be terrified of God. We aren’t to be constantly walking on eggshells, quivering in fear before God. Instead, what “fear of the Lord” is referring to is we are to have a respect and reverence for God.

Here’s a few examples of how the fear of the Lord is used in the Bible in reference to respecting and revering God:

“One the third day Joseph said to them, ‘I am a God-fearing man. If you do as I say, you will live.’”

Genesis 42:18 (NLT) 

“And because the midwives feared God, He gave them families of their own.”

Exodus 1:21 (NLT)

In these verses the word “fear” isn’t used in reference to being absolutely terrified of God, but instead to have a deep respect and reverence for God. We follow God and obey God because we respect His ways and who He is.

We stand in awe of how great and mighty our God is and we come to Him in praise because He is worthy of our praise. 

Praising God because God is worthy of our praise is exactly what David is doing in Psalm 139:14. David is coming to the Lord saying, “Lord, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made!”.

It may sound ever so slightly self-absorbed but it’s actually not at all. It’s like David is saying, “Lord, how great is your work, except your “work” is me! Therefore, how great am I?

However, I am only great because it is the greatness of God that makes me great. In the same way, I am only wonderful because God’s wonderfulness makes me wonderful.

Make sense?

You see, it was God that created your innermost being and it was God that knitted you together in your mother’s womb.

Psalm 139 says:

“For you created my innermost being;

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV)

So what David is saying is, “Lord, I praise you because of how amazing you made me!”. David is praising God, because of how amazing God made David to be.

Every single person is a masterpiece of God. Think about it, there’s seven billion people on the planet, but there is no one else with your finger print, or with your retina scan.

You are unique.

You are an original design.

Diamonds are expensive because they are rare, but you’re not rare. You’re the only one that exists. Or will ever exist!!

That makes you priceless.

You are a masterpiece. You are a priceless work of art. It is because God is wonderful, that we are wonderful.

Now let’s take it one step further, it is because we are to fear God that we are fearfully made.

Remember the word “fearfully” here is the Hebrew word “yare” which means to respect, to revere, to honor, to stand in awe of, and to be afraid of.

So, when God says you are fearfully made, what He means is when God made you, He made you full of respect, reverence, honor, and awe.

It is because God is worthy of respect, that we are respectfully made.

It is because God is worthy of reverence, that we are made in reverence.

It is because God is worthy of honor, that we are made in honor.

It is because we stand in awe of God, that we are an awe-inspiring creation.

Everything that we are first comes from the source of everything that He is.

We are made in the image of God.

Remember that when David wrote Psalm 139:14, David was praising God, because of how amazing God created David to be.

However, what is the opposite of praise? It’s criticism. So, when we say we are worthless, not enough, or insignificant, we are not only criticizing ourselves, but we are also criticizing the God who made us!

Think about that.

When you criticize yourself, you are also criticizing the God who made you. But God doesn’t make mistakes.

Psalm 18 says:

“As for God, His way is perfect: The LORD’s word is flawless; He shields all who take refuge in Him.”

Psalm 18:30

God’s way is perfect, and His Word is flawless. That means when God’s Word says that He created your innermost being, then that means God designed you exactly the way He wanted you to be.

“For you created my innermost being;

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

Psalm 139:13 (NIV)

When God’s Word says you are His masterpiece, then you really are His masterpiece.

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.”

Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

When you look at yourself and everything that makes you (your giftings, your anointings, and your talents), you should stand in awe of what God has created in you.

You should thank Him and honor Him for everything He has given you, and the gift of life He has bestowed upon you.

To be fearfully and wonderfully made is not just a feel-good Bible verse, there is real power and authority that comes with being fearfully and wonderfully made. The same Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you.

“The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.”

Romans 8:11 (NLT)

Never give into the lie that you are anything less than the most wonderful reflection of our glorious God, who is worthy of honor and praise. Remember, you are made in the image and likeness of God.

So, just as David did, give God all the glory and praise because of how fearfully and wonderfully He has made you!

Read More

 How Do I Know God Loves Me?

How to Hear God’s Voice

What does Psalm 139:13 mean?

Scripture credits God with creating children long before they are physically born. David addresses God as having formed his inner being before birth. Job says something similar: “You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews” (Job 10:11).

We know from Genesis 1:27 that we were created in the image of God. This passage also reveals that God wove us together in the womb. We are, therefore, not a product of randomness or nature, but of God’s omnipotent handiwork. God crafted each person in his or her mother’s womb to be a distinct individual. We owe our existence to Him and not to happenstance.

Because of this, human life both before and after birth is sacred. The unborn child is not simply tissue to be discarded at the mother’s discretion. Since every human being is created in the image of God, it is a heinous sin to commit murder, whether by aborting the unborn, killing oneself, or taking someone else’s life in an act of rage. Every person, whether male or female, no matter the ethnicity, age, or political persuasion, is someone made in the image of God and known completely by Him. Believers are called upon to love even our enemies (Matthew 5:44); often that begins by first acknowledging their inherent worth as a human knit together by God.

Context Summary

Psalm 139:13–16 describes God’s omnipotence: His attribute of being all-powerful. The psalmist, David, described God’s omniscience in verses 1–6 and His omnipresence in verses 7–12. In this section, he links omnipotence to the way God created the writer in his mother’s womb.

Chapter Summary

In this psalm David marvels at God’s amazing characteristics. God knows everything about him: where he goes, all David’s thoughts and everything about his conduct. The Lord knows what David will say even before David says it. There is no place David can go that God isn’t already present. David marvels at God’s creative work in the womb. He is thankful for God’s innumerable thoughts for him and for God’s presence day and night. Finally, David’s thoughts turn to the wicked. He considers them God’s enemies and his, and longs for God to slay them. David is disgusted by evil people because they rail against God and take His name in vain. He asks God to search his heart to see if any sin is there, and he asks God to lead him in the way everlasting

2 Corinthians 5:17

New American Standard Bible

17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

2 Corinthians 5:17

New Living Translation

17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

I was going through old belongings from my childhood today and I came across my keychain I changed to when I accepted the horrific things which happened in my life and in turn went from Bad to best turning from my bad to good and accepting Christ letting go of the old self and having something to begin a new creation and have a reminder of what I have that’s best in my life now 2 Corinthians 5:17 expresses that best when it says

17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

For God gave everyone a gift of life by sending his son to the cross to overcome death and give all salvation however it is a free gift given but it is our acceptance of Jesus free gift that allows us to have this gift of honor for it is our free gift but we must accept and acknowledge it to claim this gift for ourselves once we have accepted Christ and his knowledge and guidance we have accepted him as our savior thus accepting his free gift of taking away our sins and letting them die and wither away to come face with God’s NEW creation as we learn to follow in him and his guidance thus presenting us with new life as our old life dies off and goes away not to be held against us again You are so worthy of love thst Jesus died to save you now that’s what true love is

2 Corinthians 5:17-20

The Message

16-20 Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.

The meaning of 2 Corinthians 5:17: “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come”

•
ZA Blog
July 9, 2020
Share
Twitter
Facebook

Today’s post is adapted from Scott J. Hafemann’s video lectures on 2 Corinthians, now streaming on MasterLectures.

2 Corinthians 5:17 is one of the most well-known passages in Paul’s letters to Corinth, and perhaps in the entire Bible: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

In the paragraph of which this verse is a part, Paul does three things:

1. First, he draws out the consequences of the gospel that he has just outlined in the previous verses: “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”

2. Second, he elucidates its content.

3. Third, he describes how it is to be conveyed.

Let’s take a closer look at 2 Corinthians 5:17 and its surrounding context.

Consequences of the Gospel

The first consequence of the gospel is that Paul no longer regards anyone according to the flesh.

Paul’s concept of the flesh here is notoriously difficult to render into English, given its various meanings in different contexts. The NIV, in fact, uses 48 different English words or phrases to translate this one Greek word in the New Testament. In our passage, the NIV correctly translates according to the flesh to mean from a worldly point of view: “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.” That is, in accordance with the standards and values that derive from living as if physical life in this world is all that exists.

But what does this mean? To know someone according to the flesh is the opposite of knowing him or her according to the Spirit. And of course, to know somebody according to the Spirit is the mark of the age of the new covenant, characterized by the pouring out of the Spirit.

Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 3:3, for example: “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”

Converted criteria

Conversion thus entails a converted criteria for evaluating what is valuable and what is true. In Christ, Paul no longer evaluates others according to the world’s standards or expectations, just as he no longer evaluates Christ in this way. Apart from the resurrection, of course, Jesus’ death on the cross could only mean that he had been cursed by God for his own sin as a messianic pretender.

Look at the way in which Paul picks up Deuteronomy 21:23 in Galatians 3:13 to make precisely this point.

The Deuteronomy passage says:

You must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Then, in Galatians, Paul says:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.

So before Paul’s conversion, in which the glory of the resurrected Christ made it clear to Paul that Jesus had in fact died not for his own sins but for the sins of his people, Paul disdained the cross as a radical contradiction to Jesus’s messianic claims, and as a rejection of Israel’s nationalistic hopes.

But after Paul’s conversion, he preached that Jesus’ suffering as the Messiah now changed his people’s lives. A different translation of 2 Corinthians 17a puts it this way: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” For Paul, this change does not lead to a super spirituality in terms of spiritual experiences, but instead to the consequences that he summarizes now in verse 17b.

The consequences of the new creation

Rather than still belonging to this world and its ways, all those in Christ are “a new creation,” which means that they have already participated in the passing away of the old age and the arrival of the new—literally what Paul calls the new things.

But these new things are not a list of private spiritual experiences. Rather, they have happened in Christ. As the context makes clear, they are the new way of life that derives from the radical reorientation described already in 2 Corinthians 5:15: “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”

The new creation does not refer to becoming a new kind of super spiritual human being. Rather, it refers to becoming like Christ.

The contours of the new creation are moral. Against the backdrop of this passage, the new creation spoken of here refers to a people who now live for Christ by living for others. This is the beginning of the restoration of God’s people under the new covenant.

This means, then, that reconciliation with God through Christ, verses 18 to 21, is the beginning of the eschatological redemption of the world, the inbreaking into this evil age of the new creation to come.

Paul gets at this a few verses later, in 2 Corinthians 5:18–21:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin[a] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Themes from Isaiah

In Isaiah 43 and Isaiah 65, Israel’s restoration from exile is described with new creation language as part of the theme of Israel’s second exodus that is developed throughout Isaiah 40 to 66.

Greg Beale has therefore argued persuasively that it is plausible to suggest that reconciliation in Christ is Paul’s way of explaining that Isaiah’s promise of restoration from the alienation of exile have begun to be fulfilled by the atonement and forgiveness of sins in Christ.

And that this point is made abundantly clear by Paul’s allusion in verse 17b to Isaiah 43 verses 18 and 19, where we read, “Do not remember the former things and do not discuss the old things. Behold, I make new things.”

This language, then, is an exhortation for Israel to forget her past sin and judgment, and to look forward to God’s work of restoration and new creation to come. The key Old Testament texts concerning the eschatological new creation are, of course, Isaiah 43:16-21, Isaiah 65:16-23, and Isaiah 66:22-23.

As Paul’s passage therefore also makes clear against this backdrop, Paul assumes that with the dawning of the new creation, the revelation of God’s glory among a restored people results in a life of growing obedience by the power of the Spirit, in contrast to Israel’s continuing hardheartedness and the wickedness of the nations that led Israel into exile and brought those nations under God’s wrath.

Transformation is brought about by the Spirit

It is therefore not overstating the case to argue that the personal transformation brought about by the Spirit, in 2 Corinthians 3:18, is the evidence that one is part of the new creation now being spoken about in 2 Corinthians 5:17. Hence, whatever the new things are in 2 Corinthians 5:17, they must certainly include a new life of growing obedience to God brought about by the Spirit.

Thus, the new creation is cosmological in nature, but not cosmic in scope. The restoration of the rest of creation, like the final removal of human suffering and strife, is yet to come at the Parousia.

Hubbard has pointed out that Paul’s understanding of the current eschatological situation thus can be stated in this way: “The Christian groans because of the ‘already,’ while the creation groans because of the ‘not yet.’”

For during the current overlapping of the ages, eschatological restoration is experienced only by believers—and only within the ongoing epoch of the age in which the god of this world still blinds unbelievers to what Paul and all believers now know is true.

Though Paul affirms that the transformation of God’s people is already a defeat of the god of this world, equal to creation in its cosmic significance, he also emphasizes that the resurrection power of the new creation is presently seen not in cosmic renewal but in the ability of the faithful to endure in the midst of the continuing adversity of the old age.

The magnitude of what Paul has just said thus leads him to declare that the origin of all this can be none other than God himself. Only God’s creative power can explain the re-creation of people who once lived according to the flesh into people who now live for Christ.

Learn more in Scott J. Hafemann’s video lectures on 2 Corinthians, now streaming on MasterLectures.

What does it mean that a Christian is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17)?

Once you have accepted the gift of salvation, you are a new creation in Christ. This specific phrase comes from 2 Corinthians 5:17, but let’s take a look at that verse in context:

“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” —2 Corinthians 5:14-17

The key to understanding what it means to be a new creation is this phrase: “if anyone is in Christ.” That is, we are not “new” all on our own; we need Jesus Christ to be new (John 12:46). Our newness is nothing we have earned or that covers up who we are; we are a totally new thing that God created (John 1:13). Our newness is reflected in our opened eyes that now have a godly perspective—one that loves people instead of hating them, despises sin instead of indulging in it, walks in the holiness life instead of being dead and stuck in sin (Romans 6:4-7).

Does being a new creation mean I won’t sin again?

We are not expected to be 100% perfect. In fact, even though we are new creations in Christ, we’re STILL sinful creatures by nature. Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” but it goes on to explain how we “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (v. 24). Sinful impulses and temptations are an unfortunate part of life. Even the Apostle Paul struggled with sinful temptations:

“We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do and if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” — Romans 7:14-25

Does that sound familiar? And hey, if Paul struggled with sin and he still turned out OK, so can you! ☺

Though we can rest assured that our “old self” and old ways will never ever be counted against us again (Romans 8:1), all Christians will still struggle to control their sinful impulses. Anyone who says they never struggle with sin is lying (1 John 1:8). We WANT to do the right thing, but the lure of sin can be so strong we think we can’t resist it (James 1:14). But that’s where we’re wrong; we CAN fight it because we’re new creations in Christ (James 4:7).

Being a new creation means having better choices.

Galatians 2:20 explains this concept of being a new lifeform in a little more detail: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. This life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” This means that if you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, you no longer HAVE to sin. You are no longer condemned to always give in. You have a choice!

With Christ, we get a choice: run to sin or turn away from it. Without Christ, we are slaves to sin and have no reason to stop our own self-righteousness, self-promotion, self-justification—our own self-destruction (Romans 2:6-8). With Christ, we are considered perfect (like Him) so that we may enter Heaven (John 10:9; John 14:6). Without Christ, we are dead in our sin (Ephesians 2:1; Colossians 2:13). With Christ, we are alive as new creations.

However, with such a gift comes a responsibility to make efforts toward perfecting our faith in this life (Ephesians 2:8-10). This is a process called sanctification.

New creations are in the process of sanctification.

Sanctification is allowing old, sinful ways to die rather than letting them hang around (Colossians 3:9-10). Being a new creation means desiring a relationship with God rather than gratifying selfish desires (Ephesians 4:22-24). Sanctified new creations fight against sin rather than giving in to it (1 John 3:3-4).

Yes, you will still sin, but the goal is to resist willful sin (Romans 6:1-7, 11-12). Yes, temptations will come, but God promises to provide an escape route (Matthew 26:41; 1 Corinthians 10:13); your job is to look for that escape and RUN FOR IT. And you can always ask for God’s help when you feel like you just don’t have the will to run away (1 John 5:14).

To be sanctified means that you will hate your sin more and more and, as you mature in your faith, resisting sin WILL get easier (2 Corinthians 7:1; 1 John 1:6). Another part of you being a new creation is realizing that you have a new identity in Christ. You have power in Christ and can overcome anything—as long as you CHOOSE to fight it (Philippians 4:13).

As a new creation in Christ, you are empowered by and for righteousness. You are a wonderful, beautiful child of God, whom He has created with great care, love, and thoughtfulness for Him and for His glory.

“…to all who did receive [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” —John 1:12-13

AddThis Sharing Buttons

Share to Google Bookmark

Share to Facebook

Share to More

125

TL;DR

Once you have accepted the gift of salvation, you are a new creation in Christ (1 Corinthians 5:17). This means that because of Jesus Christ, God created a “new you” who is holy and in the process of being sanctified on earth (John 1:13; Romans 6:4-7). As a new creation, you get a choice: run to sin or turn away from it. As a new creation, you have a responsibility to make efforts toward perfecting your faith (Ephesians 2:8-10). You’re empowered by and for righteousness as a wonderful, beautiful child of God, whom He has created with great care, love, and thoughtfulness for Him and for His glory (John 1:12-13).

By: Catiana Nak Kheiyn

Cat is the web producer and editor of 412teens.org. She loves audiobooks, feeding the people she cares about, and using Christmas lights to illuminate a room. When Catiana is not writing, cooking, or drawing, she enjoys spending time with her two kids, four socially-awkward cats, and her amazing friend-amily.

What Does 2 Corinthians 5:17 Mean? ►

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

2 Corinthians 5:17(NASB)

Verse Thoughts

Having outlined the frailty of man’s flesh and the mysterious glory of Christ’s cross, Paul reaches his climactic conclusion, that anyone, who is in union with Christ, by believing His finished work on Calvary paid the price for their sins, has been made a new creation. Trusting that Christ’s death burial, and resurrection is the core of the glorious gospel… “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away; behold, things have become new.”

No matter what race or age, gender or heritage, nationality or language, education or intelligence, colour or ethnicity… the gospel of Christ is for ANYONE and everyone. ALL who believe are positioned ‘IN CHRIST’, by faith. Everyone is given an opportunity to become a completely new person, with a new nature and a new life. By faith, we become part of God’s NEW CREATION, and the opportunity to be born of the Spirit of God, washed in Christ’s blood, and become a member of His Body, is available to ALL.

All who believe are born anew and covered in Christ’s perfect righteousness. Old things are passed and gone, and by the power of the Spirit, we are made a new creature that has been born into the family of God. Old things have passed away. The old life is replaced by the new – and by faith, we have become new creatures with a heavenly destiny and a glorious inheritance. We are positioned in Him, seated with Him in heavenly places, and have been made joint-heirs with HIM.

When the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven, He entered His new life – His heavenly ministry. And by we are in union with that life. We are identified with Him and have become one with Him. We are united together with Him – and have received the indwelling Holy Spirit, to lead us, and to guide us into all truth. Paul himself was a prime example of a life that was radically changed, by grace through faith in Christ. From being the greatest persecutor of Christ and His Church, be became one of His most ardent admirers – dedicating his life for the One he loved so dearly.

As the greatest oppressor of the early Christian Church, the apostle Paul was supernaturally changed on that road to Damascus, when Jesus made Himself known to him, and Paul repented of his past life and turned to the Lord for His great salvation. And Paul became a new creation in Christ – old things were passed away in his life, and behold, all things became new, as he boldly began proclaiming Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

This new life is an abundant life, with a totally new nature and an eternal destiny. This new life in Christ is given to each believer as a free and eternal gift of God’s grace. This new nature is not a patching-up of the old sin nature, nor a re-training of the old sinful self. God does not patch up the old but makes us something that is entirely new, something different, something wonderful.

Throughout His earthly life, Christ was ‘in God’. He was filled with the Spirit and walking with God. He remained in sweet communion with His Father and delighted to do His bidding. His food was to do the will of His heavenly Father and to finish the work He had sent Him to do. The Lord only did those things that He heard from the Father – for God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ. In the same way, the new life of a believer, which is in union with Christ, is to live out this earthly life in Christ and for Christ – only saying and doing those things that we hear from HIM – daily delighting to do HIS will.

We are to live in sweet communion with the lovely Lord Jesus and only do those things that we hear from Him. Let us always remember that in Christ we are not the old model, repaired or mended. It is not the old life that God reconditions or restores. We are not simply set-right, but made an entirely new person; we are born into a new creation; we are identified with Christ.

Let us accept this truth in righteousness and true holiness by faith, and in everything we do, let us do ALL, to His praise and glory, from

Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/2-corinthians-5-17

What does it mean that a Christian is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17)?

ANSWER

The new creation is described in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” The word “therefore” refers us back to verses 14-16 where Paul tells us that all believers have died with Christ and no longer live for themselves. Our lives are no longer worldly; they are now spiritual. Our “death” is that of the old sin nature which was nailed to the cross with Christ. It was buried with Him, and just as He was raised up by the Father, so are we raised up to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). That new person that was raised up is what Paul refers to in 2 Corinthians 5:17 as the “new creation.”

To understand the new creation, first we must grasp that it is in fact a creation, something created by God. John 1:13 tells us that this new birth was brought about by the will of God. We did not inherit the new nature or decide to re-create ourselves anew. Neither did God simply clean up our old nature; He created something entirely fresh and unique. The new creation is completely new, brought about from nothing, just as the whole universe was created by God ex nihilo, from nothing. Only the Creator could accomplish such a feat.

Second, “old things have passed away.” The “old” refers to everything that is part of our old nature—natural pride, love of sin, reliance on works, and our former opinions, habits and passions. Most significantly, what we loved has passed away, especially the supreme love of self and with it self-righteousness, self-promotion, and self-justification. The new creature looks outwardly toward Christ instead of inwardly toward self. The old things died, nailed to the cross with our sin nature.

Along with the old passing away, “the new has come!” Old, dead things are replaced with new things, full of life and the glory of God. The newborn soul delights in the things of God and abhors the things of the world and the flesh. Our purposes, feelings, desires, and understandings are fresh and different. We see the world differently. The Bible seems to be a new book, and though we may have read it before, there is a beauty about it which we never saw before, and which we wonder at not having perceived. The whole face of nature seems to us to be changed, and we seem to be in a new world. The heavens and the earth are filled with new wonders, and all things seem now to speak forth the praise of God. There are new feelings toward all people—a new kind of love toward family and friends, a new compassion never before felt for enemies, and a new love for all mankind. The things we once loved, we now detest. The sin we once held onto, we now desire to put away forever. We “put off the old man with his deeds” (Colossians 3:9), and put on the “new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

What about the Christian who continues to sin?

There is a difference between continuing to sin and continuing to live in sin. No one reaches sinless perfection in this life, but the redeemed Christian is being sanctified (made holy) day by day, sinning less and hating it more each time he fails. Yes, we still sin, but unwillingly and less and less frequently as we mature. Our new self hates the sin that still has a hold on us. The difference is that the new creation is no longer a slave to sin, as we formerly were. We are now freed from sin and it no longer has power over us (Romans 6:6-7). Now we are empowered by and for righteousness. We now have the choice to “let sin reign” or to count ourselves “dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11-12). Best of all, now we have the power to choose the latter.

The new creation is a wondrous thing, formed in the mind of God and created by His power and for His glory.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

True Identity: Finding Significance & Freedom Through Who You Are in Christ by John Majors

More insights from your Bible study – Get Started with Logos Bible Software for Free!

RELATED TOPICS

In what ways is becoming a Christian becoming an entirely new man/woman?

What is the meaning of “from glory to glory” in 2 Corinthians 3:18?

What does it mean that we have treasures in jars of clay (2 Corinthians 4:7)?

What does it mean that Jesus became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21)?

What does it mean that the love of Christ compels us (2 Corinthians 5:14)?

Return to:

Questions about 2 Corinthians

What does it mean that a Christian is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17)?

2 Corinthians 5:17

• Bible / Our Library / Bible Commentaries / John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible / 2 Corinthians / 2 Corinthians 5 / 2 Corinthians 5:17

Share Tweet Save

• 2 Corinthians 5:16 2 Corinthians 5:18

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore if any man be in Christ

There’s a secret being in Christ from everlasting; so all that are loved by him, espoused unto him, chosen and preserved in him, to whom he was a covenant head, surety, and representative, are in him, united to him, and one with him; not in such sense as the Father is in him, and the human nature is in him, but as husband and wife, and head and members are one: and there is an open being in Christ at conversion, when a man believes in Christ, and gives up himself to him; faith does not put a man into Christ, but makes him appear to be in him: and such an one “is a new creature”; or, as some read it, “let him be a new creature”: who understand being in Christ to be by profession, and the sense this, whoever is in the kingdom or church of Christ, who professes himself to be a Christian, ought to be a new creature: the Arabic version reads it, “he that is in the faith of Christ is a new creature”. All such who are secretly in Christ from everlasting, though as yet some of them may not be new creatures, yet they shall be sooner or later; and those who are openly in him, or are converted persons, are actually so; they are a new “creation”, as the words may be rendered: (hvdx hyyrb) , “a new creation”, is a phrase often used by the Jewish F8 doctors, and is applied by the apostle to converted persons; and designs not an outward reformation of life and manners, but an inward principle of grace, which is a creature, a creation work, and so not man’s, but God’s; and in which man is purely passive, as he was in his first creation; and this is a new creature, or a new man, in opposition to, and distinction from the old man, the corruption of nature; and because it is something anew implanted in the soul, which never was there before; it is not a working upon, and an improvement of the old principles of nature, but an implantation of new principles of grace and holiness; here is a new heart, and a new spirit, and in them new light and life, new affections and desires, new delights and joys; here are new eyes to see with, new ears to hear with, new feet to walk, and new hands to work and act with:

old things are passed away:

the old course of living, the old way of serving God, whether among Jews or Gentiles; the old legal righteousness, old companions and acquaintance are dropped; and all external things, as riches, honours, learning, knowledge, former sentiments of religion, are relinquished:

behold, all things are become new;

there is a new course of life, both of faith and holiness; a new way of serving God through Christ by the Spirit, and from principles of grace; a new, another, and better righteousness is received and embraced; new companions are sought after, and delighted in; new riches, honours, glory, a new Jerusalem, yea, new heavens, and a new earth, are expected by new creatures: or the sense of the whole may be this, if any man is entered into the kingdom of God, into the Gospel dispensation, into a Gospel church state, which seems to be the sense of the phrase “in Christ”, in ( Galatians 3:28 ) ( 5:6 ) ( 6:15 ) he is become a new creature, or is got into a new creation, as it were into a new world, whether he be a Jew or a Gentile; for with respect to the former state of either, “old things are passed away”; if a Jew, the whole Mosaic economy is abolished; the former covenant is waxen old, and vanished away; the old ordinances of circumcision and the passover are no more; the daily sacrifice is ceased, and all the other sacrifices are at an end, Christ, the great sacrifice, being offered up; the priesthood of Aaron is antiquated, there is a change of it, and of the whole law; the observance of holy, days, new moons and sabbaths, is over; the whole ceremonial law is at end; all the shadows of it are fled and gone, the things they were shadows of being come by Christ, the sum and substance of them; and there is no more a serving God in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the Spirit: and if a Gentile, all the former idols he worshipped he turns from, and his language is, “what have I to do any more with idols? or what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?” all former sacrifices, superstitious rites and ceremonies, with which he worshipped them, are relinquished by him; with all other Heathenish customs, rules, and methods of conduct he had been used to: “behold, all things are become new”; to the one, and to the other; the Gospel dispensation is a new state of things; a new form of church state is erected, not national, as among the Jews, but congregational, consisting of persons gathered out of the world, and anew embodied together; new ordinances are appointed, which were never in use before, as baptism and the Lord’s supper; a new and living way is opened by the blood of Christ into the holiest of all, not by the means of slain beasts, as among the Jews, nor by petty deities as with the Gentiles; a new commandment of love is enjoined all the followers of the Lamb; and another name is given them, a new name, which the mouth of the Lord their God has named, not of Jews nor Gentiles, but of Christians; and new songs are put into their mouths, even praise to God: in short, the Gospel church state seems to be, as it were, a new creation, and perhaps is meant by the new heavens and new earth, ( Isaiah 65:15 Isaiah 65:17 ) as well as those who are the proper members of it, are new creatures in the sense before given.

FOOTNOTES:

F8 T. Hieros. Roshhashana, fol. 59. 3. Vajikra Rabba, fol. 170. 4. Bemidbar Rabba, fol, 202. 3. Cosri, fol. 62. 2. & R. Levi ben Gersom in Exod, fol. 108. 1. Tzeror Hammor, fol. 121. 2.

• 2 Corinthians 5:16 2 Corinthians 5:18

Read 2 Corinthians 5:17

What does 2 Corinthians 5:17 mean? [⇑ See verse text ⇑]

Paul has written that Christ’s death for sin has changed the way he regards people. Instead of looking at each person as a mere human being, he must view those who are in Christ as something entirely different. Those who are “in Christ” are those who have faith in Him, credited with Christ’s righteous life, and their sin forgiven by Christ’s death in their place. Such people are new creatures. Those “in Christ” have become something they were not before. Their identity has changed from being the fallen version of themselves, to being associated with the righteousness of Christ. That’s who they are now.

In fact, the old version of a Christian, who they were before they were “in Christ,” is not recoverable. The old is gone, Paul writes. The new has come. All the old dreams and ideas and agendas and purposes have ceased to exist and have been replaced by Christ’s ideas and agendas and purposes in an entirely new creature called “Christian.”

Paul’s words are true in another way. The old way of humanity is also gone. The old way of the law is also gone. Christ is the long-promised new Covenant that makes it possible for men and women to be made new once and for all, and for eternity, with no possibility of returning to the old.

Context Summary

Second Corinthians 5:11–21 describes an appeal to those in Corinth who know Paul. It’s important they understand he is not crazy for continuing to preach the gospel, even though it leads to so much suffering for him. Christ’s love compels Paul to continue to tell all people that they be reconciled to God through faith in Christ, just as he was. In Christ, God is not counting people’s sins against them, but instead giving them credit for Christ’s righteous life. As Christ’s ambassador, Paul begged all people to be reconciled to God through faith in Christ.

Chapter Summary

Why does Paul endure so much suffering for preaching about Christ? He continues here his discussion of eternity, comparing our earthly bodies to living in a tent. Paul would rather live in the eternal body God has prepared for those who trust in Christ, free from the groaning and burden that afflicts everyone here. With that to look forward to, he preaches with courage that all in Christ are new creations. In Christ, God is reconciling people to Himself, not counting their sin against them. Paul implores everyone to be reconciled to God in this way through faith in Christ

Isaiah 41:10

Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

Do not fear, for I am with you

Do not feel broken, for I am your God.

I will give you strength and help you in all that you do.

I will hold you high with my rind hand standing you out of the crowd of others so that you are noticed in me.

“I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”: God promises to uphold us. More than that, He promises to uphold us with His righteous right hand. That means, when you lose your footing, He’s going to be there to hold you up, if you’ll trust in Him. … Regardless of your circumstances, God is righteous.Aug 15, 2016

MONDAY ENCOURAGEMENT: ISAIAH 41:10

Written by H, Posted in Christian Living, Encouragement

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

Isaiah 41:10 is a great example of the encouragement found within the book of Isaiah. The book of Isaiah is filled with so many countless encouraging verses, which all reflect on the power and love and providence of our Lord God.

In verse 10, there are several layers and parts that stand out to me, and that provide reassurance, hope, strength, and peace:

“Fear not, for I am with you”: God is always with us. He is with you, day and night, no matter what you’re going through. That’s a promise! I love in the first part of verse 10 how we are commanded to “Fear not,” because God is with us. What a promise! What an encouragement! We have no reason to fear, because God is with us.

“Be not dismayed, for I am your God”: Dismay is another word for distress, usually instigated by something unexpected. In Isaiah 41:10, we are encouraged to be not dismayed. Why? “for I am your God”. We serve the Living Christ, Who conquered death for us, so there is no reason to be dismayed. This is something I need to constantly remind myself of, especially when life throws curve balls my way.

“I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you”: God promises to provide us with strength, and with help. When you’re feeling like you can’t go on or you just don’t know how you’re going to get through the day, God will be right with you to provide you with the strength and help you need, to get through whatever you’re facing.

“I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”: God promises to uphold us. More than that, He promises to uphold us with His righteous right hand. That means, when you lose your footing, He’s going to be there to hold you up, if you’ll trust in Him. What I love about this verse, is that we are told God will uphold us with His righteous right hand. Righteous: Pure, virtuous, upstanding, ethical, honest. Regardless of your circumstances, God is righteous. And He will uphold you with His right hand. His right hand! Throughout scripture, God’s right hand is mentioned several times. Historically, to be put on someone’s right hand is to be held in equal honour. God’s right hand also symbolizes His power and His greatness.

Whatever you’re facing this week, remember Isaiah 41:10 and claim it for yourself!

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

What Does Isaiah 41:10 Mean? ►

‘Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’

Isaiah 41:10(NASB)

Verse Thoughts

It has been said that the comforting words, Fear Not, appear in the bible 366 times, one for each day of the year, plus one for leap year. But no matter how many times these words of encouragement appear, let us always remember that they are spoken by the Creator of the Universe. He is the one Who tells His children not to fear, nor to be discouraged, because He is our God and that should be sufficient. We should simply take Him at His word.

Faith in His Word is what God desires of us all and are warned that unless we trust His word we can’t please Him. But the Lord is gracious to us for He knows that we are but dust. He knows that doubts and discouragement can be triggered by so many things that mar our lives, and so He often expands His words of comfort with a beautiful post-script, underlining and emphasizing His loving-kindness. There are three such extensions in this beautiful verse that was first given to Israel.

Firstly, we are not to fear for He has promised to strengthen all that are His and the Jesus amplifies this truth to Paul, when He tells him that Christ’s strength is sufficient for His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

Secondly, the Lord continues, that as well as having His strength for all we need, He will be an ever-present help in trouble. Indeed, the Lord Jesus Himself promised, Lo I am with You always, even to the end of the age and furthermore He even sent His indwelling holy Spirit to be our present Helper and our resident Comforter at all times and in all places.

Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/isaiah-41-10

What Does Isaiah 41:10 Mean? ►

‘Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’

Isaiah 41:10(NASB)

Verse Thoughts

It has been said that the comforting words, Fear Not, appear in the bible 366 times, one for each day of the year, plus one for leap year. But no matter how many times these words of encouragement appear, let us always remember that they are spoken by the Creator of the Universe. He is the one Who tells His children not to fear, nor to be discouraged, because He is our God and that should be sufficient. We should simply take Him at His word.

Faith in His Word is what God desires of us all and are warned that unless we trust His word we can’t please Him. But the Lord is gracious to us for He knows that we are but dust. He knows that doubts and discouragement can be triggered by so many things that mar our lives, and so He often expands His words of comfort with a beautiful post-script, underlining and emphasizing His loving-kindness. There are three such extensions in this beautiful verse that was first given to Israel.

Firstly, we are not to fear for He has promised to strengthen all that are His and the Jesus amplifies this truth to Paul, when He tells him that Christ’s strength is sufficient for His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

Secondly, the Lord continues, that as well as having His strength for all we need, He will be an ever-present help in trouble. Indeed, the Lord Jesus Himself promised, Lo I am with You always, even to the end of the age and furthermore He even sent His indwelling holy Spirit to be our present Helper and our resident Comforter at all times and in all places.

Thirdly, His reassurance stretches out His arms of love still wider, with the pledge to uphold us with His righteous right hand and to prevent our steps from slipping by enfolding up in His arms of righteousness.

YES – Christ is our righteousness, and Christ is our ever-present help in time of trouble, and it is Christ Whose grace is always sufficient for all our needs for Christ is our covering – how then can we fear, if God be for us who is there to fear? Whether the comforting words, Fear Not, appear in the bible 366 times of simply once, we should hearken to His word and trust His promises for His word is trustworthy and true.

Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/isaiah-41-10

Fear Not for I am With You” – True Bible Meaning of Isaiah 41:10

Anne Peterson

Love Where You’re Living

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

I reached out to my Facebook community and asked, “What is your biggest fear?” But I did not expect the abundance of responses I received. Fear is universal. All of us deal with things that scare us. So how should we respond to God’s Word, ‘Fear not for I am with you?’ Can we honestly take to heart Isaiah 41:10 today and experience freedom because of God’s presence? What does this Bible verse really mean?

First of all, we can’t deal with anything we don’t acknowledge. We need to be honest with ourselves and face those fears.

You may be worrying about your children (young or grown), or worrying about a loved one who is sick. Maybe you’re wondering how you’re going to live when a family member has died. All of us can be fearful about our health, or our finances. We can worry about all sorts of things, big and small. And yet, our God knew we would struggle with fear.

So he made sure he wrote about it often in his love letter to us.

So do not fear, for I am with you

God is aware of our tendency to fear. And He cares about every fear we face. In the Bible we find commands and encouragements to not feel fear, take courage, fear not, and more – over 300 times. God doesn’t want us to be consumed by fear. And yet, our fears do not surprise him in the least.

We need to realize God is not disappointed in us when we have fears. No more than you are disappointed when one of your children is afraid.

When my daughter was a few years old she must have had a bad dream about the bathtub drain. One night, as I got everything ready for her bath, a look of terror spread across her little face. Even as I helped her into the tub, she began panicking and started crying. She was certain she was going to go down the drain.

Eventually she outgrew that fear, but how would she have felt if I had minimized it? I knew how patient God has been with me when I’ve been afraid and that helped me as I listened to my daughter’s fears. What she needed even more was the assurance I would be right there with her. My presence spoke volumes.

God encourages us to not fear, so that we will trust in His presence; and know He is listening and working on our behalf.

What the Bible says about fear:

The Bible tells us God is not the originator of fear (2 Timothy 1:7). The enemy of our souls loves it when we are afraid. Satan will do anything to get our eyes off of the Savior.

Remember when Peter saw Jesus on the water and wanted to get out of the boat and join him? The weather was not great when Peter made his decision. But looking at Jesus, he decided to do it. Peter felt the water beneath his feet. One step, two steps.

But then he took his eyes off of Jesus and immediately went down. Just like we do when we start letting the wind and waves that scare us eclipse our faith.

You can read that account in Matthew 14:22-33. It’s important to note when Peter called out to the Lord, Jesus did not reprimand him, nor did he shame Peter.

Instead, Jesus immediately reached down, lifting him out of his predicament. Just like God does for us.

God’s promise in Isaiah 41:10 tells us “So do not fear, for I am with you, do not be dismayed, for i am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” 

What does it mean to ‘fear not?’ Isaiah 41:10 Explained

God knows us thoroughly. He knows when we get worried or become anxious. He knows we’re human. And yet, God gives us many reminders to fear not. To fear not means to trust God instead of believing our present situation is bigger than God is. God wants us to trust him. To trust that he will be enough, no matter what.

Matthew Henry’s Commentary gives a wonderful, hope-filled explaination of Isaiah 41:10; “The scope of these verses is to silence the fears, and encourage the faith, of the servants of God in their distresses. Perhaps it is intended, in the first place, for the support of God’s Israel, in captivity; but all that faithfully serve God through patience and comfort of this scripture may have hope… That is a word of caution, counsel, and comfort, which is so often repeated, Fear thou not; and again (v. 13), Fear not; and (v. 14), “Fear not, thou worm Jacob; fear not the threatenings of the enemy, doubt not the promise of thy God; fear not that thou shalt perish in thy affliction or that the promise of thy deliverance shall fail.’’ It is against the mind of God that his people should be a timorous people. For the suppressing of fear he assures them, I am. That they may depend upon his presence with them as their God, and a God all-sufficient for them in the worst of times. Observe with what tenderness God speaks, and how willing he is to let the heirs of promise know the immutability of his counsel, and how desirous to make them easy: “Fear thou not, for I am with thee, not only within call, but present with thee; be not dismayed at the power of those that are against thee, for I am thy God, and engaged for thee. Art thou weak? I will strengthen thee. Art thou destitute of friends? I will help thee in the time of need. Art thou ready to sink, ready to fall? I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness…he will take us by the hand as our guide, to lead us in our way, will help us up when we are fallen or prevent our falls; when we are weak he will hold us up-wavering, he will fix us-trembling, he will encourage us, and so hold us by the right hand, Ps. 73:23. That he will silence their fears: Saying unto thee, Fear not. He has said it again and again in his word, and has there provided sovereign antidotes against fear: but he will go further; he will by his Spirit say it to their hearts, and make them to hear it, and so will help them.”

Peter believed he would never let Jesus down. He saw himself as brave and totally sold out for the Lord. When Jesus told Peter in Matthew 26:34 that Peter would deny Him, Peter did not believe Jesus. Maybe someone else would fail, but surely not Peter.

Sadly, Peter found out Jesus was right. And when Peter heard the rooster crow, he wept bitterly. But did God leave Peter in his fear? No, he was everpresent. While Peter faced his fears and frailties, God ultimately equipped Peter to become a mighty witness.

What is the difference between faith and fear?

Faith believes without seeing the desired result (Hebrews 11:1)

Fear worries about how things will turn out, looking at the circumstances.

It is possible to have faith in God and still be fearful. You don’t doubt that God is able to work; but, you’re not certain what God will choose to do. We think about our circumstances and come up with an idea of how God could make things better. The problem is, we’re often wrong.

God’s ways are much higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). And if we could figure him out, then we’d be God.

When our granddaughter, Livie was born with Trisomy 18, I was very scared. All of us were. We knew if God chose, Livie would continue to live. After all, there were children with Trisomy 18 who did live a number of years. But we didn’t know what God had in mind.

Doctors told us Trisomy 18 was terminal, but they also told us she would probably die before her birth. Yet Livie smiled, laughed, did raspberries with her Daddy, and even moved her head to music, which her siblings told me was “head dancing.” I’ll never forget the day Livie learned to drink from a sippie cup. She gave us so much joy in the 14 months she lived. And those memories still make me smile.

It’s important to understand why God tells us to not be afraid. It’s not because what we are facing is easy. God tells us in the world we will have trials. It’s a certainty (John 16:33).

God tells us to fear not because he goes through the trials with us. He is there no matter what we’re facing (Psalm 46:1-3). But we need to dwell on God’s truths and his character.

How to “fear not” – 7 ways to defeat fear with daily faith choices

1. Remember God has promised he will never leave you(Deuteronomy 31:6). Satan wants us to feel as if God has left us all alone. But that’s not true. No matter what you will face, God is right there.

2. Remember God is never surprised by our circumstances. He is sovereign and knows everything. He even knows our future (Jeremiah 29:11).

3. Remember God can work your circumstances out for good, no matter how bleak they appear (Romans 8:28). Satan will try to convince you that your situation is the exception. But Satan is a liar. God said all things.

4. Stop asking, “Why did this happen?” When you are afraid, facing something that frightens. Instead, ask God, “What can I learn from this?”

5. Remind yourself of all God has done for you. Be like David, who reminded himself of all God had done for him. Remember all the times God has been with you as you faced your giants.

6. Remind yourself God is bigger than whatever you fear. We are talking about almighty God. The creator of all things seen and unseen.

7. Visualize yourself placing whatever scares you into God’s hands. His large capable hands. Then take a deep breath and picture yourself walking away because He’s got this.

God loves us. He’s always looking out for our good. Our Father wants what’s best for his children. He tells us to fear not because no matter how hard things get, they are not too difficult for him. Impossible situations are God’s specialty.

Accept the fact that we will go through difficult times. Read Isaiah 43:2, and take courage that we will walk through waters as we bury loved ones, and when the rivers of our finances seem to wash over us, or our fiery trials threaten to burn us, God’s promise is firm. He will be with us. In times of loneliness, or when we suffer physically, God will be with us.

Real-Life Example of Isaiah 41:10

A policeman escorted me to an empty room to wait till it was my time to testify.

When it was my turn, I was to point to my sister’s husband, the one who had admitted he beat her. The last one to see her alive.

I also had to identify the people in the photos my sister had sent me over 30 years ago. My hands shook, my heart was racing. My mouth was as dry as cotton.

But as I waited for my turn, God reminded me of all the other times in my life when I was scared. And I remembered his promise, that He would be with me.

I sat there quietly praying and before I knew it, I started softly singing. Instead of picturing myself in that courtroom at 26th and California, in Chicago, I saw myself in God’s throne room, sitting on his lap, singing in his ear. When the officer returned to get me.

I went into that courtroom, but I wasn’t alone. God went with me.

Isaiah 41:10 Meaning of Do Not Fear

Apr 30, 2020 by Editor in Chief

Isaiah 41:10
“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Explanation and Commentary of Isaiah 41:10

Other nations fear disaster and their response is to band together to produce idols to worship with their own hands (Is 41:5-7). But God has personally called the Israelites out of the world to himself, to be his very own possession and to bless them over all the earth. They are chosen, called, and not rejected (v.8-9). So they do not need to fear the same things as the other nations. They do not need to fashion other gods to bow down and give bribes to.

God is the one who called them, and God is the one who will take care of them. If that was true for his people in the Old Testament, how much more true is it for those of us to live under a greater revelation, and a better covenant? Our hope in Christ means that we can be assured of the promises of God. Because we too are chosen, called, and will not be rejected, we have nothing to fear, we have no reason to be dismayed for we have a God in heaven who is with us. He strengthens us by his Holy Spirit and his Word. He helps us by setting his love and favor on us, and by answering when we call to him. He upholds us with his righteous right hand, Jesus Christ, who is all righteousness, who sits at the right hand of the Father (Eph 1:20) and intercedes on our behalf.

Breaking Down the Key Parts of Isaiah 41:10

#1 “So…”

This verse is a response to the preceding verses. Other nations live in a fear that drives them to the deception of thinking that idols which they build with their own hands will save them. But God’s people have God’s help and his favor.

#2 “…do not fear, for I am with you;”

There are a number of things that people of the world must fear: sickness, disaster, evil, betrayal, “chance” happenings. God’s people who truly live by faith need fear nothing. Those things can still happen to you, but nothing can happen that a good, loving, and sovereign God, who created and sustains the universe, does not have control over. His plan is to use all of it for your good and your blessing.

#3 “do not be dismayed, for I am your God.”

Dismay is slightly different than fear. It is to be distressed and worried. Dismay goes hand-in-hand with unbelief. When a Christian becomes dismayed, the remedy is to remember that God in heaven is our Father, his Son is our Savior, his Spirit is our Comforter. When a lapse in belief causes fear and dismay, we go to God for help.

#4 “I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

The result of going to the God who invites us is that he will strengthen and help us. We will literally feel stronger as he helps. As he upholds us with his righteous right hand, Jesus Christ. The truth is that he does this for us every minute of every day. It is only when we forget that we fear or become dismayed. Rehearsal of the truth will cause our feelings to line back up with reality.

The Most Shared Verses In Their Context (Isaiah 41:10)

Posted by Mike Leake

At the end of last year, YouVersion highlighted the top 10 Bible verses that were shared the most. I found the list interesting and thought that it could be helpful to understand them in their original context. Today we are looking at Isaiah 41:10—which according to YouVersion was the third-most shared verse in 2013.

The Verse:

fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10 ESV)

The Context:

In Isaiah 41 the Lord is contending with the nations and expressing his sovereignty over all human events. It is the LORD that is behind the rise of Cyrus the Great—who will come from the east and conquer the wicked Babylonians.

“The coastlands have seen and are afraid” at what is happening in history. They can see the writing on the wall and they know that difficult times are coming. Their response is to make idols to rescue them from the invasion of this mighty army. Their fear has them scrambling for any solution.

In the middle of Isaiah 41 the Lord contrasts the fate of Israel with that of the nations. In verses 8-10 the Lord assures Israel, the offspring of Abraham, that his movement in history is to benefit them. Therefore, they should not fear—the Lord will uphold them in these tumultuous times.

The Meaning:

Isaiah 41:10 is a specific promise to a specific people during a specific time. So is it write for contemporary Christians to apply this promise? I imagine that this is one of the most popular verses in Scripture because we live in times that are similar to the day in which Isaiah wrote. There are things all around us that can cause us to dismay and to depend upon the strength of the Lord.

There are actual historical ways in which the Lord fulfilled his promise to Israel. In that sense, this is not a promise for us today. Yet, in another very real sense we can claim this verse as our own. Because just as the Lord upheld Israel in the time of Cyrus the Great so also the Lord upholds his people today.

The Lord is with his people. The Lord is our God. The Lord will strengthen us and help us and uphold us with his righteous right hand. So, while we cannot claim the specifics of this verse the general principle and character of the Lord shown in this passage still stands.

Conclusion:

In some ways the truths in this verse are even more true in the life of the Christian. When God says, “for I am with you” we have a much greater experience of the presence of God. Indeed, the Spirit of God, indwells believers. The major emphasis in this verse is on the Lord’s character. The call is for us to not fear and not be dismayed—but that call is grounded in the very certain and unchanging character of our powerful God. This verse is a timeless truth.

Isaiah Chapter 41

Isaiah 41 – Fear Not

A. The glory of God over the coastlands.

1. (1) A command and an invitation to the coastlands.

Keep silence before Me, O coastlands,
And let the people renew their strength!
Let them come near, then let them speak;
Let us come near together for judgment.

a. Keep silence before Me, O coastlands: The Hebrew word translated coastlands is also translated islands or isles in other passages, such as Isaiah 11:11 and 40:15. It is also translated with broader words like territory in passages like Isaiah 20:6. The idea is probably best expressed as “distant lands.” Here, God is calling to all nations – even the “distant lands” – to keep silence before Him. Why? Because they are coming to God’s courtroom: Let us come near together for judgment.

i. Bultema on coastlands: “a poetic name for the idolatrous distant nations.” Motyer: “Isaiah uses the word [coastlands] as shorthand for the far reaches of the earth.”

b. And let the people renew their strength: Isaiah 40:31 has just promised that those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. But here, God advises the people – those in the distant lands, who do not know Him – to renew their strength as they come into His courtroom. If you are going to contest with God, you had better be prepared.

i. The problem is that while those who wait upon the Lord have the Lord’s limitless strength, those from distant lands have no god of strength to help them. “The repetition of the phrase ‘renew their strength’ (cf. 40:31) may well be ironic. Perhaps as the exiles renew their strength in the true God, so the nations are ironically exhorted to do the same – but in their man-made deities!” (Grogan)

c. Let them come near, then let them speak: God will allow the idol worshippers of all the world to come before Him and justify their idolatry. They will have the opportunity to speak, though they must enter His courtroom in silence, out of respect for His majesty.

i. There are many different reasons for silence. There is the silence of shame, the silence of attention, the silence of submission. Any one of these is a good reason to initially be silent in the Lord’s presence.

2. (2-4) God reasons with the coastlands.

Who raised up one from the east?
Who in righteousness called him to His feet?
Who gave the nations before him,
And made him rule over kings?
Who gave them as the dust to his sword,
As driven stubble to his bow?
Who pursued them, and passed safely
By the way that he had not gone with his feet?
Who has performed and done it,
Calling the generations from the beginning?
I, the Lord, am the first;
and with the last I am He.

a. Who raised up the one from the east? God questions the idolaters from the distant lands, and asks them who authored this important event in human history – who raised up the one from the east?

i. Commentators warmly debate the identity of this one from the east. Most believe him to be either Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish people and the father of the faithful, or Cyrus, the king who joined the Medes and the Persians into a fighting force which conquered Babylon – which, prophetically, is the broad time context Isaiah speaks to.

ii. Wolf speaks for those who believe Cyrus is spoken of: “Born east of Babylon in what is now Iran, Cyrus would move through country after country, conquering every king in his path. Shortly after 550 b.c., Cyrus was able to unify the Medes and the Persians and to defeat the powerful kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor. Then he turned south to conquer Babylon (539 b.c.).” Bultema adds regarding Cyrus: “Both secular and sacred documents present him as righteous and good, and he can be called righteous or, as the text actually has it, justice, especially since he carried out the righteous acts of vengeance on Babylon and that of the deliverance of Israel.”

iii. Clarke speaks for those who believe Abraham is the one from the east: “Some explain it of Abraham, others of Cyrus. I rather think that the former is meant; because of the character of the righteous man, or righteousness, agrees better with Abraham than with Cyrus.”

iv. Who is it? It is a difficult decision, and either answer can be correct according to the context. On balance, it is best to see the one from the east as Abraham, because of the word of the Lord later in the chapter, in Isaiah 41:22: Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; let them show the former things, what they were. God appeals to idols and their worshippers and asks them to tell both the future and the past. Since Cyrus is mentioned in Isaiah 41:25 (I have raised up one from the north… from the rising of the sun), he is the figure that shows God’s knowledge of the future. Abraham is the figure that shows God’s knowledge of the past. Past and future – with the present sandwiched in-between – all belong to the Lord our God.

b. Who…. Who…. Who: As God invites those in distant lands to come and reason with Him, He shows them His greatness over all creation, and over all history. They must ask themselves, “Who is in control of the course of human events?” Who has performed and done it, calling the generations from the beginning?

i. This is always a relevant question. Is there a point, a direction to human history? Is it just a random, meaningless combination of undirected events? Is it a cycle, fated to repeat itself endlessly? Or, is there a God in heaven who directs human events, always moving to a final resolution and fulfillment? Our answer to this question influences almost everything in our lives.

c. I, the Lord, am the first; and with the last I am He: Here, the Lord God of Israel declares that Hehas performed and done it, calling the generations from the beginning. He lifts up and puts down kings and nations. He is the first and He is the last; He is the “bookend” both before and after the saga of human history, starting the story, ending the story, and keeping the whole story together.

i. If God is both the first and the last, then He also has authority over everything in-between. This means that there absolutely is a plan of God for human history, and He directs the path of human events toward His designed fulfillment. Our lives are not given over to blind fate, to random meaninglessness, or to endless cycles with no resolution. Instead, the Lord God who is the first and the last directs all of human history and even our individual lives.

ii. Jesus takes the same title of the First and the Last in Revelation 1:17 and 22:13. If the Lord is the first and the last according to Isaiah 41:4, and if Jesus is the First and the Last according to Revelation 1:17 and 22:13, since there cannot be two firsts or two lasts, Jesus must be the Lord God.

3. (5-7) The reaction of the coastlands.

The coastlands saw it and feared,
The ends of the earth were afraid;
They drew near and came.
Everyone helped his neighbor,
And said to his brother,
“Be of good courage!”
So the craftsman encouraged the goldsmith;
He who smooths with the hammer inspired him who strikes the anvil,
Saying, “It is ready for the soldering”;
Then he fastened it with pegs,
That it might not totter.

a. The coastlands saw it and feared: When they met this God of all authority and power, they feared. They were brought so low by this encounter with God that they had to encourage one another to go on! (Everyone helped his neighbor, and said to his brother, “Be of good courage!”)

i. This is a logical reaction. It is the same kind of reaction Peter had when he saw the great power of Jesus (Luke 5:8).

b. So the craftsman encouraged the goldsmith: What did they do with the fear they felt after their encounter with God? They let the fear drive them away from the true God. Instead of surrendering to this God of glory and majesty and power, they turned from God, and made for themselves gods, idols of gold.

i. Isaiah pours on the irony. It took a lot of work to make a good god. It took skilled workers (the craftsman…the goldsmith…he who smooths with the hammer…him who strikes the anvil). It took organization and teamwork (“It is ready for the soldering”). If you don’t do it right, your god might not be able to stand up (That it might not totter).

ii. People still see something of God’s power and glory, reject it, and then make their own god. This is Paul’s whole message in Romans 1:18-25.

B. God encourages Israel.

1. (8-9) Israel is different from those in the distant lands.

But you, Israel, are My servant,
Jacob whom I have chosen,
The descendants of Abraham My friend.
You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth,
And called from its farthest regions,
And said to you,
“You are My servant,
I have chosen you and have not cast you away.”

a. But you, Israel, are My servant: In contrast to the God-rejecting and idol-making people in distant lands, Israel – remember the name means, “Governed by God” – Israel is the servant of the Lord.

i. A servant of God would never make God into his own image, his own idea of what God should be. Servants don’t tell their masters what to do, or what to be. Servants know who the master is and who the servant is.

ii. “Israel is twice addressed as servant (literally ‘slave’), that is to say a person without position or rights – but this servant belongs to a great master.” (Motyer)

b. Jacob, whom I have chosen: Lest Israel become proud, God pops their swelling quickly. If they are Israel – “Governed by God” – then they are also Jacob – “Conniving, untrustworthy con-man.” They are only the servant of God because He has chosen them.

c. The descendants of Abraham My friend: Israel stood in this place because of their family relationship to Abraham. Since Abraham was the friend of God, so his descendants had a special place before God also.

i. Jehoshaphat knew that Abraham was the friend of God (2 Chronicles 20:7). James knew that Abraham was the friend of God (James 2:23). We are also the friends of God, not because of our relation to Abraham, but because of our relation to the Son of God, Jesus. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. (John 15:14-15)

d. You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth…And said to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and have not cast you away”: Again, Israel’s special place before God is because of God’s initiative, not because of Israel’s achievement. Israel is different from the idol-makers in distant lands because of God’s work in them, not because of their own greatness.

2. (10-13) Fear not, for God’s help is present.

Fear not, for I am with you;
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you,
Yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’
“Behold, all those who were incensed against you
Shall be ashamed and disgraced;
They shall be as nothing,
And those who strive with you shall perish.
You shall seek them and not find them—
Those who contended with you.
Those who war against you
Shall be as nothing,
As a nonexistent thing.
For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand,
Saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you.’

a. Fear not, for I am with you: This is both a command and a promise. Israel is commanded to fear not. Fear, worry, and anxiety are often sin. When the God who rules over the nations as described in Isaiah 41:2-4, the God who chose us and loves us as described in Isaiah 41:8-9, when that God tells us fear not, we must take it seriously! But there is also a promise. We fear not, because the Lord has told us, I am with you. What more do we need? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)

i. How much more prone to fear and discouragement we are when we are alone. But we are never alone because God has declared, fear not, for I am with you.

b. Be not dismayed, for I am your God: It was as if God said to His people, “Remember Me? The God of all power and glory? I’m that One. I am your God.” Years ago, J.B. Phillips wrote a wonderful book titled, Your God is Too Small. In it, he showed how when people forget the greatness of God, they easily become dismayed. But God says, be not dismayed, for I am your God.

c. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand: God’s strength and glory make Him able to help us. But it is His love that makes Him say, “I will help you.”

i. Idols must be fastened…with pegs, so they might not totter (Isaiah 41:7). You have to hold them up. But God holds us up; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand. You should never have a God that you have to hold up.

ii. Knowing this, do we see the terrible nature of our fear and unbelief? They say to God, “You are not with me. You are not the God of glory and might. You do not really love me.”

iii. “Every truthful man feels that he has a right to be believed. He speaks upon the honour of an honest man, and if you say, ‘I cannot believe you,’ and even begin to lament that you have no faith in him, the reflection is not upon yourself, but on the person whom you cannot believe. And shall it ever come to this, that God’s own children shall say that they cannot believe their God? Oh, sin of sins! It takes away the very Godhead from God, for if God be not true, he is not a God; and if he be not fit to be believed, neither is he fit to be adored, for a God whom you cannot trust you cannot worship.” (Spurgeon)

d. Behold, all those who were incensed against you shall be ashamed and disgraced: God will deal with our enemies if we keep our trust in Him. He knows how to make our adversaries – whether they be men or devils – ashamed and disgraced.

i. Behold, all those who were incensed against you shall be ashamed and disgraced is, in part, an outworking of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3: I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. God has always crushed anti-Semitic nations and movements, and in the reign of the Messiah, He will crush them completely.

e. For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, “Fear not, I will help you”: In Isaiah 41:10, God promised to uphold you with My righteous right hand. That was God’s hand holding us up. Now, we see God’s hand holding our right hand, and giving us strength over fear, doubt, and our adversaries.

3. (14-16) Fear not, with God’s help, no obstacle is too great.

“Fear not, you worm Jacob,
You men of Israel!
I will help you,” says the Lord
And your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
“Behold, I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth;
You shall thresh the mountains and beat them small,
And make the hills like chaff.
You shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away,
And the whirlwind shall scatter them;
You shall rejoice in the Lord,
And glory in the Holy One of Israel.”

a. Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel: The idea of a worm is connected to the name Jacob, but the idea of men is connected with the name Israel.

i. “In the rabbinical commentary on the five books of Moses, Yelamedenu is asked, Why are the Israelites called a worm? To signify, that as the worm does not smite, that is, gnaw the cedars, but with its mouth, which is very tender, yet it nevertheless destroys the hard wood; so all the strength of the Israelites is in prayer, by which they smite the wicked of this world, though strong like cedars, to which they are compared.” (Clarke)

ii. “The name Jacob, as applied to Israel here, always points back to Israel’s lowly and deceitful past, so that it is by no means an honor.” (Bultema)

iii. And your Redeemer: “Redeemer is goel, see Isaiah 35:9, the Next-of-Kin who takes upon himself his people’s needs as if they were his own.” (Motyer)

b. Behold, I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and beat them small: God will so help Israel and so empower them, that they will be able to cut down mountains as if they were a great threshing machine, removing mountains and seeing their dust blown away. The point is clear: nothing, not even a mountain, will stand in their way when God helps them.

i. “I don’t know of any other than the Creator Himself who can take a weak worm and make it sharp with teeth! God can do that.” (Redpath)

ii. Jesus expressed the same idea in Matthew 17:20: If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

c. You shall rejoice in the Lord, and glory in the Holy One of Israel: When we overcome great obstacles with the help of the Lord, we know it is His work. We rejoice in the Lord, not in ourselves. We glory in the Holy One of Israel, not in ourselves.

4. (17-20) Fear not, God has abundant resources.

The poor and needy seek water, but there is none,
Their tongues fail for thirst.
I, the Lord, will hear them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will open rivers in desolate heights,
And fountains in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
And the dry land springs of water.
I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and the acacia tree,
The myrtle and the oil tree;
I will set in the desert the cypress tree and the pine
And the box tree together,
That they may see and know,
And consider and understand together,
That the hand of the Lord has done this,
And the Holy One of Israel has created it.

a. I will open rivers in desolate heights: In response to the cry of the poor and needy, those whose tongues fail for thirst, God sends miraculous supplies of water to them. God has resources and supplies we know nothing about, and He loves to supply us from His hidden resources.

b. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and the acacia tree: God will also make barren places fruitful, and full of beautiful forests. God can take the most barren wilderness and make it a forest.

i. “Water and shade are the two great needs of the desert traveller…. None of the trees mentioned are fruit trees: the point is shelter, not sustenance.” (Motyer)

c. That the hand of the Lord has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it: When it all takes place, everyone will know this. Miraculous supplies of water and forests in the wilderness are impossible without God, so He gets the glory when the work is done.

C. Idolatry on trial.

1. (21) God calls idols and their worshippers to trial.

“Present your case,” says the Lord.
“Bring forth your strong reasons,” says the King of Jacob.

a. Present your case: God is fair. He will not condemn idols, the false gods of the nations, and those who worship them, without a fair trial. So He invited these idols and their worshippers to come and present your case. “Let’s hear your side of the story.” Bring forth your strong reasons. “Let’s hear your best arguments.”

b. Says the King of Jacob: This is the only place in the Bible where God uses this title. King of Jacob is used only here, but the title king of Israel is used 138 times in the Bible, mostly of men, but of the Lord God in Isaiah 44:6 and Zephaniah 3:15, and of Jesus in John 1:49 and 12:13.

2. (22-24) God examines the defendants – idols and their worshippers – at the trial.

Let them bring forth and show us what will happen;
Let them show the former things, what they were,
That we may consider them,
And know the latter end of them;
Or declare to us things to come.
Show the things that are to come hereafter,
That we may know that you are gods;
Yes, do good or do evil,
That we may be dismayed and see it together.
Indeed you are nothing,
And your work is nothing;
He who chooses you is an abomination.

a. Let them bring forth: God invited idols to present your case in Isaiah 41:21. But none is presented; the next words are God’s questioning of the idols. Why don’t the idols present their case and defend themselves? Because they are dumb statues that can’t speak! So, the questioning moves on, and God examines the defendants.

b. Let them bring forth and show us what will happen: If these idols really are gods, then they certainly know the future and the past. Then let them speak up. Show us what will happen. Then, let them show the former things, what they were. Gods know these things, don’t they? Do it that we may know that you are gods.

c. Yes, do good or do evil: It is as if God stands in a courtroom, questioning a thousand idols of different sizes and designs, and finally cries out, “Do something!Do good or do evil! Can’t you do anything?”

d. Indeed you are nothing: But they cannot do anything. So, the accusation is made based upon the evidence: your work is nothing; he who chooses you is an abomination.

i. Today, idolatry is still an abomination. Though few bow down to statues, many still fashion a god of their own opinion and decide that is the god they will respect. Even many churchgoers do this today. “The spiritual conflict experienced today is exactly of the same nature and of the same character as you find depicted here. The issue is still unsettled in the minds of men, though it is settled eternally in the mind of God. The world is still making every effort to put the best possible show upon its worship of the creature rather than the Creator. Its worship is more the patronizing of the shell of religion than bowing in submission before an empty cross, and occupied throne, and the King of kings in glory.” (Redpath)

e. Indeed, you are nothing, and your work is nothing: Paul quoted this idea in 1 Corinthians 8:4, when he wrote, Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one.

3. (25-29) The Lord’s summation: Idols are worthless, and man is so limited.

I have raised up one from the north,
And he shall come;
From the rising of the sun he shall call on My name;
And he shall come against princes as though mortar,
As the potter treads clay.
Who has declared from the beginning, that we may know?
And former times, that we may say, “He is righteous”?
Surely there is no one who shows,
Surely there is no one who declares,
Surely there is no one who hears your words.
The first time I said to Zion,
“Look, there they are!”
And I will give to Jerusalem one who brings good tidings.
For I looked, and there was no man;
I looked among them, but there was no counselor,
Who, when I asked of them, could answer a word.
Indeed they are all worthless;
Their works are nothing;
Their molded images are wind and confusion.

a. I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: In contrast to the idols who can tell nothing of the future, the Lord knows. He knows that He will bring Cyrus from the north to conquer the Babylonians, who conquered Judah and Jerusalem and took them captive. God would use Cyrus to allow the Jews in exile to return (Ezra 1).

i. “Cyrus had the greatest respect for Jehovah, as we can read in his proclamation concerning the freeing of Israel in Ezra one. In it he states correctly that Jehovah had given him all the kingdoms of the earth.” (Bultema)

ii. “The ‘north’ is included because the Persians conquered the lands north of Babylon before invading her borders.” (Wolf)

b. Who has declared from the beginning, that we may know? Not the idols; they know nothing. Not man, for I looked, and there was no man…Who, when I asked of them, could answer a word.

c. Indeed they are all worthless; their works are nothing: Finally, the verdict is read at the trial. Apart from God, in the grand scheme of things, all of the greatness of man is worthless, and all the great works are nothing. And what of the idols? Their molded images are wind and confusion.

i. “This chapter is the great I WILL chapter of the Bible. No fewer than fourteen times in the scope of these verses does God reinforce His authority with the promise, ‘I will.’” (Redpath) Look at them all:

· I will strengthen you. (Isaiah 41:10)

· I will help you. (Isaiah 41:10, 13, and 14)

· I will uphold you with My righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)

· I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth. (Isaiah 41:15)

· I will open rivers in desolate heights. (Isaiah 41:18)

· I will make the wilderness a pool of water. (Isaiah 41:18)

· I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and the acacia tree. (Isaiah 41:19)

· I will set in the desert the cypress tree. (Isaiah 41:19)

· I will give to Jerusalem one who brings good tidings. (Isaiah 41:27)

ii. This is a remarkable contrast with Isaiah 14 – the “I will” chapter of Satan. Here are the “I will” statements of Satan:

· I will ascend into heaven. (Isaiah 14:13)

· I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. (Isaiah 14:13)

· I will also sit on the mount of the congregation. (Isaiah 14:13)

· I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. (Isaiah 14:14)

· I will be like the Most High. (Isaiah 14:14)

iii. The “I will” statements of Satan were all proud and self-directed. Every “I will” of the Lord in Isaiah 41 is for the benefit and blessing of His people. Though Satan was lifted up in pride, and proclaimed “I will,” none of them came to pass. But each and every one of God’s “I will” statements will be fulfilled.

iv. “When God says, ‘I will,’ He says it with all the authority of omnipotence. He has foreseen every difficulty. He has studied every obstacle which may come in His way. He has anticipated every possible contingency. He knows the weakness of the one to whom He makes His promise, and yet He says, ‘I will!’” (Redpath)

(c) 2021 The Enduring Word Bible Commentary by David Guzik – ewm@enduringword.com

Isaiah Chapter 41

Chuck Smith :: Sermon Notes for Isaiah 41:10

“THE ANSWER TO FEAR”

I. GOD COMMANDS US, “FEAR THOU NOT.”

A. As Christians we will face frightening situations.

1. We are not immune to trouble.

2. The disciples while walking with Jesus faced fearful problems.

a. Facing tax collectors with no money.

b. Crossing the lake in the storm.

c. Being in a wilderness area with a multitude of people and inadequate food.

d. In each case their human resources were insufficient.

e. Christ was the only resource they needed.

3. Fear strikes when our resources are depleted.

a. Have exhausted my strength.

b. Have exhausted my bank account.

c. I have exhausted my schemes.

4. Christ is the only resource I need.

B. The answer to fear is the realization of His presence.

1. “Ye though I walk through the valley…”

2. “Hast thou not known…” Vs. 28.

II. “BE NOT DISMAYED.”

A. As Christians we will face confusing situations.

1. We don’t always understand our situations.

2. Things will happen for no apparent reason.

a. You may get fired from your job.

b. You may suddenly get sick.

c. You may get in an accident where you are to blame.

d. Your loved one may die.

3. The more we try to reason some of these things out, the more confused we get.

4. Yet the Lord says, “be not dismayed.”

B. Quit trying to figure it out.

1. It isn’t necessary to understand God’s ways.

2. “All things work together for good…”

a. “Yea, but I don’t see what good could come from this.”

b. That’s none of your business, it’s His.

3. We find it so hard to rest in faith.

a. We seek to understand why.

b. If you really knew what God was doing, you’d probably panic.

c. God is working by a completely different set of values. Eternal.

4. Yet faith is the only place where you will ever find true rest.

C. “I am your God.”

1. He doesn’t give us the answer, He gives us Himself.

a. “I will strengthen thee.”

1. Do you feel your strength slipping, you can’t hold on much longer?

2. Don’t be afraid, He is there.

b. “I will help thee.”

1. Have your friends let you down just when you were needing them?

2. Is the load too heavy for you?

3. Don’t be dismayed, He is there.

c. “I will uphold thee.”

1. There’s absolutely no way you can sink, He’s holding you up.

2. Kay learning to water ski don’t panic and flail around stand up.

3. “With the right hand.”

The Universe is the work of His fingers. He measures it with the span of His hand. And with that same hand He takes hold of you.

Chuck Smith :: Sermon Notes for Isaiah 41:10

Intro: Fear can be a very debilitating force. Fear of failure has canceled many worthwhile projects. “The fear of man is a trap.”

I. GOD SAID, “FEAR THOU NOT.”

A. Life is full of frightening situations.

1. Being a Christian does not grant me an immunity from problems.

a. The disciples were confronted by the tax collector when they had no funds.

b. They were on a sinking ship in a storm.

c. They were with a crowd in the wilderness with inadequate food supply.

2. In each case, their resources were inadequate.

a. This is the time that fear usually strikes.

1. When I have exhausted my bank account.

2. My schemes.

3. My strength.

b. In each case, Jesus solved the problem.

1. Told Peter to catch a fish.

2. Told the wind to stop.

3. Took 5 loaves and 2 fish.

3. Jesus was the only resource they needed.

B. “For I am with thee.”

1. The consciousness of God’s presence is the great dispeller of fear.

2. He is always with me, I am not always conscious of that fact.

3. He is always more than I need.

II. “BE NOT DISMAYED.”

A. We often face confusing issues, and we don’t know what to do, where to turn.

1. We may lose our job.

2. Our business may be going under.

3. Your husband or wife may leave you.

4. You get in an accident and you’re to blame.

5. You get sued.

6. Your loved one dies.

B. The more we try to figure things out, the more confusing they become.

1. Yet, God has said, “Be not dismayed.”

2. If I love Him and seek to follow His purposes. “All things are working together for good.”

3. I must learn to rest in Him.

a. I cannot figure out God’s ways.

b. I often try even though He said I couldn’t.

C. “Be not dismayed, I am thy God.”

1. He doesn’t always explain the solution. He just says, “trust Me.”

2. He offers for our dismay, Himself.

a. “I will strengthen thee.”

1. So you are not strong enough to hang on to Me, I will hold you.

2. You feel so weak and helpless.

b. “I will help thee.”

1. If God be for us, who can be against us.”

c. “I will hold you up.”

1. Sometimes we feel we are sinking.

2. It’s impossible for you to sink.

3. Kay learning to water ski.

4. With the right hand of My righteousness.

a. The heavens are the work of His fingers.

b. He measures them with His span.

c. He puts His hand under me and holds me up.