For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Observation
Grace has set us free from the demands of the Law, but that does not mean we should keep on sinning. We are slaves to what we choose to obey, whether that is sin or God.
We were slaves to sin, but now we must become slaves to righteous living in order to become holy.
Sin pays its wages, that is, death. Eternal life is God’s free gift to us.
Application
The wages of sin is death. Your wage is what you deserve after you have worked. If it comes for free then it is not a wage but a gift.
The result of sin is death – firstly natural death but then also spiritual death. If we indulge in sin, we will surely go to eternal desolation in hell. It is the law of cause and effect, work and wages.
God created us for life not death, for heaven not hell. So He sent Jesus into the world to reap the total wages for every person. Now we can know that our punishment has been taken for us.
If the wages of sin is death, then the gift of God is eternal life through Christ.
Eternal life comes to us as a gift. We cannot earn it, we cannot pay for it. We might as well try to jump to the moon.
What we cannot do for ourselves, Christ has done for us. That is why it is a gift. It is like someone works overtime to pay a debt you could not pay off yourself.
The ting about a gift is that it must be received. If someone offers me a present but I refuse it, then it has not fulfilled its purpose to be given.
It is like this with salvation. God makes the offer to us through Christ Jesus. We can have eternal life with God, but we must receive it as a gift from God.
Prayer
Thank you Father for giving me forgiveness and salvation through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.
Here is my commentary on Ephesians 3:1. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site, http://www.new-life.org.au
Ephesians 3:1
“For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles…”
Paul now describes himself as a prisoner of Christ for the Gentiles.
This particular verse seems to be difficult for translators, who generally put the dash at the end and start a new sentence hoping you won’t notice something. There is no primary verb here or in the subsequent verse.
since the verb to be is optional in Greek, it seems to make sense to write this as “ I Paul am a prisoner of Christ.” The lack of punctuation in the original text does complicate things somewhat so we don’t know if this verse was meant to be a sentence by itself.
overlooking the grammatical difficulties, we can look at what the verse has to say to us now.
Paul describes himself as a prisoner of Christ “for this reason.” We have to look back at the part that went before this verse to find the reason. Previously Paul had talked about how God was building the church – household, a temple, a dwelling place. In this project He determines where each person, indeed each faith community, should fit in the overall scheme of things.
for this reason, Paul is a prisoner of Christ. He is in prison because of his particular role in the Body of Christ, which is to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. There is no regret for Paul because he knows exactly what the purpose of his suffering is, and it is all a part of God’s plan for his life and ministry.
paul is a prisoner of Christ. Even though the Romans hold him physically, it is Christ who is using the experience to build the church, especially in respect of the gentile christians .
we might expect Paul to describe himself as a prisoner for Christ, but he is definitely here that he is a prisoner of Christ.
to be a prisoner of Christ is one of those phrases that can be interpreted in many ways
• As stated before, he is a prisoner because Christ is building the church, and this is essential to Paul’s role • although the Romans hold the building, it is Christ who holds the key • he is captivated by Christ’s love and by the calling on his life • in other places Paul describes himself as a slave for Christ. This is a similar kind of analogy
In all these interpretations, we need to remember that Paul is a voluntary captive. Paul has given his heart to the Lord, and it is in that sense that he is a prisoner of Christ. If he wished, he could gain the freedom to not be a prisoner anymore. He could renounce Christ and walk away back to the bondage of the Jewish law and of sin.
if Paul is a prisoner of Christ, he’s a prisoner for a particular purpose. He’s a prisoner for the Gentiles.
Paul became convinced very early in his Christian life that salvation was for the Gentiles and not just for the Jews. He also became convinced that his calling was to take the good news to the Gentiles. Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles.
Hence Paul’s imprisonment, part of his mission to the Gentiles, was for the Genttiles. Paul knew that if God had decided he needed to be in prison, then it was part of the mission, part of the calling to take the gospel to the Gentiles .
this is an incredible insight and the source of great strength. Prison time was not wasted time for Paul. He wasn’t sitting on the sidelines missing all the action. For some reason, this was the action; this was the mission.
regardless of whether there was an outcome that he could see, Paul knew that he was a prisoner of Christ for the sake of the Gentiles .
Key points in this verse
• Paul was the Prisoner of Christ, not of the Romans • his life was devoted to serving Christ, regardless of the location or situation • Paul was a prisoner for the Gentiles • prison time was not wasted time because even this was the mission Christ had set for him
When we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin.
Observation
Since God’s grace is demonstrated when we sin, it might be argued that we should sin all the more so that God’s grace can be increased. This is nonsense. When we were joined to Christ in baptism, we died and were buried with Him.
When we died in Christ we died to sin. Since we died with Christ, we will also rise to life in Him. Because He died to break the power of sin and rose for the glory of God, we must likewise consider ourselves dead to sin and alive in God.
We should not allow our bodies to become instruments for sin. Our whole bodies should be instruments for righteousness to glorify the Lord.
Application
Too often we see the story of salvation as being just about getting our sins forgiven. It is about forgiveness, but it is also about dying to our old nature and allowing God to raise us to a new life as His children.
He does forgive sins, but He also gives us the ability to live free from sin.
We have a part to play in this. We have to determine that we have died to our old nature. We have to want the righteousness, the holiness, that God has promised us. We have to decide to receive this new nature and put it on every day of the week.
When we face temptation, it is not a matter of saying, “I will not do that,” but rather, “I am a child of God, and this has no part of my new life in Christ.” We focus on our calling in Christ, not on the thing to be avoided.
None of us is perfectly conformed to God’s will all the time! This is a process of growing in grace. The Holy Spirit confronts us with our sinful desires and thoughts, and we confess them to God, and we grow in grace to overcome them.
Prayer
Lord, I thank you that I died with Christ, and that sin no longer has any power over me. Please help me to live in the strength of this reality. Amen.
Apparently the “Black Lives Matter” group is now burning Bibles in the US. It sohuld be clear to everyone that this is just a front for Marxism using anti-racism as a cover. Any christians sympathetic to this group need to repent- now.
From Mario Murillo:
BURNING BIBLES IN PORTLAND SHOWS THEIR TRUE COLORS
Black Lives Matter has started burning Bibles. They knelt with their Black Lives Matter signs leaning against them, and burned a pile of Bibles.
Writing to you about this feels so inadequate. I wish I could sit across a table and look you right in the eye to see your reaction. I desperately need to get through to you. Do you have any idea what this means?
In ten years at Berkeley during the height of riots and demonstrations, I never saw a Bible burned.
Ask yourself: What does burning copies of the Word of God have to do with black lives? Answer: It has to do with black lives about as much as Black Lives Matter does. Absolutely nothing. This is something evil and so dangerous that we must prepare for the fight of our lives.
Here’s what Ian Cheong, a Twitter user, who posted the video said: “Left-wing activists bring a stack of Bibles to burn in front of the federal courthouse in Portland.”
Later in the Twitter thread, Cheong pointed out that the violent and chaotic nature of these protestors has no correlation with “protesting against police brutality.”
“I don’t know what burning the Bible has to do with protesting against police brutality. Do not be under the illusion that these protests and riots are anything but an attempt to dismantle all of Western Civilization and upend centuries of tradition and freedom of religion,” he continued.
But many Christians are still under that very illusion. I believe that the patience of heaven is wearing thin toward American Christians who are still on the fence.
It is not a coincidence that as communist agitators grow bolder in the U.S., China is intensifying a crackdown on Christian congregations in Beijing and various provinces. They are destroying crosses. And, like their counterparts here, they too are burning Bibles!
And the other things China is currently doing, such as closing churches and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith, is the next part of the Left’s plan for America.
The similarities between BLM/ Antifa agitators in the United States and the Chinese Communist Party continue to grow as the two groups come together over their goal of removing President Trump from office in November, and forcing the United States into irredeemable decline.
The silence in the media, the total lack of coverage about this Bible burning, will tell you all you need to know about the Democrat Party. Joe Biden will not mention it, let alone condemn it. You will also hear absolutely nothing about this from the press.
That silence—that tacit approval—is why these looters, rioters and thugs believe they can operate with impunity. Tucker Carlson said it best: “they are the armed militia of the Democrat Party.”
There can be no question in your mind why we must vote every Democrat out of office. This is no longer a political party. It is a shill for violent revolution.
And book burning is darker than you may realize. Heinrich Heine, the German poet, said in 1820, “Where They Have Burned Books, They Will End Up Burning People.” His chillingly prophetic statement that where books had been burnt, people would eventually be burnt, came true at the infamous May 10, 1933 book burning of more than 25,000 volumes in Berlin’s Opera Square, which was presided over by the most intellectual of the Nazi leaders, Dr. Joseph Goebbels. They later built ovens to incinerate Jews, “undesirables,” and dissidents.
The act of burning Bibles in Portland is not innocent or harmless. There is something evil unfolding in our nation. Our stance toward the Left must change. We must raise our voices if we wish God to honor us as a people that He can bless with continued freedom.
So long as we ignore the clear signs of tyranny—the overreach of leftist governors in the pandemic—the censorship of social media and news media—the calculated brainwashing of Christians to turn them away from their moral duty—we risk a dark and evil world for our children and grandchildren.
We have nothing to fear but complacency, tolerance, and apathy—the cancers the modern church is prone to. Fear of being called a racist is right behind this unholy trio as the sickness of our generation of believers.
Heaven is not surprised by any of these threats. Hell has created a weapon of mass damnation and it is in full vigor before our eyes. But again, heaven is not passive. God saw this coming and forged a weapon for this specific evil. He yearns for someone to rise up in the Name of Jesus, take up that specific weapon and thrust it into the very heart of darkness. Let it be you!
Isaiah 6:8, “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me!”
For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this one man, Jesus Christ.
Observation
Adam’s sin brought death to everyone because we all sin. People sinned before the law was given and everyone died.
Adam is a representative of Jesus Christ. Adam’s sin brought death to many. But Christ’s death brings life and forgiveness of sin. Through Adam’s sin we are all condemned, but through Christ’s obedience we are all made righteous.
God’s law is given to make us see the reality and the extent of our sin. As people sinned, God’s grace abounded in forgiving their sins.
Application
Everyone sins. It doesn’t matter how good we are in human terms, the fact is that we are all sinners.
Our DNA is corrupted by the sin of Adam. Sin is our inheritance and our heritage.
Sin separates us from God who is the source of life. So our bodies wear out and die. This is not how it was meant to be.
Just as Adam’s one act of sin brought death to all people, so Christ’s one act of obedience brought life to all people. God sees the sacrifice of Jesus as a suitable payment for our disobedience and He grants us forgiveness.
When we are forgiven by God, we can once again draw near to Him and receive eternal life.
Ultimately, the choice is ours. Do we want to remain rebellious sinners headed for the torment of hell? Or do we want to receive the free gift of life through Christ and ensure that we will go to eternal joy in heaven?
Prayer
Lord, you lay out a stark choice for us with no shades of grey. Thank you for setting me free from sin and for the promise of eternal life. Amen.
Here is my commentary on Ephesians 2:22. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site, http://www.new-life.org.au
Ephesians 2:22
And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit
God is building something from the believers. it is described as a household, then a temple, now a dwelling place for God.
The word “you” here is plural, that is all of the believers not just one. All the believers in Ephesus of being built together in this project of God .
This is a big project. Sometimes the project might contain modules or parts which first have to be constructed from smaller components. A cupboard might come as a flat pack, and first must be built from its component parts. Only then can it take its place in the house.
The church is being built into a temple or a dwelling place for God. Our individual congregations are being designed to take their place in the church.
So we are being built together. The module is being constructed so that it can be slotted into its correct place .
We have to play our part by being community. We are being built together. For this to happen, I must learn to get on with, and to love unconditionally, those other people in the congregation.
We cannot claim to love one another if there are people we cannot talk to or we dislike. Being built together means that we have to learn to love. Being built together means that I have to learn to make room in my life for the bumps and irregularities in the lives of those around me, accommodating people who are different .
The outcome of this is a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit.
Most of us are accustomed to the idea that, as individuals, we are vessels of the Holy Spirit. When I first gave my heart to the Lord, the Holy Spirit came into me. I became a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit .
Paul is saying that we together are meant to be a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. Together we are the Temple of God. This is something much bigger .
The concept of synergy is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You are worth more then the basic chemicals that comprise your body. Your house is much more than a pile of bricks and timber stacked on a plot of ground .
In the same way, the church is more than a collection of believers. God is building a dwelling place, a place where He can abide and stay.
As all the individual Christians- bearers of the Holy Spirit- take up their rightful place in the church, God makes it something much greater. Whereas one person could not hold the glory of God, perhaps one billion can. While one person can carry a simple expression of God’s majesty, a billion can carry that many and more expressions of God’ majesty.
God’s plan was never to just redeem individual sinners. His plan was always to build those sinners into something greater- a tabernacle, a temple, a dwelling place.
God is dwelling with his people, in his people, among his people. He is not up there, out there, or any other place than right here where the people of God are right now.
If my prayers rise up to cover my household, then the prayers of christians in my town cover the city, and the prayers of believers in all the world cover the globe. The prayers of Gods people construct a net or tent of God’s presence. As we come together in Christ, the presence of God transforms the world as it transforms us.
The world becomes the Lord’s footstool by the prayers and worship of Gods people together.
God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
Observation
Having been made right with God, we have peace with Him because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. He has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we can confdently look forward to sharing God’s glory.
When we were lost in sin, Christ came at the right time and died for sinners. We have been made right with God through the blood of Jesus.
Application
Christ died for us while we were still sinners. He didn’t wait until we were good enough.
Historically this is true for us. Christ died 2000 years ago, long before anyone now living was even born.
It is true also experientially. I know that Christ died for me long before I became a friend of God.
It is true that while I still hated God, He continued to love me. While I was still proudly atheistic and toying with Marxist philosophy, Jesus came into my life and washed me with His love. On one night in May 1976, I had a vision of Jesus that melted away every argument I had ever had against christianity. In that instant, I realised that I wasn’t fighting against a system of thought, but against a Person- and that Person loved me with an undying eternal love.
While I was fighting Him, Jesus was loving me. While I was denying Him, He was working in my life to bring me to a place of repentance.
How true it is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. He never gives up on us.
Prayer
Thank you Jesus for dying for me wile I was still a sinner. Thank you for your great love for me and for all people. Amen.
Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger and in this, he brought glory to God. He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises.
Observation
For Abraham, circumcision was a sign that Abraham already had faith, and that God had already accepted him. Abraham is therefore the spiritual father of all who have faith, regardless of whether they have been circumcised.
God’s promise is a gift and it is received by faith. Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping, despite his great age.
Abraham grew stronger in his faith. He was convinced that God could keep His promise. This is for our benefit that we too will believe that trough Jesus Christ God makes us right with Himself.
Application
Paul tells us that Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. Yet we know that Abraham and Sarah did try to move things along with Hagar. Perhaps Abraham reasoned that this was God’s way of bringing the promise to fruition.
Regardless of this, it took a miracle to see the promise come to pass. Over the time before and after Isaac was born, Abraham trusted the Lord, growing in faith as he waited.
I have a few promises that I am waiting for God to fulfil. I can rationalise them or try to make them happen, but this always fails and, if anything, makes things worse.
The answer, I think, is to trust that God keeps His promises. Do not waver in trust and do not try to make it happen.
The other factor is prayer- lots of prayer. My prayer is life is not as sturdy or fervent as it needs to be. In order to see God’s promises fulfilled, I have to draw near to Him.
Prayer
Father, please help me to trust you for your promises to be delivered. Work in me Lord, so that I can devote my self to prayer. Amen.
People are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God, who forgives sinners.
Observation
In human terms, Abraham was the founder of the Jewish nation. He did not become acceptable to God by his good works but because he believed God.
When we work, our wages are not a gift. But forgiveness comes as God’s gift when we have faith in Him.
This blessing has nothing to do with being circumcised. Abraham was counted as righteous by God before he was circumcised.
Application
The heart of the christian faith is that we are freely forgiven by God through faith in Christ’s death for us on the cross.
We cannot earn God’s favour because the debt of our sin is too great. If God’s standard of behaviour is perfection, then even if I can live up to a perfect life from today, that doesn’t make up for my previous bad deeds.
It is like paying a debt to a so-called loan shark. No matter how much you pay back, the interest is always greater.
People think that God judges us by weighing up our good deeds against our bad deeds. But our good deeds can never be good enough to cancel out the bad ones.
Although we can frame the discussion in terms of good and bad deeds, or righteousness and sin, the truth is that God’s heart is about love. He doesn’t care about what you do for Him; He cares about whether you love Him.
When we approach God on this basis and ask Him to do away with the sins that separate us from Him, then He instantly takes away the guilt and shame of our sin.
Prayer
Lord, I have nothing to offer you, but I come with my life as a sacrifice. Please forgive me for the things that I have done wrong and help me t love you with all my heart, mind, soul and strength. Amen.
Here is my commentary on Ephesians 2:20. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site, http://www.new-life.org.au
Ephesians 2:20
… built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus himself being the cornerstone.
The church, the household of God, is built upon the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets, but Jesus himself is the cornerstone.
If the foundation is the most important part of a building, in ancient times the cornerstone was the most vital part of the foundation. In a community where mass production of building materials is not possible, there is variation in every part. So the cornerstone was chosen to be the anchor point. It sets the direction for the whole building.
The cornerstone had to be straight, all its edges level, and its corners exactly at right angles. If it was not true then the building could not be constructed to the specifications. Worse still, the walls may lean outwards or inwards as construction proceeded.
If we use the analogy of a building to describe the community of faith called the church, then Jesus is the cornerstone for the building. All of our life depends on him- our lives together and as individuals. Our behaviour and our belief must reflect the person and the ministry of our Lord.
Any so-called church which deviates from the teachings of Jesus revealed in the scriptures ceases to be a church. This is true whether we’re talking about core issues such as judgement and salvation, or important but less spiritual issues such as sexuality.
IF we remove the cornerstone, that is Jesus, then the building collapses.
The church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
In one sense, this relates to the teachings of the Bible. The prophets refer to the Old Testament looking forward to the coming of Jesus the Messiah. The apostles refer to the New Testament in which the original apostles gave their testimony (in various forms) to the teaching and ministry of Jesus which culminated in his death on the cross .This opened the way to eternal salvation for all who put their trust in him.
The Bible, then, is the foundation for the church, the constitution on which the life and witness of the church is established. Just as the constitution of Australia describes how the nation is governed, the Bible describes how the church, the household of God, should order its life together.
Over recent decades there has been a re-discovery in the church of the ministry gifts of apostles and prophets. We are now in a time in which we have contemporaneous prophets and apostles, as was the case when Paul wrote this letter .
Space prohibits a full exploration of these ministries here, but a quick summary will help.
Apostles are men and women who are called by God and equipped by the Holy Spirit to provide covering and oversight of the church at a trans-local level. It is important to see that this is different to being appointed by an organisation. These apostles carry authority as a gift from the Holy Spirit, and other ministers willingly submit to their authority. This is not an institutional arrangement, but a spiritual ordering of ministry.
Many apostles see themselves as fathers to other people in ministry. This is a relational term, an analogy for the style of authority exercised. It is similar to the relationship that a father might have with an adult son.
Prophets are men and women who hear the voice of God in some detail. They are often described as the heart of God in the church , as they have the ability to discern God’s will in specific situations that are not always clearly spelt out in scriptures.
Often churches are planted by human organisations out of a strategy or corporate action plan with no apostolic authority or prophetic mandate. The church planters think a congregation of their brand might flourish in a town or city, so they start it, the same way that a fast food franchise might start.
If there is no prophetic or apostolic foundation for a congregation, then it will struggle because it is built on a foundation that is not Christ’s foundation.
They may preach great sermons, care for the poor, draw in thousands of people. But if the foundation is wrong the building will ultimately fail .
Those of us who called pastors and ministers in the church, together with all of Gods people, must make sure that anything we try to do carries the apostolic and prophetic mandate. It must be built on the right foundation.
Jesus must always be the cornerstone in all that we do.
Key points in this verse
The true church is built on a foundation laid by Jesus himself.
We must build with Jesus as the cornerstone.
Apostles and prophets, together with Jesus, form the foundation the church.
Any church which is built on a false foundation will fail
