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Ministry news...
This is our first newsletter for 2005. Now that the traditional holiday period is over, it's time to get moving again. We trust you enjoy these e-mailings and gain inspiration and motivation from them. Some are having difficulty getting them past various email filters, so please be assured they leave here with your name on it... and we try to make them as filter-friendly as possible. If you wish to view the newsletter with all the whistle and bells, go to our Newsletter archive from the Main Menu on our Home Page.
We are continuing to acquire the equipment we need for our new studio complex. We have the computer side up and running and the software installed. We still have to obtain two new monitors and a wide-screen TV, and do some more work on the physical backgrounds. Thank you for your prayers and interest.
I've been re-writing and editing the book "You Are A New Creation", getting it ready for the third edition, and below is an extract from this ongoing work.
A Wage versus A Gift
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23).
What a great contrast is given by the word "but"! Sin pays wages. There are laws in most nations to ensure that if you employ people you must pay them wages. In a similar fashion, if you keep missing the mark in your life, you are bound by God’s laws or principles to receive your wages, that is, the effect of missing the mark.
Now this verse does not say "the wages of sin shall be death." It says "the wages of sin is death", and that is present tense. Most scholars agree that the gift of eternal life should not be limited solely to a future event, and neither should the wages of sin.
While you keep missing the mark and lack God’s glory in your life, then you are lacking God’s goodness, God’s prosperity, God’s health. To miss the mark is death to God’s plan for your life; it is death to unlimited possibilities in your life; it is death to the influence for good you could have had on humanity.
"The wages of sin is death..." It does not state in this verse that you are punished for your sins, but it implies you are punished by your sins. In Isaiah 64:7 we read, "And there is no one who calls on Your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us, and have consumed us because of our iniquities", or as the Amplified Bible renders it, "... and have delivered us into the (consuming) power of our iniquities". Sin is its own punishment; sin produces death. And those who are "out of Christ" are reaping the wages of their sin. Those who are "in Christ" should be enjoying the privileges of their position.
The word "but" is the fulcrum on which Romans 6:23 is balanced; what is true on one side is just as true on the other. "The wages of sin is death" is a present-tense reality. "Eternal life" is the nature of God and when you have this nature resident within, you have the glory which comes from God—the divine splendour, the divine nature, as a present-tense reality (II Peter 1:4).
I would like you to also notice that the gift of eternal life is not "through" but "in Christ Jesus our Lord", as many translations correctly render it. It is vital to take notice of the prepositions in our study of God’s Word. What is the difference between "through" and "in"? If the gift is only "through" Christ, then I do not receive it but only have access to its benefits through an intermediary. However, God not only made the gift of eternal life possible through the work of Christ, but He imparted it to all believers, that is, to all who are "in Christ".
The difference is between the "verbal" and the "vital", or to put it another way, between the "legal" and the "vital". Is salvation just a cold, legal fact or a living, vital reality? Is this wholeness imputed or is it imparted? Imputed means to set to my credit as in a bank account. It is merely an entry in the ledger. Imparted implies the actual giving and reception of something as a present event, in the now. To be "in Christ" is a present-tense experience.
I need God’s wholeness imparted to me right now and not just set to my account. Salvation is "vital"—a present-day reality with the Christ life throbbing through every part of my being. Salvation that is only "through Christ" is "living on the menu and not on the meat" to quote E. Stanley Jones.
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© 2005 Peter Wade. http://www.peterwade.com
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