ALL THAT GOD IS FOR YOU IN CHRIST (A Meditation)

This is a meditation on All That God is for You in Christ, which could also be rendered “all that Christ is for you in God.”

This is a deep study – that is to say, not necessarily an in-depth, scholarly paper, but a very serious meditation of that which is revealed, as to what God accomplished for His elect, in the atonement and resurrection of Christ. I approach it with great trepidation; there is a genuine fear that I will misrepresent these great truths and promises of God for the believer; yet I also approach it with great anticipation, for to properly praise and worship God in truth and spirit, it is necessary to know that which is accomplished for us – each and every saint – by God in Christ, that we may have that joy and peace which is gained by our communion with our Lord and Father through the everlasting Spirit, whom He has given to those who love Him.

Certain sections of Scripture will present themselves throughout this meditation on the particular section we are in; I will simply mention them, without citation, or any emphasis upon them by italics of bolding or other emphasis – it is my hope that those who read this will find the same, by God’s Spirit working, to be impressed upon their hearts, and seek the allusions to these sections of Scripture by looking them up, or at least having them brought to their remembrance; in this way, I will seek to only consider that context of which we are in by direct mention, for the sake of clarity.

This study will not be chronological – it is not a systematic theology, but rather, a series of meditations on various of God’s promises to His people to share that which gives us a heart of worship gladdened by His grace.

I – we – need such reminders; we need the sure foundation of God’s Word regarding these things in order to have that which is objective truth energized by the Holy Spirit to live practically in line with these great and precious promises. Practical Christianity is just that – practical – yet it is so with what we call a supernatural power, and that power is as objective and personal as God, for He is God, the Holy Spirit, who gives us that communion with God, and so all the saints, both in the local congregation of the covenant community and, on a universal scale, all those who are His by the work of our Lord Jesus Christ and the regeneration of the Holy Spirit; as this is a series of meditations, I will simply begin.

Matthew10:32: “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven…”

This is priceless, as are all of God’s promises. In this we see that the fact of acknowledgment of our Lord Jesus Christ before men is a guarantee of His acknowledgment of us before His Father in heaven, who, by divine fiat, through the adoption that is in Christ Jesus, is our Father. So, for us, this is acceptance before our Father in His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.

This acknowledgment of our Lord before our Father in heaven is based upon the work of the Father transferring us from our former way of life, in the darkness of the Godless worldview we once lived in according to the passions of our flesh, which our thoughts echoed and followed along after in thralldom, to the true worldview and eternal reality of being in the kingdom of His light in His beloved Son.

This Scripture does not occur in a vacuum, and while there are definitive promises of what God is in Jesus Christ for us that can be cited without reference to the context in which they occur, it is better, most often, to expand to the specific context to understand what is intended; so we will do such here.

In order to be accepted – to be acknowledged before our Father in heaven – certain things have to take place. First and foremost, we know that the new birth, or regeneration, has taken place, or we would not be able to acknowledge our Lord before men – we would not only have no desire to do so, but we would be hostile to the things of God, of which Jesus Christ is the visible epitome; however, the new birth is for another mediation, so let us look at the context in which this verse occurs (Matthew 10:1-42).

Our Lord is sending the twelve out, to perform the signs that show not only that the kingdom of God is among men, but that it is specifically among men in our Lord Jesus Christ. As He is sending them out, He tells them what will happen:

They will be welcomed by some, but others will hate them – this is plain in the context (vs. 21-22); so, to acknowledge our Lord before men is a guarantee that we will be hated by those called “unworthy” in the context (vs. 11-14). Being accepted of our Father in heaven is very often being rejected by those who hate Him, and carries with it persecutions of various kinds. The statement of our Lord that “I am sending you out as sheep among wolves” (v. 16a) is a very vivid declaration of the mindset of the world in view of the glorious holiness of God; rending and tearing of their victims is what wolves do, so acceptance with God carries with it this promise of being victimized by those whom we carry the message of reconciliation too, even as our Lord was persecuted and ultimately killed, after torture, by those evil men who hated Him. We are His servants and those who learn of Him from Him, so we will never be above Him; however, we are like Him in the sense that we carry His message, and the secular worldview of those who hate God will result in our being equated with the very one Christ destroyed the power of by His crucifixion (vs. 24-25). In proclaiming our Lord and the gospel of the grace of God in Him to those who do not know Him, we will encounter rejection and worse, even among those of our own families and Godless governments; this will be because of the strong adherence to the Word of Truth which we proclaim, even though it cost us all, for we have found life in our Lord, and it is that Life we proclaim (vs. 34-39).

The twelve are sent out with nothing, and the expectation that those who receive them (and so receive the Lord Jesus Christ) will provide for them. This is indicative of the fact that our Lord became poor so that we might become rich in Him, and illustrates the attitude of we who share the gospel towards those we share it with, which is the humility that is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, yet a stern humility that goes away from those who reject the gospel of the kingdom with no regrets, trusting in our sovereign Lord and God to accomplish that which He always accomplishes by the Holy Spirit empowered sharing of His truth, knowing that He rewards them according to His gracious mercy, or just wrath (vs. 9-20).

It is not wise to proclaim our Lord before all at all times; sharing that with those who will turn and rend us with no profit to them is sometimes not that which He wills us to do, and therefore He gives us guidance as we are acknowledging Him before men who are yet unsaved (and I daresay, even among those who are of the household of faith), where the light that He is to the world shines through us, as we preserve His truth by our behavior and words, and refusal to take part in those things the world loves, and which we formerly were eagerly and unknowingly enslaved by, for although none are saved without the gospel proclamation, our Lord knows that, at times, we are among those who are set against Him because they value the glory of men more than that solitary glory that comes from Him, and love the things of the world and their lives so much that they would crucify Him afresh if He were before them – since we represent Him in this world, we must use that discretion that only comes from being in Him and having His mind (v. 16b).

As a sleight aside, it is to be noted that although our Lord sent the twelve “only to the lost sheep of Israel,” the promise of salvation to the Gentiles is hinted at in the declaration of their being told that they will “bear witness to the Gentiles” (vs. 5-6; 18). Bearing witness always has a dual purpose, as the context plainly shows: it is to bring those God makes worthy through the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to salvation, according to His eternal plan of redemption, and to show forth His righteous wrath and judgment against those who, unredeemed, remain in disobedient rebellion against His holiness (v. 15).

There is a fearlessness that is a determined mindset which is included in acknowledging our Lord before men – not a lack of emotional response to persecution, but a resolve to go through it as the Lord did for our sakes. Even our Lord had emotional responses to suffering as a man, as the scene in Gethsemane plainly shows us, yet He resolved to complete the work which the Father had given Him to do, and it is by the same Spirit of grace that we, despite the opposition to the message of the gospel of the kingdom, are to go forth, knowing that the reward that awaits us far outweighs any emotional and physical suffering we experience in this present life, and this is coupled with the joy of knowing that those who are given the right to receive Christ Jesus as their Lord and Savior will share in such eternal reward (vs. 26-31; 40-42).

So, to sum up: We find that because we are accepted in the Beloved, our Lord Jesus Christ, we freely and confidently proclaim Him among the congregation and among those who are yet perishing, regardless of consequences; this is a work that does not procure our salvation, but is a result of it. We are His servants, and do not merit anything we gain from Him, but acknowledge Him before men because of the standing in Him we have been given by God, who gave us to be born of His will, not our own or any man’s, and so gave us the right, the privilege, and yes, the power, to receive His Son as our Lord and Savior. We do this whether we are slandered or well spoken of, and we will find more of the latter than the former, but how sweet it is after myriad rejections when we find that one lost sheep that hears their Savior’s voice and comes back to pasture with His flock.

We do this bare of any merit or righteousness of our own, yet fully covered and equipped by that righteousness of God in Jesus Christ procured by that faith He gifted us with, and as our Lord set His face to go to Jerusalem, so we steel ourselves to go forth in that which He has, and is, making us, not holding any former ideologies or desires of the flesh dear, but only that which lays before us.

We are able to do such because we have been born again by the will of God of His imperishable seed, the engrafted Word, and we are empowered by His Spirit who gave that regeneration to our dead in sin nature, so that we can firmly carry on with our duty of sharing the word of reconciliation in the joy set before us, knowing that which awaits us, and having no need to fear those who cannot take our reward from us.

We confidently proclaim the Son before men because we know He has destroyed the power of the evil one, and that by His death, then triumphed over that which He destroyed, and it is in this triumph that we acknowledge Him before men, whether believers or unbelievers, regardless of the social setting or circumstances we find ourselves in; however, we do such as He gives opportunity, not seeking to share with those who repeatedly yet say, “Away with Him! We will not have this Man to be King over us!”

As we have nothing, and only do that which is of the unprofitable servant simply obeying their Master, so we expect nothing of ourselves, but everything of Him – the foundation of our acknowledging our Lord before men is in who God is, and what He has done for us, and all who are His, in our Lord Jesus Christ, and we look at and consider this reward we have not earned with joy, even as we may suffer and experience extreme sorrow, for we know He has given us life, wills that we share this hope with others, and nothing which they can do to us will change that which He has accomplished for the glory of His Father by which we undeservedly have attained to that life more abundant.

This is a part of what it means to acknowledge our Lord before men, and this concluded this particular meditation of all that God is for us in Jesus Christ, and our joyous wonderment and worshipful thankfulness of such a marvelous fact.