HAVE you ever felt out of place, alone in a crowd or small group, like a stranger that didn’t quite belong? Maybe it was the first day in a new school, or a job, or some kind of required-to-attend formal meeting where you did not know anyone. There’s a dread just thinking about it, and a deep-down desire for some obscure place to fade into while there. Of course you have, who hasn’t? And have you ever had someone step forward at that moment and invite you in, make you feel welcome and know acceptance, rescue you out of that shadow of fear and doubt? … I recall early on in my Christian life marveling over the amazing discovery and fact of Eph. 1: 6, “to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved”. “Accepted in the Beloved” – what a wonderful reality! Now in Christ I have a permanent place and standing, all those awkward moments are gone. I’m no longer alone in the crowd, without a friend or companion. I am permanently accepted in Christ, by the King of kings and Lord of lords wherever I go, wherever I am, and if I wait patiently for a moments time, I’ll bet I’ll find a Christian brother or sister at the meeting or somewhere in that room, and you know what, I usually do. And even if I don’t, I know there is one who is with me, I in Him and He in me. O’ blessed truth, I’m never alone!
SUCH is being eternally “accepted in the Beloved” both now and in the time to come, and no one can take that away. I have an “accepted place in Christ” that cannot be changed, denied, or taken away.
WELL, with that said we come to Chapter III in our look at Positional Truth, having observed Position Defined, Justification and Assurance, we now consider Reconciliation and Acceptance.
In the wondrous blessings of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa. 30:15 & Job 2:10
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Chapter 21—Reconciliation and Acceptance
The settled assurance of our justification is not simply to make us sure of getting to heaven, but to prepare us for further spiritual progress. Assurance of our justified position in Christ gives us sureness in each subsequent step of our spiritual development. By grace we were born anew: “Being justified freely by his grace…” (Rom. 3:24); and by grace we will grow: “But grow in grace…” (2 Pet. 3:18). We must stand in the first principles before we can go on from them to maturity. Until we rest assured in our position of justification, we are not spiritually prepared for the positional truths of our reconciliation to, and acceptance by, God.
Reconciliation
The ground of our reconciliation to God is justification from the penalty of sin. In the Lord Jesus we were justified from the death penalty of sin, thereby enabling God to reconcile us to Himself. Justification frees us from death; reconciliation brings us into life. “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, it is much more [certain], now that we are reconciled, that we shall be saved [daily delivered from sin’s dominion] through His [resurrection] life” (Rom. 5:10, Amp.).
To be reconciled is to be brought into right relationship, into harmony. Being dead in our sins, we were completely cut off from any relationship with the God of life; spiritually, we were the children of the devil (John 8:44). Instead of seeking to bring to life and reconcile the fallen Adamic nature—an impossibility, because that life is enmity toward God and cannot be subject to the law of God (Rom. 8:7)—our Father recreated us in the life of the Lord Jesus. He placed us in a totally new position, out of Adam, into Christ. “Even when we were dead … He made us alive together in fellowship and in union with Christ. He gave us the very life of Christ Himself, the same new life with which He quickened Him” (Eph. 2:5, Amp.).
Self cannot be reconciled to God. Since we were born sinners and therefore were enmity against God, our reconciliation to Him was no simple matter. It took the cross of Calvary to solve the problem. There, as lost and alienated sinners, we were identified with the Lord Jesus in His death unto sin and resurrection unto God; we were raised from the dead as new creatures (creations) in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). Being made “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4), we were completely and eternally reconciled to the Father. “Having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself… And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight” (Col. 1:20–22, italics mine).
Our present condition is infinitely inferior to our eternal position, but our Father accepts us—not in ourselves, but in His Son. …….. To be continued
