WE will close out now this chapter on “Romans Eight Reckoning.” We have come to see that there are three aspects, three phases to the Christian’s life, as we have been saved from sin’s condemnation, are being saved from sin’s power or rule in our life, and will be saved from sin’s presences when we are separated from this body of death and translated into our Lord’s eternal presence. Another way to look at this is to replace the word saved with delivered.
AS I have pointed out, I enjoy spotting this threefold pattern throughout Scripture. Just one example is 1Cor. 13:13, And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. I resist delving into the context of this verse, but notice here the three-part aspect:
Faith – ø1, our entrance into our relation and walk with the Lord, based upon His prescribed word, written and eternally recorded in the past.
Hope – ø3, our eternal future expectation that provides us confidence from the Word of promise, our already but not yet fully realize eternal glory In Christ.
Love – ø2 – our present walk in Christ, characterized and animated by the Holy Spirit – Gal. 5:22ff.
NOTICE the past, present and future aspect here, the one abiding element being love after faith and hope fade away when all that is promised is realized in the sight and eternal presence of our Lord! Love will rule unhindered and forever, without constraining unbelief and sin! In the meantime (ø2 of the Christian walk), we are becoming the person we will be forever, [working] out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12), [growing] in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2Per 3:18), being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you [ø1] will complete it [ø2] until the day [ø3] of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:16). As our author will summarize in completing the chapter below, our condition will be more and more conformed to our position in Christ (Rom. 8:29, 2Cor. 3:18) as we press toward that mark of our Father’s high calling (Phil 3: 12-14).
With that, let us complete this mediation in “Romans Eight Reckoning.”
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15, Jas 1:2; Prov. 21:30
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Chapter 47 – Romans Eight Reckoning – Part 4, conclusion
We exchanged the position of death for the position of life. By means of our identification in the Lord Jesus on the cross, we were “cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature [Adam],” and were “grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree [Christ]” (Rom. 11:24). How glorious to be a newly created branch grafted into the True Vine!
As the life of the Vine flows by the Spirit of Life, the fruit of the Spirit is increasingly manifested in the branch: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Gal. 5:22, 23). In the Vine, we are complete; in ourselves, we are being “completed” through the growth based on reckoning. We are gradually being conformed to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:29).
