SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/8/2023 8:05 AM
Bible Reading & Meditation Focus: PT-3 "The Vindication of Kingdom Equality"
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
20:13-16
Message of the verses: “13 But he replied
to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for
a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last
worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what
belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ 16 So the last will be first,
and the first last."
I mentioned at the end of our last SD that we would begin
to look at the spiritual meaning of these verses in this SD. The first thing we have to do to understand
the spiritual meaning is to understand who and what are represented in it. In verse one we learn this: “"For the
kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning
to hire laborers for his vineyard.”
Jesus says that this parable is about “The kingdom of heaven.” So it makes sense to then say that the
vineyard is the kingdom itself, and the landowner is God the Father, and the foreman
is the Son, Jesus Christ. That would
make the laborers believers, and the denarius is eternal life, which all
received equally for trusting in Christ.
The work day would be the believer’s lifetime of service to his Lord and
the evening is eternity. Now that we
understand this we can move on.
John MacArthur writes: “God’s sovereign principle for salvation is that
every person who comes in faith to His Son, Jesus Christ receives the same
gracious salvation prepared by the Father and given by the Son. There are no exceptions or variations. Whether a person comes to God as a small child
and lives a long life of faithful, obedient service, or whether he comes to Him
on his deathbed, all come into the kingdom on the same basis and receive the
same glorious, eternal blessings. The
penitent thief who turned to Jesus on the cross with his last breath received
the same salvation and heavenly glory as the apostles. He died justly as a criminal, whereas most of
them died unjustly because of their faithfulness to Christ. He did not have even one hour to serve
Christ, whereas some of the served Him far into old age. He knew just enough about Christ to be saved,
and his service was limited to a brief time of praise and thankfulness, whereas
the disciples were privileged to live intimately with Him for three years and
were given unique divine revelation from and about Him. Yet all of them received equally by their
divine Savior and King and stand equally before Him in heaven.”
According to 1 Corinthians 4:5;
Revelation 22:12 we see that the Lord will indeed reward His saints. “5 Therefore do not go on passing judgment
before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to
light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s
hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.” “12 “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My
reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.” We can see from the following verse, Matt.
16:27 the following that Jesus taught earlier in Matthew: “"For the Son of Man is going to come in
the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING
TO HIS DEEDS.’” “Each man’s work will become evident,” Paul declared, for the
day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire itself
will test the quality of each man’s work.
If any man’s work which he has built upon it remains, he himself shall
be saved, yet so as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:13-15). We are not talking about individual rewards
from our passage in Matthew 20:1-16, as the subject of the landowner is not
personal rewards that will determine the nature and scope of our ruling and
serving in eternity but rather the common blessedness of eternity that will
belong to all true believers.
So in this parable the Lord is not
teaching about the difference of rewards but the equality of salvation. What He is saying is that Christians who have
spent a life of ease and spiritual inactivity have the same eternal salvation
as those who suffer a martyr’s death. I
want to talk a moment about the passage in 1 Corinthians 3:13-15. This passage is those those who are saved, yet so as through fire because they did
not do good works for the Lord will have “smoky robes.” I have also mentioned the following from
Ephesians 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” It is my
belief that God has ordained good works for all believer’s to do while on
planet earth and so to the extent of how we do these good works after we are
saved will determine what kind of rewards we will receive in heaven. If we don’t do any of these good works that
were ordained for us to do then we will end up with smoky robes, and if we do
them we will be rewarded. Each person in
the body of Christ will have different functions to do in order for the body to
work well, so I think that it is best to ask the Lord what He has planned for
me in eternity past and then do it in the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory
of Jesus Christ. One more thing before
we finish this SD and that is that the Bible speaks of different kinds of
rewards, and John MacArthur explains: “All
believers will receive ‘the crown of life’ (James 1:12; Rev. 2:10), ‘the crown
of righteousness’ (2 Tim. 4:8); and ‘the crown of glory’ (1 Pet. 5:4). The Greek genitives of apposition behind each
of these three phases refer to the future blessing of all believers—eternal life,
and eternal righteousness, and eternal glory!”
In our next SD we will begin by looking at this from a human perspective.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I am beginning to better understand this
parable, but still have one issue with it and that is that I believe that it is
best to be saved at an early age to be able to serve the Lord for a long time.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust the Lord, through His Holy Spirit to
cause me to serve Him each and every day of my life.
4/8/2023 8:52 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment