Friday, December 6, 2024

PT-2 "Christians Remain Faithful" 1 John 2:24-25)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/6/2024 8:37 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                        Focus:  PT-2 “Christians Remain Faithful”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  1 John 2:24-25

 

            Message of the verses:  “As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning.  If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.  This is the promise which He Himself made to us:  eternal life.”

 

            I want to pick up from where I left off in last night’s Spiritual Diary on these verses.  The ultimate prize for those who remain faithful is, of course, eternal life.  Now concerning Himself, the true Bread of Life, and  those who are spiritually united to Him, this is what Jesus promised as seen in John 6:53-58:

 

53 So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56 “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. 58 “This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.’”  In His commentary John MacArthur has some verses listed that compare with this one:  John 14:1-6; 2 Tim. 1:1;Titus 1:2; 3-7; 1 Peter 1:3-5; Jude 21.)

 

            MacArthur then writes “The contrast between antichrists and Christians is absolutely clear.  Antichrists deny the faith, depart from the faith, and seek to deceive the faithful.  Christians, on the other hand, affirm the faith and remain faithful to the end—they cannot be permanently deceived.  The Westminster Confession of Faith sets fort the following regarding the understanding of truth and perseverance:

 

“All things in Scripture are not alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them. (I:VII)

 

They, whom God hast accepted in His Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.  (XVII:1)

 

            Now I know that the verses from the 6th chapter of John that I quoted above are difficult to understand so here is where you can find what I wrote on those verses:   SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/18/2016 7:21 AM

            If you are interested at looking at that rather long SD just look for it on my blog with the date mentioned above. 

 

            Let me just quote a partial paragraph from MacArthur’s commentary on these verses.

 

            “Jesus, of course, was not speaking of literally drinking the fluid in His veins any more than He was of literally eating His flesh.  Both metaphors refer to the necessity of accepting Jesus’ sacrificial death.  The New Testament frequently uses the term blood as graphic metonym speaking of Christ’s death on the cross as the final sacrifice.”  He then gives a great many verses to show this truth which I am not going to include here.  He ends this paragraph by writing “His sacrifice was the one to which all of the Old Testament sacrifices pointed.”  Now many people who read these verses think that Jesus is talking about communion, but that is not the case.

 

12/6/2024 9:07 PM

 

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