Good morning. Before Jesus, your right standing before God
depended on you keeping the law. Now apart from the law the righteousness of
God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the
righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.
Then one of those oft quoted verses: for all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption
which is in Christ Jesus. Paul is saying that it is no longer through works
that we are justified, unlike in the Old Testament. Whom God displayed publicly
as a propitiation in His blood through faith. My Bible says that the Greek for
this phrase “as a propitiation“ speaks of a sacrifice that satisfies the
righteous wrath of God. Once a year the high priest would bring the blood of a
sacrificed animal into the holy of holies, and sprinkle the blood upon the
mercy seat (propitiatory) that was on the ark. This made atonement for all of
the sins of the Jewish people for the previous year. Instead of the blood of an
animal being sprinkled, the blood of Jesus Christ was sprinkled on the mercy
seat in heaven. This made atonement for all of our sins (not just for the
previous year) for all eternity. Father thank You that we were justified by
Your grace through the blood of Your Son Jesus Christ. Help us to share that
good news with all we come in contact with.
Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me
Good morning. Paul then gives a list of a lot of things that he has gone through as an apostle. I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. There could be many people that you listen to either in church or through the Internet or other means; but there was only one person (as a general rule it was a person) that lead you to Christ. Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me. He was saying that just like a child imitates his or her father, they were to imitate him. He says that again seven chapters later. Since it is easy to forget some things about people we have not seen in a while, Paul says that he sent Timothy to them to remind them of his ways which are in Christ, just as he taught everywhere in every church. Some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. I shall find ou...
Comments
Post a Comment