Our Spiritual Richness

Today I want to make use of Norman Grubbs and Pastor Hoekstra's writing on Grace and the accompanying observable nature of Grace. Norman Grubbs uses Esau and Jacob as instruments of this fact (faith) while Pastor Hoekstra uses Barnabas of Acts 11. Then I will look at my targeted subject of GOD's being the universal Father, making use of the ESV translation. I must remind us that I am looking at Ephesians 4:1-6 with a closer look at verse 6.

Romans
By Norman P. Grubb


"There is a certain subtle truth that we come to here: Esaus don’t remain Esaus but become Jacobs if they want to. But, at the moment Paul is not saying that. He is saying a very strong thing. He is saying that you have to face the total sovereignty of GOD—that GOD does what He likes—that takes place. Until you see the other side of it, it looks as if GOD is a ruthless Person who would save some people and damn others. It looks like that because it is difficult for us humans to accept the character of GOD. He is totally Sovereign. What He says goes and nothing else goes, and He alone is the last word. The reason it is said is this: We humans have to come to the place where we bow down to GOD even if we don’t understand Him. Because GOD will never be understood by reason or mans intellect. He can only be understood by faith. So this is an area where you have to take Him as He stands. Knowledge doesn’t precede faith. Knowledge follows faith. The Bible says, “I know Whom I have believed.” You know when you believe. Reason can’t find it. Faith is an apparent absurdity.

You have yet to understand the truth, which for certain reasons, you boldly take, because it is given you and as you take it, you say, “Oh I see!” And, the seeing only follows the faith. “I know whom I have believed.” Not I believe whom I have known. You believe first. Then you know. The world can’t take that. That is why the world rejects us. They say, “You know then you believe.” No! You believe then you know, because belief is and attitude of obedience to the One higher than yourself. When you accept that He is higher than yourself and greater than yourself, you say, “Well, I do not understand it, but I will believe it because He is the great One and I am the small one. I will believe Him.” And, then as you take the right relationship as a human to the Deity you will find, “Oh, I understand now. I can see what He means.” So the world cannot believe that because the world is not going to start by yielding themselves to God, let alone GOD. That is the whole point. They have become rebels. They don’t want to yield to God, as GOD. They are enemies. So, they claim to be able to rationalize themselves into God and despise those who say certain things—as if they are certain because we know—because we have believed and they can’t say that.

Therefore, the “works-Christian” is bound to despise you. The Christian whose basis to life is “my own self effort” is bound to think you as crazy. Because they think you can know without having to come this way. And you can’t do it. You only know when you have found the end of yourself and been replaced by Christ. So, we have to realize what the great Kierkegaard called “the absurdity of faith.” We live in the foolishness of faith. He has a great book on the agonies of Abraham’s faith, when he had to sacrifice Isaac. To sacrifice Isaac—even though the liberals laugh at it—is to burn your son as a burnt offering. He wasn’t just going to kill him. He was going to burn him. He took him up with wood and the knife to burn him—his own precious son. Who is going to do that? He describes in that marvelous book called “Fear and Trembling”—the agonies that lie between. “Is it murder or is it guidance?” He has a very striking instance there. He uses a lot of long terms. What he means is this Ethics can still be self. Ethics is, “Oh I do so and so.” Suddenly GOD comes and calls you to do something which is unethical. “Oh? How can you do something which goes against human morality? Now that is awkward. This was the case. What! Abraham called to be a murderer? Was it murder or was it guidance? That is a pretty stiff decision to make before it happens. It is all right to look back now and know what happened, but it wasn’t then."

 "The Observable Nature of the Grace of God"
By Pastor Hoekstra

"The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. Then news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. When he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad." (Acts 11:21-23)


"Fundamentally, the work of GOD's Grace takes place within human hearts. "It is good that the heart be established by grace" (Hebrews 13:9). Yet, whenever Grace is at work in lives, visible indicators inevitably appear: "When he came and had seen the grace of God." This statement raises for our consideration the observable nature of the Grace of GOD. Because it is GOD working on the inside or in the inner man.

After Stephen was stoned by the religious leaders, an expansive persecution arose. GOD used this widespread difficulty to extend the proclamation of the gospel. "Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only" (Acts 11:19). Others began to reach out to those whose background was Grecian. "But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus" (Acts 11:20). GOD used them to touch many lives. "The hand of the LORD was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord." Word of this spiritual harvest soon reached Jerusalem. "Then news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch." So, Barnabas traveled to Antioch, where the first great Gentile church was being birthed. When he arrived, the invisible was being made visible: "When he came and had seen the Grace of GOD." It was obvious to Barnabas that GOD had been working by His Grace.

What Barnabas saw was undoubtedly similar to the spiritual phenomenon that had occurred in the church at Colossae. When the gospel was embraced there, it clearly impacted lives: "the truth of the gospel, which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of GOD in truth" (Colossians 1:5-6). In Colossae, the outward effects of the inward work of the Grace of GOD was spiritual fruit. When Barnabas saw this same process unfolding in Antioch, "he was glad."

GOD Spoken of as the Father of all Man,

Deuteronomy 32:1-14 "Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb. For I will proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God! "The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A GOD of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He. They have dealt corruptly with Him; they are no longer His children because they are blemished; they are a crooked and twisted generation. Do you thus repay the LORD, you foolish and senseless people? Is not He your Father, Who created you, Who made you and established you? Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your Father, and He will show you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He divided mankind, He fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of GOD. But the LORD's portion is His people, Jacob His allotted heritage. "He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; He encircled him, He cared for him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, the LORD alone guided him, no foreign god was with him. He made him ride on the high places of the land, and he ate the produce of the field, and He suckled him with honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock. Curds from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of Bashan and goats, with the very finest of the wheat— and you drank foaming wine made from the blood of the grape."


Malachi 2:10-12 "Have we not all one Father? Has not one GOD created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD, which He loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. May the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the LORD of hosts!"

Matthew 23:1-12 "Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, Who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted."

Romans 3:27-30 "Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. Or is GOD the God of Jews only? Is HE not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since GOD is One— Who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith."

1Corinthians 8:4-6 "Concerning the eating of food offered to idols, we know that "an idol has no real existence," and that "there is no GOD but one." For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"— yet for us there is one GOD, the Father, from Whom are all things and for Whom we exist, and one LORD, Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things and through Whom we exist."


Ephesians 4:1-6 "I therefore, a prisoner for the LORD, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—  one LORD, one faith, one baptism, one GOD and Father of all, Who is over all and through all and in all."

Hebrews 12:3-11 "Consider Him Who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the LORD, nor be weary when reproved by Him. For the LORD disciplines (His Jacobs) the one He loves, and chastises every son whom HE receives." (Psalm 119:75) It is for discipline that you have to endure. GOD is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of (our) spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but HE disciplines us for our good, that we may share His Holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Him)."

1John 5:5-12 "Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of GOD? This is the One Who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the Truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of GOD is greater, for this is the testimony of GOD that HE has borne concerning His Son. Whoever believes in the Son of GOD has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe GOD has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that GOD has borne concerning His Son. And this is the testimony, that GOD gave us eternal life, and this Life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has Life; whoever does not have the Son of GOD does not have life." (He remains an Esau by denying his birth right.)