LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
By Him Are All Things
It is interesting to see how God, even knowing man's helplessness, gives him the responsibility first. First it was with Adam when He put him in the Garden of Eden; He created a whole favorable environment for him, gave him a free will; but, in a few hours, man fell. Adam chose wrong twice: he listened to his wife and then followed her instead of obeying God.
Then God called a people and made a covenant with them. A holy people, a priestly kingdom, so that He would be known through that people in all the earth, but his people broke that covenant. They tempted and disobeyed God, and kept not His testimonies (Ps. 78:56).
Centuries later, God poured out his Spirit upon all flesh on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17). A new covenant, a new alliance, with man. Now the law would be in their hearts, and they would have the Spirit to guide them. All was confirmed by the Lord with signs, wonders, wonders and gifts of the Spirit. But some 30 years later, that which had been initiated by the Spirit was ending in the flesh. They were falling from grace, abandoning the first love (Gal. 5.4; Rev. 2.4).
We fell in Adam as to our free choice, we fell as a people in obeying his commandments and we fell as a church. We had our opportunity to choose things, and in all of them we fell. Wretched men that we are, who shall deliver us from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
One man, the Son of Man, Jesus, arose to first obey in all things, and then to restore all things. First, at this present time, he began to restore man, making him the first fruits of his creatures, transforming him from glory to glory in his image (2 Cor. 3.18), by the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit (Tit. 3.5). And when his work of restoration is finished, he will present to himself a glorious, holy and blameless church (Eph. 5.26-27).
We cannot ignore the opportunity given to us and our fall; in all these we failed, but now through Christ we are more than conquerors. We can do all things in Him who strengthens us, both to choose the good, perfect and pleasing will of God, and also to obey Him and live as a church.
Only through Christ alone can we enjoy that which is yet to be restored; only through Christ alone can we live as brothers, loving one another. What is impossible for man is possible through Christ. Only through him alone can we walk in the way, in truth and in life; only through him can we enjoy in fullness that which one day we will see in its full reality.