Thank you for joining me. We're in the middle of an exciting series describing the timeline of our great salvation from beginning to the end of all time, all performed by God. Please see the prior
Today we're discussing our wonderful positions in Christ. At our salvation through faith in Christ’s death we are positioned spiritually with God in four primary ways. Let's discuss the first two this week and we'll discover the next two next time.
1. God’s possession – As New Testament believers, God has redeemed us (purchasing us at the cross) has enabled us to become His peculiar possession (1 Peter 2:9). How does God accomplish making us His possession?
· The Holy Spirit’s sealing – We are marked as God’s possession at salvation by the Holy Spirit who is given to us (Ephesians 1:13-14; Romans 8:9). This is a great promise and a result of our belief to salvation by faith alone in Christ’s substitutionary work on the cross (Ephesians 2:8-9).
· His workmanship – Upon belief we are also remade into God’s image (Ephesians 2:10) as a new work. Please see just below under Baptism for further detail.
2. Spiritual baptism – This biblical truth is vital in understanding who we are as Christians.
· First, let’s consider the word itself. In the Epistles when baptism is mentioned, it refers almost always to spiritual baptism. Water baptism might be considered as an external ritual to signify the internal event. The word βαπτιζω (baptizoo) in Greek (the original language of the New Testament) was an old term borrowed from the dye trade. It meant that a piece of cloth immersed in a dye became ‘identified’ with the new color.
· Second, how is being ‘identified’ with Christ associated with being a Christian? Fortunately, a lot! When we believe at salvation we are identified with Christ’s gracious death and resurrection. At this time, our old self died and was buried with Christ. We are raised now to new life with Him and God views us as sitting with Him at His right hand (Romans 6:2-12; Ephesians 2:4-7; Colossians 2:12-13).
· Similar concepts in scripture that also appear to speak to spiritual baptism are: regeneration (Titus 3:5), born again (John 3:5) and new man (Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10). Why is this concept so important?
o Believer’s sin – Although every believer sins, we possess the power to say ‘no’ to sin because our new person in Christ is now able to live a victorious life.
o The reason for the resurrection – Baptism teaches us the importance of the resurrection because Christians are raised with Christ to new life without which they would still be dead in sins (1 Corinthians 15:17).
o Eternal security – Baptism helps each believer know they cannot lose salvation because scripture does not indicate that committing a sin will kill the new person and bring the old dead self back to life!
o Prayer - believers who are now holy can approach God at any time directly in prayer in confidence. Old Testament believers did not have this advantage, being limited to the Day of Atonement when only the high priest could approach the most holy God (Heb 10:19-22).
Otherwise, we are transformed permanently to a new life, resurrected with Christ and free to serve Him and pray to Him. We cannot be defeated by the misdeeds of our old self. These changes cannot be reversed. What a great comfort we have in the truth of scripture!
In summary, we have four great positional promises as a believer because of Christ’s redemptive work on the cross, resulting in either legal or morphological irreversible changes. We covered two of these important positions today God's possession and spiritual baptism.
Please join us next time as we discuss or legal justification and our adoption into God's family. Wow what wonderful promises God has provided us to assure us of our great salvation!
William C. Stewart
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