God the Son, Student Workbook, SW10

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G O D T H E S O N

[10] Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. [11] Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. [12] The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. [13] Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. [14] But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. It is hard to overestimate how powerful the apostolic witness was in the Roman world shortly after the days of our Lord’s resurrection and ascension. The message of Jesus dead, risen, ascended, and returning became more than the wishful thinking of a weird little Jewish sect of deluded followers of a failed rabbi. Instead, the message of the Nazarene became a blazing fire that ignited every village and city where followers of Yeshua (Jesus) gathered and spoke. The Holy Spirit transformed the little group of confused and cowering disciples into world-changing messengers of a new order which, at any time, was expected to be unveiled and revealed according to God’s own timing and method. What was the vision that ignited the new fellowship, that made them combustible and ready to make the kinds of sacrifices that would propel an entire generation to give witness of Messiah and the hope of eternal life in his name? Even a cursory read of the book of Acts and the Epistles reveals that the apostles’ worldview was that of messengers of an age and its Lord which, at any moment, was about to be unveiled on a corrupt and dying era. They lived as if they believed that this Nazarene was in fact the divine Son of God who had come to make an end of sin, destroy the devil’s work, and now was alive and pouring forth on his own his blessings, endowments, and gifts in order that they might represent him. For them, he was truly Lord. At any moment, he could decide to return (by the Father’s leave and command), and consummate the work that he began here. They were, in the dry language of the theological schools an eschatological community . That is, their entire identity, value system, and worldview was shaped by their conviction that a new world was about to dawn, and that the time was imminent (close by) for its revelation. Any day might be the day. “Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” Their vision was that Jesus was the Messiah, that he died and rose to ratchet down God’s work for creation, that he ascended into heaven and would soon return to establish God’s reign in the earth and rule as King. This vision ignited their imaginations and hearts,

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