In this message we shall cover the remaining aspects of the believers’ experiencing and enjoying God as the Father in His love.
Second Thessalonians 1:11 speaks of God fulfilling “every good pleasure of goodness and work of faith in power.” The Greek word rendered “good pleasure” also means delight. As believers in Christ, we have the aspiration of doing good, that is, of doing God’s will. This is our good pleasure, our delight, and we are happy to do it. However, although we have this good pleasure, without God’s power we do not have the ability to accomplish what we are glad to do. But God in His power fulfills for the believers every good pleasure of goodness and work of faith. The move of God in His power produces the environment needed for the fulfillment of our good pleasure and the carrying out of the work of our faith. This also is a matter of God’s dispensing.
God’s dispensing also includes His perfecting, establishing, strengthening, and grounding the believers (1 Pet. 5:10b; Rom. 16:25; 2 Thes. 2:17b). First Peter 5:10 says, “The God of all grace, who called you into His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself perfect, establish, strengthen, and ground you.” In this verse “all grace” refers to the riches of the bountiful supply of the divine life in many aspects ministered to us in many steps of the divine operation on us and in us in God’s economy. The initial step is to call us, and the consummate step is to glorify us. Between these two steps are God’s loving care in His perfecting, establishing, strengthening, and grounding us. In all these divine acts, the bountiful supply of the divine life is ministered to us as grace in varied experiences. The God of such grace will, through His dispensing, perfect, establish, strengthen, and ground the believers.
The word “Himself” in 5:10 indicates God’s personal activity in the work of grace. The Greek word rendered “perfect” literally means restore. It implies repairing, adjusting, putting in order again, mending, perfectly joining together, thoroughly equipping, well furnishing, and thus, perfecting, completing, educating. In Greek the word “establish” literally means to set fast, to confirm. The same word was used by the Lord Jesus in His charge to Peter in Luke 22:32. The meaning of “strengthen” is very close to that of establish. Literally, the Greek word rendered “ground” means to lay a basis for. It is a derivation of the word that means foundation. Hence, it is to ground solidly, as in Matthew 7:25, Ephesians 3:17, and Hebrews 1:10.
There is progress in these four divine acts of grace. Perfecting leads to establishing, establishing to strengthening, and strengthening to grounding in the God of all grace-the Triune God in His dispensing as the solid foundation. First God perfects us, perhaps through the suffering of persecution. Then after perfecting us God establishes us. When we are established, we no longer wander, and we are no longer changeable. After God establishes us, He strengthens us, empowers us, and eventually grounds us in Himself as the Triune God.
In Romans 16:25 Paul says, “Now to Him who is of power to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which has been kept in silence in times eternal.” Here we see that it is according to the gospel and the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept in silence in times eternal, that the God who is of power establishes us. This indicates that God’s establishing of us is a great matter.
In Romans 16 the believers’ need is no longer salvation or sanctification; it is to be established. Everything has been accomplished, and we need only to be established. We are not established according to doctrines or dispensational truths but according to the gospel, the preaching of Christ, and the revelation of the mystery. All believers need to be rescued from divisive doctrines and practices and be established by the pure and full gospel of God, by the preaching and ministering of the living and all-inclusive Christ, and by the revelation of God’s mystery. Only the pure gospel, the living Christ, and God’s revealed mystery can establish us and keep us in oneness for the church life.
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