Text: Romans 1:1-4
God is real and very tangible; He is not a figment of our imaginations. God wants everyone to be able to access Him but the reason He hides Himself such that some feel He is non-existent is because He is holy and cannot behold iniquity. Man has fallen into gross darkness and must be delivered before he can access God.
God is the promise of the Scriptures to man. The gospel of God is a carrier of the content, essence and everything that makes God who He is. To inherit God, we must first partake of His things. The promise in the gospel is what our Lord Jesus Christ became; this promise and gift is God.
Paul was separated for this gospel, just as our Lord Jesus was also made holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners for the sake of becoming God. The reason for the knowledge of His things is to gradually raise a man who can become God (Isaiah 28:9). Knowledge is not the acquisition of information, it is an understanding that brings about a formation. Our Lord Jesus Christ is made up of many things and these things define what He is (1 Corinthians 2:11).
For a man to change state, his content has to be changed because what makes a thing is its content and not its outward state. A man is a man because of his content, just as God is God because of His own content. To bring God to a man is to pour out man’s content from within him, and to replace them - by knowledge, with the substances that make up God.
No man can take all of God at once, the things that make God who He is have to be given in measures as it is written “...line upon line” (Isaiah 28:10). Our Lord Jesus Christ is a meek man (Matthew 11:29) but God is the meekest Being. Man is high and exalts himself in things that are contrary to God as a result of the Fall. The things that make up a mere man are pride and arrogance and they are responsible for defining him. However, men who have been subjected to the tutelage of Christ and have obeyed the teachings when scrutinised will show forth the properties of Christ in their lives. As we read the scriptures, we can read both Christ and God. To read God is to see the things that make Him up.
Christ is meek and lowly, He does not vaunt Himself. After the resurrection, He did not make an open show to the men who crucified Him because He does not vaunt Himself. We have been taught of Christ and, in this season, resources to complete the formation of Christ are being made available because God is coming.
Men are the only ones who rate and describe one another by the external, even demons recognize and respect men who have content. God wants to give to us the fullness of the Godhead. Jesus Christ partook of everything that God had, this is why the Bible says, in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9). As we acquire God’s knowledge, we are gradually being made a man that can inhabit God.
The knowledge of Christ purifies the soul. A purified soul is a kind of stature in the spirit. The faith of God’s elect is given by the revelation of Christ and when it is delivered to any man, it should be contended for. No soul can partake of anything that is of God except by revelation.
The reason for the faith of the elect is to raise a godly man. There are forms of godliness but true godliness is as a result of the properties of Christ and God. We come into true godliness by partaking of the truth and hearkening unto the commandments that the Lord gives.
The fallen man likes to vaunt himself, but the Christ man is a man that must be hidden. Eternal life is God’s content and God’s gift to man. The promise that God promised us is eternal life (1 John 2:25). This life is not resident with angels, it is a property that is exclusively God’s. To inherit eternal life, we must take heed to every line and precept being laid. This means that we must first become and inherit Christ before we can partake of and inherit eternal life.
We partake of Christ by hearing His voice and hearken to His commandments (Hebrews 3:15). It is as we hearken to these commandments that we become exactly like Him. In like manner, we would inherit God by hearing His voice and hearkening to His commandments. The things of God are communicated through His speakings, which would cause us to live when obeyed.