Again to quote Barth:

” That you should be joined to another, even to Him who was raised from the dead,

that we might bring forth fruit unto God.

We encounter here that Other Who stands directly contrasted with the loftiest pinnacle

of human achievement which is the ‘living’ body of Christ, for we encounter -Him Who

was raised from the dead. For that Other we have been unfettered and set at liberty.

Beyond the evacuation in Christ of the achievement of religion- evacuation which is

fulfillment- we perceive in Him the power of obedience which is the power of obedience

which is the power of His Resurrection. In this final balance sheet, in which religion and

grace confront one another as death and life, our pardon is assured and we are enabled

to recognize the freedom of God,. Not as religious men do we obey the categorical

imperative; not as religious men do we become free from sin and servants to God; the fruits

unto sanctification, which God gathers into His barns, are not our religious thoughts and

desires and actions. Rather, we obey the imperative of God as men under grace; as men

standing within the peace of God which passes all understanding; as men who have passed

from death to life. So it is that St. Paul dares to address as brethren men who, like himself,

know the Law only too well. He addresses them thus, because they are not ignorant of their

unobservable establishment in God, which lies beyond the frontier of religion and is perceived

in the passing of Christ from Cricifiction to Resurrection.”

To quote Barth:

” Men do not stand upright before God in virtue of their religion,

any more than they stand upright before Him in virtue of any other

human property. They stand upright before Him in virtue of that divine

nature by which also Christ stood when His ‘religious consciousness’ was

the recognition that He was abandoned by God. In the slain body of Christ,

we perceive the non-existence of men and supremely of religious (!) men; and

we also perceive atonement, forgiveness, justification, and redemption.

From death comes life; and what death is, is made known to us in the death of

Christ. So long, therefore, as we live we are joined to the ‘living’, human body of

Christ, to the Christ -according- to -the-flesh: so long that is, as we are what we are,

born under the Law, woven into the vast ambiguity of religious experience and

history, engaged in the game of ‘Yes and No’ ( a dangerous game, but one full of promise),

we have no right to expect our situation to be other than it is, any more than the married

woman can expect to belong to another man except her husband- so long as he liveth. But-

through the slain body of Christ, we are what we are not. Observed from this scene of death

‘we’ live no more; we are dead to the Law, dead to the possibility and necessity of religion,

dead to every human possibility; we are removed, set free, unfettered. As a widow is set free

by the Law to be joined to another husband, so the road to that other life, where there is no

duplicity, no ambiguity, is thrown open to us.”

HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!

The best human efforts, earnest intentions and extreme diligence fall short of the glory of God.

But a man under grace is made alive in Christ:

 ” Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised

from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life.

For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the

likeness of His resurrection.”

(Romans 6.4&5).

We are either dead (the default position) or alive. If we are dead, we have died to the Law and have

been freed from sin:

“Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with,

that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

For he who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.”

(Romans 6.6-8).

With the human body of Christ Jesus our Lord who died on the Cross of Golgotha, the human

impossibility of full obedience to God has been replaced by God’s possibility of the new life in Christ.

We were crucified with Him. so that we can live with Him. We have been taken out of the realm of Law, sin

 and death, of human behavior and failure. We are brought into the Kingdom of God’s Dear Son.

HALLELUJAH! PRAISE THE LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!

The meaning of being reborn of the Spirit and made alive in Christ Jesus unto good works

which  He has prepared for us implies a new man. Under grace and not under the Law, as

Abraham, justified not by the keeping of the Law, but by the grace of God, through faith.

This is purely God’s miracle, a divine effect. This is brought about by God, Who wants all

to come to Him, to know Him and love Him, to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

This is far beyond all human expectation, enthusiasm and enterprise.

Grace is the impossible made possible by God. Grace is the miracle by which you

are given  the gift beyond all gifts and unexpected favor above all favors.

Its effect is expressed in Romans 6.23:

“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

PRAISE THE NAME OF JESUS FOREVERMORE!

The premise and promise of the Gospel, Best News Ever is the grace of God expressed

in Jesus Christ’s redemptive passion, death and resurrection. His amazing love!

Are we expounding a religious concept based on human effort?

Is this a philosophical concept? A doctrine? A theory? Is human life limited by human

potentiality? When you reach the end of the line what else is there?

What is beyond human wisdom and human life as we know it?

Clearly, God has prepared a table for us full of glory, His glory, eternal rewards, grace,

sonship, endless joy, triumph, fulfillment and happiness. He has provided answers to

our deepest and unexpressed yearnings. He has given us direction beyond human curiosity,

comprehension, above intelligence and accomplishments surpassing fondest dreams.

The beginning of true wisdom is deep reverence for God, recognizing that we are mere

sinful mortals. Our existential quest encounters the reality that we are sinners and all come

short of the glory of God. We need to see ourselves as God sees. We are desperate apart from Him.

No one can deny the fact of our intrinsic fallibility and mortality, yet we all have this yearning for

permanence and eternity.

We seek what Jesus told Nicodemus: a new birth. The spiritual rebirth.The Eternal God wants us

in His eternal Kingdom and is recreating us through His Eternal Spirit, in Christ Jesus the Eternal Son.

“Jesus told him, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, that unless a person is born again, anew,

from above, he can never see the Kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus said to Him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb

again and be born?

Jesus answered, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit,

he can not enter the Kingdom of God.

What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Marvel not at My telling you, You must all be born anew.

The wind blows where it wills, and though you hear its sound, yet you neither know where it comes

from nor where it is going. So it is everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Nicodemus answered by asking, How can all this be possible?

Jesus replied, Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet do not know or understand these things?

I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, We speak of what we know, we have actually seen what we are

testifying to. And still you do not receive our testimony.

I have told you of things that happen right here on the earth and yet none of you believes Me,

how can you believe if I tell you of heavenly things?

And yet no one has ever gone up to heaven, but there is One Who has come down from heaven- the Son

of Man, Who has His home in heaven.

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert (on a pole), so must the Son of Man be lifted up

(on the cross).

In order that everyone who believes in Him, trusts Him and relies on Him may not perish, but have

eternal life and live forever!

For God so loved and dearly prized the world that He (even) gave His only begotten (unique) Son,

so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction,

be lost) but have everlasting life.

For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on)

the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.

He who believes in Him is not judged ( he who trusts in Him never comes up for  judgment: for him there is

no rejection, no condemnation- he incurs no damnation), but he who does not believe (cleave to, rely on,

trust in Him) is judged already (he has already been convicted and has already received his sentence)

because he has not believed in and trusted in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

The basis of the judgment by which men are judged lies in this: the Light has come into the world,

and people have loved the darkness rather than and more than the Light, for their works were evil.

For every wrongdoer hates the Light, and will not come out into the Light but shrinks from it, lest

his works (his deeds, activities and conduct) be exposed and reproved.

But he who practices truth (who does what is right) comes out into the Light so that his works may be

plainly shown to be what they are- wrought with God (divinely prompted, done with God’s help,in

dependence upon Him).

(John3.3-21).

The new birth, of the water and of the Spirit is the only way to see, experience and know God’s Kingdom.

Because He is Spirit and those who come to Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. The Holy Spirit

makes intercession for us according to God’s will. He helps us in our weakness, He comforts us.

He makes us conform to Jesus Christ. The Spirit shed abroad in our hearts makes us know that now

we are the sons of God. We have received the Spirit of adoption, wisdom and revelation in Christ Jesus

or Lord. The Holy Spirit helps us in our infirmities, makes us holy and whole. The Spirit convicts us

of sin, yet the Law of the Spirit has set us free from the law of sin and death, the vicious course, the

curse of fallen humanity. He sets us free from the carnal mind which is contrary to God.

The Spirit makes us truly alive, eternally alive. He sets us free from the boundaries of physical

existence. He transposes us into the realm of God. Thus positioned we can continue our discovery

in delight, our understanding of limitless Life, Love and Light, the fulfillment of God’s Fullness.

HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!

“This is the message of promise which we have heard from Him and now

are reporting to you: God is Light, and there is no darkness in Him.

If we say we are partakers together and enjoy fellowship with Him when

we live in darkness, we are speaking falsely and do not live the Truth.

But, if we are living and walking in the Light, as He is in the Light, we have

fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses

us from all sin .

If we say we have no sin, we delude ourselves, and the Truth is not in us.

If we admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just

and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

(I.John 1.5-9).

This is the basis of Christian growth.

HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!

“And it shall be in that day that the Root of Jesse shall stand as a signal for the peoples,

of Him shall the nations inquire and seek knowledge, and His dwelling shall be glory

(His rest glorious)!”

(Isaiah 11.10).

“Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still holds and is offered today, let us fear

to distrust it lest any of you should come short of reaching it.

For indeed we have had the glad tidings (The Best News Ever) proclaimed to us just as truly as

they (the Israelites of old did when the good news of deliverance from bondage came to them),

but the message they heard did not benefit them, because it was not mixed with faith (with the

absolute trust and confidence in God’s power, wisdom and goodness) by those who heard it,

neither were they united in faith with the ones (Joshua and Caleb) who heard (did believe).

For we who have believed ( trusted in and relied on God) do enter that rest in accordance with

His declaration that those who did not believe should not enter when He said, As I swore in My

wrath, They shall not enter My rest; and this He said although (His works had been completed and

prepared and waiting for all who would believe) from the foundation of the world.

For in a certain place He has said this about the seventh day: And God rested on the seventh day

from all His works.

And they forfeited their part in it, for in this passage He said, They shall not enter My rest.

Seeing that the promise remains over (from past times) fro some to enter that rest, and that those

who formerly were given the good news about it and the opportunity, failed to seize it and did not

enter because of disobedience,

Again He sets a definite day, Today, and gives another opportunity of securing that rest, saying through

David after so long a time in the words already quoted, Today, if you would hear His voice and when you

hear it, do not harden your hearts.

This mention of a rest was not a reference to their entering into Canaan. For if Joshua had given them rest,

He (God) would not speak afterward about another day.

So then, there is still awaiting a full and complete Sabbath-rest reserved for the true people of God;

For he who has entered God’s rest also has ceased from the (weariness and pain) of human labors,

just as God rested from  those labors peculiarly His own.

Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest (of God,

to know and experience it for ourselves), that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief

and disobedience (into which those in the wilderness fell).

For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power (making it active, operative, energizing and

effective); it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of

life and spirit, and of joints and marrow, exposing and sifting, analyzing and judging the very thoughts

and purposes of the heart.

And not a creature exists that is concealed from His sight, but all things are open and exposed, naked

and defenseless to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do.

Inasmuch as we have a High Priest Who has already ascended and passed through the heavens, Jesus

the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize with our weaknesses and

infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as

we are, yet without sinning.

Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s

unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy (for our failures) and find grace to help in

good time for every need.”

(Hebrews 4.1-16).

“All things have been entrusted and delivered to Me by my Father, and no one fully knows

the Son except the Father and no one fully knows the Father except the Son and anyone to

whom the Son makes Him known.

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you

to rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will

find rest for your souls

For my yoke is wholesome and My burden is light and easy to be borne.”

(Matthew 11.27-30).

THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!

(I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out.)

For I fail to practice the good deeds I desire to do, but the evil deeds that I do not desire to do are what I find

myself doing.

Now if I do what I do not desire to do, it is no longer I doing it but the sin principle that dwells in me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is right and good, evil is ever present with me and

I am subject to it.

For I endorse and delight in the Law of God in my innermost self.

But I discern in my bodily members a different law at war against the law of my mind and making me

a prisoner to the law of sin that dwells in my body.

O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me out of this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ

our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

(Romans 7.18-25).

We all face the same dilemma.

The most we can muster up and the best we can do is still short of the glory of God.

There must be a willingness to do good an to obey God in us. The Law points us in that direction.

However, due to the EGO, the selfish human nature it is humanly impossible to fulfill the righteous requirements

of the Law. Thus, everyone fails and falls short of the glory of God. We must surrender any idea or false notion

that human endeavor, enterprise or effort can impress God. The sinful nature is present even when we try to do

our best.

The solution to this problem is to realize God’s answer. It is loud and clear. We need to recognize with St. Paul

our most fundamental flaw:

“O wretched man that I am!” The sooner you recognize your problem the better.

The need for deliverance is clear!

“Who shall deliver me out of this body of death?”

There is nothing we can humanly do to escape this body of death.

The sooner we realize this the sooner we understand THE WAY OUT:

“I THANK GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD!”

Yes. This is THE ONLY WAY out of our collective and individual predicament.

We are not what we should be and we are what we should not be. We try to be good and do good, but we have a

serious and deadly problem. We are only men and women. We are totally helpless and mortal.

On the other hand, Jesus Christ is THE MAN. He is the NEW MAN who is fully God and fully man.

He is totally divine and completely human. He is unique. He is able. He can. Yes. He truly can.

He is the Only Person who stands astride the physical and the spiritual. He has passed from death to life.

He has conquered sin and death. He has the victory. He is the door. He is the key. He is the only way.

He is the end of the death sentence which comes from the Law. He is Life eternal. In God’s total freedom

to be and to create, He has made it possible for us to be identified with Him. Yes we are wretched on our own.

Yes we are saved through Him.

We are what we should be only in Him. That’s why Jesus says that He is the vine and we

are the branches. We can live as we abide in Him. Fully and abundantly. Forever.

Apart from Him we are nothing. With Him and through

Him we have His victory!

HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!

Are you ignorant of the fact that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized unto His death?

We were buried therefore with Him by  baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by

the glorious power of the Father, so we too might live and behave in newness of life.

For if we have become one with Him by sharing a death like His, we shall also be one with Him in sharing His

resurrection by a new life lived for God.

We know that our old self was nailed to the cross with Him in order that our body which is the instrument of

sin might be made ineffective and inactive for evil, that we might no longer be slaves of sin.

For when a man dies, he is loosed from the power of sin among men.

Now if we have died with Christ, we  believe that we shall also live with Him.

Because we know that Christ (the Anointed One), being once  raised from the dead will never die again;

death no longer has any power over Him.

For the death He died, He died to sin, ending His relation to it, once for all; and the life that He lives,

He is living to God in unbroken fellowship with Him.

Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relationship to it broken, but alive to God in

unbroken relationship with Him) in Christ Jesus.

(Romans 6.3-11).

HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!

Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God has set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.(Romans 3.24-26).

In the Old Testament the mercy seat was covered by the wings of two angel figures which are called cherubim. The ark of the covenant was kept where once a year on the Day of Atonement the high priest sprinkled blood to make atonement for the people. This illustrated what Jesus as the eternal High Priest did with His own blood to make atonement once for all. Hebrews chapter 9 explains the atonement of Jesus Christ in view of the Old Testament. Also St.Paul says: ” Now all things are of  God, Who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors  f0r Christ, as though God was pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him Who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (II. Corinthians 5. 18-21). The New Covenant is ratified with the body and blood of Jesus Christ:” Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread and praising God, gave thanks and asked Him to bless it to their use and when he had broken it, He gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And He took a cup, and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, Drink of it , all of you; For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is being poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.(Matthew 26. 26-28).

Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life. He is the Bread that gives Life, the Living Bread. “I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, he who believes in Me, has eternal life.I am the Bread of Life (that gives life, the Living Bread). Your forefathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and yet they died. But this is the bread that comes downfrom heaven, so that one may eat of it and never die. I am this Living Bread that came down from heaven.If anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever; and also the Bread that I shall give for the life of the world is My body. (John 6.47-51). We have the Lord here in the Holy Communion. The Kingdom of God has come and redemption is here. His death on the Cross is the salvation of mankind. His resurrection is newness of life. The invisible God is visible in His action of redemption, His saving power. The awesome presence of God’s grace in the midst of a dying and suffering world is manifested. This radical action of God requires nothing less than total transformation of the hearts of men, humanly impossible yet accomplished by Him. Our past is redeemed. our present restored and our future revealed:

“Always carrying about in the body the liability and exposure to the same putting to death that the Lord Jesus suffered, so that the resurrection life of Jesus also may be shown forth by and in our bodies.” (II. Corinthians 4.10).

Assured that He Who raised up the Lord Jesus will raise us up also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence. For all these things are taking place for your sake, so that the more grace extends to more and more people and multiplies through the many, the more thanksgiving may increase to the glory of God. Therefore we do not become discouraged. Though our outer man is decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day after day. For our light, momentary affliction is ever more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an eternal weight of glory (beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to fade away! Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal brief and fleeting, but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting. For we know that if the tent which is our earthly home is destroyed, we have from God a building,a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Here indeed, in this present abode, body, we sigh and groan inwardly, because we yearn to be clothed over (we yearn to put on our celestial body like a garment to be fitted out) with our heavenly dwelling, So that by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan under the burden and sigh deeply not that we want to put off the body (the clothing of the Spirit), but rather that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now He Who has fashioned us for this very thing is God, Who has also given us the Holy Spirit as a guarantee. So then, we are always full of good and hopeful and confident courage; we know that while we are at home in the body, we are abroad from the home with the Lord. For we walk by faith nor by sight.

Yes we have confident and hopeful courage and are pleased rather to be away from home out of the body and be at home with the Lord.  Therefore , whether we are at home or away from home, we are constantly striving to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear and be revealed as we are before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive according to what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Therefore, being conscious of fearing the Lord with respect and reverence, we seek to win people over. But what sort of persons we are is plainly recognized and thoroughly understood by God, and I hope it is plainly recognized and thoroughly understood also by your consciences.(II. Corinthians 4.14-18 and 5.1-11).

The  great mercy and grace of God manifested in Christ Jesus here and now is announced and secured in the Holy Communion. We are brought to oneness, wholeness and holiness with Him.

AMAZING GRACE! PRAISE THE LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!