“A word in its season, how good is it!” (Prov.
15: 23). “[As] apples of gold in pictures of silver, is a word
spoken in season” (Prov. 25: 11).
You are only doing it for the Lord if He
instructed you to do it. Service is based on obedience not zeal.
The Lord has not asked us to remember His birth,
but He has asked to be remembered by means of what speaks of His
death (see Luke 22: 19, 20).
All men “come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:
23) but believers can “boast in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:
2)!
“He that hath my word, let him speak my word
faithfully” (Jer. 23: 28).
Not only was Mary blessed among
(not above) women (see Luke 1: 28) but the Lord attaches more
blessedness to those who hear the Word of God and keep it (see Luke
11: 27, 28).
The 144,000 elect out of Israel are beheld
before they enter into the time of Jacob’s trouble (see Rev.
7: 3) while the innumerable company of saved Gentiles come out
of great tribulation (see v14).
Baptism with water does not put me in “the
assembly, which is his body” (Eph. 1: 22, 23) but in the kingdom. I
am professing submission to His name.
The ecclesiastical outlook of some Christians
seems to be defined by their past ecclesiastical
experience—particularly if they perceive it to have been too strict
or unpleasant in some way. What drives them now is a reaction
against that past, and their doctrinal perspective is subjected to
that reaction. All this is perfectly understandable, but it is not
right. Our ecclesiastical outlook (as, indeed, every aspect of our
Christian lives) ought to be defined solely by what is found in the
Word of God.
The Trinity
“I
enjoin thee before God who preserves all things in life, and Christ
Jesus who witnessed before Pontius Pilate the good confession, that
thou keep the commandment spotless, irreproachable, until the
appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; which in its own time the
blessed and only Ruler shall shew, the King of those that reign, and
Lord of those that exercise lordship; who only has immortality,
dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor is able
to see; to whom [be] honour and eternal might. Amen” (1 Tim. 6:
13-16). Commentators have discussed at length the question as to
which of the ‘Persons’ of the Trinity these words refer to. Those
who apply the whole passage to the Son can urge that “the blessed
and only Ruler” is equivalent to “our only Master and Lord Jesus
Christ” in Jude v4, and that in the Revelation, the title “King of
kings, and Lord of lords” (Rev. 19: 16) is definitely given to Him
whose “name is called The Word of God” (v13). However, I would
suggest that we have raised a question that may have had no
place whatever in the mind of the apostle.
Not only in
reading the epistles, but even in their own prayers, Christians
often feel embarrassed by the ‘Persons’ of the Trinity, but no trace
of similar embarrassment can be found in Scripture. Indeed,
paradoxical though it may seem, the difficulty we find in
interpreting this sublime doxology (and similar Scriptures) is proof
that no difficulty of the kind presented itself to the mind of the
apostle. For with him, “Jesus Christ” was “our great God and
Saviour” (Titus 2: 13), and there was no turning away from the Son
to the Father, but by a natural transition his thoughts about “our
Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Tim. 6: 14) became merged in the thought of
God.
