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God's All-Inclusive Way

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son. (Hebrews 1:1,2 ESV)

It says that in times past God spoke "in many ways," not only in different portions, but in different manners. It would take too long for us to go back to the Old Testament to see all the manners in which God spoke. He spoke by a thousand different means: sometimes by words and sometimes by acts. The manners were indeed "diverse." However, the statement here is that at the end He speaks in one way, one all-inclusive way, and that is in His Son. God's Son is His one inclusive way of speaking at the end. On the one side, no one is going to get anything from God apart from Jesus Christ. God will absolutely refuse to speak other than in His Son. If you want to know what God wants to say to you, you have to come to His Son. On the other side, in Jesus Christ we have all that God ever wants to say....

Yes, we have far more of God's speaking in His Son than we have yet come to understand. We have nothing apart from Jesus Christ, and we need nothing apart from Him. You can read everything that has ever been written on Christian doctrine and still be the same man or woman. God's ways are very practical, and He teaches us by experience. That experience is sometimes very difficult and is called here "the training of sons." May the Lord Jesus just impress our hearts again with these things! God is still speaking in His Son, and His speaking is in order to get companions of His Son. Companions of this heavenly calling and of Christ will go into the hard school and have to learn many hard lessons, but in learning them they will come to understand how great is their inheritance in the Lord Jesus.

The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.

As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. § “In those days and in that time,” says the Lord, “the iniquity of Israel shall be sought, but there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, but they shall not be found; for I will pardon those whom I preserve.” § You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. § Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity?

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. § He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. § The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Lev. 16:22;  Ps. 103:12;  Jer. 50:20;  Mic. 7:19,   Mic. 7:18;  Isa. 53:6;   Isa. 53:11,12;  John 1:29

Who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive?

By the grace of God I am what I am. § Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth. § It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. § Where is boasting then? It is excluded. § Christ Jesus … became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption … “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”

You He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. § You were washed … you were sanctified … you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

1 Cor. 4:7;  1 Cor. 15:10;  James 1:18;  Rom. 9:16;  Rom. 3:27;  1 Cor. 1:30,31;  Eph. 2:1;  Eph. 2:2  Eph. 2:3;  1 Cor. 6:11

Afflicted And Comforted

The Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort" (2 Cor. 1:3).

Affliction provides opportunity for us to learn more of our Father in His mercy, as well as providing a deeper understanding of what others may be called upon to go through.

"Many saints have been happy to assert that they would not have missed for anything the exercises of prolonged illness and suffering! They have thereby learned the grace and sympathy of the Lord Jesus, and they have been the subjects of so much tender interest and consideration flowing from the spiritual affections of His saints, that they have been conscious of infinite gain and enrichment.

"And surely the development and exercise of such affections as these, eternal in their nature, though called into activity by circumstances connected with conditions of weakness and trial, is a greater triumph of divine love and power than restoring the sick ones to health. It is a real loss for the attention of believers to be turned from the spiritual dealings of the Lord Jesus with His own, and from all that is the moral result of those dealings, to be concentrated upon the thought of bodily healing and self-centered experiences." -C.A.C.

"There is a great difference between going to the Lord Jesus in our troubles, as to the best Physician and Friend, and knowing Him as the One who loves me best, the Bridegroom. In the former we turn to Him when anything is the matter; but in the latter, if we are true to it, we could never leave Him." -J.B.S.

"Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them who are in any trouble, by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted of God" (2 Cor. 1:4).

Salvation and Discipleship

A Corporate Body