Davar Kingdom Of God

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority (Col 2:9-10). Blessed are those who see themselves as those in Christ. To them belongs the same fullness of God that lives in Christ. It is important to know that there are two statements in this verse: the first one states that the fullness of the Deity lives in Christ, and the second one states that the same fullness has been given to us “in Christ.” The crucial factor that connects the two statements is in the phrase, “in Christ.” Without it, God’s fullness would mean nothing to us. No matter how wonderful Christ is with all the fullness of the Deity, we would be still nothing without being “in Christ.” Needless to say, the important spiritual reality behind this is the covenant God made with us through Christ. A covenant binds two partners together. With this new covenant, we have become one with Christ, who as a man died for our sins, and was raise

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Col 1:13-14). If you are “in Christ,” you belong to Christ, and are in his kingdom. There are two, and only two, different spiritual kingdoms: one is the kingdom ruled by Satan, and the other the kingdom ruled by Christ. The former is expressed, according to the above scripture, as “the dominion of darkness,” and the latter “the kingdom of the Son he loves.” Every human belongs to either of the two kingdoms. We, who are now in Christ and in his kingdom, used to belong to Satan in the past, and were in his kingdom with the rest of people in the world. But through “redemption, the forgiveness of sins,” which we came to have in Christ, God “brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” It was through Christ that we were redeemed and were brought into his kingdom. And for this very purpose, Christ was sent to this world. He is the image of the invisibl

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority (Col 2:9-10). Reading the New Testament, we often come across expressions like “in Christ,” “in him,” “in whom,” “by him,” “through him,” etc. Such expressions are especially used exuberantly again and again by Paul in his letters (more than160 times). In the above scripture, Paul first states that “all the fullness of the Deity”—the very essence and qualities of God like his love, holiness, righteousness, might and glory—dwells in Christ who has come in the flesh, and goes on to state that we believers today have come to be filled with the same “fullness” in Christ. So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness (vv. 6-7). So, he urges us to live (lit. walk) “in him” having been rooted, and being continually built

Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars. She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table. She has sent out her maids, and she calls from the highest point of the city. "Let all who are simple come in here!" she says to those who lack judgment. "Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of understanding (Pro 9:1-6). “ The Bible teaches that wisdom existed before the creation of this universe, and all things were made by this wisdom (cf. Pro 8:22-31). According to John’s gospel, this wisdom is called “Word (logos)”, and it is Christ himself, the very source of God’s life and creation (John 1:1-4). The book of Proverbs says: She (wisdom) is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed (3:18). If you eat from this tree of life, and feed yourself with wisdom, you will live. And this wisdom calls and shouts, “Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have m

Today, people work and labor for various needs—food, clothes, housing, educations, etc. They have no doubts about this lifestyle, and even think it is a great virtue to work for living. Yes, they are right in a sense: the Bible urges Christians to work diligently and earn the bread they eat (Eph 4:28, 1 Thess 4:11-12, 2 Thess 3:10-12). However, it should be remembered that the lifestyle of working for our needs is a result of our sin according to the Bible. To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, `You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return (Gen 3:17-19)." This is how destruction came to our world. We work and eat our

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost (Isa 55:1). We see another important aspect of creation work that God did for us. This way of description belongs to type 2 of creation in Gen 2 and 3: it begins with a condition without water, and creation occurs with the springing up of water. The above oracle begins with the picture of drought and a famine. The verb to buy is shavar, which means to ‘buy grain for food.’ The phrase, “Wine and milk,” symbolizes the productiveness of the land as God’s blessings. It helps if you realize that the way to buy grain without paying money is reminiscent of the story of Jacob’s sons who went to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain (Gen 42-45): each time, their money was returned to them! Obviously, Joseph is a type of Christ. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy (v. 2a)? Here, God speaks of something beyond physical bread.

"Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband," says the Lord (Isa 54:1). These words, which sound paradoxical, were not simply spoken to comfort barren women. For the historical background of this oracle, we need to go back to the time of Jeremiah and that of Ezra-Nehemiah—the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity, and the restoration of the city and the people. The Bible contains many stories of barren women: for instance, Sarah the wife of Abraham (Gen 11:30ff), Rebekah the wife of Isaac (Gen 25:21), Rachel the wife of Jacob (Gen 30), the wife of Manoah, the mother of Samson (Judg 13), Hannah the mother of Samuel (1 Sam 1), and Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist (Luke 1). God used these women, and called their children before they were born. The above scripture prophesied about the redemption and the restoration of Israel whom Yahweh once divorc

She (wisdom) is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed. (Pro 3:18). When man was driven out of the Garden of Eden, he lost the access to the tree of life, which resulted in　his death: the spiritual death first, and eventually the physical death came to him. But the above scripture reveals that we now and still have the access to this tree through wisdom. Wisdom is the word of God, and is ultimately the person of Jesus Christ. Through his death and resurrection, the tree of life has been restored and became available to those who believe in him. Death has been swallowed up in victory, and we, who are in Christ, are new creations! This, however, does not apply automatically to all humans who live today. The above scripture teaches that wisdom is a tree of life only to “those who embrace her.” In other words, you need to seek it. The same book says: I (wisdom) love those who love me, and those who seek me find me (8:17). If you seek wisdom, it gets bigger

… to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Eph 4:12-13). There are two things that the church needs to seek in order that it may be built up: it is to reach “unity in the faith,” and to reach unity “in the knowledge of the Son of God.” The latter is easy to understand concerning why it is necessary: it is because the church is the body of Christ, and without the true knowledge of the Son of God, it cannot function as such. Then, what about the unity in faith: why does the church need to seek it? First of all, we need to keep in mind that the building-up of the body of Christ is creation, and it demands faith on our part in order for that creation to be realized. And regarding how faith works for creation, we see a good example in the life of Abraham: he was old and his wife Sarah was a barren woman. From

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace (Eph 4:2-3). Note the phrase, “the unity of the Spirit.” There are all kinds of unity in which people gather and stay together, but we Christians are to keep “the unity of the Spirit.” Talking of unity, we are reminded of the story of the tower of Babel. Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there (Gen 11:1-2). These people moved eastward. After humans were driven out of the Garden of Eden, they moved eastward: Cain lived in the land, “east of Eden (4:16),” and the descendants of Shem in the post-diluvian period, especially, those of Joktan, lived “in the eastern hill country (10:30).” At this point, the sons of two brothers, Joktan and Peleg, were separated geographically and lived in different lands (cf. 10:25). This might be related to the fact that the more archa

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them (Eph 5:8-10). Every component of God’s salvation done for us is creation. Just as this universe was created from darkness to light, we were saved from darkness to light. We were made light to live as children of light doing good works of light. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Eph 2:10). God first started a good work in us, and has prepared in advance for us to do the same good works. In fact, the same God will carry it on to completion. … being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil 1:6). As we have already seen, Paul, in writing this letter to the Ephesians

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient (Eph 2:1-2). The whole process of the salvation of humanity after the Fall of Man can been seen as creation processed in cycles of destruction and creation just as the whole universe was created and is still in the process of destruction and creation. The same power used to create this universe operated to redeem us who were once dead in our transgressions and sins. God has restored us in Christ to the original state in which we humans are once again without blemish or defect. Try to see the similarities between what Paul discusses in Ephesians 2 and the story of creation in Genesis 2. When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens--and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the eart

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. " … God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground (Gen 1:26-28)." At the time of creation, God created men and women to let them rule over the world. Since ruling is only possible with authority, God must have given them the authority to rule. It is important to realize that this authority is spiritual in nature, and is given from God, not that we can earn it with any human effort. It should not be confused with earthly kind of authority, which is often misused with arrogance and selfishness. It was by this spiritual authority that every evil sprit surrendered to Jesus begging him not to cast him away, and the same au

… and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground-- (Gen 2:5-6). The creation story in Gen 2 begins with the ground that was watered by streams coming up from the earth. As we have seen, this is one kind of metaphoric image that is frequently used to express the creation work of God. The noteworthy part of this story is the forming of the first man Adam from the dust of the earth, for whom a woman was made out of his rib while he was in a deep sleep. Meditate upon it and try to see how it comes to be connected to what happened to humanity through Christ—Christ being the husband, and humanity the wife. Note that a helper was first sought by Adam: So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found (v.

My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; For they are life to those who find them and health to a man's whole body. Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life (Prov 4:20-23). Nobody imagines that the tree of life, which is said to have been in the Garden of Eden, is in his/her own heart. Yet, the Bible teaches that you can still eat from it today, if you know how. “The wellspring of life” in the above scripture signifies the same as the tree of life. While the tree of life is for the fruit you eat, the wellspring of life is for the water you drink. It was this water that was watering the Garden of Eden. A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters (Gen 2:10). At the beginning of creation, rain had not yet fallen on the earth, and the ground was watered only by springs that came up from the earth. … and no shrub of the field had yet appea

But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code (Rom 7:6). We have seen so far that the stories of Gen 2-3 deal with the spiritual state of a human heart, not merely what happened to the first humans, Adam and Eve, but what happens to us in our hearts spiritually when we sin. Now, we want to know what the two trees planted in the middle of the Garden of Eden mean to us: what does it mean to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and how can we regain the access to the tree of life and eat from it? Unfortunately, believing in Jesus does not automatically make you eat from the tree of life. All believers in Christ are given the right to eat from it, but are not necessarily eating from it. According to Paul, to eat from the tree of life is to live according to the spirit, and to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is to live according to the flesh. Those who li

She (wisdom) is a tree of life to those who embrace her; Those who lay hold of her will be blessed (Prov 3:18). In the middle of the Garden of Eden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But when man ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he was driven out of the garden and lost the access to the tree of life. What does this mean to us? Is there a way still for us to regain the access to the tree of life? In order to get answers to these questions, you will need to understand certain facts. First, it should be realized that the word “adam” in Hebrew means “man,” “human,” and is not used as a proper noun—a person called “Adam”—in the stories of creation, at least in the first three chapters of Genesis. It rather refers, as a type, to human beings in general—both the ones who lived in the past, and those living today. So, if a person sins, he/she sins as this “adam” sinned by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Second, you need to know t

From the fruit of his mouth a man's stomach is filled; With the harvest from his lips he is satisfied. The tongue has the power of life and death, And those who love it will eat its fruit. (Prov 18:20-21) The heavens and the earth were created as God “said.” This universe was formed by God’s word, and all things were made through “the Word,” and without it (him) nothing was made. As the word is confessed and spoken with your mouth, creation occurs in your life, giving you life, as the Bible says, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” We, having been created as images of God, rule over the earth. And it is with our mouth that we rule. That is why God has given us languages together with the ability to speak them. And with our mouth, we not only rule, but also participate in God’s creation work as the above scripture in the book of Proverbs says. We Christians believe in God and his only Son, who came to this world as Christ, died and rose from the de

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up--for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground (Gen 2:4-6)-- As you have learned already, there are two types of creation stories in the Bible: type 1 in Gen 1 (1:1-2:3), and type 2 in Gen 2 (2:4ff). In type 1, the earth was created from chaos with darkness and light being separated from each other, and waters being divided into waters above and waters below. In type 2, our world was created as the ground was watered and became a fruitful and productive land. And when it comes to the creation of humankind, the difference is even more significant: man was created in the image of God as a king who rules over the earth in type 1, while in type 2

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6). The salvation we receive through Christ is a work of creation. The above scripture tells us that the same light that shone over the darkness at the time of creation in Genesis has shone in our hearts. Paul believed that the gospel he preached had that kind of creation power. In fact, Jesus said to Paul at the time of his conversion: I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me (Acts 26:18). The following words are also found in his letter to the Colossians: For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the fo