With the anticipated arrival of summer in the northern hemisphere, the Word on Wednesday will offer a series of reflections on the Letter to the Ephesians entitled, ‘Summer Growth’. The substance of the Letter goes to the heart of quintessential Christianity and plumbs the depths of biblical truth, providing riches that shape the mind and warm the heart.

The Letter was written to be read in churches in the region of ancient Asia Minor, modern Turkey, starting with the church in Ephesus. It may be helpful to imagine yourself sitting in church with the first eager listeners when the wonders of this Letter unfolded – after all we are members of the same family.

Consider the opening lines: Paul, an envoy of Christ Jesus by the will of God ­– commissioned through God’s decision – to the holy ones in Ephesus – regular people whose lives were separated from God through sin, and who are now walking a new life of faith in Christ. Grace to you and peace – being reconciled with God, may the rich kindness and favor of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ rest on your minds and hearts.

Then in one long sentence, from verses 3 through 14, we are drawn into God’s awe-inspiring presence and cosmic plan – a plan that reveals the extraordinary grace of the triune God.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the realm of spiritual realities – Paul begins. He continues by breaking out what this looks like – in terms of God’s pre-cosmic plans for his people which includes their redemption and remission of their sins in Christ (verses 4-6), and their inheritance in Christ (verse 11), a relationship and hope that is sealed by the Spirit of God (verses 13f).

The theme of God’s grace is palpable, dominating the whole scene. God is the subject of almost every main verb: It is he who has blessed us … ’; He has freely bestowed upon us his grace (verse 6); He has made known his will and purpose which he set forth in Christ… to unite all things’ (verses 9f); He accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will (verse 11).

Contrary to a stereotyped view, the God of the Bible delights in giving life, is kind and generous, warm-hearted and loving – so different from the impersonal Force of Star Wars and the cold-blooded, ruthless rule of human dictatorships.

How easy it is to nod sagely at Paul’s words and yet fail to consider their substance, especially what they teach us about God’s grace. In verses 5 through 8 we learn what that grace cost God: He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us.

God’s glory is revealed in his grace, his extraordinary love for the unworthy: and despite what we like to think, none of us is worthy. And that glorious grace is supremely seen in the costly death of his Son.

At the turn of the 5th century AD, Pelagius, a popular preacher, challenged the immorality of his day and urged people to live pure lives. His preaching seemed biblical until the north African theologian and bishop, Augustine, began to review his teaching. He pointed out that Pelagius was saying that it was only through ‘right living’ that we had any hope of eternal life – in other words, our hope of eternal life lay in using God as the one who sells us heaven.

Augustine rightly commented that the Bible teaches that we are designed to love, but the tragedy is that we have turned love in on itself – from loving God to loving self. Our hearts need to be changed – something we can’t do ourselves.

In our western world today there’s a culture of victimhood that blames the ills of the world on others. Underlying it all is the rejection of any sense of my personal failure. It’s what happens when self-love dominates. And, if there is life after death, most people reckon that they’re good enough to make it.

Tragically, many professing Christians and churches have not grasped the reality of the meaning of God’s grace. They tell us Christianity is about love, but the focus is on loving one’s neighbour and caring about the injustices of the world. They have no vocabulary for the cost of God’s grace that required Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross. In turn they don’t have a ministry or a liturgy that calls for repentance for sins and the assurance of God’s forgiveness.

God’s plan is to build a vibrant, new community of forgiven people. Eleven times we read the phrase, in Christ or in him. And in verses 9 & 10 we learn that God’s ultimate plan is to bring everything and everyone under the rule of Christ.

Assurance. Having believed, you were marked in him (in Christ) with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession— to the praise of his glory.

God seals us as his own by putting his Spirit within us. Long before, he had promised his people that he would take up residence with them (Jeremiah 31:31ff). Ephesians is now telling us that the presence of God’s Spirit within us is a down-payment on our future inheritance.

When one day I am asked why I should be given entrance into God’s presence, I will ask that the Book of Life be checked. The presence of the Holy Spirit within me now, assures me that my name will be found in the great Register of God’s people – listed as an adopted son of the Father, signed in by Jesus Christ, embossed with the great seal of the Holy Spirit of God.

It is with humble, heart-felt thankfulness for the humility of our great and wonderful, all-glorious and loving God, that I look forward to that day with joy, because he has honored me with a part in his epic story.

A prayer. Lord God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: mercifully accept our prayers, and because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do nothing good without you, grant us the help of your grace, so that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in word and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason

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‘Do you want to live forever?’ was the catchy question leading into an article, ‘From Here to Eternity’ in The Weekend Australian magazine, (May 27-28, 2023). ‘Coming back from the dead, then living as an immortal?’ the article begins. ‘It sounds like science fiction,’ the article continues, ‘but the pioneers behind this wild venture are true believers’.

The article takes up personal stories of a small number who believe in the science of freezing their body at death, and holding it in ‘cryonic suspension’ until they are revived. This will be at a future time when science and medicine will have permanently addressed the issues of aging, disease, and death.

While almost all scientists reject such a development, two features stand out: only a very tiny number would benefit; second, given the world’s history of conflict and war, there is little hope that anyone ‘waking’ in fifty or three hundred years will find a world of just and lasting peace. Would we really want to live forever in such a world?

Come with me to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 28 where, following his own resurrection from the dead, we read these astonishing words of Jesus: ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me’.

He then laid out what we might call his royal mandate to his disciples that, going, they are to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you’ (28:18-19).

Significantly, embedded in Jesus’ commission is that disciples in all the nations are to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. These words provide the key to a more assured hope of life everlasting in a world where true and lasting peace exists. Why do I say this?

Significantly Jesus uses the singular word, name in speaking of the three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This tells us that three persons constitute the one God. Everyone who is baptized is to be instructed in the existence and the triune nature of God. It’s important we think about this.

In his introduction to his Gospel, Matthew records that Jesus is of royal human lineage – a descendent of Israel’s King David. Furthermore, before Jesus was born, an angel had appeared to Joseph who was wondering if he should marry Mary because she was pregnant and he wasn’t the father. The angel informed him that Mary’s baby was conceived from the Holy Spirit and that the boy was to be named Jesus for he will deliver his people from their sins (Matthew 1:20f).

We also learn that even though Jesus was conceived in a way no other human has ever been conceived, he was born in the same way we were. His flesh and blood were conceived by the Holy Spirit, so that even when there was only one cell of him in the womb of his mother Mary, that cell was fully human and fully divine.

He wasn’t some spiritual hybrid, half man and half God, like the mythical centaur, half horse and half man. Rather, Jesus was 100% human, and 100% divine — or as the Nicene creed puts it: Very God of very God; begotten not made…

And as Matthew’s Gospel unfolds, we learn that at his baptism the Spirit of God descended on him like a dove… and a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’ (3:16, 17). Furthermore, when the imprisoned John the Baptist asked if Jesus was truly the promised Messiah, Jesus responded with words from a messianic prophecy in Isaiah 35: ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them, and blessed is the one who is not offended by me’ (Matthew 11:4-6).

Furthermore, when Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus responded, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven…’ (Matthew 16:17).

We can see why Jesus taught with the richest understanding of the Old Testament law and its application – as we find in his Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7). We can understand why he taught with power and authority and could heal the sick and overcome the forces of evil with a word of command. He could walk on water, still a raging storm, and even raise the dead to life.

In every situation throughout his public life, Jesus revealed a profound understanding of God and the true nature of humanity. When challenged by the finest theological and legal minds, he outclassed them – and not least when they tempted him with a ‘Gotcha’ question.

His teaching and his miracles, the profundity and power of his words, his compassion for the poor and the sick, reveal someone who stands unique in history.

Indeed, HG Wells, author of The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine observed, ‘I am an historian. I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history.’

Throughout his public life Jesus also revealed a power and authority that are not simply unique but are signs of the supernatural. Supremely his resurrection from the dead testifies to this. He alone has broken through the barrier of death thus opening a future for all who truly turn to him.

That the life beyond the grave he offers will be one of true and lasting peace is assured by the nature of the relationship between the three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Throughout eternity they enjoy perfect harmony and peace with one another, for unlike the relationships amongst the pagan gods, there is no envy or jealousy, tension or conflict between them.

In our world of ongoing injustice and conflict, sickness and death, the remarkable advances of science and medicine seem to offer us some hope for a longer life. But do they offer what we really long for – a life for ever in a perfectly restored world where peace reigns?

It is the triune God who made us to enjoy him who, in his love holds out the key to our future. It is Christ who has opened the way for us to enter God’s presence; it is the Spirit who, working with the word of the gospel, opens our eyes to this wonderful truth, and now lives within us (Romans 8:9). It is in coming to know this triune God that we find a sure hope for life beyond the grave – a hope that awakens within us a true joy and an inner and lasting peace.

A prayer for Trinity Sunday: Almighty and everlasting God, you have given us your servants grace by the confession of a true faith to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and by your divine power to worship you as One: we pray that you would keep us steadfast in this faith and evermore defend us from all adversities; through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

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You might like to listen to, Holy Spirit Living Breath of God from Keith and Kristyn Getty and Stuart Townend.

Over the last twenty years or so God’s people have been increasingly put on the defensive about their faith. In a climate where people of faith are dismissed as intellectually inept and even as ‘terrorists’, many are fearful of speaking up about what they believe.

Come with me to a significant scene that occurred on the day of Jesus’ resurrection. It’s recorded in John chapter 20, verses 19 through 23. That Sunday evening, the first day of the week, Jesus suddenly stood in the midst of his disciples. John doesn’t say how Jesus came to be there: he simply records, Jesus stood.

Last time the disciples had seen him, he was wounded and bleeding, wracked with pain, dying on a cross. When they had seen a spear thrust in his side and the fluid that had flowed, they knew he was truly dead. Yet here he was, not weak and limp but standing tall, speaking the very words he had uttered at the Passover meal: ‘Peace be with you’. And to show he was physically alive and not a ghost, he showed them his hands and his side.

Terrified and overjoyed they doubtless were, they knew, extraordinary miracle though it was, Jesus was truly alive again. ‘Peace be with you’, he repeated. On the night of his arrest he had said, ‘My peace I leave with you… Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in me’ (John 14:27).

In a world of turmoil and injustice, the peace he held out to his followers was not meaningless comfort. His resurrection was now proof of that. Yet it was surreal. But then, as GK Chesterton observed, Truth is stranger than fiction.

The Commission: ‘As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you…’, he continued (20:21). More than once they had heard Jesus say, ‘As the Father has sent me…’ But now he was drawing them into this work as well.

Jesus had been sent to speak God’s words in person to the world. Supremely he had been sent to be lifted up on a cross at Calvary to rescue humanity (John 12:32). Now, he was sending his disciples and in turn, his people, to announce his life-giving news to the world.

And significantly they would not be alone: they need not be fearful. The peace of Christ would be with them at every twist and turn along the way. Consider what follows.

The Gift. Jesus breathed and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven, if they are retained they are retained’ (20:22).

Let’s think about this: Jesus’ words bring together the announcement of God’s gospel and the work of the Spirit. Neither God’s Word nor his Spirit work in a vacuum. They are necessarily interlinked.

We should notice that Thomas wasn’t present, and that John’s Gospel doesn’t record separately the events of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the verb breathed doesn’t have an object – despite some English translations.

Jesus’ words peace be with you speak of his warm, personal relationship with them, even though they all had failed him. This is reinforced with his gift of his Spirit whom he had promised on the night of his arrest (14:16-24). As Paul the Apostle later says, the Spirit would assure them of their rich inheritance with Christ (Romans 8:14-17; Ephesians 1:13-14).

The Spirit’s presence was not only for the benefit of the disciples. As Jesus had promised, the Spirit would enable the disciples to remember and to interpret accurately all he had said and done (14:25-26). But he would also awaken the world to a spiritual awareness and convict it of its failure to honor the great high king who so loved us that he gave his life for us (16:8-11; 3:16).

Jesus’ reference to the retaining and forgiveness of sins is significant. Being in the passive voice, the two verbs indicate that it is not humanity, but God, who retains or forgives sin. When people fail to believe they remain isolated from the Lord. But when they turn in repentance to the Lord, they receive his forgiveness.

Bringing together the threads of Jesus’ words in the context of John’s Gospel as a whole, it is not our human prerogative to retain or forgive sins. Rather it is the outcome of the ministry of God’s Word, the gospel, and the work of his Spirit.

The ministry Jesus gave the disciples laid the foundation for our gospel ministry, namely the verbal announcement of God’s gospel that the Spirit uses to transform lives. This stands behind the Anglican Connection vision and mission: ‘Connecting for Gospel Led Regeneration’. Our work is not tied one denomination but to like-minded, gospel-focussed ministers and churches.

It is the kind of gospel vision that Timothy Keller who was gathered into the presence of the Lord last Friday, exemplified throughout his ministry. I experienced this personally when he, a Presbyterian in New York City unexpectedly invited me, an Anglican minister from Sydney, Australia, to talk with him about setting up a new church in Manhattan. Under God I was involved in setting up Christ Church NYC and what is now Emmanuel Anglican NYC. We thank the Lord for gospel-focussed leaders such as Tim Keller and pray the Lord will raise up many more.

Yet how often do we overlook Jesus’ words to his disciples in John chapter 20 and elsewhere in the New Testament. All God’s people have the wonderful privilege of being sent by Jesus to play our part in announcing his good news. Yet many today are fearful. Let me encourage you to pray that the Spirit will make real your experience of the peace of the Lord within you. Pray also that that God’s Spirit will awaken you to the riches of your inheritance with Christ, and open your eyes to opportunities to introduce family and friends to the Jesus of the Gospels.

Let me also encourage you to check out TheWord121 – an annotated version of John’s Gospel – that anyone, no matter how young in the faith, can use to introduce others to God’s good news. Find out more at: www.TheWord121.com.

Prayer. O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: do not leave us desolate, but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to where our Savior Christ has gone before, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for evermore.  Amen.

Almighty God, who taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending them the light of your Holy Spirit: so enable us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things and always to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

Support the Word on Wednesday ministry here.

You might like to listen to, Holy Spirit Living Breath of God from Keith and Kristyn Getty and Stuart Townend.

Why don’t we pray more often than we do? And how often when we do pray, do we look to the model prayers we find in the Bible – and not least from the lips of Jesus?

Dr. JI Packer once commented, ‘I believe that prayer is the measure of God’s people, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is, so that how we pray is as important a question as we can ever face’.

Come with me to the prayer that Jesus’ prayed on the night of his arrest. We find it in John chapter 17. In verse 1 we read: After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you,…’

Glory. Knowing he was about to die, Jesus prayed that he would be honored in carrying out God’s previously hidden plan. His impending death was now a certainty, for John tells us that Judas had gone out into the night to do his dark work of betrayal. And now, as Jesus looked into the darkness of this evil, he prayed that he would not only remain faithful to his mission, but would also be glorified.

The meaning of glory often eludes us for we tend to think of it more in terms of the splendor of fame or beauty. But the meaning of glory here is more subtle. It refers to the outward splendor of hidden, inner nature and qualities.

In praying, Father… glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, Jesus was asking God to clothe him with glory because his cross would reveal for all time the nature and cost of God’s love.

Furthermore, he prays that as he himself is glorified, in carrying out this supreme mission, men and women will see the splendor of the extraordinary love of the Father for men and women, even though they choose to divorce him.

Ashley Null has observed that for Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, ‘The glory of God, is God’s love for the unworthy’.

The theme of glory through his crucifixion continues in verse 4: ‘I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do’.

Jesus is saying that he has completed the work God had given him to do. In his teaching he brought further revelation of God and in his miracles (signs) he revealed God’s compassion and power. One great work – his greatest work – remained. When he was lifted up on the cross at Calvary, he would bear in himself the sin of the whole world (John 3:14-15 and 16).

In John 19: 28 & 30 we read Jesus’ final words on the cross: “It is finished”. With his death, Jesus had completed his mission. He had offered the one perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world, once and for all time. To try and repeat it, is to diminish and dishonor his work.

Jesus’ prayer continues: ‘So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed’ (John 17:5).

The words of John Stainer’s Crucifixion capture something of John’s record: ‘Far more awful in Thy weakness, more than kingly in Thy meekness, Thou Son of God… Here in abasement; crownless, poor, disrobed, and bleeding: There in glory interceding; Thou art the King!’

Prayer for the Disciples: ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word’ (17:6).

The greater part of Jesus’ prayer is for his disciples. This tells us of their importance. They are to be the bridge between himself and the rest of humanity. Much will depend on their understanding of Jesus as the Christ – the Messiah – and their courage and loyalty.

So he prays that the Father will give them eternal life. In verse 11, he prays that the Father will protect them; in verse 15, that the Father will keep them from the powers of evil; in verse 17, that the Father will make them holy in the truth; and in verse 16, that the love God the Father has for the Son, will be true for them as well.

Jesus knows that the road ahead for the disciples will not be easy. Yet he doesn’t pray that they will be taken out of the world, but that they will be kept faithful and guarded from the powers of the evil one.

Prayer for his people: ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.’ (17:20-22).

In praying for his people through the ages, Jesus alerts us to the heart of his disciples’ mission. Their ministry is to be a declaratory (Word) mission. The content of their preaching and teaching will be that Jesus is God’s king who has come for us – to restore God’s friendship with us. Furthermore, Christ has come so that he might be in us – the oneness of God’s people (not denominational structures) will draw others to faith in Christ. In turn all his people through the ages will share with him as heirs in the glory to come.

Which brings me back to prayer and the theme of God’s glory. How often do we pray that God will be glorified? After all, Jesus taught us to pray, ‘Father, hallowed, glorified be your name’ (Luke 11:2). In this era of God’s mercy shouldn’t we be praying that God will glorify his name in the changing lives of his people – in you and me? Shouldn’t we also be praying that God will honor his name in drawing the lost to faith, turning hearts to their true home in Jesus Christ?

A prayer. Lord Christ, eternal Word and Light of the Father’s glory: send your light and your truth so that we may both know and proclaim your word of life, to the glory of God the Father; for you now live and reign, God for all eternity. Amen.

© John G. Mason

Support the Word on Wednesday ministry here.

The loss of someone deeply loved awakens a profound anguish and grief within us. Even some time after a loved one has gone from us, we can unexpectedly find ourselves tearing up.

In the course of his last evening with his close followers Jesus told them he was going away and that they could not come with him (John 14:3). He knew what his going would mean for them and likened their state to orphaned children – destitute and alone. Significantly, he didn’t offer glib platitudes about his going but promised them a Counselor – literally, a Comforter.

In chapter 14:15-21 John the Gospel writer sets out the record of Jesus’ words of comfort and hope to his disciples. He was not going to leave them bereft. Rather, he promised them another companion to comfort and strengthen them.

‘If you love me you will keep my commandments,’ he said. ‘And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you…’ (John 14:16-17).

When we first read these words and the reference to the Spirit we might think that Jesus is speaking about an impersonal power or force. Indeed, in Acts chapter 8 we learn that Simon Magus thought the Holy Spirit was a force he could purchase (Acts 8:18f).

However, the personal pronouns ‘him’ and ‘he’ in John 14:17 with reference to the Spirit indicate that Jesus is not speaking about some impersonal force or a power, but a person. In the original language the word ‘spirit’ is a neuter noun, an ‘it’ word. But John breaks the rules of grammar. He refers to the Spirit as ‘he’: He dwells with you…

The moment we think of the Holy Spirit as an ‘it’, we miss the profundity of Jesus’ promise. He, Jesus, is going away. ‘He’ is to be replaced, not by an ‘it’, but a ‘he’, the ‘Helper’, the ‘Spirit’.

Helper translates two words in the original text – the preposition alongside and the verb, called. The fact that Jesus promises another Helper implies that He himself has been helping. Now in this time of the disciples’ deep need he promises the Holy Spirit – a Helper, a Comforter.

Furthermore, this Helper or Comforter doesn’t provide comfort like Linus’s blanket, nor is the Comforter simply a hot water bottle for cold, hard times. He comes to strengthen our hearts and minds – putting ‘backbone’ into our lives. Jesus has been helping for three years, now the Spirit of truth comes to help.

‘The Spirit of truth is not known by the world,’ Jesus says (verse 17), but ‘you know him – and he will be with you forever’.

We are living in the age of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is not physically in the world now, but he is through his Spirit. This is astonishing and something we don’t usually think about. The Lord Jesus Christ is present and at work in the world now, not in a physical way that we can see, but invisibly through his Spirit.

It’s something that was foreshadowed in the Old Testament. There we read that God’s people dearly wanted God to live with them. Even so, they found the whole idea hard to grasp. In his prayer at the beginning of his reign, King Solomon asked: ‘But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you;…’ (I Kings 8:27). To which the answer was ‘yes’: the Temple in Jerusalem was not only a place of worship, it symbolized God’s dwelling with his people, God’s special relationship with his people.

Furthermore, Ezekiel chapter 37, verse 27 says: ‘My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people…’ What Solomon thought God was far too big for, God himself said he would do. He would come amongst his people.

The amazing thing is that the Bible tells us that God notices us and cares for us far beyond anything we can begin to imagine. Remember, back in chapter 1, verse 14, John records: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Now in John chapter 14 we begin to see the wonder of Jesus’ promise: ‘And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you…’

The Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ will not just be with us but also in us. Jesus takes his promise to another level here. He is saying that he is personally present with us in our lives. This is why Paul the Apostle writes in First Corinthians, chapter 6: Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit?

What does this mean in reality? Think of it like this. If someone put a powerful explosive in our apartment what would we do? We’d call in the explosive experts and keep clear. But if the newly crowned Charles III came to our place, what would we do? We’d surely welcome him and take the opportunity to get to know him.

Jesus promises his followers a powerful person, a counselor, a companion. For many, Christianity is little more than a moral code they must struggle to observe. But Jesus is saying, ‘I want you to understand that the faith I am talking about is, in its deepest essence, about a relationship, a relationship with the one who is at the heart of the universe.’ It’s about knowing Jesus and having him live with us through his Spirit. ‘God in the soul of men and women,’ is how one ancient writer put it.

Sometimes we can feel cut off from God by a sense of failure or unworthiness, ignorance or unbelief, or abandonment. Jesus is saying to his first followers, and to you and me today, ‘Do not despair: you can experience me in your life.’ We are not alone in life.

In his Letters Paul the Apostle develops this astonishing work of the Spirit. For example, in Romans chapter 8, verses 15 through 17: … You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons and daughters, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we might be glorified with him.

CS Lewis picks up this theme in his Narnia books with the analogy that the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve are the kings and queens of Narnia. The Bible tells us that God’s Spirit awakens us to the privilege God’s people have of being joint heirs with Jesus Christ in his inheritance.

A prayer. Heavenly Father, the giver of all good things, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and grant that by your holy inspiration we may think those things that are good, and by your grace and guidance do them; through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

Support the Word on Wednesday ministry here.