Everything relating to this gospel age, everything relating to the worship of God in this age, everything relating to the believer’s life in Christ in this gospel age is described as “new” and “living.”
We are partakers of a new
covenant. We come into the kingdom of God by a new birth (John 3:3-7). We are
new creatures in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). We have been given a new name (1 John
3:1-3). We live under the rule of a new commandment (1 John 3:23). We are
citizens of the New Jerusalem. We sing a new song. We look for a new heavens
and a new earth.
As all things in Christ are new, so, too, all things in the kingdom of God are living. Our hope in Christ is a living hope (1 Pet. 1:3). We drink from the fountain of Living Water. We eat that Living Bread which came down from heaven. We are built upon Christ as living stones upon the Living Stone, the Living Foundation.
In other words, everything relating to the knowledge, worship, and service of God is spiritual, not carnal. “True worshippers worship the Father in spirit…God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23-24). – “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom. 14:17). – “We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh” (Phil 3:3).
True worship is a matter of the heart, altogether spiritual. -- We worship God by faith in Christ, upon the grounds of justice satisfied. – Hebrews 10:11-25 describes both the foundation and the exercise of grace.
We worship the Lord our God, trusting his Son, drawing near to him upon the basis of redemption accomplished by Christ (vv. 11-14). We come to God, confident of acceptance with him because of the complete remission of sins by his grace through the redemption Christ accomplished at Calvary (vv. 15-18). This freedom in worship, this freedom in drawing near to God arises from the blessedness and realization of our complete, perfect reconciliation to God by and in Christ (vv. 19-22). This is what Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 5:17. We are reconciled to God, perfectly, completely, and immutably!
November 25, 2001
Our Lord tells us
plainly that we do not have the ability to distinguish between wheat and tares,
or sheep and goats. Only pride and self-righteousness makes us think we can
make such distinctions. We are to leave such matters alone. True, we gather in
bad fish with the good; but it is far better to gather the bad with the good
than to gather none at all. Our business is to cast out the gospel net and
gather in the fish. In the last great
day, our Lord
will separate the good from the
bad.