Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries |
Jacob in super-grace crosses his hands as a picture of the Cross of Christ.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
We will never truly understand our need for God until we have tried our very hardest to please Him and failed, at which point we must turn to God and say, “You must do this, I can’t.”
This brings about a dependence on God that leads to obedience to His word and is Christ-like since He always knew that He was to depend upon His Father.
JOH 5:19 Jesus therefore answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”
The believer out of fellowship with God is miserable, self-absorbed, fearful, and scheming, while the believer in fellowship with God is trusting, grace-oriented, joyful, and full of excitement.
GEN 18:14 “Is anything too difficult for the Lord?”
Deep principle of the day: God knows when you’re lying.
What man thinks is impossible to the point of being funny, God takes great pleasure in delivering.
Matt 27:41-42
In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking Him, and saying, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself.”
All men and angels at one time or another laugh at the promises of God, and God takes great pleasure in proving all of us wrong.
When we are proven wrong, despite our unbelief, He remains faithful, and if and when we get it, He takes great pleasure in entering us into His hall of fame. Who’s laughing now? God is in great joy.
2TI 2:13
If we are faithless, He remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself.
Within the big picture are all the little failures and successes of every believer, and we have to keep our eyes on both and never to the exclusion of one or the other.
The doctrine of the divine decrees and the doctrine of election.
hina = in order that “God’s purpose” -
nominative singular subject prothesis + theos = the predetermined plan from God.
prothesis = the operation of all things according to God’s divine decrees.
“according to His choice” = kata + accusative singular of eklego =
“in relationship to election.”
meno = to remain in status quo.
ROM 9:11 “For though the twins [Esau and Jacob] had not yet been born, and though they had not yet accomplished anything, good or evil, in order that the predetermined plan of God might remain in status quo in relationship to election.”
God has omniscience and foreknowledge, and when all the facts were fed into the computer of divine decrees, God knew that Jacob would become a believer and therefore have election, and Esau would reject salvation and have condemnation.
But through doctrine resident in his soul, when Jacob saw what he did, he crossed his hands over immediately.
The crossed hands, therefore, illustrates the manner in which every believer receives grace blessing from God. We receive the blessings of the firstborn.
1.God does not bless according to the flesh [the fact that someone is first-born], but rather through regeneration.
2. The cross itself.
Jesus Christ was judged for our sins on the cross that we might have the righteousness belonging to Christ. Christ is the firstborn; He is judged; He is cast out.
God the Father crossed His hands and placed the right hand upon us (blessing of the first born) and the left hand upon Christ (the curse that we deserved).