God promises incorruption
This weeks promise: God promises you incorruption!
1 Peter 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
The one thing we know about ourselves is how corruptible we are. But we have this promise from God about our condition now that we are born again. We do not have to worry about our corrupting it this time because God shows us that we have now been born again by the incorruptible seed of the word of God. Many people really don’t understand this. I most certainly didn’t for a very long time. What this means is easier to understand if we break it down. When we were born physically, we were born into corruptible bodies with a corruptible nature. When we are born again however, God Himself gives us a brand new nature that is incorruptible! That nature cannot die, it cannot be corrupted in any way buy anything or anyone, including our old nature! That new nature that Lord gives us when we are born again is set in stone so to speak. Absolutely nothing can change it in any way. At the very most, all we can do is deny it and not pay attention to it.
This is how we can know, absolutely and for certain that nothing at all can ever separate us from God. Once we are born again, we are born again forever! That new nature that the Lord gave us CAN NOT die!!! It has eternal life! It cannot be removed from us because it IS us! We can no more walk away from our new nature then we could cut our hearts out of chests and still live physically!
Satan doesn’t want us to know that though. He wants us to believe that that new nature is just kind of sitting there next to the old one and that we can still choose which one is “us”. It doesn’t work that way though. The old nature is not “us” any more. It is still there because it was given us at our physical birth, but it will be gone forever once we either die or are taken in the rapture.
In the mean time, Satan causes the things of our old nature to haunt us and bother us to try and get us to believe that it’s still “us”. However, just as our old nature cannot be gotten rid of in this life, so our new nature can also never be “gotten rid of”. In order for God to remove our new nature, He would have to be a liar and we know that simply isn’t true.
I’d like to share with you what one of my favorite commentaries says about this verse:
Peter again reminded his readers that they had experienced the new birth (cf. v. 3): For you have been born again. This supernatural event made it possible for them to obey the truth, purify themselves, and love the brethren. This change in their lives would not die, because it took place through God’s Word, which is imperishable (aphthartou, the word in v. 4 that described a believer’s inheritance), living and enduring. Peter supported his exhortation (v. 22) by quoting Isaiah 40:6-8 ( 1 Peter 1:24-25 ). All that is born of perishable seed withers and falls, but God’s Word stands forever. This imperishable Word was the content of Peter’s preaching (cf. v. 12). His hearers must be affected by its life-changing power, as indicated in 1 Peter 2:1-3 .
The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures
God has given us this promise so that we can have a relationship with Him that is not ruled by doubt and fear of our nature as a human.
1 Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
Notice here that we are begotten to a living hope! Our God is our hope! It's a living hope because we know that He can't lie and that He won't mislead us. One day we will have incorruptible bodies to go with our new incorruptible spirits (natures)! Praise God!!!!
This week's promise: God promises you incorruption!
John 6:63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.
James 1:17-18 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
To continue from yesterday, please read the above verses carefully. These confirm for us that it is the Sprit that gives life. These words in the first verse were spoken by Jesus to us. He is telling us that the words which He spoke to us at our salvation are life for us. They gave us our new nature (spirit). We can know that we have that new nature/spirit because that is what helps us to understand God’s Word and to obey Him.
Yes, we still sin and yes, we can still have trouble understanding His Word. Those things don’t make you “unsaved”. For the first, that you still sin, the Spirit of God that dwells within us, and our new nature, gives us the ability and the option to choose not to sin, but it’s still a choice. That requires actively thinking about it. Prior to becoming saved, sin was our nature and was a “habit”. It does take conscious work to break that habit and to choose to obey. We won’t be completely free of that old nature until we either die or are raptured.
As for understanding God’s Word, that too requires some work on our part. You must actually open your bible daily and read it, and you must ask Him to help you to understand and then listen to Him and continue to read and study. Then you will understand and you will become mature in Christ.
James again confirms that we have been born again and that it was done through the Word of Truth which is incorruptible and can never die. Notice too that James reminds us that the gifts of God are “perfect” and “good” just like He is. How then can His gift of salvation be anything less then “perfect” and “good”? It can’t! His gift of salvation to us is the perfect gift and it is called the “good news” because it’s something that we can’t possibly mess up!
Psalm 13:5-6 But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me.
This week's promise: God promises you incorruption!
1 Corinthians 15:51-54 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
What an awesome and wonderful promise the Lord has given us! New incorruptible bodies that will never sin or even think about sinning! No more sickness or death! (which were brought about by sin) I know that we all yearn for this day. Have you thought though of how much our Father must yearn for this day? This is what He wanted when He created Adam! He's been waiting, planning and helping us all this long time so that we can finally all be with Him in perfection. How He must love us to go to all this trouble just for us!
Matthew 7:9-11 “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
These verses helped me learn to trust our Father. My earthly father wasn't someone I could trust, so it was hard for me to trust God. When I finally saw how much trouble the Lord was going to just to save us, it really touched me. What human being would do that for anyone? Even most earthly parents fall short. Yet time and time again we are shown how the Lord has already gone to such lengths for us, and will continue to until his plan is complete and we have all been made incorruptible. Yes! You CAN trust Him!
Philippians 1:6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
This week's promise: God promises you incorruption!
1 Corinthians 15:50 I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Galatians 3:26-27 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
We’ve already seen how we now have both a corruptible nature and an incorruptible nature. The corruptible nature we know will ultimately be shed either when we die or when we go in the rapture. As the first verse says, this is because our physical bodies and our corruptible natures can’t live in heaven. This is why the Lord will give us incorruptible bodies to go along with our incorruptible spirits.
Think on this for a moment if you will. If the Lord has already given us incorruptible spirits (natures) which we know He has because his Word says so, if we could lose our salvation, what would happen to those spirits? Usually the most immediate answer is that they would die, right? Wrong. They are incorruptible, therefore they cannot die. So what would happen to them? That’s right! Nothing CAN happen to them! Therefore we cannot lose our salvation!
The second verse for today tells us that we are all children of God through faith in Jesus. Because we are His children and will be living with Him, He had to make us like Jesus, which is exactly what He says He’s doing now! When the verse says that we have clothed ourselves with Christ, it’s saying the same thing, that we are becoming like Him. Again that’s not something that can be stopped forever. It might be delayed at times by our stubbornness and the influence of our sin nature here and now, but it cannot be stopped or God is a liar.
Ephesians 1:6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.
This weeks promise. God promises you incorruption!
Galatians 5:5 But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope.
1 Corinthians 1:4-7I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.For in him you have been enriched in every way—in all your speaking and in all your knowledge—because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you.Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.
Hebrews 9:28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
What is often confusing to us, especially to new Christians, is that throughout the New Testament we see statements that say we are already saved and then we see those that seem to say that we’re still waiting for our salvation. Those verses seem to indicate that we will be saved when Jesus comes for us in the rapture. What is really being said though can only be discerned through study with the Holy Spirit guiding you. This is what the Lord is saying: When we accept the gift of salvation, we are saved, 100%. This is when we are given the new nature, which is also referred to as a new spirit. This is our eternal incorruptible spirit which the Lord gives us; a spirit that cannot die, cannot be damaged or corrupted by sin in any way.
However, because we already have another spirit/nature, we are constantly being torn between the two of them. The old spirit doesn’t just “disappear” when we receive our new ones. It will remain with us until we die or are raptured. At that time, because it is corruptible, it will die and that will leave us with only one nature/spirit. The spirit we will be left with is the incorruptible spirit, the one that can never die. So here we are, we’re saved and we have that incorruptible spirit to prove it. It will live forever, which means that we too will now live forever. It is pure so it will live with God which means that we too will live with God, but one thing has to happen first. We must get rid of that corruptible spirit first.
This is the “salvation” we are eagerly waiting for. It’s not just that we will be given incorruptible bodies to go along with that incorruptible spirit, although that’s usually what we focus on. We cannot have those perfect bodies until the old spirit is gone. So what we are waiting for as well is the final death of our old spirit so it will no longer plague us. As we’ve said, that happens either at our physical death, or if we are still alive at the time when the Father sends Jesus to get us in the rapture, then it will happen at that time. In an instant, the twinkling of an eye, our old spirit will die, so we will only have the one perfect one left, and our old physical bodies will be remade to match our new spirit. We will finally be “whole” and our salvation will be complete. We will be ready for heaven!
So again you see this all has nothing to do with anything we can do for ourselves. We can’t earn any of this, and in fact have already been given it all. That’s why God’s Word says: "Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed." We already have all that we need to be saved, because we are already saved. What we’re waiting for is the death of our old carnal spirit so our bodies can be made to match our perfect spirit! I know I sound like a broken record, but once again this shows why we cannot lose our salvation. With that thought in mind, let me leave you with a quote that has always helped me to remember where I stand in Christ; “Your challenge is to change from living life as a painful test to prove you deserve to be loved, to living it as an unceasing "Yes!" to the truth of your belovedness.”
This week's promise, God promises you incorruption!
John 6:63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.
John 15:3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
Ephesians 5:26-27 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
1 John 5:13I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
Isaiah 55:11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
Today I would like to have another look at a few verses as well as add a couple more. I’m sure that just by reading the verses here that you’ve already discerned the direction we’ll be taking today. The Lord tells us that it is His Word that cleanses us and gives us our new incorruptible spirit. We have been looking at why this cannot be undone by anything we or anyone else does. We have been looking at why our salvation is eternally secure as the Lord says it is.
People have a hard time accepting eternal security because like everything else, they try to make their salvation in some way based on themselves, whether it be by works, the lack of them, or by what they will say is “free will”. People are forever trying to somehow control this great gift from the Lord, and by doing so, only belittle it. As we study God’s Word with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we see it revealed more and more that our salvation is not about us, but is about the Lord.
Let’s go over the bare basics one more time then. It is God’s Word that saves us and gives us the gift of His Salvation through Jesus Christ, who is The Living Word of God. When He saves us, He changes us by giving us a new nature that is incorruptible. That new nature is “us” now, which is why God’s Word says we have become a new creation. However we still have our old nature present within us too and will continue to have it until either our bodies die or the rapture happens, whichever comes first. At that point, we will also receive a new body to go with the new spirit that was given to us at our salvation, and our salvation will be “complete”. Obviously, we cannot do any of this for ourselves, it’s all contingent on God doing what He said He would do.
However, once He gives us our new spirit, at our salvation, the process has begun and cannot be stopped, not even by us, because that new spirit IS us! We cannot kill it, even if we wanted to. The important thing to remember is that this new spirit is incorruptible which means it not only cannot die, it is PURE and therefore it would never even consider doing something sinful.
You know how we all long for heaven and can’t wait until we no longer have our sin nature? We often think about how wonderful it will be to not have to worry about sin any longer because we know that once our sin nature is gone, we will never have another sinful thought. What we don’t seem to put together with that however is that in order for that to happen, we must have that new spirit that is pure. We don’t often consider ourselves to have it yet because we’re so focused on our sin nature and all the trouble it gives us here. The fact of the matter is however that we DO already have it! It was given to us at salvation. That spirit could never ever separate itself from God or have any sinful thought. That spirit is not a robot, but is simply pure the way it was meant to be from the beginning. Even though that spirit (us) also has “free will”, it would never use that freedom to separate itself from God in any way. Therefore there is no truth to the argument that we can lose our salvation if we choose to leave God. It’s impossibility!
It’s impossible because of what that last verse posted for today says. God promises that His Word will not return to Him void and that it will accomplish whatever He intended for it to do. Because of all of this, there simply is no truth to the idea that we can lose our salvation due to our own free will. Praise God! We truly have been set free from sin and death, and will live forever with our Lord!!!
This week's promise. God promises you incorruption!
Isaiah 38:17 Indeed it was for my own peace that I had great bitterness; but You have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.
The Lord has already delivered the souls of believers from the pit of corruption! Notice that this sentence in this verse is in the past tense:
"but You have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption."
This has already happened!!! We no longer have to worry about our souls being corrupt anymore. The Lord of Heaven and Earth has removed all our sins, past, present and future from us. They are no longer a blot on our souls!!!
One day soon our salvation will be complete, and our old nature will die and never bother us again. From that point on we will only have the one nature—the incorruptible nature the Lord gave us at our salvation!
Philippians 1:6 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.
1 Peter 1:3-5Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you,who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
Finally understanding all of this we can now understand what the Lord means when He says that He will complete the work He began in us. True, He does work with us and our new natures while we are here, and he polishes us and He is doingg so to prepare us for the day we are finally rid of our sin nature and have only our incorruptible one-the day of complettion! God doesn’t have an inheritance set aside for everyone “just in case” they stay saved. No, He knows who belongs to Him. He knows who has an incorruptible spirit. It is for us that He has also prepared an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. Therefore He sheilds us by His power while we are still here on earth, until the day of complettion comes and the incorruptible nature He gave us is paired with an incorruptible body, and our natural spirit is finally dead and gone. What an incredible, awesome God we have!
Let's rejoice with David!
Psalm 103:1-5 Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
1 Peter 1:23
1 Peter 1:3-5
1 Peter 2:1-3
Philippians 1:6
Isaiah 38:17
Isaiah 55:11
1 John 5:13
Ephesians 5:26-27
John 15:3
John 6:63
Hebrews 9:28
1 Corinthians 1:4-7
Galatians 5:5
Ephesians 1:6
Galatians 3:26-27
1 Corinthians 15:50
Matthew 7:9-11
1 Corinthians 15:51-54
Psalm 13:5-6
James 1:17-18
Psalm 103:1-5