The New Birth: The Assurance of our Glorification

The New Birth: The Assurance of our Glorification

1 Peter 1.2 – To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ² elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: grace to you and peace be multiplied.

o       Our sanctification is not in held and maintained in our own power, but in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus, God not only gives us a spiritual birth (regeneration) completely independent from any of our actions and completes the process of maturity (glorification), but He preserves and nurtures that process along the entire time according to 1) His Fathering heart and 2) His understand of our utter dependence and helplessness.

• If you are a child of God, rest in your salvation, and trust that He will provide the grace you’ll need for any situation or circumstance that He has called you to face in this life.

Romans 4.2 – For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

o       Righteousness will be imputed to those who receive the gift of faith.

 

• The hearing of faith causes us to begin in God’s Spirit.

Galatians 3.2-4 – This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? ³ Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? ⁴ Have you suffered so many things in vain–if indeed it was in vain?

• Faith is the ‘conception point’ of the New Creation.

Galatians 3.3- Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?  

• The New Creation is sinless, incorruptible, and unified with Christ, having its beginning in the life of Christ, and completion (glorification) in the power, image, and nature of Christ.
  
• From the conception of this nature to its ultimate glorification it is ‘kept’ the entire time by Christ (sanctification).

1 Peter 1.3-5 – 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, ⁴ to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, ⁵ who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

o       The faith, which is the means by which we receive our righteousness, is not maintained in our power but in God’s. He keeps us by that power. The creation which He creates by that power does fade away, by any means.

• Though the flesh may assault this new spirit (not new in entity but new in nature) and may cause it to be disrupted in its functioning, it cannot ultimately prevail over the new creation.
  
• Christ’s victory has already been won over death and defeat. There is no power, therefore, that can triumph over the power of God that is at work within us.
  
  • If the total and combined powers of Satan and Hell cannot triumph over the work of God within us, then it would be ridiculous to think that the comparably weaker power of our old and crucified man could. 

Tribulations

 

• The opposing forces that would appear to separate a Christian from the love of Christ, Paul tells us, actually have the opposite intended effect on the Christian. He is a child of God, not an unregenerate person. It is the only the degenerate person and pre-sanctified nature within a Christian that will become offended at God and discouraged at tribulations, trials and hardships.
  
  • Not so with the child of God. With the child of God, grace is given in these circumstances and our tribulations turn out for our benefit.  The Holy Spirit uses our tribulations to aid the process of forming the new and regenerate nature within us. He uses the trials and tribulations of life to ameliorate and improve our condition. This, is impossible with the unbeliever. Their character may improve, but the fundamentals; the nature, does not change.
    
  • So what appear to separate us from the love of God contrarily draws us closer, to lean upon Him. It is because of this power at work within us that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. For it is Christ, Himself, that sanctifies us and holds on to us.
    
  • The question isn’t, ‘will we be able to hold on to God in this life?’ it is, ‘will He lose that which He saved?’

John 10.28-30 – And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. ²⁹ My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. ³⁰ I and My Father are one.”