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God's "Complete Completeness"
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Everything that the Father does, He “completes completely.” To illustrate this truth, we know that the number, seven, is used repeatedly in Scripture to signify completion, thus, seven days in a week, seven feasts of Israel, seven trumpets, seven churches of Asia, and seven golden candlesticks, in Revelation, and so on. All of these “sevens,” as well as many more, denote a level of completeness.
However, there is a “full,” or “complete” completion in God’s divine order of all things. The number, “twelve,” denotes that “complete completeness,” in His plan for mankind. Jacob had twelve sons, who were the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel, there were the twelve disciples who walked with Jesus during His earthly ministry, twelve stones were used to build an altar when the children of Israel passed over Jordan, twelve gates of Jerusalem…so we see that there is a distinction between God’s “completion,” and His “complete completion.” It is this level of full completion that we want to consider in our crucifixion, burial, resurrection and ascension with Jesus in the full and free salvation which He has wrought for us and in us, as we have believed and trusted Jesus Christ, our Lord.
“Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
knowing this, that our old self was with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
for he who has died is freed from sin.
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
For the death that He died (for our sins), He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body (flesh) so that you obey its lusts…for sin shall not be master over you…” Romans 6:4-14
In this revealing passage from Romans, the Holy Spirit shows us the completeness of the atoning work of Jesus in the Cross for us, in His substitutionary death, burial, and resurrection. We died in Christ, in His death, to our sin and to the fleshly nature common to all who have not been redeemed by the Blood of Jesus. We were buried with Him, and rose with Him to walk in newness of His life. Our old life was done away with, because it really was not life, at all, but death, because death passed to all men when Adam sinned. The Father knew that we could not save ourselves from the awfulness of sin, and He gave Jesus to redeem us and give us His true, eternal life. Jesus is the Second Adam, completely sinless and spotless.
“We were buried therefore with Him by the baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious [power] of the Father, so we too might [habitually] live and behave in newness of life.
For if we have become one with Him by sharing a death like His, we shall also be [one with Him in sharing] His resurrection [by a new life lived for God].
We know that our old (unrenewed) self was nailed to the cross with Him in order that [our] body [which is the instrument] of sin might be made ineffective and inactive for evil, that we might no longer be the slaves of sin.”
For when a man dies, he is freed (loosed, delivered) from [the power of] sin [among men].
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him…” Romans 6:4-8 (Amplified Bible, The Lockman Foundation)
Not only did we die in Him, were buried with Him, and were resurrected with Him, but we were raised up together, by the full work of the glory of the Father, vicariously, to sit with Jesus in heavenly places, in His ascension, also.
Where does the goodness of our Lord stop? It doesn‘t, because He has completely completed the plan of His great mercy and grace toward His children. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7 Our Eternal God has an eternal plan for us, even in the ages to come. How endless is His love and matchless is His grace!
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Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. 1 Tim. 1:17
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