I do not think we help a grieving believer by telling him to be thankful as though that ought to put an end to his sorrow. Scripture commands thanksgiving in every circumstance, but it also records faithful people weeping and pleading for help. We need to understand what God is asking of us before we use that command to reprimand someone who is already hurting. Biblical thanksgiving begins with acknowledging the Lord and what we have received from Him, including mercy that remains ours when life is painful.
The Sin Behind Thanklessness
In Romans 1, Paul explains God’s wrath against human rebellion and includes thanklessness among its offenses. Creation makes the Maker’s power known, leaving people accountable to Him. Paul is not claiming that everyone has received the same biblical instruction. He is describing a refusal to honor the God whose work surrounds us.
because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Romans 1:21
We did not create ourselves, and we cannot keep ourselves alive apart from what God supplies. Yet we can take the life He gives and behave as though we owe Him no acknowledgment. Paul connects that refusal with futile thinking and a darkened heart. People who pride themselves on being independent of God are disregarding the One on whom their very existence depends.
That can happen even while someone uses thankful language. I might credit luck for an opportunity, congratulate myself for making everything happen, or speak of the universe as though it had thoughtfully arranged my life. None of that gives the living God the honor He deserves. If I leave Him out, I have misunderstood whom I should be thanking.
Eventually, gifts begin to look like entitlements. Success becomes proof that I am more deserving than the person struggling beside me, while hardship seems like an insult from a God who owed me something better. I need to recognize the arrogance in that reasoning rather than excuse it as ambition or concern for fairness. In Romans 1, thanklessness belongs to the larger refusal to worship God rightly. Becoming more appreciative cannot save us from that rebellion; we need the salvation He provides through Jesus Christ.
The Greek verb Paul uses in Romans 1:21 is ευχαριστέω, eucharisteo, meaning to be thankful or to give thanks. Its related noun, eucharistia, means thanksgiving or gratitude. These words are not restricted to a religious ceremony. When Paul calls believers to give thanks to God, he is speaking about gratitude that belongs in ordinary Christian life.
The Hebrew verb יָדָה, yadah, can describe praise, thanksgiving, or confession, depending on the passage. The noun תּוֹדָה, todah, can mean thanksgiving or a thanksgiving offering. Leviticus 7:11-15 identifies the thanksgiving sacrifice as a kind of peace offering. An Israelite could bring it to express gratitude to the Lord and share in a meal from the offering, worshiping in the way God had appointed.
Whether expressed in prayer, song, or testimony, biblical thanksgiving acknowledges God Himself. I can appreciate a good meal or a friend’s kindness, but I also need to recognize the Lord’s generosity in what I have received. That gratitude should be expressed to Him rather than remain a vague feeling that life has treated me well.
Remembering God in Abundance and Worship
In Deuteronomy 8, Moses warned Israel about forgetting the Lord once their needs were met. They had spent forty years in the wilderness, where God used hunger and His provision of manna to teach them dependence. Now they were preparing to enter a land where they would grow crops and enjoy abundance. Moses told them what to do when they had enough.
When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.
Deuteronomy 8:10
I notice that the command comes after they have eaten and are full. It is possible to plead with God when we have nothing and then take the credit once we are comfortable. Moses warned them against saying, “My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.” The ability to produce that wealth was itself something God had given them. Their prosperity was meant to remind them of His covenant faithfulness, not persuade them that they no longer needed Him.
God was not dismissing the labor involved in planting a field or building a home. The farmer really worked, but he worked with strength he had not created and depended on rain he could not command. Acknowledging that should make him grateful rather than conceited. We can work diligently for our wages and still thank the Lord, just as a parent can prepare a meal and teach the children to thank God for the food.
If I regard everything I have as proof of my own superiority, I will find it easier to look down on someone who has less. Remembering how much I have received should correct that attitude. It also gives me reason to help with another person’s need instead of assuming he must have brought it on himself.
The Psalms bring thanksgiving into the worship of God’s people. Psalm 100 calls the earth to serve the Lord gladly and come before Him with singing, then tells His people how to approach Him.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations.
Psalm 100:4-5
The gates and courts describe Israel approaching the holy God in worship. They were called to come gladly because He is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures. Their reason for thanksgiving did not depend on every day going well. I may be disappointed or waiting for an answer, but that does not mean God has become untrustworthy. I can still honor Him for the goodness Scripture reveals.
Remembering that goodness sometimes requires deliberate attention. In Psalm 103, David addresses his own soul.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits:
Psalm 103:2
He goes on to recall God’s forgiveness and compassion, including His care for people whose frailty He knows. When I am discouraged, I can follow David’s example by opening Scripture and recalling God’s mercy rather than waiting until I feel grateful. I can still ask Him for help with what is troubling me, while remembering the forgiveness and care He has already shown.
Christ Teaches Us Thanksgiving
The Gospels record Jesus giving thanks before meals and before feeding a multitude. In John 6, He took the loaves and gave thanks before distributing food to the disciples, who gave it to the waiting people. His disciple Andrew had questioned how a few loaves and fish could feed so many, yet everyone ate and was filled. I can follow Jesus’ example by thanking the Father before I know how a need will be met, without claiming that gratitude obliges Him to repeat that miracle for me.
At the Last Supper, Jesus knew that His crucifixion was approaching. He gave thanks as He took the bread and explained what it represented.
And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
Luke 22:19
The bread pointed to His body given for sinners, and the cup to the New Covenant in His blood. When we receive Communion, we remember and proclaim His one sufficient sacrifice. We do not repeat that sacrifice, and the elements do not become His physical body and blood. We are remembering the Lord who willingly gave Himself for us, which should lead to reverence and gratitude.
In Romans 5, Paul connects Christ’s sacrifice with God’s love for sinners.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
Romans 5:8-9
To be justified is to be declared righteous before God. Paul says we are justified by Christ’s blood; a thankful disposition cannot accomplish what His sacrifice has done. Jesus is the eternal Son who became fully man without ceasing to be fully God and lived without sin. He willingly gave Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Wicked men tortured and crucified Him, but the Father neither punished nor abandoned Him. Father and Son remained united as Christ accomplished our redemption through His shed blood and death, before His burial and bodily resurrection.
Christ died for the whole world, and forgiveness is genuinely offered to every person, although people can resist His grace and reject Him. Those who repent and believe are born again. Every true believer is indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit and is eternally secure in Christ. That assurance gives us reason to love and obey the Lord, rather than an excuse to become careless about sin. We give thanks and obey because He has shown us mercy; neither response earns or keeps our salvation.
Thanksgiving in Every Circumstance
The believers in Thessalonica had received the gospel amid persecution, and Paul had also addressed their grief over fellow believers who had died. His closing instructions about rejoicing, prayer, and thanksgiving were addressed to people living with hardship. He also called them to test spiritual claims and reject evil. Being thankful gave them no reason to accept false teaching or overlook wrongdoing.
in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5:18
Giving thanks in everything does not mean calling evil good. If someone has been abused or betrayed, what was done to him was wrong. Disease and death cause real grief, and Scripture records lament and earnest pleas for help. Jesus Himself wept. I think it is reckless to use Paul’s command to silence someone who is suffering, as though acknowledging the pain were an act of unbelief.
I may not understand why God has permitted a particular loss, and I should not invent an explanation simply because another person’s grief makes me uncomfortable. But I do know that Christ’s sacrifice has not lost its power to save. The Holy Spirit remains with the believer, and God still promises His people bodily resurrection. We can thank Him for those mercies while asking for relief from something that genuinely hurts. Thanksgiving and lament can belong in the same prayer.
Paul also joins thanksgiving to prayer for help in Philippians 4. He was writing from imprisonment, and the Philippians faced opposition of their own while remaining concerned about him. Within the church, Euodia and Syntyche needed to resolve a disagreement. Paul urged these women, who had labored with him in the gospel, to be of the same mind in the Lord. His appeal to pray with thanksgiving was part of his counsel to people with real troubles to bring before God.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7
When I give thanks while praying, I remember that I am approaching Someone who has already shown me mercy. I can describe my concern plainly without treating Him as though He must meet my demands before I will trust Him. If my prayer becomes bargaining, I need to consider how much I have already received from the One I am asking to help me.
Paul promises that God’s peace will guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. He does not promise that the answer will arrive on our preferred timetable or that every request will be granted as we intended. That peace does not mean we become numb to our circumstances. We can care deeply about what is happening while entrusting the concern to Him, without assuming that a delayed answer means He has stopped caring.
The peace Paul describes is received through Christ, rather than manufactured by positive thinking. We thank the Father for His goodness, knowing that the Son intercedes for us and the Spirit helps us pray. Our immediate need deserves to be brought before Him, but it should not make us forget everything else His mercy has already provided.
Remembering God’s ongoing care also helps us learn contentment. We can work to improve a difficult situation and ask Him for what we lack without despising what He has already given. Hebrews connects the command to resist covetousness with His promise to remain with His people.
Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5
“I will never leave you nor forsake you” gives us more than advice about getting by with fewer possessions. The Lord has not abandoned us when money is tight or plans fall through. His presence is a reason to trust Him even when we cannot see how a need will be met. Contentment does not require us to stop caring about that need or pretend we would not welcome help.
Envy goes further than admitting disappointment. If someone receives a promotion I had hoped for, I may feel disappointed without treating that person as an enemy. But if I resent his success as though God has slighted me, I need to deal with that resentment. Thanksgiving directs my attention to what the Lord has given me and how I should use it, instead of making another person’s good fortune a grievance against Him.
Lust can lead me to accuse God of depriving me when I want something He forbids. Before I defend that desire, I need to ask whether I am treating its intensity as permission to disobey Him. Gratitude helps me acknowledge the wisdom of God’s design for marriage and receive His call to purity and self-control without portraying Him as cruel for commanding it.
Paul describes godliness with contentment as great gain, reminding us that we brought nothing into the world and can take nothing out. That does not make earthly gifts worthless. We can enjoy food and a home, appreciate friendship, and thank God for work or family without making those gifts the purpose of our existence. They remain His gifts, to be received gratefully and used under His authority.
A Thankful Church and Eternal Worship
Thanksgiving should also affect how we live with other believers. In Colossians 3, Paul urges kindness and humility, telling believers to forgive one another as Christ forgave them. He then calls the church to peace and thankfulness.
And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.
Colossians 3:15
In the following verses, Paul tells believers to let Christ’s Word dwell richly among them as they teach and admonish one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Their words and deeds are to honor Jesus’ name, giving thanks to the Father through Him. Gratitude belongs in how we receive instruction and correction as well as how we sing.
Ephesians 5 also connects being filled with the Spirit to singing to the Lord and thanking the Father in Christ’s name. The songs we sing should teach what is true about the Lord and encourage us to obey Him. We can sing with real feeling, but neither the volume nor the intensity of our emotion establishes whether the worship is faithful.
Grumbling can divide a church while disguising itself as concern for its welfare. I can prefer a particular song or order of service without claiming that Scripture requires everyone to accommodate me. If I start recruiting people to resent those who do things differently, I am using my preferences as a reason to stir up division in the church.
We still need to confront actual sin and ask difficult questions. Being thankful is no excuse to overlook dishonesty or mistreatment, and needed correction should not be dismissed as complaining. But I need to examine whether my words are helping people understand Scripture and care for one another, or simply spreading my own dissatisfaction. Remembering that Christ bought us with His blood should affect how I speak to someone who also belongs to Him.
Revelation shows thanksgiving in the worship before God’s throne. In chapter 7, John sees a multitude from every nation standing before God and the Lamb. They have come out of the great tribulation, and their robes have been washed in the Lamb’s blood. The angels, elders, and living creatures fall before God and worship Him.
saying: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”
Revelation 7:12
Thanksgiving is named among the praise offered to Him there. The redeemed have every reason to honor the God who saved them, and gratitude will not become unnecessary once their suffering has ended. In the new creation that Revelation describes later, envy and pride will no longer distort our response to Him. His redemption will still be worthy of praise.
When we thank Him over a meal or acknowledge His mercy while grieving, we are honoring the same God who is worshiped before the throne. We are learning to recognize His goodness now, before we enter the fullness of the life He has promised.
My Final Thoughts
I need thanksgiving when I have enough and am tempted to take the credit, as well as when I am struggling and can see little beyond what I lack. If I only turn to God when I need something, I am treating Him as though His place in my life ends when the request is answered. He deserves to be acknowledged when I have enough, and His mercy through Christ still gives me reason to thank Him when I am hurting. I can bring that pain to Him honestly without pretending that gratitude has made it disappear.
When Jesus offered living water to the Samaritan woman, she asked for it so she would no longer need to return to the well to draw water. That would have spared her some work, but Jesus was offering far more than an easier daily routine. He was promising everlasting life. To understand His words, we need to consider what Scripture says about people turning away from the God who gives them life and how He calls them back to Himself.
The Thirst Only God Can Meet
In Jeremiah 2, the Lord confronts Judah over its betrayal of Him. He had brought their fathers out of Egypt, sustained them through the wilderness, and given them a fruitful land. Yet the priests had stopped seeking Him, the rulers had transgressed against Him, and the prophets were speaking by Baal. The people were giving their allegiance to idols after receiving so much from the God who had delivered them.
For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Jeremiah 2:13
A spring supplies fresh water, while a cistern is a pit that stores water collected from elsewhere. Digging a cistern was useful work, provided it could hold what went into it. But these people had abandoned a flowing fountain to depend on cracked storage pits. God uses that absurd exchange to expose what Judah had done in forsaking Him for idols that could not sustain them.
The Hebrew phrase mayim chayyim means living waters, a description used for fresh or flowing water. Jeremiah calls the Lord the maqor, meaning fountain or source. He is the One who gives life, and His people had chosen to turn elsewhere.
I need to be honest about the two evils God names here. I might admit that something has become a distraction or that I have allowed a bad habit to get out of hand, yet avoid admitting that I am turning away from Him. Judah’s problem went much deeper than poor judgment about what would make life comfortable. They had abandoned the Lord, and admitting that their substitutes had disappointed them would not excuse that disloyalty.
Hewing a cistern took considerable effort, which means we should be careful about assuming that a hardworking person is necessarily heading in the right direction. Someone can spend years pursuing financial security and still refuse to entrust his life to God. Money can pay his bills, but it cannot forgive his sins or reconcile him to the Lord. If protecting his income becomes a reason to disregard what God has said, he has made financial security more important than obeying Him.
The same thing happens with approval. If I am willing to lie because I cannot bear having people think poorly of me, their opinion has become more important to me than obeying God. We can also use pornography or endless entertainment to avoid facing what is wrong, seeking relief while refusing to repent. Even something good, such as family or ministry, can become an idol when we use it to justify disobedience. Being devoted to a good thing does not give us permission to push God aside.
I also need some discernment when examining where I turn for help. Asking a friend for counsel when I am lonely or ashamed is perfectly reasonable, and God often helps us through other people. But if I keep looking for someone who will reassure me that a sin is acceptable, I am seeking permission to avoid repentance. Another person’s agreement cannot make my disobedience right. God is merciful to expose that, even when I would rather defend myself than admit it.
Long before Jeremiah rebuked Judah, Israel had learned through actual thirst how dependent they were on the Lord. After crossing the Red Sea, they traveled for three days through the Wilderness of Shur without finding water. When they finally reached Marah, the water there was undrinkable.
Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”
Exodus 15:23-24
Moses cried out to the Lord, who showed him a tree. When Moses cast it into the water, the Lord miraculously made it sweet and fit to drink.
I do not need to pretend a painful circumstance is pleasant before I ask God for help. The people complained against Moses, and Moses cried out to the Lord with the need they were all facing. Marah does not promise that every difficulty will immediately disappear when we pray, but I can bring my distress to God honestly without accusing Him of failing me. Cheerful religious language is a poor substitute for that kind of prayer.
At Rephidim, the people again had no water. They quarreled with Moses and questioned whether the Lord was even among them, despite the provision they had already received. God told Moses to go ahead of the people with the elders of Israel and gave him a specific instruction concerning the rock at Horeb.
Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.
Exodus 17:6
Moses did as God commanded, and the people received water through the miracle the Lord had promised. He named the place Massah and Meribah because of their testing and contention. Although their accusation against the Lord was wrong, He mercifully provided for them.
We should keep this event distinct from the later water crisis at Kadesh in Numbers 20. There God told Moses to speak to the rock, but Moses angrily addressed the congregation and struck it twice. Water still came, yet the Lord rebuked Moses and Aaron for failing to believe Him and honor Him as holy before the people. They would not lead the assembly into the land He had promised. However frustrated Moses was with the people, he had no right to change God’s instructions. When I judge a decision only by whether it produced the result I wanted, I can overlook my own disobedience in much the same way.
Paul refers to Israel’s wilderness provision when warning the Corinthians about idolatry. They needed to understand that receiving God’s blessings did not make them immune to the consequences of rebellion.
and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:4
I understand Paul to be identifying Christ as the divine source of Israel’s provision throughout their journey. He sustained the people who drank the water that came from the physical rock. Paul is not describing Jesus as a literal stone or saying a magical boulder traveled behind Israel. He is explaining that they depended on Christ, even though they repeatedly quarreled with Moses and questioned the Lord’s care for them.
The eternal Son of God who sustained Israel is also the Savior who gave His life for sinners. Fully God and fully man, Jesus lived without sin and willingly offered Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Wicked men tortured and crucified Him, but the Father did not punish or abandon Him. His shed blood and death accomplished our redemption before His burial and bodily resurrection. Father and Son remained united in that saving work. The life He offers freely was secured through a sacrifice we could never provide for ourselves.
Isaiah also uses the language of thirst and water when he announces God’s invitation to receive what we cannot buy.
Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, Come, buy and eat.
Isaiah 55:1
God invites the thirsty to receive what they cannot pay for. His generosity leaves us no room to claim that we have earned the life He gives. Ezekiel describes another need we cannot remedy through our own efforts: cleansing from sin and a change within us.
Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.
Ezekiel 36:25-26
God addressed this promise to Israel, including His pledge to gather His people into their land. He would cleanse them from their idols, give them a new heart, and put His Spirit within them. An outward washing or an improvement in their circumstances would not accomplish that. They needed God to change them inwardly, and Jesus later spoke about that need when a teacher of Israel came to see Him.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee and ruler of the Jews who visited Jesus at night in John 3. He acknowledged that Jesus’ signs showed God was with Him. But recognizing those signs did not mean Nicodemus already possessed the life Jesus was about to describe. For all his religious knowledge and standing, he needed to be born again.
Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
John 3:5
I understand the water in Jesus’ explanation in light of God’s promise of cleansing in Ezekiel 36. Jesus was speaking of the cleansing and new life God gives through His Spirit, rather than teaching that water baptism produces regeneration. Baptism is an act of obedience after salvation; going into the water cannot give someone the inward life that only God can supply.
Jesus speaks of being born again in John 3:3 and John 3:7. The Greek word translated again, anothen, can also mean from above. Nicodemus asked how a grown man could enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time. Jesus explained that the Spirit gives a life that natural birth cannot produce.
Paul explains in Titus that salvation comes through God’s mercy rather than our record of righteous deeds.
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.
Titus 3:5
When I use the word regeneration, I mean that someone has genuinely been born again. A person can call himself a Christian and improve some habits without receiving new life from God. In regeneration, God makes the believer alive, and the Holy Spirit indwells and seals him. His assurance rests in Christ, but we should also expect evidence of that new life in his conduct. Obedience does not earn or keep salvation, and being born again does not mean a person never sins. It does mean we cannot treat a Christian label as sufficient while dismissing the need for any change in how we live.
Jesus Gives Living Water
In John 4, Jesus speaks with someone whose circumstances are very different from those of Nicodemus. He stops at Jacob’s well in Samaria while His disciples go to buy food and asks a Samaritan woman for a drink. She is surprised that a Jewish man would ask her, because hostility had divided Jews and Samaritans for generations. Their disagreement included competing claims about where God should be worshiped.
Jesus tells her that if she knew God’s gift and who was speaking to her, she would ask Him for living water. She wonders how He can supply it without a vessel to draw from the deep well. He explains that His gift will meet a need Jacob’s well cannot.
Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
John 4:13-14
Ordinary water satisfies thirst for a while, and then we need another drink. Jesus promises everlasting life, with the water He gives becoming a fountain within the person who receives it. The woman asks for this water so she will not thirst or need to keep coming to the well. She is still thinking about the work of drawing water, but Jesus proceeds to address her life before God.
He tells her to call her husband, and she answers that she has none. Jesus acknowledges the truth in her reply, then tells her that she has had five husbands and that the man she now has is not her husband. We are not told how those earlier marriages ended, but Jesus knew the truth about her present situation. He did not need her to give Him a respectable version of her life before He could offer her grace. At the same time, His kindness gave her no reason to conceal her sin.
Recognizing Him as a prophet, she raises the dispute over worship on Mount Gerizim or in Jerusalem. Jesus explains that salvation is of the Jews; the Messiah comes through God’s covenant promises to Israel. Yet the hour is coming when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, without worship being confined to either place. When she mentions the coming Messiah, Jesus identifies Himself to her.
She had been speaking with the very One who could give the life He described. She could not obtain it by proving that her people had worshiped at the right mountain, any more than Nicodemus could obtain new birth through his standing among the Jews. Both needed what Christ gives. When we come to Him in faith, we are receiving His gift rather than presenting credentials that oblige Him to save us.
Later, in John 7, Jesus gives a public invitation during the Feast of Tabernacles, when Israel remembered God’s care in the wilderness. He calls the thirsty to Himself, just as He had offered living water to the woman at the well.
On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
John 7:37-38
Jesus connects coming to Him and drinking with believing in Him. He does not restrict His invitation to people with an impressive religious background. Christ died for the sins of the world, and His offer of salvation is genuine for every person who hears it. People can resist His grace and reject Him, but I should never tell a sinner that Christ’s invitation was not meant for him. We can call people to repent and trust the Savior without wondering whether He is willing to receive them.
John then explains what Jesus meant by the rivers of living water.
But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
John 7:39
The Holy Spirit had already been active in creation and had spoken through the prophets and empowered God’s servants. John’s words look ahead to His promised New Covenant ministry following Jesus’ glorification. Jesus would first die and rise bodily, then ascend to the Father and send the Spirit.
Living water is therefore more than the relief we feel after an encouraging conversation or a good worship service. The divine Person of the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within the believer because of Christ’s accomplished redemption. God Himself has taken up residence in him. The believer has not become self-sufficient or acquired a supply of spiritual life that he can manage apart from the Lord.
When Jesus speaks of rivers flowing from within the believer, I understand Him to be describing a life that will benefit others too. The Spirit produces holiness and love in us, which should affect how we treat people. If I speak about being filled with the Spirit while treating someone cruelly or refusing to tell the truth, I need to repent of that conduct. His work should be evident as we pray for others, speak truthfully about Christ, and serve people who need help.
Every genuine believer is indwelt and sealed by the Spirit, and believers are also commanded to be filled with Him and not to grieve Him. We do not earn His presence through obedience, and we do not need a particular feeling to prove that He is there. His commands require us to depend on Him and obey His Word. Assurance in Christ gives me reason to trust the Lord through discouragement, without giving me an excuse to ignore what He says.
Alongside these promises of inward renewal, God has made promises concerning the earth itself. Ezekiel 47 describes water flowing from the temple and bringing life along its course. Zechariah 14 places living waters flowing from Jerusalem in the setting of the Lord’s return and reign over the earth. I understand these as events in His future earthly kingdom. That is part of my premillennial reading: Christ returns before establishing His literal thousand-year reign. Reducing these prophecies to descriptions of our feelings or of church growth would overlook what God has promised concerning Israel and the land.
Revelation then takes us beyond Christ’s return, His thousand-year reign, and final judgment to the new heaven and new earth. In the New Jerusalem, John sees the river of life flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb.
And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
Revelation 22:1
Life in that city comes from God Himself. As Revelation closes, the invitation to receive life freely is addressed to those who hear its words now.
And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
Revelation 22:17
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” and the hearer is also to say, “Come!” Having heard His invitation, I should be willing to bring it to others, including people whose past I might be tempted to hold against them. Christ offers mercy that none of us could earn, and we have no right to withhold His invitation from someone we dislike.
That generosity does not mean our salvation cost nothing. The Lamb who was slain is the risen Lord who gives us life. He calls us to turn from sin and trust Him, and no one needs to accumulate enough merit before coming. The person who receives His gift has every reason to be grateful to the Savior who paid so dearly to provide it.
My Final Thoughts
When God exposed Judah’s broken cisterns, He was calling His people back to Himself. I need to hear that rebuke when I begin excusing disobedience to protect something I am afraid to lose. Whatever relief I gain from doing that cannot reconcile me to God or give me new life. Jesus gives the life I cannot produce, and He calls me to receive it in repentance and faith. If you have been trying to make yourself deserving of salvation, you can come to Him now with the sin you need forgiven. He already knows what needs cleansing, and He offers the mercy you cannot earn.
When I explain the gospel, I need to say more than that God wants to improve someone’s life. The good news concerns what Jesus Christ has done for sinners: He shed His blood and died for our sins, was buried, and rose bodily from the dead. God calls us to repent and believe in Him. A person can agree that Christianity sounds beneficial without understanding why he needs that Savior.
The Greek word euangelion, translated gospel, means good news or a glad announcement. The message begins with God’s initiative in sending His Son. It calls for repentance and faith because He has provided a Savior, rather than promising to save us once we prove capable of improving ourselves.
If all I tell someone is that God has a wonderful plan for his life, I may encourage him while leaving his guilt unaddressed. He needs to hear why Christ shed His blood and rose from the dead, and what it means to repent and believe. We need to explain the judgment our sin deserves if he is to understand why forgiveness is good news.
The Bad News We Must Face
In Romans 3, Paul includes both Jews and Gentiles in the same verdict. Neither group can establish its righteousness before God, and the Jews’ religious privileges do not make their sin any less real:
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 3:23
The verb hamartano, translated sinned, can carry the sense of missing the mark. In Romans, the standard is God’s glory and righteousness, and the offense is our failure to give our Creator the obedience and worship we owe Him. The phrase cannot excuse disobedience as though we had merely made a harmless miscalculation.
If I have deceived someone, pointing to a more dishonest man does nothing to remove my guilt. A decent reputation cannot make the deception honest, and years of religious activity cannot undo it. The person whose sins are concealed needs forgiveness just as much as the person whose wrongdoing has become public.
Jesus confronted this self-righteousness after calling Matthew from the tax office. He shared a meal with tax collectors and sinners, and the Pharisees questioned His disciples about the company He kept. Jesus answered by explaining a physician’s purpose:
Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.
Matthew 9:12-13
Jesus was not telling the Pharisees they were righteous enough to do without a Savior. They objected to the mercy He showed people they regarded as sinners while failing to acknowledge their own need for it. If I insist that I am already well, I will not recognize my own need for the Physician.
Isaiah had exposed a similar refusal to face sin in Judah. The people needed God’s saving intervention, but the Lord had not lost the ability to save or hear. Their violence and injustice had separated them from Him.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you.
Isaiah 59:2
Sin leaves us guilty before the holy God and breaks fellowship with Him. Becoming more disciplined cannot erase what we have done. Even making amends with someone we harmed does not, by itself, reconcile us to the Lord. We need Him to deal with our guilt and bring us back to Himself.
Paul develops the consequences of sin in Romans 6, where he contrasts slavery to sin with the freedom believers receive in Christ. He concludes by describing what sin pays and what God gives:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23
Paul calls death the wages of sin because it is a consequence our wrongdoing deserves, while eternal life is God’s gift in Jesus Christ to people who cannot earn it. Scripture speaks of physical death and the spiritual separation caused by sin, and it also warns of final judgment. The unredeemed dead will be raised and judged before being cast into the lake of fire, called the second death. I understand that as the final, irreversible destruction of body and soul. The gospel offers rescue from a real judgment, rather than reassurance that God will overlook our guilt.
Promised From the Beginning
God began promising that rescue long before the New Testament. Genesis 3 records Eve being deceived by the serpent and Adam knowingly disobeying God. Both sinned, and they hid from Him after becoming conscious of their shame. While pronouncing judgment on the serpent, God announced that the woman’s Seed would be wounded but would crush the serpent’s head.
And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.
Genesis 3:15
This promise points to the Deliverer who would defeat Satan, although it does not yet disclose everything later Scripture reveals about Christ. God was already announcing the rescue sinners needed. Through His covenants and the priesthood, He would teach His people more about that salvation. The prophets would also speak of the coming King’s suffering before victory.
Abraham also helps us understand how people receive what God promises. In Genesis 15, Abram was still childless despite the promise that he would become a great nation. God pointed him to the stars and promised descendants beyond counting.
And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
Genesis 15:6
God accounted righteousness to Abram because he believed the Lord. He had not manufactured a righteousness of his own or made God indebted to him. Old Testament believers trusted the God who promised to save, although they did not know every detail of the cross and empty tomb. They were saved by grace through faith on the basis of the Redeemer He would provide. Teaching that they earned salvation by works while we receive it freely would misrepresent both their need and God’s provision.
God later instructed Israel about sin and approaching Him through the sacrifices He appointed under the Law. Sin and guilt offerings addressed wrongdoing. Peace offerings emphasized fellowship and could be given in thanksgiving, while the burnt offering expressed complete dedication and also made atonement. Their purposes differed, but blood was central to sacrificial atonement. In Leviticus 17, God explained that He had given blood on the altar and therefore prohibited eating it.
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls.
Leviticus 17:11
God provided atonement, a way of dealing with sin so His people could approach Him. Yet Israel’s offerings could not provide the final cleansing the worshipers needed. Their repetition showed that something more was required, as Paul explains in Hebrews:
For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices make those who approach perfect.
Hebrews 10:1
The high priest returned to the Day of Atonement service year after year because the final offering had not yet been made. Christ was the perfect, sinless sacrifice those offerings anticipated, and He voluntarily gave Himself to be slain for our sins. Wicked men betrayed, mocked, beat, and crucified Him. The blood He shed and the life He gave accomplished the redemption those earlier sacrifices could not provide.
Paul calls God’s act of declaring the believer righteous justification. That standing is given freely through Christ’s redemption, the deliverance He secured at the cost of His life:
being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith.
Romans 3:24-25
Propitiation concerns the atoning provision through which God righteously grants mercy to sinners. Paul identifies Christ’s shed blood as that provision, received through faith. In the rest of his explanation, God remains just while justifying the person who has faith in Jesus. He forgives through the sacrifice He provided, rather than by dismissing our guilt.
The Father did not punish His innocent Son, abandon Him, or pour wrath upon Him. Father and Son acted in unity to provide our salvation. Jesus willingly endured the suffering wicked people inflicted as He gave His blood and life for us. Reducing the cross to an inspiring example would leave out the sacrifice through which God has provided mercy.
Christ the Fulfillment
The promised Redeemer is God’s eternal Son. In Galatians 3-4, Paul compares the Law’s temporary authority with a child’s life under guardians. The child is an heir, but he remains under their care until the time his father appoints. Paul then describes God sending His Son at the appointed time to redeem those under the Law and receive them as His children:
But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law.
Galatians 4:4-5
Jesus became fully man without ceasing to be fully God. He was born of a virgin and lived without sin, revealing the Father and perfectly obeying Him. God did not lower His standard to accommodate our wrongdoing. His Son willingly offered His sinless body and blood for the sins of the whole world.
Hebrews contrasts the priests who continued offering sacrifices with Christ’s completed offering. Paul describes believers as sanctified, or set apart, through the offering of His body:
By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Hebrews 10:10
His shed blood and death completed the atonement before His burial and bodily resurrection. The following verses in Hebrews contrast priests standing to offer sacrifices repeatedly with Christ seated after His one sacrifice. No priest can repeat that accomplishment or supply something it lacked. My suffering cannot complete it either, and law-keeping or a religious ritual cannot make me worthy of what He has done. Treating human merit as part of the basis for acceptance with God is legalism, and it contradicts the completeness of Christ’s offering.
That completed atonement does not make Christ’s resurrection optional. When some in Corinth denied the future resurrection of the dead, Paul answered by reminding them that Christ’s resurrection belonged to the gospel they had received:
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.
1 Corinthians 15:3-4
Jesus truly died and was buried, then rose bodily on the third day. Paul goes on to name people who saw Him, including more than five hundred at once. He was making claims about events and witnesses, not describing how the disciples kept their teacher’s ideals alive.
In the same chapter, Paul says that if Christ has not risen, our faith is futile and we remain in our sins. His resurrection vindicates who He is and confirms the saving work He completed through His blood and death.
Paul also connects the resurrection with our justification in Romans 4:
who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.
Romans 4:25
Romans 4 applies Abraham’s example of faith to those who believe in the God who raised Jesus from the dead. We trust a living Savior who conquered death. Many people died on Roman crosses, but the gospel announces that the sinless Son died for our sins, fulfilling Scripture, and rose again. He is our only Savior and Mediator, the One through whom we come to God.
Repentance and Faith
Jesus Himself called people to repent and believe. Early in His ministry, after John the Baptist’s imprisonment, He began preaching in Galilee:
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.
Mark 1:15
Years later, Paul described the same response while speaking to the Ephesian elders at Miletus. Looking back over his public and house-to-house ministry, he summarized what he had preached to Jews and Greeks:
testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Acts 20:21
Repentance turns a person from rebellion toward God, and faith trusts Jesus Christ as the only Savior. I cannot honestly claim to trust Him while insisting that He has no authority over my life. But turning to Him does not give me something to offer as payment. Neither my repentance nor the strength of my decision accomplishes the salvation He alone provides.
God’s invitation extends to every hearer. Jesus spoke of God’s love for the world and promised everlasting life to whoever believes in Him:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16
Christ died for the whole world, so I can offer the gospel honestly to every person. I do not have to wonder whether the sinner in front of me is someone for whom no Savior was provided. People can resist and reject God’s genuine offer, and those who reject Christ remain condemned. Their unbelief cannot be blamed on Him withholding a genuine opportunity to respond.
Receiving His offer does not make salvation a human achievement. Ephesians 2 describes people dead in trespasses and sins, following the world and living according to corrupted desires. God makes believers alive with Christ because He is rich in mercy.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9
Grace gives what we have not earned, and faith receives Christ and relies on Him. I cannot point to my religious background or my decision and claim that I made myself worthy of forgiveness. God has provided the Savior and gives the new life. Paul then explains the place of good works in the lives of those He saves:
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10
When someone is genuinely born again, God gives him new life that should become evident in his conduct. A man who has been dishonest ought to learn to tell the truth and stop defending his deceit, although he will still need instruction and correction. Those changes are evidence of salvation already received; they are not a means of paying for forgiveness.
The claim that grace frees us from obeying God’s moral commands is called antinomianism. If I mistreat another person and insist that grace means God is unconcerned about it, I am turning His mercy into an excuse for disobedience. Christ saves people from slavery to sin and gives them a new life in which to follow Him.
Paul condemned the teaching pressed on the Galatian churches when Gentile believers were told they needed circumcision and law observance to be accepted by God. Making those observances necessary alongside Christ’s work changed the basis of salvation. That is why he treated the message as another gospel, rather than a cultural preference:
But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
Galatians 1:8
A message can also corrupt the gospel by changing Christ’s identity or setting aside His finished work. Prosperity teaching holds out earthly gain as the reason to come to Him, while a merely therapeutic message may offer comfort without confronting sin. Universalism promises that everyone will eventually be saved, removing the final danger Scripture attaches to rejecting Christ. Whatever encouragement, wealth, or improved behavior a message offers, it cannot substitute for the forgiveness sinners need through Him.
I reject Calvinist limited atonement because I believe Christ died for the whole world. The disagreement concerns the intended extent of His atoning death, rather than whether His blood has infinite worth. I do not believe salvation was provided only for the elect; God’s offer is sincere to every person. I also reject the Arminian teaching that genuinely born-again believers can lose salvation. People can resist God’s appeal, but those who repent and believe are made new and kept by Him.
When assessing a message, I need to consider more than whether the speaker sounds compassionate, morally serious, or impressive. A large crowd and a claim of spiritual power cannot establish that he is teaching the truth. I need to compare his explanation with the apostolic gospel preserved in Scripture: the truth about our sin, Christ’s full deity and humanity, His shed blood and bodily resurrection, and the call to repentance and faith. Salvation must remain God’s gift of grace that brings a person into new life.
For those who believe that gospel, assurance rests on Christ. In Ephesians 1, Paul praises God for the blessings believers have in Him and describes their hearing the gospel, trusting Christ, and being sealed by the Holy Spirit:
In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
Ephesians 1:13
Jesus also promised security to His sheep. During the Feast of Dedication, opponents surrounded Him in the temple and demanded that He tell them plainly whether He was the Christ. He told them they were not His sheep, then described those who heard His voice and followed Him.
And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.
John 10:28
In the whole passage, their safety is in His hand and the Father’s hand. He gives them eternal life and promises they will never perish. The Holy Spirit lives in those genuinely born again and seals them as God’s own. Their obedience neither earns nor keeps salvation, because Christ is the One who keeps them. They may stumble and need to confess sin, but their weakness does not make His promise fail.
That promise should never be used to excuse a superficial claim without regeneration, which means genuine new birth. Baptism, church attendance, or repeating a prayer cannot take the Savior’s place. Neither can a Christian upbringing or a decent reputation. If I am relying on those things instead of Christ, I need to turn to Him. If I am trusting Him and grieving my weakness, I have reason to take heart in His promise as I learn to follow Him.
My Final Thoughts
I want someone hearing the gospel to understand both his guilt and the mercy God has provided. Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose bodily from the dead. His blood is sufficient for the whole world, and He receives those who repent and believe. I cannot earn that forgiveness or complete His sacrifice, but I can trust the living Savior who makes His people new and keeps them forever.
In Psalm 90, Moses prayed, “From everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” He was speaking to the God who existed before the mountains, yet asking Him for help with the brief lives we have here. I find that encouraging because I cannot stop time or guarantee what tomorrow will bring. We can bring those limitations before God and ask Him for mercy, wisdom, and work worth doing.
Psalm 90 and the Eternal God
The heading identifies this psalm as “A Prayer of Moses the man of God.” Moses knew the frailty of the people he led. They had been delivered from Egypt, heard God’s words at Sinai, and received manna, yet many hardened themselves against Him. After Israel refused to enter the land at Kadesh Barnea, God sentenced that rebellious generation to die in the wilderness while their children entered the land.
The psalm does not identify the occasion on which Moses wrote it. His years of leading a people who moved their tents and buried their dead help us understand why he began this way:
Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Psalm 90:1
The Lord had been the refuge of His people through generations of change. They had no settled home in the wilderness, but they could turn to the same God their fathers had known. Moses then spoke of His existence before the world began:
Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
Psalm 90:2
Mountains can seem permanent when we measure them against our own lives. A family may live beneath the same ridge for generations, even as the people in that home grow old and die. Moses says even those mountains were brought forth. The world was formed, but he never says that God was formed or became God. Before any of it existed, “You are God.”
The Hebrew word olam, translated “everlasting,” can describe ancient time or an enduring future, with the extent understood from its context. We should not force every occurrence to carry exactly the same meaning. Here Moses places God before the beginning of the world and speaks of Him from everlasting to everlasting. I understand that to mean He has neither beginning nor end. He is the uncreated Creator, not simply the oldest being in existence.
That puts our own lives in perspective. In the rest of the psalm, Moses describes people returning to dust and a thousand years passing before God like yesterday. He also acknowledges sin and God’s anger. Our short lives are not merely an unfortunate limit to work around; we are accountable to the God who gave them.
Yet Moses ends by asking for wisdom, compassion, gladness, and work God will establish. He does not conclude that a short life is a useless one. If God is our dwelling place, we can ask Him to teach us how to spend our days instead of assuming there will always be another opportunity to obey Him.
Before Creation and Above Time
Genesis begins with God already present to create:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1
No account of His origin comes before that statement. He does not receive life from someone greater, and He needs none of the things He makes in order to exist. Everything created depends on Him. That is why we must distinguish the Creator from the universe rather than describe Him as its soul or one powerful force within it.
If I make God part of the world, I have reduced Him to something dependent on the very creation He sustains. It also becomes easier to give divine honor to created things. Psalm 33 directs our worship to the One whose word brought the heavens into being:
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
Psalm 33:6
His command brought the heavens into being without help from some greater power. The sun, moon, and stars continue to depend on Him, as we depend on Him for life and breath. He needs nothing outside Himself to sustain Him, and passing years cannot exhaust Him or improve His wisdom and holiness.
We live one moment at a time and often misunderstand even what has already happened. Tomorrow can make us anxious because we cannot see it. God knows the end from the beginning, and no threat takes Him by surprise. I can trust what Scripture says about His knowledge and authority without pretending to have settled every philosophical question about His relation to time.
Nor does His greatness make Him indifferent to people with such limited lives. Isaiah puts His eternal majesty and His care for the humble together:
For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit.”
Isaiah 57:15
Contrite describes someone who is grieved by sin and willing to acknowledge it instead of defending it. Isaiah was confronting idolatry and unfaithfulness, so this is not a promise that God approves of whatever we choose. The passage speaks of His judgment and His willingness to heal and revive. The Holy One receives people who come humbly to Him.
I do not have to impress the God who inhabits eternity before He will hear me. If I claim to honor His greatness while refusing to admit my sin, I am resisting the very God I say I revere. He already knows my weakness, and Isaiah gives me reason to seek His mercy rather than hide behind excuses.
Scripture records His involvement with people across generations. He called Abraham and delivered Israel, then spoke through the prophets. In the fullness of time He sent His Son, and after wicked men killed Jesus, God raised Him bodily. The Holy Spirit now dwells within believers as they await Christ’s return. God’s eternity does not leave Him watching events with detached indifference. He acts within the world He made and brings His purposes to completion.
The God Who Does Not Change
As God deals with changing circumstances, His own character remains dependable. We may change because we learn something, recognize that we were wrong, or grow tired of a responsibility. We may also become dishonest or cruel, betraying the trust people have placed in us. God has no ignorance to overcome or moral failure to correct. His holiness does not deteriorate, and His faithfulness does not wear out.
“For I am the LORD, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.”
Malachi 3:6
Malachi was addressing a people whose conduct deserved judgment. They had ignored God’s commands and withheld the tithes and offerings He required, yet He had not consumed them. Their disobedience had not erased His covenant promises. The following call to return was an offer of mercy from the same God who exposed their sin.
I need to receive that mercy without turning it into presumption. God’s patience gives me an opportunity to repent; it does not make disobedience harmless. His unchanging character means I can trust both His promise and His warning.
James describes His generosity with a comparison to the lights He created:
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
James 1:17
Created lights shift and cast moving shadows, but the Father of lights does not become less good from one day to the next. His willingness to give what is good does not depend on a favorable mood. I can bring a need before Him without wondering whether He has become a different God since the last time I prayed.
The same confidence applies to His word. Cultural approval cannot make something true that God has called false, and changing public opinion cannot cancel His promises. He will not discover later that He made a mistake in what He told us.
The Eternal Son
When we speak of the eternal God, we must include the Son. Jesus is fully God and co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The three are distinct Persons, not three gods. The Son is not the Father, and He was never a creature who eventually rose to divine status. John introduces Him as the Word:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1
The Word already existed in the beginning. He was with God, which distinguishes the Persons, and He was God, which declares His deity. John 1:3 goes on to say that everything created was made through Him. I cannot place the Word among created beings when John identifies Him as their Creator.
John later says the Word became flesh. That is the incarnation: the eternal Son taking on true humanity without ceasing to be God. The One born at Bethlehem had already existed before the world was made. Paul likewise identifies Him as Creator:
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible… All things were created through Him and for Him.
Colossians 1:16
Paul goes on to say that Christ is before all things and that in Him all things consist. He continues to sustain what He made, including the world He entered when He became man. He had not left creation running on its own and returned to discover what had happened.
Revelation expresses this divine authority with the title Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet:
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Revelation 1:8
At the end of Revelation, Jesus also calls Himself the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, and the First and the Last. These titles belong to Him because He shares the divine nature. The One who promised to return has authority over the whole course of history and will bring it to its appointed completion.
Paul brings the Son’s greatness and saving work together in the opening of Hebrews. God made the worlds through the Son, who upholds all things by His powerful word and purged our sins. The Creator came to save people who cannot sustain their own lives, much less cleanse themselves of sin.
Jesus was without sin and willingly gave Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Wicked men tortured His body and crucified Him. Through His shed blood and death He completed that saving sacrifice, then was buried and rose bodily. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Him. Father and Son were united in providing our salvation.
The risen Son sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. His saving work was accomplished, and He does not need to repeat the sacrifice. Later in Hebrews, Paul gives this assurance:
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Hebrews 13:8
The Savior who received sinners in the Gospels has not become reluctant to receive them now. His mercy and authority have not changed. He remains the Mediator who brings us to God, the Shepherd who keeps His people, and the King who will return. We are trusting the same Lord who shed His blood and rose from the grave.
Everlasting Life in Christ
The everlasting life we receive from Christ is a gift, and that distinguishes it from God’s own eternal nature. He never began to exist and depends on nothing outside Himself. We began as creatures and will always depend on Him. Union with Christ gives believers truly endless life without making us divine or self-existent.
My hope would be precarious if it depended on a savior who could eventually cease to exist. It would be no more secure if keeping His promise depended on the strength of my feelings or my ability to hold on. Christ is eternal, His sacrifice is sufficient, and He faithfully keeps His sheep. When someone is born again, the Holy Spirit gives that person new life in Christ. That new life produces obedience, but obedience does not earn or keep salvation. Our security rests in the Savior’s faithfulness, even when circumstances and feelings change.
The lost do not receive that everlasting life. After their bodily resurrection, they face the Great White Throne judgment and the Lake of Fire. This is the second death, the final and irreversible destruction of human body and soul. Human souls are not inherently immortal, and I do not understand Scripture to teach everlasting conscious torment as the final fate of unbelieving people. Eternal life is God’s gift in Christ, received by grace as we turn in repentance and faith to His crucified and risen Son.
Moses prayed for wisdom in using the time God had given him. I cannot assume there will always be time later to deal with a sin I am excusing now. Nor should I dismiss the responsibilities God has already given me because my work seems ordinary or my life seems short. Moses asked God to establish the work he and his people did. We can ask Him for wisdom in what we do today while trusting Him with the years beyond our reach.
My Final Thoughts
Psalm 90 directs me to the God who was there before the mountains and remains the dwelling place of His people. He knows how brief our lives are, and He receives those who come humbly for mercy. The eternal Son entered His creation to save sinners and gives everlasting life to those who believe. I can rely on His promise while asking Him to correct how I am using the days He has given me.
