Jordan reasons, “If you and I are going to be involved in
subduing all things, in the ages to come we’re going to be busy at work
developing the wisdom, knowledge and understanding that God has placed, not simply
in creation, because we’re not the earthly people--we are blessed with 'all
SPIRITUAL blessings in heavenly places.'
“You and I are going to be developing the spiritual . . . Adam and Eve
developed that physical thing in the
earth.
“When God put Adam and Eve in the Garden, Genesis 1:28 says,
‘And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it:
and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’
“Now, you notice there’s a colon there. The way they were to
have dominion is literally by subduing it, and as they began to discover what God put there, what
were they discovering? His knowledge, wisdom and understanding.
“They took creation and made something more than what was
there originally. What they do is push it forward; they develop it and that was
God’s purpose. That issue of Adam subduing was not just going out and harnessing
the resources; he was discovering the wisdom, understanding and knowledge God
put there and developing that into new technologies that demonstrated the
original plan of God.
*****
“Colossians 1:9 says, ‘For this cause we also, since the day
we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be
filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.’
“Where is that wisdom and spiritual understanding he’s
talking about going to come from? It comes from the will of God. ‘In whom are
hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,’ says Colossians 2:3. You
know what you do with a treasure? You have to go dig it out, you have to go
find it, you have to go locate it.
“Ephesians 2:7 says, ‘That in the ages to come he might shew
the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ
Jesus.’
“He’s going to show it through us. These glorified bodies;
we’re going to have that function in the heavens and what are we going to do in
them? Be filled with the treasures that are in Christ.
*****
“If something is exceeding, what did it do? It surpassed
what was there before. ‘I’ve got this; now I have something that’s more than
that.’
“If in the ages to come, there’s going to be an age where
the exceeding riches of His grace are manifest, and then the next age comes
along, what’s going to be there? If it’s going to be exceeding riches, it’s
going to have to be more than what was here before.
“Here’s an age, I got it, I’m getting all these fantastic
things from Christ, and, ‘Woo-hoo! It couldn’t get any better than that!’ and yet
the verse says, ‘Let’s see,’ and there starts another one and it gets better!
“Have you ever wondered if in eternity you’ll ever learn
anything new? Will you ever grow anymore? You’re never going to come to the
place where there aren’t exceedingly wonderful riches. You see, that’s what a
treasure is!
“When people look for treasures, they look for it not to
find their credit-card bill. They look for treasures to find riches. And you’re
going to be discovering in the Lord Jesus Christ all of the riches of God’s grace.
*****
“You ever get a surprise package? They’re fun, aren’t they? You
open it up and you know whatever’s on top, the things underneath are going to
be even better. You and I are going to have an eternal surprise package for all
eternity!
“It’s going to be a never-ending pursuit; a never-ending discovery
of the riches that God’s grace has given to you in His Son. So for you and me,
the goal, the Father’s goal, is to put on display the wisdom, knowledge,
understanding—the treasure that He’s placed in His Son.
“God the Father treasures His Son above all things. He says ‘that
in all things he might have the preeminence.’
“What do you treasure? You don’t have to wait ‘til
heaven to value and treasure Him—that’s what His Word’s for! Because you have
the wisdom, knowledge and understanding—Paul says be filled with it! You and I right
now can begin to do what we’re going to spend eternity doing. That’s the great
privilege of grace!
*****
When Paul went into Thessalonica’s synagogues where the lost
Jews and God-fearing Gentiles were, he took the Word of God and proved to them
out of the Scripture that Jesus was the Christ—that He was the one who
fulfilled what their Scripture prophesied about.
“And then he obviously preached his gospel, but to make
those two the same is to contradict what went on there,” says Jordan. “You have
to understand that the Book of Acts isn’t designed to tell you everything that
Paul did. It tells you some of it, you’re not going to discount it, but you have
to understand the dispensational setting in it.
“The saints that were formed there, that little church started
in Thessalonica; they became a wonderful group of people. Thessalonica was a
city of about 200,000 people. It was not a hick town. It was a free city in the
Roman Empire. It was a city of Greek culture, Macedonia and Achaia and the
culture of Greece, but it was a free city in the Roman Empire. That is, it was
a city that was autonomous under the Roman rule. They had special privileges
and it was a major metropolitan area. Remember, Paul’s strategy over and over
again was to target major metropolitan areas.
*****
“Romans 13:1 says, ‘Let every soul be subject unto the
higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are
ordained of God.’
“What Paul’s going to do in the first seven verses of this
chapter is demonstrate and explain how a Believer in the dispensation of grace
is to relate to the government in a godly way; with what he calls in I Timothy ‘godliness
and honesty.’
“How are you to relate to the government of the nation where
you live? You and I are Americans but whatever country you’re a part of,
whatever nationality in the sense of your residence on Planet Earth is concerned,
you are not a citizen really of that country.
“When you got saved, you became a member of the Church the
Body of Christ. Your citizenship was changed from this world to the kingdom of
God. That’s why He can say you’re ‘an ambassador for Christ.’ And ambassador is
a representative of a foreign government or foreign head of state.
“In Colossians 1:13, Paul says, ‘Who hath delivered us from
the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.’
“In Paul’s mind, the members of the Body of Christ were a
part of a different governmental system. We’re aliens down here. Our citizenship
is in heaven. Eph. 2:19 says, ‘Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners,
but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God.’
*****
“The greatest passage in the Bible to explain and expound
the gospel of the grace of God is Romans 3:21-28. That’s a passage without a
peer in Scripture.”
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