CHAPTER FOUR
THE GLORY OF THE GODS
Summary Scripture:
1 John 3:2 - Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet
appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall
be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
NOTES
J
esus, in His famous midnight meeting with Nicodemus likened
the Kingdom of God unto the wind. It comes without observation;
and unless you are born again, you are unable see the Kingdom of
God. But even as Christ is a citizen of the Kingdom, so are we. So, if
we truly have become citizens of the Kingdom of God, and if in Christ
is the fullness of the Godhead bodily; then, what was Nicodemus
observing? The God of the Kingdom of Heaven was speaking to
him at that very moment. He missed this reality because of the image
standing before him. He could not even imagine he was entertaining
the entire Godhead.
Paul, in his great oration to the philosophers upon Mars Hill, noted first
they were too superstitious. By this he was speaking to their irrational
idol worship, which was extreme to say the least. However, in his
ministry, he referred to one of their sayings, “In him we live and move
and have our being”. In this verse, Paul is teaching what it means to
be the offspring of God. The offspring of God are beings who exist in
God and by God. This is unlike nature, where the offspring is a totally
separate being from the parent. As it pertains to the offspring of God,
He is in them and they are in Him.
This means a god (the offspring of God) cannot be like the graven
images and the statues of gold as the people of Greece thought them
to be. Paul was a man of small stature; a scarred man. They surmised,
the man standing before them was a human being even as they were.
After all, how could this be a god? And here is where the mystery lies.
At salvation, the human soul is joined to the Holy Ghost. This
creates a totally new creature, and the creature is a Son of God. By
being in the Spirit, the sons of God are seated in a heavenly place, in
Christ Jesus. But look a little deeper into the mystery of God and the
sons. They are seated in that heavenly place called Christ, yet they
are also physically walking in the earth. This is consistent with Jesus’
tenure here on earth. And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he
that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven
(John 3:13).