Tag: Devotion

The Apostle Paul cited Abraham’s faith for our learning. He wanted his readers to believe God’s way of salvation through Jesus Christ. God indeed opened the dead womb of Sarah who has long passed the age of child-bearing. Abraham’s faith became sight in the fullness of time when Sarah conceived and brought forth Isaac. Our faith in God’s plan of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ will be a reality when we receive the resurrected the body at Christ’s second coming. Today, we, like Abraham, must take God at His Word, to patiently wait, for our change to come. Hear the blessed truth concerning the resurrection from the dead.

John Newton was a slave trader turned Pastor and the writer of the hymn “Amazing Grace”. As a slave trader on board a slave ship, he learned all the evils of the seaman’s life. How could such a sinner as John Newton be saved? John Newton’s conversion is the amazing story of God’s saving grace. God intervened in his life.

Cicero in De Republica acknowledged the universality of God’s law as summarized by the Ten Commandments rendering man without excuse not to be judged by it. He testified rightly, “There is indeed a true law, right reason, conformable to nature, diffused among all, unchanging, eternal, which by commanding, urges to duty, by prohibiting, deters from fraud; not in vain commanding or prohibiting the good, though by neither moving the wicked. This law cannot be abrogated, nor may anything be withdrawn from it; it is in the power of no senate or people to set us free from it; not is there to be sought any extraneous teacher or interpreter of it. It shall not be one law at Rome, another at Athens; one now, another at some future time; but one law, alike eternal, unchangeable, shall bind all nations and through time; and one shall be the common teacher, as it were, and governor of all – God, who is Himself the Author, the Administrator, and Enactor of this law.”

I recall giving a bible to a retiring department manager who worked in Singapore for over 30 years as an expatriate. He saw the development of the semiconductor industry from its infancy in his lifetime. His comment when he received the Bible was “Faith”! It was my prayer that he understood the faith of the Bible and be saved, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36-37).

For the Jews, God meant circumcision to be an outward sign of an inward faith. It was an external manifestation of the faith that is in the heart. An evidence of the change that this is a people belonging to the living God of heaven. In the New Testament, water baptism has replaced circumcision as the outward affirmation of an inward faith.

Whether Jew or Gentile, circumcision or uncircumcision, we are saved by faith in Jesus Christ. This is the blessedness that the Apostle Paul was speaking about. He cited Abraham and David’s example to bring home the truth that the Old Testament saints were saved also by faith in Jesus Christ.

The psalmist David gives us the portrait of the man blessed of God declared in psalm 32:1-2, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity… ”

The glorious gospel is preached here by the psalmist David, explains the Apostle Paul, when David speaks of the blessings of sins forgiven and reconciliation with God.

The Apostle Paul declared in truth that by grace was Abraham saved. He did not receive salvation by any work that merited his salvation. It was all by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ that righteousness was credit to Abraham. He did nothing to earn his salvation. This is the truth concerning how a man is saved. It is the God-given means whereby man can escape the judgement of hell fire and receive eternal life.

Jesus testified that although He is descended from Abraham, He preceded Abraham in John 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Jesus existed before Abraham was born. This is only possible because Jesus is God.

Abraham was not saved because he obeyed God’s instruction to be circumcised in the flesh. Nothing of what Abraham did gain him any merit before God to justify his salvation. Abraham was saved because he believed in God’s plan of salvation through the Man Jesus Christ who is God Himself! The great truth we declare to the world. All men must humble themselves before God to accept this glorious way by which they are saved! Amen.

Whether Jew or Gentile, the one living and true God provided only one way of salvation for us all. It is by faith in Jesus Christ. No need for any outward circumcision. Thank God for the propagation of this gospel message far and wide from Jerusalem, to all Judaea, and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. It is in the last hundred years that the gospel came to the Chinese people and parts of Asia as a result of missionary endeavours from the West. It has been that same message of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone and for God’s glory alone!

God’s plan to save these scattered descendants of Noah was through a nation. The Jewish people that came through the loins of Abraham. Immediately, in Genesis 12, God called Abraham to fulfil that plan. God gave Israel the law through Moses at Mount Sinai. God’s plan was that Israel will be His witness to bring the nations to the saving knowledge of the One God.

Deuteronomy 4:7-8 For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? 8 And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?

Indeed, Israel’s role was to reflect God in all manner of their life so as to be a witness to the nations, like a magnet, to bring them back to God. And it is through the Jews that the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ, would come. The Jews had that pivotal role to present the one God to the nations of the world.