Through Him we have
received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all
nations for His name, among whom you also are the called of Jesus
Christ; To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. (Romans 01:05-07, NKJV).
Ten
separate times in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul gives this
exact same salutation (greeting and benediction - “good word”).
Here are the references, feel free to look them up (Ro 1:7; 1Co 1:3;
2Co 1:2; Eph 1:2; Php 1:2; Col 1:2; 1Th 1:1; 2Th 1:1,2; Phm 3).
Let's
focus on the phrase “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”,
since it tells us important things about the nature and
characteristics of our God; things which are so important that Paul
repeats them ten times(!) in his letters to the believers in the 1st
Century, and to believers throughout the ages.
First,
notice the little conjunction, “and”. In English, it connects two
things or thoughts together, like a plus sign. In English, it doesn't
matter how alike the things are that are being joined in that way.
You could use the same word, “and”, to connect a steel girder
with bubonic plague, or father with daughter.
In
the first instance there is very little similarity between a steel
girder and a deadly epidemic, other than that they are both nouns,
but the sentence containing the conjunction is grammatically, if not
logically correct.
In
the second instance, father and daughter are connecting two people
who are related in a specific way, both human, very similar in
ontology (the nature of being) and morphology (form).
In
ancient Greek, there are ten common conjunctions, each with its own
nuance and contextual (in view of the surrounding words and thoughts)
meaning. Some conjunctions simply connect two things regardless of
their ontology, others, like the one used in the focus verse above
(kai, pronounced kahee), are used to connect two things of the
same nature.
So
why all this detail about a simple word? Because in Paul's
oft-repeated salutation we are given reminders of two very important
things about our God: 1) He is more than one Person; and 2) those
Persons are “of the same kind”.
In
other places, Paul adds the third Person of our Triune God, the Holy
Spirit, using the same conjunction.
What
does this all mean to us? That God is One God in three distinct
Persons. Why is that important? Not because it is easy to understand,
or because it is something our finite minds are comfortable thinking
about, but because it is what God is – it is an undeniable truth
about Him.
This
is one of the things that, in my mind, gives Christianity even more
credibility (likelihood of being true) because, if its doctrines were
merely the result of human imagination, no fabricator would have come
up with something so difficult to comprehend.
The
only even remotely meaningful analogy (a logical picture of something
based on something else like it) in my limited mind is this: as we
are comprised (made of) three distinct parts, body, mind and spirit,
but are still one person, so too, in a way, is our Creator who
fashioned us in His own image. But because He is God, those distinct
“parts” are themselves Persons and also God.
I'm
sure this falls far short of the reality in so many ways, because
anything we think we understand about God is just a vague shadow of
all that God truly is, but at least it gives me a picture to hang
onto. The really important aspect of all this Trinitarian (Three
Personhood) thinking is knowing that our God is absolutely and
utterly complete in Himself, lacking nothing.
Because
of His essential nature of being three Persons in one God, He knows
love and relationship, and all the unfathomable blessing of being in
His own company. He needs us for nothing, but created us and
desires to be in close relationship with us because He understands
the infinite (never-ending) reward that such a relationship is –
not for Himself, but for us.
Remember,
all the good that we know or can conceive of comes from Him, and in
our fallen, sinful state we can only get the briefest glimpses of all
that He desires to give us for our good and His glory. That is why
Paul writes in another place:
...“Eye
has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” But God
has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches
all things, yes, the deep things of God. (1 Corinthians 2:9, 10,
NKJV).
Another
incredible truth that Paul's salutation reminds us of is that God
desires us to know that He is our Father. Literally, the word is
Abba, which is Daddy. Such an intimate (close) relationship
was unthinkable to the ancient Jewish people. God was Creator and
Judge, Life-giver and Law-giver, but Daddy? That thought was
blasphemy (speaking deceitfully about the nature or actions of God)
to the Jews.
But
through Christ, that is exactly what He is, for the 2nd
Person of the Trinity became fully human through His birth to a young
virgin 2000 years ago, and in doing so became a partaker of flesh
and blood, calling us brothers and sisters, coheirs of His unique
relationship as the only begotten Son of God.
Now,
the final point of Paul's greeting is that Christ is not just our
Brother, but also our Lord. This is significant in two ways. First,
because the word used for Christ as Lord, is the same word used to
describe the Father as Lord, indicating that Christ is also God.
Second, it is significant because it reminds us that we are no longer
our own, we have been bought with a price. And that price is
the shed blood of Jesus. God owns us.
In
truth, we were never our own. We did not create ourselves, nor can we
really control anything that happens to us. It is all in the hands of
God from before the foundation of the world. But before coming to
Christ in faith, we were servants of the world and the world system
that is currently under the thrall of Satan, our enemy, and will be
until our Lord returns.
It
is only after believing that Christ died for our sins and rose alive
again on the third day, that we escape imprisonment by the world and
enter into the Kingdom of God - a Kingdom on whose throne sits the
Lord of Lord and King of Kings, our Savior Jesus Christ.
As
our Lord, we are to obey Him in all things, not because He needs
our obedience, but because obeying Him is the best possible thing we
could do for our own good. In this present life, oftentimes that
obedience seems hard – almost impossible, and the world we have
escaped from will tell us that such obedience is old-fashioned,
uncool, or even evil.
But
our difficulties do not surprise Him in the slightest, and He always
makes a way for us to resist the temptation to sin (and all
disobedience is sin), for:
No
temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God
is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are
able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that
you may be able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:13, NKJV).
and:
If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9, NKJV).
So
you see, even by Paul's simple and repeated greetings, he reminds us
of everything we have and are in Christ.
Love,
Dad
