People of God

The Christian Identity

Posted on November 7, 2022March 1, 2023 by RKM in People of God

I’d like to take time to consider further address our identity in God’s promises as Israel by reviewing some key passages in the New Testament. As we’ve seen, the recipients of the promises are Israel and few question this reality. We’ve been contemplating the question of the identifying attributes of Israel on a number of angles and have come to the conclusion that Christ is the true Israel. The same can be said of Christians since we’ve seen that we are identified as an expansion of the recipients of these promises. Christ’s death and resurrection fulfilled the promises to Abraham concerning his descendants and the nations and as we’ll see below, creating one man of the two. We can’t attribute this identity of Israel simply to a circumcised ethnic descendant of Abraham since these promises belong to those who find their ethnicity in a new creation in Christ by faith.

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Identity in Worship

Posted on October 24, 2022October 24, 2022 by RKM in People of God

The uniqueness of those who are in Christ is manifested in the important reality that only they are the true worshippers of Yahweh. Divine adoration is a fundamental marker of the people of God and we shouldn’t diminish this reality! The scriptures use concepts and identifiers to communicate that which is to be accepted as authentic worship. These include the place of worship, the worshippers and the offerings.

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Our Identity & Inheritance

Posted on October 17, 2022 by RKM in People of God

Finding our identity as a people in Christ means that we should have a good idea of God’s promises to Christ and how we receive this promised inheritance through Him. Receiving the promises of Abraham as the children of God through Jesus requires a little further examination. As we endeavour, we also need to keep in mind the pattern throughout the New Testament of a fulfillment in Christ and then an expansion into greater blessings bursting forth from Him. If the OT was a shadow and had revelatory limitations, the NT certainly brings them to light without limits! I want to take a moment now to write about the most controversial of these ancestral promises mainly the promise of the land inheritance.

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Identifying as Sons

Posted on October 10, 2022 by RKM in People of God

The identity of the Son is truly the most important part of identifying ourselves in Him. We know that this was a significant title applied to our Lord Jesus and communicated His special relationship to God the Father. Keeping this in mind, this title, however, is not unique and applied to others in the scriptures (Genesis 6:2). This is especially the case when appropriated to Israel. In His command to let the people go, the Lord refers to Israel as His son (Deuteronomy 14:1) and even His firstborn son (Exodus 4:22). The importance of identifying the Sonship of Israel with Jesus is crucial to understanding the fulfilment of this Sonship and its expansion in the New Testament in Christ and in His people.

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Unity & Abraham’s Seed

Posted on October 3, 2022October 3, 2022 by RKM in People of God

As we previously mentioned, understanding who we are in Christ has significant impact upon our unity and in return upon taking the nations for Christ. Even though the enemy unites under the banner of identity, we shouldn’t refrain from doing so also. We need to establish our identity in Christ as new creatures who represent a new creation, a creation which broke into this world through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the firstborn of all creation and especially of this new creation which He established at His resurrection. We are today a new creation in Him, and new things have come, and the old things are gone (2 Corinthians 5:17).

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More on Unity

Posted on September 26, 2022 by RKM in Church Practices, People of God

In my previous post on Edwardian prayer, I stressed the point that if the church is to have an impact in invigorating our troubled nation, it requires us to understand the significance of unity. In case someone hasn’t tuned in, we have little of it in both our society and even in our local ecclesiastical gatherings. I know I sound like a broken record, but I’ll drop the needle anyway, we love to focus upon what divides us rather than what unites us! Union between God’s people is crucial to the success of any work especially any external facing ministry. Brethren, linking arm in arm with faithful gatherings of believers has a greater impact upon the Great Commission than beating each other up over something like sprinkles and dips. The Psalmist saw the beauty of this unification: Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brothers to dwell together in unity! (Psalm 133:1) and I hope you do too. Now, let’s consider that the enemies of the church are doing just that, they’re uniting. They’re gathering around the campfire largely based upon identity politics. These distinct identifiers are creating a unison based upon distinctiveness from their enemy, which, if you’re not aware, is basically you and your church. They are making strides because they created a unified assault, and the morale is on the rise. While I believe that this unity won’t last, simply because there is no logical foundation to keep it together, we still must take this movement seriously. Movements that have no brakes lead to their own demise, but they tend to take everyone else with them. But our fate doesn’t need to be like theirs.

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