Sunday: From Preparation to Promise to Performance
WEEK 3
SUNDAY
FROM PREPARATION TO PROMISE TO PERFORMANCE
Ephesians 5:24-27
We have looked at the divine preparation as seen in the first five pillars on which the Christian faith rests and then at the divine promises as seen in the last two pillars. We must now look at the divine performance as seen in the rest of the Acts. This is the greatest drama ever enacted—the drama of redemption of humanity moved from preparation to promise to performance. The preparation was the Lord become flesh, the Word become revelation, the Word become vicarious, the Word become victorious, the Word become final. The promise was a new and total way to live—the kingdom of God—and the offer of a divine dynamic to make it all possible—the Holy Spirit.
But someone objects: Where is the church in all this; is it not one of the pillars upon which the Christian faith rests? The church is more a product than a pillar. It is something that emerged out of the impact of these divine facts upon human life. It was a product of the divine performance. It is the building that was reared on these divine pillars. Where you have these seven things in vital operation, you have the church as a result. Where they are vitally absent, then you do not have the church; you have an organization, not an organism. You have a building built on sand, and the gates of hell do prevail against it; it falls or slowly decays, and great are both the fall and the decay thereof.
So in the opening chapters of Acts the church is not mentioned either by Jesus or by the disciples, for it was not yet born. Even by the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost the church was not born.
So when we say that Pentecost was the birthday of the church, this is only partly true. Forces were loosed that produced the church through producing the fellowship, the koinonia. The koinonia became the soul of the church. Out of it the church grew. It was the organism out of which grew the organization. And where there is no fellowship, no koinonia, there is no church. But we will return to this later.
We must now turn to the vital fact, and factor, which produced this amazing moral and spiritual mastery, namely, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was God in action—and how!
O God, we thank you for this amazing divine impact—the Holy Spirit. We let the Spirit impact us. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: The Holy Spirit and my spirit shall be in accord in every act this day.