Week 29—Tuesday Revelation 1:8-10
Week 29—TUESDAY
“THIS IS THAT”
We ended yesterday on the “This-ness” of the Christian movement. If the emphasis had been on “that,” it would have been outside them in history; if the emphasis had been on “yonder,” it would have been ahead in the future. But the Movement glanced at the past and glanced at the future, but it gloried in the present. Peter exclaimed after the Holy Spirit had come, “This is that which was spoken”—note “This is that”—the “that” of the past and “yonder” of the future had become the “this” of the present. The Word has become flesh again.
Note Peter said, “This Jesus . . . has poured out this.” Jesus was alive and present, and he made them alive in the present. The “this-ness” of the gospel comes to its climax in John’s Epistle where the word “this” is used twenty-one times. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). John 3:16 was a revelation of the Word become flesh; this 1 John 3:16 is a revelation of that Word become flesh in us—“we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” We emphasize the first John 3:16 and overlook the second 1 John 3:16! “By this we shall know that we are of the truth, and reassure our hearts before him” (1 John 3:19). “And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us” (1 John 3:24). “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit” (1 John 4:13). “In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5:11, emphasis added in all quotations). This “this-ness” is characteristic only of the Christian gospel. All others are wistful, but not witnesses. Here promise has become performance—the Word become flesh.
O Holy Father, how can we thank you enough that Jesus is the Way—the way to finding, to realization. We are not like the hart “longing for flowing streams”—we drink. And we drink now. And are satisfied now. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall be not a person of the past, nor a person of the future, but a person of the now.