THE TRUTH AND EXPERIENCE OF GOD’S SALVATION

Lesson Thirteen

GOD’S SALVATION THE SOURCE OF SALVATION IS GOD’S LOVE (3)

  1. God’s Salvation
    1. The source of salvation is God’s love – Eph. 2:4-5; Titus 3:4-7
      1. God’s love makes it possible for us to be His children – 1 John 3:1; 1 Peter 1:3

Burden to Impart:

God’s love makes it possible to attain unto something that has not come up in man’s heart: to be a child of God. His love as the source of our salvation saves us in such an organic way. His love for us is so great that it imparts all that He is to us, begetting us as His children. We are not only saved by His death (Rom. 5:8), we are saved in His life (Rom. 5:10). Because He loves us so much, He has made it possible for us to receive Him and become His children (John 1:12-13).

Memory Verse:  Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and we are. … (1 John 3:1a)

Facts to Teach:

  1. The Father is the source of the divine life. The love of God was manifested by His sending of His Son to die for us (4:9; John 3:16) in order that we might have His life and thus be-come His children (John 1:12-13). God's sending of His Son was that He might beget us. Hence, the love of God is a begetting love.
  2. We have been begotten of the Father, the source of life, to be the children of God. We are the children of God by a mysterious birth with the divine life.
  3. God has regenerated us unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Pet. 1:3). Regeneration, like redemption and justification, is an aspect of God's full salvation. Redemption and justification solve our problem with God and reconcile us to God; regeneration enlivens us with God's life, bringing us into a relationship of life, an or-ganic union, with God. This is how we become children of God.
  4. After His resurrection the Lord began to call His disciples brothers, for through His resur-rection His disciples were regenerated with the divine life, which had been released by His life-imparting death, as indicated in John 12:24. He was the one grain of wheat that fell into the ground and died and grew up to bring forth many grains for the producing of the one bread, which is His Body (1 Cor. 10:17).
  5. He was the Father's only Son, the Father's individual expression. Through His death and resurrection the Father's only begotten became the Firstborn among many brothers (Rom. 8:29). His many brothers are the many sons of God and are the church (Heb. 2:10-12), a corporate expression of God the Father in the Son.
  6. This is God's ultimate intention. God’s many children are the propagation of the Father's life and the multiplication of the Son in the divine life. God’s love has reached so far as to make sinners into sons of God for God’s expression in the universe.