Visible manifestations of the invisible God %

“No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known” (Jn. 1:18 NET).

Grace has a destination. It is not an end by itself, but a path somewhere. God wants you to catch the higher purpose of grace rather than struggle with the petty issues of our daily Christian walk. Grace is God’s call to humanity to partake in the excellences of His glory. As 1 Thess. 2:12 says, “exhorting and encouraging you and insisting that you live in a way worthy of God who calls you to his own kingdom and his glory.”

John 1:18 above teaches us that Jesus came to make God known. His is in intimate fellowship with God and reveals God. God the Father is invisible, and Jesus the Man is a revelation of Him. He is the visible manifestation of the invisible God. Grace has brought us into the shoes of Christ, becoming His flesh and His bones. Grace has brought us into the bosom of the Father, in intimate fellowship, causing us to be revelations or expressions of the invisible God. Jesus did not make God the Father known by teaching people about Him. He did not give humanity a lecture or theological discourse on God. He revealed God by His very life—how He spoke, acted, and reacted toward the people. He was a living and walking manifestation of the invisible Father. That’s not all—you, in Christ, have become the visible manifestation of the invisible God!

MEDITATE

How did God reveal Himself differently through Christ compared to other times? See Heb. 1:1-3.

APPLY THE WORD

If you have been struggling to teach people that God is kind or loving, you can safely pause now. Change the emphasis, stop teaching, and start living God for them to see! That’s God’s purpose of grace in your life. He wants His beauty, power, wisdom, etc. to be fully expressed through you. At work today? In school? At home? Reveal God in the way you talk and act toward those who are around you!

PRAY

What else can you say to God in the face of grace? Thank the Lord for His amazing grace poured out upon you.

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Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the Lord your God. And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the Lord which sanctify you. (Leviticus 20:7–8, KJV)

Jehovah Mekaddishkem showing washing gloves, cleaning fluid and sponge

As the Great I AM that I AM, God revealed Himself as the Lord who sanctifies His people in the Old Covenant—Jehovah Mekaddishkem. But this was only a shadow of something greater that was coming in the New Testament.

Jehovah Mekaddishkem is the English transliteration of the Hebrew words for “I am the Lord which sanctify you” ( “mekaddish” = sanctify, “kem” = you). Divine names and titles in the Old Testament often reveal an aspect of God in relation to His people.

There are three keywords that underlie the meaning of sanctification: “wash,” “consecrate,” and “separate.” Sanctification essentially means to make something holy. Sinlessness is a core aspect of holiness, but there is more to holiness than sinlessness. It is the very nature of God. However, when used in reference to us humans, it means to be cleaned from sin, set apart for God, and consecrated to Him.

In the passage above, God tells the people first to sanctify themselves and then reveals He is the One who sanctifies them. Thus, He gives us the two sides of sanctification—the God side and the human side. There’s something God does and something His people do for their sanctification.

This truth was only a shadow in the Old Testament. It is in Christ that we see God fully revealed as Jehovah Mekaddishkem to His people through the sanctifying work on the cross. In speaking to the Corinthians, Paul revealed,

“And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:11, KJV)

This is Jehovah Mekaddishkem fulfilled in Christ: We were washed and sanctified. Note that these are in past tense, describing something God has already done. The day you received Christ, you received the bath of your life, a heavenly bath by the Spirit of God that removed every stain of sin through the precious blood of Christ. And as you continue to live on earth, the Spirit continues to sanctify you daily.

Following the sanctifying work He has already done in us, He commands us,

“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:” (1 Thessalonians 4:3, KJV)

Now that you are clean, washed, and sanctified, He tells us to put that sanctification to work outwardly. Paul explicit states it is what God wants—His will. He gives us a very specific example of sanctification here: abstain from sexual immorality. Few things defile us, like sexual impurity. But sanctification certainly includes more than abstaining from fornication or adultery. As above, it includes living a consecrated and separated life to God daily in the way we talk, act, think, feel, and handle our bodies.

He is Jehovah Mekaddishkem, the God who has Sanctified you in Christ and continues to sanctify you every day.

Meditate

Is our sanctification completed, ongoing, or both?

Apply the Word

This is the crucial part of this devotional. Until you receive the truth that God has already sanctified you by His Spirit, you will not be empowered to be sanctified practically. Put God’s sanctification power to work in your life daily by faith in the finished work of Christ.