HE HAS QUALIFIED YOU

PEARLS OF GREAT PRICE CHRIST’S LIFE STUDIES

HAVING THE MIND OF CHRIST: HE HAS QUALIFIED YOU

APOSTLE GILBERT KARUZA

“Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son”. Colossians 1:12-13

The greatest of all sciences is to know oneself.

Unbelief in your in your divine identity is your experience of hell on earth. If you do not know yourself, you are living in poverty. The true riches of God, as contained in the gospel revealed to Paul, have to do with what Christ has done with us; what He has shared with us cannot be evaluated in monetary value.

The phrase “giving thanks” is the Greek term eucharisteo, which means to respond to what has been freely given. If we were to translate the word according to its etymology, it would mean “grace works well”. Grace works well when we live in thanksgiving.

Paul makes use of the Greek aorist tense in the phrase “which hath made us meet ”. It speaks of an action, which is complete and has occurred once and for all.

We have been made qualified by the Father and this qualification cannot be undone. The term “made” is the Greek word “ginomai” , which means to leave one state of being to enter into another. Our state of being has been altered in Christ Jesus and we have been made what He is.

Union with Christ is found at the heart of the message Paul gave in his epistles. Jesus is the eternal Son of God. He is also known as the Logos and the Logos refers to the knowledge God has of Himself. The self-discourse of God, His self-knowledge became flesh.

The eternal Son of God became Son of Man. He who is by nature God, became and assumed that which is by nature man, remaining what He is as God. Within His one person, God and man have been made indissolubly one. Jesus Christ was made identical to Adam in His fall. Many people think of Jesus as simply being instrumental for the atonement. They think He just came to do something for us; they see Him as a means to an end. Those who think this way ascribe to what is called the penal substitutionary atonement. According to this theory, when Adam sinned, the Father became so enraged that God and man were severed. So, Jesus had to come to take on Himself the anger of God and condition God to love us. But it was God who was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself: God and the whole world in the one person of Christ.

Jesus was born in the likeness of sinful flesh (Hebrews 2:14). He was made what we were – this is the first movement of grace – in order that we might be made what He is in Himself, and this is what happens in His resurrection.

Ginomai refers to a sudden, irreversible alteration. We were made in Christ, in His resurrection, ascension and session. God has made us qualified, adequate in power, rendered us sufficient, fit to share what is His.

Many people love the definition of grace as unmerited favour. One of the words translated as “unmerited favour” is the Hebrew word “ratsown”, which in many instances is translated as “mercy”. If a beggar on the streets extends his bowl to you and you drop in some change in the bowl, that is an example of unmerited favour. But, when God becomes man and joins you to His life, irreversibly alters your status and makes you qualified, fit to share in what is His portion, that is not unmerited favour. That is the Pauline concept of charis; that is what is called grace.

We are qualified to be made partakers of His inheritance. The eternal Son of God, consubstantial with the Father, has made you fit to share His inheritance.