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Will you be called God’s Son on Judgment Day? Do your deeds reflect that? |
Do you remember how Jesus Christ declared that you are Abraham’s seed if you do the deeds of Abraham? Do you remember how this same spiritual principle is applied to being called a child of God? If God is your Father, then you will do the deeds of God - this is the essence of worthiness. We live in a day when men believe that their adoption as God’s son or daughter does disannul the dangers of Judgment Day, but it is not so! If you call on God as your Father, then you will be judged by God concerning the legitimacy of that claim, and if you are found worthy to bear the name of God, then you are living worthy of the gospel calling of God. This is as it is written:
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“And if ye call on the Father, Who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.” (1 Pet. 1:17)
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You see dear reader, you must live in such a way that you are blamelessly keeping “the gospel call”, present-progressively without rebuke, and if you fail to do this, then you will not be, what Paul called, “sons of God without rebuke” (Php. 2:15), which is to say that God will find you in such a state which deserves His rebukes (Rev. 3:19) at Judgment Day! “One shall say, I am the LORD’S; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the LORD, and surname himself by the name of Israel” (Isa. 44:5), and so it is today, but are you worthy to bear the Name of God? Many will say to God in that day, “Lord, Lord”… we have done this, and this, and this other thing “in Thy name” (Matt. 7:22), “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His. And, let every one that nameth the name of the Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:19). Are you a son of God without rebuke? Do you live worthy of your calling? Do you know what your calling is?
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“As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children, that ye would walk worthy of God, Who hath called you unto His kingdom and glory.” (1 Thess. 2:11-12)
“Called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” – 1 Cor. 1:9 “Hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us… ye should follow in His steps” – 1 Peter 2:21 “Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” – Eph. 4:1, “called in one body” – Col. 3:15 “Called you out of darkness in His marvellous light” – 1 Peter 2:9 “Called us to glory and virtue” – 2 Peter 1:3 “God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness” – 1 Thess. 4:7 “Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called” – 1 Tim. 6:12 “When he was called to go out… he sojourned in the land of promise” (Heb. 11:8-9), and we are thus “as strangers and pilgrims” because we have obeyed our calling to “come out from” (2 Cor. 6:17) among the world to “abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Pet. 2:11). “Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling” – Heb. 3:1 |
We have been called out of the world and into the Presence of God, through Christ; therefore we are the Church of God. The word “Church” describes a local congregation or assembly, and also, it is a universal people around the globe who obeyed the gospel of God, who came out of the world to be born of another. Spiritually they have become the “called out ones”. This is the work of the cross! As Paul did affectionately declare, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14). The word “Church” in the scripture, which is ekklesia in the Greek, literally means “called out ones”, and that calling is the gospel of Christ. One must become the Church by nature and then live as the Church by deed, and they will live worthy of their calling.
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“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and BE YE SEPARATE, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” (2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1)
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If you are not living worthy of your calling, it is because you have turned back into unrighteousness, you have fallen away, and therefore you are in darkness, carnality, blame, etc., and God, at this point and in result of this, will no longer dwell with you nor call you His son or daughter. He will no longer be your Father! You are no longer worthy to dwell with Him! The promises of 2 Corinthians 7:1, which the Christians are exhorted to lay hold upon, enable a man to savingly be in God’s Presence. As God said, “I will dwell in them and walk in them”. In this way, a people does become God’s people and He is their God, or in other terms, they are God’s sons and daughters and He is their Father, as He said, “I will receive you… be a Father… and ye shall be my sons and daughters” (2 Cor. 6:18). Christians have already become believers, and therefore the spiritual yoke to unbelievers is broken by nature. They have already become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21), therefore they have no spiritual fellowship with unrighteousness in carnal men by nature. They have already become the light of the world, therefore they have no communion with unbelievers who are still yet in darkness. They do abide in Christ, keep His word (1 John 2:4) and His law (John 13:34, Gal. 6:4, Rom. 8:4), therefore henceforth, they have no concord with lawless children of Belial. They are saved believers, therefore they have no religious part with unbelieving infidels because there is no agreement between the two. This enmity, or non-agreement, is as sharp as the OT conflict between the Temple of God and idols, and why is this? Christians have become the Temple of God and the world is polluted with devilish sin-worship through anti-God idolatry. Seeing then that God says of Christians, “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people”, henceforth we ought to live worthy of such an indwelling, and so personally and corporately walk according to the spiritual laws, realities, and holy ways that the salvation and indwelling of a thrice-Holy God would demand. Now consider again those tenets above which are the calling of God. Each one of them is because the individual saint is called out of the world and into the Presence of God, and because they are in the Presence of God, then they must live out and walk in the DEEDS that such a divine nature is worthy of! They must walk out their nature, or in other words, walk in their God’s Presence. This calling is carefully and exhaustively broken down for us all throughout the NT books! We must look at what God’s Presence is, and from there we can understand our calling.
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“As He is, so are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17)
“Called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” – 1 Cor. 1:9 |
We are called to live in and walk in the Presence of God, to be conformed to what God is BY DEED. We are called unto the fellowship of God’s Son in this saving union of oneness, and when that fellowship or communion with Him is broken in our personal relationship to God’s Presence that dwells in us, then the following experiences of the gospel, also described as our calling, are not experienced, hence we are to be blamed instead of being judged “blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:8), and we will not be recognized by God as His sons (2 Cor. 6:18-7:1). What we are by nature, we must become by DEED, and this is worthiness. This is Paul’s continual burden for the Church of God. Paul can summarize all of his preaching in the forms of exhortation, comforting words, and charges, but all of these communicative expressions have the same final burden: Paul says, “That ye would walk worthy of God, Who hath called you unto His Kingdom and glory” (1 Thess. 2:12). Your eternity will be decided upon in the language, “if you will ‘be accounted worthy’” (Lk. 20:35, 21:36). All those who enter Paradise will enter because their life relationship to the gospel call was one that makes them of the number that God says, “they are worthy” (Rev. 3:4).
If we do walk in Christ (our nature), then we will become like as He was in deed, and therefore, the world will respond to us in the same way the world responded to Christ. According to 1 Peter 2:21, this is a fulfillment of our calling, for, “Hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us… ye should follow in His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Worthiness of the gospel calling is perfection, and therefore we will be “as He is in this world” (1 John 4:17). We must live worthy of our profession, which is, “he that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked” (1 John 2:6). Worthiness is the response of saving faith, and since faith must be kept initially, presently and progressively, and finally, so also worthiness is spoken of as an attribute of initial salvation (Matt. 10:37-39, 22:8), present progressive salvation (1 Thess. 2:11-12, Eph. 4:1), and final salvation (2 Thess. 1:5, 11, Rev. 3:4, Luke 20:35-36, 21:36). Will you be “counted worthy of the Kingdom of God”? Then you must walk worthy of your calling to suffer as 1 Peter 2:21 said. Paul encourages and comforts the Thessalonican Church, that they are worthy for the Kingdom of God BECAUSE they are suffering. Read it carefully:
If we do walk in Christ (our nature), then we will become like as He was in deed, and therefore, the world will respond to us in the same way the world responded to Christ. According to 1 Peter 2:21, this is a fulfillment of our calling, for, “Hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us… ye should follow in His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Worthiness of the gospel calling is perfection, and therefore we will be “as He is in this world” (1 John 4:17). We must live worthy of our profession, which is, “he that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked” (1 John 2:6). Worthiness is the response of saving faith, and since faith must be kept initially, presently and progressively, and finally, so also worthiness is spoken of as an attribute of initial salvation (Matt. 10:37-39, 22:8), present progressive salvation (1 Thess. 2:11-12, Eph. 4:1), and final salvation (2 Thess. 1:5, 11, Rev. 3:4, Luke 20:35-36, 21:36). Will you be “counted worthy of the Kingdom of God”? Then you must walk worthy of your calling to suffer as 1 Peter 2:21 said. Paul encourages and comforts the Thessalonican Church, that they are worthy for the Kingdom of God BECAUSE they are suffering. Read it carefully:
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“So that we ourselves glory in you in the Churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations which ye endure: Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Th. 1:4-8)
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The Church was going through “persecutions and tribulations” because they were called to “suffer” for the Kingdom of God, and this suffering was the manifest token that God would count them worthy of the Kingdom of God. In this way, they had obeyed the gospel calling, and as for the others, they would suffer the vengeance of God. You see, we are called by and into the Name of God, into His Presence, and thus we must not “blaspheme the worthy name by the which [we] are called” (James 2:7). We are now “called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not” (1 John 3:1), and when we walk out our nature, then the world will hate us as it hated Him. In His nature, we are in His Name (Col. 3:17), worthily walking in Him, therefore the world beholds Christ like they did in Paul’s life, who said, “for me to live is Christ” (Php. 1:21). In His nature, we are truly confessing Christ by word and deed (Titus 1:17), “wherefore God is not ashamed to be called [our] God”, when otherwise He would be ashamed (Mk. 8:38). We must persevere in the deeds of our salvific gospel calling, and thus, like Abraham, be “called the friend of God” (James 2:23). Suffering, as we have just reviewed, with many other attributes of God which demand the overflow of Christ’s DEEDS, must be kept to live worthy of the gospel, worthy to be called the sons of God, but all of these deeds have the same common root of origin - they overflow the characteristics of the Presence of God that indwell the believer, or, they are an overflow of the divine NATURE.
Behavior “as dear children” (Eph. 5:1) of God, is, behavior “as obedient children” (1 Pet. 1:14), and at Judgment Day they will be the “sons of God without rebuke” (Php. 2:17). Living otherwise, men will be called “the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:1). Their eternal fate resides like the solemn warning – “Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience (Eph. 5:6, Col. 3:6). Such persons are living in a manner which does not represent the calling to be holy, or as Paul said, “called to be saints” (1 Cor. 1:2, Rom. 1:7), therefore they are living in a way which does not “becometh saints” (Eph. 5:3), and that is to say that they are not living in a way which is worthy of the name saint (which means holy one), and likewise they are not living in a way “as becometh the gospel” call (Php. 1:27). Becometh is a synonym to worthiness. These verses I have cited are in various places throughout scripture, and they address different nature-to-deed calls of worthiness, but what you need to see is that God must “account” you “worthy” to be called “the children of God”, and when you see this, then you will understand all the argumentation which we shall soon cite and examine.
Behavior “as dear children” (Eph. 5:1) of God, is, behavior “as obedient children” (1 Pet. 1:14), and at Judgment Day they will be the “sons of God without rebuke” (Php. 2:17). Living otherwise, men will be called “the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:1). Their eternal fate resides like the solemn warning – “Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience (Eph. 5:6, Col. 3:6). Such persons are living in a manner which does not represent the calling to be holy, or as Paul said, “called to be saints” (1 Cor. 1:2, Rom. 1:7), therefore they are living in a way which does not “becometh saints” (Eph. 5:3), and that is to say that they are not living in a way which is worthy of the name saint (which means holy one), and likewise they are not living in a way “as becometh the gospel” call (Php. 1:27). Becometh is a synonym to worthiness. These verses I have cited are in various places throughout scripture, and they address different nature-to-deed calls of worthiness, but what you need to see is that God must “account” you “worthy” to be called “the children of God”, and when you see this, then you will understand all the argumentation which we shall soon cite and examine.
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“The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection of the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:34-36)
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Those that obtain the resurrection were “accounted worthy”, or judged worthy. Are you prepared? Do you know that you will be reckoned with by God? This is a verb which described God’s Final Judgment upon God’s talent-gifted Christians! It is written, “After a long time the Lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them” (Matt. 25:19), and your worthiness of the gospel-talent of the Holy Ghost will be reckoned with by God. God questions you – what have you done by DEED with what you have been given in salvation by NATURE? If you do not live worthy of your calling, “some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred” (Mark. 4:20), or in other words, again, some 10 talents, 4 talents, and 2 talents, each one showing forth works of righteousness to their proper perfect multiplication which is evidence that imputed righteousness is within them (Matt. 25:14-30), then you will be, like the unfruitful branches (John 15:6), “cast” “into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 25:30). And again, if you do not bring forth the fruits of “herbs meet” to God’s requirements of you, accounting that you are a field which is planted by the choicest seed, watered by so great an outpouring of the Holy Ghost, namely, the rains of being enlightened, tasting of the heavenly gift and the good word of God, and experiencing the powers of the world to come (Heb. 6:4-5), and still, even when these Holy Spirit rain showers are continually coming upon you so that you do drink them up “oft”, you will not bring forth a worthy and meet measure of fruits! And rather, you bring forth “thorns and briers”! Then man, you are unworthy of Paradise. I am sorry for you, for you are “nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned” (Heb. 6:7-8).
We are called out of the world for another name – to be called “children of the Living God” (Rom. 9:26) – thus Luke 20:36 states the name of our reward in these terms: we shall be called “the children of God” and “the children of the resurrection”. So also we must achieve the final reward of our calling, or as Paul phrases it, “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God” (Php. 3:14), which is to be worthily judged and called “the children of Light” (John 12:36, 1 Thess. 5:5) and “the children of the Day” (1 Thess. 5:5), worthy to obtain the resurrection of God’s eternal Day, which is, “the Perfect Day” (Prov. 4:18, 1 Peter 1:19, Rev. 21:23-25). Walk in the spirit of Christ’s resurrection now (Rom. 6:4), and you will be worthy to be called one of the children of resurrection then (Lk. 20:36), and likewise, walk in the light of Christ now (Eph. 5:8), and you will be worthy to enter God’s eternal Day of Light which shall never diminish in heaven (Rev. 21:23-25). Worthy, meet (Heb. 6:7-8, Matt. 3:8), and becometh (Php. 1:27, Eph. 5:2, 1 Tim. 2:10, Titus 2:1, 3) are all synonymously used to bring into reference the DEMAND of fruits, works, and deeds for professing believers to inherit heaven – and heaven is only reserved as an inheritance for the heirs, the sons of God, and none other; thus if God does not call you His son, then you do not have the inheritance of heaven (Gal. 4:1, 6-7, Rom. 8:17). Matthew 5:43-48 does match this DEMAND perfectly:
We are called out of the world for another name – to be called “children of the Living God” (Rom. 9:26) – thus Luke 20:36 states the name of our reward in these terms: we shall be called “the children of God” and “the children of the resurrection”. So also we must achieve the final reward of our calling, or as Paul phrases it, “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God” (Php. 3:14), which is to be worthily judged and called “the children of Light” (John 12:36, 1 Thess. 5:5) and “the children of the Day” (1 Thess. 5:5), worthy to obtain the resurrection of God’s eternal Day, which is, “the Perfect Day” (Prov. 4:18, 1 Peter 1:19, Rev. 21:23-25). Walk in the spirit of Christ’s resurrection now (Rom. 6:4), and you will be worthy to be called one of the children of resurrection then (Lk. 20:36), and likewise, walk in the light of Christ now (Eph. 5:8), and you will be worthy to enter God’s eternal Day of Light which shall never diminish in heaven (Rev. 21:23-25). Worthy, meet (Heb. 6:7-8, Matt. 3:8), and becometh (Php. 1:27, Eph. 5:2, 1 Tim. 2:10, Titus 2:1, 3) are all synonymously used to bring into reference the DEMAND of fruits, works, and deeds for professing believers to inherit heaven – and heaven is only reserved as an inheritance for the heirs, the sons of God, and none other; thus if God does not call you His son, then you do not have the inheritance of heaven (Gal. 4:1, 6-7, Rom. 8:17). Matthew 5:43-48 does match this DEMAND perfectly: