Who You Are In Christ, Made Near

Well, today we're doing a study on who we are in Christ. Basically, the wonderful truths about our position in Christ. And actually, we're down to number 12, which is made near, or if you have a King James, made nigh. And it's actually, it may look kind of like an inconsequential one. I'm not sure I can even pronounce that word. I won't try anymore. something that may not be that significant, but I found over the years that the idea that we are near to God is really a marvelous thing. There's really no barrier. Because of the death of Jesus Christ, there's no barrier between the believer in Jesus Christ and the believer in God. And this phrase here, made near, and what's unfortunate kind of is that most of the Bibles have translated it differently.

If you don't have a King James, they'll translate it You kind of lose some of the impact, I think. As we go through here, in fact, I've used the King James in quite a few places, even though I study the New American Standard. The King James actually, I think, seems more forceful and more to the original language, from what I can tell.

Let's look at the passage. The main passage we're going to look at is in Ephesians chapter 2. I was hoping somebody could either read it from the overhead or read it from your Bible. So I could volunteer to do that. Okay, thank you. Yeah, basically Ephesians 2, 11 through 13.

Therefore remember that formerly you the Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcised by the so-called circumcision formed in the flesh by human hands. Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. So we're going to look at this passage, and we're going to spend a good part of our time actually in verses 12 and 13. So here's a rendering of this verse, but now, in Christ Jesus, you who formerly were far off have been brought near, or if you had the King James, have been made near by the blood of Christ.

So there are several things in this passage. It starts off kind of talking about the uncircumcision versus the circumcision. And basically, let me ask a question. What's the difference between the uncircumcision and the circumcision? Do you guys have that kind of... Right, right. Okay, good. Actually, the passage kind of tells you that. So that's good. So basically, there's a contrast here between the... uncircumcision and the circumcision, and it talks about remembering.

Paul's talking to believers here, so he's asking them to remember before they were saved. Remember where you were, especially if you were an unbeliever in this time period where the Jews who were God's chosen people, they said, we have God's word, we have God's promises. And so the person out that was not a believer, in the sense of knowing Jesus Christ, they would look at the Jew and say, well, the Jew has something of God. So this contrast we're going to see in 12 kind of talks to that a little bit. Let's see, what else did I want to say about this? So they're to remember. They're to remember what they were before they became a believer.

That's kind of maybe the thrust here. So let's just go on from here. Let's look at our key verse here. And actually what I've done is, here's a rendering in the King James, but now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off have been made nigh, or made near by the blood of Christ. So actually what we're going to do here today, we're going to try to contrast being far off, you who formerly were far off, basically unbelievers, versus you have been brought near.

It kind of helped, I thought, as I went through this, to kind of contrast what this nearness to God means. It's interesting. A lot of times it's maybe easier sometimes when you start looking at a word and you can trace that word through and there's a lot of occurrences, like love, for example. You can find hundreds of occurrences in the New Testament.

There aren't nearly as many nears. Sounds kind of strange. So you just can't say, okay, I'll look at all the verses that talk about near and I'll figure out what this is all about. Well, it just doesn't, the Lord for whatever reason didn't do it that way.

So what I found is that the contrast between 12 and 11 really helped to define what he meant by near because it contrasts being far or away from God with being near to God. Circumcision and uncircumcision is also a sign of covenant. That's the sign of the covenant. So the Jewish people were actually in covenant with God, where the Gentiles were not. And also blood is a confirmation of covenant. So when it's talking about the blood of Christ, this is a confirmation of this covenant that now has been made available to the Gentiles. Right.

And that's the thing that makes it maybe not, for us today, we don't think too much in the Jewish perspective. We don't think of that. We think of, do I know Christ or do I not know Christ? So this is almost like a history lesson in a sense. So that's good. That's a good point. I wanted to read here, Dr. Schaefer, who basically compiled these of God's grace, or the topic we're talking about here, who we are in Christ, kind of had a statement about this idea of made near. I'd like to just read it to you. I should have probably put it in the handout, but I didn't really do that. I apologize for that. It's actually in his, and I can tell you where it's at in his systematic theology, if you want. We'll forgive you. Say again? We'll forgive you. Okay, thank you, thank you. I'm glad you're a forgiving bunch. Well, he didn't speak for everybody. Okay, I'm sorry. Okay, Margaret. I know. It's going to be tough. All right.

So here's what Dr. Schaefer has to say here. He says, various terms are employed in the New Testament to describe the close relationship which is set up and exists between God and the believer. So that's kind of his beginning to this whole... It's not real long. To be made near is not only a work of God, but it is to be But Okay, but but means to be brought into relationship to God which is of infinite perfection and completeness To it nothing could be added in time or eternity so I think what he's may kind of paraphrase what he said is This idea of being made near is almost the sum total of what we're studying in this class. It's the sum total.

We've been brought near to God and we have all these wonderful blessings, all these wonderful benefits. So at the end I want to go through and kind of look at the ones and see which ones kind of tie in, maybe what you think about tie into being near to God.

Now some are obvious, being his children. A child is by his birth, near to his parents. Now he may choose of his own volition to do otherwise, but he can't deny the fact that he's near by his birth. And so you could take that argument and say we are near by our birth in Christ to God. And that's this wonderful relationship that the idea of being made near is, I think, describing.

So now we're going to look at the being far off aspect of this. And far off is a word that can mean a long way off, can mean those who are far off from God, who are distant from God, can also mean a great way off. And I actually had a couple of verses here. So let's look at Luke chapter 7. Luke chapter 7. And this is going to be just a negative use of it, if you will. Luke chapter 7. I'll just read this one. Luke chapter 7 and verse 6. Now Jesus started on his way. with them.

And when he was already not far from them, from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, Lord, do not trouble yourself further, for I am not worthy for you to come under my roof. So this is just using it in a very ordinary sense. And it's a negative that he wasn't real far away. He was not far away. He was close, if you will. So it's the opposite of that.

The other verse here in Acts is a little bit closer to what we're talking about. Okay, Acts, and if I get someone to read Acts chapter 2 and 36 to 39. If I could get a volunteer to read that. Therefore let all Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus whom you crucify, both Lord and Christ. And I'm sorry. They were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, Brothers, what shall we do? Peter replied, Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call. Good, thank you. Okay, well this passage is interesting. When you get down to verse 39, it says, for the promise is for you and your children, for all, so he's basically encouraging them to trust Christ, to believe in Christ. Repent and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

So in 39, he kind of defines where they were. And the definition of where they were is, and for all of you who are far off. So far off actually defines people outside of Christ. They're far off. And the construction in the verse we're looking at actually is constructed so it defines you, the unbeliever, as being far off, and you, the believer, as being near.

So the phraseology of this stuff, it's like I put a name tag on you. If you're an unbeliever, you have a name tag that would say far off. Which you might think, what in the world? Today's vernacular, you wouldn't say, what's that mean? But in this context, it meant outside of God, outside of his promises, outside of his dealing with man.

And now we're going to see, as believers, we can put on the name tag, Near. Made Near by the blood of Christ. I think that's cool stuff. I don't know. All right, so let's go on. So we're just going to continue. We're going to cover the negative first. So here's a verse, and I want to go through this verse in detail and look at each part of it, but let me just ask you, let me read it first.

Ephesians 2.12.

Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. So, just what do you think? Just from looking at that, what does it mean to be far off? Just as you picked a few things out of there, what would you say, what does it mean to be far off? Are you in good shape? You're separated. Okay. That's okay. Exactly. You're dead. Right. Separation means death in scripture. So you're, you know, other go ahead.

Back in those days, again, history lesson, they worshipped in one place like Jerusalem or Shiloh. So for the Jewish people, if you were far off, it meant that you were not worshipping God who was worshipped in one place like Jerusalem or Shiloh or whatever they set up. So I think that's where the distance comes in. and they had pilgrimages and everything else going back to Jerusalem because that's where God was. I think we're going to see as we get into each of these little phrases here that God's chosen people, Israel, if you were an unbeliever at that time period, you notice they have some connection to God. They may not have believed in God, unfortunately many did not, but they Corporately, God chose them and took them out. So they had a connection. So if you were an unbeliever at that time, you said, I'm excluded. I'm excluded from this.

So what I want to do next is the next chart I want to go through and look at I have like five points here I want to go through and they're the five points. I just took that verse and kind of cut it up into five sections and look at these five aspects of being far off.

And the intent here is you look at the far off part and then you contrast that with being near. So you say, here's where an unbeliever is. He has the label far off. Here's where we are being near. So I think it helped me to define what near meant. The first one, and this is the one that Margaret kind of went right out of the box, so to speak. You are without Christ at that time.

And this is basically, it means literally separated, or living apart. And there's a neat verse that kind of, that really homes in on that. And actually it's just a little farther in Ephesians. Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four. and verse 17 and 18.

Would someone like to read that? Okay, thank you. So this I say in affirming together with the Lord that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the fertility of their mind. being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart. Thank you.

So verse 18 has this little phrase kind of tucked in there. It says excluded or alienated or separated from the life of God. So that's a description of the unbeliever, of being far off from God. You're excluded, you're separated, you're without Christ.

So that's the first aspect. The second one. And this is where we get into a little history of Israel. And this would be true, having been excluded from the Commonwealth of Israel. It doesn't have much meaning for us, but it did have in that time period. And actually, let me just look at these. There's two of these. After thinking about this a little bit, both these two kind of go together.

Excluded from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise. God made covenants with Israel. He made covenants with them that they would have the land and the seed and the blessing. And that's going to be carried out. That promise is going to be absolutely carried out. So these are kind of unique things that are unique to that time period.

So if you were an unbeliever then, a Gentile then, you would see that you were different than the Jews were. So actually, I just wanted to go on to the... So after kind of thinking about it a little bit, I thought those really were more having no hope.

This one basically is a word in the Greek, elpis, and hope in scripture most of the time means, because it's centered in God, it's an absolute certainty. It's an absolute certainty. So in this sense, in the negative sense, they had no certainty. There was no certainty in their lives. They were without hope.

And then lastly, without God in the world, And this is interesting. This is an interesting that actually without God is one word and let me just tell you in the In the Greek what it says and see if you can figure out what the what we would say in English It's the first bugging though. It's a compound word The first is the letter alpha or a and that has plus the word for God, which is Theos So it's alpha Theos atheists Okay, good.

This wasn't real high tech, but I mean, that's really tough. That's good. Excellent. Excellent. So it's basically the word, this is one of the occurrences of the word atheist, as we would say it in English. Atheist, basically. So I thought there was a neat verse that kind of described being without God.

And it's in Galatians, Galatians chapter four. like someone to read Galatians 4.8. If you haven't read it before, you're welcome to go ahead. However, at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. Right.

I kind of thought that was a neat verse in terms of not knowing God, it's not like you're neutral. I remember as an unbeliever, I thought that was the case. I thought, well, I'll just be neutral. I'll live my life. I won't go this way or that way. I'll be neutral, but God says it's not that way. You're not neutral. Man is not neutral. You mean there's no gray area? There's no gray area. The world doesn't like that. No, it doesn't. No, they're like gray. So basically this is saying that they didn't know about God and they were slaves to things which are no gods. People would be slaves to a variety of things in this life. So what I try to do here, these are the negatives.

And then at the end here I'm going to kind of contrast some of those. So let's look at the positive side, being near to God. have been brought near, and again the verse in 2.13, but now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. And near here is a word that means close at hand and metaphorically near in the sense that there's no separation between you and God, there's no separation between man and God because of what Christ has done on the cross, and his death on the cross, his blood. So it's near in that sense.

In Romans, I'll read this one. In Romans chapter 10, there's a verse that talks about, uses the same word as here. Romans chapter 10 and verse 8. And this talks about, once again, this is a little bit of speaking to Israel here. But what does it say?

The word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart. That is the word of faith which we are preaching. So basically, what Paul was saying there is that the word is near you. It's available to you. It's there for you. And same way, in this sense, when we come to know Christ, God is near to us. He's available to us. Which is wonderful. His word is near. In our case it's going to be that we are near to God because of what Christ has done. Okay. Okay.

Then the verb here, broader may, depending on the translation, is this word ginomai, depending on how you pronounce it. And it's primary meaning is to, it's what they call a state of being verb. And this is one of the ones that I remember so much from Hal's teaching. I just love to listen to Hal would describe, this is one of his favorite verbs that he would go over. And this is the one coupled, this verb coupled with near makes this, just blows me away. This is to come into a new state of being, a state of being that you never were before. So if you think about it, you were in a state of being of far off. and you've left that state of being far off and you've moved over into a state of being near.

It's also passive. Thanks Margaret, you're wonderful. I need you. It is, it is. We've been moved. Exactly, from far off to near. And here's the tense in the Greek here, eris, which is a past point fact. When you believe a past point fact, indicative means it's a reality. It's reality and passive.

God is the one that did it. You didn't move yourself near, okay, I'm going to do something in this life. I'm going to do X, Y, Z. You can't do X, Y, Z. God, by the death of Christ, by his, and that prepositional phrase, by the blood of Christ, is modifying that. So it's by his blood, by what Christ has done, has moved you from far off to near.

And just to really kind of bring that home with that really neat verb there, There's another verse here. Let's look at John. John chapter 1. Whenever I want to get my feet on the ground with this ginome or ginomai, I always have to go back to this verse because it really brings home the significance of being brought into a new state of being. And this is going to speak of Christ. And in John chapter 1, a very familiar verse, John chapter 1 verse 14.

And it says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory as of the only begotten from the father full of grace and truth. Now if you were to read that in the King James, it says the word was made flesh. It's our word. So think about this.

We have God from all eternity. and at a point in time he becomes man, he becomes the God-man. So he came to a new state of being, the God-man. And then we look at Revelation and what do we see? He's still the God-man. So that change in state of being from God to the God-man is something that will always be true of Christ.

So I think that really hammers home. The same with us. We were far off and we've been made near. We've changed You know, everything has changed for us. We're in a new state of being. We're a believer. We're seated with Christ in the heavenlies. It's irreversible, because God has done it. Just like it was irreversible with Christ when he died on the cross. That's not reversible, and it's not reversible with us.

So that's what gets me excited about Made Near, which sounds kind of, well, that's, you know. Okay, some of these questions are not real. When did this happen? Obviously, maybe there's two answers to that. One answer was, well, Christ died on the cross, historically. Well, for us, individually, as we trust Christ, this becomes reality. And then, what produced this relationship? I've already kind of said that a bunch of times. It's Christ, by the blood of Christ, by his death.

Questions about this, or thoughts? Actually, I'm zooming through this so fast. All right, so let's go on here. So what I try to do here, let's see what's next here. Okay, so the question comes up, and I kind of alluded to the fact there weren't too many occurrences of this word near or brought near or made near. So there are a few though, and I think it's worthwhile looking at those. How the word made and when I say made this is the English Made there are different Greek words in some cases Especially like this first one.

Okay, and this is one actually I think Bob covered I know what as Bob pointed out that these riches of God's grace are repetitive and it's wonderful they are because we kind of come back and look at each of these again and again and So in Colossians 1.12 it says, giving thanks unto the Father which has made us meet.

And you think, boy, that's King James. And actually it means fit or qualified. I think some versions have qualified to make sufficient. So once again, God is the energizer here. Giving thanks unto God the Father which has made us fit or qualified to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in life. So there's actually another one here.

This one I don't have on the overhead. Let's look at 2 Corinthians 3, verses 5 and 6. Can I get a volunteer for that? 2 Corinthians 3, verses 5 and 6. Not that we were sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is a fact. Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. Right. So in verse 6 there, what you read, who is also made as adequate and basically the idea of qualifying us, same idea of me, qualifying us as servants of the new covenant and so on.

And then we have in Ephesians 1.6, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved. So we're accepted, we don't have to, we're not on probation, we've been made accepted. And what's interesting is, you notice here this is, it's focusing on his grace to the praise and glory of his grace wherein he has made us accepted. What's interesting is that word accepted is a form of the Greek word for grace, charis. So it's, some have translated this freely bestowed, I think American Standard does that, freely bestowed upon us. the aspect of His grace that He freely bestowed upon us.

And then this is one of Bob's favorite verses, 2 Corinthians 5.21. For He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And this is our favorite word here, genomai. Genomai or genomai. to come into a new state of being. So you could think about each of these wonderful aspects. You could think about we were unrighteous, serving Satan, serving our old man, and now we are made righteous by the blood of Christ. This is another state of being change here.

Roger? Yes, go ahead. It's also interesting, in Genesis there's two words that they use in the creation of and has to build something out of nothing. There's no previous material. And the second one is Amar, which is to make or made, which would be the past tense of make or made. Here we're going through, again, the same process.

Here you've got the material, but God's making it into something Right, well he's making something that's acceptable to him, right? Right, it's part of his creation. Exactly. He's creating. Right, right. Yeah, no, it's neat. I mean, as you go through it and you say, we've been made this, we've been made righteous, we've been made acceptable. You know, the constant theme is that God is doing it. But it's in him. Exactly. I mean, without him, there's no way we're righteous. Exactly. Because the Lord sees him. In us, he sees him. Absolutely. So the whole class is about collecting, if you will, our treasury of wonderful truths about what we are and what we have.

And that's how we live in light of that. We don't say, well, I need to be made more righteous tomorrow. We don't need to be made more righteous. We may not be acting Righteously. That's always a possibility. But as far as standing with God, we are as righteous as Christ. Righteousness is not art. Position and condition. Exactly. Think position. Think who you are. If you're like an ambassador to some country, you think, I'm the ambassador. What is the ambassador like?

In here, we read, what is a believer like in Christ? And we read all these wonderful things. It says, this is what we're like. Again, back to Genesis. There were angels, and Jesus was there, and a lot of other things that we probably don't even realize. But yet, God did everything. And God said, God commanded. God told this to happen. God created. God made. None of these other entities that existed at that period of time did anything except do what God said.

You know, why would we think that we can do something right? That's good. Obviously, a lot of Christianism thinks they're more powerful than God. And if they would have been in creation, they would have been there working with him hand in hand. Working with him hand in hand. I don't think so.

Right, right. No, no, no. Roger? Sure, go ahead. Let's go back to Ephesians. Okay, I've capitalized. Okay. Okay. Let's take a look. Well, actually, it is capitalized. Depends on what, let me see here. Depends on what Bible you carry. I'm sorry. Yeah, it is. Beloved is capitalized. It is? Yeah, it is. You love it as capitalized there? Yeah. I think it's not on the paper here. Yeah. Okay, and that's, I apologize. Oh, you know where it is? That's the King James. Yeah, see I did, I did, this is King, you know if I had KJV in here? I just cut and pasted the King James and I did not go in there and, and, you know.

Okay. You know, and I believe it should be, I mean, I believe it's talking about deity. Okay. Yeah. My question then, was it a group of people or is it Christ? I believe it's accepted in him. I mean, look at this. Well, I don't know. That's a good point. I mean, it is capitalized. And, you know, and I guess I hadn't in the Greek. Is there a word for beloved that would be plural or singular? Male or female? I mean, isn't the Greek pretty specific? The Greek word for that?

Yeah, it is. And I, offhand, don't know what that is. Okay, go ahead. Okay. It says, Beloved is in Christ. Yeah, and that's kind of what, you know, Well actually, I've heard some render it in the Beloved One. It's funny how over the years you study it and it sticks in my head. That's good.

Roger. Sure, go ahead. I have the NIV. Okay. And it says, which he has freely given us in the one he loves. Okay, that's good. I think it's referring to, I think it's referring to deity, that's why it's capitalized. Yeah, okay. Is that was that was your question? You were concerned about wasn't being capitalized in the King James? Is that what you're? That was my question. OK. All right. Maybe we got off on the rabbit trail. We didn't need to. Sorry. OK.

Well, actually, and that's you know, that's one of the things you'll notice the King James typically, you know, the the. more modern translations have added some interpretation in some cases. It would be interesting to look at the original. I think In the Beloved One sticks in my mind as being a better translation. Speaking of Christ. Okay, that's good. Thanks, I appreciate that. So what I try to do here, I'm on this far off. versus near things. I went back and I just did it again here. So if you haven't had this enough, we'll do it one more time.

And this is based upon Ephesians 2.12.

So if you have the far off badge on, you're an unbeliever. You're without Christ, separated from Christ. If you're in the near column, you're in Christ. Far off, you're excluded from God's chosen people. And if you're near, you're seen with Christ in the heavenlies.

And you could add, don't think I did, you know, you could add, there are probably better, considerably better ones here. I went through and just kind of picked what I thought you might be able to improve upon these, and I welcome, you know, thoughts on that. It'd be great.

Strangers of God's covenants and partakers of the eternal covenant by faith. And the eternal covenant is when in eternity past, God the Father and God the Son had an agreement that the Son would lay down his life for the sins of the world. Having no hope, we have the hope of His calling, all the wonderful aspects of our future, our present aspects and future aspects, and without God in this world, and now we have a God who says, I will never leave you or forsake you. If you ever look at that, that's actually from Hebrews chapter If you ever look at the original, there's five negatives there.

It's absolutely guaranteed. God has established a relationship with you. He's the one that started it. He will maintain it. All we have to do is believe. I have to trust him. If you ever get uncertain, read that verse. Read it in Weiss, if you have Weiss. Because he has all the negatives in there.

I have here the next four charts. These are not in your handouts. I just listed them. These were passed out in the first class. If you don't have that, I can get you a copy. But basically, I was just going to go through it, and using this idea of being made near, on this first page here, which of these do you think focuses upon the nearness we have to God? Which ones would you say? And I started reading this list. I said, OK, let's use the concept of near. We brought in this wonderful relationship with God. Which of these wonderful truths here focuses on that nearness? All of them. All of them. That's what I did too. And I agree. I would agree. Some of them struck me. Especially significant. And I thought the idea of being chosen, I mean, that speaks of a nearness. When you choose somebody, you say, I want this person. Remember when Vernon was going through John 17? We're a gift from God the Father to God the Son. Christ sees us as a gift.

I mean, I just, that boggles my mind. I don't get many days. Called, that kind of struck me as being one. redeemed. They all are really there, but some possibly more than others. Children of God, born again, regenerated, quickened, made alive, sons of God, a new creation. I thought those kind of spoke of that.

Adopted. I'm taking I'm taking the made near and I'm kind of using that look at the rest of them. OK. Then translated. Let's see which one's here. I think. Yeah, well here's what I was talking about. A gift from God the Father. 16, we're going to spend, you know, we're going to spend some time on that one. That's one that we've talked, we'll spend a whole class on that one. That's a wonderful one. The fact that we're a gift from God the Father to God the Son. Chosen again, heavenly citizens. All of these speak of nearness. Having access to God, access into His grace, access into the Father.

So these are all future classes. So if you're wondering what's coming, these are all coming down the road here in a little bit. How about this 125? A much more care of God, object of his love, object of his grace, object of his power, his faithfulness, his peace, his consolation, his intercession.

So that's actually a little summary of where we're going. Any other thoughts on being made near into this wonderful relationship with God? We changed from being far off to being made near. I think what's interesting too is you think about when we use that term, made near, the Greek is so much more explicit.

Right. using that term, that to us, you know, it doesn't sound like too much. I mean, you know, it seems so, I don't know, not emphatic enough, the term may appear. But in the Greek, it's very emphatic. It is, it is, right. So in our vernacular, it's... Well, I even thought, unfortunately, even in our translations, it almost goes down another, because it says, became near. And that even waters it down even more.

It doesn't come across as with the impact, I think, of what God has done. Go ahead, Stan. I think the impact of this, anyway, I can't grasp it. individually, much less corporately. But historically, if you look at this, and the fact that God, through Abraham, had a covenant and selected the Jewish people, no one else, the Jewish people. And he took out this race and he said, these are my people. And we look now back on that, and it doesn't seem to have the import that it really has. And if you look at the book of Acts, And Peter, when he saw that blanket with the animals, and Paul out preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, and the fact that nobody understood, what could this possibly mean?

And God was changing, or continuing, not changing, but he was continuing his plan for mankind. I mean, it's absolutely huge, but yet, We've studied this so long, we've lost the importance of this. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, no, I understand. In the realm of time. In time and history, choosing a nation out of all the other nations is huge. Well, and the fact that most Jews don't even truly believe this. Right. I mean, we believe it more than they believe it. I mean, really. I know. No, I agree with you. They think this is some fable that was handed down that it means nothing.

Again, because God had selected them initially, and why would he now bring in these uncircumcised people into his covenant? And covenant is a very special thing. I mean, that's a treasured thing for God. And when he sets up a covenant with a group of people, I mean, it's eternal. It's just like the difference between Bios and Zoe. And this is what God has done. So the Jewish people, I think, accept that.

But, you know, many aren't. This has to be fictitious. Well, oh, yeah. They think it's totally a fable. They think it's not real at all. Most of them. I mean, there are very few that really believe. Yeah, that's true. The covenant. I mean, Christians believe it. And when we've been to Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs, it's so I can't tell you how much that means to us. Just the whole symbolism of pointing to Christ. And they sleep through it. They have no concept of what they're saying. They say the words, but they don't mean anything to them. It's really pretty amazing. So in a sense, as we're looking today, as believers now, we can say God has made, using that analogy back to the Old Testament, where he made something out of nothing. God has made us all these wonderful things in Christ.

We have all this repertoire, all this credentials. So this is our credentials we're studying, who we are. And we're to act and base our life upon those. There's actually another part to this. We're also told to draw near. So God has said, I have made you near. Then he wants to get our attention, in a sense. He wants us to realize that. And he says, draw near. And there's a whole, we have a whole study on that, which I didn't do, but that's another study. Okay, well, let's close that.

Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for your word. We thank you that we have been made near through the blood of Christ. We've been brought into a new state of being, a state of near that can never be broken, never can be changed, is eternal, and that you have accomplished it, Lord, and we can trust what you've done. We ask this in your son's name. Amen.