At That Day: The Day of Salvation for the Daughters of God

[Guest guest]

At That Day: The Day of Salvation for the Daughters of God

By Steve Santini

 

There is a day when the followers of Peter's message will come to

know Him. The gospel of John was written later than the first three

synoptic gospels and points towards that future day. The earlier

synoptic gospels deal primarily with the facts of what Jesus said

and did. It seems that John's gospel presents facts more so for

representations of symbolic truths. Rather than commencing with the

genealogy of Jesus, it starts with what happened in the very

beginning as this present heaven and earth came into being. Next the

gospel moves directly to the ministry of John the Baptist who was

filled from his mother's womb with the Holy Spirit. It quickly

moves on to the appearance of Jesus Christ out from the midst of

John the Baptist's followers as the well pleasing son and then on

to Jesus' first miracle at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee.

 

In the introductory chapter the author sets in motion the major

theme of the gospel when he writes that as many as received Jesus

Christ were given power to be the sons of God. The word for sons in

this verse is the Greek word teknon, which means young children. It

is not the Greek word huis,which means mature children.

 

In this regard a section in chapter fourteen of the gospel of John

becomes very interesting.

 

15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.

 

16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another

Comforter, that he may abide with you forever;

 

17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because

it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; for he dwelleth with you and

shall be in you.

 

18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

 

19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see

me: because I live, ye shall live also.

 

20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me,

and I in you.

 

 

Here, particular attention needs to be paid to the shift in the

subject between verse seventeen and verse eighteen. In verse

seventeen Jesus is referring to him, the Spirit of truth or

comforter while in verse eighteen the subject changes to Jesus

himself when the pronoun I is used. Attention also needs to be paid

to the different Greek words used for comforter and comfortless. In

the previous sixteenth verse when speaking of the comforter the

Greek word parakletos is used. This word means, " to come along

side to nurture. " In the eighteenth verse where the subject

changes to I, the word for comfortless is a different word entirely.

It is the Greek word orphanos from which the English word orphan is

derived and has as one of several meanings, " without the

involvement of a father. " In the Eastern families, it was the

mother who was responsible for the care and instruction of young

children. Jesus was telling them that He would not leave them in

this upcoming condition without the involvement of a father but

would return again to reveal the himself in them according to the

King James translators. (Yet according to Greek rules of grammar

when a dative plural object is used with the Greek preposition en

the phrase should be translated among you rather than in you.) It

becomes apparent when observing the shift in the subject of verse

seventeen to the subject of verse eighteen that two progressive

spiritual realities are to be made known. The first is the nurturing

gift from the Holy Spirit or comforter, and the second, and

culminating spiritual reality, is the revelation of Jesus Christ or

as Paul writes it " Abba Father " or " the way unto the

reclusive Father. "

 

In verse twenty Jesus speaks of this other day beyond the day when

the comforter shall come to dwell in them. This subsequent day is

when they would know He was among them. This is the day when they

shall live in their own particular resurrection as referred to at

the end of the previous verse. It is available to have something

promised and yet not have acquired it. In the Eastern culture male

children came into their inheritance and became eligible to marry on

their thirteenth birthday. In the culture a young woman obtained a

small potion of a young man's inheritance when the two became

engaged. Then, when they married, the wife came to know her

husband's father as her father and she shared fully in her

husband's inheritance.

 

From several areas of scripture it is apparent that Jesus did not

reveal all to the twelve apostles. He told them in John's gospel

that He had many things to say to them but they were not able to

bear them at that time. In the first chapter of Acts, when they

asked Jesus just before he ascended if He was going to restore the

kingdom to Israel at that time, He said that it was not given to

them to know the times or the seasons. Shortly before Jesus was

taken to be judged and crucified, Philip asked for something, which

to that point had been lacking, when he said, " Show us the

Father. " Jesus next said that he who had " objectively "

seen Him had " objectively " seen the Father. Then Jesus

proceeded to tell them that they would receive the token gift from

the Holy Spirit yet would not know the Father " subjectively "

until that day in the future.

 

Salvation is a matter of the soul coming to know the revelation of

Jesus Christ.In verse twenty Jesus stated that they were not going

to enter this relationship until that day in the future when they

would be resurrected. Peter, who was present in this record,

confirms what Jesus said when he writes his first epistle to the

Jewish Diaspora near the end of his life. In the first chapter he

writes of the grace that is to be brought unto his readers when

Jesus Christ comes again to them. It is within this context that he

tells them that at the end of their faith they would receive the

salvation of their souls, in other words, as Jesus said, they would,

at that day, know He is in the Father, and they in Him, and He among

them or Christ among them.

 

At That Day: The Day of Salvation for the Daughters of God

http://www.geocities.com/kibotos2002/day.html