The Kingdom of God will be established on earth. It will be renewed to the original beauty of His creation. In it peace will reign both in the humans and in the animal world. The lion will lay down with the lamb!
Isaiah 34:1-2
Come near, you nations, to hear;
And heed, you people!
Let the earth hear, and all that is in it,
The world and all things that come forth from it.
The whole human race will be judged for how they treated the precious blood of Jesus. All will be judged on how they treated others.
2 Timothy 3:1-9 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! 6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Isaiah 35:1-10
The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them,
And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose;
2 It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice,
Even with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
The excellence of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
The excellency of our God.
Isaiah 35:10
10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
And come to Zion with singing,
With everlasting joy on their heads.
They shall obtain joy and gladness,
And sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Jeremiah 23:1-8 23
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!” says the Lord.
2 Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel against the shepherds who feed My people: “You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them.
Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings,” says the Lord.
3 “But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.
4 I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking,” says the Lord.
5 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord,
“That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness;
A King shall reign and prosper,
And execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.
6 In His days Judah will be saved,
And Israel will dwell safely;
Now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS
7 “Therefore, behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “that they shall no longer say,
‘As the Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ 8 but, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them. ‘And they shall dwell in their own land.”
God’s chosen people will be refined in the fire of affliction but He will never leave them. All of their history for the last 2000 plus years has been defined by their rejection of Jesus Christ their Redeemer. Their chastisement will end with their acceptance of their Messiah King. After the tribulation the curse will end. Jesus will reign in justice and in peace. The earth longs for His return and the restoration of His Kingdom to its original design.
The Gospel of Grace came about with Israels rejection. The Body of Christ, those who believe in Jesus, consist of those who by faith believe. There is the Kingdom of heaven and the Body of Christ both are encompassed in the Kingdom of God by their acceptance as Jesus the King of the Jews and Savior of the world. In Christ alone is salvation!
Revelation 19:11-13 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. 12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.
John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shined in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, shall reign forever! He is the King of kings and the Lord over all! Carla
Genesis 1:1 starts with the moment of creation and moves forward to the creation of humanity. John 1:1 starts with creation and contemplates eternity past. The fact that the Word was with God suggests a face-to-face relationship. In the ancient world, it was important that persons of equal station be on the same level, or face-to-face, when sitting across from one another. Thus the word with indicates a personal relationship, but also implies equal status.
The Word, Jesus Christ Himself, is an active Person in communication with the Father (1 John 1:2). Moreover, the Word was God. The word order in Greek shows that the Word was “God,” not “a god.” This is a straightforward declaration of Christ’s deity, since John uses Word to refer to Jesus. The Word was of the very quality of God, while still retaining His personal distinction from the Father.
Neither the Person of Christ, nor His Sonship, came into being at a point in time. Rather, the Father and the Son have always been in loving fellowship with one another.
All things were made through Him: God the Father created the world (Genesis 1:1) through God the Son (Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2). All creation was made through Him. Thus He is the Creator God. Note that life is not said to have been created; life existed in Christ (5:26; 6:57; 10:10; 11:25; 14:6; 17:3; 20:31).
Humans are dependent on God for life. Our existence, spiritually and physically, depends on God’s sustaining power. In contrast, the Son has life in Himself from all eternity. The life, Jesus Christ, is also the light of men. This image conveys the concept of revelation. As the light, Jesus Christ reveals both sin and God to humans (Psalm 36:9).
Later in this Gospel, Christ declares Himself to be both the life (11:25) and the light (8:12). Death and darkness flee when the life and light enter. The dead are raised and the blind receive their sight, both physically and spiritually.
The light shines in the darkness: Christ entered this dark world to give it spiritual light (Isaiah 9:2). The word translated comprehend can mean (1) to take hold of; (2) to overpower; or (3) to understand. Therefore, this verse may mean that darkness did not positively take hold of or understand the light, or that darkness did not negatively overcome the light. Both statements are true. Humans did not appropriate or understand the light, nor did they overtake or overpower it.
Although Satan and his forces resist the light, they cannot thwart its power.
In short, Jesus is life and light; those who accept Him are “sons of light” (12:35, 36). As the creation of light was the beginning of the original creation (Genesis 1:3), so when believers receive the light, they become part of the new creation (2 Corinthians 4:3–6). The NKJV Study Bible
John begins by quoting the opening words of Genesis in Greek (Genesis 1:1). He uses Genesis 1:1–5 to establish the “Word” as a preexistent agent of creation present with Yahweh from the beginning. This first section of the prologue (John 1:1–5) functions as an interpretation of Genesis 1:1–5 read through the framework of Proverbs 8:22–31. This exegetical technique resembles a method of Jewish exegesis called midrash. A midrashic interpretation typically begins with a text from the Pentateuch and explains it through allusions to a text from the Prophets or the Writings. John begins with a quotation that invokes the context of Genesis 1:1–5 with its imagery of creation by divine word and opposition between light and darkness.
His interpretation centers on the Word as Creator and bearer of divine light. Genesis 1:1 and Proverbs 8:22 both use the Hebrew word reshith (usually translated “beginning”), and the larger context of both passages is God’s creation of the universe. In making this connection, John states that Jesus existed prior to the first acts of creation. God’s Son isn’t an act of creation, but the means of it (Colossians 1:15–23; Hebrews 1:1–4). It is all the more dramatic, therefore, that the one through whom all of creation came to be has become part of the creation.
John uses the term “Word” as a title for Jesus throughout this prologue. He doesn’t specify that “Word” refers to Jesus until John 1:17. The Greek term used here, logos, had a rich network of associations in the Hellenistic Judaism of the first century ad due to its ability to evoke both biblical and philosophical concepts. The “word of Yahweh” evokes associations with creation, divine revelation, personified wisdom, and the law of Moses. The “word of Yahweh” and the law had already been closely related in prophetic poetry (Isaiah 2:3). The “word” is the agent of creation in Psalm 33:6, but divine wisdom is personified and depicted in that role in Proverbs 8:22–31.
In the deuterocanonical book Sirach 24:23, this personified divine wisdom is connected to the law of Moses, similarly given preexistent eternal status in Jewish tradition. Jesus is connected with divine wisdom also in 1 Corinthians. By choosing this language, John makes Jesus the very power and essence of God.
The Word was with God testifies to the distinction between God the Father and Jesus while emphasizing the intimate relationship between the Father and the Son. The Word shares the same character, quality, and essence of God. John’s phrasing preserves the distinction between God the Father and God the Son while emphasizing their unity in all other regards.
Jesus is wisdom. The concept of creation through the divine Word reflects Yahweh’s act of speaking the universe into existence in Genesis 1:3–26. Jesus’ preexistence and role as Creator and sustainer of all things is also seen in Colossians 1:15–20. John’s Jewish audience would have been familiar with the idea that Yahweh created the world through His divine wisdom (Proverbs 8:22–31); however, that wisdom was still viewed as a created thing, the first thing Yahweh created (Proverbs 8:22). John pushes that familiar concept into new territory, implying that “the Word” was uncreated and preexistent (Isaiah 43:10–11).
John’s use of logos in the context of creation draws on these associations with the divine Word/Wisdom/Law as the effective agent of creation, as well as the Stoic philosophical concept of the Logos as the impersonal force of “Reason” giving order to the universe. This makes Jesus not only the reason for the creation and the means of creation, but also the ruler over the creation in the way that God the Father has jurisdiction over it.
The Word is the source of life, both physical through the creation of all things (John 1:3; Colossians 1:17) and spiritual (looking ahead to John 1:4; compare 6:35). A punctuation issue exists between the end of verse 3 and the opening of verse 4, where the phrase “in him was life” could be read with the sentence before it. The earliest Greek manuscripts have no punctuation. Later manuscripts have added punctuation that connects the phrases: “that which has come into being in him was life.” However, the phrase “in him was life” seems to function logically as the segue connecting physical life and spiritual life through the Word as the source of life.
The symbolism of physical life and death presents a powerful contrast between the new spiritual life in the Word and spiritual death, destruction, and condemnation.
John 1 (Hermeneia) A key word for John; it is used 36 times in the Gospel. This Gospel and other New Testament writings associated with John account for more than 40 percent of the total occurrences of this word in the New Testament. For John, Jesus’ ability to grant life to those who walked in “darkness” or “death” is the key issue at stake.
Jesus has the ability and authority to do so because He was there in the beginning when God’s creative works took place. John uses the words “life” or “eternal life” as technical terms much like the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) use “kingdom of heaven” or “kingdom of God” (Matthew 3:2).
“Life” denotes salvation, the state of reconciliation, and access to the presence of God. John’s Gospel accounts for 26 percent of the occurrences of this word in the New Testament; the letter of 1 John has 13 occurrences, and Revelation has 17. The word occurs 135 times in the New Testament.
John alludes to the initial act of creation involving light (Genesis 1:3) and invokes the association of light with divine glory (Isaiah 60:19). Light is often used in the Old Testament as a metaphor for salvation and spiritual awakening (Isaiah 51:4). Light is another key word for John (used 21 times). The light metaphor is connected to “the Word” motif (John 1:1).
The hymn glorifying Wisdom in the deuterocanonical Wisdom of Solomon describes personified Wisdom as reflecting the light of the divine glory (Wisdom of Solomon 7:25–26). God’s law is also described as shining light on spiritual matters (Psalm 119:105; Proverbs 6:23)
Light makes life possible in the physical world; Jesus is the light that makes salvation possible in the spiritual world. The light of the Word brings true enlightenment.
John’s message would have resonated with Jewish audiences familiar with biblical associations with light, as well as with Greek audiences seeking enlightenment through moral philosophy. Humanity as a Greek term can refer generically to the human race. That this is a reference to all humanity is made clear from Jesus’ statement in John 8:12.
The contrast between light and darkness is a prominent theme in John’s Gospel (John 1:8–10; 1 John 2:8–10). This antithesis draws on Genesis 1:1–5 (John 1:1) as well as Old Testament traditions of the advent of the Messiah as a light dawning over a world of physical and spiritual darkness (Isaiah 9:2; 60:1–2). Light and darkness dualism is also present in Jewish literature from this period.
The War Scroll, a Dead Sea Scrolls’ document, depicts a cosmic, end times battle between the “sons of light” and the “sons of darkness.” In the document known as the Rule of the Community, the Dead Sea Scrolls’ community associated themselves with the light of the true followers of God and categorized all others as under the dominion of darkness. John’s analogy is similar, but emphasizes one, ultimate light for humanity, which is Jesus. Faithlife Study Bible
1 John 1:1–2 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us—
John 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
John 17:5 And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
John 12:46 I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in should not abide in darkness.
Grace stops you. Quite literally. And grounds you.
Gratefully. Right where you are.
Say, on an ordinary day, now knowing in your heart, and at your core, that these moments carry significance because they are reminders—yes, sacraments—containing the full sustenance of grace.
Here’s the deal: when our focus is on keeping score, we miss the party, the fundamental reality that grace lights up our day, and our world—even in the bumpiness and uncertainty.
The healing, curative and restorative power of grace, regardless of whether we fathom it, or are able to put it “in a box”.
Let us not miss the wakefulness grace bestows, which is fueled by two simple words, “Thank you.”
On this ordinary day, Grace and Gratitude indeed. Sabbath Moments
Those who turn from their ways to acknowledge the Lord can always trust that our cries for help will reach His ear in heaven (Psalm 18:6). Even if we have made our bed in the depths, our God remains ready to receive us when we humbly seek Him (Psalm 139:8; Psalm 51:17).
No one alive on earth has strayed too far to return to the Lord and acknowledge their need for deliverance. Moments before he stepped into eternity, a criminal hanging on the cross next to the Messiah received God's mercy when he humbly asked, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (Luke 23:42).
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Romans 10:13). (John 3:16) First5
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