×
NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

The revelation of Christ

Opinion & Analysis
A BELIEVER has to have the revelation of Christ to enjoy salvation. Victorious Christian living calls for accurate and precise knowledge of the one who lives in you.

A BELIEVER has to have the revelation of Christ to enjoy salvation. Victorious Christian living calls for accurate and precise knowledge of the one who lives in you.

DEVOTION: Erasmus Makarimayi

Without this knowledge, believers might live as servants yet they’re sons and daughters of God. The revelation of Christ is the revelation of the believer. Scripture makes it clear that the life we live is the life of Christ.

Understanding the life of Christ brings us to an understanding of the life of a believer. Christ lives in us expressing Himself through us. When we know Him, we then know ourselves.

Let’s develop and construct this. Before salvation we’re dead. Life comes through and from Christ. In sin, we were in a state of death. In Christ we’re alive.

Ephesians 2:1 (Amplified Bible) clarifies, “And you [He made alive], when you were dead (slain) by [your] trespasses and sins.”

We’re saved from death to life and that life is the life of Christ. Further, Galatians 2:20 teaches, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life, which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Our life is the life of Christ by the faith of Christ.

A believer is in Christ. As a minister of the new covenant, this is something that I always repeat and emphasise. 2 Corinthians 5:17 should be one of your valued references.

It reads, “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

Believers are new creation in Christ not in natural ancestry. A compressive study of this verse has been done before in this column, but suffice to say that the life of a believer is not passed through generations, but derived from Christ, where it exists and subsists.

The Bible records an interesting story of the resurrection of Jesus in Luke 24. Cleopas and another unnamed disciple are going from Jerusalem to Emmaus discussing the recent death of Jesus. Jesus catches up with them.

Luke 24:17-19 reads, “And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things, which are come to pass there in these days? And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.”

They were His disciples, having walked with Him much of His earthly ministry. Jesus wasn’t impressed that they still didn’t have the revelation of Christ. Please remember that earlier on, Peter had known, who Jesus was by inspiration from God.

Matthew 16:16-17 records, “And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven.”

So Jesus is not known through human understanding, but by divine revelation. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Jesus’s issue with Cleopas was that after this, they still knew Him at human level as the Man of Nazareth and a prophet.

He called them fools. Luke 24:25-26 reads, “Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?”

The biblical prophets were pointing to Christ. He had told them many times before that He was going to die and rise again but they didn’t comprehend it.

Jesus died and rose entering into glory and the glorified Christ is in you. His life is the life of the believer. Who is Jesus to you? Is He the Son of a carpenter from Nazareth or one of the prophets?

Without knowing Him, you cannot know yourself. Wrong knowledge of Him results in wrong knowledge of yourself — it’s identity crisis.

Grace and peace be multiplied to you through knowledge. You’re going somewhere.

All Bible quotations are from the King James Version unless otherwise stated.

Feedback: [email protected]

Fellowship with Pastor Makarimayi on Facebook and on www.twitter.com/PEMAKARIMAYI. Telephone +263 712 332 632