Issue #6

I am prepared to write off everything as a dead loss for the sake of getting to know Christ Jesus my Lord for that knowledge is something which surpasses everything in the world. For his sake I have abandoned everything, and I regard all else as of no value than filth for the garbage heap. For me the only thing of value in the world is to gain Christ, and to make my life one with his. I am not right with God through any legalistic achievement of my own. All I want is the relationship with God which only God himself can give me, all founded on faith in Christ. My one aim is to know Christ, and to experience the power of his resurrection from the dead.

I do not claim I have already attained this, or that I have already reached perfection. I press on to try to grasp that for which Christ Jesus has already grasped me. Brothers, I have one aim in life-to forget what lies behind, and to strain every nerve to reach what lies ahead. And so I press on to the goal to win the prize to which God in Christ Jesus calls me upward and onward. This must be how all of us who are mature Christians feel about life. If there is any point on which you feel differently, God will make it clear to you too. This one thing I say, let us never fall below the standard of conduct we have already reached.

Brothers, make a united effort to follow the example I have given you, and keep watching those who model their conduct on the pattern they have seen in us. For there are many of whom I have often spoken to you, and of whom I now speak even with tears, whose conduct makes them the enemies of the cross of Christ. They are doomed to destruction. They worship their own appetites. They glory in their shame. They have never a thought beyond the horizons of this world. We are citizens of heaven, and we eagerly wait for the Lord Jesus Christ to come from heaven as our Savior. He will change the form of the body which we now possess, with all its earthly limitations and humiliations, and will make it exactly like his own glorious body; and he will do so by the exercise of that power of his, which enables him to bring that and everything else under his way.

My brothers, I love you and I long for you. You are my joy and you will be my crown. And in view of all that I have said to you, this, my dear friends, is how you must demonstrate your unswerving loyalty to the Lord. (Philippians 3:8-21; 4:1)

If the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, has his home in you, God, who raised Christ from the dead, will give life even to your bodies, subject to death though they are, through the power of his Spirit, who comes and makes his home within you.

So then, brothers, our duty is not to the lower part of our human nature, nor are we bound to live as it dictates. For, if you live as the lower part of your human nature dictates, you are on the way to death. But, if by the help of the Spirit you put to death the life your animal instincts make you want to live, you will really live. Only those who are led by God's Spirit are God's sons. This Spirit you have received does not leave you in the old relationship to God of terrified slavery. No! This Spirit you have received makes you a son in the family of God, and through this Spirit we can cry to God: 'Father, dear Father!' This same Spirit joins with our spirit in the assurance that we really are children of God. If we are children of God, then we are heirs to all the promises of God. Yes, fellow-heirs with Christ, if our aim in life is to share his glory by sharing his suffering.

In my reckoning, whatever we are called upon to suffer in this present time cannot compare with the glory which is going to burst upon us. For the whole created universe eagerly and expectantly awaits the day when God will show the world who his sons are. For the whole created universe was involved in a process of meaningless frustration, not of its own choice, but by the decree of God who did so subject it. But the situation was never hopeless, because even the created universe itself will be liberated from its servitude to death's decay, and will come to enjoy the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that up to now the whole created universe groans in all its parts, like a woman in the birthpangs. This is not only true of the created universe. We too, even although we have received in the Spirit a foretaste of what the new life will be like, groan inwardly, as we wait longingly for God to complete his adoption of us, so that we will be emancipated from sin, both body and soul. (Romans 8:11-23)

The above was taken from a Bible translation entitled The New Testament by William Barclay. Mr. Barclay was highly respected by many leading Christian leaders as an outstanding Bible teacher and scholar. His commentary is a great work as is his New Testament Bible Translation.

What few people know is that William Barclay died believing that ultimately all mankind would be saved. "But one thing I would go beyond strict orthodoxy-I am a convinced universalist. I believe that in the end all men will be gathered into the love of God." (Taken from William Barclay, A Spiritual Autobiography, publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., page 65) Scholars with big hearts discover great truths.