He Has Made Us Alive

And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you (John 14:16-17).

How can the spiritually blind person ‘see’ (know) the Holy Spirit? By and through the elective purposes of God. The biblical doctrine of election is too vast a subject to consider here, but suffice it to say it is the Lord who opens the eyes of the spiritually blind to see the things of God; He opens the understanding of a person to spiritually discern spiritual things. Consider the following:

(Ephesians 2:1-6) And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

(Colossians 2:13-14) And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 

Jesus said, And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself (John 12:32). He draws people to Himself. (John 6:44) No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. The Father draws people to Jesus. He does so because of His great love. (Jeremiah 31:3) The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: "Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. (John 3:16) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 

God the Father, through Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, draws a person to faith in Them. Salvation is entirely the work of God’s grace. (Ephesians 2:8-9) For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Unless God extends to us His grace, and gives us faith to believe, we will not believe and be saved. However, we do have a responsibility to believe and receive the Gospel once it is given to us. (Romans 10:16,21) But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” . . . But to Israel he says: “All day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” Amen.

Pastor