THEME: Understanding Salvation: Inheriting Incorruptible Nature
LESSON: Three
TOPIC: Understanding the Importance and Usefulness of Salvation
TEXT: Genesis 1:26, 27; Colossians 1:15; Romans 8:28-29; 2 Corinthians 4:3-4
MEMORY TRACK:
In our last lesson, we saw that God created and formed man—spirit, soul, and body—for the singular purpose of bearing His image. After man died in His spirit, God had to drive man out of the garden of Eden, and the very purpose for creating and forming man could not be fulfilled the way God originally intended until Jesus Christ came (Romans 1:28-29). Jesus Christ restored God’s original intent, and though the new birth re-creates our spirit, we have not yet inherited God’s image—we are still being conformed to it. That conforming work happens specifically in the soul, the one part of man designed to carry images, meaning our souls must be saved through the preaching of Christ’s image before God’s purpose for man is fully realized.
God’s Image is AS GREAT AS GOD IS (Genesis 1:26; Psalms 48:1; Revelation 15:3; Hebrews 2:3; Hebrews 4:14).
All through scriptures, we have come to see and find out that God is great (Psalms 48:1). This greatness is not primarily with regard to God’s vastness or bigness with regard to His outward external frame or size (Ezekiel 1:26-28), nor is the greatness with regard to God’s immense POWER TO DO THE UNTHINKABLE WITH REGARDS TO THE SUPERNATURAL OR SPECTACULAR, both physical and spiritual (Genesis 1:1-31); rather, God’s GREATNESS IN SCRIPTURES IS MEASURED IN HIS SALVATION ESSENCE AND NATURE (INCORRUPTIBILITY, IMMUTABILITY, AND EVERLASTINGNESS). So when the Bible says God is Great (Psalms 95:3; Psalms 96:4), it is much more with regard to His salvation nature, His everlasting essence, Hallelujah!
So when God in Genesis 1:26 said, ‘Let us make man in Our own image, after Our likeness…’, it can also be read as ‘let Us make man GREAT as Us’! God’s Image really is what holds God’s greatness!
God’s Apostle, Rev Kayode Oyegoke, through the Apostolic wisdom given Him by God, taught that if the fact that God’s image ‘is great’ (which image is salvation), then there is a small image of God (Revelation 11:18; Revelation 13:16; Revelation 20:12). While Genesis 1:26 is God’s great image of His great salvation, Genesis 1:27 is a small or first image (created image), which, when comparing scriptures with scriptures, is obviously speaking of the small image or the image of the spirit.
Looking at the ordinances of the New Testament, we see that all God wants to give is just two major things of God:
- Christ (created image/image of the spirit/spiritual man/small salvation/small God or godliness) Genesis 1:27, Romans 10:15, Ephesians 4:23, Matthew 16:16.
- Son of God/God (made image/image of God’s soul that makes God’s soul incorruptible, Divine nature/great salvation/image of invisible God) Genesis 1:26, Colossians 1:15, and Romans 8:28-29.
The created image is a small image/salvation, and the made image is the great image of God/great salvation (Hebrews 2:3). Thank God for God’s Apostle, Reverend Kayode Oyegoke, for these Apostolic breakthroughs into God’s mind.
The importance and usefulness of salvation to born-again saints of the Lord in the New Testament
One may wonder, why all these explanations and breakdowns of salvation if I truly am born again in my spirit and I am heavenward! Below are some very important usefulness/benefits of salvation to a born-again Christian:
- It is by and through the acquisition of salvation in our souls that we inherit God (both the small salvation and the great salvation) (1st Peter 1:4; 2nd Peter 1:4).
- It is by and through the acquisition of salvation that we are saved from becoming flesh/carnal and are saved and sealed from the wrath to come (Romans 8:1-4; Romans 1:18-20).
- It is by and through the acquisition of salvation that we choose our lot, our eternal dwelling places and estates (2nd Corinthians 5:10-11; Revelation 20:12).