God Finishes What He Starts

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”  Philippians 1:6

God assures us that he will complete the work he begins in us.  Unlike us God always finishes what he starts.  We have the bad habit of beginning a project but not seeing it through to completion.  How many of us have a list of partially-read books, household chores, school projects, and work assignments?  And how many of us will never finish the work we once started?  God never does that.  He always finishes the work he begins.  He never grows weary or fainthearted like we do.  His inspiration and motivation never dissipate.  He is perpetually committed.  The real reason that this is good news for us is that it gives us assurance of the security of our salvation.  We can be sure that God will carry the work of salvation to completion in us.  Believer, has he begun a good work in you?  Then he shall finish it!  You can be sure of it!  God’s elect cannot fail to persevere in the faith and obtain final salvation any more than God can fail.  Salvation is his work from start to finish.  This is why Paul says that he can be sure of the security and preservation of the Philippians.  He can be sure because their salvation is not in their own power.  If it were in their power, there would be no assurance or security.  Man may begin well but rarely finishes what he begins.  Yet God is fully committed and completely able to complete what he begins.  Salvation begins in the experience of the Christian when God effectively calls him to himself and grants him new life.  This is his work.  Our effectual calling and regeneration (new birth) are not the result of our cooperation with God’s grace.  They are completely the result of God’s love and mercy.  He has made us alive together with Christ.  Effectual calling and regeneration are just the beginning of our salvation.  We also know about justification, adoption, and sanctification.  These, too, are the result of God’s saving grace.  They are God’s way of continuing the work he began in us.  Shall God declare our sins to be forgiven now and not at the last day?  Shall God adopt us as his children now and then reject us as illegitimate at the judgment seat of Christ?  Shall God cause holiness to flourish in our hearts and lives only to frown upon it in the life to come?  By no means!  If God has begun a work in you, believer, then you can rest assured that he will complete it.  He always finishes what he starts.  But when will God complete the work he began in us?  The text tells us that it will be complete “at the day of Jesus Christ.”  God’s saving work in us will not be complete until Jesus returns for us.  We call this “glorification.”  It is the day on which we shall be perfected into the likeness of Jesus.  We shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.  We shall be sinless and glorious.  Perfection is not attainable in this life.  We all sin in word, thought, and deed on a daily basis.  We will never achieve entire sanctification in our earthly pilgrimage, but our sanctification will reach completion at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is a sure thing.  We can be assured that we shall be like Jesus.  It is written in the decree of our omnipotent God.  Yes, it is hard to believe that we shall ever be the glorious beings that God designed us to be, but we are told that we shall be like him.  Now this could never be if it depended on our will or work.  It depends entirely on God alone.  The only reason we can be sure that we will be kept for final salvation is because we are kept by God’s power through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time.  Do you ever struggle with assurance?  Do you ever feel like your faith will not last?  Do you ever worry that you will not make it to heaven after all?  Then look away from yourself to this divine promise:  God will finish the work he began in you.  The security of our salvation rests entirely in the hands of the God who finishes what he starts.  Blessed assurance!  Jesus is mine!    

The Seed Promise

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and your shall bruise his heel.” 

Genesis 3:15

These words were spoken by God to the serpent shortly after Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit.  God speaks of both judgment and salvation.  On the one hand, God pronounces judgment on the serpent, but, on the other hand, he announces salvation to the human race.  Christian theologians have recognized from the beginning of the Church that this is the first promise of the gospel in the Bible.  In Latin they called it the Protoevangelium (first gospel).  It is the seed promise that contains all the other gospel promises in the Old Testament.  Here God promises an offspring (older versions translated this as ‘seed’) who shall bruise the head of the serpent.  Although Genesis never identifies the serpent as Satan, context makes it clear that he is the Evil One who first seduced Eve.  And if we doubt that the serpent is Satan, John later tells us in Revelation 12:9 that he is indeed “that ancient serpent.”  Unfortunately, many Christians simply skip over this seed promise not realizing that it is the promise that God seeks to clarify throughout his redemptive story beginning in Genesis and climaxing in Revelation.  In the verse God teaches us that there will be a continual conflict between the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent.  The Hebrew word ‘offspring’ always appears in singular grammatical form (never ‘offsprings’ when the plural is intended), and the context determines whether the meaning is collective (offsprings) or individual (offspring).  So the struggle between the woman’s offspring and the serpent’s offspring may simply mean that there will be a struggle between two races: the offspring of the woman (the children of God) and the offspring of the serpent (the children of the devil).  The verse divides humanity into two spiritual classifications and promises that these two groups will engage in spiritual war.  This fits well with the context because the next chapter reveals an example of this spiritual struggle.  Cain, the offspring of the serpent, kills Abel, the offspring of the woman.  God then appoints Seth as a replacement for Abel.  Keep in mind that this is a spiritual conflict.  From a biological point of view both Cain and Abel were the offspring of the woman.  But the point is that by seducing the woman the serpent has secured an offspring from the race of men.  Humanity is now fallen and in rebellion against God.  And yet the only hope for humanity is for a righteous offspring to bruise Satan’s head as Adam should have done in the first place.  Now even though there is a collective idea in the battle between the two offsprings, we can see that there is an individual referent in the singular offspring who actually bruises the serpent’s head.  We can see this on account of the use of the personal pronoun ‘he.’  In Hebrew there are singular and plural pronoun forms; so this is the way that Moses shows us that he intends a singular offspring.  And this means that Genesis 3:15 envisions a singular offspring who shall come to bruise the head of the serpent.  And how shall he do this?  He shall do this by bruising his own heal.  In other words, he shall wound the serpent by being wounded.  Crushing the head of Satan will require his own suffering.  So God is promising hope of deliverance.  On the one hand, God pronounces judgment on the serpent who is the incarnation of Satan, but, on the other hand, God promises salvation for the offspring of the woman in a singular offspring who shall defeat the devil.  We should think about this verse during the Christmas season because it means that the ultimate triumph over the devil comes through a human being, the offspring of the woman.  This should be understood in light of the Incarnation.  Adam failed in the Garden.  He failed to crush the serpent’s head.  He was silent and sinned.  But the last Adam, Jesus Christ, must prevail where the first Adam failed.  He must do what Adam should have done.  And when he does, there will be redemption.  This, of course, is why Genesis (and a great deal of the Bible) is concerned with genealogies (tracing offspring from one generation to another).  In chapter 5 we have the genealogy from Seth (the righteous offspring as Abel’s replacement) to Noah.  In chapters 10 and 11 we can follow Noah’s genealogy through Shem to Terah.  And Terah fathered Abram.  So by the time we come to the call of Abram in Genesis 12 we should be thinking in light of God’s original seed promise.  For God shall also make a promise about Abraham’s offspring that further clarifies what the offspring of the woman shall accomplish.  In Abraham’s offspring all nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3; 22:18; Galatians 3:8, 11).