Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Joel Lee Weng Yew said...

The meaning behind the 'therefore' is actually more significant.
To understand it, we have to go to Romans, where Paul says Jesus died for our sins and was raised for our justification (Romans 4:25).
Crossing over to Philippians, Paul says that as a result of Jesus' perfect obedience, He was considered righteous and therefore God exalted Him to the highest place. It is this righteousness that is imputed to us - thus Jesus was raised for our justification.
This exalting is essentially referring to the reality that Jesus had all authority in heaven and on earth, as we can also see at the end of Ephesians 1.

Summing up the argument, the basis for commissioning the apostles to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything Jesus had commanded them was that all authority in heaven and on earth belonged to Jesus. Jesus was essentially describing His Father's act of exaltation. And we know the foundation of that exaltation was the perfect obedience, and thus righteousness, of Jesus. And it is this righteousness that is imputed to us for our justification. Therefore the basis of our evangelism and discipleship is that Jesus had indeed completed His mission to secure our justification and reconcile us back to God.

tim said...

actually, He just mean GO

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