HERE Saint Peter rises from the level of weak humanity to the level belonging to God all at once, because there exists no intermediate between human weakness and divine power. Here we need to forget what is ours, and rise with the Apostle Peter to the level of that which is God’s, not in a haphazard manner, nor as if it were possible for humanity to rise one inch above its stature. St Peter consequently introduced his great vision with the words “given to us” so that we are able through the promise of the inspiration on the Apostle Peter’s tongue to trust that the matter is given to us as a free gift not needing research, study, nor query.

The divine power is great and the offer a free gift. What then is our role? The elements of faith precede man’s attempt to receive that which is God’s great gift, beyond man’s imagination. Where are we in comparison to “the divine power,” and what are our qualifications to enter the level of true life which is of a nature that surpasses our capabilities? Our faith in God and Christ here extends us to enter with those invited to the regions of living hope, through the power of God and the secure faith of God’s gift to us in Christ.

All things that pertain to true life and godliness, itself holiness, we accepted a living and secure acceptance in the being of Jesus Christ who bestowed us His glory as a precious free gift according to the Lord’s words: “And the glory which You gave Me I have given them.”1 Through our acceptance of Christ’s glory and life with Him the virtue of the Only Son remained with us as God’s elect. It is not fit to ask or enquire about these matters while we adhere to the present world situated in weakness, contempt and sin.

They are all great and precious promises we accept through faith as we accepted the glorified Christ in our weakness and dissolution, in the hope that the clarification and revelation will happen to us the moment of Christ’s appearance with the outpour of the wealth of His heavenly glory upon us to be with Him. Then these great promises will be revealed which our faith taught us and we accepted, as our acceptance of Christ with His glory.

In this we resemble the forefathers and prophets who accepted the first promises and did not verify any of them, but only believed in them and left bearing within their hearts the promises that were fulfilled for us and were not in their days, yet they accepted them and made the crossing.2

We accept now the great promises that are coming for sure, an acceptance of fellowship that only needs to be revealed. For the great and precious promises are our share. We are their possessor and have truly owned them in Christ. In Christ and through Him we will fulfill all these promises because we own them and they were set for us, requiring a suitable life from us impossible to aspire towards or even to its shadow with life on earth and its characteristics. But those who live in godliness and righteousness feel that these promises throw their light on them and are consequently enflamed crying out asking for the nearness of departure, because the great and precious promises fill up their consciousness, spirits, and new divine being as a deposit for the ownership of these above promises. The Apostle Paul for that reason moans wanting to get rid of the body and depart to be with Christ in these promises, but was given another time with its tribulations to qualify for the glories of heaven.

Yet we must know that our relation with God began when Christ accepted the sufferings in our body he took from us and was crucified with. All Christ suffered on the cross was counted it had necessarily happened to us, because “if One died for all, then all died.”3 If Christ suffered as a ransom for us, then His sufferings are counted our suffering. From here began the relation with God. The fellowship in the sufferings of His Son inevitably produced a fellowship in His resurrection and consequently in His glory. If Christ entered His glory and is sitting at the right of the Father we also will share in it too. Christ avowed: “And the glory which You gave me I have given them.”4 We are necessarily fellows in the glory but these glories on high are now hidden till they will be revealed with the appearance of Christ when we will be revealed in Him because we will be like Him.5 When the Bible mentioned that in Christ was the fullness of Divinity bodily and we are complete in Him,6 it means that we have become partakers of the divine nature. All this truth needs is to be revealed on the day of revelation.

Christ described it in a practical way when he said: “I in them, and You in Me”7 when speaking to the Father. Thus Christ revealed that we are in the Father and the Son so that our being became one in Them. This is the most expressive description mentioned by Christ about our heavenly fate when we attain the highest level of the greatest precious promises.

26 June, 2005

1 John 17:22.

2 Heb 11:13.

3 2Cor 5:14.

4 John 17:22.

5 1John 3:2.

6 Col 2:9,10.

7 John 17:23.

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