Isaiah 53:1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

A witness is one who gives testimony. In the most common usage it occurs within the legal system as one who witnessed a crime. The defense attorney will try and discredit the witness and call their vision and their judgment into question. That is his job.

Acts 4:10, 12 Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Now here is a witness that testifies that there is no other way to view what he has seen. But who will believe this report? In all of the world there is no more offensive witness than this. Jesus is the only way offends everyone to whom the arm of the Lord has not been revealed. Everyone.

In what other religion is salvation an issue?

I asked a practicing Buddhist why she was a Buddhist. Her answer was sincere. “To be a better person.” So I asked her to draw that out to a final conclusion. She asked “What do you mean?” I pointed out that if her religion had nothing to offer beyond being a better person, then why can’t I be a better person alone without Buddha? She had no answer. Salvation was not part of her belief system.

The same question could be asked of me. What is my final conclusion?

I will be transformed into an incorruptible body that does not know death, sickness nor pain. This is where the belief systems differ. How do I know?

Because Jesus Christ has declared to us the promises of God which are many and not just the one at the end of our journey together. The way that I can trust Him to be faithful in that last promise is in the observation, my witness, of the promises He has kept so far.

No other religion offers proof to its followers in varying degrees of kept promises.

2 Corinthians 1:20-21-23a For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul,

My witness.

2 Peter 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Series finale.

When I saw this passage I wanted to see what translators had to offer as alternative language to divine nature. In all translations except one, they offered no alternative language. They could find no other words to express divine nature. The Worldwide English offered up Satan’s promise to Eve, to become like God too. Somehow that doesn’t sound right.

So I searched deep within all the related text for a deeper understanding for something that should be so obvious that translators chose not to use any other words. Therein I found one thought that I found satisfying. “The power to be distinctive.”

The idea of conformance to the image of Christ is visual. Looking like Christ is not being Christ. God is all about looking at the heart of a man, not the outward and seeming but the inward and real. In this we have to do a factual self-examination and ask if who we are as a distinctive being has changed. Not that we made a choice to act in any particular manner because it is the right, just and the moral thing to do, but because that is who we are today, a new creation.

Divine nature is not an act, or a choice, it is who we are, being distinctive and not like the worldly people we were before Christ. It is natural, not forced or a façade, it is being real.

2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

He has given us the power to be.