… and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,
Summary: Parsing Paul’s words is always a challenge and always rewarding.
This passage presents us with two enormous questions:
One is what it means to be “pure and blameless for the day of Christ,” and the other is what Paul means by the “day of Christ?”
The answers to these questions depend on how you personally view the Bible.
The Bible is either a book written by people about God, or it is a book written by God for people. These are two very different things.
Of course, almost all Christians will agree that the Bible is the “inspired” Word of God, but what does that mean? To clearly understand God’s Word, we need to be clear in our own minds about what this means.
From a human perspective, time is a sequential series of events. From God’s perspective, time does not seem to exist (See Psalm 90:4 and Revelation 1:8).
If we apply this to today’s passage, our human perspective wants to assign the “day of Christ” to a certain “day” in the future. From God’s perspective, the “day of Christ” could be any day or every day. For you, personally, the “day of Christ” could be the day you part ways with our human flesh and meet Jesus fully and completely in the spirit.
Returning to the question of what it means to be “pure and blameless,” let’s ponder what that means.
Paul prays that our love “may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ…”
There is a theme here that is echoed throughout Scripture. We need to love God above all else (Matthew 22:37). Loving God means we also love Jesus (John 10:30).
The miracle of faith in Jesus is that by his sacrifice of blood on the cross, we who are unrighteous are made righteous in God’s eyes. Through faith in Jesus, we become “pure and blameless.”
Loving God is not a one-time deal. Love that abounds in knowledge and depth of insight realizes that we need to put God’s will above our own, all day, every day. Then, whether you are waiting for Jesus to visit the whole earth on one day or whether you expect to meet him when you die, you know that you need to love God above all else, all the time.
Application: Love God above all else, 24/7.
Food for Thought: How does being ready for the day of Christ impact our days on earth?
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