Sunday, June 26, 2011

Not Yet And Already


“Throughout the New Testament the contrast is emphasized between our present and our final condition. Yet at the same time it is made equally clear that the powers of the age to come are already working in us. We are on the journey, it is true, but even now our citizenship is in heaven; we know only in part, but nevertheless we know; we see in a mirror, darkly, but nevertheless we see; our  future state is not yet manifest, yet we are children of God. And although we are on the journey and not yet in the fatherland, we are nevertheless no more strangers and sojourners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God. We have here no abiding city and we seek the city which is to come; yet we have already come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and God has made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

E.L. Mascall, Grace and Glory