ZION, SAVIOURS AND TARES
(week 37/16)
OLUBI JOHNSON
Zion symbolically represents the perfect church.
Our spiritual growth into perfection causes us to be ‘saviours’ to the rest of the church.
The Lord Jesus Christ is THE Savior but we are also called to be saviours following His example.
Obadiah 1:21 NKJV: Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion To judge the mountains of Esau, And the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.
Psalms 14:7 NIV: Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When the LORD restores his people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!
Who is a saviour?
One that gives his life for others.
As we grow spiritually drawing greater and greater measures of the life of God, God starts diverting a significant measure of the life in us to others in the church to save them, causing us to experience a significant measure of death in our bodies and circumstances.
Paul the pattern disciple (1 Timothy 1.16) exemplifies this truth:
2Corinthians 4:7-12 NIV: But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. (8) We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; (9) persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. (10) We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (11) For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. (12) So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
Philippians 3:10-11 AMP: [For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] (11) That if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body].
Now just as the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead AFTER suffering death for a while, we too are to experience a ‘raising from the dead’ while in this physical body: a manifestation of the life of God in our mortal bodies (2 Corinthians 4.10-11)!
This truth is shown in
1Peter 5:10 KJV: But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
This is also called the redemption of our bodies or manifestation of the sons of God:
Romans 8:19 KJV: For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
Romans 8:23 KJV: And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
In our article next week, we will see how ‘saviours’ in Zion nourish the ‘tares’ (Mt. 13.37-43) in the church.
