Following up on our first publication (The King's Word) on this teaching series, we established the sovereignty and power of God’s Word and I strongly encourage you to read it first because it lays out the foundation for the present and subsequent publications on the Spoken Authority series. We will now dive into what the sovereignty of God’s word looks like and what it means for us in one aspect as sons and daughters of the King.
As children of God, we too, became royalty at the new birth thanks to Jesus’ death and resurrection. As a risen Savior, He became the First Born of a new breed of people. Paul in his letter to the Romans indeed states that God the Father determined whom He knew in advance to be conformed to the pattern (image) of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. This last sentence is one that many have difficulty grasping even among believers, so I’ll attempt to say it in plain language: yes, Jesus is our big Brother, as much as He is our Lord, Savior, and Groomsman! In a much broader sense those who are in Christ are one with Him and in Him there is no distinction of sex, culture, race, etc.! I have observed that in our earthly customs one can only be considered firstborn of a family if he/she has siblings born after them from the same father. Similarly, in a spiritual sense we are God’s very own seed: born of Him for we received His Spirit, Who makes us sons and by Whose power we cry out “Abba!” that is, “Dear Father!” (Romans 8:15).
Faith in Christ alone is what qualifies us to become sons of God. Ladies forgive me but you too are called to become sons of God but that is an entire subject to expound upon in itself; for now, let us just remember that in Christ there is neither male nor female, neither Jew nor gentile, neither slave nor free (Galatians 3:28). Having established our royal identity, and coming back to the subject of interest, Our Father clearly states that our words also have the ability to yield significant outcomes just as His. Before we unpack this, I would like to make a slight but important detour by reminding ourselves that God is love; and as we dwell in His love, He dwells in us. And in this union and fellowship with Him, His love has been brought to maturity with us, so we can have boldness to trust that as Jesus is, so we are in this world (1 John 4:17).
Based on this premise and staying true to our context: since He is King then we too are kings on the earth, and since He is God (I’m sorry to offend any religious spirit here but here it comes), then we too are gods on the earth. That was not a typo or a blasphemy, it is “scriptureal” (as in, real scripture). The psalmist says in verse 26 of the 82nd chapter: “My decree is: “You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High.” I find it interesting that Jesus in His wisdom chose to quote this verse in response to the Judeans who were out to stone Him, accusing Him to make Himself out to be God, which He actually never did though He was God in the flesh: He constantly deferred all of the glory to His Father and never did anything to circumvent the Holy Spirit. We are mandated to do the same: after all we are to conform our ways to His pattern. Make no mistake: Jesus is the only Man who can ever be God and worshiped as such, no other man dead or alive can ever claim that title; yet He calls us gods.
The translated word for gods here is the Hebrew word “Elohim” which means gods, judges, rulers, mighty ones, and is occasionally applied by way of deference to magistrates. Applying the Law of First Mention, which is a principle by which in order to get the proper meaning of a biblical word, phrase, or truth, one may refer to its very first mention in scripture (which of course is usually in Genesis, the first book of the Bible). With that in mind, this same word “Elohim” is first used of God in Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth.” Following this rabbit trail, as I look into John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word.” By juxtaposition it is clear that the Word is the one Who created the heavens, the earth, and all of creation. Now, this “Word” is the Greek word “logos”, which was understood by the Greeks as the spoken and unspoken word. In essence, God gave existence to the entire creation by releasing the Word and that Word was alive and active before He became flesh. The point that I am trying to make is that if God’s word has the ability not only to give life but to also become alive, then we better be convinced that our words audibly spoken, and unspoken (thoughts) have the same creative capability. How so? Because “God created humankind in His own image; in the image of God He created him …” (Genesis 1:27)
Activation: Meditate with me
Since our words (spoken) emerge from our inner thoughts (unspoken) and they have the capability to create as well as becoming alive, let us take some time to make an assessment of the realities we may have created or allowed by pondering certain thoughts, releasing certain words, or by failing to do either one when it was opportune. I’ll take it a step further, the wise man in Proverbs 23:7 said that “as man thinketh in his heart, so is he”. I’ll unpack this verse and others in this series as we continue to dive deeper. But this is a good exercise to practice the renewal of our minds. If we are honest, we will identify more than one thing in our lives that we know is a direct result of either thoughts and words, or simply lack thereof. If we do, we can begin to identify the origin of certain problems in our lives and deal with them at the root by changing our thought patterns and our confessions.
Father I thank You for giving us the grace to properly discern, with honesty and humility, the realities that we have created with improper thoughts or words. I further thank You for giving us the grace and wisdom to change the unwanted realities surrounding ourselves, from the inside out: birthing from our thoughts, flowing with our words and alive in our actions. In the mighty name of Jesus, I have prayed. AMEN.
This publication is the 2nd of our Spoken Authority series. Stay tuned for part III as we dive deeper into it. Subscribe here to receive our Royal Insights, and receive all of our publications straight in your mailbox.