Sermons on important subjects by Rev. Paul C. Jong

The Reason Why God Made Us in the Likeness of His Image

< Genesis 1:24-31 >

“Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind’; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ And God said, ‘See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food’; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

After making everything in this world, the very last thing that God made was mankind. The Bible says that when God made mankind, He made it according to His image in His likeness. From today’s Scripture passage in Genesis, we can discover the God of Trinity.

The God whom we believe is God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When God created the heavens and the earth, these three Persons of God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—made mankind according to God’s image. From what God said here, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness,” we should be able to discover the Triune God. God made mankind according to His image. And the One who created this world and mankind was the Triune God: God the Father, Jesus Christ His Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is this God who created the heavens and the earth, everything between them, and mankind itself.

On the sixth day, the last day of His creation, God made mankind according to His image by the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God said, “Let Us make man in Our image,” and He made him accordingly.

What, then, is man? Who are human beings? They are the ones who conform to the likeness of God’s image. Does this then mean that when God made mankind according to His image, He wanted to make us His sons and daughters from the very beginning? Yes. We need to realize and properly understand God’s plan in making mankind according to His image. From the very beginning, God made human beings in the likeness of His image, to enjoy His power and glory.

We should realize here that the purpose for which God created man and woman was to establish His Church. That God made a woman out of the man’s rib foretells the fact that God the Father would fulfill His will through Jesus Christ. This reveals God’s plan through His Church, and the One who made and fulfilled such a plan is the Triune God.

God made everyone in the likeness of His image, and this was planned by God to fulfill His purpose. Long before the foundation of the world, God the Father had already planned in Jesus Christ His Son to make us His children. To fulfill this plan of God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ came to this earth, was baptized by John, shouldered the sins of the world, died on the Cross, rose from the dead again, and has thereby completed the will of the Father. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, guarantees the salvation that God the Father and Jesus Christ accomplished. Jesus Christ completed the will of God the Father in obedience.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the same God to us. The Bible proclaims that God the Father chose us and predestined us in Jesus Christ even before the foundation of the world, and He fulfilled His planned will (Ephesians 1:3-5). In other words, God the Father had predestined His will toward us in Jesus Christ and fulfilled it. All this means that in Jesus Christ His Son, God the Father made us His children in the likeness of His image. Put differently, God fulfilled this with the consultation of the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Like this, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit planned to make us glorious and fulfilled it.

God the Father planned to make us His children, and His Son Jesus Christ, in obedience to the will of His Father, was baptized by John the Baptist, died on the Cross, and rose from the dead again. By being baptized by John and taking upon the sins of the world, by dying on the Cross while shouldering our sins, and by rising from the dead again, Jesus Christ Himself blotted out the sins of mankind, thus fulfilling the will of God. God the Father wanted to make us His children. So, to all those who believe in His Son, He gave the right to become His children.

How, then, did God restore us human beings to His children, made in the likeness of His image? He achieved this all at once with the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit. When God created the heavens and the earth, He created man and woman and fulfilled His will. He fulfilled His will by saving us and making us His children through His Son Jesus. They is why He created mankind according to His image.

God created man, male and female, according to His image and He said, “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). This is His will, and He wants us human beings to be one with Him by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. That is why when God created the heavens and the earth and made mankind, He made man and woman. When God made them, He had the saved, righteous people in His mind, planning to save them through Jesus Christ.

Thanks to His will, those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior could achieve their purpose of existence just by faith. We are made into God’s children through the gospel of the water and the Spirit that Jesus Christ has given us. In other words, the sinners of this world can become God’s children only when they believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that Jesus has given us, and thereby receive the remission of their sins. It is from God that we receive the right to become His children.

Once we become God’s children by believing in His gospel of the water and the Spirit, God gives us everything else that belongs to Heaven. The Lord Himself becomes the Master of us all. So we have no doubt whatsoever that we have indeed become those who conform to the likeness of God’s image.

How have we come to conform to the image of God? It is through the gospel of the water and the Spirit that God’s purpose was fulfilled in making mankind in His image from the very beginning. From the very beginning, God had planned to make us human beings His children, and this plan of God the Father was all fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Had God made us His children unconditionally without Jesus Christ, and then all other creatures would have rebelled. Of course, this does not mean that God somehow feared the rebellion of His own creatures, but it does mean that God did not want to be an unjust God. As God’s name must not be damaged, God had a just plan for our salvation in Jesus Christ from the very beginning. In this light, it is God’s blessing found in Jesus Christ that we were first born on this earth as creatures.

God has made us His children, who are at the same level as His Son Jesus Christ. How has God the Father put us on the same order as Jesus Christ, as His brothers and sisters? God the Father has accomplished the way for us to be His children within the gospel of the water and the Spirit that Jesus has completed. Therefore, we must have the proper knowledge of the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is the crystallization of the love of God.

First of all, we must realize what God’s plan is. God the Father planned our salvation in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world, and He fulfilled it once for all within the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit. This is clearly testified by Ephesians 1:4-5. “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” It is in God’s plan that our salvation has been achieved. This is the plan of God revealed in Ephesians chapter one. That is how we have come to wholly conform to the image of God in Jesus Christ. In other words, God the Father created mankind in this world so that we would conform to the likeness of His image.

In general, the so-called founders of worldly religions try to deify themselves. We see countless people trying on their own to reach a divine state, all in vain. For everyone, however, it is only when one meets Jesus Christ through the gospel of the water and the Spirit that he can receive the grace of the remission of his sins and become one of God’s people. This is the very purpose for which God made human beings be born in this world, and it is the Truth that is fulfilled in its entirety to all those who believe in God and follow His Word.

That we were born in this world, and have met Jesus Christ who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit, is such a tremendous blessing that there is nothing more we could wish. It means that the purpose for which we were born in this world has now been fulfilled, that the will of God has also been fulfilled. That is how we have come to truthfully enjoy real rest in God’s plan and discover the real meaning behind our birth. It is in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that we have found the purpose for which we were born in this world and the meaning of our existence.

God created Adam first. And He made him fall asleep, took one of his ribs, and made woman out of this rib. God thus made mankind, male and female. For what purpose did He make them? It was to bless them in Christ. God the Father wanted to turn us, the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, into His own sons and daughter, all through Jesus Christ who was in the Father. As God the Father gave up His only begotten Son for His loved ones, Jesus Christ the Son of God came to this earth, was baptized by John the Baptist, and because of this He bore the sins of this world. As Jesus shouldered the sins of the world, He had to shed His blood and die on the Cross, and by rising from the dead again, He fulfilled the Father’s will. In other words, it is through His Son that God the Father has made us His children.

Put differently, God the Father made us out of this Man, His Son. With the rib that He took from Adam, God made the woman—that is, He made us in Jesus Christ. And the Man (Jesus) loved the woman (us) so much. So, when Adam was presented with Eve, he said,

“This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man” (Genesis 2:23).

When we believed in Jesus Christ as our Savior, and when we received the remission of our sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we were able to be born again as God’s children. When Jesus Christ was baptized by John, God the Father said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”(Matthew 3:17). In other words, God the Father loved Jesus Christ more than any creatures in this world.

It is because of Jesus Christ who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit that we have become God’s children. Who sent Jesus Christ to this world? It is God the Father who sent His only begotten Son, and He has saved us through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. God loved the world so much that He gave up His only begotten Son, meaning that He decided to save us the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. To save us from our sins, God the Father sent His most cherished Son, His only begotten Son, as a creature.

To make us conform to the likeness of His image, God sent His Son to this earth, and through the gospel of the water and the Spirit fulfilled by His Son, God washed away all the sins of the world. And He decided to save all who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This is the salvation of mankind that God the Father has achieved in His Son Jesus Christ, and it is the mystery of salvation that He has revealed through His Church.

Those Who Still Have Not Received the Remission of Their Sins Cannot Understand God’s Plan

God knew all about us, and by sending His Son to this earth, He fulfilled the work of saving us from the sins of the world. In other words, God the Father already knew what Satan would do later on, and so He made us accordingly in His plan. Before the foundation of the world, God the Father chose us in Jesus Christ, and He was already designing our salvation long before we were born in this world, even before this universe was created. And God concretely fulfilled His envisioned plan of salvation in Jesus Christ. In other words, He fulfilled this plan and achieved our salvation once for all through the gospel of the water and the Spirit.

God created mankind, male and female, according to His image. This means that God wanted to reveal His will through the Man (Jesus) and woman (we) He placed in this world. God the Father had a plan to make it possible for all the sinners of this world to become His children through Jesus Christ. So only when we realize God’s will toward us through the gospel of the water and the Spirit can we understand the Holy Trinity.

God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” Then, He created man and woman, and entrusted all creation to them to rule over everything.

Did God really make us according to His image? Is the image of God like the image of man? The Apostle John saw the image of Jesus Christ, and he described Him as having “eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet like fine brass” (Revelation 2:18). The phrase “God’s image” does not mean the countenance or the appearance of God, because God is Spirit. Rather, this phrase refers to His divine attributes, implying that God made His people to be the partakers of His divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

God’s people are those among mankind who have received the remission of their sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Now, They have become the partakers of the divine nature.

What is the nature of God? First of all, He is love. Our God is a merciful God who bestows His abundant love. God has compassion for sinners’ souls, and He has mercy on the powerless. And the hearts of the righteous also conform to the image of God. Those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, who have received the remission of their sins, also possess God’s attributes.

God has no evil. One aspect in which God is different from mankind is that He is incapable of lying. God is just. And in the hearts of the born-again, there is God’s justice. God is perfect. He is without any defects. And He has made us the born-again perfect in Christ. It is by faith that mankind is made perfect like God. That is why God said to Abraham, “Walk before Me and be blameless” (Genesis 17:1). The righteous have blameless hearts.

God the Father planned all these things, and He wanted to fulfill His plan through His Son. So, through Jesus Christ, God has saved us from our sins, through the water and the Spirit. Having fulfilled all our salvation, Jesus ascended to the right hand of the throne of God, and He will return as the Lord of second coming. God the Father planned our salvation, and Jesus Christ has saved us from our sins through His water and blood. When we accept this Truth of salvation into our hearts, God the Holy Spirit approves our faith and seals us, saying, “You are right. I am Your God. You are My children.” So, there is the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—and all these three Persons of God are the same God to us, whom He made according to the likeness of His image.

The doctrine of Trinity is the most important subject of theology. But, sinners whose hearts have not been washed from their sins do not understand the concept of the Holy Trinity. We cannot understand this spiritual concept unless the Holy Spirit gives us its understanding. Without having the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we cannot even recognize Jesus Christ as our Savior. If it were not for the Holy Spirit, we cannot have Jesus Christ as our Savior in our hearts, and we cannot call God the Father “Abba, Father.” Therefore, if we have no faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we can never reach the proper understanding of the Holy Trinity.

Of course, with your words you might always say that Jesus is your Savior. But without the gospel of the water and the Spirit, you cannot make the true confession of your faith, that Jesus is your Savior. In other words, it is through the Word of the Scriptures that God is telling us about the Father’s plan and the salvation of Jesus Christ who has saved us. God seals us with the Holy Spirit to affirm that He has made us righteous.

Having saved us and made us righteous through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, God is saying, “You have no sin. You are My children. You are God’s children.” So, by saving us from the sins of the world, God has enabled us to realize this plan of the Triune God. God said that He planned our salvation through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, that He fulfilled our salvation to perfection through Jesus Christ, and that He Himself sealed all those who believe in this with the Holy Spirit. God said that He could never leave us, who, in Jesus Christ, have been saved through the gospel of the water and the Spirit.

The Apostle Paul said, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). God has saved us and perfectly made us His children. None other than this is the will of God that He achieved by saving us from sin. In other words, it is by God’s perfect Word of Truth that our salvation was achieved and we have become God’s children.

This Truth of salvation is not learnt from man. It is neither from man, nor by man. One can attain salvation only by believing in Jesus Christ’s gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. The Bible says that it is by the providence of God the Father, by the sacrifice of our Jesus Christ, and by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we have become God’s children.

If God had not planned our salvation in Jesus Christ, then Jesus Christ would not have come to this earth. Neither would He have been baptized by John the Baptist for us, nor would there have been any need for Him to be crucified and shed His blood to death while shouldering the sins of the world, far less to rise from the dead again. And, of course, there would have been no need to ascend to the right hand of the throne of God either, nor any need to return. Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Father, clearly came to this earth to save us from the sins of the world, and by delivering us from the sins of the world through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, He has indeed made us God’s people.

Even though Jesus Christ has saved us from the sins of this world and is asking us to believe in this, if we ourselves do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, then the Holy Spirit will not seal us with the final approval. Therefore, unless our faith is perfected in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, everything is in vain. As we preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit to others, when they believe, the Holy Spirit seals their hearts right away. So they, too, are testified as God’s children. In other words, the Holy Spirit and the Word of God approve those who have received the remission of their sins, saying, “You’re right! You have no sin!”

Although all that we did was just accept the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the Holy Spirit now dwells in our hearts. Our salvation was achieved in the Triune God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit alike are God, and this God is the same, one God to us.

We must accept into our hearts that Jesus Christ has saved us through the gospel of the water and the Spirit according to the plan that God the Father designed for us. We will then become God’s children. We know and believe that as God is Triune, Jesus Christ’s Father is our Father, and He is also our Shepherd. When we believe that God the Father planned to send Jesus Christ to this earth in the flesh of man, and that Jesus Christ has saved us from our sins through His water and blood, we will then become God’s children.

We the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit now speak about the Triune God so easily and believe in it without any trouble. In fact, for the righteous, the Truth about God is not that difficult. “God loved us. That’s why He sent His Son, out of His love for us. God has saved us from sin through His most beloved, only begotten Son. So by believing in the water and blood of this Jesus Christ, we have been saved. Not only have we been saved from sin, but we have also become God’s children.”

The principle of our salvation is like that of marriage. Just as when a man and a woman love each other in this world a child is born, God the Father made us His children through His Son. That’s why commenting on marriage, the Apostle Paul said, “‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31-32). Our salvation is like a marriage; for a man and a woman to get married is jus like God marrying us. As God has made us His children, He and we have become one body.

To sinners, however, there is no way to explain the Triune God. We cannot comprehend the Holy Trinity unless we receive the remission of our sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Even when one has received the remission of his sins, if the concept of the Holy Spirit is explained too complicatedly, it would only cause a headache. One can understand this concept only when it is explained in easy terms; otherwise, when discussed too complicatedly, it’s hard to comprehend.

The human heart tends to be ruthless at times. Even the born-again may seem quite callous from time to time, but they are in fact very gentle. The righteous have no desire to harm anyone. That is because we have been born again into new creations in God’s likeness, according to His image (2 Corinthians 5:17). We who have received the remission of all our sins have Gods’ heart.

On the sixth day of creation, on this last day, God made mankind, and He made us according to His image. For six days God created the universe and everything in it, and on the seventh day He rested. That God rested on the seventh day manifests that He has completed our salvation once for all. The number seven manifests God’s perfection, signifying that God planned our salvation and implemented this blueprint of salvation concretely. So like this, God made mankind according to His image. We are the very craftsmanship that God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit made together in unity.

Those who do not believe in Jesus do not actually believe in the Triune God. They do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, nor that He is God Himself. They can’t even understand this spiritual concept. As a result, they demand to know where the biblical foundation for the Holy Trinity is found.

But the substance of the Triune God is found right here, in Genesis 1:26. “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.’” Did Jehovah, God the Father, say here, “Let Me make man by Myself all alone according to My likeness and My image”? No, He said, “Let Us make man in Our image.” These plural words here show that God is Triune.

To repeat, God said, “Let Us make man in Our image.” This refers to the Triune God, that is, to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior say that Jesus is their Lord. They say that the Lord is the God who made them and has saved them from sin. What about the Holy Spirit then? They also call Him as the Holy God. As the Holy Spirit dwells in us always, He keeps us and leads us. So, the Bible says that without the Spirit of Christ, we are not His people.

That is why we say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the same God to us. These three Persons of God have saved us perfectly. Jesus did not complete our salvation all by Himself, but He saved us according to the will of the Father. When Jesus was on this earth, He walked according to the Father’s will. He said, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”

That is how God has wholly made us His children. God the Father planned to blot out our sins and make us His children through His Son Jesus Christ, and to fulfill this plan, Jesus Christ came to this earth, was baptized, died on the Cross, rose from the dead in three days, and has thereby blotted out our sins completely. Now, those who believe in this Jesus as their Savior, God approves them, saying, “You are My children. All other creatures are just creatures, but you, you are My own children.”

God actually wants to accept everyone as His child (1 Timothy 2:4). Yet because many people listen to the Devil’s words, and do not accept God’s salvation and refuse to believe that God has saved them through His Son to be completely sinless, they are not only unable to become God’s children, but they actually end up becoming the Devil’s children.

By now, you should be able to understand the Triune God. Surely, our salvation from sin did not come by accident. Our salvation was all planned and achieved in the Triune God, and so all that we do is just believe in this Truth. Because the Holy Spirit guarantees our salvation, saying, “You are My children,” we call Him our Helper, the One who assists us.

When someone goes bankrupt, whoever guaranteed his debt must pay it all off instead. In our case, it is none other than the Holy Spirit who guarantees our salvation. No matter what kind of insufficiencies we may have, and no matter how Satan may accuse us to have sin, the Holy Spirit guarantees our salvation, saying, “I’ll be your guarantee. You are God’s children for sure. You have no sin.” God planned to make us righteous, and He fulfilled this through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This is the work that God did on the sixth day of creation.

God told us, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” How can we be fruitful and multiply? We can multiply only if we marry Jesus Christ.

God told us, “Fill the earth.” Do human beings now fill the earth? Yes, considering that the world population now exceeds 6 billion, isn’t it rather obvious that the earth is now filled with mankind? Did God’s Word go unfulfilled? No, it came to pass according to God’s Word.

God also said, “Have dominion over every living thing.” Don’t human beings have dominion over all living creatures? No matter how large a beast might be, it’s still dominated by mankind. There is no beast that can overcome mankind. A beast may overcome human beings momentarily with its brute strength, but no beast can ever fully overcome mankind, who is wise and knows how to use tools. There is no beast that is smarter than mankind. That is why God said that He made us according to His image.

All that is on this earth is a shadow of Heaven. Having made us, God told us to reign over His creation. He will also make us reign over the Kingdom of Heaven, to enjoy this majestic, beautiful, and everlasting domain, so magnificent that it’s beyond description. Through Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, God made human beings according to His image and took them in as His own children, and He will fill the Kingdom of Heaven with these children to enjoy its everything. This is God’s plan. It’s His everlasting, eternal plan. That is why Jesus Christ said, “I am now going to the Kingdom of the Father, but I go there to prepare a place for you, and I will come again” (John 14:1-3). He said so promising to live with us.

It is to enable us to enjoy the blessing of everlasting life in the Kingdom of Heaven that God made us be born and has saved us. So, to believe in Jesus Christ is to receive tremendous blessings.

Who would ever plan to save us, sacrifice Himself to deliver us, forsake the throne of glory and save us through His water and blood, and give us the same glory and authority as His own? What god or creature would ever do this? Only God did this because He loved us. That is why we are so happy to have received the remission of our sins. No one is as happy as those who have received the remission of their sins. Having stored all the heavenly treasures for us, God is now waiting for us. It is to give us all the treasures of Heaven, its entire Kingdom, that God made us be born on this earth. And through Jesus Christ, He has made us His children.

To believe in Jesus Christ is to be blessed. As long as we live in this world, there will be different seasons for us, spring and summer, fall and winter. However, God has blessed us in all aspects of our lives. We have already received heavenly blessings. God has given us all the spiritual blessings of Heaven that are beyond description. You have all received them. All those who now believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit have already received wonderful blessings.

In the Kingdom of God, there is no difference of sex. We the children of God, both men and women, will reign forever. We will remain God’s children for eternity. We will lord over even angels. Angels will say to us, “Welcome, master,” and we will say to them, “Take me up and let’s go for a ride.” We have received such blessings.

Furthermore, God has called us as His witnesses. We are the witnesses of the gospel called by God to receive everlasting blessings, and to do God’s precious work on this earth.

We believe in the righteousness of God and we give our thanks to Him. When God made us, He made us for the purpose of turning us into His own children. Had God made us merely as ordinary creatures and just ended there, then we would have amounted to nothing. God has a great plan for us, He does great things, He has entrusted us with everything, and He has given us the authority and right to rule over everything. He has given them to us through Jesus, and through the Church. That God has given us these blessings through the Church means that it is through Jesus and the servants of God who believe in Jesus that God is dispensing every spiritual blessing of Heaven to His believers.

The Apostle Paul described us “As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things” (2 Corinthians 6:9-10).

We are such people. We may seem to have nothing, but we are magnificent. Do not be saddened even if the affairs of the world make you suffer. You are all living a life that is more than worthwhile. There is no one else on this planet who has received the remission of sin but only we. This wonderful blessing came to us not because of our own merit, but all because of Jesus Christ.

Because we believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and because we are spreading this gospel, it is we who have been saved, it is we who are loved by God, and it is we who are His precious servants. None other than we ourselves are God’s cherished people.

I give all my thanks to the Triune God who has saved us from our sins.

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