in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.
Truth to Learn
We have free access to God anytime and anywhere.
Behind the Words
“Boldness” is translated from parrēsia. This is made up of pas, meaning “all” and a derivative of hrehō, meaning “to speak out.” Thus, this word refers to “freedom or boldness in speaking.” In the Greek text this word also has the definite article (the), so it refers to “the boldness to speak.”
The word “access” is from the Greek word prosagōgē, which is made up of pros, meaning “to or toward” and agō, which means “to bring.” We see, then, that prosagōgē literally means “to bring forth.” It is the picture of someone being brought forth into the presence of a king.
The Greek word that is translated “confidence” is an interesting word. It is pepoithēsis, which is a noun, but with the appearance of a perfect tense verb. That verb is peithō, meaning “to persuade.” The perfect tense expresses past completed action with an ongoing effect. In this case, it would be the effect of having been persuaded in the past, that is, a solid and confident faith.
Meaning Explained
Yesterday we noted that God has a plan that He devised before time began, and He has already accomplished that plan. He accomplished it at the cross where Jesus Christ, the sinless Lamb of God, offered up His sinless life to pay the ransom for our sins. In today’s verse we see some of the benefits we derive as a result of our faith in His death and resurrection.
Today’s verse starts off with “in whom.” It doesn’t take much effort to discover who the “whom” is talking about. The previous verse ended with “in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Now we learn that through our faith in Him, we have boldness and access. The implication, based on the context of the previous few verses, is that we have boldness and confident access to God the Father. But, why would we need boldness and confident access. First of all, as we saw in Behind the Words, the word translated “boldness” refers to boldness in speaking.
Throughout history it has been the case that no one was allowed to approach a king without first having been invited to do so. It is also true that one has to be extremely careful in what one says to a king so as not to anger him. The exception to this is the king’s closest family members, especially his children. That is precisely the picture that we have set before us here. As God’s adopted children through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, we have access to the King of Kings. We don’t have to wait to be invited and we don’t have to get permission. We have free access to Him anytime and anywhere. We also have the boldness we need to freely speak our mind to God. When we come to Him in prayer, we don’t have to use the proper thee’s and thou’s, and we don’t have to worry that what we say might anger Him (no matter how inappropriate what we have to say is). He sees us as His righteous children for whom He has perfect love, and we are always welcome in His presence.
Application
God wants you to come to Him and talk to Him about anything and everything in your life. He never sees you as a pest. In fact, He wants to talk with you right now.
In God's service, for His glory,
Copyright © 2015 Will Krause. All rights reserved