Though we have already spent long on this
matter, there is a further thing that may
help to make it clearer to us.
The scriptures declare that we are dead indeed,
but nowhere do they say that we are
dead in ourselves.
We shall look in vain to find death
within.
That is just the place where it is
not to be found.
We are dead not in ourselves, but in
Christ.
We were crucified with him because we were
in him.
We are familiar with the words of the
Lord Jesus, abide in me and I in
you.
Let us consider them for a moment.
First, they remind us once again that we
have never to struggle to get into Christ.
We are not told to get there, for
we are there.
But we are told to stay there where
we have been placed.
It was God's own act that put us
in Christ, and we are to abide in
him.
But further, this verse lays down for us
a divine principle, which is that God has
done the work in Christ, and not in
us as individuals.
The all-inclusive death and the all-inclusive
resurrection of God's Son were accomplished fully and
finally apart from us in the first place.
It is the history of Christ which is
to become the experience of the Christian.
And we have no spiritual experience apart from
him.
The scriptures tell us that we were crucified
with him, that we were quickened, raised, and
set by God in the heavenlies in him,
and that we are complete in him.
It is not just something that is still
to be affected in us, though it is
that of course, it is something that has
already been affected in association with him.
In the scriptures we find that no Christian
experience exists as such.
What God has done in his gracious purpose
is to include us in Christ.
In dealing with Christ, God has dealt with
the Christian.
In dealing with the head, he has dealt
with all the members.
It is altogether wrong for us to think
that we can experience anything of the spiritual
life in ourselves merely and apart from him.
God does not intend that we should acquire
something exclusively personal in our experience, and he
is not willing to effect anything like that
for you and me.
All the spiritual experience of the Christian is
already true in Christ.
It has already been experienced by Christ.
What we call our experience is only our
entering into his history and his experience.
It would be odd if one branch of
a vine tried to bear grapes with a
reddish skin, and another branch tried to bear
grapes with a green skin, and yet another
branch with a very dark purple skin, each
branch trying to produce something of its own
without reference to the vine.
It is impossible, unthinkable.
The character of the branches is determined by
the vine.
Yet certain Christians are seeking experiences as experiences.
They think of crucifixion as something, of resurrection
as something, of ascension as something, and they
never stop to think that the whole is
related to a person.
No.
Only as the Lord opens our eyes to
see the person do we have any true
experience.
Every true spiritual experience means that we have
discovered a certain fact in Christ and have
entered into that.
Anything that is not from him in this
way is an experience that is going to
evaporate very soon.
I have discovered that in Christ, then praise
the Lord it is mine.
I possess it Lord because it is in
thee.
Oh it is a great thing to know
the facts of Christ as the foundation for
our experience.
So God's basic principle in leading us on
experimentally is not to give us something.
It is not to bring us through something
and as a result to put something into
us which we can call our experience.
It is not that God effects something within
us so that we can say I died
with Christ last March, or I was raised
from the dead on January the 1st 1937,
or even last Wednesday I asked for a
definite experience and I have got it.
No.
That is not the way.
I do not seek experiences in themselves as
in this present year of grace.
Time must not be allowed to dominate my
thinking here.
The point is that God does not give
individuals individual experiences.
All that they have is only an entering
into what God has already done.
It is the realizing in time of eternal
things.
The history of Christ becomes our experience and
our spiritual history.
We do not have a separate history from
his.
The entire work regarding us is not done
in us here but in Christ.
He does no separate work in individuals apart
from what he has done there.
Even eternal life is not given to us
as individuals.
The life is in the Son and he
that hath the Son hath the life.
God has done all in his Son and
he has included us in him.
We are incorporated into Christ.
Now the point of all this is that
there is a very real practical value in
the standard of faith that says God has
put me in Christ and therefore all that
is true of him is true of me.
I will abide in him.
Satan is always trying to get us out,
to keep us out, to convince us that
we are out and by temptations, failures, suffering,
trial to make us feel acutely that we
are outside of Christ.
Our first thought is that if we were
in Christ we should not be in this
state and therefore judging by the feelings we
now have we must be out of him.
And so we begin to pray Lord put
me into Christ.
No!
God's injunction is to abide in Christ and
that is the way of deliverance.
But how is it so?
Because it opens the way for God to
take a hand in our lives and to
work the thing out in us.
It makes room for the operation of his
superior power, the power of resurrection.
So that the facts of Christ do progressively
become the facts of our daily experience and
where before sin reigned we make now the
joyful discovery that we are truly no longer
in bondage to sin.
As we stand steadfastly on the ground of
what Christ is we find that all that
is true of him is becoming experimentally true
in us.
If instead we come on to the ground
of what we are in ourselves we will
find that all that is true of the
old nature remains true of us.
If we get there in faith we have
everything.
If we return back here we find nothing.
So often we go to the wrong place
to find the death of self.
It is in Christ.
We have only to look within to find
we are very much alive to sin.
But when we look over there to the
Lord God sees to it that death works
here but that newness of life is ours
also.
We are alive unto God.
Abide in me and I in you.
This is a double sentence.
A command coupled with a promise.
That is to say there is an objective
and a subjective side to God's working.
And the subjective side depends upon the objective.
The I in you is the outcome of
our abiding in him.
We need to guard against being over anxious
about the subjective side of things and so
becoming turned in upon ourselves.
We need to dwell upon the objective.
Abide in me and to let God take
care of the subjective and this he has
undertaken to do.
So in our walk with the Lord our
attention must be fixed on Christ.
Abide in me and I in you is
the divine order.
Faith in the objective facts makes those facts
true subjectively.
As the apostle Paul puts it we all
beholding the glory of the Lord are transformed
into the same image.
The same principle holds good in a matter
of fruitfulness of life.
He that abideth in me and I in
him the same beareth much fruit.
We do not try to produce fruit or
concentrate upon the fruit produced.
Our business is to look away to him.
As we do so he undertakes to fulfill
his word in us.
How do we abide?
Of God are ye in Christ Jesus.
It was the work of God to put
you there and he has done it.
Now stay there.
Do not be moved back onto your own
ground.
Never look at yourself as though you were
not in Christ.
Look at Christ and see yourself in him.
Abide in him.
Rest in the fact that God has put
you in his Son and live in the
expectation that he will complete his work in
you.
It is for him to make good the
glorious promise that sin shall not have dominion
over you.
The kingdom of this world is not the
kingdom of God.
God had in his heart a world system,
a universe of his creating, which shall be
headed up in Christ his Son.
But Satan, working through man's flesh, has set
up instead a rival system known in scripture
as this world.
A system in which we are involved and
which he himself dominates.
He has in fact become the prince of
this world.
Thus in Satan's hands the first creation has
become the old creation and God's primary concern
is now no longer with that but with
the second and new creation.
He is bringing in a new creation, a
new kingdom and a new world and nothing
of the old creation, the old kingdom or
the old world, can be transferred to the
new.
It is a question now of these two
rival realms and of which realm we belong
to.
The apostle Paul of course leaves us in
no doubt as to which of these two
realms is now in fact ours.
He tells us that God in redemption delivered
us out of the power of darkness and
transformed us into the kingdom of the Son
of his love.
But in order to bring us into his
new kingdom God must do something new in
us.
He must make of us new creatures.
Unless we are created anew we can never
fit into the new realm.
That which is born of the flesh is
flesh and flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God.
Neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
However educated, however cultured, however improved it be,
flesh is still flesh.
Our fitness for the new kingdom is determined
by the creation to which we belong.
Do we belong to the old creation or
the new?
Are we born of the flesh or of
the spirit?
Our ultimate suitability for the new realm hinges
on the question of origin.
The question is not good or bad but
flesh or spirit.
That which is born of the flesh is
flesh and it will never be anything else.
That which is of the old creation can
never pass over into the new.
Once we really understand what God is seeking,
namely something altogether new for himself, then we
shall see clearly that we can never bring
any contribution from the old realm into that
new thing.
God wanted to have us for himself but
he could not bring us as we were
into that which he had purposed.
So he first did away with us by
the cross of Christ and then by resurrection
provided a new life for us.
If any man is in Christ he is
a new creature.
The old things are passed away, behold they
are become new.
Being now new creatures with a new nature
and a new set of faculties, we can
enter the new kingdom and the new world.
The cross was the means God used to
bring to an end the old things by
setting aside altogether our old man.
And the resurrection was the means he employed
to impart to us all that was necessary
for our life in that new world.
We were buried therefore with him through baptism
into death.
That like as Christ was raised from the
dead through the glory of the father, so
we also might walk in newness of life.
The greatest negative in the universe is the
cross, for with it God wiped out everything
that was not of himself.
The greatest positive in the universe is the
resurrection, for through it God brought into being
all he will have in the new sphere.
So the resurrection stands at the threshold of
the new creation.
It is a blessed thing to see that
the cross ends all that belongs to the
first regime and that the resurrection introduces all
that pertains to the second.
Everything that had its beginning before resurrection must
be wiped out.
Resurrection is God's new starting point.
We have now two worlds before us, the
old and the new.
In the old Satan has absolute dominion.
You may be a good man in the
old creation but as long as you belong
to the old you are under sentence of
death because nothing of the old can go
over to the new.
The cross is God's declaration that all that
is of the old creation must die.
Nothing of the first Adam can pass beyond
the cross.
It all ends there.
The sooner we see that the better, for
it is by the cross that God has
made a way of escape for us from
the old creation.
God gathered up in the person of his
son all that was of Adam and crucified
him.
So in him all that was of Adam
was done away.
Then God made as it were a proclamation
throughout the universe saying through the cross I
have set aside all that is not of
me.
You who belong to the old creation are
all included in that.
You too have been crucified with Christ.
None of us can escape that verdict.
This brings up the subject of baptism.
Are you ignorant that all we who were
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death?
We were buried therefore with him through baptism
into death.
What is the significance of these words?
Baptism in scripture is associated with salvation.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved.
We cannot speak scripturally of baptismal regeneration but
we may speak of baptismal salvation.
What is salvation?
It relates not to our sins nor to
the power of sin but to the cosmos
or world system.
We are involved in Satan's world system.
To be saved is to make our exit
from his world system unto God's.
In the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ
says Paul the world hath been crucified unto
me and I unto the world.
This is the figure developed by Peter when
he writes of the eight souls who were
saved through water.
Entering into the ark Noah and those with
him stepped by faith out of that old
corrupt world into a new one.
It was not so much that they were
personally not drowned but that they were out
of that corrupt system.
That is salvation.
Then Peter goes on which also after a
true likeness doth now save you even baptism.
In other words by that aspect of the
cross which is figured in baptism you are
delivered from the present evil world and by
your baptism in water you confirm this.
It is baptism into his death ending one
creation but it is also baptism into Christ
Jesus having in view a new one.
You go down into the water and your
world in figure goes down with you.
You come up in Christ but your world
is drowned.
Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt
be saved said Paul of Philippi and spake
the word of the Lord to the jailer
and his household and he was baptized he
and all his immediately.
In doing so he and those with him
testified before God his people and the spiritual
powers that they were indeed saved from a
world under judgment.
As a result we read they rejoiced greatly
having believed in God.
Thus it is clear that baptism is no
mere question of a cup of water not
even of a baptistry of water.
It is a tremendous thing relating as it
does both to the death and to the
resurrection of our Lord and having in view
two worlds.
Anyone who has worked in a pagan country
knows what tremendous issues are raised by baptism.
Peter goes on now to describe baptism in
the passage just quoted as the answer of
a good conscience toward God.
Now we cannot answer without being spoken to.
If God had said nothing we should have
no need to answer but he has spoken
he has spoken to us by the cross.
By it he has told of his judgment
of us of the world of the old
creation and of the old kingdom.
The cross is not only Christ's personally an
individual cross it is an all inclusive cross,
a corporate cross, a cross that includes you
and me.
God has put us all into his son
and crucified us in him.
In the last Adam he has wiped out
all that was of the first Adam.
Now what is my answer to God's verdict
on the old creation?
I answer by asking for baptism.
Why?
In Romans 6 verse 4 Paul explains that
baptism means burial.
We were buried therefore with him through baptism.
Baptism is of course connected with both death
and resurrection though in itself it is neither
death nor resurrection it is burial.
But who qualify for burial?
Only the dead.
So if I ask for baptism I proclaim
myself dead and fit only for the grave.
Alas some have been taught to look on
beans to death.
They try to die by getting themselves buried.
Let me emphatically say that unless our eyes
have been opened by God to see that
we have died in Christ and been buried
with him we have no right to be
baptized.
The reason we step down into the water
is that we have recognized that in God's
sight we have already died.
It is to this that we testify.
God's question is clear and simple.
Christ has died and I have included you
there.
Now what are you going to say to
that?
What is my answer?
Lord I believe you have done the crucifying.
I say yes to the death and to
the burial to which you have committed me.
He has consigned me to death and the
grave.
By my request for baptism I give public
assent to that fact.
There is an old world and a new
world and between the two there is a
tomb.
God has already crucified me but I was
consent to be consigned to the tomb.
My baptism confirms God's sentence passed upon me
in the cross of his son.
It affirms that I'm cut off from the
old world and belong now to the new.
So baptism is no small thing.
It means for me a definite conscious break
with the old way of life.
This is the meaning of Romans 6 verse
2.
We who died to sin how shall we
any longer live therein?
Paul says in effect if you would continue
in the old world why be baptized?
You should never have been baptized if you
meant to live on in the old realm.
When once we see this we clear the
ground for the new creation by our assent
to the burial of the old.
In Romans 6 verse 5 still writing to
those who were baptized Paul speaks of our
being united with him by the likeness of
his death.
For by baptism we acknowledge in a figure
that God has brought an intimate union between
ourselves and Christ in this matter of death
and resurrection.
What in fact does this union imply?
The real meaning behind baptism is that in
the cross we were baptized into the historic
death of Christ so that his death became
ours.
Our death and his became then so closely
identified that it is impossible to divide between
them.
It is to this historic baptism this God
-wrought union with him that we are sent
when we go down into the water.
Our public testimony in baptism today is our
admission that the death of Christ two thousand
years ago was an almighty all-inclusive death.
Mighty enough and all-inclusive enough to carry
away in it and bring to an end
everything in us that is not of God.
If we have become united with him by
the likeness of his death we shall be
also by the likeness of his resurrection.
Now with resurrection the figure is different because
something new is introduced.
I am baptized into his death but I
do not enter in quite the same way
into his resurrection for his resurrection enters into
me imparting to me a new life.
In the death of the Lord the emphasis
is solely upon I in Christ.
With the resurrection while the same thing is
true there is now a new emphasis upon
Christ in me.
How is it possible for Christ to communicate
his resurrection life to me?
How do I receive this new life?
Paul suggests I think a very good illustration
with these very same words united with him
for the word united may carry in the
Greek the sense of grafted and it gives
us a very beautiful picture of the life
of Christ which is imparted to us through
resurrection.
I do not know how it is done.
The wind bloweth where it listed and thou
hearest the voice thereof but knowest not whence
it cometh and whither it goeth.
So is everyone that is born of the
spirit.
We cannot tell how God has done his
work in us but it is done.
We can do nothing and need to do
nothing to bring it about for by the
resurrection God has already done it.
God has done everything.
There is only one fruitful life in the
world and that has been grafted into millions
of other lives.
We call this the new birth.
The new birth is the reception of a
life which I did not possess before.
It is not that my natural life has
been changed at all.
It is that another life, a life altogether
new, altogether divine has become my life.
God has cut off the old creation by
the cross of his son in order to
bring in a new creation in Christ by
resurrection.
He has shut the door to that old
kingdom of darkness and translated me into the
kingdom of his dear son.
My glorying is in the fact that it
has been done, that through the cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ that old world has
been crucified unto me and I unto the
world.
My baptism is my public testimony to that
fact.
By it, as my all witness, my confession
is made unto salvation.