This morning I had quite a refreshing experience.
I wandered into the little library room here
of this church and just browsed amongst one
or two of the books.
I caught a glance of this particular one.
It was called The Divine Unfolding.
I hadn't seen it before, picked it up,
and it was obviously donated by a certain
gentleman who had given a number of copies
away as Christmas presents.
It rather fascinated me when I opened the
front page because this was the explanation that
he gave.
He said, Dear friend, I've heard many people
give as an excuse for not reading the
Bible that they did not understand the basic
underlying principles upon which the story is sounding.
Well, that was an echo of our morning
meeting.
That fascinated me rather a wee bit.
He said, I myself have had some thought
about this not a few times but after
reading this unfolding have had a very much
clearer understanding of the whole plan and I
feel that what has been so great a
help to me will also be a real
help to you.
So I thought that would be a little
bit interesting so I just glanced at the
foreword.
And if I may take the liberty of
doing so I'd just like to read to
you a few paragraphs from this foreword.
This is a book that was written, from
what I can understand, in 1938.
The carnal mind is enmity against God for
it is not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be.
Sadly enough, the carnal mind frequently remains after
there has been an implantation of the divine
life in the individual.
Just as there was widespread yearning on the
part of Israel for the things of Egypt
after the Red Sea experience.
The very people of God's earthly testimony failed
miserably to comprehend His purposes in their redemption
or to enter into His thoughtfulness.
Of Caleb alone was it recorded and of
him thrice repeated that he wholly followed the
law.
He and Joshua were a small minority but
as is always true in spiritual matters were
entirely right and the majority entirely wrong.
The more we are enabled by the Holy
Spirit to put off the old man with
his deeds and to be transformed by having
our minds renewed the more we are convinced
that God's thoughts and man's thoughts are not
simply divergent but diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive.
And we gradually come to the true realization
that the feverish activity that we had deemed
extremely pious was animated by unhallowed motives and
purposes and was actually inimitable to and destructive
of the good and acceptable and perfect will
of God.
When we have permitted the Holy Spirit to
perform the operation of crucifixion upon us by
release of the same power by which He
offered the Lord Jesus Christ without spot to
God we discover that what we had previously
thought was real for the Lord was nothing
more than partisan fervor for some outward organization
and what we had thought was our Christ
-like forbearance was nothing more than a course
of the least resistance and a craven betrayal
of the interests of the faith.
Having been raised to newness of life by
the Holy Spirit according to the working of
His mighty power which He wrought in Christ
when He raised Him from the dead we
know that our scale of values was distorted
by human and temporal considerations.
We had been occupied with the by-products
of Christianity lofty and laudatory things in themselves
earthly means to spiritual ends theoretically intended to
demonstrate the love and compassion of Christ.
We had defended certain things as necessary to
broaden one's vision, enhance the personality by contributing
to a store of culture or we had
argued that the exquisite refinement of a certain
individual must betoken a latent spirituality or we
had condoned a certain state of mind or
a given course of conduct as not so
bad because associated with someone bound to us
by love or kinship.
Again, says the Spirit, these also are vanity.
High things they are that exalt themselves against
the knowledge of God that must be cast
down in order that our thoughts may come
into full captivity to the obedience of Christ.
Masquerading as Christ glorifiers they are in reality
thieves of His glory traitors to self-exaltation
the praise of men, the pride of life.
To enter into the secret place of the
Most High there must be desolate exercise of
the will and complete surrender to the Holy
Spirit working through the oracles of God a
strict orientation to the divine revelation.
It is necessary to be totally divested of
human predilections and evaluations and to be prepared
to take the bankrupt law on all that
pertains to nature.
When the Holy Spirit has brought us down
down, down to the place where we are
willing to say with the Apostle, let God
be true but every man a liar then
the mind of Christ Jesus who humbled himself
from the pinnacle of the heavenless to the
depths of the cross will begin to be
in.
Well I don't know this gentleman but he
talks sense and I was happy to meet
him while you were having your discussion and
that was a refreshing experience because you see
there is only one divine principle and it
doesn't matter who finds it it will always
be the same.
Christianity not a pattern of behavior not a
dogma but a principle of life.
And this is the principle that today we
are seeking to discover in all the profundity
of it and the simplicity of it and
the wonder of it.
A new creature in Christ Jesus one through
whom there is the spontaneous expression of the
divine life as God once more is allowed
to be God in man the origin of
his own image the cause of his own
effect.
Not my response to the popular challenge be
a man for God but rather my willingness
at last to let God be God in
man.
You see we are not to try to
be a man on God's behalf but just
allow God to be himself making us the
kind of man he intended us to be
and for which we were created.
A new creature is what God is at
in redemption the restoration of man to his
true humanity.
For this afternoon's study we'll commence in the
second epistle to the Corinthians in the fifth
chapter 2 Corinthians and chapter 5 and
we'll glance for a moment at a verse
that will be very familiar to you you'll
find it the 17th verse of the fifth
chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians
Therefore if any man be in Christ he
is a new creature all things are passed
away because behold all things are become new.
There's a categorical statement of fact it isn't
that maybe he will eventually be a new
creature if any man be in Christ he
is a new creature but I want you
to notice that this categorical statement of fact
is the logical reasonable conclusion of a specific
argument through which the apostle has been directing
his readers for the 17th verse begins with
the word therefore and as somebody has once
said if ever you find therefore in the
bible you should ask what the therefore is
therefore wherefore the therefore if it says therefore
it means that there must be a logical
sequence of arguments that bring you relentlessly to
this particular conclusion if any man be in
Christ he is a new creation and this
is the only reasonable conclusion to which you
can come concerning a man who is in
Christ so we need to discover what it
is to be in Christ and the best
way maybe we can discover what it is
to be in Christ is first to discover
what it means not to be in Christ
if a man is not in Christ in
what condition is he you claim this afternoon
to be a Christian there is therefore now
no condemnation to them who are in Christ
Jesus and you claim this afternoon to be
free from condemnation because you are in Christ
tell me this before you were in Christ
where were you what was your condition how
does the bible describe your condition before you
were in Christ well there's only one possible
alternative to being in Christ and that is
given to us in the first epistle of
Paul to the Corinthians you'll find it in
the 15th chapter and commencing with the 20th
verse 1 Corinthians chapter 15 now is Christ
risen from the dead and become the first
fruits of them that slept for since by
man came death by man came also the
resurrection of the dead for verse 22 as
in Adam all die even so putting the
correct word order all in Christ shall be
made alive and there the two possibilities set
diametrically opposed to each other in the same
verse if a man is not in Christ
he is still in Adam as in Adam
all die so all in Christ shall be
made alive there's no exception to that first
rule as in Adam all die for Romans
chapter 5 and verse 12 tells us this
that as by one man this first man
by whom came death as by one man
sin came into the world and death by
sin so death passed upon all men the
first thing you know about a man who
is not in Christ is that he is
in Adam and the first thing that you
know about a man who is in Adam
is that he is dead not physically dead
but spiritually dead because by this one man
death came into the world what happened when
by this first man Adam death came into
the world this death that has passed upon
all men in which condition you in common
with every other fallen member of a fallen
race of a fallen Adam was born into
this world and that we may more clearly
understand what happened when through the one man
Adam death came into the world we need
to understand how God made us and I'm
going to ask the forbearance of some for
whom perhaps this is very elementary but for
others it may be helpful and for all
of us it's essential we saw in the
closing moments of our morning session from the
last chapter of the first epistles of the
Thessalonians that Paul's concern for these new converts
that the God of peace might sanctify them
wholly spirit and soul and body the total
man in his tri-entity for man is
made up of three parts the most tangible
part with which we are the more familiar
of course is our bodies we look at
it every morning in the mirror sometimes we
like it and sometimes we don't the less
tangible part of our being but the more
understandable may be is the soul folk have
a vague idea they've got a soul they're
not quite sure how to define it but
they know that they go out to business
to keep body and soul together because the
moment the soul gets detached from the body
folk are likely to come along and bury
the body so they try to keep body
and soul together but the Bible also speaks
of a third part of man which is
called the human spirit which cannot be detached
from the human soul but must never be
confused for the human soul and we need
to understand just a wee bit what this
involves if we are to understand what happened
when Adam fell into sin and until we
have understood what happened when Adam fell into
sin we shall never begin to understand what
happens when a man steps out of Adam
into Christ and is made alive in Christ
now you and I possess a body in
common with every other form of created life
in common with the vegetable kingdom, in common
with the animal kingdom as men we possess
this body which the Bible describes in the
second epistle to the Corinthians in chapter 5
as our earthly house and we recognize the
different varieties of species in the vegetable and
animal and human kingdom by the shape of
the house in which each lives you recognize
if you were looking through the window a
tree for a tree as opposed to a
cat you know it's a tree by the
shape of its body, it's got a tree
body and if a boy is climbing it,
you know it isn't one tree climbing another
tree, it's a boy because he's got a
boy body and if a dog ran by,
you'd know he had a dog's body and
so each is recognized by its specific house
in which it lives but the fact that
God has given to you and to me
a body doesn't in itself make us men
that would only make us possibly a cabbage
there's an essential difference between the animal kingdom
and the vegetable kingdom and the basic essential
difference is that God has vested in the
animal kingdom a capacity to behave that is
not vested in the vegetable kingdom in other
words, a tree doesn't get aggravated it doesn't
get angry, it doesn't get afraid it doesn't
behave it has no mental capacity, it has
no emotional capacity and it has no volitional
capacity but all forms of animal life within
the animal kingdom have a capacity to behave
and an animal does not need God to
behave any more than you and I need
God to behave the fact that you and
I may know God does not determine whether
we can behave it will merely simply determine
how we behave the behavior mechanism which is
called the soul which is the seat of
all true behavior whether or not it is
matched by any physical action is the soul
you behave first and foremost within your soul
you may or you may not match it
by physical action the body is simply that
part of you that communicates to the outside
world externally what is already going on inside,
internally or it may deliberately camouflage externally what
is going on internally now in the animal
kingdom God built into every individual species of
the animal kingdom a certain broad pattern of
behavior within which that particular individual animal of
the animal kingdom of that particular species will
behave so that you know when to go
hunting they have migratory patterns mating seasons feeding
habits when I was in central Africa I
was fascinated by the great mountainous ant heaps
created by tiny little insects not half an
inch long and yet each one a most
complicated economy under the supreme direction of the
queen ant who directed all the activities of
the individual ants if the queen ant died,
the community died because it ceased to have
any coordination and yet although each of the
individual ants was acting as an individual in
himself there was a total entity of behavior
there were those ants whose pastime it was
to chew the soil and produce a kind
of cement that was used by the pasturing
squad who either built extensions to the dwelling
house or repaired such parts of it as
might have been damaged there were other ants
who spent all their time chewing vegetables and
they produced a kind of compost which they
placed on the ground and that was the
bed upon which little mushrooms were grown that
was for breakfast other ants, they'd go down
and find water and other ants come and
collect the water and bring it up each
had their own particular sphere of activity you
know as well as I do that this
is courtesy of Beehive one of the most
fascinating films, if you'd like to see it
produced recently by the Saxon Film Society is
The City of Bees magnificently demonstrating the principle
you've got one set of bees who stand
on one side of the ants and they
flap their wings in one direction the other
standing on the other side face round about
and they flap their wings in the other
direction so that no matter how the temperature
may fluctuate outside the temperature within the beehive
remains constant within a fraction of a degree
air conditioning other bees go out as scouts
and they discover where the food supplies may
be found and they come back and by
a most fascinating dance give exact details as
to how far the worker bees have to
fly how much they have to lay off
the wind how much fuel they should take
with them to get there and back in
terms of their own personal consumption the quality
of the food they're going to find when
they get there is all conveyed by the
scout bees to the worker bees by the
way they dance and the direction in which
they dance and off they go and back
they come other bees, it's their duty as
most bees to feed the little eggs in
the cell but all one glorious entity coordinated
in its total activity forty to eighty thousand
bees in every community and yet you couldn't
say that each bee was acting out of
a sense of moral responsibility they weren't though
each acts individually it all takes place within
the common boundary of one particular general pattern
of behavior that God, so to speak, has
built into each one individually by what one
may describe as an instinctive interlock what would
happen if this instinctive interlock were shattered as
between each individual bee and its behavior patterns
so that every bee suddenly became bee egocentric
forty thousand bee-sensic bees can you imagine
what would happen?
so that those that had been keeping the
temperature inside the beehive constant suddenly down-winged
and they look at each other fiercely and
say why should we stand here flapping all
day long?
they can flap their own house and the
worker bees come back and they have a
suddenly they have a little committee meeting, a
union meeting and say why should we slaver?
and the nurse bees, they look at those
little eggs and say those little suckers, they
can feed themselves what do you think would
happen to a beehive like that?
it would disintegrate into chaos and it would
perish now every form of animal life is
controlled in its individual behavior patterns within the
broad boundaries of that instinctive mechanism that God
has built into it man was the only
animal for whom God didn't build this instinctive
mechanism into it because man physiologically, anatomically an
animal wasn't created simply to behave like an
animal we discovered this morning already for what
purpose God created man he created man to
be in his own image he created man
to be God-like but we discovered also
that man inherently in himself doesn't have the
capacity to be God-like God-likeness does
not stem from his own inherent capacity to
imitate God but from God's capacity to reproduce
himself in man what alternative provision did God
give to man to replace what the instinctive
mechanism furnishes to every other form of animal
life God gave to man what he didn't
give to any other form of animal life
it's called in the Bible the human spirit
the human spirit is that unique capacity that
God has built into you and to me
that enables us to receive nothing less than
God himself that's why when I used the
illustration of the lamps this morning in the
first session I was being entirely biblical because
you'll discover in the 20th chapter the book
of Proverbs in the 27th verse that it
says this the spirit of man, the human
spirit is the lamp of God God's lamp
that capacity which God has built into man
that enables God himself to indwell a man
in his humanity and be in man the
origin so that the Holy Spirit of truth
may so control man's mind may so control
man's affections that under the influence of a
God-caught mind and God-controlled emotions his
will will be used by God himself because
ultimately it's the one who controls your mind
and who controls your emotions who controls your
will I may look at my watch and
I may see that it is 20 minutes
to 2 and I might say to myself
my plane leaves at half past 2 it'll
take me at least 15 minutes to drive
to the airport I need quarter of an
hour when I get there it's time I
went and so I make my way to
the airport and when I get there I
discover that my watch is half an hour
slow what's happened to the plane?
it's gone was I insincere in the conclusion
which I drew?
no, I was just sincerely wrong on the
basis of false information because my watch was
lying and if I dislike the friendship that
exists between you and somebody else I might,
if I was wicked enough seek to destroy
it by whispering all kinds of malicious evil
lies in your ear about that person and
if you're foolish enough to believe the lies
that I tell about them then your own
emotional attitude will change towards them quite sincerely
and quite legitimately because if they're that kind
of person then it would merit that type
of attitude but everything I told you was
a lie so you see, if you are
to draw right conclusions you need truth if
you are to adopt right attitudes you need
truth and God created man in such a
way that the Holy Spirit of Truth the
third co-equal member of the Trinity in
co-equality with the Father and the Son
might come and indwell the human spirit and
when God first created man it was in
this way that He, by the Holy Spirit
indwelling the human spirit might so instruct the
mind of man exclusively might so control the
affections of man exclusively that the will of
man might be exercised exclusively under the influence
of a God-taught mind and God-controlled
emotions given that man understands the basic principles
of his own humanity and he knows that
he can only function as God intended God
-man to function in declaring the nature of
God by his total dependence upon God to
listen to all that God has to say
and because he loves God out of his
love to God he wants to be what
God created him to be then his love
to God will demand dependence on God and
obedience to God all right then look at
Adam in his innocency he understands the principles
of his own humanity God has made it
abundantly clear to him that he will only
function and fulfill the purpose of his creation
as he not only enjoys the indwelling presence
of the God who made him but lives
in total, utter abandonment to his will he
never exercises his will to do anything to
say anything, to adopt any attitude or draw
any conclusion other than under the exclusive influence
of God the Holy Spirit and his instructions
watch him behave who do you see behaving?
God who's the origin of the image?
God that was man in his innocency and
when I say man in his innocency all
I mean is that that was man in
his normality that was nothing less nor more
than man body, yes the means of communicating
externally a soul, yes a mind, emotion, will
that capacity to behave which behavior could be
communicated in terms of physical behavior and within
the human soul, the spirit inhabited by the
Holy Spirit in supreme control declaring the very
nature of God what is the demand of
man in his normality?
this dual relationship of love toward God giving
expression in terms of utter dependence on and
obedience to God and then Satan came along
and perpetrated in man the same attitude that
he had already adopted towards God one of
arrogant, pig-headed, proud, stubborn independence for that's
what happened when Satan fell into sin that's
the fall of Satan, the fall of Lucifer
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,
son of the morning?
How art thou cut down to the ground
which did weaken the nations?
Thou hast said in thine heart, I will
ascend into heaven I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God I will sit
upon the mount of the congregation in the
sides of the north I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds I will be
like the Most High I will be like
God without God yet thou shalt be brought
down to hell to the side of the
pit it was this attitude that Satan introduced
into human experience he came along and said
you can be like God without God you
can lose God and lose nothing you can
be independent you can be as stubbornly self
-sufficient as I am and get away with
it has God said you'll die on the
day that you repudiate His dominion over your
life?
rough rubbish, stuff of nonsense all you've got
to do is to have courage enough to
kick over the traces and carve your own
destiny and be your own master it's as
though I could argue with that lamp and
say lamp, did somebody persuade you one day
that you needed electricity to produce light?
nonsense fancy believing that stuff a great big
lamp like you you ought to be ashamed
of yourself now pull yourself together throw your
own big chest out and be a lamp
go on, be a lamp and you'll prove
you'll prove the glorious emancipation of being independent
go on who told you that you needed
electricity?
cut out, cut out go on, be on
your own, stand on your own two feet
supposing the lamp could listen to me supposing
the lamp could believe me supposing the lamp
could act on what I said and obey
the lie and do it what would happen
to the lamp?
it would go out it would be plunged
into abysmal darkness it would still be a
lamp it would still hang there beautifully from
the ceiling beautifully useless that's what happened in
the day that Adam fell into sin he
repudiated the basic principles of his humanity he
denied God and God switched him out John's
Gospel chapter 1 verse 4 says this in
him the word who was in the beginning
with God and was God and by whom
all things were made the creative deity in
him was light this light was the light
of men and in the day that light
went out the light went out that's when
it all began but something worse happened not
only did Adam profit life which left as
its residue death for death does not destroy
life death is simply all that's left when
there is no life darkness does not destroy
light darkness is simply all that's left when
there is no light take away the light
and take away the light and all you've
got left is death and darkness that wasn't
all that happened for man destitute of that
divine content which alone makes man man was
invaded by the devil himself and there was
introduced within the human soul a principle that
is called in the New Testament the flesh
nothing to do with your body nothing to
do in itself with your physical members it
is a principle of satanic origin it has
its roots in the devil it's the other
self of Satan as the Holy Spirit as
the other self of God the flesh so
that instead of the mind acting under the
gracious influence of God the Holy Spirit instead
of the emotions being exercised alone exclusively under
the gracious influences of God the Holy Spirit
instead of the will being activated to bring
the body into action to do things under
the gracious influence of God the Holy Spirit
establishing the divine sovereignty invaded by
Satan himself through the flesh that upstituted polluting
the mind, polluting the affections and twisting the
will producing the self that God hates the
self that is an expression not of deity
but of the devil himself for he that
committed sin is of the devil as every
true genuine act of righteousness is an act
of God in and through man so every
act of sin is an act of the
devil himself in and through man don't kid
yourself every time you commit sin you are
simply handing your body over to be the
devil's tool you are yielding your members to
him, sin, for unrighteousness every manifestation of evil
is a prostitution of man's humanity by the
devil himself so don't think that you can
pretend to be a Christian while your mind
is still the devil's workshop if we say
that we have fellowship with him and walk
in darkness you lie, you're just a liar
and you do not the truth you can
convince everybody except God so the second thing
you discover about a man who is in
Adam first that he is spiritually dead destitute
of God, utterly bankrupt empty of anything that
could ever enable him to function as God
intended man to function he's dead and secondly
he's dominated by the flesh dead spiritually and
dominated by the flesh that's the natural man
the animal man 1 Corinthians 2.14 that's
why in your French Bible it's translated l
'homme animale, the animal man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them he
is spiritually dead and he's dominated by the
flesh Ephesians chapter 2 and you
happy quickens right into the Christians in Ephesus
you happy raised from the dead you who
were in Adam who were dead in trespasses
and sins wherein in time passed, verse 2
of the second chapter of the epistle to
the Ephesians wherein in time passed you walked
according to the cross of this world according
to the pimps of the power of the
air the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience among whom also we all
had our behaviour or conversation in times past
in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the
desires of the flesh and of the mind
and were by nature the children of God
that's why the Lord Jesus Christ Mark's Gospel,
chapter 7, verse 20 Mark 7, verse 20
said that which cometh out of the man,
that defileth the man for from within, out
of the heart of men where this same
principle of satanic origin the flesh is deeply
entrenched within the inner counsels of the human
personality polluting the mind, prostituting the affections and
dominating the will that which cometh out of
the man, that defileth the man from within,
out of the heart of men pristine evil
thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders thefts, covetousness, wickedness,
deceit lasciviousness, an evil eye blasphemy, pride, foolishness
all these evil things come from within they're
the jerky water that comes from a jerky
well they defile the man described in the
fifth chapter of the epistle to the Galatians
as the works, the inevitable consequences of the
flesh in action, in terms of human personality
a usurper at the control, at the center
and seat of human behavior verse 19 of
Galatians, chapter 5 now the works of the
flesh are manifest which are these, adultery, fornication
uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations
wrath, strife, sedition, heresies endings, murders, drunkenness, revelings
and such like they are the natural, inevitable
consequences of the flesh and that is why,
as I reminded you this morning from the
second epistle of Paul to Timothy though you
may have a form of godliness though you
may even give credence to the evangelical dogmas
know all the answers by heart and be
able to recite passages of scripture from Genesis
to the Revelation if something hasn't happened that
has replaced this principle called the flesh with
the divine principle imparted by the Holy Spirit
though you may have a form of godliness
it will deny the power thereof and you
will be numbered amongst those who are lovers
of their own selves egoistic, self-centered pride,
covetous, boaster blasphemous, disobedient, apparent and you don't
have to go outside a Christian family to
find that unthankful, ungrateful snatching, grabbing, gimme, gimme
that's the attitude unholy without natural affection, cruise
breaker never keeping their word promising to do
things they have absolutely no intention of doing
false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that
are good traitors, heavy, high-minded, lovers of
pleasures more than lovers of God let's have
the morning service early so that we can
play ball on Sunday afternoon let's cut out
our evening service I want to go fishing
the flesh the
intruded in the absence of God to take
over that's the second thing you know about
a man in Adam he's spiritually destitute he's
empty of God and his behavior mechanism not
even governed by those animal instincts that keep
a dog pure and forbid
divorce even in the animal kingdom not
even protected by these animal instincts destitute of
God prostituted by the devil dominated by the
flesh that's the man in Adam and if
nothing happens to change it John's Gospel chapter
eight said the Lord Jesus verse
twenty-three John eight, twenty-three and he
said unto them ye are from beneath I
am from above you are of this worth
I am not of this worth I said
therefore unto you that you shall die in
your sin for if you believe not that
I am he you shall die in your
sin you will die physically as you were
born physically spiritually dead still destitute of
God and yet with that quality of soul
that God gave you with an inbuilt human
spirit that unlike the souls of the animal
kingdom will survive the disintegration of your body
and remain eternally morally answerable to God your
maker that's the man in Adam it is
out of this condition that Christ redeems you
turn back to 1 Corinthians fifteen 1 Corinthians
fifteen verse twenty-one as by one man
came death by man, one man also came
the resurrection of the dead as in Adam
all die all dead born dead and to
die dead unless something happens this is the
good news all in Christ shall be made
alive don't make the mistake of relegating that
to some future distant event when Jesus Christ
comes back again this refers to normal spiritual
regeneration that we describe as new birth all
in Christ are made alive Jesus Christ does
not save you from future death when the
Lord Jesus Christ redeems your soul he saves
you out of death and restores you to
life that's why Paul writing to the Christians
in Ephesus says to them you hath he
quickened he doesn't say just you hath he
quickened in the first verse of that second
chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians he
says and you hath he quickened and you
who and you Christ and you the eyes
of your understanding being enlightened verse 18 of
Ephesians chapter 1 the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened that you may know what is
the hope of his calling for the riches
of the glory of his inheritance in the
saints not your inheritance in him one day
I get to heaven but his inheritance in
the saints his deity filling now on earth
with your two feet on the ground on
the way to heaven his deity filling your
humanity that's his inheritance in the saints the
right to be God again in man the
right in you once more to be the
origin of his own image and the cause
of his own effect the right in you
as his inheritance to make you that you
will become visible in a visible creation that's
his inheritance and I want to tell you
this that his inheritance in you is a
million times more important than your inheritance in
him and yet there are some of you
who grasp at the gospel as though God
was only concerned about getting oh no the
whole purpose and redemption was to restore you
to your true humanity to make humanity inhabited
by God 24 hours in every day the
eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you
may know what is the hope of his
calling and what the riches of the glory
of his inheritance in the saints verse 19
of chapter 1 and what is the exceeding
greatness of his power to usward who believe
according to the working of his mighty power
which he God wrought in Christ when he
God raised him Christ happy quick that as
the father raised the Lord Jesus from the
dead so says Paul to the Ephesian Christians
he's raised you from it God verse 4
of chapter 2 in the epistle to the
Ephesians God who is rich in mercy for
his great love wherewith he loved us even
when we were past tense dead in sins
he has present tense quickened us together with
Christ by grace you're saved that's what it
means to be saved to be raised from
the dead to have life restored to the
lifeless you see death doesn't destroy life but
life destroys death and the death of the
Lord Jesus Christ that reconciles you as a
guilty sinner to a holy God was designed
in God's eternal economy to kill death dead
by making it possible for a holy God
to restore life to you the lifeless because
your sins have been forgiven because he died
for you historically 1900 years ago and now
being redeemed and reconciled to God by the
death of his son you are moment by
moment by moment by moment to be saved
by his life as one who has been
raised from the dead to live for every
step you take and for every breath you
breathe and to face every situation as it
dawns upon you in all the mighty adequacy
of the indwelling Christ who fills you and
floods you with himself that's the Christian life
and it's all possible in Christ in Christ
in the one man are you still in
1 Corinthians 15?
have you got lost?
1 Corinthians 15 in Adam all dead in
Adam dominated by the flesh in Adam to
die on your sins in Christ made alive
raised from the dead re-inhabited by God
for God for the Lord Jesus in his
sinlessness as man was made sin for you
and for me and all the holy wrath
of a holy God was poured out in
judgment upon his spotless head as God made
him to be sin for us who knew
no sin that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him I want you
to realize that when the Lord Jesus Christ
came to this world on that first Christmas
day 1900 years ago he didn't come into
this world to be fallen man he came
into this world uninhabited by sin uninhabited only
by God miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit
he didn't come into this world to behave
as regenerate man when the Lord Jesus as
creator deliberately of his own pre-volition and
willingly came into this world to be man
he came to be man as he as
God had created man to be man in
his normality and for 33 years on earth
the Lord Jesus Christ though never left and
God always behaved as man in his utter
dependence upon the Father no man has seen
God at any time, maybe you've never thought
of this but if Jesus Christ had come
into this world both to be and behave
as God nobody would ever have seen him
because you see if it takes God to
be a man it takes a man to
make God invisible that's why John 1.18
says no man has seen God at any
time the only begotten of the Father in
the bosom of the Father he hath declared
it and when Jesus Christ came into this
world he came to be the second man
the only other man who has ever been
in this world who was man as God
intended man to be there have only been
two men that ever lived in this world
who are worthy of the name of man
the first was Adam and he lost it
because he believed the devil's lie and died
by faith repudiated the basic principle of his
own humanity and was plunged into the abysmal
chaos of darkness and death and the only
other man who walked this earth was Jesus
Christ that's why in the same epistle 1
Corinthians chapter 15 we are told so it
is written verse 45 the first man Adam
was made a living soul he died the
last, second Adam was made one who raises
the dead, a quickening spirit verse 47 the
first man is of the earth earth is
Adam the second man and the only other
that ever walked this earth is the Lord
from heaven you are from beneath said the
Lord Jesus I am from above the Lord
from heaven and the first thing that happens
when you come as a self-confessed sinner
in humble repentance toward God and put your
trust in the Lord Jesus is that your
sins are forgiven, thank God for that, you
can know it and you can rejoice in
the glorious fact of it but don't be
swept off your feet by it don't mistake
it as the means for the end it's
the means to the end you can know
that your sins are forgiven and in the
moment that the Father receives you as an
acquitted sinner this glorious transaction enacted through the
atoning vicarious death of Christ is sealed by
the restoration to you of the Holy Spirit
who is the earnest by his presence in
you that you have been redeemed and because
redeemed therefore raised from the dead to life
by the presence of life that abolishes death
and kills it dead that's what happened when
you were converted if you'd been genuinely converted
God acquitted you for Jesus' sake he recorded
your name in the Lamb's book of life
as one whose sins he would remember no
more for his dear sake who died for
you that abolishes death and kills it dead
that's what happened when you were converted if
you'd been genuinely converted God acquitted you for
Jesus' sake he recorded your name in the
Lamb's book of life as one whose sins
he would remember no more for his dear
sake who died for you and instantly God
restored life and life he switched yours Christ
in the person of his other self came
to inhabit your humanity and your body became
the temple of the living God you were
added to that habitation of God through his
spirit which is called on us his body
the church of which Jesus Christ alone is
the head and every redeemed sinner a living
pulsating member in particular so the first thing
you know about a man in Christ is
what?
he's alive the first thing you know about
a man in Adam is that he's dead
and the first thing you know about a
man who's in Christ is that he's alive
how is he alive?
because God the Holy Spirit has come to
indwell his human spirit and re-impart to
him the very resurrection life of Jesus Christ
himself to what end?
the Bible tells us that the righteousness demanded
by the law might be fulfilled in us
who now walk no longer after the flesh
dominated by the flesh but walk now after
the spirit dominated by the Holy Spirit in
other words the coming of God the Holy
Spirit into the human spirit is to the
end that he the Holy Spirit might re
-invade your soul and re-capture your mind
for Jesus Christ and re-capture your emotions
for Jesus Christ and therefore re-capture your
will for Jesus Christ and whoever re-captures
your will captures your behavior and your total
humanity once more and you make him the
invisible visible as once Christ as man made
the Father invisible visible he that has seen
me has seen the Father so as you
go around the world it should be possible
for you to say if you've entered into
the purpose for which you have been redeemed
he that sees me sees Christ and if
you want to know the measure in which
you've entered into your redemption it's precisely just
the measure in which other people can see
Christ not your imitation of Christ not your
flowery language about Christ but in your most
unconscious moments Christ expressed because a man in
Christ is not only alive a man in
Christ walks after the Spirit and a man
in Christ lives in the power of his
endless life said Jesus, John 6 and 57
as the living Father hath sent me and
I live by the Father so he that
eateth me shall live by me in Adam
dead dominated by the flesh to die in
your sin in Christ alive dominated by the
Holy Spirit to live by him as he
once lived by the Father the Father dwelleth
in me, he doeth the works John 14,
10 Christ who lives in me he doeth
the works to me to live is and
that's normal Christianity