The Magnificent Savior of the World
So now, it remains only to root out
the sin
value of self-determination in
the human heart and replace it with the faith value of influential humility before God.
This is where our magnificent Christ must very visibly enter the redemptive
picture. He is the final, “Keystone”
element in God’s long unfolding “Redemptive
Blueprint.”
So, at this point, with some
increased magnification, let’s overview of the role of Christ. When we have grasped God’s unabated intention
for a sensitive and faith-expressive people, and when we have understood the
true nature of grace, and sin, and faith, then Christ becomes all the more magnificent in His role (or
perhaps better said, His dual role) as the one, true, and
perfect Savior of the world.
So, let’s look at the “Alpha and
Omega,” the “Beginning and the End,” the “Author and Finisher” of our
faith. As all of these descriptions which
are assigned to Him in the New Testament indicate, indeed, we are really
looking at one Christ in two distinct roles.
The Dying Christ: Our Reconciliation
Let’s begin by considering the
“Dying Christ.” He is the Christ we
celebrate first. It is His purpose to
satisfy God’s justice by dying for our sin, in our place. In doing so, He secures our forgiveness and
enables a renewed relationship with God the Father. In short, Christ’s purpose
as The Dying Christ is simply to initiate our reconciliation to God.
Imputed Righteousness
And, the sacrifice of the Dying
Christ not only brings forgiveness and reconciliation, but it also provides an initial
protection to the believer which the
Church commonly refers to as Imputed Righteousness. Paul describes this benefit in Romans, chapter
4. There, he says this, “Now to him who works, the wages are not
counted as grace but as debt. But to him
who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is
accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of
the man to whom God imputes
righteousness apart from works:
‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are
covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.’”
A Sidebar: Imputed
Righteousness:
Here, a brief sidebar may be needed
to explain this initial benefit which
springs simply from our faith in Christ. To begin, let’s just note two things which are
of primary importance regarding imputed righteousness.
1.
Imputed righteousness is based in the work of
Christ, not those of the believer.
At the moment of our conversion, when
we make a sincere decision to embrace the Lordship of Christ, everything instantly
changes regarding our standing before God.
Remember, it is this decision to happily embrace, in Christ, God’s values
and directions for our life which constitutes the Redemptive Faith which
saves our soul.
And, it is this profound change of
heart, alone, before any connected expressions of works or actions ever occur,
which removes our condemnation and restores us to a righteous standing in
God’s eyes. And this righteous standing
is what the apostle makes reference to above as Imputed Righteousness. So, immediately, based merely on this humble
embrace of Christ in our heart, we are absolved of all guilt before God. This is just the simple nature of that
conversion moment.
Thus, imputed righteousness is merely
an ascribed
righteousness. That is, it is merely assigned
to the believer by God. And, it
has no basis in actual merit on the part of the believer.
Rather, this assigned righteousness is based entirely in the merits of the work
of the Dying Christ on the Cross. It is
He who enables this assignment of
righteousness by taking, what should have been, our punishment on Himself
to satisfy the requirements of divine justice.
Thus, as we embrace the Lordship of
Christ, we are completely absolved of divine condemnation for our previous life
approach of self-determination by His
substitutionary death. And, this is true
even though the believer’s actual reality remains unchanged save in one thing –
that new heart motive of humility toward God (faith).
So, this imputed righteousness is born in the moment that we honestly
embrace the Lordship of Christ. And, it does, indeed, attach as an initial
benefit and protection for the new believer.
But, it is by no means the be-all, end-all of the redemptive impact. In truth, this benefit is only one early
aspect of God’s much larger and more sophisticated redemptive process.
2.
Imputed Righteousness Is a Transitional
Protection
The second, and perhaps lesser understood, point
regarding this assigned righteousness is that it is transitional in
nature. This preliminary protection for the believer anticipates a time when the
believer will enter into a reality-based righteousness, which
is enabled through our later Spiritual Merger with Christ.
Reality-Based Righteousness
Paul speaks of this reality-based
righteousness in Romans, chapter 6, where he says, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should
obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of
unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the
dead, and your members as instruments of
righteousness to God. For sin shall
not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. [the
shared instinctive goodness of the divine Spirit]
“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but
under grace? Certainly not! Do you not
know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's
slaves whom you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?
But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed
from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you
became slaves of righteousness.”
[Brackets Added]
So, Paul does introduce us to the
idea of imputed righteousness in chapter 4 of Romans. But here, in chapter 6 of Romans, he also
introduces us to a reality-based righteousness.
The Spirit Source
And, the apostle doesn’t stop there. In Chapter 8 of Romans, Paul also introduces
us to the power source which enables a reality-based righteousness in the life
of the believer: the indwelling divine Spirit. He writes in chapter 8: “But if
the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal
bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
“Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to
live according to the flesh. For if you
live according to the flesh you will die; but
if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God,
these are sons of God.”
So, as this passage unfolds, it becomes
clear that Paul is not speaking of our future
resurrection, as might be first assumed.
Rather, he is describing the here-and-now, every day empowerment which
is available to the believer in this physical life – in this “mortal body.” He is simply explaining that the Divine Spirit
is the enabling resource who brings to us the present capacity for a righteousness
which occurs in our everyday life as the Holy Spirit empowers us from within.
Imputed vs. Reality Based
So, how do we reconcile the purpose
of imputed righteousness with that of
reality-based righteousness? It is simple, really. Imputed
righteousness protects believers prior to their later Spiritual integration
into the empowering character essence of Christ. And, through that empowering Spiritual merger,
the believer then becomes capable of actually living a consistently righteous
life.
But again note, this real
righteousness is enabled, not from
the human resource, but by the sufficiency of Living Christ operating, in
Spirit form, within the believer.
It’s By Christ’s Faith
It works like this. At the point of his or her Spiritual merger
with Christ, the believer literally experiences an integration with the
character essence of Christ. And, as
part of this integration, the believer actually becomes connected to the stronger
faith
of Christ, as Paul declares in Philippians 3. There, he writes, “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of
the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all
things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him,
not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is
through the faith of Christ, the
righteousness which is of God by faith.” (Ref. King James Version)
So, ultimately, the believer is, in
real terms, connected to Christ’s strong and consistent faith through the
Spiritual merger. And, through this new,
Christ empowered humility (faith value) he or she is truly enabled to conquer
the sin motive of self-determination (the
motive to gratify self). And through
that victory, the believer then becomes consistently faith-expressive toward
God in the real terms of his or her daily lifestyle.
Thus, when we are merged with the
character essence of Christ through the Spiritual baptism, the believer enters
an entirely new everyday reality. It is
a reality where he or she is actually well equipped by the Living Christ to experience
this real and consistent reality-based righteousness.
Paul describes this Christ empowered
life this way in Ephesians, chapter 2: “For
by grace [God’s natural goodness] you
have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, [the gift of Christ’s faith] not of works, lest anyone should boast.” [Brackets added]
So, as it turns out, the divine faith value in Christ’s heart
actually becomes the “universal Spiritual gift”
which is made available to all believers through the Spiritual merger. And,
the apostle describes the result of that wonderful gift this way. “For
we are His workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should
walk in them.”
Now,
through this mysterious, mystical merger with Christ, those wonderful New
Testament implications of the prophesy of Ezekiel are completely fulfilled. Speaking for God, the prophet prophesied of
this, “…a new heart
also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take
away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I
will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye
shall keep my judgments, and do them.”
(Ref.
Ezekiel 36:26-27 KJV)
Imputed Righteousness: A Protection of Ever
Diminishing Necessity
Also, imputed
righteousness is best understood as a safeguard for the believer which is
ever diminishing – not in its availability or its effectiveness, but in its necessity. Certainly, it can be truthfully said that
this assigned righteousness is ever in place for the sincerely faithful. But, it is equally true that the need for
this protection is an ever lessening
necessity as the believer becomes ever
more empowered by Christ within as the believer matures in His character
essence.
The Non-Responsible Exaggeration
Now, let’s briefly look at how the
non-responsible approach to redemption, again, exaggerates the idea of imputed
righteousness to the point of absurdity.
And, we will also consider the distorting impacts of that exaggeration
upon various other aspects of the true Gospel.
Obviously, imputed righteousness is
a part of Christ’s initial benefits to the believer, as we’ve seen. But, the non-responsible approach does,
indeed, horribly exaggerate the scope and use of that benefit. According to the non-responsible gospel, imputed righteousness is all there is
for the believer. It simply maintains
that this is the only kind of righteousness which is possible for a chronically
wayward humanity, even in Christ.
The non-responsible approach entirely
denies the possibility that, in the Living Christ, a believer can become
capable of a consistently righteous everyday reality. So again, if that is the case, then, God
cannot justly require such. And so, the
non-responsible teaching is that, indeed, He does not.
In all of this, we simply see yet
one more example of the core contention flowing out of the antichrist ethos. This denial of Christ’s capacity to
symbiotically empower the believer is just one more version of the idea that
Christ cannot and does not live within the human form. But, as we have seen, in truth, the Resurrected
Christ living within the human nature of the believer is precisely the means by
which God’s people are set free and empowered to become consistently faith-expressive.
A
False Security
Also, to use this exaggerated view
of imputed righteousness to mask God’s true requirement of a reality-based
righteousness in His people, leads to a false sense of security. It is true that, flowing out of our faith,
imputed righteousness is ever in place as a safety net for the momentary
missteps of a believer during his or her growth in Christ toward maturity.
But, it is also equally and simultaneously
true that we do not survive divine scrutiny merely by this assigned
righteousness. Again we
are ultimately secured only by true faith, the humble embrace, in
Christ, of God’s values and directions
for our life – which, in turn, does, indeed, then results in a Christ empowered
obedience.
Thus, in the Gospel of Matthew we
read that Jesus said this. “Not everyone
who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in
heaven.”
Matthew
is describing a very tangible faith-expression here, not an exaggerated
dependence on imputed righteousness.
Distortion = More Distortion
There is also another distortion
which flows out of the need to exaggerate imputed righteousness in order to
measure up under divine scrutiny. This distortion
leads to a badly flawed understanding of the role that works play in our
salvation. When one subscribes to the
idea that the believer’s righteousness has no necessity of a basis in reality,
it is no great leap to the idea that good
works are completely inconsequential and thus, entirely optional. But, in truth, this is a grotesque perversion
of God’s genuine intention for His people.
As we have already seen from the
writings of James in the New Testament, in fact, just the reverse is true. Certainly,
the expression of faith, in the form of God-directed good works, is not only
possible and a righteous thing, but they are absolutely expected by God.
Obviously, it is a true teaching of
scripture that mankind cannot earn God’s approval or God’s Heaven
by simply producing his own self-determined good works. Those actually appear as “filthy rags” in God’s sight.
But, God-directed works, done
in faithful response to His leading, and enabled by the divine Spirit, are absolutely
a natural necessity to a heart which is truly attuned to God’s heart. And, they are of the greatest value.
And certainly, these works are no threat
to the glory of what God is doing for mankind in Christ. Rather, they are the perfect expression of it. These works are faith expressed. They are faith made complete. So, the challenge of James is worth reviewing
here. Again, he says, “Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you
my faith by my works.”
In Conclusion
So, looking at an overview of these
ideas, some things become very obvious.
For example, it becomes obvious that this exaggeration of the scope of
imputed righteousness is clearly designed merely to support the prime
tenet of the non-responsible gospel.
Again, that tenet holds that mankind
has no hope of achieving a real and consistent righteousness. Thus, it follows that man must entirely rely on
imputed righteousness in the face of God’s judgement.
But, as we’ve seen, this idea is
simply not true. The Living Christ brings
with Him the power to set believers free to become consistently faith-expressive
– both in his heart and in his daily life.
So, the notion that the sin impulse is completely irresistible has been
made an entirely untenable position by the Living Christ. Indeed, His empowering Spirit enables believers,
every day, to consistently rise to meet God’s expectation of real righteousness
in the lives of His people.
Now, Back To The Dying Christ
With these thoughts in mind, let’s
now move back to our focus on the Dying Christ. Obviously, we love Him; and, we celebrate
Him. We celebrate His great love for us as
clearly shown by the Cross which He endured in order to initiate a renewed and
deeply meaningful relationship between mankind and God.
We should note, however, that this
is all the Dying Christ did, and all He
was intended to do. And, while we fully
acknowledge and rejoice in what Christ did by His Cross, we should not stop
there. We should also celebrate the
Living Christ and His work which takes the believer to completion and a
profound newness of heart and life experience.
.
Paul confirms this in his statement
in Romans, chapter 5. There he says this,
“For if, when we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we
shall be saved by His life.”
So, what about the Living Christ, the Christ of the Resurrection? What is the nature of His role in redemption? Let’s now explore further the realities
contained in Paul’s last phrase, “...we
shall be saved by His life.”
The Living Christ: Our Completion
God’s
authentic redemptive plan not only requires the means of forgiveness and
reconciliation for humanity, but also the means of real renewal. For that
reason, it is impossible for a believer to experience the completion of God’s
redemptive work without experiencing the reality of the Living Christ within.
The initial purpose of the
Resurrection of Christ is to provide us with a Living Savior. The reason we need a Living Savior is so we
can experience a vital symbiosis (an
energizing connection) with Him, enabling us to share in His character essence. And, the purpose of that sharing is to renew
our core person, our own character essence.
So, at this point, we are moving
past the benefits of the Cross to that mysterious, mystical, miraculous, and
wondrous benefit of the Resurrection for the here-and-now. We are about to look at something, the likes
of which, the world never anticipated nor saw before these New Testament times. As the apostle, Paul, put it in the book of
Colossians, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
The Believer’s Completion
So, to put it succinctly, it is the
Living Christ, in Spirit form, who actually completes the believer’s renewal as
God’s authentic redemptive plan calls for.
The New Testament speaks clearly of the radical, here-and-now
transformation of believers in such passages as 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. There the Bible says this. “Therefore,
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away;
behold, all things have become new.”
And, in the book of Ephesians,
chapter 4, the apostle, Paul, writes this instruction. “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no
longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind,
having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God,
because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their
heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work
all uncleanness with greediness.
But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have
heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put
off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according
to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you
put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness
and holiness.”
And, in the book of Romans, chapter
12, we see a similar expression. “And do not be conformed to this world, but
be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
The Divine Merger
This transformation of the believer
is accomplished in the very unique way that we have already noted. Literally, it is achieved through the integration
of Christ’s character essence with that of the believer. The apostle, Peter, described it in these
terms in his writings. “ Grace and peace
be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His
divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who
called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great
and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine
nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (Ref. 2 Peter 1:2-4 NKJV)
In the New Testament, we are first
introduced to this opportunity for profound personal renewal in the book of
Acts, chapter 2, which records this account.
“Now when the Day of Pentecost had
fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven,
as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were
sitting. Then there appeared to them
divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
Jesus also speaks of this divine merger in John 14. He says, “If
you love Me, keep My commandments. And I
will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide
with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive,
because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells
with you and will be in you. I will
not leave you orphans; I will come to you. A little while longer and the world
will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.
At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”
The Implications
So, what are the implications of all
this for the believer? In simple terms, it
means that the believer is no longer consigned to his or her previous inner and
behavioral failures. Rather, there is now
this real possibility of a true heart agreement with God and an everyday reality-based
righteousness through the empowering presence of the Living Christ within. It means that God has, indeed, found a way to achieve
a thorough and beautiful renewal for His people in His Christ.
The Great Mystery:
A Completely Unique Event
As mentioned, this Spiritual merger with
the Living Christ is a completely unique
event. There has never been anything
quite like this before. This is the mysterious
New Testament conclusion of God’s redemptive plan which Paul speaks of in
Colossians, chapter 1. There he says, “...I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which
was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has
been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His
saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
This unique dimension of
God’s redemptive process is, indeed, the primary distinctive of the New
Testament. The empowerment of the Living
Christ within the believer: this is the
final redemptive piece which makes everything work, which brings everything
together.
The Benefits of the Spiritual Baptism:
Character Fruit
It is this integration with the character
essence of Christ which enables the believer to bear the “character fruit,” or said another way,
the character traits of His
character. Again, Paul describes this
blessing in Galatians, chapter 5. He
writes, “But the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control...”
The New Birth in Real Terms
This divine partnership is the means
to truly realize the new birth that Jesus spoke of in John, chapter 3, where it
says, “Jesus answered and said to him,
‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God... That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is
born of the Spirit is spirit.’”
True Righteousness
And, this oneness with Jesus is the
power to fulfill, not just the letter, but the very spirit of God’s law. Paul indicates this in Romans, chapter 8,
where he says, “For the law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For
what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending
his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the
flesh: That the righteousness of
the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit.” (Ref. King James Version)
God's Vision Enabled
This mysterious merger enables the
realization of God’s redemptive vision of a truly meaningful relationship with a
faith-expressive people. Again, Ezekiel
prophesied of God’s plan for this wondrous transformation of His people long
before it actually unfolded in these New Testament times. God said, through that prophet, “A new
heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will
take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of
flesh. And I will put my spirit within
you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and
do them.”
A New Creature
This amazing superimposition of Christ’s core
essence over that of the believer’s is, indeed, like giving the believer a new
character DNA which completely redefines him or her. And, it is this “Christ code overwrite,” in their core person which literally transforms
the believer into a new being, ultimately.
An Empowered Faith
As noted earlier in this section,
through this character integration with Christ, the believer is not now limited
to merely his own faith. Now, he has access to the divine humility (the
divine faith) as well as the other values of Christ’s character. And this changes everything
Power Over The Sin Motive
At this point, the believer is no
longer at the mercy of that arrogant primary sin motive (my will be done). Now, the
power of Christ’s faith (consistent humility toward the Father’s will) rules in
the believer’s heart, too. So, in
effect, Christ, living within the believer, overpowers the sin value and firmly
establishes the faith value as the ascendant value on the most primary
governing level of the believer’s heart.
How This Works
But, let’s unpack, a bit more, this
idea the Living Christ empowering the believer to consistency. As noted earlier, it is the inner dimension of sin, the heart value, which gives rise to the
act of sin, the expression. Therefore,
the ultimate remedy for sin has to be to expel that heart value, that
initiating source of all sin, from the believer’s heart. So again, that sinful heart motive of self-determination becomes God’s first
target in the redemptive process.
But, as noted in our discussion of
the nature of sin, this value not only exists on the conscious level, but also on
the subconscious level of the heart.
This level is beyond the volitional control of the believer. Her faith operates only on the conscious
level, but it cannot reach this subconscious level.
Paul describes this helplessness in
Romans, chapter 7, as we saw earlier when he says, “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under
sin. For what I am doing, I do not
understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate,
that I do.
“If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the
law that it is good. But now, it is no
longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to
will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do;
but the evil I will not to do, that I practice."
The “Target Event”
So, it is the role and mission of
the Living Christ to deal with this subconscious sin motive. He alone can accomplish this work. Thus, after a time of humbling, essentially a
time of asking the believer to confront these still lingering subconscious feelings
of self-sufficiency, the Living Christ chooses a moment to merge with the
believer in Spirit form to end this dilemma of a divided heart. So, in that moment of merger, He superimposes His character essence,
containing His value system, over that of the believer.
To be sure, this new “character DNA” from Christ, and the
values contained therein, arrive in primordial, or infant, form just as is the
case with our physical DNA. But, with time, this new “Christ code,” ultimately entirely redefines our character
essence. Thus, this merger with the
Living Christ marks the final redemptive
phase of the believer’s renewal.
Truly, this redefining merger can
legitimately be called the Target Event of the New Testament. It is this event which ultimately enables the
believer to experience a true heart-oneness with God in very real terms. And that heart-likeness then becomes the matrix
of a very durable and deeply meaningful daily relationship with God.
The Most Important Result
As a result of this event, something
spectacular happens within the believer regarding that latent sin motive on the
subconscious level of her heart. As
explained earlier, the strong faith of Christ decisively overwhelms that
subconscious sin motive (the urgings for self-determination) and establishes
the faith motive (the desire to please God) as the ascendant motive in the
believer’s heart – even on this subconscious level.
As a result, the believer is no
longer divided in her heart between God’s will and her own. Now, that daily conflict between the subconscious selfishness of the believer
and her conscious desire to agree
with and please God, is ended.
And, because her heart is no longer
torn and divided between God and self, there is a true peace within the
believer, herself. And, there is a very
natural serenity in her relationship with God in the absence of that
subconscious conflict.
And this new, undivided heart fulfills
the very definition of God’s desire for “Holiness” in his people: as it is written, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.”
The idea is that now, finally, through this empowering merger with the
Living Christ, mankind is afforded the opportunity for a heart which has only
one primary
devotion, God (not God and self) on both its conscious and subconscious level. Now, at last, the believer can experience, in
Christ, an undivided devotion to true goodness – which
is, again, the very definition of holiness.
The Old Man, The New Man
Paul speaks of this transformation in
Christ and its impact in terms of the old
us and the new us. He very eloquently describes this personal
genesis in Romans, chapter 6, where he says, “What shall we say then? Shall we
continue in sin that grace may abound?
Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
“Or
do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into His death? Therefore we
were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life.
“For
if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also
shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man
was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we
should no longer be slaves of sin…
“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”
“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”
Created According to God
In Ephesians, chapter 4, Paul goes on to, again, juxtapose the old, self-determined man and the new,
empowered man, who is re-created by the indwelling Christ. He says, “But you have
not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by
Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former
conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and
be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which
was created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness.”
Free At Last, Free At Last
In that moment when the subconscious
sin motive ceases to be ascendant in the believer’s heart, the old man is
entirely subjugated and the new man is truly born in the Living Christ. No more is this believer governed in his
subconscious by the impulse of self-determination or the idea of
self-sufficiency. Now, a true humility
before God reigns in his heart.
And, as long as he chooses to be so,
this Christ-empowered believer will be free to follow the impulses of his new,
empowered faith. And that empowered
freedom ultimately enables an entirely new and godly creature and a transformed
life experience.
To be sure, there will be some
battles on other, less primary, levels of the heart. There will be other secondary sinful values
to conquer, the children of that original sinful essence. They are the offshoots of that essential sin
value of self-determination that have rooted themselves throughout the various
levels of the heart and life of the believer:
the love of money, inappropriate sexual desires, covetousness etc.
But, it is only a matter of time. Because the root of sin is dead in the
believer’s core person, the offshoots will die also. They will all succumb to that ruling faith motive
in the believer’s heart as the “Christ code” finds ever enlarging expression
both within and without in the believer’s lifestyle realities.
The Transformative Walk
It is true that this real transformation
of the believer begins with his personal merger with the Living Christ and the
character impact which we have described.
However, the believer’s transformation by no means ends in the moment of
that merger. Rather, that divine integration
initiates a transformative every day walk with Christ as any intimate
relationship would necessarily involve.
And, indeed, redemption at its core
is ever and unceasingly about intimacy and a deeply meaningful divine companionship. And, as with the building of any important
relationship, it is about an every day process of discovery, and the shared struggles
and joys which bind hearts together.
Heart-oneness in the divine
relationship, as in a marriage or child rearing, only comes through this very
active bonding process of sharing life together. No important relationship, and certainly not
the redemptive relationship, can survive compartmentalization, strategic “handling,” or outright estrangement. Those things are actually the bane of a healthy
and deeply meaningful companionship. And,
at the end of it all, redemption is really only about restoring a truly
meaningful friendship with our Creator.
Again, It’s Like DNA
And our growth in that relationship
is, again, easily likened to our physical development. For example, in the case of the physical DNA
code, the genetic message is there from the beginning; but, it only fully
expresses itself with time.
So, also, is the spiritual
process. Again, we receive Christ’s
character essence, including His values, in a basic form as we experience our
merger with Him. God then uses the
circumstances of life experience to bring full expression to this “Christ
code.”
And, just as there are the
inevitable mistakes and setbacks in the physical process of growth and
development, these also occur in the spiritual process of growing up into the
fullness of the Christ character. However, these struggles no more discount the
verity of the Spiritual process than they do the physical process.
It is all still the way to
maturity. It is still that all-inclusive
process which brings us to the completion which Paul describes it in Ephesians,
chapter 4, where he says,“ ... unto a
perfect [mature] man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ...” [Bracket added]
But, It’s Never Merely A Growth Process
As a final note to these thoughts,
we should also be careful to point out that Christian maturity can never be
thought of as only a growth process or expanded life experience. As noted, it certainly initiates a growth
process; but, to be clear, it is not merely a growth process, and never
can be.
There can be no significant character
transformation until there is the new character essence which is supplied by
the indwelling Spirit of Christ. And,
this only occurs through the believer’s personal Spiritual merger with
Christ.
This is why Jesus would say in John,
chapter 15, "Abide in Me, and I in
you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine,
neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him,
bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
Without that personal integration with Christ which brings the vitality
of the “Vine,” to the believer, even very intense human effort at
self-improvement will always prove profoundly insufficient. To be sure, human effort can, in some
measure, make us wiser and enables us to live somewhat more consistently than
if we did not try at all.
But, mere human effort cannot make
us one in heart with God. It cannot
enable us to conquer the primary sin value in the subconscious. It cannot bring us to the empowering faith of
Christ within. It cannot enable a truly
intimate, communion. It cannot bring surpassing
peace within ourselves and with God.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man comes to the Father but by me.” Being re-created in Christ is the function of
an
integration with Christ, not simply trying harder or learning more or
living longer as part of the Church.
In the Living Christ: Faith Empowers Grace
So now, finally, with this surprise,
New Testament remedy for the sin motive – the Living Christ within – God’s
child is able to experience the wonder, and freedom, and easy naturalness of an
internal heart government of Grace. Gone,
now, is the awkwardness of living by external rules. Now, the innate goodness of Christ has also
become our instinct for good through our Spiritual merger with Him. And those very natural inclinations are now empowered
to consistent expression by the strong faith of Christ which we also now share.
Thus, where once there was this
disabling subconscious disagreement
with what we consciously knew to be
good, now there is the natural aspiration to goodness as well as the power to
perform it. So, just as Paul described,
a Christ empowered believer is able to become the “servant of righteousness.”
It Takes Both
So, in very real terms, the Living
Christ truly does complete the redemptive work of God in us. Thus, we can see our Christ, as the “Author” of our faith, through the
reconciling work of His Death on the Cross.
And, we can also see Him as the “Finisher”
of our faith, as the Living Christ of the Resurrection who shares his
empowering divine essence with us. He is
the Beginning of God’s redemptive
work in our hearts; but, He is also the End
of it.
Obviously, the two roles of Christ complement
each other. The Dying Christ enables the work of the Living Christ. The Living Christ completes the work of the
Dying Christ. And, Christ, in either
role, is indispensable.
The Christ of the Cross must fix the
consequences of sin, restore relationship, and provide the protection of
imputed righteousness to the believer.
The Living Christ, then, brings the final cleansing of the subconscious sin
motive, and thus, an undivided, fully devoted heart, and ultimately a reality
based righteousness.
Without the forgiveness and initial
protection afforded by the Dying Christ, the Living Christ would never have a
chance to do His work. On the other
hand, without the work of the Living Christ, redemption is reduced to a mere
veneer with no substantive impact upon the actual nature of mankind.
So, truly, in His dual role, Christ
is the “Alpha and Omega” of God’s redemptive work. Christ, in both of His roles, was always
intended to be the means to enable the Father’s original vision of a holy and faith-expressive
people. And, through both of these
distinct roles, He does it superbly.
Now, Let’s Return To – “The Roman
Dilemma”
Finally, we’re now ready to return
to Romans and explore the true nature of the believer’s inner turmoil, and
again, with some magnification of the details, which Paul exposed there, in
chapter 7. If you remember, this is that
clash between the motive and faith and the motive of self-determination in the
conflicted heart of the believer which the non-responsible gospel contends is
the inescapable daily fate of the anemic believer. Well, already we’ve seen the fallacy of this
contention, many time over. But now,
let’s go discover the fullness of the truth in the next section entitled, A
Return To The Roman Dilemma.
[Continue to Section 7]
[Continue to Section 7]
