Risen With Christ To Be With Him Where He Is, Right Now.

 

    We are to begin the comparison of Heb. 2:14, 15 with Rom. 6:11-14. Read first in Hebrews:

 

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

 

That is what Christ did to deliver us. Now read in Romans:

 

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye 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. For sin shall not have dominion over you.

 

Just as He also Himself likewise did that to deliver us, so we also ourselves likewise are to yield, in order to be delivered. And when we do so, we are delivered. He did that in order to deliver us, who all our lifetime were subject to bondage; we do that, and then we are free from the bondage and sin has no more dominion over us.

 

Thus Rom. 6:11-14 is the response of faith in the individual, to Christ's action as in Heb. 2:14, 15.

 

But the Lord did more for Him than to raise Him from the dead, and He has done more for us in Him than to raise us from the dead. He died. He was raised from the dead. We died with Him, and what then? Did we rise with Him?  Have we a resurrection with Him? Have we life from the dead in Him? We are crucified with Him. We died with Him. We are buried with Him, and He was raised from the dead. Then what of us? We are risen with Him. But God did more for Him than to raise Him from the dead. God did more with Him than to raise Him from the dead. He raised Him, and also seated Him at His own right hand in heaven. What of us? Do we stop short? No, sir. Are we not in Him? As we are in Him while He was alive on the earth, as we are in Him on the cross, as we are in Him in death, as we are in Him in the resurrection, so we are in Him in the ascension and we are in Him at the right hand of God.

 

That would follow, anyway, from what we read last night, but let us read this itself in the Scriptures and see that it is certainly so. As we have followed God's working in Him so far, shall we follow it all the way? Last night and in the lessons before, we were glad to go with Him through temptation and gain the victory. We were glad last night with Him to go to the cross and find ourselves crucified there, so that we could say in genuine faith, "I am crucified with Christ." We were glad to go into the grave with Him, into death with Him, so that it can be a genuine reckoning of faith to reckon ourselves also to be dead indeed. We are glad of all that. Let us be glad also to come forth from death with Him, in order that we may live a new life as He. And when we have come forth with Him from the dead--for "if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him" let us rise with Him as He is risen--not only from the dead, but to where He is. If God says so, if He proposes to carry us there and to carry the subject that far, shall we go? Assuredly, yes. Let us not think strange of it if He should; let us follow with Him there just as freely as we followed with Him against temptation and to the cross and into death.

 

Therefore take the second chapter of Ephesians, beginning with the fourth verse: God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.

 

Quicken is to make alive, make us alive together with Christ. Next verse: "And hath raised us up together."  Together with whom? Christ. "And made us sit together." With whom? Christ. Where? "Made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." The word "places" is supplied there in our version. It is also supplied in Eph.  1:2; 1:20.

 

In the Greek it is epouraniois, and in the verbal translation is rendered "the heavenlies." God has given us life together with Him: God has raised us up together and made us sit together with Him, wherever He sits. Where then does He sit? "He was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Heb. 1:3.  God "has raised us up together with him; and made us sit together with him," where He sits.

 

Now the German makes it plainer than our Authorized Version and plainer than this translation of the Greek even:

Da wir tot waren in den Sunden, hat er uns saint Christo [that word saint means along with. And that is the Greek word literally. The Greek means "along with" "together" and "at the same time," and so the German words give it]--hat er uns saint Christo lebendig gemacht [made alive us along with Him]...und hat uns saint ihm auferwecket  [along with Him waked up, and not simply waked up like a man that is asleep and gets his eyes open but still lies there but waked up in such a way that he gets up. So that we with Him are given life from the dead and he has waked us up in such a way that we get up and rise with Him.] und saint ihm in das himmlische Wesen gesetzt, in Christo Jesu.

 

I have drawn out the definition of that word Wesen in full here and it signifies essence, existence, being, manner of being, nature, character, disposition, air, demeanor, conduct; means of existence, property, estate, economy;  existing arrangement, system, concern.

 

So He has made us sit with Christ in heaven; in the heavenly existence; in the heavenly essence; made us sit together with Him in the heavenly being; in the heavenly manner of being; in the heavenly nature; in the heavenly character; in the heavenly disposition; in the heavenly air; in the heavenly demeanor; in the heavenly conduct; He has made us sit together with Him in the heavenly means of existence--for "our life is hid with Christ in God," our means of existence is in heaven--"Give us this day our daily bread"--the heavenly means of existence, heavenly property, estate, economy, existing arrangement, the existing order of things. We belong to heaven, to the heavenly system altogether.

That is where God has put us in Christ. So then, as we, along with Him, in the heavenly existence, essence, air,  disposition, and all, are made to sit in Christ Jesus, shall we sit there in Him?

 

In other words, shall we rise? What is the word? Arise, shine. Arise first and then shine. We cannot shine until we rise. But what will this truth do for us? Will it not raise us? How high? Do you not see that it takes us out of this world and puts us along with Jesus Christ in the heavenly kingdom? Is it not plain then that Jesus Christ has brought heaven to earth to Him who believes? Therefore it is written, He "hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son." The kingdom of heaven is likened unto this so and so; the kingdom of heaven is like unto so and so; the kingdom of heaven is like unto so and so; the kingdom of heaven is nigh at hand. Well, what is that kingdom of heaven? He translates us into it--has translated us into it. Shall we reside there and enjoy its blessed atmosphere and enjoy the disposition, the air, all the system and manner of existence that belong there and belong to us there?

 

Now we cannot raise ourselves even to this height; we are to submit to the truth and it will raise us. Look at it again. In the first chapter of Ephesians, beginning with the fifteenth verse:

 

Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers [and this is the prayer]; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.

 

To how many? To whom? For how many is this prayer written? Will you take the prayer, then, yourself this evening? and accept the thing that is prayed for on your behalf? Whose word is it, anyway? Is it merely a prayer of a man? Is it not the word of God? Then is not the word of Jesus Christ by His Spirit expressing His will and His wish concerning us as to what we shall have? Let us accept it, then. It is His will. Read on:

 

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward [toward us] who believe.

 

He wants us to know what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe. And the Greek word there is the word from which comes our word "dynamite."

 

The exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power,  which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly [existence, in heaven].

 

The German is, "Seated at his right in heaven."

 

Now that power of God raised up Jesus Christ and set Him at His right in heaven. Every soul of us will say that,  but He wants you and me to know the working of that power in ourselves which raised up Christ and seated Him there. When we know the working of that power in us that raised up Christ and seated Him there, what will it do for us? It will raise us up and seat us there.

The second chapter of Colossians tells the same story, beginning with the twelfth verse:

 

Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened [made alive] together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.

 

Now the first verse of the third chapter:

 

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

 

Then every one that is risen is to seek the things that are above.

 

Whereabouts above? How high above? As high above as the place where Christ sits. But how can I seek the things where Christ sits unless I am near enough there to look around and seek those things and put my mind upon them? It is all in that.

 

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God....for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

 

Shall we take that precisely as the Lord gives it, without any querying? I know it is wonderful; I know that to a good many it seems too good to be true, but there is nothing God does that is too good to be true, because God does it. If it were said of anybody else, it would be too good to be true, because they could not do it, but when God says anything, it is not too good to be true; it is good enough to be true, because He does it.

 

Therefore,  brethren, let us rise, and that will separate us from the world; that will put us in the place where long ago the prophet was told to look a little higher, to see those who were in the right way. But, O, shall we not drop everything and die with Him and take the death that we have in Him and let that death that has been wrought in Him work in us? And then that life which has been wrought in Him, that power which has been wrought in Him,  will do for us what it did for Him. That will take us out of Babylon; there will be none of Babylon's material about us at all. We will be so far from Babylon and all the Babylonish garments, that we will be seated at the right hand of God, clothed in heavenly apparel; and that is the only clothing that becomes the people now, for we are soon to enter in to the wedding supper, and the fine linen with which the bride and guests are clothed is the righteousness of the saints. But He supplies it all. We have it all in Him.

 

Let us look at this in another way. I am not particular to get away from this thought tonight, and it is good enough to dwell upon all the time we shall have this evening. Let us look at it from another side now. We have studied for several lessons the fact that He in human nature was ourselves, and He in us and we in Him met temptation and the power of Satan and conquered it all in this world, because God was with Him. God was dealing with Him. God was holding Him and keeping Him. He surrendered all and God kept Him. In Him we surrender all, and God keeps us. And the Lord's dealings with Him are the Lord's dealings with us, and that led to crucifixion; that is true--the crucifixion of His righteous, divine self, and in that it leads us to the crucifixion of our evil self, which separates from God. In Him is destroyed the enmity. So God went with Him and went with Him in human nature, all the way through this world, but God did not get done with His human nature in this world.

 

The Father was not done dealing with Christ in His human nature nor done dealing with human nature in Christ,  when the Son had been nailed to the cross. He had something more to do with human nature than to take it only to the cross. He took it even unto death, but He did not stop there with human nature. He took it to the cross and into death, but He did not stop there. He did not leave it there. He brought forth human nature from the tomb,  immortalized. He did all this, but He was not yet done with human nature, for He took that human nature which had been raised from the dead, immortalized, and He raised it up and set it at His own right hand, glorified with the fullness of the brightness of the glory of God--in heaven itself. So that God's mind concerning human nature,  concerning you and me, is never met, never fulfilled, until He finds us at His own right hand, glorified.

 

There is revivifying power in that blessed truth. In Jesus Christ, the Father has set before the universe the thought of His mind concerning mankind. O, how much, how far, a man misses every purpose, every idea, of his existence, who is content with anything less than that which God has prepared for him!

 

Brethren, do you not see that we have been content to stay too low down? that we have been content to have our minds too far from what God has for us? That is a fact. But now, as He comes and calls us into this, let us go where He will lead us. It is faith that does it; it is not presumption; it is the only right thing to do. Every one that does not do it will be left so far behind that he will perish in a little while. Here the heavenly Shepherd is leading us. He is leading us into green pastures and by the still waters--and by those still waters, too, that flow from the throne of God, the waters of life itself. Let us drink deep and live.

 

Now we can look at that yet farther. I will say again that the Lord, in order to show mankind what He has prepared for us, what His purpose is concerning each man, has set before us an example, so that everyone in the world can see God's purpose concerning himself and can see it fully worked out. God's purpose concerning us in this world is to keep us from sinning in spite of all the power of sin and Satan. His purpose concerning Himself and us in this world is that God shall be manifested in sinful flesh. That is, in His power He Himself shall be manifested instead of ourselves. It is, therefore, that our wicked self shall be crucified, shall be dead and buried,  and that we shall be raised from that deadness in sin and uncircumcision of the flesh to newness of life in Jesus Christ and in God and seated at His right hand, glorified. That is the Lord's purpose concerning you and me.  Now let us read it: Rom. 8:28:

 

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.

 

How do we know it? He not only says so but He has worked it out before our eyes; He has given a living demonstration of it. So He carries us right through that now. "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." What purpose? Why, His eternal purpose concerning all creatures, concerning man with the rest, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.  That purpose from eternity is purposed in Jesus Christ, and when we are in Jesus Christ that purpose embraces us. When we yield to Christ, sinking ourselves in Him, we become a part of that eternal purpose, and then just as certainly as God's purpose is to succeed, we shall be all right, for we are a part of His purpose.

 

Then just as certainly as Satan can do nothing against God's purpose, so certainly He can do nothing against us, for we are in that purpose. Just as certainly, then, as all that Satan does, and all that the enemies of God's truth can do,  working against God and His divine purpose, and at last all these things against us--so certainly as all this cannot defeat or cripple that eternal purpose, so certainly it cannot defeat or cripple us, because in Christ we are a fixture in that purpose. O, it is all in Him, and God has created us anew in Him.

 

Read on then. God tells us how we know that all things work together for good to those who are called according to God's purpose. "For"--what does that mean? It means the same here as "because"; that is, we know this because God has done something here to demonstrate it so that we can know it. What is this then by which we know it? We know it because "whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son." What is God's predestination, then? What is the design that He has fixed beforehand, that He has prepared beforehand for every man in the world? For He has foreknown all; He has called all. "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." Isa. 45:22.

 

What is the destiny that He has prepared beforehand for every one? O, it is that we should be conformed to the image of His Son. Where? While we are in this world, conformed to the image of His Son, as His Son was in this world. But He did not get done with His Son in this world; He took Him from this world. Then as certainly as His eternal purpose carried Christ beyond this world, that predestined purpose is concerning us beyond this world,  and carries us beyond this world. And as certainly as His predestined purpose is that we shall be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ in this world, as He was in this world, so certain it is that we shall be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ in that other world, as He is in that other world.

 

God's eternal purpose prepared beforehand for every one of us, for you, for me, is that we shall be like Jesus Christ as He is, glorified, and at the right hand of God tonight. In Christ He has demonstrated this. In Christ, from birth to the heavenly throne, He has shown that that is His purpose concerning every man. Thus He has demonstrated before the universe that such is His great purpose for human beings.

 

God's ideal of a man is not as man stands in this world. Take the finest figure of a man who ever stood in this world--the tallest, the most symmetrical, the best educated, the finest in every respect, the fullest, completest man in himself--is that God's ideal of man? No. you remember that we found back in one of our lessons that God's ideal of a man is God and the man joined in that new man that is made in Christ Jesus by the destruction of the enmity. That new man that is made of the union of God and man is God's ideal man.

 

But yet take that man as he stands in this world, in the perfect symmetry of human perfection, and unite God with him so that only God is manifested in him, that is not yet God's full ideal of a man, for the man is still in this world.  The ideal of God concerning that man is never met until that man stands at God's right hand in heaven glorified.  O, He has prepared great things for us, and I propose to enjoy them! Yes, sir, I propose to open up and let the wondrous power work and enjoy it as I go.

 

Read on therefore. "Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of his Son,  that he might be the first-born among many brethren." O, "He is not ashamed to call them brethren." "He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one." "Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called:  and whom he called [those in whom that call meets its purpose and in whom the call is effective. He calls every soul, that is true on His part, but the call does not meet its purpose; only those who respond and meet the purpose of that call, in whom the call takes hold], them he also justified: and whom he justified [mark, not those who justify themselves, those whom he justified], them he also glorified."

 

Then do you not see that God's purpose concerning man is not fulfilled until man is glorified? Therefore Jesus came into the world as we do. He took our human nature as we do, by birth. He went through this world in human nature--God dealing with human nature. He went to the cross and died--God dealing with human nature on the cross and in the grave and God raising Him and setting Him at the right hand of God, glorified--that is His eternal purpose. That is God's eternal predestination. That is the plan He has arranged and fixed for you. Will you let Him carry out the plan? We cannot do it. He must. But He has shown His ability to do it. He has proven that. Nobody can dispute that. He has proven His ability to take us and fulfill His purpose concerning human nature, concerning sinful flesh as it is in this world. And I am glad of it.

 

But see here: "Whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified,"--What did He do next? He glorified them. Now a question: those whom He justifies He glorifies; He cannot glorify them until He has justified them. What means, then, this special message of justification that God has been sending these years to the church and to the world? It means that God is preparing to glorify His people. But we are glorified only at the coming of the Lord; therefore, this special message of justification which God has been sending us is to prepare us for glorification at the coming of the Lord. In this, God is giving to us the strongest sign that it is possible for Him to give, that the next thing is the coming of the Lord.

 

He will prepare us. We cannot prepare ourselves. We tried a long while to justify ourselves, to make ourselves just right, and thus get ready for the coming of the Lord. We have tried to do so well that we could approve ourselves and be satisfied and say, "Now I can meet the Lord." But we never were satisfied. No. It is not done that way. Whom He justified, them He glorified. Now since God justifies, it is His own work, and when He is ready for us to meet the Lord, it will be all right, because it is He Himself who prepares us to meet the Lord.  Therefore, we trust in Him, we yield to Him, and take His justification and, depending only on that, we shall be ready to meet the Lord Jesus whenever God chooses to send Him.

 

Thus He is preparing now to glorify us. Again I say, It is a fact that we have been content to live too far below the wondrous privileges that God has prepared for us. Let the precious truth raise us to where He wants us.

 

No master workman looks at a piece of work He is doing, as it is half finished, and criticizes that and begins to find fault with that. There may be faults about it, but it is not finished yet. And while He works on it to take away all the faults still He looks at it as it is in His finished purpose, in His own original plan, in His own mind.

It would be an awful thing if the wondrous Master Workman of all were to look at us as we are half finished and say, That is good for nothing. No, He doesn't do that. He looks at us as we are in His eternal purpose in Christ,  and goes on with His wondrous work. You and I may look at it and say, "I don't see how the Lord is ever going to make a Christian out of me and make me fit for heaven or anything else." That may be so as we see it. And if He looked at us as we look at ourselves and if He were as poor a workman as we, that would be all there could be of it; we could never be of any worth. But He is not such a workman as we and therefore He does not look at us as we see ourselves. No. He looks at us as we are in His finished purpose. Although we may appear all rough,  marred, and scarred now, as we are here and in ourselves, He sees us as we are yonder in Christ.

 

He is the Workman. And as we have confidence in Him, we will let Him carry on the work, and as He carries it on,  we will look at it as He sees it. Has He not given us an example of His workmanship? God has set before us in Christ His complete workmanship in sinful flesh. In Christ He has completed it and set it there at His right hand.  Now He says to us, "Look at that. That is what I am able to do with sinful flesh. Now you put your confidence in me and let me work and you watch and see what I am going to do. You trust my workmanship. Let me attend to the work and you trust me, and I will carry on the work." It is the Lord doing it all. It is not our task at all.

 

Now you can go outside of this Tabernacle and look up at that window (referring to the window at the back of the pulpit), and it looks like only a mess of melted glass thrown together, black and unsightly. But come inside and look from within, and you will see it as a beautiful piece of workmanship, and written there in clear texts:  "Justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus"; the law of God written out in full and the words, "Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus."

 

Likewise you and I can look at ourselves as we too often do from the outside and all looks awry, dark, and ungainly, and appears as though it were only a tangled mass. God looks at it from the inside, as it is in Jesus.  And when we are in Jesus and look through the light that God has given us, when we look from the inside as we are in Jesus Christ we shall also see, written in clear texts by the Spirit of God, "Justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." We shall see the whole law of God written in the heart and shining in the life and the words, "Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." All this we shall see in the light of God as that light is reflected and shines in Jesus Christ.

 

Now I want you to know that this is certainly so. Way back in the Bulletin, bottom of page 182, we have this sentence, "I would that every soul who sees the evidences of the truth"--Do you see them, brethren? Are there not evidences enough here to save us? "I would that every soul who sees the evidences of the truth would accept Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour." Do you take Him now as your personal Saviour in the fullness in which He has revealed Himself where He is and ourselves in Him where He is?

 

Do you? Then read this:

 

Those who thus accept Christ are looked upon by God not as they are in Adam, but as they are in Jesus Christ,  as the sons and daughters of God.

 

He looks at us as we are in Christ, for in Him He has perfected His plan concerning us.

 

Are you glad of it?

Let us take it in, brethren.

O! it does my soul good day by day as the Lord opens up these things!

It is just as good to me, as I long for it to be to you, so let us receive it in the fullness of that self-abandoned faith that Jesus Christ has brought to us.

Let us take it and thank God for it day by day.

Let the power of it work in us, raise us from the dead, and set us at God's right hand in the heavenly places in Jesus Christ, where He sits.

Why should we not have a praise meeting for what God has done for us? It is Sabbath. Could we not enjoy it? What do you want to say?

 

1895 G.C. Sermon #19  by A.T. Jones 

Sick of Sin.

1Co 15:31  I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. 

 

Rom 8:36  As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 

 

2Co 4:10  Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. 

2Co 4:11  For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh

 

Rom 6:6  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 

 

(Excerpt)

 

But there is more of the verse. Rom. 6:6 still: "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin." Good! In Him we have the victory, victory from the service of sin. There is victory over the service of sin, in this knowing that we are crucified with Him.

 

Now I say that this blessed fact which we find in Him lifts us right to that place; yea, and the fact holds us in the place. That is so. There is a power in it. That is a fact. We will have occasion to see it more fully presently.

 

When He was crucified, what followed? When He was nailed to the cross, what came next? He died. Now read in this same chapter, eighth verse: "Now if we be dead with Christ"--well, what else can there be? As certainly as I am crucified with Him, I shall be dead with Him. Being crucified with Him, we shall be dead with Him.

 

Dead with Him? Do we know that? Look back at the fourth verse.

 

Rom 6:4  Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 

 

When He had been crucified and had died,  what followed? He was buried--the burial of the dead. And what of us? Now, "therefore, we are buried with him."  Buried with Him! Were we crucified with Him? Did we die with Him? Have the Father and Christ wrought out in human nature the death of sinful self? Yes. Whose? Mine.

 

Then do you not see that all this is a gift of faith that is to be taken with everything else that God gives of faith?  The death of the old man is in Christ, and in Him we have it and thank God for it. With Him the old man was crucified. With Him the old man died, and when He was buried, the old man was buried. My human, old, sinful self was crucified, died and was buried with Him. And with Him it is buried yet when I am in Him. Out of Him I have it not, of course. Every one that is outside of Him has none of this. In Him it is--in Him. And we receive it all by faith in Him.

 

We are simply studying now the fact that we have in him, the facts which are given to us in Him and which are to be taken by faith. These are facts of faith.

 

We thank the Lord that all this is literal fact--that our old man is crucified, dead, and buried with Him and that in Him we have that gift. In Him we have the gift and the fact of the death of the old man--the death of the human,  sinful nature and the burial of it. And when that old thing is crucified and dead and buried, then the next verse--the seventh: "He that is dead is freed from sin."

 

So then, knowing "that our old man is crucified with him" that henceforth we should not serve sin, we are free from the service of sin.

 

Brethren I am satisfied it is just as much our place day by day now to thank God for freedom from the service of sin as it is to breathe. I say it over. I say it is just as much our place, our privilege and our right to claim in Christ--in Him only and as we believe in Him--and to thank God for freedom from the service of sin as it is to breathe the breath that we breathe as we get up in the morning.

 

How can I ever have the blessing and the benefit there is in that thing if I do not take the thing? If I am always hesitating and afraid that I am not free from the service of sin, how long will it take to get me free from the service of sin? That very hesitating, that very fear, is from doubt, is from unbelief, and is sin in itself. But in Him, when God has wrought out for us indeed freedom from the service of sin, we have the right to thank God for it and as certainly as we claim it and thank Him for it, we shall enjoy it. "He that is dead is freed from sin" (margin, "is justified from sin"). and it is in Him, and we have it as we are in Him by faith.

 

Let us therefore read the first verse of the sixth of Romans:

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein.

 

Can a man live on what he died of? No. Then when the man has died of sin, can he live in sin? can he live with sin? A man dies of delirium tremens or typhoid fever. Can he live on delirium tremens or typhoid fever, even if by a possibility he should be brought to live long enough to realize that he was there? The very thought of it would be death to him, because it killed him once. So it is with the man who dies of sin. The very appearance of it, the very bringing of it before him after that is death to him. If he has consciousness enough and life enough to realize that it is there, he will die of it again. He cannot live on what he died of.

 

But the great trouble with many people is that they do not get sick enough of sin to die. That is the difficulty.  They get sick perhaps of some particular sin and they want to stop that and "want to die" to that and they think they have left that off. Then they get sick of some other particular sin that they think is not becoming to them--they cannot have the favor and the estimation of the people with that particular sin so manifest and they try to leave that off. But they do not get sick of sin--sin in itself, sin in the conception, sin in the abstract,  whether it be in one particular way or another particular way. They do not get sick enough of sin itself to die to sin. When the man gets sick enough--not of sins but of sin, the very suggestion of sin, and the thought of sin--why you cannot get him to live in it any more. He cannot live in it; it killed him once. And he cannot live in what he died of.

 

We have constantly the opportunity to sin. Opportunities to sin are ever presented to us. Opportunities to sin and to live in it are presented day by day. But it stands written: "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." "I die daily." As certainly as I have died to sin, the suggestion of sin is death to me. It is death to me in Him.

 

Therefore, this is put in the form of a surprised, astonished question, "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?" Baptism means baptism into His death.

 

"Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."

 

Turn to Colossians. There was the word you remember that we had in Brother Durland's lesson one day. Col.  2:20:

Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world [the elements of the world, worldliness, and this thing that leads to the world--the enmity], why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to the world?

 

That is simply speaking of our deliverance from the service of sin. It is simply saying, in other words, what is said in Rom. 6:6, "Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Why, as though living outside of Him are we still doing those same things? No, sir. Rom.  6:14, "For sin shall not have dominion over you." The man who is delivered from the domination of sin is delivered from the service of sin. In Jesus Christ it is a fact, too. So read on from Romans 6:6-14.

 

Rom 6:6  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 

Rom 6:7  For he that is dead is freed from sin. 

Rom 6:8  Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: 

Rom 6:9  Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. 

Rom 6:10  For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 

Rom 6:11  Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Rom 6:12  Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 

Rom 6:13  Neither yield ye 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. 

Rom 6:14  For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. 

 

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.

 

Is He alive? Yes. Thank the Lord! Who died? Jesus died, and we are dead with Him. And He is alive, and we who believe in Him are alive with Him. That, however, will come more fully afterward.

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

Let us hold to this. Let us thank God this moment and henceforward, day by day, with every thought, "I am crucified with Him." As certainly as He is crucified, I am crucified; as certainly as He is dead, I am dead with Him;  as certainly as He is buried, I was buried with Him; as certainly as He is risen, I am risen with Him, and henceforth I shall not serve sin. In Him we are free from the dominion of sin and from the service of sin. Thank the Lord for His unspeakable gift!'

 

1895 G.C. Sermon #18  by A.T. Jones 

I Am Crucified With Christ.

(Excerpt)

 

'Indeed, the word to us all the time is, "Arise, shine." But we cannot raise ourselves; it is the truth and the power of God that is to raise us. But is not here the direct truth that will raise a man? Yes, sir; it will raise Him from the dead, as we shall find before we get done with this. But this thought was necessary to be followed through, that we may see how complete the victory is and how certain we are of it as surely as we surrender to Christ and accept that mind that was in Him. And thus always bear in mind that the battle is fought against sin in the realm of the thoughts and that the Victor, the Warrior, that has fought the battle there and won the victory there in every conceivable kind of contest--that same blessed One comes and sets up His throne at the citadel of the very imagination of the thought, the very root of the thought of the heart of the believing sinner.

 

He sets up His throne there and plants the principles of His law there and reigns there.

 

Thus it is that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so now in this way might grace reign. Did sin reign? Certainly. Did it reign with power? Assuredly. It reigned. It ruled. Well, as that has reigned, even so grace shall reign. Is grace, then, to reign as certainly, as powerfully in fact, as ever sin did? Much more, much more fully, much more abundantly, much more gloriously.  Just as certainly as ever sin did reign in us, so certainly when we are in Jesus Christ the grace of God is to reign much more abundantly, "That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."

 

That being so, we can go on in victory unto perfection.

 

From that height--for it is proper to call it a height--to which this truth raises us, we can go on enjoying, reading with gratitude, what we have in Him and receiving it in the fullness of the soul. But unless we have the Lord to take us to that height and seat us there and put us where He has possession of the citadel so that we are certain where He is and in that where we are, all these other things are vague, indefinite, and seem to be beyond us--sometimes almost within our reach and we long to get where we can really have hold on them and know the reality of them, but yet they are always just a little beyond our reach and we are unsatisfied.

 

But when we surrender fully, completely, absolutely, with no reservation, letting the whole world and all there is of it, go, then we receive that divine mind of His by the Spirit of God that gives to Him possession of that citadel, that lifts us to that height where all these other things are not simply within reach--O, no, they are in the heart and are a rejoicing in the life! We then in Him have them in possession and we know it and the joy of it is just what Peter said, "unspeakable and full of glory."

 

So then as the Lord has lifted us to this height and will hold us there, now let us go ahead and read and receive,  as we read, what we have in Him. Begin with Romans 6:6.

 

Rom 6:6  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 

 

That is the scripture that comes most directly in connection with this particular thought that we have studied so far this evening. "Knowing this."--Knowing what? "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him." Good! In Jesus Christ, in His flesh, was not human nature, sinful flesh, crucified? Whose? Who was He? He was man; He was ourselves.

 

Then whose sinful flesh,  whose human nature, was crucified on the cross of Jesus Christ?--Mine.

 

Therefore, as certainly as I have that blessed truth settled in my heart and mind, that Jesus Christ was man, human nature, sinful nature, and that He was myself in the flesh--as certainly as I have that, it follows just as certainly as that He was crucified on the cross, so was I.

 

My human nature, myself there, was crucified there. Therefore I can say with absolute truth and the certainty and confidence of faith, "I am crucified with Christ." It is so.

 

We hear people so many times say, "I want self to be crucified." Well, we turn and read the text to them,  "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified." And they respond: "Well, I wish it were so." Turn to the next text and read, "I am crucified with Christ." It says I am. Who is? Are you? Still they answer, I don't see that I am. I wish it were so, but I cannot see how I am crucified and I cannot see how reading that there and saying that that is so will make it so." But the word of God says so and it is so because it says so and it would be true and everlastingly effectual if that were all there is to it. But in this case it is so because it is so. God does not speak that word to make it so in us; He speaks that word because it is so in us, in Christ.

 

In the first chapter of Hebrews you remember we had an illustration of this. God did not call Christ God to make Him God. No. He called Him God because He was God. If He had not been that, then for God to speak to Him the word of "God," and lay it upon Him, would have caused Him to be that, because that is the power of the word of God. But that is not it. That would be so if that were all there were to it, but it is so also in another way. He was God and when God called Him God, He did so because that is what He was. So in that double sense it is everlastingly so. It is so by "two immutable things."

 

Now it is the same way here. Our old man is crucified, yet when God sets forth His word that it is so, we accepting that word and surrendering to it, it is so to each one who accepts it because the word has the divine power in it to cause it to be so. And by that means it would be everlastingly so, even if that were all there is to it.  But that is not all there is to it, because in Jesus Christ human nature has been crucified on the cross, actually,  literally, and that is my human nature, that is myself in Him that was crucified there. And therefore God sets down the record of everyone who is in Christ, "He is crucified."

 

So that by the two immutable things, by the double fact, it is so. Therefore, we can say with perfect freedom, it is no boasting, it is not presumption in any sense; it is simply the confession of faith in Jesus Christ, "I am crucified with Christ." Is not He crucified? Then as certainly as I am with Him, am I not crucified with Him? the word of God says so. "Our old man is crucified with Him?" Very good. Let us thank the Lord that that is so.

 

What is the use, then, of our trying, longing, to get ourselves crucified, so that we can believe that we are accepted of God? Why, it is done, thank the Lord! In Him it is done. As certainly as the soul by faith sinks self in Jesus Christ and by that divine power which He has brought to us to do it, so certainly it is done as a divine fact.  And it is only the genuine expression of faith to tell, to acknowledge, that divine fact that "I am crucified with Christ."

 

Jesus sunk His divine self in our human nature and altogether was crucified. When we sink ourselves in Him, it is so still, because in Him only is it done. It is all in Him. We call attention to the thought we had in the lesson a few evenings ago, that it is not in Him in the sense of His being a receptacle to which we can go and take it out and apply it to ourselves. No. But it is in Him in the sense that it is all there and when we are in Him,  when we go into the receptacle, when we sink into Him, we have it all in Him as we are in Him.

 

Therefore, now let every soul of us say by the faith of Jesus Christ, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him." "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." He is alive again.  And because He lives, we live also. "Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith"--in the Son of God? "the faith of the Son of God,"--that divine faith which He brought to human nature and which He gives to you and to me. We "live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me." Gal. 2:20. O, He loved Me! When He gave Himself in all His glory and all His wondrous worth for me, who was nothing, is it much that I should give myself to Him?'

 

To be continued…

 

1895 G.C. Sermon #18  by A.T. Jones 

Emptied of Self By Christ.

Read the following excerpt.

 

Some question the validity of Christ's being able to overcome sin. They say He had the upper hand over us because He was God in flesh. We have no power, we are sinners from birth, we have no way of defeating sin. Logic dictates that Christ's overcoming sin had to be valid or Satan would not be defeated. If there were any special privilege given to Christ that we have no access too then what was accomplished would have no meaning at all. 

So what exactly happened? How did Christ overcome as us in human flesh if He did not use any special means due to His divinity?

 

Read the following excerpt- the insight is incredible-

 

(Excerpt)

 

Luk_17:21  …the kingdom of God is within you.

 

"The kingdom of God is within you." Christ dwells within us and He is the King.

 

The law of God is written upon the heart and that is the law of the kingdom. Where the King and the law of the kingdom are, there is the kingdom. In the inmost recesses, the secret chamber of the heart, at the very root, the fountain of the thought--there Christ sets up His throne; there the law of God is written by the Spirit; there the King asserts His authority and sets forth the principles of His government and allegiance to that [sic.] is Christianity.

 

Thus at the very citadel of the soul, the very citadel of the thoughts, the very place, the only place, where sin can enter--there God sets up His throne; there He establishes His kingdom; there He puts His law, and the power to cause the authority of the law to be recognized and the principles of the law to be carried out in the life, and the result is peace only and all the time. That is the very thing that Christ hath brought to us, and which comes to us in the mind of Christ.

 

Let us look at that a little further.

 

When Christ had our human nature, He was there in His divine self but didn't manifest any of His divine self in that place. What did He do with His divine self in our flesh when He became ourselves?

 

His divine self was always kept back--emptied--in order that our evil, satanic selves might be kept back--emptied.

 

Now in the flesh He Himself did nothing. He says: "Of mine own self I can do nothing." He was there all the time. His own divine self, who made the heavens, was there all the time. But from beginning to end He Himself did nothing. Himself was kept back; He was emptied.

 

Joh_5:30  I can of mine own self do nothing…

 

Who, then did that which was done in Him?  The Father that dwelleth in Me, "He doeth the works, He speaks the worlds"--Then who was it that opposed the power of temptation in Him in our flesh? The Father. It was the Father who kept Him from sinning. He was "kept by the power of God" as we are to be "kept by the power of God." 1 Peter 1:5.

 

1Pe 1:4  To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 

1Pe 1:5  Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 

 

He was our sinful selves in the flesh, and here were all these tendencies to sin being stirred up in His flesh to get Him to consent to sin. But He Himself did not keep Himself from sinning. To have done so would have been Himself manifesting Himself against the power of Satan, and this would have destroyed the plan of salvation,  even though He had not sinned.

 

And though at the cross the words were said in mockery, they were literally true: "He saved others; Himself He cannot save." Therefore He kept Himself entirely out. He emptied Himself,  and by His keeping Himself back, that gave the Father an opportunity to come in and work against the sinful flesh and save Him and save us in Him.

 

Sinners are separated from God, and God wants to come back to the very place from which sin has driven Him in human flesh. He could not come to us, in ourselves, for we could not bear His presence. Therefore Christ came in our flesh and the Father dwelt with Him. He could bear the presence of God in its fullness, and so God could dwell with Him in His fullness and this could bring the fullness of God to us in our flesh.

 

Christ came in that sinful flesh but did not do anything of Himself against the temptation and the power of sin in the flesh. He emptied Himself and the Father worked in human flesh against the power of sin and kept Him from sinning.

 

1Pe_1:5  Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

 

Now it is written of the Christian: "Ye are kept by the power of God through faith." That is done in Christ. We yield to Christ; Christ abides in us, giving us His mind. That mind of Christ enables our wicked self to be in the background. The mind of Christ--"let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus"--puts our wicked selves beneath and keeps ourselves back and keeps us from asserting ourselves, for any manifestation of ourself is of itself sin.

 

When the mind of Christ puts ourselves beneath, that gives the Father a chance to work with us and keep us from sinning. And thus God "worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

 

Thus it is always the Father and Christ and ourselves.

 

It is the Father manifested in us through Christ, and in Christ.

 

The mind of Christ empties us of our sinful selves and keeps us from asserting ourselves in order that God, the Father, may join Himself to us and work against the power of sin and keep us from sinning.

 

Thus Christ "is our peace, who hath made both [God and us] one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;  having abolished in his flesh the enmity...for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace."

 

Eph_2:15  Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace

 

So it is always the Father and Christ and we; we, the sinners; God the sinless; Christ joining the sinless One to the sinful one and in Himself abolishing the enmity, emptying self in us, in order that God and we may be one, and thus make one new man, so making peace. And thus the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through, or in, Jesus Christ.

 

Is it not a most blessed thing that the Lord Jesus has done that for us and so takes up His abode in us and so settles that question that there can be no more doubt that the Father will keep us from sinning than there is that He has kept Him from sinning already? No more doubt; because when Christ is there, He is there for the purpose of emptying self in us.

 

And when ourselves are gone, will it be any very great difficulty for the Father to manifest Himself? When ourselves are kept from asserting ourselves there will be no difficulty for God to assert Himself in our flesh. That is the mystery of God: "Christ in you, the hope of glory." God manifest in the flesh. It is not simply Christ manifest in the flesh; it is God manifest in the flesh. For when Jesus came in the world Himself, it was not Christ manifest in the flesh; it was God manifest in the flesh, for "he that hath seen me, hath seen the Father."

 

Christ emptied Himself in order that God might be manifest in the flesh, in sinful flesh, and when He comes to us and dwells in us, upon our choice, bringing to us that divine mind of His which is the mind that empties self wherever it goes, wherever it can find an entrance, wherever it can find any place to act, the mind of Christ is the emptying of self, is the abolishing of self, the destruction of self, the annihilation of self. Therefore, when by our choice that divine mind comes to us, the result is as certain that ourselves will be emptied as that the mind dwells in us. And as soon as that is done, God works fully and manifests Himself, in sinful flesh though it be. And that is victory. That is triumph.

And thus with the mind we serve the law of God. The law is manifested, it is fulfilled, its principles shine in the life, because the life is the character of God manifest in human flesh, sinful flesh, through Jesus Christ.

 

It seems to me that that thought ought to raise every one of us above all the power of Satan and of sin. It will do that as certainly as we surrender to that divine mind and let it abide in us as it abode in Him. It will do it.

 

To be continued…

 

1895 G.C. Sermon #18  by A.T. Jones

 

Where The Thoughts Are.

(Excerpt)

 

We will begin our study this evening with Rom. 7:25: "With the mind I myself serve the law of God."

 

I repeat the expression that I made in the previous lesson--that it is in the realm of the thoughts where the law of God is served, where the contention against sin is carried on and the victory won.

 

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life--these tendencies to sin that are in the flesh,  drawing upon us--in this is the temptation. But temptation is not sin. Not until the desire is cherished is there sin.  But as soon as the desire is cherished, as soon as we consent to it and receive it into the mind and hold it there,  then there is sin; and whether that desire is carried out in action or not, the sin is committed.

 

In the mind, in fact,  we have already enjoyed the desire. In consenting to it we have already done the thing so far as the mind itself goes. All that can come after that is simply the sensual part, the sense of enjoying the satisfaction of the flesh.

 

This is shown in the Saviour's words in Matt. 5:27,28:

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

 

Therefore the only place where the Lord could bring help and deliverance to us, is right in the place where the thoughts are, at the very root of the thing that is sin, the very point where the sin is conceived and where it begins.

 

Consequently, when tempted and tried as He was--when He was spit upon, when they struck Him in the face and on the head in the trial in Jerusalem and in all His public ministry when the Pharisees, the Sadducees,  the scribes, and the priests in their iniquity and hypocrisy, which He knew, were all doing everything they could to irritate Him and get Him stirred up--when He was constantly tried thus, His hand was never raised to return the blow. He never had to check any such motion, because not even the impulse to make any such motion was ever allowed. Yet He had our human nature in which such impulses are so natural. Why then did not these motions manifest themselves in our human nature in Him?

 

For the reason that He was so surrendered to the will of the Father that the power of God through the Holy Spirit so worked against the flesh and fought the battle right in the field of the thoughts, never, in the subtlest form of the thought was there allowed any such thing to conceive. So that under all these insults and grievous trials He was just as calm, our human nature in Him was just as calm, as it was when the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove overshadowed Him on the banks of the Jordan.

 

Now "let this mind be in you."

 

It is not enough for a Christian to become all stirred up and say a few spiteful words or raise the hand in resentment and then say to Himself, "O, I am a Christian; I must not say this or do that." No. We are to be so submitted to the power of God and to the influence of the Spirit of God that our thoughts shall be so completely controlled that the victory shall be won already and not even the impulse be allowed. Then we shall be Christians everywhere and all the time under all circumstances and against all influences. But until we do reach that point, we are not sure that we shall show a Christian spirit under all circumstances and at all times and against all insults.

 

As stated in the previous lesson, the things that were heaped upon Christ and which He bore were the very things that were the hardest for human nature to bear. And we, before we get through with the cause in which we are engaged are going to have to meet these very things that are hardest for human nature to bear, and unless we have the battle won already and are Christians indeed, we are not sure that we shall show the Christian spirit in these times when it is most needed. In fact, the time when the Christian spirit is most needed is all the time.

 

Now in Jesus the Lord has brought to us just the power that will give us into the hand of God and cause us to be so submitted to Him that He shall so fully control every thought that we shall be Christians all the time and everywhere, "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."

 

1895 G.C. Sermon #18  by A.T. Jones

Let Christ's Mind Be In You.

(Excerpt)

 

Now as to Christ's not having "like passions" with us: In the Scriptures all the way through He is like us and with us according to the flesh. He is the seed of David according to the flesh. He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. Don't go too far. He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, not in the likeness of sinful mind. Do not drag His mind into it. His flesh was our flesh, but the mind was "the mind of Christ Jesus." Therefore it is written: "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." If He had taken our mind, how, then, could we ever have been exhorted to "let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus?" It would have been so already. But what kind of mind is ours? O, it is corrupted with sin also. Look at ourselves in the second chapter of Ephesians,  beginning with the first verse and reading to the third, but the third verse is the one that has this particular point in it:

 

Eph 2:1  And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; 

Eph 2:2  Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 

Eph 2:3  Among whom also we all had our 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 wrath, even as others. 

 

Now I refer you also to page 191 of the Bulletin, to the lessons we studied on the destruction of that enmity. We studied there where the enmity came from, you remember--how it got into this world--the ground is covered in this that I have just read. Adam had the mind of Jesus Christ in the garden; he had the divine mind--the divine and the human were united, sinlessly. Satan came in and offered his inducements through the appetite, through the flesh. Adam and Eve forsook the mind of Jesus Christ, the mind of God that was in them, and accepted the suggestions and the leadings of this other mind. Thus they were enslaved to that and so are we all. Now Jesus Christ comes into the world, taking our flesh, and in His sufferings and temptations in the wilderness He fights the battle upon the point of appetite.

 

Where Adam and Eve failed and where sin entered He fought the battle over and victory was won and righteousness entered. He having fasted forty days and forty nights--perfectly helpless, human as ourselves,  hungry as we--there came to Him the temptation, "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." He answered, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

 

Then Satan took another turn. He argued: You are trusting in the word of God, are you? All right. Here the word of God says: "He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." Now you are trusting in the word of God: you jump off here, for it is written, "He shall give his angels charge concerning thee." Jesus answered again: "It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

 

Then Satan took Jesus upon an exceeding high mountain and showed Him all the glory of them too--the glory,  the honor, the dignity--he showed Him all that. And there at that moment there was stirred up all the ambition that ever appeared in Napoleon or Caesar or Alexander or all of them put together. But from Jesus still the answer is: "It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."

 

Then the devil departed from Him for a season, and angels came and ministered unto Him. There was the power of Satan conquered in man on the point of appetite--just where that power was gained over man. This man at the first had the mind of God; he forsook it and took the mind of Satan. In Jesus Christ the mind of God is brought back once more to the sons of men, and Satan is conquered. Therefore, it is gloriously true, as the word reads in Dr. Young's translation and in the German, as it does in the Greek: "We know that the Son of God is come and has given us a mind." 1 John 5:20

 

Read the last words of 1 Cor. 2:16: "We have the mind of Christ."

 

Put the two transactions together. The German and the Danish and also the Greek are alike. Put the two together: "We know that the Son of God is come and has given us a mind" and "We have the mind of Christ." Thank the Lord!

 

Read in Romans now. I will read from the Greek, beginning with the twenty-fourth verse of the seventh chapter.  You remember from the tenth to the twenty-fourth verses is that contest: The good I would do, I do not; and the evil I hate, that I do. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. There the flesh has control and draws the mind after it, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Now.:

O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself with the mind indeed serve the law of God [or rather serve God's law, literally here];  but with the flesh, sin's law. There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus who walk not according to flesh but according to Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus set me free from the law of sin and of death. For the law being powerless, in that it was weak through the flesh, God having sent his own son in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who not according to flesh walk, but according to Spirit. For they that according to flesh are, the things of the flesh mind; and they according to Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit [that is, the Spirit's mind; the one is the flesh's mind, and the other is the Spirit's mind], life and peace. Because the mind of the flesh is enmity toward God: for to the law of God it is not subject; for neither can it be; and they that in flesh are, God please can not [that is, cannot please God]. But ye are not in flesh, but in spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you; but if any one the Spirit of Christ has not, he is not of him: but if Christ be in you, the body is dead, on account of sin, but the Spirit life [is] on account of righteousness.

 

Our minds have consented to sin. We have felt the enticements of the flesh and our minds yielded, our minds consented and did the wills and the desires of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. The flesh leads and our minds have followed, and with the flesh the law of sin is served. When the mind can lead, the law of God is served. But as our minds have surrendered, yielded to sin, they have themselves become sinful and weak and are led away by the power of sin in the flesh.

 

Now the flesh of Jesus Christ was our flesh and in it was all that is in our flesh--all the tendencies to sin that are in our flesh were in His flesh, drawing upon Him to get Him to consent to sin. Suppose He had consented to sin with His mind--what then? Then His mind would have been corrupted and then He would have become of like passions with us. But in that case He Himself would have been a sinner; He would have been entirely enslaved and we all would have been lost--everything would have perished.

I will read now from the new Life of Christ, advance copy, upon this very point:

 

It is true that Christ at one time said of himself, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." John 14:30. Satan finds in human hearts some point where he can gain a foothold; some sinful desire is cherished, by means of which his temptations assert their power.

 

Where does he start the temptation? In the flesh.

 

Satan reaches the mind through the flesh; God reaches the flesh through the mind.

 

Satan controls the mind through the flesh. Through this means--through the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, the pride of life, and through ambition for the world and the honor and respect of men--through these things Satan draws upon us, upon our minds to get us to yield. Our minds respond and we cherish that thing. By this means his temptations assert their power. Then we have sinned. But until that drawing of our flesh is cherished, there is no sin. There is temptation, but not sin. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away thus and enticed, and when lust has conceived, when that desire is cherished, then it brings forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.

 

Read farther now:

 

Some sinful desire [with us] is cherished, by means of which his temptations assert their power. But he could find nothing in the Son of God that would enable him to gain the victory. Jesus did not consent to sin. Not even by a thought could he be brought to yield to the power of temptation.

 

Thus you see that where the victory comes, where the battlefield is, is right upon the line between the flesh and the mind.

 

The battle is fought in the realm of the thoughts.

 

The battle against the flesh, I mean, is fought altogether and the victory won in the realm of the thoughts.

 

Therefore, Jesus Christ came in just such flesh as ours but with a mind that held its integrity against every temptation, against every inducement to sin--a mind that never consented to sin--no, never in the least conceivable shadow of a thought.

 

And by that means He has brought that divine man to every man on earth. Therefore every man for the choosing and by choosing can have that divine mind that conquers sin in the flesh. Dr. Young's translation of 1 John 5:20 is: "Ye know that the Son of God has come, and hath given us a mind."

 

The German says the same thing exactly and the Greek too--"has given us a mind."

 

To be sure he has. That is what He came for.

 

We had the carnal mind,  the mind that followed Satan and yielded to the flesh. What was it that enslaved Eve's mind? O, she saw that the tree was good for food. It was not good for any such thing. The appetite, the lusts of the flesh, the desires of the flesh, led her off. She took of the tree and did eat. The appetite led, and enslaved the mind--that is, the mind of the flesh, and that is enmity against God; it comes from Satan.

 

In Jesus Christ it is destroyed by the divine mind which He brought into the flesh. By this divine mind He put the enmity underfoot and kept it there. By this He condemned sin in the flesh. So there is our victory. In Him is our victory, and it is all in having that mind which was in Him.

 

O, it is all told in the beginning. There came in this enmity, and Satan took man captive and enslaved the mind.  God says, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed." Who was her seed? Christ. "It [her seed] shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his" head? No, sir. No, sir. "Thou shalt bruise his heel." All that Satan could do with Christ was to entice the flesh, to lay temptations before the flesh.  He could not affect the mind of Christ. But Christ reaches the mind of Satan, where the enmity lies and where it exists and He destroys that wicked thing. It is all told there in the story in Genesis.

The blessedness of it is, Satan can only deal with the flesh. He can stir up the desires of the flesh, but the mind of Christ stands there and says, No, no. The law of God is to be served and the body of flesh must come under.

 

We shall have to follow this thought further. But even only so far there is blessing, there is joy, there is salvation in it for every soul.

 

Therefore "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." That conquers sin in the sinful flesh. By his promise we are made partakers of the divine nature. Divinity and humanity are united once more when the divine mind of Jesus Christ by His divine faith abides in human flesh. Let them be united in you and be glad and rejoice forevermore in it.

 

To be continued…

 

1895 G.C. Sermon #17  by A.T. Jones