THE KEY TO WHAT THE NEW COVENANT IS ABOUT
One of the things that I’ve noticed in the preaching of the Word, is that a great many people are missing the whole key of the New Testament, what it is all about.
Maybe it’s concealed more than we are prepared to see. But so often a person will open the Scriptures, and they start to preach to people a personal discipline, a reformation, a development of an old nature, a striving to attain through willpower. Through some sort of self-imposed consecration to the Lord.
This in the eyes of God comes about by another method, another route, another way, another path completely, and is not the will of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom.
But that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Jesus did not die for us; He died as us. He was the last Adam, the last of the human race. This was accomplished in the realm of the Spirit.
There are two aspects of redemption 1- the legal aspect. And 2-the vital aspect. Through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ the provision of our salvation was accomplished. But we must appropriate (take possession of) that provision, this is the vital aspect of redemption. It is like having a million dollars in the bank, but without a debit card we cannot withdraw it. We must learn how to draw upon the provision of Jesus Christ. This is vital, necessary, imperative, that we are born of the Spirit, you must be born again, you must become a New Creation, and this then becomes our starting point. It is Christ in us the hope of Glory.
Then Christ in us, the new man, the living word, God’s DNA, the seed of God in us must grow. Christ must be formed in us, we must be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, we must be transformed by the renewing of our mind (our soul). This is our primary destiny. It should be the main focus of our life, we must become before we can do, before we can walk in the good works, the living works, prepared for us to walk in before God created the world, we now live in. This is our secondary destiny.
First, we must be born again and then we have to learn how to partake of the divine nature. This is the only path that is acceptable to God. It is called the way of the tree of life. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
GOD IS NOT DEALING WITH THE OLD MAN
The old man is everything that we inherited from the first Adam.
When God gives his viewpoint of the old man, the old nature, he demonstrated it louder than words, when he sent his son to die, so that a new nature could come forth. And he isn’t interested in doing anything with the old man. He wants to bring forth the new.
He’s not interested in dressing up the old creation, the old nature. He recognizes that the carnal mind is enmity against God and it’s not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. And so he wants it put to death. He doesn’t want to develop it. He doesn’t want you to do anything with it. He doesn’t want you to fall into the same pitfall that the Galatians fell into.
As Paul said, Having begun in the Spirit, do you now think to be made perfect in the flesh? Through some great discipline and effort of the flesh to perfect and finish the thing that God begun purely as a work of the Spirit, a creation of God in your life.
We get hung up sometimes, trying to be made perfect in the flesh. The flesh is that union of soul and body that acts independently of God.
That’s why many Christians come into so much at the beginning, and then they go along stalemated because they revert to the wrong philosophy or the wrong thought concerning the way that Christian perfection should come.
It isn’t really that they believe that Christian perfection is going to come. It’s just that they are unhappy with the measure that they have of God, and so they’re going to try to attain it by their own efforts. And those efforts are directed in the wrong direction.
Now, the way to see it is that from the very beginning, God intended to bring forth a new nature. And to tell you in a few words the things that would really bring that about, let me put it this way.
Whenever a child is born or is in the process, and successively it grows and develops until it’s a full-formed human being. It develops and then it grows.
Now, with a Christian, the process does not seem to be exactly in the same way. The natural then is not always to be compared as the way the spiritual comes forth, because it’s a thing of spirit.
In the first place almost everything that you receive in this new nature, in your regenerated, renewed spirit is by impartation. Or it is imputed or it is appropriated.
When we start to walk with God, how do we come into certain things, like the gifts of the Spirit? They’re given. The scripture tells us how by prophecy and the laying on of hands, a person can come into something.
Actually, they just acquire a partial manifestation of the fullness of Christ. For in him is all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We receive a word of knowledge, but whose knowledge is it? It is Christ’s knowledge, isn’t it? Whose miracle power is it? Whose authority to cast out devils? Whose gift of faith is it that can do all of these mighty things? Is it not his?
For all authority in heaven and earth was given unto the Lord. So, by the Spirit, a fragment of it is dispensed to one person after another. So literally, they acquire an ability. They acquire an arm. They acquire a foot. They acquire an ear to hear in the discerning of spirits. They acquire a heart to discern, to perceive, to move in compassion.
And even the fruit of the Spirit, I’ve come to believe more and more, and I think that they’re acquired. We could try to grow long-suffering from now to doomsday, but it’s actually something that God gives us, so that we become long-suffering. Jesus says my peace I give you. He said, I give you joy. My joy will be fulfilled in you. It’s something that is imparted, it’s imputed, it’s appropriated, it’s acquired.
So, the fruit of the Spirit is given to us in the divine nature, but the fruit of our spirit in union with God’s Spirit, has to flow though our soul. This is where we have fruit is practiced or cultivated.
And so, we start out with the Spirit. That has great potential, but then it acquires the abilities, the members of the body of Christ, the things we are called to walk in.
And once this idea occurs to our mind, we realize that the great potential is not found in what you are basically as an individual. It’s acquired as God reveals his nature and the way that you’re going to appropriate it. And when you draw it and you receive it, you’ve got the secret.
Now, the thing is that people focus their attention in the wrong direction. They should be looking to Christ instead of looking to try to do something about the mess that they find themselves in, within their own heart or in their own circumstances or their own problems.
It’s the miracle of grace of what God can do for you, what He can help you with. We’ve gone over this thing so many times and yet people still get discouraged and look at themselves and still keep feeling that they’re inadequate without realizing that God is the one who’s going to do all of this precious thing for them.
Colossians 3:1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
He’s indicating then that the whole thing is that Christ has planted his life, his nature in our spirit, Christ in you, the hope of glory. This is what this whole epistle is all about, and that’s what’s recorded in Colossians 1.27.
Colossians 1:27 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 was the great mystery that Paul preached: Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in His marvelous ministry to us comes into our spirit giving us a new life and new nature. There’s actually an infusion of Christ Himself coming forth in us.
And so, it is a matter of acquiring, a matter of appropriating, and a matter of discarding the old and putting on the new. And that’s what Colossians goes on to talk about in the third chapter. Put to death! Colossians 3:5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
Colossians 3:9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.
This is the whole key. Can the attributes of God be that way? Yes, they certainly can. Within the range of the human personality, it’s very difficult to transmit what you are to another person. Don’t you wish you could?
How many of you parents wish that you could give the experience that you learned the hard way to your children? Wouldn’t that be marvelous? It would be wonderful.
Yet, what is the Lord doing for us when He gives us the word of wisdom or the word of knowledge, but giving us a new capacity and ability? What does God do but transmit to you His attributes?
He begins the moment that you become a Christian by giving to you the greatest of all of His attributes, the attribute of eternity. When you become a Christian, He makes you His child and He says, He that believeth on me shall never die. Amen.
We have everlasting life. We have entered into the first attribute of God, the eternity of God. What about the nature of God? This is almost unbelievable. But the Lord imparts to us, as though a robe were put about us, His own righteousness.
That’s why Christ died in order that He could open up the way of transmission and transference. When we were dead in trespasses and sins, He transferred our guilt upon himself, that he might take the righteousness of God and transfer it to us.
He who knew no sin was made sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God, Corinthians tells us. This is the truth because everything’s based on it.
God is transmitting what He is to us. The Lord brings forth Christ in us through His own life and nature, and He’s giving us one thing after another.
Now put to death, therefore, your members which are on thee upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil, desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which things’ sake cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience. Wherein ye also once walked when ye lived in these things, but now do ye also put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth? Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings.
You just refuse it. You just say, to these things, you’ve been there long enough. Out, out, eviction notice. Now you’re not even getting three days’ notice. Get going. You’re put to death. You put him off. Can it be done? To the extent you believe that you can do it.
And then you go on further. And have put on the new man. You put on that new man that is being renewed after the knowledge, after the image of him that created him. Where there cannot be Greek or Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman, but Christ is in all. Christ is all and in all.
See, that’s Christ in you, the hope of glory. This Christ coming forth in you is the key. And in that realm, there can’t be anything else but the developing of Christ, the Christ that is coming forth, developing as you dare to believe and appropriate. Then you can see how that a saint could be produced overnight if you could find some person that would come into Christ with an unlimited faith to believe he could appropriate it all like that.
What we do is we come to crisis, from one crisis to another crisis and we are so desperate that we appropriate a little more and appropriate a little more. And then when we get to the place where we’re self-contended, the Lord will jab us into a crisis, so we’ll appropriate more.
The whole thing is a reluctance to enter in and believe the fullness that God wants to bring to you. Amen.
But put on therefore as God’s elect, holy and beloved. That’s what you are. You’re not some broken down poor excuse of a Christian in God’s sight. You’re God’s elect, holy and beloved and you are to put on a heart of compassion. You’re never going to love people like you should unless you put it on. Draw in kindness, lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another, if any man have a complaint against any.
What is this key of forgiveness? You cannot forgive in the old nature, you cannot say I can forgive but I can’t forget. Then you’re not forgiving either.
But Christ can forgive and He can forget. And so can we when we put on His forgiveness. These things are put on and above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.
Now this to me is one of the most important messages that we can have. We’re daring to pray and believe, lay hands, and acquire. Can it be done without the laying on of hands? Yes. Any one of you here tonight could come into the service appropriating and you could receive anything that God is giving.
Anyone can receive any need that you have being fulfilled gloriously and fully in the Lord Jesus. Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Wasn’t that something? Excuse me, I’m saying so, but I think that’s a classic about the grace of God, don’t you?
One of the things that happens around here, is once in a while, God gives a message on the grace of God. And every time it comes, not because of human wisdom involved, but because somehow you tapped the pulse of the heart of God when you get into this marvelous truth of what God can do for you, what He has done for you, and what you can have, just reach in, grab at it, hang on to it. Reach forth because everything that you want in God has already been provided for in the grace of God.
And so, we struggle along reaching, straining, striving. Maybe it’s right that it should take us so long. I don’t know. But I’m inclined to think we ought to be moving faster, and we could be moving faster if we just start reaching. And we just say in our heart, like the woman did of old, If I can but touch the hem of his garment, I’ll be every but whole. And just reach out and touch him. You get from Christ what you see in him for yourself. Amen.