In our last lesson, we began to study how to deal with those who are indifferent and careless toward the gospel. This is one of the classes of men that we meet with most frequently. We have studied how to show this group their need of Christ as Savior. Another way to arouse a man from his indifference is to show him what Christ has done for him.
SHOW HIM HIS LEGAL RIGHTS
Most of our preaching to the unsaved has been an effort to bring them under condemnation. As you deal with an unsaved person, show him that he possesses legal rights that he has not used. The legal rights that every man possesses are the following:
• A legal right to righteousness, the ability to stand in the presence of God as free from sin and condemnation as though there had never been sin in the world.
• A legal right to receive the life of God.
• A legal right to walk with God as His son.
• A legal right to healing for his physical body.
• A legal right to a life of peace and freedom from anxiety and need.
• A legal right to immortality for his physical body, and a home in the new heaven and earth where he shall reign with Christ.
The personal worker must understand these vital truths before he can clearly present them to another. Study and meditate upon our redemption in Christ until you are touched and stirred by the bondage of an unsaved man to spiritual death when he possesses legal, God-given rights to freedom.
Study 2 Corinthians 5:14–21 until it becomes a part of you.
HOW TO SHOW A MAN HIS LEGAL RIGHTS
MAN’S LEGAL RIGHT TO RIGHTEOUSNESS
In the previous lesson, we saw how to show a man his need of a Savior by making clear to him his identification with Adam. In showing a man his legal right to righteousness, show him his identification with Christ, which destroys the effect of his identification with Adam. You will find man’s identification with Christ also in Romans 5:12–21.
Show the one with whom you are dealing his legal identification with Christ upon the cross. Explain clearly to him that, in the mind of God, it was man who hung there, not Christ.
Use the following Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 5:21 (God actually made Jesus sin for us); and Galatians 2:20 (man was crucified with Christ).
You will find Isaiah 53:5–6 very effective. It is helpful to have the person you are trying to reach to read these verses aloud, changing the plural pronoun to the singular: “He was wounded for [my] transgressions, he was bruised for [my] iniquities.”
Center your explanation of man’s legal right to righteousness on Romans 4:25 (YLT): “Who was delivered up because of our offences, and was raised up because of our being declared righteous.”
Explain clearly that Christ was delivered up for man’s offenses and bore the judgment that was ours because He had been completely identified with us. He was all that we were, and this identification was so complete that Jesus could not be raised from His condition as our sin-substitute until we could be declared righteous. Use here 1 Timothy 3:16: He was justified or declared righteous. Show this person who has been so indifferent to Christ that he has as much a legal right to righteousness as God’s own Son because God, in His love, made His Son sin and that Son couldn’t be declared righteous until God had declared man righteous.
When you have reached this stage, point the following fact to the individual with whom you are dealing. Ask him to be honest with himself in considering the issue. His indifference to the Word of God, or his desire to believe that there is not a personal God, is most likely due to the fact that he has within himself consciousness that if there is a God, he cannot stand uncondemned in His presence and has no grounds of approach to Him.
He has been indifferent toward the existence of God and a future life because he has been afraid of God. Then show him that he has a legal right to become the very righteousness of God by personally accepting Christ. He may be freed from all sense of guilt in the presence of God.
MAN’S LEGAL RIGHT TO SONSHIP AND ITS PRIVILEGES
After you have made clear to the one his right to righteousness, show to him on the basis of that his legal right to become a son of God. When a man accepts the redemptive work of Christ on his behalf, he is declared righteous. That is, he stands before God as free from sin as though Adam had never sinned.
He has then the authority to become a child of God. He has the same right to become a child of God that Adam had and forfeited by his crime of high treason.
More than that, he has the same right to become a child of God that Christ had. For Christ had to be born out of spiritual death into eternal life as much as any man today needs to be born again before he can enter the kingdom of heaven. (See John 3:3.)
God has made His Son absolutely one with us, and He had to be born out of spiritual death when He had paid man’s penalty. When God raised Christ from the dead, He said to Him, “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee” (Psalm 2:7; see also Acts 13:33).
Christ was the first man to be born out of spiritual death into eternal life. (See Hebrews 1:5; Romans 8:29.) We were identified with Him and on the basis of Christ’s being born out of Satan’s dominion into God’s life, every man living has a right to become a Son of God and a joint heir with Christ.
In showing one his identification with Christ, make it as personal as possible. Make him see that God has no favorites. All that Christ did, He did for him as fully as He did it for anyone.
Explain that no man’s life is more precious to God than his. Use John 1:12. He has the authority to become a child of God by receiving Christ. Show the one with whom you are dealing the privileges of a child of God that will be his on this earth and also in the new heaven and earth. You may use the following Scriptures: John 17:23; Romans 8:14–17; John 16:23–24; Philippians 4:19; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 1 Peter 5:7.
By presenting, tenderly and sincerely, the legal rights that God has given to man by the sacrifice of His Son, you should be able to arouse every indifferent person you meet and bring many of them to a definite decision for Christ. Master these truths until you will be able to clearly present them, as briefly or fully as the occasion permits, to the ones for whom Christ died who are indifferent towards Him.
Explain to him that Satan has blinded his mind so that the light of the gospel has not entered, for this is the only means that Satan has to keep a man from becoming a child of God. God has legally freed every man from Satan’s authority and given him legal rights.
QUESTIONS
- Name the legal rights that every man possesses.
- How would you explain to an unsaved man his right to righteousness?
- Why is it important to show man his right to righteousness?
- Why does an unsaved man have the right to become a child of God?