The expression, “Sat down,” occurs about twenty times in the New Testament.
Hebrews 8:1–2 is a good example: “Now in the things which we are saying the chief point is this: We have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.”
Why did He sit down? Because His work was finished.
In John 17:4, He said, “I glorified thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which thou hast given me to do.” And again, He said on the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
What does He mean by that? His work of redemption was not finished until He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on High. He had finished the work of a Son.
You remember that twice God says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17) and “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).
There never had been anyone on earth before who had perfectly pleased the Father, doing His will in love, and who was a great blessing and comfort to Him. (See John 6:38.)
The words that He uttered on the cross have a far deeper meaning. He had come as the Jew’s Messiah; He had come as the Son of Abraham; He had come as a member or the Abrahamic covenant. He had been circumcised into it; and when He went to the cross, He had finished the work as a Son of Abraham—a Hebrew. He had fulfilled the covenant. He had satisfied every claim of the law, and of the covenant.
They are all fulfilled and now the old covenant can be laid aside with the old law of the covenant. Now a new covenant can take its place with a new law and a new creation people.
Luke 22:20 Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.
1 Corinthians 11:24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
How few of our theologians have recognized this.
When Jesus arose from the dead, carried His blood into the heavenly Holy of holies, He had satisfied every claim of the Supreme Court of the universe, and He brought the red seal to put upon the document of that redemption. Hebrews 9:12: “With His own blood.”
All things are now ready for a new covenant in His blood, a new law based upon the new kind of love that Jesus brought to the world and gives to men in the new creation.
That new kind of love is the nature of the Father, and on the basis of the finished work of Christ, God is able to legally give to man His nature, His love nature.
So, “Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17), and that new creation has the new nature in it.
Now we have a new covenant for the new creation, and we have a new law for the new creation. We have a new creation that is to keep the new covenant and walk in the new law.
JESUS HAS FINISHED THE WORK
Now we can understand how Jesus, after He had finished His work, could enter into His rest.
Hebrews 4:1: “Let us fear, therefore, lest haply, a promise being left of entering into his rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it.”
What does He mean by that? Well, Christ has entered into His rest. You remember that God finished the work of creation, and on the seventh day rested from all His work. Jesus came now for the new creation—has made provision for the new creation. He did that mighty work. He has conquered Satan. He has put sin away by the sacrifice of Himself. He has suffered everything that justice demanded that humanity should suffer for its union with Satan in Adam. Now having finished that work and satisfied the claims of justice, He sits down at the right hand of the Majesty on High.
Let us repeat Hebrews 1:3: “Who being the effulgence [the shining] of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word [Logos] of his power, when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
Jesus is resting, then, from His work. Then it is my business to enter into that rest myself, and to stop all my works and my struggling. I rest in His finished work. I settle down in it.
But you say, “That doesn’t agree with modern teaching. For instance, believers are struggling with their sin nature.”
The new creation is the work of God. They have never recognized that they are translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love. They figure that they are one-half alive, one-half recreated, but that they are under the dominion of their old nature. They have never grown out of their childhood life.
1 Corinthians 3:1–3 gives us a picture of them. “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ” (verse 1). In other words, “I could not write unto you as spiritual, but as unto sense-ruled believers. “I fed you with milk, not with meat; for ye were not yet able to bear it: nay, not even now are ye able; for ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye not carnal, and do ye not walk after the manner of men?” (verses 2–3).
These men were behaving as mere natural men, ruled by the adversary, governed by the defeated one, sense-ruled men.
He keeps your bodies full of disease. Perhaps he keeps your finances in a muddled condition. He robs you of your faith and quiet confidence in the Lord. You have never entered into your rest. You have never ceased from your old life habits of thinking that are governed by the adversary. You are governed by the defeated one.
“Yes,” you say, “But what am I going to do? I do not have faith.”
1 Corinthians 3:21 illustrates this for us: “Let no one glory in men. For all things are yours [in Christ].”
You are rich. The very wealth of heaven belongs to you, but you have never taken advantage of it. You are living as though the Supreme Court of the universe had not granted you the riches unveiled in Christ. (See Ephesians 1:3.)
You know nothing about the unsearchable riches of Christ mentioned in Ephesians 3:8. You are not acquainted with the ability of His spirit in the inner man; that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man;
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God. (Ephesians 3:17–19)
But you say, “Well, what about my diseases?”
Let us read Isaiah 53:3 (marginal rendering):
He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sickness and acquainted with pain: and as one from whom men hid their faces he was despised; and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our sicknesses and carried our diseases; and we have come to esteem him as the one who was stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
You say, “That settles it. He does not need to bear them again. He bore them once. He does not need to be sick with my sickness again. When I accepted Him as my Savior and confessed Him as my Lord, God gave to me eternal life, His very nature. He breathed into me His own substance and being. I partook of His love nature.”
Christ does not need to die again for you. His work is accepted, and if you are a new creation, Satan has no dominion over you.
1 John 4:8 declares that God is love, and it is His love nature that has become our new nature. He is a faith God, and we have become faith children and love children. He is righteous. We become healed and well children. (See Ephesians 4:24.)
DISEASE HAS BEEN BORNE
He doesn’t need to bear our diseases again.
But you say, “How do you get rid of your diseases?”
If Satan has been adroit enough to deceive us and to bring along a bundle of diseases and place them at our door and tell us that they are our disease, that they have our names on them, and we are unwise enough to sign up for them, that is unfortunate. Now we are instructed, however, and we know the truth.
We say, “Satan, whose diseases are these?” He says, “They are yours.” We say, “We beg your pardon. Our diseases were borne by Jesus. If you have any diseases, sir, they are your own; and in the name of Jesus, I command you to take them away.”
We hold fast to our confession that “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows [diseases]” (Isaiah 53:4); and because He did it, it is well done and perfectly done; so we hold fast to that confession.
But you say, “Didn’t James say,
Is any among you sick? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him. Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working. (James 5:14–16)?
BABES VERSUS BELIEVERS
Yes, I remember that, but to whom is James writing? He is writing to babes in Christ, people described to you in 1 Corinthians. You will find another picture of them in Hebrews 5:12–14:
For when by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food. For every one that partaketh of milk is without experience of the word of righteousness; for he is a babe. But solid food is for fullgrown men, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.
James 1:5–7. This is the babe in Christ.
You go into our orthodox churches, and you will hear these babes crying for faith, for wisdom, and praying for deliverance, for their healing, for this and for that. What is the matter with them? They have never read the Pauline Revelation. They do not know anything about it.
Paul has received from God revelation of His Son and of His Sonship. It is a revelation of what God did in Jesus for man, and what the Holy Spirit throughout the word does in the man who accepts Christ as Savior.
As babes, we have to have someone do our believing for us, our receiving. Someone else has to do all the work for us.
Then, as we remain as babes, we have to have someone pray for us when we are sick.
This babe in Christ is held under the dominion of the senses. He is sense-ruled. When the elders come into the room, he can see them. He can feel the oil upon his head; he can feel the hands upon his head. He does not have faith himself.
The elders recognize their righteousness so that they pray for him and the Lord hears their prayer and the man is healed.
This babe acts as though the Lord didn’t do His work, so he has to be healed through the faith of some other person.
WISDOM, REDEMPTION, STRENGTH, AND REST
1 Corinthians 1:30 tells us that Jesus is made unto us wisdom from God.
Colossians 1:9: “That ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”
That belongs to the believer in order that he may “walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God” (verse 10).
This is speaking of wisdom. There are two kinds of wisdom spoken of in James 3. One is the wisdom that comes down from above, and the other is the wisdom of the devil. But you have the wisdom that comes from God. You are trusting utterly in Him. Here is His living Word, which, in reality, is the wisdom of God that becomes a part of your very being. You rest in it.
When anyone would rap at the door or call on the phone, I used to say, “Father, give me wisdom.” Now I say, “Father, I thank Thee that Jesus is made wisdom.”
“I have been lifted out of the old life, from the old creation into the new creation. In my spirit is the nature of God.” Every one of you can say this, for you have been made a new creation in Christ Jesus. Now you can understand this Scripture in Hebrews 1:3.
I am not going to ask Him to get up to give me victory over my enemies, to deliver me out of the hands of my enemies, because I have been delivered. “Who delivered us out of the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love; in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins” (Colossians 1:13–14).
He doesn’t have to redeem you again. He doesn’t have to do the work again. The work has been accepted.
What do you do? You rest in His rest. You rest in the confidence that it is done.
But you say, “Mr. Kenyon, it is so hard to recognize that it is done. It is so hard to grasp.”
Well, the Spirit that raised up Christ from the dead will give clearness to your mind if you will practice it. Begin to live the Word. Begin to take your place right now as a son or daughter in the family. You whisper, “Father, I am what You say I am. I can do what You say I can do in Christ. I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.” (See Philippians 4:13.)
God is the very strength of your being now. (See Psalm 27:1; Philippians 4:13.)
Ephesians 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,
You must not forget that you have Him inside you, the One who raised Jesus from the dead. He is actually there.
Read the American Standard Version of Ephesians over and over again until it prevails in your life; then whisper, “God is working in me according to His ability (for that word “power” means ability). His grace, His love, His life is effectually working in me.”
May I give you another Scripture? “I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly [or in abundance]” (John 10:10).
The Father wants you to have the abundance of His nature. He wants your whole spirit and soul swallowed up in His life.
2 Corinthians 5:4 For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life
He wants you so dominated by His nature that Satan can gain no advantage over you.
You remember now that the work has all been accomplished for you, and it is all yours the moment you accept Christ. There is no struggle to get it. It is resting in His rest.
HOW MUCH DO YOU REMEMBER?
- When was the work of redemption completed?
- What does the new creation in Christ have in place of the old covenant?
- Do Christians need to struggle with sin consciousness?
- What is meant by “living and walking as natural men”?
- What should be our attitude toward disease in the light of Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice?
- What type of Christian is always pleading, crying, and praying for faith?
- What is Paul’s revelation of Christ?
- Explain the two kinds of wisdom.
- Why can you rest with confidence in the finished work of Christ?
- What can John 10:10 mean in your life today?