Word. The Word is the source of all faith. The faith must be a quiet assurance, an unconscious faith, something that you do not even think about.
You can’t conceive of Jesus saying to Himself, “If I only had faith.”
Men and women who have really wrought mighty things have been those who never thought about their faith life.
The Word was a reality.
What He said solved the problem.
This Word is revelation knowledge.
It is God deigning to speak with man.
THE REALITY OF THE INCARNATION
First there must be a reality of the incarnation.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
The incarnation cannot be a doctrine or a theory or a metaphysical concept.
It must be as real as your birth is to you.
Not something to argue about, but an absolute fact that God has broken into the human realm and has given to the senses a testimony of His reality.
I can never forget when I knew that God had been and was manifest in the flesh.
I had an unconscious background of doubt that disappeared, and another background of absolute certainty took its place.
THE REALITY OF HIS RESURRECTION
Many of us have reveled in His earth walk, following Him step by step in His miraculous career.
We were thrilled at the demonstrations of divine ability that characterized Him in every crisis.
He faced a dead Lazarus as simply as you and I would face any ordinary event in life.
He was perfectly quiet in the midst of the storm on the Sea of Galilee.
He walked on the waves that night amid the tumult of a raging storm as quietly as you walk up and down on the sidewalk in front of your home.
There was a royalty about His faith; a divine dignity that thrills us.
But was He raised from the dead?
He raised others. Was He raised?
I fought this for years. It was an unknown battle to those about me.
I used to say, “If He was actually raised from the dead, then His deity and His substitutionary work are realities.”
One day as I was reading John 20:1–10, I saw the miracle.
The problem of the resurrection of Jesus centers first around the question, “Was He dead?” As one skeptic declares, “He had swooned.”
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit. The Jews therefore, because it was the Preparation, that the bodies should not remain on the cross upon the sabbath (for the day of that sabbath was a high day), asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. The soldiers therefore came, and [broke] the legs of the first, and of the other that was crucified with him: but when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they [broke] not his legs: howbeit one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and straightway there came out blood and water. (John 19:30–34 ASV)
That Roman spearhead was four or five inches wide, and when he stood there underneath the Master and thrust the spear up into the side of Jesus, it must have penetrated the sack that holds the heart.
What had happened?
Jesus had died!
The body had grown cold.
His heart had been ruptured when He uttered that cry, “It is finished.”
And out through the rupture in the heart flowed the blood into the sack until it was filled.
The body rapidly grows cold. As it does, the blood separates. The white serum settles to the bottom, and the red corpuscles rise to the top; and as the body grows colder, the red corpuscles coagulate.
When the spear pierced the sack that held the blood, the white serum or water flowed out. Then the red corpuscles slowly oozed out and rolled down the side of His body onto the ground.
Jesus was dead.
As soon as the Master was dead, loving hearts began to prepare for His burial.
And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. (John 19:38)
You understand that, in every family among the wealthy Jews, there was a slave who understood embalming, for that class always embalmed their loved ones.
And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. (John 19:39–40)
The body was first washed, and then the cloth was torn up into narrow strips and smeared with a sticky substance. Each finger and toe and hand and foot was wrapped with these strips until the legs and arms and body were completely encased in this sticky substance. The head and neck were completely covered except the face.
When it was finished, over the chest and torso, there was an inch to an inch and a half of this cloth covered with that sticky substance.
The body was then put into Joseph’s tomb.
The climate was about the same as they have in Southern California. In a few hours, the embalming garment would become a solid mass, and Jesus’s body would be completely imprisoned in the grave clothes.
If He were not dead, this would cause Him to die.
The face was yet to be embalmed. Loved ones laid a napkin upon His face, heavily saturated with something to preserve it until the third day, when loving hands would finish the embalming.
Jesus was dead.
The Roman government had pronounced Him dead.
The soldiers had pronounced Him dead.
The Jews knew He was dead.
Now on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb. She runneth therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. And they ran both together: and the other disciple outran Peter, and came first to the tomb; and stooping and looking in, he seeth the linen cloths lying; yet entered he not in. Simon Peter therefore also cometh, following him, and entered into the tomb; and he beholdeth the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, that was upon his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself. Then entered in therefore the other disciple also, who came first to the tomb, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. So the disciples went away again unto their own home. (John 20:1–10 ASV)
You notice carefully the last two verses. They knew not that Jesus must arise again from the dead. None of them believed in His resurrection, so you can understand their surprise when Mary came to the house where Peter and John were staying and cried, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid him.”
Nothing was more sacred to the Jews than the dead. Mary had been filled with anger and sorrow that someone had dared to desecrate the tomb.
Peter and John ran together. John is younger, lighter of foot. He outruns his heavier partner and arrives at the tomb first. It was a sepulcher cut out of a solid ledge. John stops and reverently looks into the darkened tomb. Peter comes, just bows his head, and enters the tomb. John follows. The grave clothes are lying there on the floor. Peter sees the napkin that was upon Jesus’s face, rolled up and lying on a niche in the tomb.
Then entered in therefore the other disciple also, who came first to the tomb, and he saw, and believed. (John 20:8 ASV)
What did John see?
He saw the empty cocoon lying there upon the floor. It had become so hard and stiff that it would almost support one’s knee as you pressed upon it. But it was empty.
The body of Jesus had come out of that little narrow aperture at the face.
If John had seen that someone with a knife had ripped that cocoon open and taken the body of Jesus, he would never have believed; the empty cocoon convinced John that Jesus was risen from the dead.
In my imagination, I had been with Peter and John when Mary came with her anger and distress, crying, “They have taken away the body.”
I had gone with them to the tomb. I had stood there in my imagination, looking into the tomb.
I entered into the tomb with John, and I saw what John saw, and for the first time in my life, I knew that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead.
It has never been a theological dogma since that hour.
Jesus was raised from the dead.
But what does that resurrection mean?
That the sin problem was settled.
That Satan was conquered.
Humanity was redeemed.
That God can now, on legal grounds, impart His nature, eternal life, to man and make him a new creation.
At last, man can become God’s actual child, a very son.
There can be perfect fellowship between them.
When God imparted His nature to man, He imparted His righteousness. So, man is a partaker of the divine nature and the righteousness of God.
Man can stand in the Father’s presence as did Jesus in His earth walk.
Now God can give the Holy Spirit to live permanently in the body of this new creation, and He can build into that new creation through the Word, the very character and nature of the incarnate One, so that we can say softly, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” (See Galatians 2:20.)
Now I know that Romans 4:25 is a reality: “Who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification” (ASV).
THE REALITY OF HIS REDEMPTION
The church has had a theological conception of our redemption. It has never been a part of our daily walk.
Giving thanks unto the Father…who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption. (Colossians 1:12–14)
And Ephesians 1:7 says that redemption is according to the riches of His grace.
In the mind of the Father, that redemption is a reality.
It would have been a total failure otherwise.
That redemption meant that Satan had been utterly defeated, stripped of his authority and dominion so that any man, no matter what his condition has been or how deeply he has been enmeshed in sin, can, by whispering the name of Jesus and by confessing His Lordship, step out of bondage into perfect liberty.
Romans 6:14: “For sin shall not have dominion over you.” Put another way, “Satan shall not lord it over you.”
It has made the new man, the new creation, a master of sin.
In the name of Jesus, the weakest child of God is an absolute master of Satan and demons.
That redemption is a reality.
You who have received eternal life, as you read this, can whisper, “I am free. The Son has made me free, and I am free in reality.” (See John 8:36.)
That redemption is a reality to the man who knows his place in Christ.
You cannot be in Christ and not be free from the dominion of the devil.
THE REALITY OF THE NEW CREATION
What substitutions we have had for the new creation!
We have called it “forgiveness of sins,” “being converted,” “getting religion,” “joining the church,” and many others.
It is just one thing: a new creation, a child of God, a partaker of the divine nature. These all represent the one fact that you have passed out of death, satanic nature, into life, the realm of God.
That is not just forgiveness of sins, but it is the impartation of a new nature.
The old self, the old man, was crucified with Christ.
A new man was resurrected and when you accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and confessed Him as Lord, God imparted His own nature, eternal life, to you and you became “a new species,” a new man over which Satan has no dominion.
THE REALITY IN JESUS’S NAME
How little we have appreciated this. It is one of the greatest gifts the church has ever had given to her.
Before Jesus left us, He gave to the church a legal right to the use of His name, “That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you” (John 15:16).
And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. (John 16:23–24)
Here He gives us the power of attorney to go to the Father and make our requests.
When you pray in that name, it is as though Jesus prayed.
There can be no denial.
You remember Jesus said at the tomb of Lazarus, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me” (John 11:41). That is the ground for your assurance.
In John 14:13–14, He gives us the use of His name: “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”
This is not prayer. This is described in Acts 3:6, where Peter and John heal a man at the Beautiful Gate by saying, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.”
It is as Paul used it in Acts 16:18, where he spoke to the demon in the girl and said, “I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.”
Or as the name was used on the day of Pentecost when they baptized those people in the name of Jesus.
When we pray, we say, “Our Father, in Jesus’s name…”
That is our approach.
That gives us the assurance of a hearing.
Jesus said, speaking of the Holy Spirit, “He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:17).
THE REALITY OF INDWELLING
On the day of Pentecost, we see four things take place in that upper room.
Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. (Acts 2:2)
The disciples were immersed in the Holy Spirit. And when they were immersed, they received eternal life, were made new creations.
They were the first people, aside from Jesus, who were ever born again. Jesus, you know, is “the firstborn.” (See Colossians 1:15; Revelation 1:5.)
The second thing that happened is that tongues of fire sat upon the brow of each one, indicating the method of propagating this gospel of the grace of God. It is going to be with tongues of fire.
For example, Steven’s tongue couldn’t be withstood, so they had to kill him to get rid of his tongue of fire.
And the third thing is that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. He couldn’t come in until they were recreated.
And the fourth thing is that they all spoke with other tongues.
But note that the great thing was they had not only received eternal life, but they had the One who had raised Jesus from the dead now living in them.
We have made a great deal of receiving the Holy Spirit.
It has been given great importance and we have ignored the fact of His being in us.
First John 4:4 says, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”
According to Philippians 2:13 (ASV), “For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.”
Not only are we born again, having become the very sons and daughters of God, but He comes and makes His home in us.
THE REALITY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
The ministry has kept the church in the bondage of sin-consciousness ever since the Reformation.
None of us have ever been able to get away from it.
Most of our hymns are about sin.
Almost every sermon is about sin.
The church has never known of her absolute freedom from sin-consciousness.
Hebrews 10:1–14 should be studied very carefully. We haven’t space to quote it all.
First it tells how the blood of bulls and goats couldn’t take away sin, for if it could, the worshippers, having been once cleansed, would have no more consciousness of sins. “But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year” (verse 3).
That makes us think of the altar service where we ask the believer to keep coming Sunday after Sunday to be cleansed from sin.
The blood of Jesus Christ hasn’t meant more to some of us than the blood of bulls and goats meant to the Jew.
For it was impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin.
And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man [Jesus], after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:11–14)
Jesus dealt with the sin problem for us perfectly when we were recreated and received the nature and life of God.
At that time, He not only put our sin away, but He remitted all that we had ever committed; and at the same time, He imparted His own nature of righteousness to us. “Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21 ASV). By that new creation, we have become the righteousness of God.
So, Romans 3:22 has become a reality: “It is a righteousness of God which comes by believing in Jesus Christ. And it is meant for all who have faith” (MOFF).
Here, God declares that He becomes the righteousness of the man who accepts His Son as a Savior.
First Corinthians 1:30 declares that Jesus has been made to be our righteousness.
God is our righteousness, Jesus is our righteousness, and by the new creation, we have become the righteousness of God in Him.
But you ask, “What is the righteousness of God?”
It is the ability to stand in the Father’s presence without a sense of guilt, condemnation or inferiority.
It is the ability to stand there as the very sons and daughters of God Almighty so that you can go boldly unto the throne of grace and make your petitions just as Jesus would if He were here.
SOME FAITH FACTS
Faith in the Father is not built upon the word of man but upon His own Word.
Man’s testimony to the truth of the Word has its place, but it cannot take the place of the Word itself.
The Word is the Father speaking.
It is as though the Master were here now in person; that Word is taking His place.
That Word has given us life and made us new creations.
That Word has sustained us and upheld us.
It is the Word of faith that proceeds from the very heart of the Father of faith.
The Word is a part of the Father Himself.
I feed on it.
I breathe it into my spirit.
It is being built into my spirit-consciousness.
Its absolute integrity, its life-giving quality, has impregnated my very being.
Man’s word, like grass, withers.
God’s Word, like Himself, can never die, can never lose its freshness, its power, its ability to recreate, to strengthen and give courage.
You see, the Word on the lips of faith becomes just like the Word on Jesus’s lips.
The Word on lips of doubt and fear is a dead thing, but on the lips of faith, it becomes life-giving, dominant.
Through it, the sick are healed; Satan’s captives are set free.
This living Word on the lips of faith is God’s answer to the heart cry of man.
Man’s word may fascinate and satisfy reason for a time, but the heart demands the Word of God.
This Word illumined by the Holy Spirit is God’s light on life’s pathway.
The Word is a part of Himself.
You can lean on the Word as you would lean on Him.
You can rest in the Word as you would rest in Him.
You can act on the Word as you would act if He had just spoken to you.
The Word is always now.
Our modern psychological religions are children of the senses; they use the Bible and quote from it, but it is only man’s literature to them. Their writings can’t feed the hungry spirit of man; they simply entertain and thrill the people of the senses.
These eternal spirits of ours crave the bread of God. Jesus is the Bread of Life; they that feed on Him have no appetite for the theories of men.
Don’t waste time with the philosophies of men. There is no life in them.
In Him is life, and that life is our light.
His Word alone can answer the heart cry of man.
Their words may answer the cry of lost reason-ruled souls groping in the sense realm for light, but never the cry of the heart.
Jesus’s bold and continual confession is our example. We are what He made us to be.
Jesus confessed what He was. Sense knowledge could not understand it.
We are to confess what we are in Christ. Men of the senses will not understand us.
To confess that you are redeemed, that your redemption is an actual reality, that you are delivered out of Satan’s dominion and authority, would be a daring confession to make.
To confess that you are an actual new creation created in Christ Jesus, that you are a partaker of the very nature and life of the Deity, would amaze your friends.
It isn’t confessing it once, but daily affirming your relationship to Him, confessing your righteousness, your ability to stand in His presence without the sense of guilt or inferiority.
Dare to stand in the presence of sense knowledge facts and declare that you are what God says you are!
For instance, sense knowledge declares that I am sick with an incurable illness. I confess that God laid that disease on Jesus and that Satan has no right to put it on me, that “by His stripes, I am healed.” (See Isaiah 53:5.) I am to hold fast to my confession in the face of apparent sense knowledge contradiction.
Sense knowledge says that it is not true, that I am confessing an untruth, but I am confessing what God says.
You see, there are two kinds of truth: sense knowledge truth and revelation truth. They are usually opposed to each other.
I live in the new realm above the senses, so I hold fast to my confession that I am what the Word says I am.
Suppose my senses have revealed the fact that I am in great need financially. The Word declares, “My God shall supply every need of yours” (Philippians 4:19 ASV).
I call His attention to what the senses have intimated, and He knows that my expectations are from Him. I refuse to be intimidated by sense evidences. I refuse to have my life governed by them. I know that greater is He that is in me than the forces that surround me.
The forces that oppose me are in the senses.
The power that is in me is the Holy Spirit, and I know that spiritual forces are greater than the forces in the sense realm.
I maintain my confession of spiritual values, of spiritual realities, in the face of sense contradictions.