TREASURES OF TRUTH, VOLUME 4
THE CROSS OF CHRIST AND ITS ETERNAL SIGNIFICANCE
BY: GEORGE R. HAWTIN
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CHAPTERS 1-5
CHAPTER ONE
THE MEANING OF THE CROSS
Almighty Lord, in whom dwelleth the wisdom and knowledge of the universe, flood Thou my soul with understanding from above. Open now my eyes that I may plainly behold secrets of truth long hidden in Thee. Remove the darkling veil from my heart that light divine may shine upon me, and grant to my spirit the breath of inspiration that I may understand the truths that are written here. Amen!
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” John 1:1-5. These inspired words of truth must be the most sublime statement to ever proceed from the mind of God, to be written by the pen of any scribe, or to be spoken by the inspired lips of any prophet. The unshakable, indisputable knowledge that before all things was God almighty, all wise, unchanging and eternal, is knowledge so assuring that it dispels every uncertainty of life and the dismal confusion of mind that hangs like a smoggy pall over the hearts of all those unhappy people who are not thus assured. The first statement of truth ever vouch-safed to man was the simple word of assurance, “In the beginning God”. Upon this truth hangs the eternal hope of the billions of mankind who have inhabited this earth. Remove God from the eternal portrait and nothing remains but a formless void with clouds and darkness upon the face of all the deep. Take God out of the Genesis of all things and purposelessness crowns our lives with confusion and unbelief, making life’s highway a slippery slope, every harbor a whirlpool, and our rocks but sinking sand.
See with what holy assurance the heart is filled when it casts its anchor in such a certain rock as this: “For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him and/or Him: And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.” Col. 1:16-17 Your whole outlook on life will change from one of confusion and dread to one of blessed assurance and confidence with the entrance of the divine understanding that all things are vassals of His power, His dominion, and His control. Nothing exists without His consent. None acts without His permission or prospers without His blessing. In His omnipotent hand the nations of the earth in all their vaunted might and power are but dust upon the balances, soon to be dusted off the scales that the final reckoning might proceed as planned. You will not spend sleepless nights worrying about Communism when your heart rests assured that God, for hidden purposes comprehended only by infinite wisdom, has raised its godless head for a little moment to purge the filth and corruption from the sons of Zion. He who has raised it up will cast it down and break it to shivers beneath His feet when His purpose in it has been fulfilled. Then shall it, as Babylon, be as the chaff of the summer threshing floor, trodden neath the foot of man and driven by the wind away.
In my opinion the most sinister thing in the earth today is the nearly universal desire of the church system, which is Mystery Babylon, to sit beneath the abominable shadow of one great earthly head. The day is drawing ever nearer when possibly all the religious systems of earth will come under the control of the Pope of Rome and all the kings and rulers of the earth will give their power and authority to the Beast. Nothing any man can do by work, or prayer, or battle can let or hinder this device because divine wisdom has decreed that thus it must certainly be. What assurance fills the heart of the faithful as they rejoice in the wonder of God’s plan! Abiding in the eternal rock, they fearlessly await the fiery trials soon to fall upon the whole earth in the assurance that the true church shall be purified and made white in preparation for the reign of Christ that will encompass the whole earth to cure its every disease when the curse has finished its evil day.
THE CERTAINTY OF GOD’S PURPOSE
Before the ages began or ever the world was. God almighty, omniscient, and immutable, charted the course of all things. The ages in their ever ascending and majestic purposes were all planned by Him. The increasing light and revelation of each one was planned with infinite care to display its own part in the spectrum of eternal truth that heaven and earth and things under the earth might rejoice together in the ends of the ages because of the everlasting fullness of Him who everywhere fills the universe with Himself.
With God nothing has been left to chance. Absolutely nothing. Omniscient wisdom, omnipotent power, infinite love, and boundless grace can leave nothing, nothing, I say, to chance, nor can such power, wisdom, and grace leave anything to the bungling minds of carnal men. Men sometimes ask me whether or not I believe in a second chance for sinners. My answer is always the same. “No, I do not believe in a second chance, and neither do I believe in a first chance, for God leaves nothing to chance.“ Men come to God when God calls them. As Jesus said, “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him:” John 6:44. And again: “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” John 6:37 Just as the draft of a nation calls its young men to military service when their turn comes, so also God calls men when their turn comes, and when He calls or draws them, none can dodge the draft. They have naught to do but respond.
The day of your birth was arranged before the worlds began. The reins of your life are as certainly in the divine hand as were those in Pharaoh, Moses, or Paul. The day of your death is even now appointed and all the pills and skills of man will fail to lengthen your days. Your downsittings and uprisings are all known to Him and your thoughts afar off. Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. How much more, then, are the days of your life?
THE CERTAINTY OF THE FALL AND THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION
The fall of man in the Garden of Eden was part of God’s eternal plan. By it God set in motion the mighty edict of Gen. 1:26, – “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness, and let us give him dominion.” Such blessed understanding gives credence to the apostle’s revelation; “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope.” Rom. 8:19, 20. To consider this blessed fact further would be beyond the scope of our present writing and would in itself take much time and space. Nevertheless, let every man on earth assuredly know that the fall of man and all the dire consequences that have followed did not fall unexpectedly upon an unsuspecting God, but every detail of it from beginning to end was foreknown by the infinite mind of Him who inspired Paul to say, “Our light affliction which is but for a moment is working for us a. far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” And again, through that same inspired man, it was written, “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” Let us with utmost confidence rest assured then that our almighty Lord knows what He is doing. He who is the First and the Last must of necessity be all intermediate things as well, and He who is the Alpha and the Omega must include all the other letters as well.
There is not the slightest uncertainty about anything that God has to say concerning the entrance of sin into the world. His all-inclusive statement is this: “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Rom. 3:23. And “there is none righteous, no, not one.” Rom. 3:10. In the first chapter of Romans all the world is proven guilty before God. In the second and third chapters all Israel is proven guilty before God, for by the law shall no flesh be justified. In the fourth and fifth chapters works of any kind are excluded from God’s plan of salvation and faith in Christ is exalted and proven to be God’s plan for the salvation of the whole world.
It is of utmost importance in our relationship to God that we see all things as He sees them and not as men understand them with their natural minds. Always remember that the “natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.” I Cor. 2:14. Let every man know that divine revelation does not reach us through the classrooms of college or university. Greek and Hebrew, the languages of the Bible, will help us but little, for man can never comprehend the purposes of God until God moves upon the face of the deep and the breath of inspiration from above floods his heart with the truth and the knowledge of the Lord.
Because God is God, all the wisdom and understanding of the universe dwells in Him. We must expect Him to say many things and state many facts that the human mind cannot comprehend nor pry into. It is the inspiration of the Almighty that giveth understanding. The wayfaring man, though a fool, can comprehend any of the things of God in that moment when the divine light from above shines upon them. Paul prayed that spiritual revelation would be given to the people, saying, “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: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling …” Eph. 1:17, 18
And again, “… that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” Col. 1:9. “Open mine eyes,” said David, “that I may behold wonderful things out of Thy law.” So, you see, spiritual understanding is not given to the learned and lettered of this age, but to those blessed ones upon whom God has breathed the spirit of understanding from on high. How often we discover that God’s way of reasoning does not make sense to our thinking! At all such times we should steadfastly remember how He said, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isa. 55:8, 9 Even the saintly Peter once wrote of our brother Paul in these words: “And account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things: in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.” 2 Pet. 3:15, 16
One of the many hard things of which Paul wrote may be found in Heb. 7:9,10, but, before quoting it, I must point out that the understanding of this one statement will prove vital to the understanding of all else that shall be said in this writing. This is what he wrote: “And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham. For he (Levi) was yet in the loins of his father when Melchisedec met him.” You will readily remember that Abraham was Levi’s great grandfather and that, at the time when Abraham met Melchizedek and paid tithes to him (Gen. 14:17-20) even Isaac, Abraham’s son, was not yet born. Yet Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, clearly states that Levi, the great grandson of Abraham, paid tithes to Melchizedek, because he (Levi) was in the loins of his father (Abraham) when Melchizedek met him. This is certainly not human reasoning. Human reasoning, I think, would scoff at such a notion. Yet this is the reasoning of God, for it is God and God alone who understands the generations of man, comprehending with all knowledge how life is passed in succession from one generation to another. Such secrets, delivered to us by the disposition of angels, (Acts 7:53); are to be believed in the Spirit and need not to be pried into by the carnal mind, which is God’s enemy. They are the secret truths of the Almighty, we adore them and despise them not by our own vain processes of human reasoning.
Now since we have seen by divine wisdom that Levi, the great grandson, was in fact in the loins of Abraham, his great grandfather, a hundred years or more before his birth, it should become easier for us to grasp the significance of a statement vastly more important to all mankind. In 1 Cor. 15:22 Paul wrote, saying, “In Adam all die.” In exactly the same manner that Levi, though yet unborn, was present in his grandfather Abraham’s loins when he paid tithes to Melchizedek, so you and I, yea, and all the world besides, were there in our father Adam’s loins when he sinned in the garden of Eden. With him and in him we sinned, yea, and with him and in him we partook of the penalty of sin, for it is written, “Death passed upon all men for that all had sinned.” Rom. 5:12. When was it that all men sinned?
The truth is that they sinned while yet in the loins of their father Adam on that day when he partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In A dam all die, for God had said to Adam, “In the day ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die.” And because of this death passed upon all men, for all have sinned. Thus death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression. Rom. 5:14. “Sin is the transgression of the law, but it is not necessary to prove that a man is a lawbreaker to prove he is a sinner. All who sinned in Adam were born with the sentence of death already upon them and the death process had begun its work in them before ever they came forth from the womb. The indubitable fact that we are the children of Adam is proof enough of our need of a Savior, for “in Adam all die, but in Christ shall all be made alive.” And we may say with confidence that all in the second phrase is as all-inclusive as the all in the first phrase.
The many people who read these lines have on many occasions seen the traits of a mother or father manifested in a son or a daughter, and we may confidently say that just as frequently we have seen grandfathers and grandmothers manifested in their grandchildren unto many generations. Times without number we have heard the expression, “I can see your grandmother in you,” or “You are just like your father.” My son does not walk as I walk. He walks like his grandfather. My daughter looks like her mother and acts like her father. We have become accustomed to seeing parents manifest in their children, but God saw the reverse. He saw children in their parents, not as a fleeting likeness but as a divine reality, so that when He formed Adam of the dust of the ground, He placed in his paternal loins the seed of the entire human race. Thus it is truly written, “in Adam all die.”
It will not be difficult for any man to see that, had Adam been slain in the Garden of Eden before ever a child was begotten by him, all the billions of his posterity would also have died when he died, neither could they ever have seen the light of day. Let our minds then grasp the simple truth that when he sinned in the Garden of Eden, all his posterity sinned in him and the same death that passed upon him because of his sin passed likewise upon us all, even to the last man of Adam’s race, for all have sinned. A good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit, neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Of a thorn men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather the grapes.
There is always an element of eternal mystery wherever the mind and wisdom of God is concerned. Each succeeding generation spends lifetime after lifetime probing the hidden depths of the many branches of science. Men of learning in each age pass their knowledge on to the generation to come, but each in his order reaches the end of his days knowing that he has done little more than brush the surface of knowledge. Beyond him still lie the hidden depths that only omniscience can unlock. Since then natural things in a natural world defy our finite understanding, how much more do things of the Spirit defy all natural understanding. God’s thoughts being so far above our thoughts and His ways above our ways! For thus saith the Lord, “As heaven is higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Beautiful, indeed, is the revelation that follows the above truth. “As the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, …so shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth…” Isa. 55:10, 11 It is when the spirit of revelation from above falls like rain upon the baked earth of human understanding that the light of God dawns in our hearts and the barren clods burst forth with a harvest of eternal truth. Let us never try to understand truths by the understanding of our natural minds, but let us rather pray, “Open mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.” Then will the rain of revelation fill the open vessels of the spirit. God will say, “let there be light” and light divine there will be.
Can the natural mind ever fathom the depths of the eternal truth that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself? 2 Cor. 5:19. Can we grasp the significance of the words of Jesus, “That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me and / in Thee; that they may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou has sent me”? John 17:21. If now by God’s Spirit we can understand even in part how God was in His Son, how the Son was in the Father, or how we the children of God are in the Father and in His Son, then that same spirit of understanding will show us how Levi was in Abraham’s loins when Melchizedek met him, and how you and I were in Adam, our father, when he sinned, causing death and carnality to pass upon us all, for that all have sinned. Oh, the depth of the wisdom and understanding of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
THE LAST ADAM
It is written, “The first Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening (life-giving) spirit.” 1 Cor. 15:45 There is a deep and hidden mystery in the strange words, the last Adam. The natural mind would conclude that, if there were two Adams coming four thousand years apart, the first of these being the first Adam, it would of necessity follow that the next Adam would be the second Adam as is the case in 1 Cor. 15:47. Our Lord Jesus Christ is here called the last Adam. This simple statement, which on the surface seems almost irrelevant and scarcely worthy of our notice, is in fact pregnant with meaning, full of wisdom and understanding. It portrays as nothing else can the wonders of Christ’s redemption, the marvels of the cross, and the completeness of the work that God by His Son has done for a world of sinful men, bringing by His cross abounding life and freedom from carnality to the millions of Christians who see in Him the end of Adam’s race.
By way of illustration I shall now try to point out in what way our Lord Jesus Christ was the last Adam. In my father’s family there were three sons and two daughters. Of the three sons the second died as a young man, the youngest married but begat no children, and of my father’s marriage were born two daughters and four sons. Had it been, however, that my father had also died childless as did the other members of his family, then we, his sons, would not have been born and he would have been the last Hawtin. He would have been the last of the line.
There could have been no other. Now God has declared that our Lord Jesus Christ should be the last Adam. I cannot explain how divine power can accomplish such wonders, but God has decreed that all men of all ages should be included in Him. God has gathered up all the members of Adam’s sinful race out of the past, out of the present, and out of the future and included them all in Christ, the last Adam. Death passed upon all men, for all men sinned in the first Adam. Therefore by one divine and omnipotent stroke God has included all men in His Son, declaring Him to be the last Adam, the end of the fallen Adamic creation, and, having included all men in Christ, the last Adam. He crucified Him. He nailed Him to the accursed tree that it may now be literally and truthfully proclaimed by all men of Adam’s race, “/ am crucified with Christ”. I am crucified with Christ, and nothing I can do or say will ever alter such an historic fact. God Himself, without my knowledge and before I ever saw the light of day, included me in Christ, the last Adam, even as He included me in the first Adam, and, having included me in the last Adam, He crucified Him and me in Him. Behold, then, upon what glorious foundation our faith rests. Christ has indeed become the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe, because all who believe shall find both here and now that every benefit of the cross has become operative in their lives. Not only will they find forgiveness of sin in their present walk but they will be delivered from all the power of carnality as we shall presently show.
In moments of meditation I thought upon the cross of Christ and wondered why it was that God should have placed such emphasis and significance in the cross. Why should He include all men in His Son and, having done so, declare that this was the last Adam, the end of the old creation? And, having included all the old and fallen creation in Him, God hung Him upon a cross until His life was gone out of Him and all the world was dead in Him. So in spirit I beheld that the cross of Christ was the great ex (X) that crosses and cancels out all things that belong to the old creation, declaring their demise in the three most significant words ever spoken, “it is finished”. Thus by the cross of Christ God declares the finish of the old creation in which all men live in carnality and end in death, and, having done so. He declares the last Adam of the old creation to be the author and first fruit of an entirely new creation, the first fruit of them that slept.
THE NEW CREATION
When Christ, the last Adam, died and all the old creation died in Him, the creation to follow must of necessity be a new creation, and for this certain reason it is written, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away and, behold, all things are become new. For in that He died He died unto sin once, but in that He liveth He liveth unto God.”
I am perfectly aware that these profound truths will be misunderstood by many and some will wrest them to their own destruction in their carnal and wicked endeavor to abrogate repentance of sin and annul all holiness of life, as some men in their zeal to display the grace of God have done, living in sin and turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. Jude 4. These gracious truths are not now written to men of corrupt minds who have no desire to walk in the truth, but to all who walk in love, serving God because they love Him and not in fear of some dreadful judgment that hangs like an awesome terror before their eyes. It is not to such as this that we now write, but to those children of the most high God who, seeing their infinite identity with Christ, are able to say in all truth and righteousness, “As He is, so are we in this world.” 1 John 4:17
Those who read these lines with the revelation and understanding of the Almighty upon their minds will discover a new experience taking place in their hearts – as definite and spiritual an experience as they have ever had, yes, as definite as their conversion and the peace that came when they believed that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleansed their hearts from all sin. Let us never read these truths and lightly cast them aside, but while reading them earnestly pray that the eyes of our understanding may be enlightened; that we 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 us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ Jesus when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. See Eph. 1:17-20.
Wonderful as it is to know that with Him we died, it is of surpassing wonder to know that in Him we were buried, in Him we have already risen from the dead, in Him we ascended, and in Him we are seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. You will surely say of me that I hold little respect for the vast mass of church tradition, but we must surely agree that, like the Pharisees and scribes of old, we have “made the truth of God of none effect by our tradition.” Therefore, the sooner we abandon tradition and lift our hearts to heaven for inspiration the sooner we will come to know and experience all that God has promised in Christ, and, knowing what He has promised, shall enter here and now the grace that has been so freely proffered to all mankind.
THE IMMORTAL PROMISE
We said above that God almighty and all wise leaves nothing to chance. By His divine power He has made all things certain, leaving the work of His Christ as an historic fact and foundation for our faith, and we, having believed the work He has fully accomplished, become partakers with Him in whom we died and rose again. God’s people manifest their unbelief by the things they preach and say and sing. How often I have sung with the multitude, “I can, I will, I do believe that Jesus died for me”. You might as well sing, “I can, I will, I do believe that Caesar Augustus reigned in Rome“. The real truth is that these are historic, indisputable facts. Jesus did die for me just as surely as Moses led Israel out of Egypt. There is no need to try to whip up faith at all in such a truth as this. Faith does not rest on make-believe, as the preachers erroneously imagine. Faith rests upon the certain foundation of what God immutable has said.
Faith cometh by hearing the word of God, or, as Weymouth so purely translates it, “Faith, then, comes from a message heard and that message from the lips of Christ.” Rom. 10-17 I think the general idea of faith today is commensurate with that of the four hundred prophets of Baal, who vainly imagined that by loud and united shouting and jumping up and down upon the altar they could whip up enough faith to make the fire fall on the sacrifice. How different was the prayer of Elijah! He knew the fire would fall because his faith rested, not on make-believe, but upon what God had said to him beforehand. Listen to him again as he prays, “Let it be known this day that Thou art God in Israel, and that I am Thy servant, and that / have done all these things at Thy word.” 1 Kings 18:36. That last statement was the true basis of the faith of Elijah. God had told him beforehand what to do, what to say, and what the result would be, and so no doubt clouded his mind as he stood before the crowd. “Faith, then, comes from a message heard, and that message from the lips of Christ.” We do ourselves great harm by imagining that Elijah was a man bursting with such miracle working faith that anything he asked would be immediately done. That is a deceptive lie. The truth is that his faith, as yours and mine, rested only upon the sure foundation of the message of God from heaven. Faith and God’s will go hand in hand. They are never separate; neither is there any separation between faith and God’s word. Therefore, it is written, “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” Elijah did no jumping on the altar nor singing, “I can, I will, I do believe,” to conjure up enough faith to bring the fire of God down. Well did he know that every move he made was ordained of the Lord and that each thing he did was done at God’s bidding and according to His word. I cannot do what Elijah did before the prophets of Baal nor work the wonders of Moses in Egypt and at the sea, for God has not bidden me so, but whatever God bids me do I can accomplish with triumph, even to the crossing of a thousand seas or the calling down of fiercer fire.
“… God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things (God’s promise and God’s oath), in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.” Heb. 6:17-19. “That within the veil” is Jesus Christ Himself. Upon such a certain foundation we now stand, holding an immovable anchor steadfastly cast in the mighty rock, Christ Jesus, who even now within the inner veil is seated at God’s right hand. Having these immutable promises let us with faith lay hold on the promise God has set before us.
I AM CRUCIFIED
Let us consider further the work of the cross and of the Christ who died upon it that our minds may be enlarged and we might better understand how this last Adam included in Himself every person and everything that belonged to the old creation, putting it all out of the way, nailing it to His cross. In thus crucifying the whole world in His Son, He robbed principalities and powers and all rulers of darkness of the fearful power they held over us by reason of the fall. By His death He blotted out and made ineffective every ordinance that was against us, because laws are not made for dead men nor do they apply to men of the new creation who, with Him, have risen to newness of life, but to those only who still live as members of the old creation. Please read Col. 2:9-17.
When Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians, he wrote to a people who had begun to live a wonderful life in the Spirit but who, through false teaching by certain Judaizers, had reverted to ordinances of the old creation. They who were identified with Christ and His new creation were now trying to bring about perfection by the do’s and don’ts of a law. So Paul with severe rebuke wrote, “0 foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?” Gal. 3:1. Weymouth in his original translation uses this eloquent expression. “You foolish Galatians! Whose sophistry has bewitched you, – you to whom Jesus Christ has been vividly portrayed as on the cross? Answer me this one thing. Is it on the ground of your obedience to the law that you received the Spirit, or is it because when you heard you believed?”
Did you notice that Paul said here, “You to whom Christ has been vividly portrayed as on the cross? The message of the crucified life had been taught to these Galatians and they, having believed it, received the Holy Spirit and walked in newness of life as a new creation, but they, like the wretched tradition-ridden church system of today, lost hold of the truth of their true position in Christ to fuss and bother with a law that was made for men who belonged to the old creation and lived their lives on the other side of the cross. The apostle by the wisdom imparted to him prefaced the above statement with his own testimony as to the work of the cross in his life saying, “/ am crucified with Christ; 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 of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me. Gal. 2:20. Paul was not living the crucified life and reckoning his old self dead because of his titanic efforts to make himself believe that he was crucified, but he stood in this holy state by the faith of the Son of God, or shall we say because he had perfect faith, as I too now have, that, when God put His only begotten Son on the cross. He also put all the world on the cross in Him and with Him, and that, when He placed Him in the tomb, He buried the last Adam, and every man who belonged to that creation He buried with Him. Thus when Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ,” his faith was resting not on an experience he attained at some altar of prayer, but upon what God had done for him and for us all long before any of us knew that Jesus was the Christ.
It is upon such a certain foundation that our faith now rests – not upon what we experienced at an altar service, but upon what God did in His Son Jesus Christ when He wrapped up all the old creation in Him and nailed Him to the accursed tree. Ah, wonder of wonders! No marvel it is that Paul in exultation shouted a fiat that will echo on and on through eternal ages: “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.” Gal. 6:14.
I was crucified with Christ long, long before I saw the light of day or breathed my first breath in this world. Men on yonder street who have never read a page of God’s holy truth were included there in the last Adam. In Him they were nailed with all their carnality to the cross. In that moment when God’s truth floods like a ray of dawn into my heart, revealing what God actually accomplished in His cross, and teaching me that I myself was there in Him, then all my struggling with the old nature is at an end, and in amazement before that heavenly revelation I repeat and repeat with rapture, “/ am crucified.” I am crucified simply because I was crucified when God omnipotent and omniscient included me in His Son when He nailed Him and all the world in Him to the cross. A new day dawns upon our weary spirits in this certain knowledge that the old things have passed away and the glory of a new creation bursts upon us. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. He has to be. He cannot help but be because for him the old passed away when he with Christ was nailed to the accursed tree, and all the signs that the old still exists are neither reality nor truth, but darkness and error that hide themselves in unbelief.
Meditate at great length upon this statement of Paul until the revelation of the Almighty gives understanding: “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Gal. 2:20. Paul’s crucifixion with Christ was an accomplished fact. Naught was there to do but believe it. Yet he said, “I live, (or, I am alive,) but it is not I, but Christ.” It was the old self, the old nature, the old Adam that was crucified and died, but it is the new creation that comes forth from the tomb in resurrection. The apostle in the glory and wonder of the truth that was revealed to him scarcely knew how to put in words the marvel of his own revelation. “Nevertheless I live,” he says, “yet not I, but Christ; and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” As the glory and wonder of the truth bursts upon our spirits, we find ourselves repeating in awe, “It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” 1 Cor. 15:42-44. For the first man Adam was made a living soul, but the last Adam a life-giving spirit.
Let all who now read these lines assuredly know that, when Jesus Christ was crucified, you were crucified in Him. Nothing that belonged to the old creation was omitted. Even its laws and ordinances were nailed to the cross, for they were given to govern the old creation. Therefore, He blotted 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. Col. 2:14. For centuries faithful men and women have longed for the assurance that their old carnal self was done away that they might walk in newness of life. Well, the good news we now bring is that the crucifixion has taken place and need never occur again. God in admiration looks upon it as already accomplished and the realization of the truth of it, as rays of dawn, bursts upon our liberated spirits while the heavenly choirs sing within the mansions of our new created being. “Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ,” – Christ the anointed, Christ the end of the old creation, and Christ the beginning of the new.
THE OLD MAN IS CRUCIFIED
Our old man is simply we ourselves as we were under the old Adam creation. When Adam was made, he was made in the image of God, and according to the scripture only “a little lower than the angels.” Heb. 2:7. He lived and walked after the Spirit with little or no dependence at all upon natural or physical things. But once he sinned, all this changed and he who began with the nature of God and was but a little lower than the angels now found himself but little higher than the beasts with the predominant part of his nature more in accord with the beasts of the field than with the God who created him. Nebuchadnezzar typified this very condition when for seven times (representing the seven dispensations) he lived with the beasts of the field, ate straw like an ox, slept outside on the wet grass, and his fingernails grew like claws and the hair of his head like bird feathers until seven times passed over him. See Daniel, chapter 4. Can we say anything better of the Sodom in which we now live where every device is connived and invented to give satisfaction to the realm of the flesh whether it be sex, strong drink, marijuana, L.S.D., tobacco, or a thousand other evils. Sodomites and adulterers have dared to invade the pulpits in our day, pretending to speak of heavenly things while manifesting the nature of beasts and sporting themselves with their own deceivings. 2 Pet. 2:12-14. Ah, sinful generation! How shall you escape the damnation of hell?
All the corruption in the world is the manifestation of the nature of the fallen first Adam. He is the old Adam. None of his wretchedness can pass beyond the cross. None of his corruption can be carried over into the new creation. None can walk in newness of life until the cross of Christ has ended the old. There never can be a new man until the cross of Christ has taken the life of the old man. It is not until old things pass away that all things become new. You cannot know the joy of being a new creation while the old creation still persists. The cross of Christ must be the giant “X” that marks out the old forever. The tomb must be the burial place of the old man. Even his grave clothes must remain in the tomb. Without the cross there can be no resurrection. It is impossible. Can you not see? It is the cross that takes the life of the old. It is the resurrection that brings forth the new. Those who die in Him to end the old rise with Him to begin the new. Thus it is written: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away, and, behold, all things are become new.” 2 Cor. 5:17
In the scripture where Paul states that our old man is crucified with Him he uses this definite expression: “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.” Rom. 6:6, 7. We must take time here to consider these two important words, ‘knowing this.’ The indisputable fact is that very, very few Christians do know this – that their old man is crucified. The real truth is that they do not know it. They neither know nor understand that two thousand years ago God took us, our old nature, our old man, and everything that belonged to the old creation and putting it all in Jesus Christ, crucified Him. He put Him to death. He executed Him, for crucifixion is execution as certainly as is the guillotine, the electric chair, the gas chamber, or the hangman’s noose. The wages of sin is death and every man of Adam’s race died the death in Him when He was nailed to the accursed tree, for it is written, “Cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree.”
Know this, then: our old man is crucified with Him. It is not something to be done in the future. It is done. It was done on that day when the sun withdrew his shining at noon and horrible darkness gripped the world in awesome dread until Jesus in agony cried, “My God, My God! Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” And then, as though to write finis to all that was of the old, the earth quaked and reeled like a drunkard. The mighty immovable rocks rent and split. The veil of the temple, so strong that six yoke of oxen could not pull it apart, which in type represented the flesh, was struck by a hand divine that tore it apart from top to bottom. “It is finished,” cried the last Adam; and it was finished. The old creation was finished, the old man was finished, the flesh was finished, the law was finished, and the ordinances were finished. All was to be forever buried that from the tomb a new creation would spring up. “And this is in harmony with God’s merciful purpose for the government of the world when the times are ripe for it, the purpose which He has cherished in His own mind of restoring the whole creation to find its one head in Christ; yes, things in heaven and things on earth, to find their one head in Him.” Eph. 1:9, 10. (Weymouth) Knowing this! Knowing this!! That our old man is crucified with Him! Do you know it, my friend? Do you know it? Do you know that God accomplished it for you before you were born? Your faith this moment in that long accomplished fact sets the bells of the new creation ringing in your heart. Knowing this, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him!
Many who now read will find a question arising in their hearts. You will be saying to me, “If it is true that I am crucified and my old man is crucified, why is it that I yet see evidences of carnality remaining in my heart and spoiling my walk every day that I live? Why am I so often beset with anger, impatience, and lusts of many kinds, all of which seem to deny that my old man is crucified? Because of carnal symptoms everywhere I am loath to believe and I cannot say, ‘I know my old nature is crucified.’” Let all the faithful forever know that it is God’s word that is the truth. The symptoms therefore are but lies. All that is not of the truth is a lie, and no lie is of the truth.
Many years ago a trifling incident occurred in my life that for some reason made an indelible impression upon my mind. Consequently I never forgot it. As a boy I lived in the great wheat belt of Saskatchewan. The part of the province where we farmed was commonly known as the bald-headed prairie. No trees grew there at all except where a farmer had planted a shelter belt around his yard. As a result I grew up with no knowledge of trees whatever. At about twenty years of age it was my pleasure to spend a summer in the forest to the northeast, where trees abounded everywhere. It was early spring when I arrived and the million trees stood leafless and dead. One day for no reason that I can remember I took my axe and cut down a little tree and, picking it up, I dragged it into the yard, leaving it lying dead upon the ground. It is not necessary that I present arguments here to convince you that, the moment my axe had cut through the trunk of that tree, its life was ended forever. It was dead and no power on earth could ever restore its life. But spring was beginning to bustle about and the sound of her mystic garments could be heard in all the land. Happy little crocuses awoke from their sleep and, smiling up at every passerby, invited all to admire their pretty dress. All the trees on all the hills began to open their thousand leaves and waved a welcome to the returning songbirds who rejoiced with myriad voices that spring had come. But what of the tree whose life I had ended with a blow from my axe? You will perhaps be as surprised as I was when, walking across the yard, I saw it lying there on the ground bursting out in full leaf just like all the living trees standing in the forest. Is it possible that this tree was not really dead? Had I not severed it fully? What strange phenomenon was this that brought the leaves out on the branches to convince me that it was still alive? The explanation, of course, is simple. The tree had been cut down just as the sap was beginning to run up its trunk, causing the leaves to burst forth and flourish as long as any sap remained.
As I considered this strange phenomenon, I knew beyond any doubt that the tree was dead. It had been dead from the moment it had been severed from its root. But there were the symptoms, the buds and the leaves, telling me that it was not dead after all, but just as much alive as any standing tree. Now the truth is that the tree was cut down. No one could deny that. It was dead; that was also certain. The lie was the symptoms, the flourishing leaves that insisted that it was still alive. In spite of every sign of life, however, I knew and you know that it was dead, knowing this, that days before I had cut it down with my axe. And sure enough, in a very few days the leaves dried up and no sign of life remained. It is this lying wonder that the believer often sees long after he believes that our old man is crucified.
That flash of anger that rose in you yesterday, that passion that lifted its ugly head today, told you the lie that the old man, the carnal nature, was still alive, but the truth is that your old man was crucified. He was cut down. He was nailed to the cross. He was executed. Every symptom that insists that he still lives is a lie that must be reckoned dead. Knowing this, Paul said, that our old man is crucified, and I think it is in this truth that our hearts should rejoice rather than in the lying wonders of the old nature whose symptoms would love to make God to be a liar.
RECKONING
We are told by the Lord to reckon ourselves dead to sin but alive unto God. Rom. 6:11. Reckoning is something that is done with figures, and in all parts of the world it is the same. Two plus two equals for and three times four is twelve in any country. It is also true that that which is executed is dead. That which was crucified no longer lives. This, I believe, is cardinal truth. It must never be passed over lightly. It is when the symptoms declare that the old man lives and when we ourselves contemplate the inconsistencies, the incongruities, and the carnality that still persists in our own lives that we are to begin our reckoning. We are not to point to those flourishing leaves and insist that the tree of the old nature is not dead after all, but we are to point to the cross and reckon that there the axe was laid to the root of the tree, and it is dead no matter what evidence may be produced to the contrary. It is because we know that the old man was crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed that we are now able to do our reckoning – reckoning ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God.
To enrich our understanding we here quote four paragraphs from the deeply spiritual teaching of our Chinese brother, Watchman Nee, concerning the truth of reckoning. Quote: “What does reckoning mean? ‘Reckoning’ in Greek means doing accounts, bookkeeping. Accounting is the only thing in the world we humans can do correctly. An artist paints a landscape. Can he do it with perfect accuracy? Can the historian vouch for the absolute accuracy of any record, or the map-maker for the perfect correctness of any map? They can make, at best, fair approximations. Even in every day speech, when we try to tell some incident with the best intention to be honest and truthful, we cannot speak with complete accuracy. It is mostly a case of exaggeration or under-statement, of one word too much or too little. What then can a man do that is utterly reliable? Arithmetic! There is no scope for error there. One chair plus one chair equals two chairs. That is true in London and it is true in Cape Town. If you travel west to New York or east to Singapore it is still the same. All the world over and for all time, one plus one equals two. One plus one is two in heaven and earth and hell.
Why does God say we are to reckon ourselves dead? Because we are dead. Let us keep to the analogy of accounting. Suppose I have fifteen shillings in my pocket, what do I enter in my account-book? Can I enter fourteen shillings and sixpence or fifteen shillings and sixpence? No, I must enter in my account-book that which is in fact in my pocket. Accounting is the reckoning of facts, not fancies. Even so, it is because I am really dead that God tells me to account it so. God could not ask me to put down in my account-book what was not true. He could not ask me to reckon that I am dead if I am still alive. For such mental gymnastics the word ‘reckoning’ would be inappropriate; we might rather speak of ‘misreckoning’!
“Reckoning is not a form of make-believe. It does not mean that, having found that I have only twelve shillings in my pocket, I hope that by entering fifteen shillings incorrectly in my account-book such ‘reckoning’ will somehow remedy the deficiency. It won’t. If I have only twelve shillings, yet try to reckon to myself: ‘I have fifteen shillings; I have fifteen shillings; I have fifteen shillings,’ do you think that the mental effort involved will in any way affect the sum that is in my pocket? Not a bit of it! Reckoning will not make twelve shillings into fifteen shillings, nor will it make what is untrue true. But if, on the other hand, it is a fact that I have fifteen shillings in my pocket, then with great ease and assurance I can enter fifteen shillings in my account-book. God tells us to reckon ourselves dead, not that by the process of reckoning we may become dead, but because we are dead. He never told us to reckon what was not a fact.
“Having said, then, that revelation leads spontaneously to reckoning, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are presented with a command: ‘Reckon ye…’ There is a definite attitude to be taken. God asks us to do the account, to put down ‘I have died’ and then to abide by it. Why? Because it is a fact. When the Lord Jesus was on the cross, I was there in Him. Therefore I reckon it to be true. I reckon and declare that I have died in Him. Paul said, “Reckon ye yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God.” How is this possible? “In Christ Jesus.” Never forget that it is always and only true in Christ. If you look at yourself you will think death is not there, but it is a question of faith not in yourself but in Him. You look to the Lord, and know what He has done. “Lord, I believe in Thee. I reckon upon the fact in Thee! Stand there all the day.” End of quote. From the book The Normal Christian Life.
You will not have to reckon too often before you find that any besetting carnality is falling off and losing its hold upon you. Why, it seems to me that the truth that with him I died should now deliver me even from any fear of death, for why should I fear that which has already been accomplished? Those who die by faith with Him have accomplished the first death. Upon all such the second death hath no power. I am brought to believe that even death itself is for us but a lie, and this, forsooth, may be the reason that both Paul and Jesus often use the term ‘sleep’ instead of ‘death.’ Paul said, “If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” 1 Thess. 4:14. And again: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake…” Dan. 12:2. And yet again: “…We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” 1 Cor. 15:51. Death is for those who fail to identify themselves with the cross of Christ; sleep is for those who do. Carnality, debauchery, and sin persist in those who cannot see that the cross ended the old creation. Newness of life and sonship are for those who can.
When Satan points you to the evidence of carnality in your life, you must look at the cross and reckon that it was there death was accomplished and your old man, your old nature, your flesh, your carnality, was crucified with Him and in Him. The evidence of carnality that now presents itself is a lying wonder that must be reckoned dead and forever abolished. It is here that our understanding is enlightened by Paul’s words to the Galatians, who, instead of reckoning themselves dead, were trying to regulate their carnal ways by the restrictions of the law. But this cannot and must not be. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts.” Gal. 5:24. They reckon the work accomplished. This is the only way to deal with the flesh. Rules and regulations may seem to inhibit the flesh, but actually they only cater to it. Touch not, taste not, handle not may seem to be wise instruction, but a whole lifetime of such inhibition leaves the flesh, the old nature, and the old man as much alive as ever. Crucifixion alone destroys the power of the old nature. So, when Paul says, “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts,” he is teaching that all such people do believe the truth that the old nature was crucified with Christ. They reckon it so; they believe it so; and because they believe this truth, the very truth itself operates in their lives. Carnality is on the cross and the life they now live in the flesh is by the faith of the Son of God, a living explicit faith in what Christ accomplished when He included all the old creation in Himself on the cross, a faith that brings the long awaited victory over all sin and carnality and lifts us to the mountain peak of overcoming.
Every mention of the cross brings us face to face with the resurrection. Our knowledge that old things have passed away at the cross turns our eyes to the glory of new things. What good would it be to have the old pass away if there were nothing new to replace it? Therefore we greatly rejoice in the knowledge that, just as surely as old things pass away, behold, all things become new. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation because the old creation died on the cross. “I am crucified unto the world,” Paul said, “and the world is crucified unto me.” Both the world and I were on the cross at the same time, so a double crucifixion has been accomplished here. I am crucified to everything that belongs to the old realm that I may make my entrance into the new realm. The world likewise was crucified that it might be divested of any power over me.
The further we go with this thought the clearer our understanding becomes. Our minds can now readily grasp this sacred thought: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.” Col. 3:1-4 Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness, idolatry, adultery (Col. 3:5), and all such things are powerless in the presence of dead men. Therefore reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God. Mortify (put to death) these things, not by fighting them, not to striving to inhibit them, but by reckoning them to be where they actually belong – not corrupting your life, but on the cross. This is the way to victory; this is the way of the Spirit and the way of faith. For this reason it is written, “This I say then; Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” Gal. 5:16
THE FLESH IS CRUCIFIED
In the book, Two Realms, we have taken much care to describe the flesh, showing what it is, how it operates, and in what way the whole world with everything in it depends upon the five senses of the flesh for its very existence. We have seen that all who live after the flesh find death to be their only reward. But now the truth is made plain before us that the flesh with all its affections and lusts was nailed to the cross with our Lord Jesus Christ when He died so long ago. Just as certainly as the death of Christ is an historic fact, so also it is an historic fact that I died with Him, my old nature died with Him, and my flesh with all its affections and lusts was nailed to the cross with Him then. In realization of this indisputable fact I stand in utter amazement as I behold the vain efforts of millions of Christians who for centuries have vainly tried to somehow muster enough faith to nail the flesh with all its works to the cross and be rid of carnality forever. But this we cannot do. Why try to do what God has already done? Why should I try to attain what God attained for me when He included me, together with my flesh and all my fleshy nature and all the world besides in His son, and, having done so. He crucified Him and all sin and carnality with Him?
If I put a thousand dollars in the pocket of my coat and someone throws the coat into the fire, will I ever have that thousand dollars again? Never! It is gone irretrievably and I will see it no more. And is it not just as true that, when God placed the world in His Son, together with the flesh, the old man, and my very self, He crucified Him? Dare we in unbelief tempt God by saying that all that was included in Him did not die with Him? I tell you, nay! When the Son of God was crucified, I was crucified; my old man (Adamic nature) was crucified; my flesh was crucified; and even the laws that governed me under the old realm were nailed to His cross. Col. 2:14. It is by faith and confidence in what God has done for us that the victory is ours. It is when our hearts are assured that God did this great work at the cross that we begin our reckoning that we are dead indeed to sin, but alive unto God.
THE OPERATION OF GOD
There is a beautiful statement made in Col. 2:12: “Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through faith of the operation of God, who raised Him from the dead.” Crucifixion, burial, and resurrection are all the operation of God and it is in the operation of God that we are asked to place our confidence. We are to have confidence in what God did, not in what we do or what we can accomplish by what we imagine to be faith. God Himself has done this mighty work. It was His operation at the cross of Christ. Our confidence in what God did, the operation of God, is the very foundation stone of our faith. Here our reckoning begins. Upon this rock we stand to proclaim to ourselves, to God, and if need be to principalities and powers, “I am crucified with Christ.” I am crucified because I was crucified. My old nature is crucified because it was crucified at Calvary. My flesh is crucified because it was crucified when He was crucified.
Henceforth our whole outlook becomes new. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, and, behold, all things have become new.
It is the cross that writes finis to the old. It is the resurrection that opens wide the gates to the new. Nothing of the old can possibly pass by the cross nor enter into the realm where all things are become new. Identification with His death spells the end to all that is old. Identification with His resurrection proclaims the beginning of all that is new. No man can live the crucified life until he reckons with absolute assurance that, when Christ died, he died with Him in Him. No man can live the resurrected life until he reckons with absolute assurance that, when Christ rose, he rose in him and with him. Henceforth, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away and, behold, all things are become new.
BORN OF THE INCORRUPTIBLE SEED
When Nicodemus spoke with our Lord Jesus Christ on that memorable night when he came to inquire the way that leads to the kingdom of God, he was given a statement so revolutionary that he was stunned into awkward questioning by the daring truth of it. He was not told of a life that had to be made over or of efforts that had to be made on his part that he might attain the kingdom of God and be found worthy to enter it; he was told of a completely new life, a completely new generation. Except a man be born again, he could not see the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God was a realm he had not heard of before. Men born of flesh and blood could not enter it, but only men born of the Spirit. Except a man be born of the spirit, he could not see the kingdom nor understand it, much less enter into it. All men are the seed of Adam. The first Adam was given power to generate a whole race after the flesh, the level of death unto which he had fallen. The last Adam was given power to generate a new race, a new creation, after the Spirit. Two dreadful statements are made concerning the first Adam and all his generation after the flesh: First, ‘in Adam all die’, and second, ‘if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die’. But of the last Adam, Jesus Christ, the Head of the new creation, it is said, “in Christ shall all be made alive.” And again, “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Your birth in the flesh as a child of Adam fitted you only to live as a dying man in a corruptible and dying creation, for in Adam all die; but the birth from heaven is a spiritual birth of which the last Adam, Jesus Christ, is the eternal Author and Finisher. In Christ shall all be made alive.
In that marvelous fiat at the opening of John’s gospel – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” – much more is involved than that which meets the casual eye. The Word here is in the Greek the Logos. In the beginning was the Logos. We do not have a word in English that is the direct equivalent of Logos. In fact, it is well nigh impossible to express its meaning by even the use of a sentence or a paragraph. The Logos is the Word spoken, but it is more than that. It is the living spoken Word, and yet more than that it is a living person speaking a living word. Dr. Adam dark says it should remain untranslated. It was the Logos who spoke the words, “Let there be light,” and there was light. It was the Logos who before the tomb of Lazarus said, “Lazarus, come forth,” and he came forth.
Peter in his epistle used the word Logos when he said, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word (Logos) of God, which liveth and abideth forever.” The corruptible seed is the seed of Adam by which we are born after the flesh. The incorruptible seed is the Logos, the living, speaking Word, by which we are born from above, a new creation after the Spirit. “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord (the Logos), endureth forever. And this is the word {Logos} which by the gospel is preached unto you.” 1 Pet. 1:23-25.
Identification with Christ in the cross ends all that belongs to the Adam generation. Identification with Him in the resurrection is the beginning of the new creation. We will need revelation to grasp it, but the new birth is actually the beginning of the resurrection. By it we are raised to newness of life. Through the operation of God we become a new creation, born not after the flesh but after the Spirit, born of the incorruptible seed that liveth and abideth forever. Reckon yourselves dead to the old creation after the flesh but alive as members of the new creation after the Spirit. As everything about the Adamic creation savored of the flesh and ended in death, so now everything of the new creation savors of the Spirit and is a river of eternal life. It is not wisdom or patience or holiness or faith that you need. It is Christ. From henceforth, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God; and behold the greatness of the Father’s good pleasure that, in that place where once Adam’s fallen creation, born after the flesh, lay dying, now should reign the many brethren of the new creation, born of the eternal Logos, a race of in-Christed men.
