Some Vital Facts
One of the most priceless vital scriptures is 2 Cor. 5:17, 18: "Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. But all these things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation."
It is very important that we recognize this fact, that all that has been wrought for us by Christ in His Substitutionary Sacrifice belongs to the individual believer.
Eph. 1:17-23 is a part of the great charter of our Redemption, and this is both legal and vital.
He reveals what He did for us. He reveals His process of building the very Nature and Life of the Father into our spirits. He said I want you to know what is the exceeding greatness of His ability on our behalf who believe.
It is "according to that working of the strength of his might which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come: and he put all things in subjection under his feet, and he gave him to be the head over all things for the benefit of the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all." Here we have the legal background of His great Substitutionary work, of His absolutely conquering the forces of darkness before He arose from the dead.
Just as in Col. 2:15 it says, "That he put off from himself the principalities and the powers, and he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it." We have failed to recognize this blessed fact, that in the substitutionary work of Christ, it was as though we ourselves were with Him. Just as the Spirit says in Gal. 2:20, "I was crucified with Christ,"
not as the old version reads, "I am crucified." No, it is past tense. It is the legal side.
He not only was crucified, but in Rom. 6:8 it says, "But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him." Not only were we crucified with Him but we died with Him. In Col. 2:12 we were buried with Him. In I Tim. 3:15 we were justified with Him. In Col. 2:13 we were made alive with Him. "You, I say, did He make alive together with Him."
Then in Eph. 2:6 He raised us up with Him and made us to sit with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. In these Scriptures, we get a living picture of the entire substitutionary work of Christ, in which we have a perfect Identification. It was done for us. It is the legal background of our Redemption. You can say, Yes, I was crucified with Him. I was identified with Him in His shame and His deep agonies on the cross.
More than that, God not only put my sin upon Him and made Him sin with my sin, but He put me upon Him. He was taking my place. He was acting in my stead. It was my sin that stripped Him naked. It was my sin that caused the crown of thorns to be put upon His brow. It was my sin that drove the nails into His hands and feet.
It was Love that was taking my place and suffering in my stead that I might be ransomed out of the authority of darkness and the power of sin and spiritual death. I can say I died with Him; that when He died on the cross He partook of my spiritual death, and I was identified with Him in that spiritual death. It was as though I had been there in person and we had left His body together.
When He died on the cross, He and I went to the place where I should have gone alone, but He went with me as my Substitute. He went with me to suffer in my stead. He was bearing my sin with me, that old spiritually dead self. He suffered there until the claims of justice against me had been satisfied and there was no longer any charge against me.
My spiritual death and union with Satan were wiped out.
And then He was justified in Spirit. His justification was for me, for you see, He went there for me. He didn't go there on His own account. He went on my account, and as soon as He was justified, He was Recreated-made alive in spirit, and that wonderful scripture in Acts 13:33, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee," was made real. Right there in those awful surroundings, He was Born Again. He had become the very Righteousness of God right there.
And now I can understand Eph. 2:10: "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus."
That is the legal side of the New Birth. In the mind of justice, we were Recreated down there at the time Christ was, because He is the Head of the Body, the Firstborn from among the dead. He was the first person ever Born Again. In His birth, the whole Body of Christ had the legal work accomplished for them.
Then He conquered the adversary, but in the mind of justice, I was with Him. When He stripped Satan of his authority and dominion, it was your victory and mine. We were there in the mind of justice. We put our heel upon the neck of the enemy; we stripped him of his authority; we left him defeated and broken, and then we were raised together with Christ.
Satan is conquered. The New Birth has been accomplished. The New Creation, in the mind of justice, has become effective, and now we are not only raised together with Christ but we are seated with Him.
In the mind of justice, every member of the Body of Christ is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high. In the mind of justice, we are utterly one with Him. We are complete in Him. All that He did, He did for us. He is the Head of the Body, and as the Head of the Body, He cannot be exalted so high but what the Body is there with Him sharing in His glory, sharing in all of His victories. Eph. 1:4-6 gives us a preview of our Redemption:
"Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him: in love having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself. He did this according to his own good will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved."
The next verse swings into the vital: "In whom we have our redemption through his blood, the remission of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, revealing in us the mystery of his will."
Now we can see the background of a vital union with Christ
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We can understand what it means to have him say, "For it is God who is at work within you, willing and working his own good pleasure." We can understand Col. 1:28, 29 "That we may present every man perfect in Christ: whereunto I labor also, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily." Paul's dream in Christ was to present every_ believer perfect, "without spot or wrinkle or any such thing."
What a dream it must have been. Now we can understand Eph. 3:16-20: "That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man." This inner man has become a New Creation. He has received the Life and Nature of the Father, and now the Spirit through the Word is building into this "hidden man of the heart." the ability to live as Jesus did in His earth walk.
You remember we are to walk in Love; we are to follow after Love.
We remember that Love never faileth, and it thinketh no evil; always good thoughts, beautiful thoughts about everyone. It never holds any enmity. We treat the one who has lied about us, just as Jesus treated Peter after the Resurrection. Can't you imagine Jesus hunting up the man who drove the nails into His hands and telling him "I died for you."
Finding the man that made the crown of thorns and pressed it upon His brow, telling him "I am going to give you a crown of righteousness, a crown of glory and a crown of life." Paul said, "That Christ may dwell in your hearts on the ground of faith." You see, Christ and the Word are one. When the Word dwells in a believer's heart, gains control of his whole being, that is Christ gaining control. The Lordship of Jesus over a life is in Reality the Lordship of the Word. The Word gains the ascendancy in such an absolute way that it dominates his thinking.
The Lordship of Jesus and the Lordship of the Word are really the Lordship of this new kind of Love-Agapa. What beautiful lives that makes. When this "inner man," this "hidden man of the heart" becomes governed by the Love Nature of the Father, he unconsciously takes Jesus' place. You see, we become rooted and grounded in Agapa. We do not hold it as a doctrine. It is not a mental concept. It is actual.
The Father has so filled us with His Nature that we do Love acts unconsciously.
We have received the ability to understand the Nature of the Love of Christ which passeth Sense-knowledge apprehension, and now at last the dream of the Father for us is being fulfilled. We are filled with all the fullness of God. The Love Nature has swallowed us up, just as 2 Cor. 3:4: "But that we should be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life." Way says, "Drowned in the sea of life."
The Life is Zoe-the Nature of the Father, and the Nature of the Father is Love. We are swallowed up, immersed, overwhelmed in Love. Now we can understand Eph. 3:20: "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." It is the ability of the Father unveiled. Not only is it revealed, but it is clasping the hand of Omnipotent Love; my whole inner being swinging me out of the orbit of Sense-knowledge into the orbit of Revelation Knowledge or Revelation Reality.
Now I know what Jesus meant when He said, "When he, the Spirit of Truth is come (or the Spirit of Reality), he shall guide you into all reality: for he shall not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak: and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come"-the New Creation things, the unveiling of the very Nature of the Father which He declares in Christ. (John 16:13, 14).
First, "He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you." This is Resurrection Life in us. This is the Holy Spirit working in us through the Word; all that was purchased for us; all that is legally ours for our daily walk. You see, the Father had a dream for us.
In that little preview of the New Creation that I gave you, He gave us a suggestion of His intense Love for us, and how He was going to build us over into Himself.
He was going to take His Righteousness and His Holiness and His Truth or Reality and build them into us until we fit into His dream, and He could say, as He did to the wondering disciples, "This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Then He would say, "These are my beloved sons, in whom my heart has found perfect rest and satisfaction."