Birth Truths & Terms, Position-Condition
Mike Doyle · Oct 15, 2006
Identification (2006-07), No. 03
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492604554828

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, this is Lesson 3, the Course's Identification. The verses I wanted you to read to start out was Romans 5, 12 to 14. Now, those of you who have spent any time in the Book of Romans probably have noticed a few interesting things there. One is that you see the word sins a lot, S-I-N-S.

Up until Romans 5.11, that's all you see is sins.

And then after that, it changes. And what changes is that it stops being plural and starts to become singular. And if you look at it closely, it has a definite article in front of it. It will now say the sin. And what that means is, is he's now. Stop talking about the dirty, rotten things that you do and begin to talk about the dirty, rotten thing that promotes and does sinning. So it's the sin nature. And so any class in identification, you have to take that step from sins to sin nature. If you don't take that step, then there isn't any reason to identify yourself with somebody else. So in Romans 5, 12 through 14, somebody read it. So what's he saying? Just as through one man all the sins entered the world? No, sin. The sin nature came in through this one man. And so when the sin nature comes in, what comes with it?

Yeah, what's death mean? Separation. So if death means separation, then it means you have to have something here that something else is separated from it. So give me the players here. If Adam sinned and he separated, what's he separated from? From God. When Adam was created, we talked about this a little bit last week, when Adam was created, God breathed in him the breath of lives and he became a living soul. He had a direct connection spiritually with God. When he sinned, that connection is broken.

It doesn't mean that he ceased to exist, but his connection with God is totally broken to the point where God has to come into the garden and ask him where he's hiding because he's hiding. So if death means separation, We haven't talked much about this. This is probably a good time to talk about position and condition. The Brethren used to call it standing and state. We mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. Position is what? Use this context.

Adam died positionally. What does that mean? It means that he didn't die physically right away, did he? He positionally died to God, separated from God. Position is everything that you are in your standing or your position before God, whether you have one or not. Positionally, you can be separated from God. Positionally, you can be united to Christ. You see that? Your position cannot change in and of yourself. You can't change it.

Every man on the earth born from Adam is born positionally dead to God. And I was reading something interesting this morning. This author said that Christianity is the only religion that portrays man being totally separated from God and with an absolute inability to do anything about it. Every other religion gives man a little bit of hope to do something to fix his circumstance.

In Adam, if you look at 1 Corinthians 15.22, it says, in Adam all die. See that? So every single human being that shows up on this planet, because they are identified with Adam, they're all dead to God. Every single one of them. Now, I know some of you, when you first had your first children, thought that maybe they would escape this little... But your kids proved you wrong, didn't they? Yeah, they sure do.

Adam's position of death began to be manifested in his condition, which is a condition as your everyday walking around experience, just your living. And it can fluctuate. It can go up or down, left or right. Your position never changes, but your condition is always changeable. So if you're in a position of death to God, then your condition is going to begin to manifest your position of death. It took Adam almost 930 years before he physically died. So he lived a long time. But inevitably what happened? He did die. His condition did line up with his position. He died. So all in Adam have Adam's life.

Ephesians 2.3 says, And they were by nature the children of wrath. You got your nature of Adam and you are a child of wrath. when you come from Adam by your very nature. So Adam became flesh in body, soul, and spirit, and hence the race bond from Adam is fleshly. That's the old principle we talked about two weeks ago. Like begets like, right? Frogs beget frogs. They don't beget birds. So the natural man is fleshly, and he has a condition of flesh.

John 3.6 says that that which is born of the flesh is flesh. Okay, that's an identification that every man has with Adam.

Now, how does man view his own fall? How does he look at it? Does he view it that way? In Romans 1, 21 through 23, man, because he won't honor God as God and he's not thankful, what does he say? He's futile in his speculations. He has a foolish heart and it's darkened. He professes himself to be wise. What happens to him? He becomes a fool.

He exchanges the glory of the incorruptible God for the image in the form of corruptible man of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. If you read Romans chapter 1, you'll see position and then played out in condition. Don't you find it interesting that if a man doesn't honor God as God and he is not thankful, The slide and just total debauchery is very fast. And I've always been intrigued by if man is going to create false gods, he starts out with things that fly and moves to four footed animals and ends up with things that crawl on the ground. So the slide goes down really fast.

So in Romans 2, 14 through 16, And Paul is laying out the position of the Gentiles, who he says, Gentiles who do not have the law, which is the Mosaic law, they do instinctively the things of the law. These not having the law are a law unto themselves. So every human being and nobody in this room was born and raised in Judaism, as far as I know. But you've all got your little laws. You got them from your parents. Do this and don't do that.

You know, we all have this little black box on the side of our head that has our little code of ethics and how we live. And so we show the work of the law written in us, what's good and what's evil, because we came out of that tree, you know, in the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And like we discussed before, most Christians view salvation as, oh, gee, I'm saved. Now I can make this little journey from the evil branches over to the good ones. Right? Problem is you're still in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And what identification will teach us is to leave the tree and that the whole premise of what goes on in that tree is now not what we are. We're in this thing called the tree of life and all the principles and all of the operating principles of that tree are different. We live in that tree, grace reigns.

Romans 2 verse 18, and the Jews knew his will because they have the law and they prove the things that are essential. 19, are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having the law, the embodiment of knowledge and of truth. Theoretically, that's what the Jews were all about.

Practically, None of that ever worked out. So in answer to the question of man's view of himself in terms of salvation, he thinks he can do it. Because he lives on this ladder of sanctification that he's about rung for. And there's 4,000 below him and only a few above him.

He's doing pretty well. How many non-believers have you talked to in your life who have said to you, well, you know, I've done all right in my life. When I die, God is going to be sympathetic. He's a loving God. And then he's going to let me in. Wrong. That's man's view, not God's view. Now, I've already talked a little bit about position.

The thing that I wanted to stress there is that every single human being is born positionally in Adam. So everything that's true of Adam is true of them. Every little child. And they have all the characteristics of Adam. And the reason is, is because their source is Adam. That's who they come from. The dictionary definition of position is to lay down or to put in place the act of placing or arranging the point or area occupied by a physical object. So, all men are born in the position of Adam, who is their source.

Now this is a really important principle when we get to the move over to Christ. This is really important. But right now, Everybody who is not in Christ is exactly like Adam in body, soul, and spirit. Exactly like him. And the three verses that I just quoted are really good ones.

So is positional truth reality? If you're born in Adam, which we all are, is that your reality? Yeah, it is. Sure is. So positional truth, when it comes time to being in Christ, will be the reality. So it doesn't matter how you view it. You're either in Adam and you die, or you're in Christ and you're alive. So let's talk some more about condition.

The first that I pulled out that really describes condition is 1 Corinthians 1.20 down through 25, where Paul says, Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

For indeed, Jews ask for a sign and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified to the Jewish stumbling block and to the Gentile foolishness. But to those who are called, both Jew and Gentile, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, because of the foolishness of God, is wiser than men. The weakness of God is stronger than men. So it's interesting that from our conditional point in Adam, looking at what God supplies, we view it as foolishness.

An even better one is the next chapter, which is chapter 2, verse 14. This is a verse that not only fits the Adamic man, but also fits the believer who's trying to understand the Word of God out of his natural mind. But the natural man does not accept or receive the things of the Spirit of God.

Because he doesn't really want to? No, he really wants to. For they are foolishness unto him, and he cannot understand them. It doesn't matter if he wants to or not. He can't. Why can't he? He's dead. Yeah, he's dead spiritually. He cannot, if you don't have the right equipment, if you're not spiritually alive, you cannot understand spiritual things. You just cannot.

Now, in our society, there's an awful lot of emphasis on spirituality that all it is is soulish emotion. It's not spiritual. We've developed this emotion to such a degree that if it's extremely high emotionally, it must be spiritual. Does spiritual have anything to do with emotion?

Do you not think in your mind when you hear the word repent, you think that emotion has to be involved, right? What does repentance mean? Just means have a change of mind. There's no emotion involved at all. But we think that God, if we're emotional about it, that God is going to be, we're more spiritual and God is going to forgive us more. How does he forgive you more? Because you're more sorry? He doesn't forgive you because you're sorry. Repentance is just a change of mind.

That's all it is. So we have a tendency to look at these things with high emotion. And we think the high emotion equals spirituality. Not at all. Not at all. The most important thing of spirituality is to understand spiritual things. You see that? Spiritual things are communicated by the Spirit of God. And if you're not spiritually alive, you are not going to understand them. Just can't. It's like God is broadcasting on channel 9 and you're listening on 4. You can't pick it up. It's impossible. See that?

So, when Adam sinned, did he die positionally or conditionally? He died positionally because he was separated from God. And then he died conditionally. He did both. He did both. It's interesting, though, that he died positionally the moment that he sinned. He died conditionally 900 and some years later. See that? Make sense? He died positionally immediately. He didn't die conditionally until nine centuries later.

Seems to me that lots of guys probably knew Adam. Don't you think? A lot of the guys that talked about it, especially in the first five books of the Bible, probably knew Adam, knew who he was. So when a child is conceived and born, he's born positionally dead. Now, at some point, his condition is going to manifest his position. He's going to die physically. He may be 90 years later, but he's still going to die. If he becomes a believer in that time, Maybe he won't have to die, he might get raptured. But in Adam, all die. So why are all men condemned? Because we're sons of Adam? Whatever is true of Adam is going to be true of us. So the question is, when did you first sin? When did you commit your first sin? When did you do it? When did you commit your first sin? Conception. Everybody agree with that? Anybody disagree with him? I disagree with him. You can disagree with him.

When did you commit your first sin? When Adam sinned. Isn't that what the verse says? 5.12 says that I sinned when Adam sinned. Isn't that interesting? So you can say in your mind, you know, kind of coolly, well, boy, if I'd have been Adam, I wouldn't have gotten suckered into that deal. Yeah, you would have. You did. That's the point. You did. In Adam you sin.

Now, what that brings up is a very interesting point. On Thursday night we're studying Hebrews and this last week we were talking about, we're in chapter 7 and talking about the difference between the priestly order of Levi and Aaron as opposed to the order of Melchizedek.

Melchizedek is the priesthood that Christ is from and that order of priesthood is superior to the Levitical priesthood. And one of the arguments that the writer gives for that is that when Abraham was returning from defeating all the kings, he runs into this guy Melchizedek. And Melchizedek is only mentioned twice in the Old Testament.

But he's the king of Salem, he's the king of righteousness, and he's a guy that Abraham, being the patriarch that he is, immediately recognizes as someone who is of authority and above him. It's not Christ, pre-incarnate Christ. It's a man. His name is Melchizedek.

And Abraham, in those days, the custom was that if you and your army went out and beat the Democrats, you got all the spoils, right? Then they piled them up in a big pile and the top 10% the God got, whoever your deity was, got the top 10%, right? So Abraham piles everything up and he gives the top 10% to Melchizedek, which shows that Melchizedek is a man who's superior to Abraham. And if you're a Jew, that's a tough one to swallow because Abraham's the guy.

Then it says that the Melchizedek priesthood is superior to the Levi priesthood because Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek in the loins of Abraham. Even though it was three, four hundred years later before Levi ever shows up on the planet. See that? That Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek in the loins of Abraham. So when Abraham paid the tithe, who else paid the tithe?

Everybody that was in his genes. Everybody. The point in Hebrews is that this priestly order of Melchizedek, one of the reasons it's superior to the order of Levitical priesthood is that very reason. Do you see that principle? The principle holds true right here with sin. And it will hold true, too, when we get to our identification with Christ. Does that make sense? We don't think that way. We're Americans. We're responsible for our own actions. God forbid my dad would do something that I'd have to suffer for. If you were a Jew, guess what? If your dad sinned, the punishment for that sin could carry on to two or three generations. So watch it. John is saying that to me. Watch it, dad.

So the issue about Melchizedek is position. That what's true of Christ being a priest Superior to the Levitical priesthood has everything to do with Levi's position in Abraham when he paid those tithes. Same thing with us being sinners. We sinned in Adam. He didn't do it for us. We did it.

Hebrews 9.27 says, Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this the judgment, we died when Adam died. This teaches us that in our position we are acting just as our federal head is acting. Now, what do I mean by federal head? Anybody want to tackle that one? Adam is considered a federal head of a race of humans. What do I mean by federal head?

He's a representative man. He represents every one of us, and whatever is true of him is going to be true of us. See that? So that's why the Corinthians can say, in Adam all die. Because if he's dying, we're dying. So the other thing you've got to understand about a representative man or a federal head is that not only does he act in behalf of you, but you act in him. Does that make sense? The whole race acts in the head of the race. Make sense or not?

It's kind of a principle that you're not really used to, especially the way we Americans think. We've got the Greek mindset, which is, well, I'm my own independent entity. I have my own brain. I go out and accumulate as much knowledge as I can. I bring it into me and I decide what's true or not. I'm the decider. It says so in the Constitution. But the reality, the spiritual reality is that what you are is what your federal head is. Okay.

And so God looks at us as either being in Adam or being in Christ. And that's very important to look at it that way because it doesn't take the responsibility away from a human being to be an Adam in terms of his standing before God. He definitely has a responsibility because he sinned. Adam didn't sin for him.

But when we get to the point where we're going to be in Christ, The same principles hold true, but because it's a different operating principle of grace there, the responsibility question changes. And we'll talk about that when we get there. When a man believes in the person and work of Christ, does his position change? Absolutely it changes.

He no longer belongs to the race of Adam. So we all get a tattoo behind our ear that says, No Adam. Or Adam with that circle around it, you know? I don't belong to Adam anymore. There's no physical difference. You can't tell. Because that isn't the change. The change is spiritual. Position is spiritual. Okay, so our position can only change one time. One time. So if Adam's position changed one time, did he die in his spiritual life? Did he die? Physically dead? What do you think? Do you think Adam became a believer? Now, let's add to that. Is Abraham a son of Adam? And he has all the characteristics of his father Adam, right? Did Abraham get accounted righteous before God?

How did he do it? He believed God, right? So God just declared him righteous. Do you see any verbiage that says intrinsically he changed positions? No, he didn't, did he? He still is an Adam, but God just declares him righteous. That's what justification means. God just says, OK, because you believe me, you are now righteous before me. Now, I don't know, to be honest, I don't know if there was a positional change in Abraham. It doesn't say that there is. It only talks about believers having a positional change. But if God declares him righteous and God declares him righteous based on the looking forward to the cross of Christ.

I also think Adam was righteous. And the reason I think that is because when God showed up in the garden and said, Adam, where are you? And Adam said, I'm hiding. You know, because I was naked and God said, who told you you were naked? And, you know, the sin issue got flushed out.

And Adam had, to cover himself, had used leaves, you know. And God said to him, well, here's some skins. Put these on. These will cover you better. And Adam accepted that. Well, where'd those skins come from? They came from an animal dying. And so what God presented to Adam was God's own remedy for his sinfulness. And if he accepted the remedy, which he did, God would account him righteous. So I think, you know, Adam is probably... And there's other evidence, like, how did Cain and Abel learn about that they should sacrifice to God? They learned it from Adam. And Adam, how'd he learn? He learned about sacrifice from those skins. Because I'm sure he and God had this conversation about, you know, Adam said, well, where'd they come from? See? So the mission is like the mission only applies to the change of position. I think so. Now, I don't. Yes.

Be fair to say that only two people could change position twice. Explain Adam and Eve. Yeah. when they sinned positionally, dying to Christ, but then when they believed and God declared them righteous, which is what you're implying, they would change position again? Maybe they did. I don't know that. I can't find a scripture that would say that their position changed. They were declared righteous. Can God declare a man righteous without changing his position? Yeah, He can.

When we get a little farther down and begin to talk about exactly the mechanics about us and how our position got changed, there's no reference to any Old Testament saints or Millennial Kingdom saints. It's unique to this time. I've had conversations with Hal about this, and Hal says that they have received life from God that they didn't have before. But there isn't any discussion that I can find that talks about a change in position. You know, it's pretty clear, all in Adam die. All in Christ are made alive. Well, all in Adam do die, but you can die and still be declared righteous. You're physically going to die. You see that? Okay.

So any discussion about position is critical for us as we move forward, because if God can afford us and give us the opportunity to change our position, it becomes increasingly important to us because If you stay in Adam, what's going to happen? What about a baby?

Does God declare them righteous or are they lost? That's a great question. And a question that really needs to be answered, I think. First of all, where do all these babies come from? Adam. What's the word of God say about them? In Adam, all die, right? Okay.

Now, but, boy, it doesn't seem fair that all of those fetuses that are aborted or babies that are, they never get to be old or they're born incapacitated or whatever the reason, that God wouldn't be fair. You have to answer the fairness question first, I think, before you can answer the grace question. The fairness question is, and answer is this, that of all of the attributes of God, righteousness, holiness, omnipresent, omniscient, all of those kinds of things, let's wipe all of those out and let's say the only attribute that God has is He's fair. He's infinitely fair, right?

Where have you been enough? You're toast. So am I. Because if fairness is the only issue, then we're all going to hell. All of us. But God is more than fair. And so, in Adam all die. And that little fetus was in Adam sinning when Adam sinned. That's what the Bible declares. From a grace standpoint, I'm of a mind that the work of Christ on the cross was so sufficient to satisfy God's righteousness and holiness and fairness that he can save anybody any way he wants to because he is propitiated. He is totally satisfied about the sin issue. So, I don't know if he approaches aborted fetuses and saves them. I know he'd want to. You know, he wishes that none should perish. I know for me, and for you, the issue was real simple, faith in Christ. I know for people that show up on the planet, faith in Christ. There are people I've met that don't remember when they weren't Christians. You know what I mean? When did they get saved? I don't know. With me, I was 35. It was a big experience for me.

But other believers, it's just... So I don't know. I rest on the fact that the grace of God is sufficient because of the work of Christ that God can save anybody any way He wants. For me, and for all of us, it's a prescribed way. The grace of God would say to me that He would do something there. I don't know.

I do know positionally they're all conceived dead. All of them. Whether they make it to birth or not. And that's the tragedy in my mind. Because there isn't any definitive answer as to whether those are to spend eternity with Christ or not. We don't know. That's a tough question.

Last week, there was a discussion somewhat in this vein, too. This is sensational, but the three things that are carried throughout all of the scripture, Gentiles, Jews and the church. Yeah. And this was a sticking issue on. And I think the abortion issue, I think, would be in the pieces, similar type thing in that In heaven there will be differences.

The church is different than Abraham and the Old Testament saints. That kind of classification of Old Testament saints are not part of the Church. They are not ones that are positionally in Christ. And talking last week, there was a lot of discussion of that, and the Fairness Doctrine came up. positionally in Christ different than an Old Testament saint? Is there a second-class citizenship in heaven?

And it's not, it's just different. It's just a variety, God's variety, sure. And when we got to discuss some of it, it's also, you know, you see this already, I mean, angels, angels are different. And there are differences in angels. Sure there are. And so it's not one or the other or better or whatever. They're just different. They're the four living creatures. Sure. They're different.

So in heaven there is going to be differences in heaven. It's not that, you know, our natural mind goes, well, you know, they have a little bit better apartment up there. Well, there's a discussion in Hebrews, there's a discussion in Hebrews about, about the throne of God, that there are, and a description of the people that are around, the souls of just men made perfect. To me, those are Old Testament saints.

The church of the firstborn, that's us. Yeah. You know, but we have, we have a unique position in Christ. Yes we do. And that is different. And I think, as you were saying with the fetuses now, thinking about that, that may be a different, you know, equivalent to an Old Testament saint. Who knows? I don't know. But there are differences.

This whole class is identification. And we are uniquely different. And when Christ is identified with him, throughout all of eternity, there's a different set up by disidentification. And as I was discussing last week, this is our whole class, this is exactly what it is. But in heaven it's not going to be, we're going to be up here and they're here. It's not like that. It's just different.

The thing is that if you accept covenant theology, which is that the church is just an extension of Judaism. And from the standpoint of position and all that we're talking about today, what happens to you as a Christian? All of this incredible truths that are talked about in terms of you in the epistles aren't true of you. Because you've got to decide, am I in Christ or am I a Jew who's in Adam? What am I? If you view yourself as a Jew in Adam, you qualify for spiritual handicap parking. Because you don't come into the fullness of who you are. And the last third or so of this class is going to focus totally on what you are and who you are and where you are in Christ. And it's going to be unique. Every single thing, the 34 things that we're going to go through, are unique only to us. No Jew, no Gentile, no anybody else ever said any of these 34 things are true of them. Only us. And we're unique that way. And the reason is, it starts all the way back here. Who are you in? You're either in Adam, or you're either in Christ. I love identification truths because I'm a realtor. Location's everything with me. See? Where you are matters.

Before Christ, in the Old Testament, the position... I know they lived by law, and the wages of sin is death, but that doesn't seem very black and white. It doesn't, because you would think that their position would change. And I don't think it can because Christ is not here yet. There hasn't been the cross.

And I think what God did, in view of the cross, knowing that it was coming, first of all, in the Jewish system, he gave them the opportunity to cover their sins. Not to put them away, just to cover them over. But he did that looking forward to the cross. He could declare men righteous. He could just justify them where he said, OK, you're righteous before me. And he did that every time on the basis that they believed him. He couldn't declare any man righteous if the cross wasn't coming.

If Christ is viewed as the lamb slain from the foundations of eternity, then God, because he's an eternal being, can say, OK, Abraham, I'm declaring you righteous because you believe me. But that doesn't necessarily put him in Christ. Can he save men who are in Adam?

Yeah, I think so. And he talks about the new covenant with Israel, where he's going to put a new heart in them, and he's going to write the laws in their hearts, and he's going to give them the Spirit. He's given them all kinds of things that are new to Adam, but they're still from Adam's race. You see that? And one of the things we're going to discover at the end of this class is that Again, back to the issue of location.

Adam was created to be an earthly man. And all of his existence for all eternity will be earthly. And there are characteristics about that. The thing about those that are in Christ is that they are now heavenly men. They're not earthly men anymore. So God is going to have saints who are earthly and heavenly. And their origins are going to be different.

You see that? So, from a positional standpoint, I can't find any scripture that says that coming from Adam, you change positions. But God certainly can declare you righteous by their faith and can save you. Hebrews 11 gives a list of Old Testament saints who that in fact is what happened.

Because this has happened, will happen, has happened, is happening, I guess it's how I look at it, that it doesn't matter what the timeline is here on earth because that's already been done in their covenant between Christ and... It's just playing out in time and space. Exactly. Because that's how we function. That's not how He functions.

And that's where we get to this issue of dispensations. And there's this unique dispensation from Pentecost to the Rapture that's unique in history. And that's us, this church. We're the bride of Christ. That's who we are. All right. Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for the information that you give us about where we came from and where we went to. And as we get into it, I think we get more and more overwhelmed with the grace that you present towards us in your son. And we pray in his precious name. Amen.