lesson 21c

So we are in Lesson 21, and I don't know if we'll get through all of it today. We've tried to. And then Courtney will be up next with Lesson 22. So we're at the point where we've been talking about the old man, and we're talking about Did death at one point have mastery over Christ? We talked about that. And then we had arrived at question eight. And the question was, did the sin nature die? And by death, I guess I could have clarified there, by death did it cease to function and exist? It didn't die. So when you ask that question, there's a whole group of believers that are referred to as the one nature people. That's their theology, that the old man died. So they have a big problem. They have several big problems. What's the source of the sinfulness in their life?

Now they could say, well, I don't sin anymore, like the Nazarenes try to convince you. Well, you know, when I'm watching you and you're doing evil, what is that? Are those just mistakes? Or they say, well, you know, we have memories from the way we were raised and brought up before we were saved. and it's either bad memories or habits or things that are in my life that cause me to sin, or the ultimate fallback guy is Satan. He's making me do all of this kind of stuff, right? The problem is that if you look at James chapter 1, he talks about where does the temptation come from? What does he say? It comes from within. comes from within me.

So the sin nature isn't dead, but the verse would quote, for the death that he died, he died with respect to the sinful nature once and for all. So the one nature guys have a real tough time with one little word in chapter 6, and it's the word unto. The Bible clearly says that Christ died unto sin. I'm to reckon myself dead unto sin. They can't deal with the unto because it destroys their whole viewpoint. If we died unto sin, then who did the dying? Who died on the cross? And then who else? We did. Now death means what? What's the word death means?

Separation. So you have to identify, well what did I get If I'm the one that got separated, what was I separated from? What was I separated from? I was disengaged, separated from, no longer a slave to the sin nature. Now it takes a while I think in our spiritual growth to come to the conclusion that we really were a slave to sin at one point. That's a tough thing to get your arms around and to agree with. I was a slave. No matter how cool I was or how hard I tried or how much praying I did or Bible verses I memorized, when sin decided to act through me, it didn't have any resistance because I was a slave.

Right? So I find it interesting that we have I think you have to get clear in your mind exactly what was the transaction. If I was crucified with Christ, which you were, what happened? So what we find out is that I was separated from the sin nature positionally. That's why positional truth is so important.

I also was separated from the whole entire legal system. which is a system of if you obey me I will reward you and if you don't obey me I will curse you. I was separated positionally from the entire world system including Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. It's a foregone conclusion I was separated from those liberals. And I also have been separated from the power that Satan had over me. Okay? Now, is that true? Did that really happen? Yes. You sure? You bet your life on it? Really? So if that really happens, so when temptation comes, or the overwhelming of the world comes, how do you deal with it? You reckon?

Verse 11 says that, or verse 10 says, for in that he died, he died in respect to the sinful nature, one time for all. We're not going to repeat this process anymore. We did it. But the life that Christ lives now, he lives unto God or with respect to God. Christ died unto sin. Sin isn't dead. We're dead to it.

So when you first sort of entertain that doctrine and you begin to think about it, Right away you're confronted with the fact that in reality, in my experience, in my condition, that doesn't seem to be the case. Right? Like I say, I've gone to the Lord a million times and said, Father, I know you told me I'm dead to sin. Right? But every time the music starts up, my feet are doing this. They're moving. Why? I shouldn't be reacting. Why is that the way that is? Is it because what God said isn't true? Is it because I'm not really trying hard enough to believe it? Why?

I mean, do you all share that experience? That there's certain things that in your life, and even if you're as old as I am, they're still there? You know, when the curtain goes up, I'm in, you know. And I think, wait a minute, I shouldn't be not according to what I know. I'm really free from all of that. I don't have to go there. We let Christ live through us, and then it's His life that's lived through us, so that we are.

And that's where, again, I don't see how the one nature people, you know, I think the end of it, you know, he basically says, you know, in verse 20, but sin which dwells in me. I mean, how do you get around that one? It's a struggle. And what is the answer in the end? Christ.

I think this is the spiritual growth is all part of this. He's working His truths into you through the Holy Spirit. And again, it points back to what 7 is, all my best efforts fail. It's Christ and the Holy Spirit working those truths in me. Again, it comes back, I think, always to faith.

Do you believe what He says? And I might read it and look at it and have an understanding about it and look to the Lord and say, I believe this, only because you said it. But I have to admit to you, it's not true in my experience. I'm just being honest, Lord. I think that the fact that you did take God at His word is the appropriating factor in this process of spiritual growth. Once you say to the Lord, OK, I believe you. My old man was crucified. I am, as best I understand, reckoning myself dead to sin and alive to God. And I'm only doing that because it says so in your word. I don't have a lot of experience that backs that up.

Once you do that, my friend used to say, hang on to your chair because you're going for a ride. Because the Spirit of God, because you believed it and appropriated it, he's going to take you through the process all the way through 6, all the way through 7, to 8-2. He's going to take you through that, so at a point in time, you're going to rest on the fact, oh, this really did happen, and I'm living that way now, and I don't have to strain or fight it or anything anymore. I'm just resting.

But there's a process, and what Courtney's talking about, seven is the process of being set free conditionally from what's already true of me positionally. You need to know that, but the first thing out of the box is the first 10 verses of Romans 6 are positional truth. How do you react to those positional truths?

11 is I reckon myself to be dead unto sin. I am, and reckoning is a really good word. It's a word that's even probably a little bit more inclusive than the word just faith. I've counted this to be true of me, and I count myself to be alive unto God in Christ Jesus. I count all of that to be true, and I trust you about that, no matter what the circumstances are in my life. And so the Spirit says, thank you very much, come with me. And there will come a time, and it might be a little bouncy in Romans 7, but there will come a time where sin will not have dominion over you. It won't. And neither will the law system. And neither will the world. You'll find your taste change. Everything changes because Christ becomes the focus and object of everything that you are.

Pretty cool that he's... I'm just amazed that God did it this way. There's no other way to do it. It's the proving of what God said is true. Yeah. Yeah, that's just like God's method. Sometimes He shows you something and then He goes about the process of persuading you that what He showed you is really true. That He wasn't kidding. And He didn't leave it up to you to make it true. He's going to work it in you.

And so that is where the rest of faith comes from because the rest of faith is just trusting God to do, implement in my life what He's already done positionally in Christ. Are you okay with that? Yes, sir. I think it was, again, the hungry heart this morning. Part of it, there is no strength or power in ourselves against the law of sin, which is in our members.

The Father has left us as much to depend upon the Lord's work for our deliverance from the power of sin as our forgiveness. I like that. It's holy because we died with Him on the cross, both to sin and to the whole legal principle. But that one that the Father has left is most dependent upon the Lord Jesus' word for our deliverance from the power of sin as for our forgiveness. The same as for forgiveness. Same for us to overcome the power of sin. That's exactly right.

And so to understand that we're not talking about Romans chapter 3, 4 where Christ died to pay the penalty for the sins of the world and my own personal sins. and for my guilt. That's not what this is about. This has to do with, well, what's the source of my sin? What causes me to be sin? Well, we find out that it's a nature. We refer to it as the old man, sin nature. And that's the source of my sin. I'm responsible because it's my sin nature. So God, rather than putting the sin nature to death and hanging it up to dry, He put me to death.

He separated me from it so that it would not have dominion over me anymore. That I would now have a new master. And the new master is the resurrected Christ. His life. And he doesn't have a problem with sin, does he? No, he doesn't. So if I'm in him and he's in me and I have his very life as I rest by faith or that great word abide, sin doesn't control me.

You know Galatians 5.17, walk in the spirit and it's totally impossible for you to fulfill the desires of the flesh.

So walking in the spirit is my, what's the world say, my safe place. Is that how they refer to it? Safe place? So walking in the spirit, there is no sinning in there. You have to get lured out of there back into abiding in the flesh in order to sin, but as long as you are abiding in Christ or walking in the Spirit, Christ is the object of your life and there is no sin. Question nine, what makes it possible for us to live unto God? The first thing in this equation is salvation, of course. That's the first thing. We have a new life. We've been saved out of the old.

But this refers, I think, directly to Galatians 2.20.

Anybody off the top of their head know what Galatians 2.20 is? I've been crucified twice, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.

Sure, Galatians 2.20 is, I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I'm living in this world, in this body, I'm functioning as a human being, but the life I now live is different. I live by faith now. In Christ, He's the object. He loved me and gave himself for me. Now think about this.

How long a time, once you see Romans 6.6, that my old man was crucified, coming to know this or knowing this, my old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be put out of business. Okay, I got that.

How many months do you think it takes for the Spirit of God to get you from Romans 6 to Galatians 2.20, where now your attitude is, hey, I've been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. This doesn't happen on Monday and this on Tuesday. It takes a while. Three days, huh? That's pretty fast.

Why did he do all of this? Think about this. Why would he separate you from the sin nature and make you alive under God? Why would he do that? Because when I die, I don't want to be connected to the sin nature. You don't want to be connected to the sin nature? Think about from his perspective, why would he do it? The fellowship with him and the glorification. That's exactly right. He wants us with him. And if we're going to be with him, guess what? You've got to be like him.

And in order to be like him, you cannot in any way be identified with sin of any kind, source or otherwise. you have to be holy and righteous and good just like him and then you get to hang with him forever you know in the first part of Ephesians I think it's three or four it's really interesting how all of this is designed so that God can have us with him you know and he doesn't allow us to come in with stains or with our own temperament or anything like that. Verse 4, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, now listen to this part, that we should be holy and without blame, where? Before Him in love. We are all going to spend eternity before God in love.

Well, in order to get that accomplished, He's got to take care of it way back here on the cross. He's got to get us ready to be there with no impediment. You see that? It's His desire. He's the one that came up with this plan. And we're not going to miss out because of something We felt we were unable to do it. It's all Jesus and what he did. Yeah, because we couldn't pull this off. We couldn't pull it off no matter what we did.

Let's see. A verse says that we shall also be living with him. Look at that verse. Let me read it so we've got it clear. Likewise, reckon yourselves in debt, be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. The death that he died, verse 10, he died once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives unto God.

So, living unto God is kind of what the goal is for you and me here on this earth. And living unto God is in future tense. You think future because when we go to heaven we get to hang out with him, or is it now? I think that life living under him has started here, but not completed until we get there. But it's going on all the time. That's what spiritual growth is. Learning what living under him is all about. So that's why he says in verse 10, but the life that he lives, he lives under God.

You see that? That make sense? Okay. In verse 10, I'm sorry, for 10 verses, 1 through 10, we have been given positional biblical facts. Now in verse 11, what are we to do regarding those facts? We've kind of already talked about that. But that's a critical point and Newell makes that point really over and over again. You get 10 verses in chapter 6 that's all positional truth.

You're not asked by God to do anything but just listen. Right? And just absorb and soak him in. But now that you got him, what does he want you to do about him? Act on it. Act on it. He wants us to act on it. And how do we act on it? Count it to be true. What's that? Count it as true. We count it as true. Believe it. Yeah. Is that hard to do? What do you think? Is it hard to do? I mean, if you're honest and realistic, you know, at 8 o'clock at night, you look back on your day and you think, well, that didn't go so well.

Well, Newell says that the belief of the fact and the attitude and view of the belief are both involved in the word reckon. Yeah, so let's talk about the word reckon. That's a great word. The Greek word is logizimae. How would you define that word? It's not the word faith, which is the word pispis, which means just to take him as word. But logizimae, reckoning, is a different kind of a word. What does that word mean? We'll get into that in a minute. It's more personal, isn't it? It's personal, accounted as true. It is the word. But think about this.

Let's say I said, now Joanne I want you to go downstairs in the basement. We've got a whole bunch of moving boxes down there. How many do we have? So she goes down there and she counts them. She comes back up and she says we have 76. I say, are you sure? She said, I will give you my 76. Why?

I counted every one of them. That's what this word means. I'm counting this because I know for sure, because I had my hands on them, that I died with Christ. And I can reckon myself to be dead unto sin and alive unto God. So it's more than just taking God at His word. It's an interesting word and if you start thinking about it and say, well, I can't reckon really until I actually go count the boxes. So what does that do? I think it sends you back into the verses and you start down them again and you say, oh gee, I better be very careful about what it's saying here. and thinking about and praying about every little phrase, sometimes every word.

Is this really true? You agree with that? So that you get to the point where logitima, reckoning is what you're about. This is not a term from North Texas. Do you think part of that has to do with having a relationship with the Lord? It does. He is who he says he is, so that you believe these things to be true. And he's done what he says he's done. Yeah, because of who he is. Sure. Isn't that part of the growth too?

I definitely think it is, because I think a young believer goes from, I'm constantly confessing my sins. I'm tired of doing that. Can we ever get past this part of my Christian life? to the point, now wait a minute, when I confess my sins, what am I supposed to do?

Well, right here is part of that process. I'm to look at God and say, hey God, I confess that you're right. I reckon that you're right, that I did die with you. I died unto sin and I'm alive unto you. And you're not interested in me saying to you over and over again, here are the 39 bad things I did since 230.

That's not what he wants. He wants us to confess that we know what the truth is, we know who we are in Christ, and we've been living inconsistent with who we know ourselves to be. Do you see that? And that comes from a growing revelation of knowing Christ, because without this, we don't know him. At best, we know him as the one who paid for our sins. We don't know him any better than that. Which means we're probably, if that's as far as you go, you're going to be a stranger when you go to heaven. You know?

So I think God for believers is working in this area and not working in the let's get you to act right. Here's some rules that you can obey. He's not working there anymore. He's working right here in every Christian's life. Wrecking. In the midst of that process, guess what happens? There's this growing intimacy with the Lord Jesus. Wow, that's pretty cool. And what happens with that? He starts to win your heart over. Do you think it's possible that you would love somebody like Christ more than you love yourself? Is that possible? Probable? Yeah. And this is the process. Because when I recognize that I can leave all that I am behind and live under God, wow. And I can't live under God unless all of this has been taken care of. See? You alright with that? That's why identification is so critically important.

You start with two main facts. The first is the believer stands in the position of a permanent relationship of freedom to the sinful nature And he doesn't need to obey it anymore. And the second is, the divine nature has been imparted by which is given both the desire and the power to do God's will. Both of those things.

So, Weiss says, he puts it this way, I like the word he uses, he must have been an engineer. This is the inner spiritual machinery God has installed whereby the believer lives his Christian life. But like an automobile engine, this machinery works best when it is serviced regularly. There's always a change for good in the new convert's life. What he means by service regularly is read your Bible. I love how he calls it machinery because that's really Romans 6, 1-10 are mechanics.

That's how God did it. And now that he's done it, here's what we do about it. We believe him. If you take your car into the mechanic and he charges you a thousand bucks and you walk out after you've paid the bill, you trusted him enough to write the check, didn't you? You'd better run right. He supposedly did his job. Well, God did his job about you and your relationship to sin.

You see that? This last one was, Lee says that Romans 6 is the mechanics of a spirit filled life. Sure. That's what you're saying. Sure, that's exactly what it is. So, when we get the mechanics down, how do you react to the mechanics? You have two steps there, just like you have two issues. One is, you reckon yourself dead to sin. And the second one is, how tough is that?

You reckon yourself alive under God. And alive under God doesn't mean that you're now in a classroom where all the good people are. Alive unto God means that you are actually face-to-face alive with Him intimately. Abraham was accounted righteous because he believed.

Is that the same thing that we are? Is that the same position we're in? How about our boy Moses says, oh Lord, I want to see your attributes. He said, sorry, you can't. If you do, you're going to die. Could you say that to God? You say, Lord, I want to see you. What's he going to say? Okay. Through my word, I'll show you. Because you're capable of doing it now. Moses wasn't. Because Moses wasn't crucified with Christ. See that? Okay. Let's see. Paul is exhorting the saints that in their endeavor to live a life in accordance with the word of God, they should Take into account the fact that they died to sin. You have to take that into account.

You have no other choice. That they have been discharged from your evil nature, sin nature. That it has no power over you anymore. And therein lies the proof in the pudding. Because there's so many of us, and I include myself in this, that certainly in my Christian life, I recognize that sin had power over me. It really does. But God says, no, you have to recognize that sin doesn't have any power over you anymore.

You just trust me about that. Then I'm scot-free from it and can say point-blank, no. No. It's like when I tell my dog no, sometimes I have to tell him more than once before he believes me. How many times does God have to tell me no before I believe him? Also, to take into account the fact that I'm alive unto God, that is, that the divine nature has been implanted and imparted to me. You know the verse that said, if any man be in Christ, what's true of him?

He's a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold everything has become new. What's the old that's passed away? His whole relationship to sin, to the world, to everything that's not pleasing to God. And what has become new? What's new? Hey, what's new? The much mores. What are the much mores?

I'm in Christ. I'm the first fruits of the new creation. I'm in the resurrected, glorified Christ. Wow. And I think from Romans 6 on, what Paul tries to do is to teach the believer well here's who you are now and here's where you are now and he stacks it one upon another one upon another one upon another so when he gets to Ephesians and he starts to pray for them he says you know that their eyes might be open so that they can see what is true of them and what's been given to them. What a prayer.

We take into account that we are alive under God, that is, that the divine nature has been imparted with the result that nature gives them both the desire and the power to regulate their lives in accordance with the word of God. You know, all life is lived by power. You've got to have power to do it, right? You have to have power to just live a human life, get up in the morning. How much power do you think it takes to live the Christian life?

His power. And how much is that? Infinite. Give me an example of how much power that is. To raise Jesus from the dead. Yeah, is that more powerful than creation? Yeah. You think it took more power to raise Christ from the dead than it did for him to speak this creation into existence? Sure did. Sure did. But that's the power we have now in Christ. resurrected power. Pretty cool. Okay, let's see.

Does reckoning yourself dead to sin and alive to God make one so? No, you already are. You already are. God constituted the saint, so when he saved him, So when God saved you, this instantly became true of you, because you were crucified, buried and resurrected.

The act of reckoning brings into better operation with the beneficial results, the working of this inner spiritual machinery. See, what we realize in Romans 6, is the fact that this is just, once you get past verse 10, this is not just nice doctrine to be thought about, that there's a life to be lived commensurate with what he's told us.

So, you got 10 minutes, you want me to do the... Yeah, just finish up, you know, to get started now. I'm done. You want me to do the first part of 22? No, I've got it. If you want to get started. Well, we wouldn't want to finish early, would we? We can finish early. Can I ask a question that you can't answer? A question I can't answer? I don't know how to.

It's probably easy, but you know how we were chosen for the creation of the world, or foundation of the world. I was born in 1946, Jesus died. Well, I'm older than you. But what I'm wondering is, like, we retroactively were in place in Christ back then. I'm trying to figure out why the Old Testament believers couldn't retrospectively be placed into Christ too. In other words, it seems odd that You know, I wasn't born until 1946 for the campaign prize.

Right. But the Old Testament guy is. Moses isn't. Or Abraham isn't. Yeah, these pillars of the foundation. Now, I want you to know that Courtney and I had long discussions about this, and we've got the answer. So the answer, what's that? Let's hear it. The answer is kind of simple.

If you start out with the fact that all your identity in Adam started in 1945 or whatever, when you were created. Your whole destiny and everything was in Adam. So if you were to trace your history back, so you're born, At 10 years old, you decide, I'm going to trace my genealogy.

Where did I come from? So you go all the way back to your parents, then grandparents, and then great-grandparents. You keep going, you keep going, you keep going, and you end up in a garden. And who's your mom and dad? Adam and Eve. So I'm just like them. That's the end of your history.

So now, when you're 10 years old, somebody presents the gospel to you, and you believe in the person and work of Christ, and you get saved. One of the things that happens there is that you are taken out of Adam and you are put into Christ from a positional standpoint. Well, let's start going back now. How far back are you going with Christ?

Before the foundations of eternity. That's your history now. Right? So in eternity there isn't any time, it's all right now. So God can reasonably say to you, well I've known you in Christ since the foundations of eternity. Why? Because you're in Christ, that's why. But he's asking about Old Testament things.

Why didn't God do the same thing? Well, the reason is, I was looking up, Christ didn't die and He was not glorified at that point. He did not come until the time he was crucified they couldn't be because he had not been sacrificed at that point and a payment so anybody prior to that doesn't have the same opportunity that we do because he was not glorified at that point. Why? It says he wasn't glorified until he was crucified.

I have an answer. You don't get to say it. Wait a minute. I was thinking Christ came as man into time. and died in time. And so for mankind, that time factor, when he died on the cross, made a division as to what was available for men to believe. Oh, you want to tell them. They were all writing bad checks.

Hey, that's clear. Here's the thing. What we're talking about here is referred to in the epistles as the mystery. And what's a biblical mystery? Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's right. It's Christ in you, the hope of glory. Something that has never been revealed before. This whole plan was never revealed in the Old Testament. But this is ultimately what God had. And you get your first hint of it in John 17. See, I think the thing is, we're trying to do the fairness doctrine.

Was it fair for Moses not to be in Christ? Was it fair that Abraham isn't in Christ? Is it not fair? Well, God's plan was that in time, Christ came at the right time, he says, at that time. In the fullness of time. In the fullness of time. But that's not fair to Abraham. That's not fair to all the Jews. That's not fair to... But in God's time and economy, it was the right time And then from that time forward until...

All things are new. Yes. And I think it's talked about, I think it's Hebrews 4 where he talks about that the custodian of God's house is less important than the one who actually built the house. And that in that house, the owner of that house can have different groups of people. Not everybody is the same. We've got Jews, Gentiles, believers, non-believers. The thing is, I've often thought of the Old Testament from Adam to Christ as proving to the reader that man in his own strength with a set of laws and a whole Jewish system couldn't accomplish what God wanted them to do. They couldn't be sinless.

So God said, okay, I'm going to take care of the entire thing through this cross with my death and your death, and I'm going to come to you and say, now look, if you believe me about what I've done, you get in. You get all of my work. You get all of the benefits from it. that I've never offered to any other human being before. This is a grace operation which means there's nothing for you to do other than to receive. You don't have to prove, you don't have to generate, you don't have to become worthy, you don't have to do any of that. All you have to do is believe me that I did it. and I will save you from all eternity and I will teach you this mystery that I did to you because you came to me under grace.

You know that's reflected in the Galatians 3, 24, 25. Therefore the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith but now that faith has come we are no longer And once Christ is here, it's by faith. We don't need the lie in it. So there is a distinct division, all pointing to the time that Christ is here.

And I don't discount how difficult it is to believe that, because we always think, I've got to be doing something. God says, no, no, I did it all. You just believe me. Just trust me. And you get it all, and then you start getting some of it, and you think, oh, I've got to do something to show God I really appreciate what you've done. No, don't do that. Just receive it. That's what grace is. I have a question.

The Old Testament saints though, just to be clear, they're still saved. Just not in the same way. Yeah, they are saved, there's no question. Revelation talks about that the Jews will be on the earth and have the land and all of that and there will be Gentile saints here and they'll be totally fulfilled. And they won't look at us and say, oh gee, I wish I was one of them. No, they won't. It's like, would you ever look at an angel and say, gee, I wish I was an angel? No, I wouldn't because they don't have what I have.

So we are the body of Christ and we live, we are heavenly, they're earthly people. That's one of the big distinctions. And they will live on the earth. That's where heaven will be. Are they in heaven now? Yeah. Well, is it Galatians where it talks about the throne room and that there's the innumerable company of angels and then there's this, the souls of just men made perfect. Well, who are they? They're the Old Testament saints. And then there's the church of the firstborn. Who's that?

That's us. Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you. Boy, what a plan. that you've implemented and that we might continue to grow in understanding not only what the plan is, what our position is, and what the purpose is, but the fact that we're in it and we're all part of it. Thank you, Father. We pray in your Son's precious name. Amen.