Identification Truths Plus 2012
Mike Doyle · Apr 8, 2012
Identification Truths Plus, No. 14
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492631056750

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

What Lesson 10 is about is Romans chapter 5 verse 12 through 21, which is known as the doctrine of the two men. And the two men are who? Christ and Adam. So what we've discovered is that both of these men are representative men and have a lot to do or have everything to do with the race that you come You came from death and sin, separation, which nobody here escaped that one.

But then as we move forward now, we're going to discover that what God is going to do is He's going to change the source of your manhood, maybe is the way to say it. You're going to become, learn that you have become, or have come from the new line of man who is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this chapter 5 verse 12 moving to 6 begins to set us up for the doctrine of identification and shows us the reason why God did it.

Because what he's really doing, not only, we're way past talking about substitutionary death of Christ, the payment of your sins, that's all done. Now we're talking about what he did about you the sinner. You know, it's like if I said to you, you're a safe sinner, would that be a correct term? No. Why not? Because you're no longer a sinner. Yes. I mean, it's like on Friday night we talked about the good thief. You know what the problem with that is? He's still a thief.

If I say you're a safe sinner, I'm not adequately describing your position in Christ, because in Christ you're no longer a sinner. You may act out of Adam and sin, but your position and you're standing before God is in Christ. If you said, well I'm a sinner, then you have to say, well Christ is a sinner.

But wouldn't you have to say in positions? That's right. That's what you have to understand, that there's a positional truth. Right, because if I were to say that to a stranger, they would think I've lost my mind. They wouldn't know the difference between the condition and the position. That's exactly right, and that's why the doctrines The principles of position and condition are critical to understand, because the Word of God, especially Paul's epistle, will lay out what we call positional truth.

If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. You guys all have the same old dirty bodies I saw you last week with. How come the Word of God says you're a new creation? That's a position that you enjoy, which is a spiritual truth and an eternal truth that can't be changed.

So, when we get to Romans 6 and we start talking about being included in the death, burial, and resurrection with Christ, that's a positional truth. You may or may not have an experience about it, but it's true of you whether you know it or not or have experienced it or not. Good thing you do know it though, because then your faith has something to focus on.

So, what did we get down to, question 4? So question four says, why does the word say that death reigned from Adam to Moses? We talked about that. Death reigned from Adam to Moses. We talked about why death is a reigning principle. What's reigning principle mean? How it operates. Yeah, it's in charge. You don't get a choice in the matter. It reigns over you. Because death came in with sin, and death passed upon all men. It's a reigning principle. And death means separation. You're positionally, a non-believer is positionally separated from God.

Okay? So the interesting thing is that, you know how you know, this is one of those verses you can prove experientially. You know how? Just drive from here to anywhere and see how many cemeteries there are between here and there. Cemeteries prove that death is a reigning principle because nobody escapes, nobody. So reigning as king is the way that the King James said it but it's a royal word and it's used to denote sovereignty not mere lordship. Sovereignty is a word we Americans don't really spend much time dealing with because we are We're not under some sort of king. Well, we've got some guys that are trying to be king.

Okay, question five. The phrase, is the figure of him to come, tells us what about Adam and Christ? Adam is declared to be a type or a figure of the one who is to come. And the one who is to come is who? Christ. Okay, so what makes him like Christ? He's going to be the head of a race. Yeah, he's going to be the head of a human race of men. The figure, Adam is a figure, and Christ is termed in the word, the last Adam. It's kind of an interesting term, isn't it? I mean, there are only two guys named Adam. I know another guy named Adam. No, there are only two Adams. There are only two heads of races. One of them is Adam I, the other is the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you look at 1 Corinthians 15.22 and 47 and 49, here's what's interesting.

Paul says, as in Adam all die. That makes him a person who has progeny in him and everyone in him dies. Everybody that was born from the line of Adam dies. Nobody here escaped that. You're all from Adam. So also in Christ shall all be made alive. Everybody in this room now is from Christ, so you are now alive.

The first man is of the earth, earthly. The second man is of heaven. Very important stuff to know there. Adam is an earthly man. Christ is a heavenly man. So when you hear me say and start talking about the character of a believer as heavenly and not earthly, that's why. Because Christ, who is the head of your new race of men, is heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. That's 1 Corinthians 15. So maybe a term we could use is both men are federal heads, meaning that they represent an entire race of human beings. Now, when Bruce became a believer, he didn't look any different than the minute before he was a believer. But he's entirely different spiritually and physically. Totally different. And that's because he got moved from Adam to Christ.

Okay? Any questions about that? That's basically the doctrine of the two men. And now we're going to talk a little bit about what they both bring to the table. So question six says, why is the offense of one unlike the gift of the other? What verse is that? It's 14, 15? What verse is that?

16. What is that?

16. Read it. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. Okay, you've got two men coming to the table. One of them brings something, the other one brings something. What makes them different? One is sinful. One is, it's not just sinful. One is what? One condemns and one frees.

Well, one brings one sin. Just brings one sin to the table. And by bringing that one sin, what did you bring? Death and condemnation, right? What did the other one bring? Liberty. What did he bring? Salvation. According to the verse, what did he bring? Sinless. Righteousness. Justification. He brought justification and he brought it on the basis of many sins. How does that make sense? One sin, one man, death, condemnation. Many sins, another man, righteousness. How does that work out? All of the sins of the world were placed on him at the cross. All of them. Not a single sin, not one single sin was left out. So he comes to the table with all of the sins of the whole world placed on him to deal with all of the sins of the world. And because of that, He brings righteousness.

And notice we're starting to get into the little phrase that you're going to see four or five times over the next few verses, much more. Notice the much more's there? The much more's are kind of cool because it begins to set up the premise that, well, this happened, but what Christ brought wasn't just enough to cover, it was way more. And that's the way grace is. Grace is always way more than you need.

So you understand that one man brought sin and condemnation and death. That's what he brings to the table. The other man brings righteousness and life. I hope you can begin to see now why what the Apostle Paul is trying to set up now is that we are no longer talking about the forgiveness of your sins. What we're talking about is how God is going to present this issue of two men and when we get to six you're going to find out how he got you out of the one man and into the other. Because in Adam all die. And we've already talked about why you die in Adam. Let's see if you remember, why do you die in Adam? Because you're a sinner. How did you get to be a sinner?

He gave it to us. Nope. 512, what's the last phrase say? Come on, you're supposed to remember this stuff. All sinned in Adam. Desperate to amen because all sinned. All sinned in Adam. When he sinned, so did you because you were in him. You see how being in somebody matters from a spiritual standpoint? It matters big time. Okay, but I said that. No, you said he sinned on our behalf. What that says is that we sinned when he did.

See the difference? No. Maybe explain it this way. Well, no, you're not in a Hebrew class. In Hebrews 8, 7, it says that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek in the loins of Abraham. Do you understand what that means? Yeah, he gave him money. But Levi wasn't even born yet. Oh. How could he do it? I have no clue.

He did it in the loins of Abraham, his father. His father did it so it... Oh, it was passed to him. It passed to him. He inherited it. When Adam sinned, you were in him and you sinned too. Right. Same principle. Okay. Right. Let's see. Two other things I wanted to point out. The differences are in degree.

God the Creator, what he brought was grace by Christ and it abounds beyond the sin of the creature Adam. In kind and operation, one sin by Adam, which meant condemnation and death, many sins on Christ, which brings justification and reigning in life for those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, what's a reigning in life principle mean? We've talked about that sin reigns in death, right? How about reigning in life? Have you got a concept there? Well, it can reign in both. What's that? Obviously it can reign in both. So you have a principle of life in Christ that reigns, that you're underneath. And if it's reigning, can it be interrupted? No, it can't. It's there to supplant the reigning and death of sin. What's interesting about when you study positional truth, it isn't a truth that you just leave out there.

Because what happens is, Maybe say it this way. In every one of Paul's epistles, at the first part of them, he lays out this position. You know, here's what's true of you. In Ephesians, he says that you're blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. Well, you've got to say, well, that's positional for sure, because I don't think that I am or have experienced that I've been blessed with all spiritual blessings, because that's a perfect test.

It means it's already done, and I'm with abiding results now. It has to be a position, but it just doesn't stay there. I'm to live with that being true of me. See that? I'm to live as though sin is not the reigning principle in my life anymore, that grace now is and righteousness is. So how do I do it? What's my role in that new life? How do I live? What do I do? To believe. See? You see this principle, you see this position that's been laid out for you, how do you respond to it? You just believe it. See?

And once, when you're believing it, there's another character or person in this mix. Who is it and who's making it real? The Spirit. The Spirit of God. But I'm convinced He waits for you to believe because He doesn't want nor will he tolerate mature believers who are ignorant. You've got to know. Your faith has to have an object. You see that? Does that make sense?

Verse 16 says, As the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, for on the one hand the judgment arose from the transgression resulting in condemnation, But on the other hand, a free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. One trespass came judgment.

One act of the cross for all the sins of the world brought righteousness to anyone who would believe. He didn't just die and pay the penalty for those who would believe. It's for every sin. Every sin of every person You know, I used my buddy across the street in the White House. Has his sins been paid for? He's not a believer, by the way. Has his sins been paid for?

Yes, they have. Well, how come he's going to hell then? He doesn't believe. That's right. He doesn't believe. So it's really amazing that God would set up a system where he completed the work and came to us and said, all you need to do is believe. And we say, well, experience gets in the way. I'm having trouble believing. Wait a minute. God said, you just believe me. Trust me when I tell you something. So he gave us the option and we don't take it. Oh, it's interesting. Yeah, option. He doesn't violate your will, does he? No. Yeah, he doesn't do that.

One other thing, question eight, what does death reigning and talk about reign? To reign, one must have the power to do so. We make Courtney king, he's got to have the power to be king. Sin is a reigning principle through death and death is the power. We are all governed by those principles. A principle can be defined as that which is the way a thing functions or operates. All men are separated from the life of God and they function under the principle of sin and death and death reigns. It's the same thing when we get to life. Life is going to be a reigning principle. So question nine is what does reigning in life mean? Maybe ask this question. Here's this new kingdom that's called reigning in life.

Who are the kings? Christ. No. God. No. You are the kings. You are the kings. Read the verse. Is it 17? Yep. What's it say? Reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Who's the reigners? You are. You are. So I wrote down, here's a kingdom before which all the earth is dust, and who are the kings? Believers. Those whose humble faith has received the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. Those are the ones who reign as kings in Jesus Christ.

So when the Lord lays out this kind of information to you, you can't go complaining to him if you're not living like that, right? Or can you? Sure you can. But what's his answer? Yeah, see what's interesting is that the Spirit of God always responds to your quote-unquote weakness with demonstrating and showing you, I already took care of your weakness, do you believe me? Isn't that the way it goes? I already took care of that, do you believe me?

So you've got to get up in the morning and do a lot of spiritual push-ups to reign for the rest of the day, right? What do you have to do? Pick up all the jewels. All you have to do is believe. It's simple. Isn't it? What do you have to do? Just believe. Sure.

And in order to just believe, don't you have to know what to believe? Well, you read the Bible. But, I mean, the point is this. Don't you have to know what to believe? Don't you have to know precisely what the information is and what I do believe? You can't just say, see, that's the old Catholic trick.

Is that I have faith in faith. I just believe. Well, I'm operating in this faith thing. The problem is that faith must have an object. You have to know precisely what you believe. In Christ. Okay, if I believe in Christ, is that it? Well, no, but then you open the book and you read and then you learn. Okay, so right here we're learning about reigning in life. Is that a specific thing that I can believe? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. I can believe that when God says that death was a reigning principle, I believe that. But now, righteousness and life in Christ is a reigning principle.

Do I believe that or not? I'm going to look at God and say, well, it's not apparent in my life. Because it must not be true. No, it's true because he said it. Does that make sense to you? A lot of times your faith goes against your experience. Lots of times. Say that sentence again. A lot of times, I don't know if I can say it again. Rewind the tape. A lot of times you have to go against your own experience and your feelings and just trust what God tells you. which does contradict with what your experience is. The facts vary from your experience.

Yes, they do. The facts stay true no matter what. Your experiences change. That's exact. You know, when we talked about position and condition, you remember the principle? Your position can't be changed. Your condition is all over the lot. Which one's reality? Position is reality, right? Right.

So you can be... and I used to say to the guys when I was learning this, I say, I have this big problem that you tell me that I'm not to respond to this temptation of sin. But every time the music starts, my feet are moving. How come? You like dancing. That's right. Because that's what I'm used to. But over time, I begin to listen and believe something other than the music. Does that make sense? Maybe I'll put it in your language. You used to be a liberal, now you're a conservative. You don't listen to that liberal stuff anymore, do you? Even though it's blasted all the time. Right. You used to be a sinner, but now you're a believer, so you don't listen to that sin stuff anymore. But it's still in me. Yes, it is. So is that liberal stuff. You're walking home. Sleeping on the couch.

In Revelation 22.5 it says, shall reign forever and ever, you and me. And the reigning has already begun, because you have positionally, in life, you've begun to reign in Christ. Because He has the victory, and you're in Him.

Is there anything left for Christ to do? No. Nothing. He's got to return. He's got to return, but it doesn't affect the reigning. And oh by the way, this reigning is forever, and if there's ever a prayer to be prayed right there, maybe God would awaken us to those facts. On Friday night, I have to do the Lord's Table in May, and of course when you do it like Roger and I do, we do every other month, sometimes you're scrambling for new ideas. I got my idea Friday night, you know, I have to share it with you. On the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ said, it's finished.

Is it finished? For him, yes. How about you? How about you? Do you realize what an abomination it is to God to act like it isn't finished? That's what really hit me. Is it finished or not? Yes, it is. How can I possibly go around without being an offense to God, act and think like it isn't finished? It's the same idea. Isn't that the hang-up that most religions have? It's the hang-up we all have. Okay, so last night I was talking to my niece who's going through a lot of trouble. They're getting a divorce.

And she was introduced to God and Christ when she was a ski instructor. And he happened to have a father that was a minister and he introduced her to a lot of this stuff. And she said to me yesterday, well, Monique, what happens if How do I know when God speaks to me? Is it my brain that's speaking to me or is it God? And I said, well, I didn't know how to say it. I said, it's in your heart, you'll feel it and you'll know. But isn't there a simpler way I can tell her? Read your Bible. Yeah, I did tell her that. Because that's how God talks to us. Can you imagine somebody like that who just read Romans 5, 12 through 21, just those verses? Just the ones we're studying now. Just those verses. And the Lord just persuaded her that those were true. Just those.

No more. Would it change her life? It would totally change it. What if God convinced her that she was resurrected with Christ today? Just that one thing. Would it change her life? Yeah, it would totally change her life. And it's not a feeling, it's a fact. Yeah, I did tell her that. I said, you don't have to ask God to forgive you anymore because he has already forgiven you. Yeah, that's a good point. Well, you know what? Here's how our society works and we all got sucked into it, right? You do something noteworthy, a TV man comes up to you and sticks a microphone in your face and what does he say?

How do you feel about that? Yeah, your father just... He never says, what are the facts? He always says, how do you feel about it? It doesn't matter how you feel about it. You see that? When it comes to the word of God, how you feel about it is insignificant. Totally insignificant. Doesn't matter. Because your feelings don't corroborate or deny the facts. Facts are facts. And faith is based on fact, not how you feel. You see that? It's pretty... Okay. Here's a paragraph. Let us refuse to be content with Christian existence that cannot finally be summed up as he reigned in life through Jesus Christ over sin, over Satan, over the world, over difficulties, adverse surroundings in any circumstance.

The believer is a king and we ought to act like one. But you can't act like one unless you are. It's like all those Hollywood types like to rub shoulders with the royalty in England thinking that somehow they can learn how to be royal. No, but the people in England don't have to learn how to be royal because they already are. You already are too. You don't have to learn it. You are it.

Let's talk about the much mores. There are four of them in there, in these verses as we go forward. First we have the two much mores of future safety in verses 9 and 10. And then we have 15 and 17, much mores of grace abounding, which are developed in this section. Verse 9 says, much more having been declared righteous by means of his blood shall be saved through him from the coming wrath. That's a much more. The reason the much mores are important is because they show grace. If grace was just enough to fix the problem, it wouldn't really be grace. Because grace is unlimited. And it's unmerited. Grace always comes way above what you need.

Verse 10, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life, his risen life. That's a much more. So you just didn't get saved enough, you got saved much more. Verse 15, For if by the trespass of one Adam death came to many, much more did the grace of God and the gift by that grace of the one man Jesus Christ abound unto the many. See the much more there?

And the last one is 17. If by the trespass of one death reigned as king through the one, much more. Those accepting the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness shall reign as kings through the one Jesus Christ. It's not only that we have life and eternal life, but we find that we're a king in a kingdom. Now, I'm catching up here.

Question 11. Why is it important that we see that God has changed his man? I suppose the first thing I should say, if you understand the question, you know what I mean by God has changed his man? Isn't that us? Think about it. Yeah, that's what I think. Okay. When I say that God has changed his man, what am I talking about? What have we been talking about all class?

Jesus. Huh? Jesus. Jesus Christ. That's one man. Before Jesus Christ shows up on the planet, who was the man that God was dealing with? Adam. Right, and all that came from him. Now that Christ has been here, completed his work, who does God deal with in terms of humanity through which man now? Which man now?

Louder, I can't hear you. Christ. So God does not deal with us any longer through Adam. Do you see that? He sees us through Jesus? That's right. Because now the representative man before God is Christ. Up until the time of Christ it was Adam. Do you see that?

God has changed his man. God no longer deals with the earth based on Adam. He's been done away with, set aside. Now he deals with mankind based on Christ. So when you get to John chapter 15 and he talks about that the Spirit of God has been sent to convict the world of sin, Why is the world now convicted of sin? Because of what Adam did in the garden? No. Why? Because they don't believe on him. Do you see that?

Everything that God does now is done through the man Christ. And he now views men from the perspective of the Lord Jesus Christ as a man. And what is he? paid the penalty for sins, been buried, resurrected as soon in the heaven. He's glorified and sits at the right hand of God right now. And every move that God makes towards man is done through this man now, not through Adam anymore.

So it's all grace. It's a whole grace system now that wasn't before, but it is now. And I live in a very interesting neighborhood. I have maybe 25 families in my neighborhood, thanks to Courtney, are Hasidic Jews that go to the synagogue that Courtney sold them. They are totally living from the wrong man. Why? Because they are under a mosaic system.

Abraham is a descendant of Adam. Moses is a descendant of Adam. The whole Jewish system is a descendant of Adam. Christ is a new man. And now God deals with us only from this new man. You see that? That's why the doctrine of the two men are so important to us. Critically important. Because without this man, we're still stuck with Adam.

And if that's the case, then we better become sheep farmers. You know, get a temple and get some place to be, stiffen those goats. So God is now dealing with us as we are in Christ and no longer deals with us as being associated with Adam. If we see and believe that God has abandoned the old man in the cross and now focuses on us in the new man, Christ, we might also abandon Adam.

What a concept! For you to abandon Adam. Well, most of us have to abandon everything we know ourselves to be. Impossible, right? I'm going to keep moving on. I just handed out question week 11. So verse 18 says, through one trespass it was unto all men to condemnation. What is the extent of the application of the principle of condemnation? It goes to all men in Adam. All of them.

2. Did God have the right to have a judgment day on the whole human race in Eden? Now you should be able to answer this question because we've kind of been over it several times. Does God have a right to have a trial in the Garden of Eden and to exercise judgment on the entire human race in the garden? Yes. Well how come you, did you get judged there too? That's not fair, you weren't around. That's because of the seed.

Because, that's good, keep going with that thought. Because we were all in Adam. Every one of us were there. So we were the defendant in the trial. Guess what? We lost. We lost because we all were guilty. So did God have a right to judge the entire human race in the Garden of Eden?

Yes he did. Yes he did. I wrote this down for my brother. Now do not question either God's right or his wisdom. here, or his love. He had the right to have a judgment day of the whole human race in Eden in our head Adam. And he did so. He always does right. Furthermore, he knew that creatures would ever fail. There's no sufficiency in the creature, but only in the Creator. He knew about us there then.

I ask this question again, and I did this on purpose. So what's justification of life mean? Wait, I wrote it down. Let's talk about justification. What does that word justification mean? Just as if you never said. No. Righteousness and life. Not bad. Declared righteous. What's that? Declared righteous. All it means is that God declared us righteous. Doesn't make you righteous. He just declared that you were so. So what if I say that this righteousness goes beyond just the pardon of sin? That's first, right? That's the first thing that's going to happen.

Do you think your sins will ever be reckoned against you? Yes, if we don't believe. When I said you, I just meant the people in this room. Do you think your sins will ever be reckoned against you? No. Do you think you're going to get to the Lord and He's going to say, okay, you know, on Thursday, February 25th, 1997. You did that. And I didn't forget that.

No, we won't be judged. You stole the newspaper. Yeah, you stole the neighbor's newspaper. Okay, all the people in this room, if they believe, will not be judged by all the crap they did. That's right. Their sins will never be presented to them. If you want to call it crap, that's okay.

Okay, but isn't that a good feeling? It's a good feeling, but you know what the problem with that is? No. If that's all that happened... No, of all the other things that happened, I know it's all great, but isn't that a wonderful... It's like freedom. It's like something fell off your shoulder. Don't jump ahead. If all that happened to me was that I was justified from all things, How does that help me? In other words, what does it leave me without? It leaves me without a positive standing. You understand what I'm saying? Here's the thing.

If we see ourself justified in His blood and justified from all things, that we have been declared righteous. If we don't understand that we have a justification of life, In other words, we have a positive standing before God, then we only got half the job done. Does that make sense? Right, but if you're a Christian then...

I don't know how to say it. Let me say it for you. Not only the cancellation of guilt, not only the release of the penalty of sin, but life and standing in the risen Christ. See that? Does you see the difference there? It's one thing to be forgiven, it's another thing to be in Christ. And I have a standing in Him now.

You could still be the old man if you were forgiven. You wouldn't have the new life necessarily. Yeah, it's like the phrase forgiven sinner. Is there anything wrong with the phrase forgiven sinner? Not until the next sin. It's an oxymoron. Don't you see that? If you have a righteous standing in Christ, you're no longer a forgiven sinner. You, the person, have been forgiven, but your standing in Christ took you out of the realm of sinnerhood and put you in Christ. Does that make sense? You can't stand before God and say, forgive me, a sinner. You can't say that. It's not true. Can you? From a position, you can't say that anymore.

You can say, I've been acting as though I'm not in Christ, and consequently I've been living out of Adam and I've been sinning all over the place, that's a true statement. But then the completion of that is that I recognize and I believe and I agree with you that I'm no longer in Adam, I'm in your son. That's what confession is. Those in Christ are taken out of their position of death in Adam and given a place in Christ.

So when you approach God now, you should approach him as though you're in Christ. Wow, that's a pretty cool thing. Any barriers between you and the Father? No. No, there's none between the Lord Jesus and the Father, so you can go talk to him about anything.

In general, Christians focus upon death of Christ. He died for me. That's kind of where the focus is, right? But for growing believers, his life must be the focal point of faith. Christ who is my life. I don't focus on death. You know, it's like we did Colossians 3.3 says, For you died, and your life is now hid with Christ in God. We can say, well we can celebrate Good Friday, but the truth is Sundays are coming. This is our day. Not Friday. This is our day today. We're resurrected today. Explain how one righteous act affects all men. Well, Christ did the righteous act and it's affected all of us if we believe. There you go. Oh, she gets the gold star. Thank you. Perfect.

All men acted and sinned in Adam, right? They that receive is on the principle of the one for the many. But manifestly does not include all men. How come it doesn't include all men? Because some reject. Some reject. So when he says all, he means all those that believe. Verse 18. The free gift came upon all men, or unto all men is a better way to say it. So we all know that the free gift of salvation and righteousness and life is right there in front of the entire world.

Just like on Friday night we were talking about the thief on the cross that the Spirit of God worked on, there was no ritual, there was no coach, there was no Bible verses, there was no prerequisites, there was no sacraments, there were no anything. The Spirit of God convinced him of who Christ was and he acknowledged the fact that he was a sinner and wanted Christ to remember him when he came in his kingdom. What did Christ say back to him?

Today you are going to be with me in paradise. Today. Reigning in life. Did the bell go off? What time is it supposed to go off? 10 to 1? So if on Friday it's today, then why is it on Sunday he rose? So he was already up there but his body was... Well he rose back to human life again on Sunday. He came back and rose out of the grave. His body was resurrected. Absent from the body, present from the Lord. So in what sense are we made the righteousness of God in Christ? And here's the verse.

1 Corinthians 1.30 says, But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. So we see that Christ himself risen was made under the believer righteousness. How does that compute? How does it compute? Maybe ask it this way. You know, it says in 1 Corinthians that Abraham believed God and he was a judge righteous before God.

Is that the same thing as saying that he has made unto us righteousness and sanctification and redemption? Is that the same thing? No. In other words, is the righteousness of Christ imputed to you? In other words, does God say, oh, I'm just going to say that you're righteous, and so are you, and so are you. I'll give you my righteousness. Is that what it says? No. No errors.

Why is it different? It's replaced the in him. It's the in Christ. The in him is really important here. What we must realize is that every single benefit, standing, blessing, Relationship, grace that Christ enjoys, you enjoy. Every one of them. Every single one of them.

Other than deity, can you name one thing that Christ isn't that you aren't? Or Christ is that you're not? Can you name one? Yeah, he's Christ and I'm here. But you're in him. You're not here. You're in him. That's what it says. It says in him. 147 times in the New Testament it says in him. Must be important that phrase. Must be important. That's why we're sojourners. We're sojourners and pilgrims. That's right. We're just passing through. We're not in Adam anymore, we're in Christ.

So everything that's true of Christ is true of you. When you sit down tonight to read Romans 5 again, wherever it talks about Christ, put the word Monique in there. And then whatever you... I mean it's perfectly legitimate when you read about in the New Testament of Paul wherever you see Christ you can put your name in there because he's talking about you too. So maybe another question that's not on your notes. When... How far back does each one of your histories go?

Adam? That it? What's that? Your real history. How far back does it go? Before we were born. Eternity in the past. Yeah, that's right. It goes back to eternity. Your existence was way before Adam. How could God say, I knew you in Christ before the world began? How could he say that? Because you're in Christ. You no longer have a history that goes back to the garden. You're way before that now. God has always known you in Christ.

Wow, that's pretty cool. That's really cool. That's who you are. What is the big job of the Holy Spirit, and Monique is the poster child for this, is to convince her that she is in Christ. You see that? To convince her that that's who she is. And you know what? It fits for everybody else in this room.

The Spirit of God is about the business of convincing you that you're in Christ. Persuading you that it's true, so that you won't ever vary off of it. So when Adam shows up and tries to persuade you otherwise, you can always say, well that's what I used to be, I'm not that anymore. I'm in Christ. That's who I am.

So, let's see if we can answer this in a minute. What does it mean to be set down as a sinner? I don't know if that's the way that verse 19... Okay, we'll pick up at 6. Did everybody get a copy of questions 11? I'll probably have 12 and maybe 13 for you next week or so as I race through these. So, let's close today.

Our dear Father, how we thank you for your word and how we thank you for Boy, with the position that we enjoy in Your Son, the Lord Jesus, I guess if we would ask anything, we would ask that as we go forward that Your Spirit would persuade us without any doubt of our position in Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray in His precious name. Amen.