Identification Truths Plus 2012

We are, in our third week, trying to figure out Romans 6-6. Primarily 6-6. 6-6-7-8-9-10. And I've been thinking all week about, I was kind of hoping some of the people that were here the last couple of weeks asking a lot of questions were here because I think I'm going to start this way. I read this this week and I thought it was kind of interesting.

If you don't have one of these, you ought to have one of these. It's a daily devotional called None But The Hungry Heart. And this particular one was from 5-6. If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, for Christ sits at the right hand of God.

The growth truths, which Romans 6 is of growth truth, seem complicated and difficult to understand at first encounter. And we are experiencing that. There are those who have just encountered the growth truths and they are complicated at first. However, with progress and grace, we find them to be as clear and logical as the truth of salvation.

For both time and eternity, all is summed up in John 17.3, and this is life eternal, to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Study on. The marvel of divine grace is that not only has everything according to the heart of God been secured for me through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, now here's the kicker, but that I, a child of Adam, should be not only in peace with God where I was under his judgment, but that I am transferred from Adam to Christ. and I am to have Christ formed in me now. I was born of God, of a new and divine origin, a new creation to be here on earth now where I was a child of Adam.

In the grace and beauty of Christ, led by his own power to stand for him, daily more and more, transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. I used to study this passage and that passage to obtain guidance and light. I see now that if I were really near him beholding his glory, I should be transformed. I should come from him so impressed with himself that his interests would, as it were, naturally control me.

I find it interesting that this transaction that takes place in Romans 6, Knowing this, that my old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be put out of business, that I should no longer serve sin, that that is such a radical statement when you first hear it. It really is, because we've been cruising along our whole lives.

I'm me. I am who I am. I'm a cool guy and a swell dancer. I'm educated or not. I'm tall or I'm short. I'm skinny or I'm fat. I'm accomplished or I'm not. I'm whatever I am. But the one underlying thing is that I'm a sinner. And it seems like most believers never get past the idea that Christ died and paid the penalty for my sins. Every believer is comfortable with that, or should be. But no one ever asks the question to themselves, well what about me, the sinner?

Did God do anything about that? In other words, as I go on in my Christian life, I'm confessing, but I'm sinning, and I'm confessing, and I'm sinning, and I'm confessing. Does that never end? Did God just stop at paying the penalty for my sins? Did he do something about me, the sinner? Answer, yes he did.

And this is where it is, where it's first brought into focus in Romans 6.6, that my old man was crucified with him. And as we talked about last week, I asked you, what is your old man? And your answer was, what is your old man? If I say, Laura, what's your old man? Who is he? It's what you aren't in Christ. It's your sin nature. Say that again. Say that again. It's what you are, but you aren't, but you are not in Christ. It's everything that I am in Adam. Yeah. Okay. I, a person, the person of Mike, God created in his mind eons ago. But when he brought me into existence, he brought me identified with Adam.

So in sin my mother conceived me. So I have a sin nature, an old man, and my personhood does nothing but manifest that old man my whole life, from the time I'm conceived to the time I met the Lord. Then I meet Christ and all I think is I'm still the same person, I'm still the same Adamic person because I don't know any better, but my sins are forgiven so I get to go to heaven and there isn't anything that's going to keep me out of heaven. But I don't have any clue as to maybe God effectuated a change in who I am. And Romans 6 says that my old man was crucified.

Galatians 2.20 says I have been crucified with Christ. I, the person, was crucified. Crucifixion is a form of death. Death means separated. So I was separated from all that I knew or all that I was in Adam. Separated. But the person is still the same. And when I was buried with Christ, It proved that I did go through this transaction of death and that I resurrected in him an entirely new creature in Christ.

We'll talk about that today. Now as I stand here, personhood Mike, I have these two natures going on inside of me. I've got old Adam, who I'm really comfortable with because I know lots about him. I've been hanging with him until I was saved, but I have this new resurrected nature, which is the resurrected life of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. No sin, nothing but submission, praising God. It's all that I am in Christ. Here's the problem I have. Number one, if I never find out about this, I never can live in it. I will live over here trying to be as good as I can.

It's very interesting, in the Garden of Eden there are two trees. Everybody knows about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You know what the name of the other tree is? Tree of Life. Ooh, what's that? What is that, Tree of Life? The Lord Jesus said, I am the Tree of Life. So when people are saved, They're in this tree of the knowledge of good and evil which is Adamic, that's Adam, and what they really do in their mind is they say, well all these branches on this side are the evil ones, I think I'll move over to the good ones. When what God has intended for us is to get down out of that tree, go across the garden and get up in the tree of life.

That's what identification is. That's how you get into the tree of life, you're crucified with Christ. Because he took that Adamic nature and he put it on Christ and identified Christ with it. When Christ died or separated from it, because you're in him, you separate it too. So here you stand with these two natures. Now the issue is, how are we going to get this nature, this resurrected nature of Christ, to be the one that manifests through me, the person? How am I going to do that? Or how is God going to do it? Isn't that the question? How's he going to do it? Don't you find it interesting that he took care of all the mechanics of it ahead of time before he even told you about it? So you are already positioned in Christ, right? Everybody in this room. Everybody who's saved in this building is already positioned in Christ. Trouble is, not everybody knows it. But now that you know it, that's the first step. You've got to know that it happened.

What's the next step? a comforter, is that a helper to us to live in the new life? That's right. He said that I'm going to send a comforter and he's going to tell you or remind you of all the stuff that I told you and the things to come. It's the Spirit's job through the word to reveal to you the facts of your position. It's also his job to implement those facts and that life in your existence and experience. Okay? You only have one obligation.

That's to believe him. Now, we're going to find out over the next couple weeks there's some other things he's going to ask you to do, to reckon, to present, but all of those commands are based on this being a fact. Because what he's going to say to you, since this is true, this is how this side of the equation functions. It functions by faith, it functions by you reckoning it to be true, it functions by you giving all that you are in the resurrected Christ to me so I can function through you.

I'm done with this. I'm not given any commands, exhortations, moral platitudes took Adam. I'm done with Adam. You need to be done with him too. So, when you start to read down through six, if that understanding starts to get clear in your mind, a couple of things will happen. One, you'll stop working so hard to be good. Because we're not about being good. Christ over here isn't good. He's holy. He's righteous. and he's good in the sense that God is the only one who's good. That's the life to be manifested through us.

So keep that in mind as we look at these verses down to 11 so that we are not in the Adam fix up business. We are not in the behavior modification business. We are not in the business of accumulating some legal principles and laws out of the Old Testament so that we can look and act like a Christian. That's not what this life works like. This life functions spontaneously via the resurrected life of the Lord Jesus actuated by the Holy Spirit himself.

Romans 8.2 says there's a new principle of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Brand new principle. And it says, now listen to the verb tense, has already set me free from the law or the principle of sin and death. I'm already free. It's his life who did it. And it's implemented by the Holy Spirit.

Okay? Everybody with me? That's a big bite, but it's a really important bite because It changes everything your life is about once you start to get a handle on that. Once you know those truths and believe them, you have to understand that you have begun a journey.

You don't all of a sudden become totally conformed to the image of Christ by 3.30 this afternoon. It's not going to happen. It's going to take the rest of your life because there's going to be the working of death to the old or putting it out of business and life in the new. That's the process of spiritual growth.

Based on you knowing things, believing and reckoning them to be true, and then when God says, here's what I want you to do, there's no struggle. When he says, present your body of living sacrifice, no problem. From this man over here, whatever God wants is okay with me, I don't ever question. Because this life doesn't question, because it is of God. Having said all that, you'd probably be able to answer all the questions really simply now. So the question we ended up with last week was question 7, which was, what now is the believer's relationship to sin? And notice it's singular, sin nature, What's my relationship as a believer to sin?

I'm dead to it. I am absolutely and totally dead to it. So, I mean, if that premise is true, then do you see what spiritual insanity is to pay any attention to it? J.B. Stone, an old brethren guy, when asked how should one deal with the old sin nature. Because notice, it doesn't say the sin nature died, it says that I'm dead to it. So how should one deal with the I'm dead to it nature? His answer was simple. You shouldn't pay any attention to it at all. Just go and respond.

Because your focus is on the Lord Jesus Christ, who now is your life. The problem is that we live in a world that is predominantly dominated by all that fits this old man. The earth, the world, all its stimulus, its education, its entertainment, all of it appeals only to this man. But we are now in this man And guess what kind of... where's this guy from? He's from heaven. He isn't from Pittsburgh. He's not from anywhere on the earth. He's a heavenly man.

So when I read Colossians 3.1, now listen to this.

Since you be risen with Christ, that's a fact. What do you do about that? Seek those things which are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Why? Because I'm dead to this. I'm alive to him. What does he do? He's a heavenly man. See that? So, what's my relationship to the sin nature?

I don't have one. Now he's still in here doing his shucking and jiving, but I don't have a relationship with him. He has no attachment to me. He can yell at me, tempt me, solicit me, try to cause me all kinds of trouble. My whole relationship to him is over And so my response when he tries to solicit my attention is to just walk as though he's not there.

Reckon yourself indeed dead in the sin but alive in the cause. It seems to me it's a life of freedom, pure freedom. Total freedom. That's right. But from a conditional standpoint, from an everyday living standpoint, you have to find out that this is bondage before you want to be free. I'll tell you what I wrote. I quoted some guys, old brethren guys.

We are now in Christ who died to sin or the sin nature and that we share his relationship now, dead to sin and alive to God. If we jointly died with Christ, we would believe that we shall also jointly live with him. If we've shared his death, we believe that we shall also share his life. My relationship to the sin nature is exactly the same relationship that the Lord Jesus has. What relationship does he have? None. None.

Okay, what is the reason, see how smart you are, what is the reason given in the verses that we're studying, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, for this assurance that we shall keep on sharing his risen life? What verse there gives you the assurance that you'll keep on sharing his risen life? Let's see if you can pick it out. Mine.

Read it. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over him. Hallelujah. There it is. So if I'm looking for the reason, and I probably should be, that would keep me from sharing his risen life. That's the reason. That's the reason.

If he is raised from among the dead ones and he's not going to die anymore, what does that say about me? It says I'm not going to die anymore and sin doesn't have any dominion over me either because I'm now in him. he was made that thing, he died and separated himself from that thing, and oh, by the way, I was in him when that happened. If you remember way back, it seems like a month ago, we were studying verse 3. Don't you realize that when we were baptized, placed into, we were baptized into what? Christ's death. Death to what? To all this guy that he was made for us. See that?

All right, what makes the fulfillment of John 8.51?

Somebody look up John 8.51. Impossible. Because this sounds like the ultimate oxymoron.

Somebody read John 8.51. Karen, you can't read it. Somebody else. I know.

Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. I say unto you, if a man keep my word, He shall never see death. Now wait a minute. What is he talking about here? John comes before Romans 6 and Jesus promises that if a man keep my word he won't see death. Well here I am, a believer who understands identification truths, I rest in them. What's the word death mean?

Separation. In this case, what was the Lord Jesus talking about when he said, so never see death? When you talk about separation, you've got to talk about what's separated from what, or who's separated from who. In this case, who's separated from who?

In John 8.51. I'll never be separated from God.

And God is in fact life itself. So, sin never had dominion over Christ except for that one short time on the cross. Now, the wages of sin is death. The Lord Jesus took all the wages on himself and he did die. Right? Everybody is convinced he died. So it was a brief dominion, but it ended forever when he rose. It ended forever.

Now, if you were going to, in this case, if God was going to come up with a plan how he was going to relieve us, you and me, from, you know, he brings us into creation identified and condemned in Adam, right? So just because Christ comes and dies and pays a penalty for my sins, I'm still in Adam if that's all he did.

And what's the deal with Adam? He's condemned. How does he get me uncondemned? How does he get me acceptable to him? He's got to take me somehow out of Adam that whole nature and life of Adam and put me into Christ who's totally acceptable to him. And that's why a human being on this earth who leaves this earth without the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, they're condemned because they're still positioned in Adam.

Not because they committed a bunch of sins, that was just a product of what they were and what they are. Romans 8.3 says what the law couldn't do and that it was weak through the flesh. What couldn't the law do? Because it was weak through the flesh, it couldn't make you righteous.

God sending his own Son, now listen carefully, in the likeness of sinful flesh, he made him sin for us, and for sin, what did he do? He condemned sin in the flesh. This Adam and all that you are from him has been condemned, not forgiven, condemned. So if he's condemned, somehow I've got to get away from him. I've got to get out of him into somebody who's acceptable to God. Hence the identification truths. Romans 6 is the mechanics of how he did it.

So we stand in the resurrected Christ, free from death. So Paul even says, from here on, when he talks about believers leaving the planet, what term does he use? Sleep. He doesn't use the word death anymore. How come? You only get to die once. And we all died on the cross once in Christ. Everybody in this room has already died.

So when you leave the planet, you just go to sleep. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. It's instantaneous. It's called sleep. It's not called death. If you happen to still be an atom when you check out of the planet, guess what? You enter into death and stay there. way for you to get out. But you're not really asleep, right? If you're present with the Lord? To be absent from the body is to be present. The act of your soul and spirit leaving your body is termed by Paul as going to sleep. But your heart that goes on is with Christ and not like...

Okay, now think about this for a minute. If you're positioned in the resurrected Christ right here, and that's your position, When your body drops off of your position, do you go anywhere that you aren't already? No, you don't. You're already there. You just don't experience very much of it. You see that?

You're already in Christ. Where is Christ? Where is He? He's in the heavenlies. Where are you? So when your body drops off of who you really are, what happens? All of the impediments for you to see where you are are gone. See? My Papa's grave is sleep in Jesus. That's right. That's exactly right. Okay.

Our identification with Christ in death at the cross made possible the fulfillment of John 8.51.

You already died. You will never see death. Alright, question 13. What does it mean for death to no longer have dominion over Christ? Kind of a repetitious question. What does it mean that death doesn't have any dominion over Christ? Well, I am repeating myself. Death did have dominion over him at one point, right? On the cross. But not now. Now what does he do?

He lives unto God in resurrection life that will never end. You live unto God in Christ in the resurrected life that will never end. You do. So you've heard me say before that it's important, well I shouldn't say important but it's kind of cool maybe, to read Romans 6 and other parts of Paul's epistles, and wherever it says, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, put your name in there. Because he's not only talking about Christ, he's talking about you. If you are identified with the resurrected, glorified Christ, then whenever the Word of God talks about Christ, he's also talking about you. Wouldn't you think? Yeah.

So did sin die? Now remember back when we distinguished between sins and sin, remember when we did that? What's the difference between sins and sin? Sin is the sin's nature. Sin is the source of your sins, right? When you see sin, here it's a definite article in front of it, it's singular, it's not sins, it's sin. The difference is that whenever you see the word sins, S-I-N-S, you're talking about the activities of sin, the actions of the sin nature. Now, if I'm over here positioned in Adam, do I get Saturdays off from sinning? How often do I sin? Non-stop. Even when I'm sleeping, right? The reason is because the whole source of who I am is sinful.

Now, so, I'm thinking about the difference between sins and sin. Did sin, the sin nature die? I think we died to it. If you look at that verse it says, for in that he died, cool little word, unto sin. Unto is a key word. There's a whole school of thought in Christianity called the one nature people. And they say that the sin nature died. They must not have this word unto in their Bible. Because every time I meet one of those guys I go right to this verse and I say, see that word there says unto?

What does that mean? They say, well, it says that my old man was crucified, that means he's annihilated. No, it doesn't. Death means separation, it doesn't mean annihilation. And it says, so word unto, in that he died unto sin, he died once and for all. But in that he lives, he's living, word again, unto God. So the sin nature did not die, so what happened? You died to it.

When you and I leave the planet, we can say, I died unto the earth. It doesn't mean I'm dead, but from the earth standpoint, I'm not there anymore. So you may not have at this point in your experience run up against the one nature guys, but there's a lot of them around.

They've written a lot of books. I can't think of all their names, but their whole premise is they try to make the Roman 6 identification truths to prove that the Adamic sin nature died, no it didn't. If it died, look at the problems you got. What's the source of sin in your life? Memories. That's what they say, repressed memories, habits, ultimately Satan. The devil made me do it. That's a Flip Wilson deal. That went away with his jokes.

Sin has a source. As a believer who is positioned in Christ, if you commit a sin, where did it come from? It comes from this Adamic source that is still in you. You have presented yourself and yielded to its control of you, and so what does it produce? Are you surprised that it produces sins? Come on, that's what it does. I'm going to get finished, you're going to get to start next week.

So the question is, does God intend to change the old man? What do you think? I don't think that he can change the old man. Oh, great answer. I don't think he can change the old man. You know, if he could, he would. If he can't change it, then what's he do with it? What does he do with it? He condemns it. There's no such thing as fix up, change, improve the old man. It's impossible. Yet, boy, we try hard, don't we? Mine knows.

God's way was not to change the old man, but to send it to the cross and to death and release us from it. No one remains in Adam's race will be saved. He must be born again, should sound the bell of alarm and of terror. To everyone not yet in Christ, for God's method was to set forth the second man, the last Adam, Christ, with whom indeed all of God's eternal plans were connected, whom God would not only set forth to make expiation for guilt, everybody know what the word expiation means?

Satisfaction for guilt. But would make to become sin itself, thus to get at what we were as well as what we had done. So God did two things on the cross. He got at what you've done and he got after what you were. He did both. So, and I've probably asked this question before, and I love this question, because if you get into it, if you're honest, it's going to be a discussion that goes on for a while. If God has done with your sin, how come you're not? How come I got quiet? There's a plurality of directions that goes, that actually goes to a bunch of different places.

Yeah, it does. I mean, the simple thing is, is God done with sin? Is he? Is he done with sin? I wouldn't say he is. What's that? I would not say that he's done with it. With sin itself? In the process of being condemned to something doesn't mean you're done with it. Is he going to do anything else about sin? I guess he already has. Oh, then he's done with it. Okay. You have to become convinced that God is done with it. If he's done with it, then what am I messing with it for? You see? What am I fighting it? Why am I resisting it?

I think you can't be good enough. Like that book says, we think we can't be good enough. We keep trying. Well, we aren't good enough. Only in Christ are we... I mean, it's good to come to that point to realize you're not good enough. It has to come to that point. Because then Christ can do something.

See, we won't quit fighting sin until we... One, it beats us up so bad that we stop screwing with it, and number two, that we begin to realize that, wait a minute, God is done with this sin, what am I doing? See, that's where I think all this identification comes to a point where the one who isn't done with it, with it is the old man. And once you start, at least for me, when I start thinking, oh the sin, that's my old Adamic talking to me.

Because God is done with it. He has paid for all sin, past, present, future. He's done with it. Just what Mike said, what else is He going to do? It's all paid for. So when I start worrying about my sin or something, that's when I know it's the old man. Because God is done with it. And that's why this is so critical, this mechanics of what goes on right here in Romans 6, that you understand that this old man doesn't control you anymore. When you start saying that I'm not good enough, that I need to do something else, that's when your mind should click and say, that's the old man. That's not who I am in Christ. The only one who's worried about to do something or not good enough is the old man. And don't you find it interesting if you're, I just, this good analogy just popped into my head.

Let's say you're the most popular girl in your high school class. And now you graduate from high school and everybody goes off into their life. And ten years from now you have a class reunion and you walk in still thinking they all think you're wonderful and nobody gives a damn who you are. That's the way the sin nature said, wait a minute, I've got to convince these people again that I'm still the greatest that they've ever seen.

No you're not, not anymore. We've wised up. We've figured it out. We know that the best thing for us to do is not to pay any attention to you. Don't take any mind of you at all. And you can still pimp and do your deal. Talk to me, tempt me, lure me, intimidate me, whatever you want to do. But you know what?

I don't have to go there now. I used to have to because when I'm here, I don't have a choice. See? Gwen, I pray in the morning, let me live for you solely. I think so. Does everybody agree? Yeah. And what happens is that you learn more and more information about who you are, begin to function more and more by faith, and not only that, you humbly recognize that the Spirit of God is actually carrying out your prayer in your life. And He gets the credit, not you. He does it.

Because of what happened on the cross. It all goes back to the cross. Without the cross, we're in big trouble. we're a bunch of pious Jews is what the best will ever be. It's really where we'll end up. Up until this point, all has been positional truth.

Next week, Courtney's going to start on 11 and 12, 13 in there. And now, Paul, after telling us all of this wonderful stuff that God has done, not only for us, but to us. He's going to tell us what to do about it. And that's why once we get through this section, the next section we're going to study is the section on grace.

Because the only way, I'll say it this way, the Adamic man's environment that he lives in is law and condemnation and sin. The new man in Christ doesn't live under law anymore. He doesn't live in condemnation. What does he live in? He lives in an environment called grace.

We don't know anything about this environment unless we're taught, unless we see it in the Word. So that's why the next step after we get done with going through the rest of six, we're going to spend quite a few weeks on what is grace, how does it function, how do I live in it. This new life only functions in grace. A subtlety of the old man. Here I am abiding in Christ. The old man says to me, you ought to.

I ought to what? You ought to be doing something. Or you ought not be doing something. What's the principle under the oughts? It's law. How would you say that same thing under grace? Because of who you are, this is why you act. You are. Now, so if I get a command over here, it means I do or die. If I get a command over here, what does it mean? Oh, this is how it works. Ah, I see.

I don't have any resistance. There's nothing in me except him to resist. Can it also be an I get to? Because of the freedom, I get to love you. I get to live, I get to wake up in the morning, I get to wake up in the morning and say, Father, I want to live for you today. Because you couldn't do that. If I'm an Adam, I can say, oh boy, you know, I want to, but I'm not really serious about it. Over here I am. And know what? I'm convinced I can. Yeah, absolutely. This is freedom. That's bondage. Legalism is bondage. People don't understand it, but it is. It's absolute bondage.

Because what was the law given to do? What was the law given? When we were going through Romans 5, when we got right down to 21 or 22, what the law came in alongside for what reason? That sin may abound. That this guy, you bring in the law on this guy, what happens? He says, I'll show you. Rock and roll, here we go. But then God says we're sin abounded. What did grace do? Superabounded over. Why can grace superabound over? Only over here, through the cross. Grace not only superabounds over here, but it is the air we breathe.

A good analogy is, and Courtney would appreciate this more than the rest of us, he's a scuba diver. When he gets down to 20 feet on a reef, what's keeping him alive? It's that tank that's got the breath of life in it. When I come into Christ, it's like I left the water and now I'm breathing free air. The water represents sin, air represents life.

And I don't need an aqualung, a tank. I just am who I am in the resurrected life. Now the old man will say, hey, where's your aqualung, buddy? And if you're uninformed, you're going to say, I don't know, I better look around for it. I got you. The flesh wants you to walk around with the air tank on, just in case. That's right. It's exact, just in case.

It's like all those Jews that became Christians in the early church. I know they figured out that if this Christianity thing didn't work out, they were still Jews. That's alright, my Catholic buddies are the same way. If this Christian thing doesn't work, I'm still a Catholic. I'm probably better than them other Catholics.

So hold yourself next week with 11 and 12. So hopefully you're ready for the commands. When God says reckon, you now know what he means. You know what it means, don't you? Okay. Let's close in prayer. Dear Father, how we thank you for what you've done. not only for us, but to us, and that if we ask anything that we might see ourselves resurrected in the Lord Jesus Christ, which in fact allows us to behold Him in His glory, which on a conditional basis continually transforms us into His very image, which is who we are positionally already. We're so thankful, Father. We pray in Your Son's precious name. Amen.