Identification Truths Plus 2012

Courtney tried to get through the first four questions of Lesson 9, and he did okay. So, in the sake of time, basically what we were talking about in those first four questions was, what would you say is the source and spring from which all blessings flow to us?

The answer is union with Christ. What has Christ bestowed on us that was given Him by the Father? And that's God's glory. And the question is, is there something beyond glory? Did we talk about that? Is there something greater than the glory of God? No. I got a no. Do I have a yes?

I wrote down a close personal relationship with God. That's right. Intimacy with God is greater than His glory. Maybe put it this way. Bruce has a glory of Bruce, but that wouldn't be worth anything to me if I didn't have a relationship with him. So relationship or intimacy is greater than glory. Because you have the relationship, you have the glory. It's not the other way around.

So what then is the glory that was given us? How would you describe How would you describe the glory in John 17 when the Lord Jesus said, the glory that you've given me, I give them. How would you put that into words? So I wrote on here Revelation and I have no clue why I wrote it.

How about the radiant essence of God's unchanging essence. Oh, that's good. The radiant essence of God's intrinsic attributes. And I wrote down, through knowledge of God. Okay, that's good. You only have life now, then it would be the fullness of life. The fullness of the life, or maybe the fullness of just who He is. Here's what I wrote down, maybe you can expand it.

His glory would be all the fruit of that infinite sacrifice which satisfied God's justice. and glorified the law and commended the love of God. All the fruits of his conquest of death and hell and the world and the flesh. All the fruits of his exaltation at the right hand and majesty in heaven. All the glory redounding from this he has given to us. All his resurrection offices in heaven are exercised with a view to his people and their benefit. All the fullness of grace has been received in order to be communicated to them. All the glory given by the Father to Christ and laid up in Christ is intended for us. So everything that Christ accomplished, everything that he accomplished, and the exaltation that he received because of what he accomplished, he's given it to us. Because we deserved it, right? No, it's by grace alone. By grace alone. So, you know, if you sit down and spend five minutes contemplating what Jesus means when he says to the Father, the glory you've given me I've given them.

You can't complain from now on. There's nothing you can go to God about and woe me it. You've got the glory of this very essence. What have you got to complain about? You see what I mean? So the reason I say it that way is for us to understand, when it's a little rough out there, who are you really? The Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Son of Man, and He said that the glory set before Him, He endured the cross. So if you understand who you are, there can't be a circumstance that would cause you to be depressed. It can't be. You're a son. You may have to endure some things for his namesake, but... You see that? So therefore when they were stoned, they didn't care? I mean, they were willing... Probably the best description of a believer being stoned is Stephen. And when he looked, he saw the Lord Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father. And he said, what did he say? He said, Father, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. He said the same thing that Christ said on the cross.

Same thing. So if somebody's going to fire a rock off of your head because of your faith, you can trust that you're going to have the same reaction. You've got the same life. There's no difference between you and Stephen. Isn't that something, to know that that kind of grace is who you are? You would think that Stephen being stoned, oops, God didn't quite protect him. You know what the cool thing about Stephen being stoned is? It was the first time that we were taught a really specific truth. You know what it was? Think about the story. He talks in front of the Sanhedrin.

He gets them so mad that they jump him. and they're incensed. It says that they're chewing on his body. They are so angry with him because he's convicted them. And they start to throw stones at him and it says he looks up and he sees Jesus at the right hand of God.

What does that tell us? What it tells us is this is the first indication that our proper position is heavenly. It's the first time. Because up until that time, all this, it was kind of an earthly focus. And so when Paul comes along and starts to write, and Paul's there holding the coats of the guys who were firing the rocks, that's the first time you begin to understand, wait a minute, Stephen is looking at his home in the heavenlies, and Christ Jesus, he sees him.

The other thing it tells us is that when Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3.18, with unveiled face, we can behold reflectively the glory of the Lord through the word, where is Christ? He's in the heavenlies, but he's perceivable by us through the word now. You can see him now, where he is. That's really cool, that's the Spirit's job. Raising your hand.

Did that happen to Stephen before Christ died? No, afterwards. Okay. But before Paul came on the scene. Okay. It was, I don't know, Acts 5, 6, somewhere in there. But he was on the scene. I'm sorry? He was on the scene, it was just that he was a Jew at that time. Well, yeah, he was a member, I think, I don't think he was a member of the tribe of Levi, but he had come to believe in Christ. and was serving as a deacon in the church in Jerusalem and he was a really good teacher and they called him before the Jewish Sanhedrin and he, there's a long, long dissertation in the book of Acts, Stephen's address before the Jewish Jews and he stuck it to him big time. He made him feel guilty about crucifying the Messiah and that kind of thing and so they got really Paul was persecuting and he says that he assented to the death of Stephen. He agreed with it that they should stone him. Because he hadn't been saved yet either. He was Saul. He was Saul of Tarsus, that's right.

So the question is, is the Lord's request here for the glory be given as only for the strong and deeply taught Christians only? No. Who's it for? In other words, do you have to be a really hungry-hearted believer before you can sort of enter into the meat of the word? No, because you're learning. In other words, all the people that are learning would have to be put aside. There would be nothing left.

That's right. So, are there any stipulations for any believer to not receive what the Lord has requested the Father give us, which is His glory? Answer no. Answer no. Because even the prisoners that are terrible are saved, some. Yeah. Well, and here's the thing. When Randy taught position, that's why position is so important to us as believers.

Because you're in Christ, everything that is due Christ is due you. He earned it, you get it by grace. See that? When he says that they may be one father as you are in me and I in you that they also may be one in us. If you're one with Christ there is no back of the bus in Christ.

It's like if the answer were yes, it would be up to me to be out there working and being busy and keeping laws and doing whatever, joining programs and all the other fun stuff you'd have me do. I think it really is important for us to understand that this is for the weakest, feeblest, most unlearned of the redeemed family. It's the position of grace. Because what's interesting about grace is that a lot of times it's bestowed on that person who's least deserving of it. That's how grace works.

Okay, then he talks about perfection. What does perfection mean? Or he says that they may be perfected in one. What's the word perfection mean? There's no more growth. No more growth, no more to be added to. What's that? Complete. Complete's a good word. Webster's Dictionary, which is a very reliable spiritual source. The fullness of the design of the creature. In other words, There is a standard for every one of us when we became a believer, a standard for us to be. What is the standard, Grace?

It's the glorified Christ. From a positional standpoint, accomplished that? I have one yes. I've got two yeses, the rest of you are chickens. The answer is yes. As a matter of fact, that's what spiritual growth is, is that your condition would grow in and be similar to your position, which is perfection in Christ. So positionally you already are perfect, and it would have to be that way because you're a son of God.

So in verse 23 it says that they may be made perfect in one. What does that mean? What does it mean that they may be? Here's part of the Lord Jesus' prayer, that they may be made perfect in one. He's talking about us. We may be made complete. The Father, the Son, and the Father in themselves, and we're in the Son, so we're just called one. What's the term we use? From a positional standpoint, it's the absolute perfection that exists in Christ. From a conditional standpoint, everyday growing, what's the phrase we use?

Conformity to his image. Because positionally we have everything that Christ is except for deity. Positionally. Unless I talk about position, if you don't understand it, raise your hand. Conditionally, we're being conformed to what our position already is. And that's done solely, solely on a grace basis. But that only happens when we die, right? The finished work, when we see Christ, we'll be just like him. That's when our condition and position align. OK, wait a minute. How did you say this? Conditionally, we are conformed to what? You're being conformed to the image of Christ. Romans 8, 28 and 29.

OK, this might funny trill a little bit, but doesn't that not happen until that's a double negative? How am I going to answer that? for a physician and condition truly meet and where they ought to be, not until after the millennial kingdom? Oh, that's a good question. No, I think. When does it happen? When does it come together after? I don't know. Well, let's let's take how Malloy, for example, he went home a few years ago to be with the Lord.

Is he perfected? Yes. What's he missing? Nothing. What doesn't he have yet? His body. His new body. He doesn't have a glorified body yet. But his condition now is perfectly lined up with his position. There isn't a flaw in him anywhere. And he's waiting for the redemption of his body. So he's perfected but not like he's perfected, but I still have one more thing to go. I think that's right.

And what is that? Coming to the return of Christ? Well, when the rapture happens, what happens? The rapture happens, bang, right now. We go, but we follow those saints. A twinkling of an eye, and you leave the planet with your body. You know, your clothes probably drop off, but you leave your body and between here and meeting Christ in the clouds, you get the glorified body, which is the same body that's been glorified. When Christ rose from the dead, did he have the same body that he died with? Sure he did. It was glorified now though. It was a spiritual body, but it was the same body. You know, he didn't switch Cadillacs in the grave. But he wasn't initially recognized. If he didn't want to be recognized. You notice some people recognize him right away, others didn't. Like Mary Magdalene didn't recognize him.

They were able to touch him and he ate. He told them to come and dine. He had the fish and everything. Sure. And it went through the wall because Thomas said he won't believe it unless he could put his hand on it. The other thing is he didn't have any blood in that body. You know how you know? No scabs. When he says, Thomas, put your finger in the hole, the hole is there. And you know why? Because a glorified body doesn't need blood to function. So life is in him and not in the blood. Say that again? Our life is in him and not in the blood. That's right. Yeah, the glorified body won't have any blood in it. It won't need band-aids.

So when we were into the church in Frisco, They said that Thomas, who was the doubting Thomas, they said that he would not be in heaven because he doubted it. He doubted that it was Christ. Well, as much as I hate to say this, they're wrong. So they are wrong. Sure they're wrong. Yeah. Because he, I mean, Thomas said, my Lord and my Savior, whatever he said, and the Lord said, blessed are those who have not seen yet still believe. Thomas believed. He did believe, and though he doubted, he believed.

And he's one of the apostles, come on. Right, right, but they, I remember Father Nylund, not Nylund, I don't know what's his name. But when he touched that, he said, my Lord and my God. Put your hand on my side. His doubting was gone. Yeah, it was gone. I mean, he was like me, you know, I have to touch it and feel it.

Haven't we all doubted? I think they all doubted at the cross, there's no question about that, except for John. Does that negate our salvation? No, no. Sure they were wrong, and you know why I think those kinds of situations come up? Because they don't understand position.

When you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God baptizes you, puts you into Christ, You're there permanently. You can't do anything to get out of Christ. Christ would have to do it. He would have to rewind the film backwards, you know, and come back to the earth, back in the grave, up on the cross, come alive on the cross, and then back down to being a son of man walking around Palestine. That's how you can lose your salvation.

It seems like a human thing, too, to say, you know, if you doubt, then you'll lose your salvation. Kind of like the fear of doubt. If people start doubting, then everybody will be afraid, and then we won't have any Christians left. And, you know, we're weak. We doubt. We go to the Lord. talking about things and he's always coming back to us, giving us a position of grace and saying just believe me.

And what's interesting is as time goes on it gets more and more, it gets less and less believing just because of the facts and more and more because he said it. If he said it, a veracity of a person is how trustworthy they are. My brother likes to say that I lied to you lately. If God never lied to you, and always blessed you, and everything he told you is true, and as you go along in your life, then your focus is not so much on what he says, but on who he is. And you recognize, no matter what he says to me, I'm buying it. Like Abraham, 40 years after he's declared righteous, God says, take your son up on the mountain and sacrifice him to me. Abraham said, no problem, I'm going. Never questioned him. Why? 40 years with the Lord. That's what it is. It's time.

You know another thing, I'm up at 16 or 17, but when he's praying to the Father and he says, all that you've given me, I haven't lost one except for Judas. And Thomas is one of the ones who was... Sure. It's amazing seeing all your disciples and I've kept them intact, except for Judas. For you the believer to fail, then God has to fail. Do you see that? In other words, when Christ is saying this prayer, is there any doubt that God the Father isn't going to listen to him and do everything he asks? No. Not a doubt at all.

The fullness of who Christ is must be totally exhausted before one of you can fall. I'm putting my money on Christ. Me too. And the third part of that is that the Holy Spirit himself must be overcome before our joy in God that can be hindered and disappointed. So what's got to happen is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have to be defeated and have to be proven false before you can lose your salvation or the grace that you live under.

The cross would have to be proven and it's not legitimate. And it wasn't legitimate, that's right. And the resurrection was smoke and mirrors. Did you not read that? These three things? God himself must fail before his children can fail. Christ's fullness must be exhausted before his members can fall. And the Holy Spirit must be overcome before joy in God can be hindered or disappointed. Pretty cool stuff, huh?

Can the world know today that Christ was sent because the Father loves the Son and loves us the same way. Yeah. How do they know? Verse 23 says, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you have loved me. Because it's in the Bible. Okay. So that's how you know, right? What a great answer. But how does a non-believer, somebody in the world, know by observing you that God sent the Son? Yeah, exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. What do you think? I think it's up to the Holy Spirit to convict me of my sin. You of your sin?

I might see you acting all Christian and all that fun stuff, but the fact of the matter is, until I'm willing to see me and how far short I am with Christ, You can be a goody two-shoes as much as you want, but it's not going to do anything. How about this? 2 Corinthians 3, you don't have to go there.

1 through 3, are we beginning to commend ourselves again? In other words, Paul is saying to the Corinthians, am I going to have to go through this process of convincing you I am who I am again? Or do we need some letters of commendation to you or from you? In other words, these other Judaizers are coming down and causing all this trouble. They got letters. And they have credentials. And he says, I don't have any. But I do have one. And here's what it is.

You are a letter written in our hearts, known and read of all men, being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of the human heart.

It's who you are that speaks to a lost world that God sent his son. And the reason is that you couldn't be who you are unless that event happened. Hal Malloy used to say, he would pray that during the week that God would bring someone to you that could see the hope that's in you. How'd that hope get in there?

Because you're a believer. And you've been home doing all these spiritual push-ups, so now you're looking good. As you walk with the spirit, it's demonstrable. So how does it look, I mean, how do they see the difference between us and somebody else who's doing the exact same? good works, quote on quote, if you have two people, one who's a believer and one who's non-believer, and they're both sincere, how do they know the difference? I think it's apparent because, again, of the hope that when somebody is not a believer in doing these things, their automatic nature says, look at me doing all of these things, whereas you have a believer going, Well he's not saying anything they're just living. Exactly and I think that it's because it's not shown in just look at me doing these good things but when I'm in the trials and in the muck and the mire I still it doesn't nothing changes my how it's presented, you know. Whether it's, look, things are going great or things are going really cruddy, the same life is being seen. There's a stability there.

Exactly. I think I would differ. Okay. I think I would say people don't recognize it and that unless you have the Holy Spirit you're oblivious to it and that's why persecution can happen and all the other things that I think people don't recognize it. Yeah, see there are two dynamics going on here. One is the Lord Jesus told them they're going to hate you because they hated me. Okay? And there's no question, you know, go to one of those Muslim countries and start carrying a cross around a megaphone and see how many clocks you get before they stone you to death. There's a hatred for Christ, that's why they crucify him.

On the other hand, there is a life that's in every believer. And when the Spirit of God wants to draw a believer to him, and he's going to use you to do it, It's going to be the revelation of Christ in you and you're not even going to know it's happening most of the time. Because you'll take credit for it if you do. And you meant draw an unbeliever to you, right? An unbeliever or draw a believer who hasn't quite got it together, who doesn't believe in the security or some issue, you know.

Because there is a hope in believers that just is there. There's something about them you know, unless they're in some sort of legal push-up deal and they're running out of gas, but if they know about grace, there's a rest in them that's visible. You can see it. Yeah, there is a rest, that's true.

And, you know, the Lord Jesus Christ said to, in Israel when he was, you know, he said, come unto me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest for your souls. Why that? Why didn't he promise bank accounts? I don't know, spiritual gifts. He said rest. You know why?

Unrest is the consequence of sin. And a human being cannot get rest in and of himself. There is no rest in this world. None. Go to Hawaii, I've been there. No rest. Go to Florida, no rest. Wherever you go, there's no rest. There's only rest in Christ. It's the only place it is.

You can look at people who have the abundance of everything and yet they still strive for more. Don't have that rest. That's right. That's right. Because it's only things. There's always an empty hole and there's just a hole in you because only Christ can show that. That's a good analogy because we shove everything we can in that hole to try to fill it up and you can't. It's reserved for Christ alone. Right.

Okay, I'm determined to get through this. So, in verse 24, Father I desire that they all, so whom you have given me, be with me where I am, that they may see my glory which you have given me, for you love me before the foundation of the world. What will Christ not be satisfied with until what happens? I understand the question. Christ has asked for something. And he won't be satisfied until this request has been fulfilled.

Until we are with him, the bride is with him. With him where I am. So we were talking a little earlier about conformity to Christ when you leave the planet. Again, back to position and condition. Positionally, where are you now? In Christ, where he is. Conditionally, you're here.

In John 14.2, he said, In my Father's house there are many dwelling places, if it were not so I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. Here's the kicker, that where I am, there you may be also. It's cool that for positionally we've been placed in Christ, when we leave the planet we will be conditionally with Him for all eternity. Isn't that cool? I mean, I think it's cool.

So why in the heavenlies? Why does he say... Why does he want us with him there? Why wouldn't he say, well, I'm going to come to Denver and you're going to be with me in Denver. Why does he say with me where I am? Because he wants us all to be with him at all times. Why there? In him. With him. Where is he? In me. Where is he right now? In me. No, where's the Lord Jesus? Okay. Where is he? Where's his body? He's in heaven at the right hand of God. So he wants you there to be with him.

Now that's a problem if you're Jewish. See the problem? What was the promise, one of the promises made to Abraham? I'm going to give you land. Land on the earth. Okay. Now wait a minute. I'm going to be with him where he is? What does this tell you? It begins to reveal to those who are paying attention to John 17, oh maybe we aren't from the earth anymore. Maybe we are a heavenly race of people and not an earthly race anymore.

Which would lead to a greater understanding when we get into Romans 5.12-6 the fact that you understand that you are not an earthly human being anymore, it will help you because the things that God has done in Christ are all heavenly in character. Because we've been crucified from the world.

Oh, can't go back there. I just want to say, years ago, my eldest sister, who the Lord has already taken to himself in heaven, anyway, she and I were writing It was late and we had been to church for something or other. It was about 10 o'clock and my sister talks a little loud. She said, just think the people in the world are just going out now. Some people just looked around at us like they were aliens. People in the world are just going out now and we're going home.

I think it's really important as you grow spiritually to understand that you're a heavenly creature now and not an earthly one anymore. It's really important to know that. We're here as representatives of Christ, but our home is there. And that's really important to understand that.

And the Lord Jesus, that's why he said, I want them with me where I am. Why would we be on the earth? Because he'll be here. But when eternity starts, where are we going to be? Wherever he is, that's where we're going to be. And you're not going to have to physically be in front of him to be with him because we will rule and reign with him all over the earth but there won't be any separation of intimacy by location. You see that? When the Lord Jesus was here he had the same intimacy with the Father that he had before he came here, right?

I don't know how he's going to pull that one off but I'm really going for that. It's going to be cool. So then really the only reason maybe that we're here is how we impact other people. Say that again? The reason that he doesn't take us to him right now is that we're here to impact other people.

That's exactly right. He has specifically designed activities for every single individual believer to manifest this glory that he's given us. And when the last one is done you're gone. And I mean now. Gone. Boom. Out of here. Because the Lord doesn't want you to be away from him one millisecond longer than necessary. When the last thing that he's designed for you to do is done, you're out of here. So why does he have to do it through us when he could take us and still do it here himself? He doesn't have to use us. How could he possibly?

He wants to manifest his glory through his body of believers. That's why. God in all eternity is going to manifest his glory in two ways, through two entities. You know who they are? The head is Christ and the body is us. The fullness of God's glory will be manifested to all of his creation for all eternity through you and me. So we are his messengers? Just by walking around, just by who we are. When you're here in the millennial kingdom, right? You're going to have a glorified body and there's going to be all these Jewish people in Israel and all these Gentiles around the planet.

And you're going to come down the street and they're going to know instantly that you're a son of God. You know how they're going to know? Because you've got a name tag on that says, I'm a son of God. No, because the glory of Christ is going to come out of you.

And it's going to radiate. And everybody on the planet is going to see it. They're going to say, whoops, there's one right there. It's going to be you. When that happens will gender matter? Will what? Gender matter. Not with us, it won't. No, there won't be any. It won't matter. That's right. That won't be the issue.

Okay, now I'm going to do a little preview now into Lesson 10. I want to do it by saying that we've discussed identification in general terms, We've talked about salvation, we've talked about position and condition, we've talked a little bit about grace, and we've talked about John 17 now, and the thing that John 17 contributes to this class is pretty simple. It demonstrates to the reader that this is God's purpose. What we're about to learn now by studying Romans 5, 6, 7, and 8 that by looking at John 17 first, you discover, wow, this is what God wants done because of this prayer. Well, what 5, 6, 7, and 8, or 5 and 6 and 7 will teach you are the mechanics and how God did it.

How did God do, just from a mechanical standpoint, how did he pull this off? How did he make you a heavenly person? How did he put you in this position that you're in? How did he put you in a position of grace? How did you get recreated in Christ? How did you get to be who you are from a position of Christ viewpoint?

That's what Romans 5, we're going to start in 5.12 and go into 8. That's what it's going to teach us. These are the mechanics and how God did it. They're really important to understand because if you rely on the word of God for your sustenance, then how he did it is as important as what he did. And he never leaves anything sort of out there hanging without explaining.

He's going to explain exactly how you got to be who you are in Romans 5, 6, 7 and 8. The first question I ask is how did the sin nature enter into the world? But before we answer that, if you open up your Bibles, you don't have to do it here. And you read from Romans chapter 3 up to Romans chapter 511, you will see the word S-I-N-S, sins.

And they refer to what? All of the bad stuff that you do. all of the shortcomings that you have, all of the sinning that you do. Starting? Go ahead. It never ends. It will. Starting in 512, you will notice that the word sin is only singular from then forward. It's not S-I-N-S anymore, it's S-I-N. And if you were a Greek scholar, you could look in there and say, wow, in front of every one of those words is a definite article and it would say THE SIN. What's that referred to? The garden? In the garden? The original sin? The original sin, no. The nature. It refers to the sin nature. It refers to this nature that you have within you that has a propensity to sin. You know what propensity means?

Yeah, it doesn't stop. That's all it ever wants to do and that's all it ever will do. You know? So... It's terrible though. I come to visit you and I'm a sinful person. How could you want to have anything to do with me? Because of your position in Christ, otherwise I wouldn't talk to you. And he's just his dad. Watchman Nee in his book, The Normal Christian Life, which is a book I recommend everybody read, here's the analogy or the example he used that there are, in a town, there's a lot of drunks and there are whiskey bottles all over the place.

And what you do is you run around and you get those bottles and you try to break them all. The problem is the factory keeps producing them. So how do you solve the problem? Put the factory out of business. So the whiskey bottles represent your sins, the factory represents your sin nature. So God through Romans 5, 6, and 7 is going to show us what he did to the factory. How did he take care of the sin itself? Because when you think about it, if all he ever did on the cross was pay the penalty for your sins. Let's say that that's all he did. He just paid the penalty for your sins.

Do you have a right to enter into the presence of God? You're a forgiven sinner. Can you go in? Then yes. I got a yes. Somebody challenge me and say no. I mean otherwise you wouldn't even accept it. Now think about this. I have the right today to enter into the Holy of Holies and to sit down with the Holy God and communicate with Him. If the only thing that happened to me on the cross was my sins were forgiven, could I do that? Answer, no. Because I'm still a sinner. And God cannot have a sinner in His presence.

So what does He do? He crucifies Christ But what identification is going to tell you is that you died with him. Why is that important? Because now you can go in as a resurrected in Christ person. A forgiven sinner is still a sinner, but from a positional standpoint, are you still a sinner? Positionally. Are you? No, you're not. You're not. Conditionally I am. Conditionally you are, but positionally you're not.

When God looks at us, He doesn't see us because we're in Christ. That's right. He sees us in Christ. So when you sin as a believer, what are you really doing? Not acting like who you are. You're not behaving like who you are. So God's wearing blinders. No. He's being very realistic. He's given you enough liberty and freedom for you to be positioned in His Son and act like you're not. Isn't that something? It's like if I could teach my dog to quack like a duck, would it make him a duck? No. It wouldn't. He'd still be a dog. So I can be a believer who's perfected in Christ and still sin. Does that make me a sinner? No. Because I'm in Christ. I'm acting like a sinner. I'm doing those sinful things. I have a nature that's in me, but that isn't what my identity is.

And that's why it's so important. Because God has changed a man. He changed from Adam to Christ as we talked about at the very beginning of the class. So the ideal is, how do I get lined up so that I'm with Christ and I'm in Him. That's what the Romans 6 shows. And we'll start back in 5.12 because 5.12-21 is what is known as the doctrine of the two men.

There's two representative men, the two most important men in history, who are they? Christ and the devil. No, the devil was never a man. He's an angel. Adam and Christ. The two most important men are Adam and Christ, and the reason they're important is because both of them are heads of races of men. Whatever's true of the head is going to be true of all those that come from the head. So, 512 says this, and we'll pick up with it next week. Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered the world. Who's that man? Adam. That's our boy Adam. And so sin enters the world and what comes with it? Death. Death through sin. And so death spread to all men. How come? Because all men sinned. Because all men sinned.

Now, wait a minute. Kirk Jenkins wasn't in the garden when Adam sinned, was he? No, but he has a sin nature. How'd he get it? He inherited it. Through Adam. Through Adam. We're physical children of Adam and that's how we got it. Now, but this very last phrase says, because all sinned. Yeah, but we're born under the curse. There was a curse in Adam. No, no, no. Look at the word. It says, because all sinned in Adam. Yeah. Kurt was in Adam in the garden and sinned when Adam sinned. You know how I know that? Because we're all the same. That's right.

Go to Hebrews chapter 7 and read about Melchizedek and Abraham. And read there about how Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek in the loins of Abraham. When Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek The principle in the Bible is, so did Levi, and Levi hadn't even been born yet. And where is this listed? Hebrews 7.

Listen, your husband has thorough knowledge about that. We've been studying it on Tuesday afternoon. So when Adam's in the garden, every single person in this room is in Adam's loins. When he sins, you sin. And you know what? If you were Adam, You'd have done the same thing. You know why? Because you're identical to him. So that's wonderful news when you start to find out, wait a minute, I'm now in Christ. I'm identical to him. That changes the equation. That's why identification is so important. That's the second bell.

So we'll pick up with 5.12, Romans 5.12 next week. Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your word and, boy, we thank you for the position that you've placed us in, in your dear Son, that we may grow and grow and grow in the knowledge of your Son, the Lord Jesus, and the life we have in him and the grace we live under. We pray in his precious name. Amen.