The Gospel of John - Christ with whom we share a history

We've gone for the last few weeks over Christ's death and his burial and resurrection, his ascension and seeding, and now we want to put that together and we put it under the title, Christ with whom we share a history. And so this is going over the identification truths. Now admittedly with nine pages, what I've given you is too much for us to try to cover today. So what I'm going to do is to look at not every single detail but to look at things more and highlight, and then you're free, of course, to dig into it some more. But I think it's good to have these things pulled together in a place where you can look at them and study it over and ask questions and think about it.

Identification is a principle that is taught in Scripture. directed principally or mainly to believers in the body of Christ. There are some synonyms in the middle of the page we'll be looking at here shortly. Identifications explained most fully by the Apostle Paul, but evidenced in the writings of John and Peter, as well as other authors of scripture.

These truths of identification are revealed entirely by the will and actions of God, and the blessings of our identification with Christ are accomplished entirely by God's infinite, eternal, and amazing grace. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him. Ephesians 1, 3 and 4a there. While we can find examples of this identification principle applying to all people and to other people groups, the teaching will focus on here the identification truths that apply to believers who are in the body of Christ from Acts 2 to the Rapture, when Christ comes for his bride, the Church. Along the way we will point out where the Gospel of John includes those truths. And especially at the end here. There are identification synonyms, and we give several different words here that are used, even by the Apostle Paul, he uses various ones.

So in, being placed entirely in so as to share an identity. With, ultimately joined in action and consequence. Together with. like above, but together scoring the same identity in action. And then united with, united implies a oneness, so a spiritual oneness is communicated and finally baptized into, and we're going to have a baptism here after the second service, but baptized into not involving water, but meaning being placed into and immersed spiritually. But this is identification. There's also the outcomes of identification, which we'll talk about in a bit. What we have below that is what God's warning in Genesis tells us.

God said several things to Adam in the sixth day, but the critical one for our study is found in Genesis 2.17. So then the Lord God took the man starting with verse 15, and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die. Question.

Was this what God told Adam, was this under the principle of law or the principle of grace? It's principle of law, right? So it's interesting as you go through scripture, is this principle of law or principle of grace? When God blessed Abraham, was that principle of law or principle of grace? Isn't it interesting to have, here is Abraham and he was actually blessed under the principle of grace. It wasn't anything he earned or had to do anything to follow through on.

Okay, now let's take a look at page 2. It was the last line that was the subject of the serpent's deception. The serpent went and stated things, made a connection, then cast doubt, and then made an entirely contrary statement, you shall not die. So the big question is, what did God mean by die? How does that definition of die fit with the death that happened on the day that Adam died? Mankind is spiritually separated from, that is dead to God, by sin. And that death of separation is a variety of different expressions and some very important consequences. So one of the keys that we cover here on the middle of page two is death is separation.

That lack of understanding of that as a biblical principle has led to all sorts of mistaken conclusions. It is even one of the fundamental assumptions of Calvinism that it is a misunderstanding. Good morning. It is a misunderstanding that Calvinism failed to recognize that death is separation. Instead they defined death differently and the rest of the conclusions then came out wrong. So death is separation. Being alive is union.

That's the other part of it at the bottom of page two. Let's take a look at the top of page 3 where we've got a half dozen bullets here. This principle of dead to alive to is Romans 6, 1-11, dead to sin, alive to Christ or alive to God. Romans 7, 1-6, death, releases from marriage, died to the law, joined to Christ. And 2 Corinthians 5, 14 and 15, dead to ourselves, alive to Christ.

And by the way, we talk about a human being dying. What does that mean? In terms of death of separation. Yeah, you have the body, the physical body is separated from the soul and the spirit. So even when we say someone died, That is a death of separation. The soul and the body are separated from one another.

Galatians 2.19-20, died to the law but lived to God.

And then Colossians 2.20, died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world. And then Colossians 3, 5 and 20, dead to sin, died with Christ to the world. And we could give some other examples.

That same set of truths, and here's where 1 Peter has it. that death of separation being alive as union, meaning dead in relationship to and alive in relationship to, is taught in 1 Peter 2.24.

So here's Peter, who expressed this identification truth principle, and it says there, 1 Peter 2.24, And he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. For by his wounds you were healed.

So did sin die? No. So this is a death of separation from sin. So died in relationship to sin is the full understanding there. Sin didn't die. But we died in relationship to sin. And live to righteousness. Live in relationship to righteousness. For by his wounds you were healed. Now, yes.

Just going back on what you were saying, death-wise, so in any case, like someone passes from this earth, or death to sin, is the separation of...? Death is separation in various respects, and so, for example, if I died to sin, means I have been separated from sin, I've died in relationship to sin, In someone's physical death, what happens is the soul and the spirit are then separated from the body. Soul and spirit are separated from the body. One of the things to look at here, in Genesis 3, where it records, this is a fulfillment, because remember, Adam was told, the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.

And did Adam just fall over dead physically when he ate of the fruit? So it didn't mean that you're instantly going to croak, so to speak, to use a figure of speech. It doesn't mean you are instantly just going to drop over dead. What it meant there was what? It meant a spiritual separation between God and Adam. A spiritual separation between God and Adam. Notice in the middle of page 3 there's a small chiasm there. God speaks to Adam with questions. God speaks to Eve with a question. God talks to the serpent but doesn't ask any questions. Why would you not bother asking questions of the serpent after asking questions of Adam and Eve? Yeah, because what's the serpent guaranteed to do? It's guaranteed a lie. You can't get truth out of them anyway, right? You certainly can't be assured of it.

So that's one thing. The other thing is God's relationship was with Adam and Eve. That's what mattered here. The serpent was an incidental degrading factor. And then God turns around to Eve with consequences and Adam with consequences. That's the pattern here. So God prepared a covering for them, the ones that they made out of leaves wouldn't do, and an animal was sacrificed to do so. God's sacrifice.

Regarding the consequences of the fall for mankind and its personal impacts, Eve's consequences would be in childbearing and in relationship to her husband. Adam's consequences would be on this earth, his toil gaining a yield from it, his toil and gaining a yield from it, and returning to the dust from which he was created. If Adam had not sinned, would he have returned to the dust from which he was created? No. So the sin precipitated his death, physical death, and return to dust. The physical death was a delayed consequence But the death that God was originally talking about was the spiritual death of separation between Adam and God.

Never before had God come into the garden and had to ask, Adam, where are you? Right? Never before had that happened. So notice that while the passage lays out consequences even for Adam, they are consequences of the separation from God that is already at that moment taking place. So first spiritual separation and all the other separations and consequences come later. But the spiritual separation was the first.

Yes. I just had a thought. The reason God asked Adam and Eve questions, He wanted to know what their answers were. Yes. He didn't ask Satan, because he already knew. That's right. Yes, yeah. Yep. All the consequences are not yet complete. In other words, there will be consequences, they haven't all come to pass yet. Adam and Eve may even have thought, well, I'm not dead yet. Yes.

Okay, so this sin is not necessarily unbelief, but it's disobedience, right? Yeah, unbelief in what God had told them, yes, ultimately, but yeah, disobedience. They both come into play, and ultimately, under principle of law, there's just one, right? Don't eat that. Eat everything else, but not that one. Primarily disobedience. Yeah, disobedience at the core that happened by deception.

But deception of Eve, Adam knew what he was doing, the Bible says. So Adam knew that he was believing Satan versus God, or disbelieving God. I don't know how you would say that. Yeah, real interesting. The description, we get further explanation. Eve was deceived, but Adam knew what he was doing, and he knew it was wrong. It was contrary to what God had told him directly. So Eve was deceived, but Adam knew he was bullying her. He said nothing. But notice here, the consequences are not yet complete.

Adam and Eve will be driven from their separation, driven from the Garden of Eden in order to keep them from their separation, the Tree of Life. The separation from God because of Adam's sin has resulted not only in a change in mankind's relationship with God, but also a change in man's relationship with everything that God had made. a change with human beings and their bodies, and ultimately a change in every human being's future from that time forward, except for the mercy and grace of God. Yes? What about the change on the animals and even they also?

Yeah, all creation groans. That's what Paul explains, right? All creation groans. Everything gets the consequence of man's action. The ground is cursed. So man's action impacts everything else as well. So, we've got first the bad news. We're on the top of page four now. God's Word says that when Adam sinned, we were in Adam in that sin, so we're identified with fallen Adam, including the consequences that God said would result from sin. And that insight is given in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 15, 22.

For as in Adam all die. And by the way, does that mean all most? All a few? all, all means all. In Adam, all die. It is critical to understand that death in scripture means spiritual separation. I keep going back to that. Even physical death is a separation from earthly relationships and a separation of body from soul and spirit. Being in Adam, 1 Corinthians 15, 22 and above, means spiritual separation from God and all the ghastly, earthly and eternal consequences that go with it.

That's the bad news, and if God left things there, it would be nothing but totally hopeless, really depressing, eternally bad news. Except God did something about it. At first the bad news only gets worse, and we have several quotes, including one from John that I alluded to here.

John 8, 21 and 24, Jesus is talking to the unbelieving Jewish leaders. He said again to them, I go away and you will seek me and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come. Therefore, I said to you that you will die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins."

So the unbeliever is not getting away with anything. A lot of times people will think, oh, I got away with this, I got away with that. No. Everything sticks to you. You're in it. Spiritually, you're stuck in it. So, you're not just dying with a sin nature, you're not just dying with a history of sins, you're in them.

Yes? It was interesting to me when I first noticed this, and that is that the word in, is the same word that you would use if you were in Rome. So as a positional, it's a position. Yes. He's telling them their position. Your position is that those sins that you've been committing and are committing right now, you're in them. And what's the only way out of being in your sins? He says it right there. Unless you believe, you're going to die in your sins. You're positionally in your sins.

And so sins are not just something, well there's my history. It's not just something why this one bit me and the other ones I got away from or something. But sins are something you're positionally in unless you believe. So let me ask this question. If you're a believer, are you in your sins? No. Why not? Because you've been freed and released from it. But that doesn't get it done. Yes.

And the reason for that is because what they did, they added to the law, so it's like doing, it's like the Old Testament talks about works, building things, scraping stones, all this other stuff. So God kept saying, leave it as it is, because He wanted them to see Him in the law. And that was the whole purpose of the sacrificial system, is that God's giving them grace to release them from their sins. But it's God. It's not the law. That's correct. That's right. And they were focused on the law, and forgot about God. That's right. Yeah, Gene?

When the real change occurs, 2 Corinthians 5.17, that's it. Uh-huh. Which says? If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Ah, yes. A new creature, no longer in those sins. He is a new creature altogether. Totally having radically changed who that person is. Morgan?

So what I'm hearing you say is that to get out of your sins you have to believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior who died for our sins. So it's the belief in that. It's believing that Christ died for your sins that deals with the sins. And by the way, it's because you believe and God does the rest. God does the rest. Gail?

Yeah, I'm just thinking that when it says, unless you believe that I am he, it qualifies the belief in not just that Jesus was a good man, or that, you know a lot of other things that people say they believe about him, but it designates who he is, doesn't it?

Or that he is chosen by God in his name alone. I think what you have to look at when you put it all together, it's who Christ is and what He did, specifically His death, burial and resurrection. And that's because only He has grace. Only He can initiate grace. Well, and I think the point Gail made, it's only He that Jesus revealed in scripture, not the Jesus of fantasy.

I cook up this thing where God wants me to love everybody, and I'm going to try to emulate Jesus. So I believe in Him in that sense. I've talked to people who, I believe in what Jesus taught. Well, that's not going to do it if you think that just trying real hard to emulate him is going to get you anywhere. It won't.

The Apostle Paul and Jesus were in complete agreement. Here's Ephesians 2. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins. Are you dead in your sins? Yep. The Apostle Paul agrees. In which you formerly walked. So you're positionally dead in them and in your condition you live it out.

That's what the saying there in Ephesians 2, in which you formally walked, that's the individual ordering of one's life, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, that one who told the lie back there in the garden, the deceiver, and the spirit now working in the sons of disobedience, even when we were dead in our transgressions, but dead in. Colossians 2.13a when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh.

So to God's eternal praise and glory and honor he did not leave us there in Adam and dead in our trespasses and sins and now the really good news. Now the really good news. Our identification with Christ mentioned before is expressed in several different ways as listed in those bulletins there on first page. One of the frequent ways in which that truth is conveyed is that the believer is in Christ as opposed to remaining in Adam. That truth is conveyed primarily in the letters of Paul, such as we find in this letter to the believers in Ephesus 36 times in six chapters, including these references, in Christ, in him, in the beloved, in whom, etc. So on page 5, So the one who has placed his faith in Christ for salvation is in Christ, meaning that the believer has been placed by God entirely in Christ, spiritually speaking, so as to share an identity with him and so as to share a history with him in each of these aspects in which he's been identified.

When Christ was born in Bethlehem, where were we identified in his birth in Bethlehem? Do you share that history with Him? No. When Christ was walking on water across the Sea of Galilee, do you share that history with Him? No. What's interesting is we share a history with Christ in specific things. Not just a general, we have His history in everything that He did and was. But in specific things, and it starts off with His crucifixion. So we have a history, a new spiritual history.

No longer are we, as all those in Adam, no longer are we positionally in our sins. And the only thing we did was believe. We didn't make some effort to get out of our sins. We didn't make some effort to avoid them. The only thing we did was believe. God did the rest. So now we have the consequences of identification. bottom of page 5, and crucified is a key one, and by the way, crucifixion is intended to end up in what? Death.

Crucifixion, when the Romans crucified someone, the idea was, you know, you're going to die. It may not happen instantly, but that's why you're crucified, and they're not going to let you off unless they're sure you're dead. Some guys would stay on there for days before they die. But the idea is, if you were crucified, you were going to die. That was how it's going to happen. So when we say crucified, we mean, yes, crucified with the intent that you are going to die.

Nobody gets around that. So several New Testament passages say we're identified with Christ in His death and crucifixion being one of the ways that's stated. So Romans 6, 1-10. Galatians 2.20 speaks of, I've been crucified with Christ, with the assumption that that's certainly an end in death.

And Colossians 2.20, those are some examples.

Though the Roman soldiers that drove the nails and the crowd that surrounded Christ were not aware of it, the cross where Christ was crucified was spiritually very, very crowded. Everybody looked up and said, well there's Jesus and He's on the cross and there's a thief either side of Him and that's all I see. But what nobody else saw was you and I up there too. Up there with Him. So, top of page six.

The sins of the entire world for all time, everyone on the planet from Adam to the last one born on this present earth were placed upon Christ. Part 1, every person who has believed or will believe from Acts 2 to the rapture was there with Christ. This is the identification at His crucifixion, being crucified with Him. So His death for our sins applies to every person on the planet, from Adam to the last person born on planet Earth here in the times to come. But having been identified with Him in His death is exclusive to those who were believers from Acts 2 until the rapture, the time when the Lord comes for his church. So that's universal only within the church. Acts 2 to the rapture.

The old man, all of who we were in Adam, of each of us who believed, was crucified there that day. The law was crucified there, nailed to the cross as well, along with the debt note that went with it. And, of course, then what do a lot of Christians like to do is, well, let's at least keep some of the law, right? We'll just keep ten. Or nine. Or eleven. Or something like that. No, the whole thing, okay?

Everything was nailed to the cross there that day. Yes. What does that really mean? What does that mean? Ah, think about that. What happened? Did it make the law go out of existence? It was fulfilled. Yeah. Well, if you look at it, it actually talks about the law as a debt note being nailed there on the cross. And what happens is it means here's the death of separation. We died in relationship to the law. So that's what it's pointing to. So the obligation.

Yeah, and not only did we die, therefore the law not applying to a dead person, right? Policemen don't write tickets to dead people, right? They don't throw the corpses in jail. The law does not apply to a dead person, right? And the same thing, here's the law, and not only did we die in relationship to the law, but the law died in relationship to us, is what that Colossians passage is telling us. Like a wife who loses her husband, she's free. Yeah, no more obligation to that one.

So it's a little bit like the opposite of what happened to Adam, because Adam immediately spiritually died, but physically it took a while for him to realize that he was dead. Here, spiritually, you are immediately crucified, with Christ, but you continue to live out your condition here until you physically die.

So there's a time gap between the spiritual... The spiritual event and the physical event, there's an analogy between ourselves and Adam, right? So there's spiritual consequences and the physical consequences show up later. The spiritual consequences are immediate. When Adam sinned, spiritual consequences right away. When we believe, spiritual consequences right away.

What happens is Adam spent the rest of his life catching up with the spiritual consequences from his one very bad decision. We spend the rest of our lives, once we believe, catching up to the consequences of that belief. learning about it, growing in it, walking in it. We spend the rest of our lives catching up to what God already accomplished when we first believed.

Do you believe Christ died for your sins, was buried and rose again? Yes. Okay, you're saved. Now, how many of those people know that they've been identified with Christ and His death, burial, resurrection, ascension and seeding? That they've died to the sin nature and the law and to the world? And for a while, right? So these things take a while to catch up to the fact and then for them to sink in into our thinking and into our walk and our life.

So the numbers in the middle of page 6, the believer died in relationship to the sin, which means that the believer is no longer an absolute slave to the sin. And the flesh is the expression of the sin through the earthly body. I use the term the sin, that's actually literally what the Book of Romans says from chapter 5 into chapter 8. It's definite article in sin that is expressed there.

But notice it has an inclination to think and believe. We call that a nature. So that's why we use the term the sin nature because when we read through that passage, the sin has an inclination to think and believe. And that nature then is what dictates how that gets lived out in a person's life. Let me give you a for instance.

When you look at a crocodile, you do not expect to see a crocodile jumping from branch to branch and chirping up in a tree and making a nest up there and laying eggs. You don't expect to see that behavior on the crocodile. Why? Because that's not its nature. The inclination to think and to act is a nature and so that's why we use the term beast in nature in those chapters in the middle of Romans.

The next thing is the believer died in relationship to the law of Moses and even in any principle of law. Romans 7.4 and Galatians 2.19. That means that no part of the law of Moses is applicable to the believer who is part of the body of Christ and the principle of law, let me add to that, is also not applicable. The believer died, is number three, the believer died in relationship to the world and its basic principles. The world has its pressures.

Romans 12.2, and ways and systems, and these no longer have a claim on the believer. So they died in relationship to the sin nature, the law, and any principle of law in the world. So from there we have the key items in which we share history with Christ. Then buried is the next one.

It's the assurance that death actually took place. It wasn't any swooning, it wasn't just fainting, coma. The body of Christ was wrapped, 100 pounds of wrappings and aloes and what not. The tomb was sealed with the seal of Rome, a team of Roman guards set in place to prevent the breaking of the seal. Inside the tomb, it was spiritually very, very crowded because you and I were there with him. Yes? Okay, so with that, you said that Christ died for the sins of the whole world. Yes. But the only spiritual crowdedness is with the believers? Church-age believers. Church-age believers.

In other words, Isaiah, He lived seven centuries before Christ. He was not identified with Christ in his death. Remember 1 Corinthians 10 says that the Jews were baptized into Moses. So then being buried means the assurance of death. The assurance of death. By the way, why didn't Christ just resurrect right off the cross. Why didn't He just resurrect right off the cross? Okay, it is finished, I'm done, He gave up His spirit. About five seconds later, He lifts His head up and says, okay, now I'm resurrected. Get these nails out of here.

Why didn't He just do that? He may have actually died, but no one would believe it. And so the one thing to make sure that he, in fact, did die. He had the centurion come and say, yep. He had the soldiers out there where they poked a hole in his side and blood and water came out. He was already dead, separated. He had people who saw, yep, he really did die.

And we wrapped the body. We didn't just say, hey, Jesus, get up and start walking, because he really was dead. And everybody that was there doing all the wrapping, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus and all the servants with them, And he thought he was dead. And the women who came to watch and see where he was entombed, he's dead. And he stays inside that tomb. He's most certainly dead. So he didn't just resurrect right off the cross, although he hypothetically could have done that.

Nope, we're going to have the assurance and everybody witnessing. Jews, Gentiles, Men, women, everybody witnessing, yep, he is really dead. And the symbolism of, we, since we're identifying in his burial, we are assured the death of sin. So it's like a symbolism of we're buried, which means the assurance of death.

Yes. In other words, the crucifixion is intended that you really be dead. And now, just to make quite certain, we have the assurance that these things are really dealt with. Okay? This isn't that God just kind of waves his hand and does a little tricky thing and, you know, let's call it dead. No. The real thing. Completely dealt with. Okay? You have died to the sin nature, not just kind of. You've died to the law and to the world, not just sorta. Not, we think so. Our best estimate is, no. Really dead.

And the next one, top of page 7, raised. Being raised with him means that when Christ was raised in new life, that burial cloth and that tomb experienced a mass evacuation. Even if the star Roman soldiers guarding the tomb never saw the crown. It was a mass exodus. a mass evacuation from that tomb.

Being raised with him has some momentous and critically important truths for us to live by. Being raised with him means that our new life is derived from his new life. We're not only dead in relationship to the sin, the law, and the world, but we are alive in a new kind of life to God and to righteousness. And while being made alive was a one-time occurrence, being alive is from then on until forever. There's also an important aspect of the new kind of life that we share with Christ that should not be overlooked.

We need to be spiritually calibrated for the massive and unparalleled magnitude of that resurrection life. This is not some minimal event. This is not some incidental optional event. This is a resurrection of unparalleled magnitude. This even goes beyond Lazarus, who was raised back to this life, only to die again. Christ was raised and never to die again. And since we were raised with Him, we also are never to die again.

Then ascended and seated. Acts 1 records historically that Christ ascended right from the presence of the eleven disciples And then we have it from the Ephesians passage above, also Ephesians 2, 4 through 7 and elsewhere, that Christ was seated in the heavenlies.

As with any process or sequence, it's where it ends is what counts so greatly. You see, those five ways in which we're identified with Christ, the sequence is not incidental. Would it make any sense if we were first raised with Christ, and then buried with him, and then ascended with him, and then seated with him, and then crucified? That wouldn't work, would it? So the sequence is intentional and purposeful and makes a lot of difference because it ends in those five areas of identification. It ends with us being seated with him.

That's Ephesians 2.6. Yeah, Roy? Just the thought of His resurrection and ascension and seeding, that God the Father is satisfied with Him, and since He did it with us too, He's satisfied with us because of Him. Yeah. Isn't that something? Yeah. The intimacy of a relationship as a church with God the Father is through Christ, the identity we have with Him.

You can go on and on and just thank the Lord about that. This is an amazing thing, isn't it? It's awesome to ponder. So, how does this work out here? As with any process or sequence, it's where it ends that is what counts so greatly. We end up seated with Him in the heavenlies, not just when we die or are raptured, but spiritually speaking, right now. As we've seen before in the sequence, that seat where Christ is seated right now is very, very crowded, spiritually speaking. It is there where we have all of our spiritual blessings.

It is there in the heavenlies where we have our citizenship, which is why our names are written in the Book of Life, the list of heavenly citizenships. By the way, the Book of Life was a term not just in the Bible. The Book of Life was the list of living citizens in each major city. So the Book of Life means that you have a citizenship in heaven. That's what the Book of Life means.

Yes? This is a great witnessing question. I've never thought of it before. Is your name listed? Are you one of the heavenly citizens? Yes, yeah. What does that mean? Yeah, so here is the list of heavenly citizens. And by the way, here's the list of heavenly citizens And that's the determining factor. You're a citizen of heaven or you're not.

And the only way you get there is because you believe. And God puts your name on the list. It's by God's doing that that happens. It is there where we have our fellowship with Him. We are to do the living there, seated in the heavenlies, where we are blessed completely with Him, where He does the living here, since He is not limited by spatial constraints.

I'm done here. I've been crucified with Christ. How on earth am I going to live? Oh, that's alright, because He does the living here. It's His job. And I was crucified just to make sure that that's the case. So you're done living here. You're through. You're through. It's his job to do the living here, not yours, not mine.

So that's the end of chapter 7 in Romans and the beginning of chapter 8 in Romans, right? Because conditionally, we live here, living out here. But in chapter 8, we're positionally then with Christ and living through Him, correct? We're living through ourselves. Here's what's interesting, Chaprate does a great job of talking about the Holy Spirit's work in our living things out. Romans by itself doesn't get up to the heavenly scene, so that's a later revelation. Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians are the books that really point to our heavenly position.

And then Galatians 2.20 is the one that says, okay, you were crucified, now how does the life get lived out? It is Christ who does the living. A lot of the translations kind of contract that and say, you know, just Christ lives, but no, Christ who does the living. It's His job to do the living here.

Nancy and I, from these truths, have some neat things to be able to share with people. One of the things we share is, you know, we'll sit down and say, you know that little earthly story that you gave, and this and that awful thing happened and didn't happen, and all those things? Well, guess what?

You've got a new spiritual history. And the answer to all those problems that you've got is growing into your new history, not fiddling around with the old history. Because that's all the earthly psychology can deal with, is go back to your old history and try to reanalyze it and reshuffle it. The reality is, the answer is not in fiddling around and shuffling around with your old history. The reality is, it's growing into your new history that's going to make the difference. Now that's part one. The other thing is that, you know, life isn't about me. If I'm in Christ and Christ is in me, life isn't about me.

Nancy and I will do marriage counseling and we'll ask the people, we'll say, okay, Christ lives in you, right? And Christ lives in your mate, right? Now tell me, is Jesus Christ in her having a problem with Jesus Christ in him? No. That's not where the spiritual problem lies. Therefore, what has to be learned here is living Christ's life out in each person. There's no problem between Jesus living in her and Jesus living in him. There isn't any. None.

Therefore, this issue here has to do with our spiritual walk with Christ living his life out. being the ultimate answer. So we're growing into our new history and the issues that we have that we go and get counseling about and what not, ultimately are resolved not by reshuffling and re-examining all the old history here on this planet, but examining and re-examining and growing into our new history in Christ. So this is why Peter could end up his second letter But you must grow imperative in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's growing in Him that's the answer.

If you look at the old Roman world, there was no child protective services. As a matter of fact, it was completely legal, with two exceptions, for a father to kill any of his children at any age. Completely legal. No recourse. We even have a record of a father just killing his adult son right in front of a bunch of other people and nobody flinched. It's the law. You could go out and buy a child and do all sorts of awful things to a child if that child was a slave and there was no recourse.

So how do you deal with such awful things? How do you deal with that? The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus, which certainly had those problems big time. All sorts of horrible moral issues. Terrible things. What was the answer? You've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. You've been identified with Christ. All the way up to being seated with Him. That was the answer. That was what they needed to hear. And it was such refreshing news. Such marvelous news. People were just astounded at God's grace. It was the healing that they needed from the awful things that they'd been through. And the things that did happen, the things that didn't happen. And guess what? Some of the guys who did awful things, and gals who did awful things, turned around and realized, you know what? I now have a new history too.

My grandmother was a missionary to the cannibals in Fiji. And the cannibals, once they became believers, I mean, they would sometimes admit that, yeah, I've eaten people. My grandmother said they used to go to the market there in Suva, the capital city, and there would be pig meat and chicken meat and cow meat and people meat. But once the people got saved, They'd like to wear white, because it pictured the whiteness of their heart, that they had become a believer in Christ.

And I think as we look at these things, these aren't just churchy things, these aren't just religious things, these aren't just nice little sentimental hypothetical truths, but for people with some really intense, severe issues, it's just the right answer. It's exactly the right answer. Yeah.

I think so often of the verse that says that we're dead unto sin and alive unto God. And being dead unto sin has no power over me anymore and I don't have to do what I may feel inclined to or to think that way or whatever. That's a wonderful thing, but going on from there, and shifting my focus at any given time to the fact that I am actually alive and to God. I have a relationship that I did not have before. And it's all because of what he has done. And that kind of inspires, I don't know if that's the right word, but it gives me joy right then at that moment to ship my books there instead of leaving it on the fact that I'm dead on Tuesday.

Getting back, this is verses 8 and 9, getting back the Apostle John, aside from that brief quote in chapter 8, you're dead unless you believe, you will die in your sins. John 15, 1-11 is one of those cases where the identification truths are not explained necessarily, but we can see them in there. I'm the true vine, my father is the vine dresser, every branch in me, in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away.

And of course we went through this, I think there's some other better ways of carrying across the Greek. In every branch that bears fruit, he prunes so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me. And we see repeatedly in that, abide in me, and abides in me, and I in him. Abide in me, abide in me, my words abide in you. Abide in my love. Why the exhortation to abide in me? Why the exhortation to abide in Me? I don't know if this is right or not, but to me that means positionally we're saved, conditionally we're living here. So it's a matter of changing our condition daily so that we can, as you say, catch up to our position.

Yeah, in other words, what does the Bible do? The Bible tells us our position. who we are in Christ and who Christ is in us. The Bible tells us that. So then what is happening every day, I'm not trying my best to live out the Christian life and to live out Christian ethics and that sort of thing. It's not my job to live my best. When we see an exhortation or a command in scripture, what is it?

It is a statement to have your condition match your position. Your condition matches your position. Yeah, Gene? It tells me it's the only way. Okay, yeah. This is the only way because your position is only one way. Right? Yeah. Yeah, Roy? In order to lie, doesn't that mean to be in the form?

Yes, to abide means to dwell at home. Your position is your home state, so to speak. Your home standing. So it isn't work, but it's rest. It's staying where you're positioned. Isn't that what it is? You ever see a vine with the branches jumping on and off? Not so much, right? The minds aren't just doing this little back and forth thing.

So why the exhortation? It's because we as human beings have a question from one moment to the next, do we stand in the position that we have? That's why you could even make this analogy. that we already have the position, that's not an issue. He's saying you need to stand in the position that you already have. Stay there. Stay there. Yes.

I'm thinking of the time when Jesus approached the fig tree and the disciples there and said, he cursed it because there was nothing on it. And I never could understand it. I think what he was saying was, you've got to bear fruit. And if you don't, you're cursed. Interesting, under the law you could not cut down a bearing fruit tree. But you could cut it down once it quit bearing. The next passage is John 17, and we won't have time to go into that, but I bolded some of the things that are relevant in what's oftentimes called Jesus' High Priestly Prayer, or we could call it the Lord's Prayer.

Keep them in your name. I was keeping them in your name, that they may be one even as we are. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. So some of these things that Jesus prayed shortly before he was arrested and taken away are things that speak of identification. On the next page, in verse 21, it says, You, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us, that they may be one just as we are. I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity. So identification comes out even in Jesus' high priestly prayer for these disciples. He ends it there in verse 26, so that the love which you love me may be in them and I in them.

So, and these are by the way not all of the identification truths in scripture, but we're zooming in on those particularly in this section that apply to the believer. John wrote this way after Matthew Martin Luther. There are some who have other opinions but that's one of the opinions. So you know this was a learning curve for him too. Yeah, well and I think too a part of what you see is Paul is the one who was given to explain identification. But Peter and John and others were free to express it, but not necessarily to explain it.

Alright, we've got people starting to come up to the back door here, so let's pray. Lord, thank you that you've revealed these things because you love us and care for us. We thank you for these truths, not just to be stuck in our heads, not just dry doctrine, but truths to be lived out, truths to love by. And we thank you for that. We thank you for what you've given us here because you in fact do desire that we have fellowship with you and fellowship with one another. We thank you for that in Jesus' name. Amen.