Gods Purpose in the Cross - Genesis 1:26

So today I want to talk about Calvary and maybe organize it a little bit or maybe look at it this way. God uses the cross, how God used the cross to accomplish his purposes. So have you ever entertained this thought, think about this for a minute, how great and encouraging is it to know that our Heavenly Father has made it crystal clear in His Word exactly what His purpose is for each one of us. So in these next couple of minutes, on the authority of His eternal Word, let's make sure as to His purpose for our personal lives.

And so, the first verse I had Randy read was Genesis 1.26, and God said, let us make man in our own image. The first Adam, the head of the human race, was made in God's image in the realm of personality, intellect, emotions, will, and so on. And he did it so that he could have communion with us as men, fellowship and cooperation between God and us, with God being sovereign. Am I too loud now? You can hear my breathing, right? How's that? That's better.

With God being sovereign and man subject to God's will, which is really perfect freedom. So that was God's original purpose. But we know that Adam chose his own way in preference to God's way, relying on himself only and loving only himself. The result was immediate. He became self-centered instead of God-centered. He became dead to God, and who is the source of life. And he was dead in his trespasses and his sins.

Genesis 5.3 tells us in this condition now, Adam begets a son in Adam's own likeness, after his own fallen image. He became the father of a son in his own likeness according to his own image. So that's now what's being produced, which is now what God's original purpose was. He brought forth, according to Ephesians 2, a sinful, ungodly, self-centered race born in trespasses and dead in sin.

That's what he did. That's what Adam did. So the word is very careful when it describes all of Adam's offsprings, which every one of us were at one point. First Corinthians says that the natural man or the Adamic man cannot receive or accept the things of God or the Spirit of God for their foolishness unto him, neither can he know them or understand them.

Ephesians 4.18 tells us, having our understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, That's who we are from Adam. And we all came from him, the first Adam. We inherited his attributes as stated in those two verses. We not only grew up not wanting to turn to God, but we couldn't. We were unable to. So God's original purpose had been totally spoiled by the actions of Adam influenced by Satan.

Is there a man now that's made in God's image and after his own likeness, after the image of personality, intellect, emotions, will, and so on, so that there could be communion and fellowship and cooperation between them, with God being sovereign, man subject, subject to God's will, which is perfect freedom?

Is there? The next verse that Randy read was Hebrews 1, which said, God has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, who, being the brightness of God's glory and the express image of his person, here is a man in the image of God back on the earth, this time in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is God's last Adam. First Corinthians 15 says, the first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. So now there's a man back on the earth that is actually pleasing to God and just what God's intent was.

And despite the ravages of sin, God's eternal love and purpose for us have never altered. And why? Because God is a changeless one. He never changes. He doesn't change because of circumstances. In Ecclesiastes 3.14, I know that everything God does will remain forever. There is nothing to add to it and there's nothing to take from it. James understood this. He said every good thing given and every perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. I think one of the principles we need to learn as we grow spiritually is that God doesn't vary and He doesn't shift. He's the same. So God, how is God going to recover us in love and righteousness?

We who are those unique persons that in Romans 8, 28 and 29 said that he did predestinate, that to be conformed to the image of his Son. And whom he did predestinate, he also called. And whom he called, he also justified. And those he justified, them he glorified.

How's God going to do that? How's he going to get us back to what is original purpose. Well there's a principle involved here and I think the principle has to do with God is changeless. He's applied the principle of exchange to his purpose. In Romans 5.6 it says that while we were yet sinners and helpless at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 5.8 says that God demonstrated his love towards us that while we were yet sinners he died for us. That's the beginning. He's not changing anything. There's no change here in us. There's no deviation. We come just as we are, as sinners.

God's principle of exchange is infinitely superior to any attempt at changing the unchangeable. We kind of talked about that in Sunday school. Notice we said above in Ephesians 2, we were by nature. children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in transgressions, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace we have been saved. Yes, our Father's exchange principle is found upon the death of the old and life in the new.

First Corinthians 15.22 says, for in Adam all die. Everybody in Adam dies, separated from God. Even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Hebrews 2.11, for both he that sanctifies or sets apart and those who are sanctified are all of one. God did everything.

So while we were dead in our sins, and rebellion, the Holy Spirit set us apart. According as eternal purpose, the He God proposed in Christ Jesus the Lord. There came a time which the Bible calls the fullness of time. The faithful spirit convicted each one of us of our sinful and lost condition, thereby enabling us to believe the truth and receive the Lord Jesus as our personal Savior. We did it, but God caused it. John 16 says the Lord Jesus told his disciples, you have not chosen me, I've chosen you.

So at this point with salvation and God's eternal purpose has begun, this is just step one. to save us, to recreate us in Christ Jesus. The purpose of saving us has been accomplished. Those who believe in the gospel have been justified before a holy God. But is there more than that? Is there a lot more than that? The answer is yes, there is.

Now that we're saved, we enter into an environment of spiritual growth. And God's principles apply exactly the same way in spiritual growth as it does in salvation. Again, He doesn't change. Philippians 2 says, For it is God who works in you both to will and to do with His good pleasure. So now we're on the trail. We're on the spiritual growth path.

2 Corinthians 2.14 says, But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifest through us the sweet aroma of knowledge of Him in every place. So, question. How does God accomplish this growth in us? How is He going to do it? In answering that question, let me ask you another question. How many died at Calvary? How many died there? Well, the Lord Jesus died. I died and all of you died. We all died there. There was the great multitude consisting of every believer of the body of Christ. All of us were judicially identified with him on the cross in his death unto sin. I want to make a distinction here because as we go forward. Christ alone died to pay the penalty for my sins, S-I-N-S. All of the acts that you and I committed because we were not like Him. The things that we did that fell short of His glory.

Then there's a discussion in the Word of God of the issue of sin, S-I-N. Now we're going to talk about the source of those sins. The source of those sins is what the Word of God talks about as your sin nature and my sin nature. And spiritual growth has to do with what did God do about that source of my sins. It's one thing to have my sins paid for.

It's another thing to try to understand that God didn't stop there. He kept going. So in Galatians 2.20 We say, I have been crucified with Christ. But nevertheless, I still am living in this body. But Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by how? By the faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

I think it's important for us to be able to organize what happened at Calvary. to walk it down, so to speak. The question is, how many different types of death occurred at the cross of Calvary? Probably a question maybe you've never entertained. I think there are three with the addition of one under the second one.

The first one is the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ where he died for our sins to pay the penalty. He did that all by himself because he was the only one worthy to do that. God told Adam, the soul that sins it will surely die, so someone who was worthy to satisfy God about the sins of the world, there's only one, it was Christ, died to pay that penalty for every and all sin. He was the perfect sacrifice whereby he paid the penalty in full.

First Corinthians 15.3 said Christ died for our sins according to the scripture.

Galatians 1.4 who gave himself for our sins that we might be delivered, he might deliver us from this present evil age according to the will of God our Father. So there's the substitutionary death of Christ. He took our place. Then there is the condemnatory death. And this is as we move along the line of spiritual growth and understanding, which the Lord Jesus was made to be sin itself, S-I-N.

Your sin nature and my sin nature was identified with him. And he bore it unto death. God did not forgive sin as a principle. He forgave you your sins, but sin as a principle was not forgiven. It was condemned. It's judicially consigned to death. Second Corinthians 521. He has made him who knew no singular sin to be sin for us or on our behalf. God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, and here's the part, he condemned sin in the flesh. So, understand that the sin nature was not forgiven. Sin as a principle was not forgiven. It was condemned. Now, under condemnation, I've got what I call 2A. There's another important aspect of this condemnatory death.

God neither forgives sin Nor does he reconcile enmity. Absolute enemies will not be reconciled because they can't be. So he knows that from the beginning. Romans 8, 7 says, Because the mind set on the flesh, the fleshly mind is hostile to God. For it does not subject itself to the law of God, and neither is it able to do so. So what is God going to do about that?

The old Adamic man, ever at enmity against God, ever at enmity against God, was taken into death at the cross for condemnation and positional destruction. If you want to know more about position, go to Courtney's class. Romans 6, he says, knowing this, that my old man was crucified with him, that this body of sin might be put out of business, that we should henceforth not serve sin anymore.

Although our Adamic life and nature, the sin source, the body of sin continues to indwell us, we learn from the Word that it was condemned to destruction. And the Holy Spirit applies that positional destruction to the old man as we count upon the finished work of Christ, as we believe him. He progressively releases us from the power and the harassing influence of the sin nature. But it's our faith that appropriates it, makes it experiential and conditional. from the position through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He applies it and he does the work, but we have to believe it.

Philippians 3.10 says that I may know him in the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death. That's 2A. The third death that happened on the cross is identification. on the cross identified, God identified you and me positionally with the Lord Jesus and we thereby shared his death unto, but not for, sin. Unto sin.

So he tells us in Romans 6.11 that we should reckon ourselves indeed dead unto sin and alive unto God. So at creation God identified us with the first Adam. We're locked in identity with him, whereby we subsequently were joined to his dead to God life and nature, as we talked about, and thereby his sin and his death. At Calvary, God identified us with the last Adam, with Christ. where we participated in Christ's death unto sin and then his ascension life and human divine nature.

Death is the great separator. Our identification with the Lord Jesus in his death separates us, the unique ones, in God's planning from the fleshly atom. We as believers are no longer identified with the first Adam. The death of the cross forever stands between you and me and the old man. We are eternally in Christ. Romans 8, 9 says you are not in the flesh.

So during the course of our Christian life as the Holy Spirit patiently, carefully, convicts us of sin fostered by the indwelling old man, we learn to do what? We learn to reckon. We count upon the finished work of the cross that positionally we shared some 2,000 years ago. In response to our faith, the Holy Spirit administers that death to the old man within, thereby giving us increased freedom to walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. This daily experiential process of the Spirit's application of the cross in our old life is depicted in two really interesting verses.

Galatians 5.17 says that the flesh, that whole life, sets its desire, has really strong desires, and the Spirit has really strong desires. So the verse goes like this. The flesh sets its desire against the Spirit. and the spirit against the flesh.

And these are in opposition to one another so that we may not do the things that we please. Now notice something about this. It's the Holy Spirit in you at war with the flesh that's in you that you have been positionally separated from. So who's doing the fighting? It's the Holy Spirit and the flesh. They're in the battle. You're not in there. You're not doing the fighting.

Second Corinthians 4.10 says, always a bearing about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus, the separating principle of the Lord Jesus, so that the life of Jesus might be manifest in our own body.

At this point it might be important for us to understand or to maybe tabulate all that died when we were crucified with Christ. What did we die to? Well, we've said we've died to sin. The first and foremost issue is that we died to the whole principle of sin that brought us to death in Adam.

And Romans 6.11 says, Reckon yourself indeed dead unto sin. Count it as to be so. We were separated from Adam, includes in our death unto sin, our positional separation from Adam's sinful life and nature, completely separated from him, knowing this that our old man was crucified. We were also separated from law. Law, from a positional standpoint, our Christian life does not consist primarily of doing, which is law, but of being, which is grace. We're free.

One of my favorite verses when law became an issue was Galatians 2.19. It says, I threw the law am dead to the law, for what purpose? So that I might live under God. I can't live under God under a lost system, and in a minute I'll explain why. We're also separated from the world. A positional separation from the world system.

Galatians 6.14 says, God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. by whom the world is crucified to me and I unto the world. And the last thing I was separated from was Satan. Let me explain about Satan. Our death unto sin in Christ released us from Satan's authority.

He has authority over everyone who's not in Christ and his power. In the first Adam we were his, we belong to him. In the last Adam we are Christ. Colossians 2 says, having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them.

So we are to resist the devil and he'll flee from us. How do we resist him? By faith, by resting in the facts of what God has already done. There's only one way to effectively resist him, and that's by faith. He's got to back off when confronted with the finished work of the cross.

It is there that he was judicially defeated. So we're to reckon upon our death separation there, and Satan will separate us from us quickly. Now, the last part here is let's discuss the most problematic issue of our Christian life and spiritual life and growth. And I think Paul explains it really interesting when he describes who he was before he became a Christian.

He relied on his pride and his reliance on his fleshly circumcision and his self-righteous law-keeping. Here's what he said. Although I myself have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more." Circumcised on the eighth day of the nation of Israel. The tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee. as to zeal a persecutor of the church as to righteousness which is in the law found blameless." Now, I have met believers that wish they could say that about themselves.

But early in his Christian life, the Holy Spirit began to show Paul some things about his fleshly externals. to the heart and the spiritual reality of what real circumcision is, what real identification with Christ is. And what did he find? He found nothing but death in all of those things. And if you study Romans 7, 7, 8, and 9, you'll see.

To capsulize it, he said, the law said to me, you, Paul, shall not have strong desires. And because Paul is controlled by the sin nature, as soon as the law said that, what happened to him? He says that the law had said, thou shall not have strong desires, but sin taking the opportunity through the commandment produced in me the desire of every kind. Apart from the law, sin is dormant.

The best example of that If you have anybody in your life who's two years old, next time you're around them, put something on the table in front of them and tell them not to touch it. See what happens. They would have not even noticed it if you hadn't said don't touch it. When the law comes to the old man and says don't do this, here comes every desire possible to do exactly what the law said don't do.

It's interesting with us as believers, like Paul, when we begin to find out that everything in the old, everything that we've cherished, is nothing but death. We come down to the point after, if you read Romans 7, to the 24th verse, it says, a wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this death? Everything I'm doing is dead. death.

And then he could say, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. How come he can say that right after that previous verse? Because he understood that he'd already been separated from everything he was hassling about. Everything that bothered him, he'd been positionally separated from.

The external law had to do strictly with the flesh, the fleshly Israel. All was a shadow of the coming of the Lord Jesus. In Colossians 2 it says, blotting out of the handwriting of ordinances that were against us. Christ took them out of the way by nailing them to the cross. Another way to say that is he canceled the certificate of death, of debt, consisting of decrees, laws, against us, which were hostile to us. The law is not our friend. So now Paul writes to all who are new creations in the Lord Jesus Christ that in him you and I have been made complete. Wow, that's pretty cool. And he is the head of all rule and authority.

And in him you were also circumcised, you could say crucified, with a crucifixion or a circumcision made without hands in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. The believer's circumcision was not a fleshly ritual, but rather a spiritual reality. You did die. Not a part of the flesh was cut away, but the whole thing. And it wasn't done with hands, but by the Spirit through the cross.

Our crucifixion with the Lord Jesus Christ was our circumcision from fleshly Adam. So now we can adhere to the exhortation that we can put off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. How can we do that? Because we know positionally it's already been done.

The Lord Jesus' death unto sin cut the Lord Jesus free from both the penalty and the power of sin. In that He died, which He did, He died unto sin one time, once. But in that He lives, He lives unto God. So, likewise, you reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God.

So on the basis of his Calvary circumcision, the believer is to exercise his faith in the facts. And when he does, he puts off concerning the former manner of life of the old man, puts him off, which is corrupt according to the deceitful desires positionally cut off from the old man, we no longer, and you no longer, are dependent upon or walk in the flesh. We're free to abide above in the Lord Jesus Christ, to walk in dependence on Him in the Spirit. So that abiding above consists of putting on the new man. Now this new man is described as which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. That's who we are. Putting off, turning from the fleshly first Adam and putting on, turning to the spiritual last Adam.

We as believers learn to abide in and fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ for both growth and service. So Peter says, grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You're already in the grace. You're already in Christ. So grow in that environment.

So we can say in our hearts, we are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. We can say that. We can also say, for we are the true circumcision, another translation, we are the true circumcision who worship in the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus. Now, it's a very difficult thing right here for us as believers to understand. I'm going to close with two quotes from people I admire. The first one is Dr. Chaffer.

He says this, any aspect of life or conduct which is undertaken in dependence on the energy and ability of the flesh is, to that extent, purely legal in character. Whether it be the whole revealed will of God, the actual written commandments contained in the law, even the exhortations of grace, or any activity whatsoever in which the believer may engage, dependence on the arm of the flesh The old man is consistent with pure law. Dependence on the power of God is necessary under pure grace. Since there is no provision for the flesh in the plan of God, for life under grace, the law is done away." So not to worry about... I love to use the term, the tyranny of the oughts. I ought to be doing this, and I ought not to be doing that. I don't have to think about that anymore.

And then when it comes to the implementation of this, a man named Norman Dowdy, this is a great quote, quote, if I'm to be like him, which I am, then God in his grace must do it. And the sooner I come to recognize it, the sooner I will be delivered from another form of bondage.

Throw down every endeavor and say, I cannot do it. The more I try, the farther I get from His likeness. What shall I do? Ah, the Spirit says, you cannot do it. Just withdraw. Come out from it. You have been in the arena. You have been endeavoring. You are a failure. Come out. Sit down.

And as you sit there, behold Him. Just look at Him. Don't try to be like Him. Just look at Him. Just be occupied with Him. Forget about trying to be like Him. Instead of letting that fill your mind and heart, let Him fill it. Just behold Him, looking upon Him through the Word. Come to the Word for one purpose, and that is to meet the Lord Jesus. Not to get your mind crammed full of things, about the sacred word, but come to it to meet the Lord. Make it to be a medium, not of biblical scholarship, but a fellowship with the Lord Jesus. Behold the Lamb.

Let's pray. Father, how we thank you for your grace. How we thank you that you really have done everything. There isn't anything left for us to do but to believe you and to trust you and to rest in every provision that you've supplied us in and through the work of your son on the cross. And we thank you. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.