Principles of Position Lesson 12

Okay, we're talking about positional truth. from the standpoint of identification truths. We started out by talking about exactly what is positional truth and then we talked about how do you determine or what is your essential identity? What did we decide your essential identity was? When did you get an identity? Boy, we really were effective last week, weren't we? From God's perspective, it began in eternity. Yeah, that's right.

He created you in His mind as a person. back in eternity. And you are a person that he knows and has already determined about you. And he identifies you with, you start with God, he identifies you with Adam, brings you forth on the planet, but you're identified with Adam, which means you're a God-hater. It's the best way to describe who Adam is. He's a God-hater. And then at some point, He sends Christ at the right time, who dies for the sins of the world to satisfy God about sin, and he identifies those that he knew back here with Christ. And so now you become an eternal being, we do, and it all ends up back at God, where it should be.

So, essential identity never changes no matter what you're identified with, your essential identity is still the same. You alright with that? The fact that you were identified with Adam didn't unmake you as the person that God created you to be in his mind. And being born again into Christ does not change who your essential identity is.

But your essential identity better be aligned with either this man or this man. That's the only two choices you have, right? There are only two men that matter in all of history, Adam or Christ. They're the only ones that matter. And it matters to us who we're identified with. Well, you don't have a choice about Adam. I mean, you're born in Adam. That's too bad, isn't it?

You did have a choice, though, according to Romans 5.12.

Romans 5.12 says that by one man sin entered the world. And when sin entered, so did death. Separation came along with it. And death passed upon all men. How come? For all sinned in Adam. That's a very interesting and difficult concept to understand. If God created you back here, But he says, when Adam sinned, so did you. Why would he say that? How could that possibly be true?

I don't remember you being in the garden. I missed you too. Yeah, I know. They didn't have any golf courses there. Well, he wants us to make a choice. Adam makes a choice. No, like in the beginning God created us before. In his mind. In his mind. Right. Okay. And then we're born into Adam because he wants us to make the choice to live in Christ. Well, I think it's even more basic than that. Adam was the first man. Right. And there's another principle in Genesis that like begets like.

So if you're going to be a human being, you're going to be just like the number one human being because you all came from him. So whatever his characteristics are, that's what mine are going to be because I'm identified with him. Now if Adam hadn't of sinned, And here I came along, I'd be a person who hadn't sinned too. But I'm talking about what really happened. Adam sinned. Adam sinned.

And the Bible says in Romans 5.12 that I was there and I sinned in Adam. When he sinned, so did I. Well, I'm not...

Isn't that interesting? Now how do you know that's a true principle, a physical principle? Because you said one time, because of the scriptures, right? But you said one time that Adam, like Christ, is a federal head. He's a federal head of a race, that's right. Like the president, whatever he says, whether we like it or not, he represents us. That's right. And we're seen that way in the world. That's right. And we're seen by God that way. Now, here's how you know it's... God as being an atom? God isn't an atom, in the sense that you're talking about. He sees all human beings born on the planet as being identified as an atom. I don't know of any of them. Right.

It's a very tough concept, but let me give you the biblical example. In Hebrews, it talks about the Lord Jesus Christ being a priest, a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, right? But up until that time, the priesthood was Levitical. Levites were the priests. But now he's saying, wait a minute, the Lord Jesus is not from the tribe of Levi, he's from the tribe of Judah. But he's a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, which is higher than the Levitical priesthood.

How do you know that? Because Hebrews refers back to when Abraham was coming back from conquering the nations and he meets this guy named Melchizedek. And he pays tithes to Melchizedek. He recognizes that Melchizedek is a greater man than he is. So he pays tithes to him. It says that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek in the loins of Abraham. So when Abraham did it, so did Levi, even though Levi hadn't been born yet.

The same principle is that when Adam sinned, so did I. I sinned in Adam. So identification is a really important concept, biblical principle, because it doesn't matter so much what you do, it matters where you came from. Every human being is tied to Adam. Every human being. And Adam is a condemned man. Okay, but I mean, what I was saying is right. I mean, I agree with everything you say, but I am glad that God gave us a choice. He gave Adam the choice. Well, think about this. He gave Adam the choice and he gave us the choice in Adam. What choice did we make in Adam? Same choice. That's right. Yeah. And he gave us a second chance.

I don't know, I'm not sure if this is useful, but the thought of us not being federally in Adam, so can I go to the next question of mine? What would it be like for us all to be created in innocence and have to choose in the same way that Adam chose? That's not what the Bible says. But thinking about, so the Bible would tell us that we would all make that same choice.

So, you at some point ate from that same tree. And you suffered the same thing Adam did. You're not federally in him. So now, how do you reverse that? What is God's solution? Does he have to individual, like, to imagine salvation without federal Headship is to imagine us all working for perfection after having sinned. Now we individually must save ourselves. We're sinners by position. We're sinners by practice. We do the sins. And there's a third one, I can't remember it right now. But yeah, what if that was what the deal was? And here's what's interesting about that. Let's say that that's as far as God went. And in order for me to get my sins paid for, God sends his son. Why Christ? Why not Abraham? Why not recreate Adam, let him die? Why not? Why did it have to be Christ? He's the only one that was worthy to die to satisfy the insult of sin against the Holy God.

You and I can't die for our sins. We're not worthy. We just aren't. We're not on the same level of existence as God is. I've used the example, if you come over to my house and my dog bites you in the leg, are you going to seek satisfaction from the dog or me? Me. Because we're on the same level of creation. The dog isn't.

So when I sin on this level against a holy God, for God to be satisfied, God has to pay the penalty Himself. The Lord Jesus becomes a man, and He dies. So how is that going to accrue to me? If God doesn't bring Christ, I can do all the dancing I want, and all the willing I want, and it doesn't solve a thing. Because the road hasn't been paved for me for forgiveness. It's not there. See?

And so in the Old Testament, God gave forgiveness or covered the Jew's sins based on what he knew was going to happen in the future. It's like he was working on a spiritual credit card. He knew the payment was going to come later. And oh, by the way, every man and woman from Adam to the time of Christ entered into that covering how? By faith. They did it. the blood to do what? Their faith in the fact that God said that I'll cover your sins over. The blood was a picture of Christ coming and shedding his perfect blood. Now let me answer JD's question. Let's say there's no such thing as a federal head. But Christ is here and if I believe in his person and work, my sins are forgiven. Here's the problem I've got.

What happened to Adam when he sinned? God said the soul that sins it will surely die. And so he gets this nice little package called a sin nature. So what did God do with the sin nature? Did he forgive it? He didn't, did he? What did he do? He condemned it.

So here's the problem I got. I show up on the planet and I've sinned, now I've got to sin nature, because that's the consequence of sinning. I can be forgiven, but I've still got this nature. And if I leave the planet with this nature, I'm going to go where this nature is going to go, which is, according to Romans 8.3, is condemnation.

So there has to be, in order for us to be free, there has to be this principle of identity with federal heads. Because I've got to totally leave this guy and be recreated in this man. And this man doesn't have a sin nature. And whatever is true of this man is also true of me. Even though I hump around on the earth operating out of him an awful lot. My identity is now this man. He's already done the condemnation thing. He's already done the pay for the sin thing. He's been resurrected and glorified, and that's who I'm identified with. So now I can say, gee, whatever is true of him is now true of me.

And that's why positional truth is so critical to us, because we have a tendency to look at this guy and try to fix him. or try to somehow get disassociated with Him, or to modify Him, to be pleasing to God. My position in Christ makes me absolutely and totally pleasing to God. Period. End of discussion. I am because of Him.

So that's why identification is so critical for us to understand it, because everything that we are and have, and our total relationship with God is based on Him. All of it. See, that's why it's so important. And that's why I think the idea of federal headship is so critical to us. What does that mean? A federal head?

Okay. How many races of men are there on the earth? How many races? Two. There's Adam and Christ. And so every human being A guy sent me a thing last week that said, it was really cool, he said the whole article had to do with what it meant to be in Christ. And he said that you only got two choices. You're either in Christ or you're in Adam. That's it. You can be Irish or Polish or whatever, but that's all Adam.

In Christ all that goes away. There's a verse here in 1 Corinthians, it says, Just as the body is one in many members and all the members of one body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body. Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, all were made to drink of one spirit. That verse sort of says what we've been talking about, doesn't it? That's our identity now by the work of the Holy Spirit. Right. The word baptized means identity. Right. Needs to be placed into and never be taken out of. Yeah. No matter what the status the world looks at us with. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. I have a question. What does it mean that our sin nature is condemned? Does that just mean that God declares it bad? Or is it punished? I mean, it's still active and alive. Yeah, it is. What does that mean? Well, on the cross, God condemned the sin nature.

Now, has He carried it out, the condemnation? It would be like, what's the guy's name in Boston? Saranival, or that guy that blew up the people at the Boston Marathon? He has been tried. convicted and condemned to death. But he's still walking around. But he's not going to escape. He's going to die. So your sin nature and my sin nature is still walking around, but it's condemned.

And so when you and I check out of here, the one thing that's really important to us is that we don't want to be connected to that guy, that sin nature, because of the condemnation of it. Where does it go when you die? I have no idea. I think it goes to Arvada. It stays here, like your body does. Well, the important thing is it's separated from us. Yeah, see, that's the thing. We're separated from it.

And is it active? It's like Watchman Nee said, it's like the deposed captain on a ship that's tied to the mast. He's still barking orders, but he isn't a captain anymore. But all the shipmates are so used to hearing his orders that they listen to him.

The next follow-up question is, why did God do it that way? Why didn't he just put this in nature so we could all walk around holy? I think he gets more glory this way than he would have any other way. Because if you think about it, When you and I walk by faith, even though we have this sin nature active within us, it demonstrates the power of God to cause us to walk in the light in spite of all of the obstacles, which is kind of neat, I think. I'm thinking how easy it is for us to identify in our minds with Christ, and we like that. but to identify in our minds with Adam after we're saved.

But that isn't fair, as if the other were fair. Yeah, sure. Well, it isn't fair until you find out that you were in the garden sinning right when he did, and that if you've committed one sin in your life, what do you deserve? I mean, seriously, what do you deserve? One sin. And oh, by the way, that sin that Adam committed in the garden, that was really a horrible one, right? I like you.

But he didn't murder 50 people in a bar one night. He didn't do that, you know. He took one bite out of one piece of fruit and the entire creation fell. But didn't he murder 50 people? Didn't he do every sin? Every sin. He did. It sure is. And every sin deserves condemnation, and the person who committed it deserves eternal damnation.

And think of this, Christ bore. I was about to go on a rabbit trail, but I decided I wasn't. I think the importance, and this goes back to several other topics that we've covered under here, is acceptance and all that. It's the knowledge that Christ sees that are God sees us in Christ now.

Only. Only. All that other stuff has been dealt with. So even though we stumble and we fall and we sin and we do all this stuff, He still only sees us in Christ. Yeah. That's right. We get bogged down by the burden of walking around with two natures. Right. Where God sees us only in Christ. We can suffer consequences from sins and other stuff, but God only sees us in Christ. And so what does he say to us? Get on board by reckoning yourself dead to sin and alive unto me.

That's what he says. Get on board. Don't focus on the dead, focus on the alive. That's right. And it's interesting, the greatest power that sin nature has is that exact power. It creates an environment within you to focus on it. but you're free to walk, to walk away. And that's where you get the, yeah, but you don't understand what I'm going through. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. It's Adam. I know what it is.

Your circumstances may be different, but the principle is still the same. So, positional truth is really, really critical to us as believers to grow, because we need to find out who we are. We need to find out what we have and we need to find out where we are so that we have an object for our faith to rest in. You see that?

It's dead unto sin and alive unto God. I like the alive part. I forgot how far we got in the questions. I know we're at three. What does the term identified mean when it applies to the believer in the work of Christ on the cross? It means a couple of things. One, it means that When this man was crucified, so was I. Why is crucifixion an important concept for us to understand? It removes everything between us and God. That's right.

It removes everything between me, the person, and any connection I have with Adam from God's perspective. It totally wipes it out. So I am no longer in Adam and I have no association with him. I have a unique identity in Christ. I have been totally separated from Adam. And when I look in the mirror in the morning and I read the newspaper and I walk around in this world, everything that I experience would go against that, would be counter to that. You look in the mirror and you think, who's looking back at me? I don't see Christ. I see good old Adam. But I'm free.

And it's interesting. God has called us to live by what he tells us is true. In spite of our experience and in spite of how we feel about it. If he says it, it's good enough. I remember when I first saw these at Drew's, I said, I don't remember being at Calvary. But the Word of God said I was. I guess I was. Mike, I'm your analogy looking in the mirror.

This goes right against your second. It does. It does. Absolutely. You're looking at the mirror. Who are you looking at? Yeah. Yeah, you are where you should be looking in the mirror. And that's all right. You know, we look at how we stumble, how we fail, how we do it, how wrong focus. It's not the guy in the mirror. Yeah. Wrong focus. Yeah.

So when you're reading Romans chapter 6, the first 10 verses are all positional. Everything he says there is a position. Not until you get to 11 is there a condition involved, which is reckoning. Are you alright with that? Okay, the first 10 verses of Romans 6. Positional.

And after he gives you this glorious rundown, then he asks you to do something. What does he ask you to do in 11? Believe it. Reckon it so. But God is really cool with what he does. He always gives you the facts first. before he asks you to do anything about him. Have you found that to be true? He never says to you, oh, you know, just take me faith on faith and then I'll show you. No, he shows you first and then he asks you to believe. Okay? So, question four.

According to the author, what must be firmly established in us before we are prepared to move forward in spiritual growth? According to the author, it was the positional truth of Christ dying for our sins and rising again for our justification, Romans 4.21. The author makes a very important issue about this. He says that when we are firmly established in the positional truth of Christ dying for our sins and rising again for our justification, if you're solid on that, then we're prepared to see our position and enter into the benefits of having died and risen with him.

One of the really interesting things about contemporary Christianity is most Christians aren't settled down on salvation yet. They are not. And it's because they're not taught the gospel. They're not taught the facts, they're taught to feel. We were sitting with some people on Friday night with this young girl and she said, well I'm expecting some sort of big time experience. And it's almost like she was saying, unless I get the experience, I'm not going for it. And I think that's the way the contemporary Christianity is presented. And that's Pentecostalism for growth. Yeah, that's right. Pentecostalism for salvation. And it's like the watered down gospel and the legal gospel.

Not only do you have to believe, but you have to do something else. You have to come forward. You have to make Jesus the Lord of your life. Or you have to separately repent. Stuff like that. You don't start on the grace basis. You don't start on the basis of God has done everything to forgive you your sins. And you have to be established in that before identification starts to make sense to you and where you'll begin to own that. So if you're a teacher, you don't want to go too fast when you're teaching believers. You want to make sure that everybody is convinced and persuaded and knowledgeable about their salvation, that they are secure, that they believe it and they rest in the fact that their sins are forgiven.

Well, Stanford said, faith in the facts gives the rest of reliance. Yeah, that's right. What was that? Faith in the facts gives the rest of reliance. That's kind of cool, isn't it? He's a great one for quips. What are the things they did? is a little bit difficult for me to put into words is that when Christ died for my sins and he was raised for my justification, the raised for my justification is not explained there.

No. How does that work? Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do. What does it mean to be justified? declared righteous before God. Abraham was declared righteous before God. Why? Because he believed God. So that righteousness, that declaration of righteousness that Abraham received because he believed God, how was God able to do that? Because Christ hadn't died yet, did he just change his mind about Abraham's sins? What did he do? Again, he knew what was coming. He knew that Christ was going to pay the penalty for those sins and he recognized that I can account Abraham righteous because I know what I'm going to do in the future.

Righteousness means to have a right relationship with God. So my sins are forgiven and when I'm resurrected, interesting, it's got to be there, he can declare me righteous because of what Christ has already done. And it's all about relationship. It's way more than just forgiveness. It's all about relationship.

What if he had stayed in the grave? Then we would not have had proof that God accepted the work of paying the penalty. And that's where I'm going. We don't explain it that way. I guess what I'm saying is we use jargon, we use words. But here's the practicality thing is that when Christ died on the cross, I've been mulling about this all morning, I'm sorry. I'll shut you off if you get too gory.

It was satisfying. He was no longer offended by the sin in Adam that we inherited. Our believing that Christ took our place, the Holy Spirit took as the means to identify us with his, not just his death for our sins, but his burial and resurrection for our justification. Isn't that neat? Well, and here's the deal. That was part of the plan.

It was the eternal covenant between the Father and the Son. And it was like, if you do this, then I will do this. If you become a man and die for the sins of the world, Then I will raise you up." Jesus said, okay, I'll do it. So he fulfilled his side of the bargain, the Father fulfilled his side of the bargain, and the thing was resolved.

And that's why God makes Christ so precious to us. Oh yeah. And righteousness has everything to do with relationship. You see that? Forgiveness of sins is about me. Being counted righteous is about God. And that's what He's after. Because he created us, he created Adam for what purpose? His essential identity, he created him in his own image and likeness so he could have fellowship with him. He could love him, be loved back, communicate with him, communicate back. Well, he's able to re-establish now in Christ that original purpose, only now it's on a much higher level.

Does that mean that I no longer fall short of the glory of God? Positionally, no. Conditionally, yes. So I look, think on things above? Yeah, since you'd be risen with Christ. Since that's a given, here's what you do. You seek those things which are above. Why would you do that? Because that's where I belong. That's where I'm positioned. Seek those things which are above where Christ sits at the right hand of God. set your mind or your affection on things above and not on things of the earth, and then it gives you the reason why. Because you died. And your life is hid with Christ and God. Is that true? Yeah, it's true. And if you don't do that, you're telling God, well, I'm not really buying that. My experience supersedes that. So the next question we've really already answered.

When you read in the Word of God, especially in Paul's epistles, and you see the word sins and sin, is there a difference? The answer is yes. Sins are the actions of a sinner, the things you commit that need to be forgiven. has a definite article in front of it, the sin, it's talking about a specific thing, the sin nature. So sins have been forgiven, the sin nature has been condemned. So what aspects of sins and sin were we freed from in order to be born anew in Christ? We're talking about the nature. We're talking about both of them. We're talking about sins and sin. Are you thinking about, you've been freed from the penalty of power and then eventually from the presence of sin, and on sin, the sin, we've been, the old man was crucified.

Romans 6.6. We've been freed from the penalty that Adam incurred by sinning and us sinning in him. We also are free from the nature he got, the sin nature. We are free from that too, positionally free, and we do not have to respond to it. And conditionally, it no longer is our slave master.

Conditionally it's not? If you walk by faith, that's true. If you don't... That's the perfect principle of liberty. Yeah. See, God wanted us to be in fellowship with Him, with Him being sovereign and we being subject to Him. And we view being subject to anybody as some sort of slavery. But it's not. It's absolute freedom. It's the only thing that is free. Because that's the way He made Adam. The Lord Jesus always does the will of the Father willingly, not begrudgingly. How did God accomplish freeing us from the penalty of our sins and the sin nature we got from Adam?

Redundant question. What He did was He took us who were identified with Adam and He stuck us in Christ. At what point in Christ's timeline did we go into him? Romans 6, 2, 3. We were baptized into Christ's death. That's when you get identified. That's the point in which you come out of Adam and you get identified with Christ is at the point in which Christ died. That's the best place. Because when he dies, what happens to you? Positionally, you die. You get separated.

It's hard, probably of this whole idea of identification, the one part of it that is so hard for me personally to get my arms around is the fact that God took the sin natures of all of us and identified them, put them on Christ. I can't imagine what that is.

He's God and yet he's identified with the principle and the nature of sin. It wasn't that he just said that he died. He really was identified with your sin nature and mine. So when he died or separated from it, we did too. I can see now why, with that in place, why it was so difficult of a struggle for him in Gethsemane. Because he knew that's what really was going to happen. And the Father was going to turn away from him. My goodness. That to me, I don't know. It would be like being in heaven for a thousand years and the Father said, well I'm going to turn away from you for fifteen seconds. I would cease to exist. So he turns away from Christ and then he raises him up. Wow. So God accomplished what he set out to do. He totally took care of the penalties for sins and he took care... Oh, there's Russ. Maybe we'll get an update.

Why should this be so difficult to comprehend when we understand clearly that the Lord Jesus died for every one of our sins, all future and time at the cross? This wasn't on your list, it's just another question. Why is this so tough to comprehend when we understand that the Lord Jesus died?

When Christ died on the cross, every one of your sins was future, wasn't it? No. Sure it was. No, your sin, your personal sins. When you believed in the person and work of Christ, we begin to find out that all of my sins were future in terms of time when he died.

So he was dying for something that hadn't happened yet, supposedly. From our perspective. But it's finished. See, he doesn't have to keep dying. It's done. So, why is it so tough for us to understand? Do you think it is tough for us to understand or not? Maybe the question isn't...

See, we have become the righteousness of God in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5.21, For He made Him, Christ, who knew no sin, singular, to be sin, he made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. You know what's interesting about the righteousness of God? This is not like Abraham being declared righteous by God, where God says, OK Abraham, you believe me, you're righteous with me now. What kind of a righteous relationship does the Lord Jesus have with the Father? The too tough a question? Perfect. Can you describe it more than that?

Equal. Same. So because you're positioned in Christ, what's your righteousness? Same. It isn't that it's imputed. Because of your position, you have exactly the same standing before God that the Lord Jesus has. Wow, that's pretty cool. A lot neater than what Abraham got.

At least I think so. Read Romans 6, 3-10. How many positional truths can you spot? That would take a whole class to do that. But I would recommend you do that. I would recommend that you sit down with Romans 6, 3-10 and just make a list. How many positional truths are in those seven verses? You'd be amazed how many there are.

If we're united to Christ when he died, did that union change your identity, your personal history, and your future? Yes, yes, yes. We have a new identity And the new identity is that we now are identified as a son of God. We are a legitimate, organic offspring of God. Not like Adam being created, we are now a son. A fully grown son. Our new personal history is now the history of Christ and not Adam anymore.

So it's not proper for us to say, well, I actually sinned in Adam when he was in the garden. No, you didn't. Did you or didn't you? I thought you just said we did. We did, but then this happened. That's what I said. And if God takes you out of Adam and puts you into Christ, can you look at God and say, yeah, I was in the garden and I sinned when Adam sinned. Did I? No, I didn't. Do you get what I'm saying? That was what I once was.

I'm not that anymore. I'm now in Christ, so now my history is what his history is. He wasn't in the garden sinning. But the great thing about positional truth in Christ is the fact that whatever is true of him is true of me, and whatever is true of this guy is not true of me anymore. That's what Ephesians 4 is talking about. That you have put off the old man and you have put on the new man. And the only thing left is a process of a change of mind that God is doing. The other thing we have is that we have a brand new future that is eternal life in Christ and we'll spend the rest of our Christian history on the earth finding out what that is. All that is true of Christ as a man is now true of me. Already true. If Paul wrote that to the Ephesians, that they had been taught that, why is it missing today that we are not taught that? No, we're not. No, we're not. Okay, I've got two minutes to do true or false.

Positional truth is the basis of most of the spheres of our Christian life. Why? All is held in trust for us in Christ, our new position, because our condition as we are taken forward step by step in faith. True. When Christ died unto sin, out of the realm and reign of the principle of sin, we as sinners died unto sin in Him. That's true. Did the second buzzer just go off? Finished.

Now, I have a paper that I'll have to see if I've gotten any more copies, but you all should read this and I'll make copies for you next week. It's a paper that Miles put together called The New Creation Christian. I don't know if any of you or all of you have read this, but it talks about who you are as a new creature in Christ and then it goes through in the back of it some of facts that are true of us because we are in Christ. As an example, a standing that can never be disputed, no one can ever bar us from our right to rest in his presence. We have a justification that can never be reversed. We have been declared just and there is no court to overrule our God.

I've got 7, 14, 21, 42 of those. I'll make copies of this. Don't you have it in the basement? I could send it out to you too. I may have, I may not. We threw a lot of this away at one point. Is there less than 13? Huh? Is there less than 13 also? They're back there. I sent them out too. I sent 14 out too, didn't I? Not 14, just 12 and 13. 12 and 13. I got 14, I'll send that out. Okay? Thanks, let's close.

Father, how we thank you for your grace. We thank you that you have done what you said you've done, which is identified us with your son and his death, burial and resurrection. So now on the resurrected side of the cross, our being in Christ is a new life that we won't cease learning about for all eternity. And we thank you for the grace that we're under and the grace that has showered on us all the time. because of our position in your son, Lord Jesus. And we pray in his precious name. Amen.