Radio Broadcast Wednesday 02/02/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at The Reality of The Resurrection P29 (02-02-22)

Jesus Sends The Holy Spirit To Us and To Be In Us

Bob begins today by going over some things that we have learned in A Closer Look at The Reality of The Resurrection.

Jesus said He was going away. And the Apostles would have been like, “what do you mean you are going away?!” And Jesus is saying no you don’t understand, “It is good that I am going away” because I am going to send you the Holy Spirit. It’s important that we understand how God gives us life through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit into our spirit.

John 16:7
⁷ But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

We see the whole picture of salvation in front of us. For if we were back 2000 years ago, we would have seen the body of Jesus, God in flesh, but that body was singular in form.

John 14:17
¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

After the cross, the Holy Spirit was sent and came into a believer, bringing them into the body of Christ too (all of those that are born again). The word of God says we would do greater works then He did. [John 14:12] Why? Because the body of Christ was to be all over the world. The true church is the body of Christ born again of the Spirit of God. The body of Christ is the ekklesia, the church, the body of Christ. Now that the Holy Spirit comes into the born again believer, the word of God says we are the temple of God. Our bodies are the temple of God.

1 Corinthians 6:19
¹⁹ Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

What do our bodies house? The Holy Spirit of God, if a person is born of the Spirit, a born again believer in Jesus.

And so the whole picture took place, where Jesus went to the cross, and then was raised again from the dead. And in that resurrection from the dead, I’m going to spend some time on this earth showing you that I am still alive, and then at the end of that, I am going to ascend to the Father, with the promise of sending the Holy Spirit to you. And on the day of Pentecost that took place. And that was with signs for the unbelieving. So there were signs to show that the event took place. And since then, people are being indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God when we become born again from above. Now those that are in Christ Jesus, born of the Holy Spirit of God, are now the body of Christ down here on earth.

And prior to that all taking place, the whole world was under the law of sin and death. And still, with unbelievers, they are still under the law of sin and death also. But it was at the cross that the Law was fulfilled, and the punishment for that was death.

But Jesus took care of the law and the sin issue, not just for our sins, but the sins of the whole world.

1 John 2:22
²² And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

So, the violation of the law, was taken care of, for all men, for all eternity at the cross. And in essence, time went backwards from the time of Adam, and forward to the consummation of this age. And it was put into one package, and it was the sins of the entire world, of the entire age went upon Jesus Christ, and He who knew no sin, became sin for us. So that in Him and in His resurrected life, we could become the righteousness of God. There would be no way that man could become the righteousness of God in and of himself. It had to be done for us by Christ. And that is the meaning of the cross and that is the meaning of the resurrection.

In order to do this, the law had to be fulfilled. Hebrews 7 talks about this perfection:

Hebrews 7:11
¹¹ If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood—and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood—why was there still need for another priest to come, one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron?

Not in the normal Levitical line, but in the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 7:12
¹² For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also.

And we know that the New Covenant, New Testament did not go into effect until the death of Christ Jesus.

Hebrews 9:16-18
¹⁶ In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, ¹⁷ because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. ¹⁸ This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood.

So the new covenant went into effect when Jesus died.

So let’s turn to chapter 9, “Living Under Grace” in our study guide, A Closer Look at The Reality of the Resurrection.

Picking up there we read, In Christ we have become brand new creations with a brand new identity. We studied that a couple of weeks ago. And with this comes a brand new way of life. If I’m a new creation, I have a new way of life. It’s like the illustration of the caterpillar and the butterfly. You can try to teach that worm (the caterpillar) to do all the things a butterfly can do, but it’s impossible to do. You can’t improve on your wormhood, you need to be a new creation. This is how being born again is. Once you are born again of the Spirit, you can never go back to being a worm again. You have a brand new identity. You are now a beautiful creature. You can still try and do things that the worm use to do, but you will never be a worm ever again. It won’t feel good to do wormy things, but you can never change your identity once you become a new creature in Christ. This is what happens when we are born again. We have been changed. We have been metamorphōsis or changed from one thing to another.

And so, we are living in a brand new way of life. Before we were changed, we were totally controlled by the desires of our flesh, in total bondage to the law of sin and death. Today however (for those that are born again), we have a whole new way of motivation. And it is through this gift of Life, Christ’s life living in you and me, that has set us free from that law of sin and death. And now we no longer live under the law, but under the total Grace of God through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now under Romans 6:14 we read:

Romans 6:14
¹⁴ For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

So what was your master before you were in Christ? Sin. And what’s a master? It’s like someone leading you around like a dumb animal. And that is what sin does to us. It leads us around like a dumb animal, it becomes our master. The flesh cries out, and oh man do we have to fulfill it. And anything that little spoiled flesh wants (oh brother!) we just act it out. We are under the yoke of slavery to sin. But now sin doesn’t have to be your master. Note it doesn’t say sin is alleviated from your life. But it is not your master any longer. Why? Because you have a new master. And it explains why you are no longer under law but are under grace.

When is the Christian world going to understand that? When you keep people under the law, sin is still your master. It doesn’t matter whether you are born again or not, if you keep people under the law, sin continues to be your master. If you can see the analogy here, if you’ve changed jobs, but that old boss is screaming and yelling at you. And if you are under the law, you still keep following him around, even though he has no control over you at all anymore.

And so sin will no longer be your master if you walk in the grace of God. The power of sin is the law.

1 Corinthians 15:56
⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

So if you as a Christian are living under the law, what are you living under? The power of sin! That’s why it is your master. So why does this go on. Because you are a new creation, but that new creation still is in the body of flesh. That’s why Paul said, “It’s no longer I that do it, but it’s sin living in me.” That is that propensity of people to believe the lies. We end up believing errors. We listen to the things of the world. Now, it is the law that demands the flesh do those things.

And for those living under the law, and the law says obey this, and man says, “i am.” So man’s pride says, look at me. And if we are not under God’s law, we make our own. And the Jews had some 600 of them on top of the ones given by God, just so they could have more laws. Today we have our own deals going on, called self-righteousness. And we set ourselves up as the standard of excellence, instead of the Lord Jesus. And so, if I am being nice and kind and sweet to everybody, and if others aren’t living up to my standards of being kind and sweet to everybody, they become the object of my criticism. And if I am very diligent, and I’m disciplined and I get up early in the morning at 5:00 am and I get my quiet time in and praying to God; and if others aren’t doing that, then I am so much more spiritual than they are. And they also become the object of my criticism and ridicule. If I go to a building every Sunday and every day of the week that it is opened, then obviously the others that aren’t doing that aren’t as spiritual as I am. Pride is puffing myself up on all of these things. So you can see how pride and the law end up working together. The law fans the pride of man and man’s pride is before the fall.

So we can see how the power of sin is in the law. All of this is in the flesh. Principles are another name for law. We don’t live by principles or law. So we are not under the law today. Yet the stronger a person’s pride is, the more he tries to obey the law. Pride refuses to come to the grace of God. Only when he comes to the end of his flesh, only then will he receive grace.

Romans 5:2
² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

We gained access to this grace through faith. As Christians we can only stand in the grace of God. And Jesus is the Grace of God. If we try to do it by flesh, it is the flesh that has the pride that swells up and thinks it is something that I am doing. But we need to do away with that thinking and realize it is all by faith in what God did for us.

Salvation is all of God. He didn’t consult us on any of it.