Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Jesus Christ P12 (10-28-20)
Synopsis
Salvation is receiving life, not a temporal life, but God’s life called eternal life. The only one who has God’s life to give is Jesus, who is God in the flesh. Salvation is coming to Christ for what He came to give us, Himself, Christ, that life of His Son, a life called eternal life.
The most basic problem of man is that he is dead to God, and in need of new spiritual life. He has a human spirit that is very much alive to this world, but dead to God. So unless a man is born again, spiritually, a new birth by God Himself through the Spirit of God, then you remain dead. The wrath of God against sin is death, and we were all born dead. So if we fail to come to Christ, we do not become dead, we remain dead, in the current condition we are in.
So man needs new life. You can not be made alive without Him. How come? He is life. What kind of life? Eternal life. If you have the Son, what do you have? Life. If you do not have the Son, what do you not have? The life. So He made you alive the only way He could, through His Son. And when He did, He forgave us all our sins.
To be given the right to become a child of God, a new spiritual creation, you need to believe in His name, in what He came to do in order to give life, and receive that life. He sent Jesus to shed his blood on a cross to take away the sins of the world, never to be seen again. He did this in order that life, eternal life, His life, can be given to all mankind as a gift. He died a death like ours in order to rise again so we can have a life like His. He was raised from the dead so that we too can be raised again to new life, and receive the same life that raised him from the dead. To those who receive this gift of life through His Son, Jesus Christ, is given the right to become a child of God.
Birth is life. Whose life? Christ’s life, living in you, your only hope of glory. Have you received Christ? Have you asked Him to come into your heart as your Lord and Savior, accepting his substitutionary death for you and His life in you? If you have, where is Christ? Living in you right now, in your heart. What life did He give you? Eternal. Could you ever lose something eternal? No, for if you could, Jesus lied. You would have to call that temporal. But He did not give us temporal life, but eternal life.
So check out the scriptures and see what God has said concerning His son, concerning life that is in His Son, so that by believing you might receive this new life.
Transcript
1 John 5:11-13
11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
So, folks, when you have the Son of God, when you have by faith accepted Christ Jesus into your heart, believing by faith in what He did for you at the cross, believing that He was raised from the dead, not just as a historical fact, but He was raised from the dead so by the Holy Spirit He can raise you from the dead, and you accept that by faith in your heart. All that provision that was provided for you by the Son, Jesus Christ, what do you have? Life. What kind of life? Eternal life. Why do you have that? Because you have the Son. So when you have the Son, you have His life. What do you have in there? A corpse? No, when you have something in you, you have something living in you. You have the eternal God living inside you, which is your only hope of glory.
Could you have one without the other? No. If you have the Son, you have life. So how can you say I have Jesus living in me but I do not have eternal life living in me? You could not say that. Why? Because Jesus is eternal life. Nor could you say I have eternal life but I do not have the Son. Someone says, “I have eternal life by some mystical concept of who God is.” I am sorry. It does not work that way any more than 2 + 2 = 5. It does not work that way. You could not have one without the other. If scripture says Jesus is eternal life and when you have the Son, you have the life and when you do not have the Son you do not have that life, it makes sense because if Jesus is eternal life, how could you have eternal life without Jesus? How could you have Jesus without eternal life?
It also goes ahead to say to those who believe in the name of the Son of God, that is believing in all that He is, I have written these things. Why then did He write those verses to you? In order that you may know you have eternal life. My friends, think about this for a moment. When does eternal life begin? It says when you have the Son. Do you have the Son after you die in the sweet bye and bye? No. Do you have the Son before you received the Son? No. When do you have the Son? At a moment in time when I accept the truth about his death, burial and resurrection. I accept the truth about my condition, lost, dead in my trespasses and sins. I accept His provision. I invite the living Christ to come into my heart to be my Lord, my Savior, thanking Him for His substitutionary death for me and thanking Him for His offer of life in me. And you accept that by faith.
What do you have when you do that? The Son. What else do you have? His life. What kind of life is that? Eternal. When does that begin? The very moment you have the Son. What does eternal mean? Does it mean temporal? No. What does it mean? It means eternal. What does that mean? It lasts forever. Could you lose something that was eternal? If you have eternal life and that life is in His Son, how can you lose eternal life? Well, you would have to lose the Son, wouldn’t you? Can you lose the Son? What did Jesus say about that?
Hebrews 13:5
5 God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
John 10:28-29
28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
How could you lose the Son? You walk away from Him? Well, he follows you wherever you are going. That is as ludicrous as Jonah walking from God. He just got swallowed by a whale and God just followed him in there, if you truly have the Son of God. I am not talking about playing church or having church membership, but truly having the Son of God in the first place. Why would you ever walk away from life? Why would you want to walk away from someone who loves you perfectly? Why would you walk away from someone who loves you the best and knows you the most? Why would you walk away from someone who says, “I reconciled you unto myself, never counting sins against you”? Why walk away from someone who says “I love you perfectly, Bob. I will never leave you or forsake you”? Why would you want to walk away from someone who says “nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus”?.
2 Corinthians 5:19
God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s sins against them.
Romans 8:34-35
34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died€”more than that, who was raised to life€”is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
Who, in their right mind, would say, “Oh, I want to walk away from that?” No! Get a life. Get real. No man would ever want to walk away from that if he truly had it. If you are talking about walking away from religion? Yes. If you are talking about walking away from legalism? Yes. If you are talking about walking away from Christians who are mean as hornets? Yes. If you are talking about walking away from someone who says “I love you perfectly”? Absolutely not.
Folks, therefore, if you could lose eternal life, you would, therefore, have to lose who? The Son. The Son would have to depart from you, would He not?
Let me explain reasons as to why that not only will not happen but why it cannot happen. Look at Romans 5:10.
Romans 5:10
10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were [past tense] reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled [already occurred], shall we be saved through his life!
What kind of life? Eternal life. Now, the sin issue had to be settled forever. Therefore, two things having settled the sin issue that God had to do for man that man could never do for himself. God having settled the sin issue, when you were his enemies, lost, dead in trespasses and sins, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son. Reconciliation is an accounting term. It means your sins were all taken off your accounts payable and put on his accounts receivable, and in so doing, He cleared the deck, He took them away as if they had never occurred. That was done for all men.
If salvation was merely getting your sins forgiven, then everyone would be saved through reconciliation. But that is not what salvation is. Reconciliation had to be involved in the process of salvation but it is merely the beginning step of clearing the deck for the divine action of restoring man to true humanity, and that is making a dead man alive. Salvation is being saved from the wages of sin, which is death. So you have sins and those are bad but the wages of sin is worse. It is death. So God had to take care of the sins issue which He did at the cross and then take care of the wages of sin issue, which took place at the resurrection. You cannot have one without the other but do not mistake one for the other. Reconciliation had to occur in order to bring about salvation. Reconciliation is included in salvation but it is not salvation. It is just a part of it. It is the way in which God cleared the deck, dealing with sins once and for all, reconciling all men to Himself, clearing the deck, sins paid in full, once and for all, for who? The sins of the entire world.
1 John 2:2 (KJV)
2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Does that mean you have universal salvation? No. That means sins were reconciled to God. God reconciled man unto Himself, not counting sins against us, in order to offer us His resurrected life to all people who because of the cross could have been cleansed of all unrighteousness so they might receive His righteousness. So now that the sin issue is settled forever, two things God had to do for man that man could never do for himself. First life, then righteousness.
Galatians 3:21
21 For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.
What is the problem with law? It could not impute life. The law brought death. The man who sins shall surely die. He did not say the man who lived according to law will certainly live. It merely said the man who sins will surely die. The law could not impart life. If it could have then righteousness, life, right standing before God, and God is a living God and you and I are dead. Then what is right standing before God? When you are alive. It is hard to have right standing when you are a corpse. It is hard to go into a graveyard and say we have right standing. A corpse is dead and you are alive. God is alive and you are dead. To have right standing before God, I had to be made alive. A living God cannot be righteous to a dead corpse. If a law could have been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.
Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The contrast to that is eternal life, through who? Christ Jesus our Lord. He who has the Son has life. The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Where does eternal life come from? Christ Jesus. That is why when you have the Son, what do you have? Eternal life. What kind of life is that? A life that is eternal. Can you lose something that is eternal? No. You would have to call it temporal. God’s life is not temporal. He did not give you His life on a temporal basis. He gave His life on an eternal basis. He restored us to true humanity by imparting to us His very life. There are two things God had to do for man that man could not do for himself after the cross was settled. Provide life and provide righteousness. Righteousness could not come through the law so it had to come as a gift.
Galatians 2:21
21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
Galatians 3:21
21 For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.
Now, folks, what is man’s condition under the law? He is dead.
Romans 7:10
10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.
What he just got through saying. Paul had discovered something.
Galatians 3:21
21 For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.
Galatians 2:21
21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
In his mind, that law was going to bring life, but it literally brought death instead.
Romans 5:12-13
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned
We were all dead.
Ephesians 2:1-3
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins
Colossians 2:13
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ.
You could not be alive without Him. How come? He is life. What kind of life? Eternal life. If you have the Son, what do you have? Life. If you do not have the Son, what do you not have? The life. So He made you alive the only way He could, through His Son. And when He did, He forgave us all our sins.
John 3:36
36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.
What is God’s wrath? Death. As long as you remain dead, that without accepting what God did through His Son Jesus Christ, you remain dead. The very moment you come by faith in Jesus Christ, you receive life. Whoever rejects the Son will never see that life. Whoever accepts the Son and believes in Him has that life. I do not know how much more clear that can be said. Whoever believes in Him, John 3:18, is not condemned. How come?
John 3:18
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
What is the condemnation of the wrath of God? Death. When I believe in Him what do I have? Life. That is why I would never be condemned again. Whoever does not have belief stands condemned already. So if you do not believe in the Son who came to give you life, you are already condemned. What is the condemnation? Death. That is the wrath of God that remains on you. It does not come on you. It remains on you. All of us were born under the condemnation of death until we receive life. Adam was born again backwards. He was created alive, chose death. We are born dead with the ability to choose life. How come he remains dead? Because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
When Adam was created, he was created alive in all ways, bodily, soulishly and spiritually. Man is a body, soul and spirit.
Hebrews 4:12
12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
All of them are different things all together. You have your vegetable kingdom. What is a vegetable kingdom? Well, a carrot has a body. Obviously, otherwise you would not be able to eat it. Does it have a soul? No, just a body.
What differentiates the vegetable kingdom from the animal kingdom? A dog has a body like a carrot but it also has a soul. It has a mind, a will and emotion. A person who owns a dog might dispute that mind. But they do have a mind. They have emotions. You can watch that occur when you see their tail wag, whether they like you or not. And for sure they have a will. That is called a soul.
What delineates the animal kingdom from the vegetable kingdom? The animal kingdom has a body just like the vegetable kingdom, but it also has a soul. That soul is governed by instinct. And you can see that. You can see the birds return to Capistrano, the same time, the same month, the same day every year. How did they get there? How did it know when to get there? It is called instinct. What is that? We shrug our shoulders and call that instinct. Instinct is to the animal as to what God is to what man is supposed to be.
Man is delineated from the animal kingdom by not only having a body like a carrot, a soul like a dog, but he also has a human spirit. That is what delineates and differentiates him from the animal kingdom. What separates man from just being an animal? Well, he has a spirit, a human spirit. That human spirit when God created Adam was indwelt by God’s Holy Spirit. In other words, God was living in His creation.
Before the fall, if you were to look at Adam, prior to the fall, he walked in total dependency upon God. He was created that way and he walked that way until the day he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. On the day he ate thereof he died. What is death? Absence of life. What kind of life did he lose? God’s life living in him. That life departed from him, leaving his human spirit dead to God but very much alive to the world. He did not become an animal that day.
He was still a man with a human spirit but with a vacuum. That is why Pascal said, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man that can only be filled by God through His Son Jesus Christ.” St. Augustine said, “You have made us for Thyself, Oh God, and our hearts are restless until we find ourselves in Thee.” That is why we say man is incurably religious. Why? A vacuum was created and from that moment on man spent the rest of his life seeking what was missing, life living in man, restoring him to true humanity. On the day that Adam died, he died to life. Death is the absence of life. The life of God departed from man, leaving man with a human spirit, alive to the world but dead to God. Otherwise, if man did not have a human spirit, and only had a soul, then he would just be an animal. Man is not an animal.
If you were to look at Adam prior to the fall, you would have seen a direct reflection of God as God made man to be. In other words, man was created to be a representative of God here on this earth. So if you wanted to look and see some of the characteristics of what God was like, you would have looked at Adam. I do not think there would be any difference between observing Adam before the fall and observing Jesus, who walked on this earth, called the last Adam, not created, but born alive, as Adam was created alive. Inasmuch as Jesus said, “anything you see me do, it is what my Father told me to do”. In other words, Jesus walked in total dependency upon His Father. So did Adam walk in total dependency upon the Father prior to the fall. Even though Adam was a man indwelt by God and Jesus was God clothed in humanity. Quite a difference in the two. Even though Jesus was always God, Adam never was God. He was always a man, always has been and always will be. Adam was indwelt by God. Jesus was God, always was God and always will be. He was clothed in humanity. Although Adam was indwelt by God as you and I, if we are born again, Jesus was God clothed in our humanity. Even though He is God, He is not going to behave like God because if so Jesus would be saying this. “If I did I would not teach you anything. I am going to live in total dependency upon my Father so that I can teach you how to live as a man, as Adam did prior to the fall, and a man through whom you will be able to see God in action when you see my life.” That is what Christ was saying. When we are born again, what does it mean we are born again? God has restored life to us. He restored righteousness to us. We were not born into this world righteous.
Romans 3:10-11
10 As it is written:“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
Isaiah 64:6
6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
Jeremiah 17:9
9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
So we were born into this world dead and unrighteous and, therefore, God had to come and give us life.
John 10:10
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
John 11:25-26
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
John 6:35
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Jesus came to give us righteousness.
1 Corinthians 1:30
30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
So you see, folks, what salvation is is receiving life. It is coming to Christ for what He came to give us, Himself, Christ, that life of His Son, a life called eternal life. Now, when Adam sinned, of course, that life left him. And when Jesus came to this earth, Jesus was born alive spiritually and when he went to the cross and died, becoming sin for you and me. He committed his spirit into the hands of God.
Luke 23:46
46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
He died a death like ours so we might be able to experience a resurrection life like his, for three days later the Spirit of God entered back into the physical Jesus, raised him from the dead, promising that the Spirit that raised him from the dead will raise you from the dead. That is what salvation is, something alive being restored to spiritual life, that life that Jesus offered to us in Hebrews 13:5.
Hebrews 13:5
5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”[Deuteronomy 31:6]
In other words, you do not have to worry about things. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. That is a promise of God that is part of that life he came to give us, called eternal life. When you accepted Christ into your heart as your Lord and Savior, what did you become?
John 1:12-13
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
To believe in His name means when you believe in all that He came to do, forgive your sins at the cross, give you life through His resurrection. If you are in Christ, you are called a child of the living God. Where is that? In the Son? How did you get to be a child? You know a child has to be conceived. You and I are conceived by the Holy Spirit of God. We are born again of the Spirit of God. Jesus said that.
John 3:3
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
Birth is life. Whose life? Christ’s life, living in you, your only hope of glory. Have you received Christ? Have you asked Him to come into your heart as your Lord and Savior, accepting his substitutionary death for you and his life in you? If you have, where is Christ? Living in you right now, in your heart. What life did He give you? Eternal. Could you ever lose something eternal? No, for if you could, Jesus lied. You would have to call that temporal. But He did not give us temporal life, but eternal life. Now he said this.
Revelation 3:20
20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.
He is talking about the door of your heart.
Revelation 3:20
If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.
In other words, you will have fellowship together. You will have a new relationship together. Christ at a point in time will be knocking at the door of your heart right now. You are sensing that faith even though you may have been religious, joined a church, been baptized, taken communion, and maybe have done all those things, but you are not sure Christ is living in your heart. You do not know that for sure. You may not be sure you are alive in Christ right now. So are you sure that if you died tonight you would be able to enter into His presence? Not only do you not remember, but you may not be sure there is a point in time where you really accepted by faith what Christ Jesus did for you in His fullness. If that is you, will you accept the gift of eternal life? Will you accept Christ, who is eternal life, to be your Lord, Savior and best friend?
Acts 4:12
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
Salvation is in Christ Jesus. There is no other name that has been given to men by which we can be saved. Why? Because all men are dead. There is only one source of life and that is God’s; life living in you. How did He arrange that? Through His Son, Christ Jesus.
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