Listen to the audio above while following along in the transcript below which is also available for download at www.biblestudyministriesinc.com
WELCOME AND OPENING PRAYER
Good evening, brothers, and I trust you had a good day in union with the Lord. As we come again this evening to look at His precious word, once again there’s that Bible principle, that indispensable principle of all Bible study and of life, which is total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit. We sort of prayed that indispensable principle in our last song together. Let me share a Bible verse, and I’d like to pray again and just commit our time to Him. It’s from John 14:2&3, remember our Lord Jesus was just before the cross, and He said,
“In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you.” (John 14:2&3)
That expression gripped my heart, “If it were not so I would have told you.” “If it were not so,” would have been bad news because the sentence is, “In My Father’s house are many mansions.” If that wasn’t so, basically, I don’t want to hear it; it’s bad news. And He said, “If I’m willing to tell you bad news, ‘If it were not so, I would have told you,” and I’m so willing to tell you bad news,’” then how willing is our Lord Jesus to tell us good news? “If it were not so, I would have told you. If it were so I would have told you.” So, He fills His precious book with good news, and He longs to tell us so. So, let’s just allow Him to do that. Let’s pray…
Father, we thank You so much for Your Bible and the Holy Spirit that lives in our hearts ever to focus our faith, to turn the eyes of our heart onto Him. As we have sung, now we pray, “Lord, we do want to see Jesus; we do want to hear Jesus.” By Your grace we pray that in this season of meditation we might indeed see the Lord and hear the Lord. Save us from men, show us Christ, and we ask this in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
REVIEW
As you know, brothers, we’re looking at the wonders of the exchanged life illustrated by the post-resurrection appearances of our Lord Jesus over a period of forty or so days. It appears to me that our Lord Jesus arranged those post-resurrection appearances to teach us that He’s not dead, and by many infallible proofs He showed that He is not dead. To teach us that He’s not gone, He had that wonderful transition where they could get used to the idea that He was still there even though He’s invisible and even though it’s spiritual rather than physical. They needed to know that He was not gone. I’m suggesting, and that’s what we’re looking at this weekend, that He appeared those many times, those twelve times, in order to prepare them for that new union, that new relationship, when on Pentecost they would have discovered that He is neither dead nor gone but He’s alive, and He’s alive in me. They needed to be prepared for that; that was new and different. They had not experienced that, and to relate to an indwelling Christ was so brand new that He had to get them ready for that. In addition to proving that He was alive and proving that He wasn’t gone, He used those experiences to lay age-abiding principles that not only prepared them for that day but everyone who ever picks up this book since that day. It prepares us, so that we can have an intimate union with an indwelling Christ who lives in us by His precious Holy Spirit.
Each of those post-resurrection miracles/appearances lays down a principle by showing us that by appearing to Mary Magdalene, He taught us not to cling to Him in the flesh. We discussed that together. She thought she could serve Him without His life. She thought she could explain events apart from His life. She thought she could do in her own strength and power and enablement a ministry apart from His life, but by His life when He appeared to her, she learned at least this, when He said, “Mary,” she learned it was about relationship, and she cried out, “Teacher, Rabbi.” It’s about relationship. When she left the pages of the Bible, remember her final words, “I have seen the Lord.” Preparation number one is that if I’m ever going to relate to the Christ that now lives inside, I must see the Lord. God will arrange it in your life and mine; He’ll engineer things so you’ll finally come to that place, “I’ve been doing this, I’ve been running here, I’ve been involved in this, and all the programs and everything else, but now I want to see the Lord.” That’s not everything but that’s the beginning; that’s preparation one.
Then He appeared to our dear brother, Thomas, and we looked at that this morning. Thomas also needed to be corrected. Mary thought she could cling in the flesh. Thomas thought that sight would help faith, and he needed to be corrected of that idea, so we see Thomas who was given that great privilege, though he didn’t enter into it fully, of standing where we stand, to know Jesus as we must know Him, based on reliable witnesses, and his reliable witnesses, his friends, have become our Bible. Now, based on the testimony of Mary and Peter and James and five hundred people and the Emmaus disciples and the Upper Room crowd, we also say, “He’s not dead; He’s alive.” We have witnesses. Mary teaches us that we’ve got to see the Lord. Thomas introduces us to a new way and we’ve got to see the Lord in this book.
Then we looked for a moment at the Emmaus disciples, and how the Lord Jesus then took this book and by illumination, by a miracle, by the Holy Spirit, opened the scriptures and explained in all the scriptures things concerning Himself, so that later they testified, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us when He spoke to us and showed Himself in all the scriptures!”
Preparation—He’s not dead and He’s not gone; He’s alive, He’s alive in you. How are you going to be related to Him? I need to see Him, and I need to see Him in this book, and I need to see Him in this book by the unveiling ministry of the Holy Spirit as He opens my mind to understanding the scripture.
When we closed, we looked for a moment at that Upper Room when our Lord Jesus appeared, and He breathed upon them. Pentecost was coming; He would send the Holy Spirit, but they got a foretaste of that, didn’t they? He breathed on them, illustrating that when I see Jesus, when I see Jesus in this book, when I see Jesus in this book by the Holy Spirit, there is a new creation. He breathed on them a new creation. That was all preparation. The Holy Spirit hadn’t even come yet, and yet they received the Holy Spirit, and in foretaste they began to understand, and we are only beginning to understand, as He prepares us. Brothers, I’ll just announce it again and then we’ll move on, He’s not dead, and He’s not gone; He’s very much alive, and He’s alive in you, and He is inviting us, dear brothers, to know the Lord through this book by the Holy Spirit, so that there is a new creation.
Verse 8, “And last of all, He appeared to me, also.” We know that the risen Savior appeared to others after He appeared to Paul. For example, He appeared to John on the Isle of Patmos. In fact, He appeared more times to Paul himself. I suggested, this is strange, that he would go back in his mind seven years, list those who saw the Lord literally with these (natural) eyes—Thomas and Peter and Cephas and James and five hundred people; they saw Him. Then he said, “I, too, saw him.” He puts himself in the list as if he were there during those forty days. He wasn’t there; this is seven years later, “Last of all He appeared to me.” I’m suggesting that “last of all” means final preparation; He was preparing us by those visitations, and the last preparation is this. So, we’re going to look at Paul as the final preparation.
That expression, “As one untimely born,” commentators have a hay day with that, and they go in many different directions. The thing that touched my heart the most was how that word was used; it’s the word that means abortion; at least it means very prematurely born and born with a lot of problems, if you are born at all. Probably he looked back at all of his Jewish life and he said, “As I look back now, I was born dead, and that’s just an abortion. There’s nothing there. And one so unworthy, a persecutor of the church, that He could have mercy on me, an abortion? But He did.” I think that’s how that verse is used. God had mercy on him, and so that experience on the Damascus Road is God’s last preparation, His final preparation, the last thing I need to know, the last thing you need to know. I need to know that I have to go after the Lord. I need to know I have to go after the Lord in this book. I need to know I have to go after the Lord in the book by the Holy Spirit and His life. I need to know that it’s going to produce a new creation. But there’s one more thing I need to know, and now God tells us the last preparation. I need to know what that new creation is. So, God is now giving us this record.
What happened to the apostle on that one hundred and thirty-six to one hundred and sixty mile trip, depending on the route he took, from Jerusalem to Damascus, and how is that final preparation? Brothers, I think it goes without saying that the conversion of the Apostle Paul is the most famous conversion of all time. I think that goes without saying. The number one enemy of our Lord Jesus somehow became the number one friend of our Lord Jesus. Don’t read that la, la, la; that was a tremendous thing! How did the number one enemy of Christ become the number one friend of Christ? Call it what you will, that’s amazing; that’s going from night to day; that’s going from darkness to light; that’s going from hell to heaven. There’s a tremendous something that took place then.
I read this statement and I sort of incline to it. One of my commentators said, “The conversion of Saul of Tarsus did not make him better; it made him other.” It’s an interesting way to say it. He was a new creation, and so we’ve got to look at this conversion. I know that you already know this, but in order to illustrate what happened here, let me share some verses. This was a wicked man. He had a vicious past. During this time before Damascus, he hated Christ, and he hated everybody who belonged to Christ. He wasn’t a fence sitter, he wasn’t neutral; he was active, he was aggressive. He wasn’t a compromiser; He was a hater of the Lord Jesus. Listen to these verses.
“Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him in the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” (Acts 9:1&2)
“I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prison, as also the high priest and all the counsel of the elders can testify. From them I also received letters to the brethren, and I started off to Damascus in order to bring those who were there to Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished.” (Acts 22:4&5)
“So then, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is just what I did in Jerusalem. Not only did I lock up many of the saints in prison, having received authority from the chief priests, but when they were being put to death, I cast my vote against them, and I punished them often in the synagogues. I tried to force them to blaspheme. I, being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them, even to foreign cities.” (Acts 26:9-11)
Nice fellow. In Philippians 3:6, he calls himself “a persecutor of the church”. In 1 Timothy 1:13 he said,
“I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, a violent aggressor.” (1 Timothy 1:13)
This man was wicked, and I know you know that, but enter into that. He persecuted men, women, and children, and he went into their homes, and he dragged them out and he tied them up, and he carried them away to prison, and he beat them, and he tried to get them to blaspheme against the Lord, and he voted against them, and he had them put to death. He was a wicked, wicked man. Paul’s story, in my understanding, picks up exactly at the Upper Room where the Lord breathed on them, a new creation; he became a new creation, and we’ve got to understand that new creation. We’ve got to understand it if we’re going to relate to the indwelling Christ because that’s what it’s all about, and that is the last preparation.
I think you know that Saul’s dramatic conversion is recorded three times in the Bible. It’s recorded once in Acts 9 by Luke, the human author of the book of Acts. That’s the event. It’s probably around 30 A.D. Then, Acts 22, twenty-five years go by, and he’s now giving his testimony on the steps of the temple in Jerusalem, and he gives his testimony in Hebrew. Two years later, twenty-seven years after the event, Acts 26, about 64 A.D, very close to the time he died, he gives his testimony a third time before King Agrippa. Don’t read that la, la, la. What that means is that there is more inspired space given to Paul’s conversion than any other event in the New Testament, with the exception of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. If God is going to give that much inspired space to this one event, I think He’s saying, “Pay attention to this one event.” This is big, brothers, and it’s big because it’s the final preparation that we need in order to relate to the indwelling Christ. If we miss this, even if we have those other preparations, God is going to have to work in our life until we get this, before we can enjoy that sweet union with Him.
I’m not holding anybody’s testimony in suspicion; you are probably already there and I’m just reciting your testimony, but if there is some brother here who has not been fully prepared by the Lord, and you hear all about the indwelling Christ and victory in the Lord and relating to Him and knowing Him, and yet you aren’t clear on it, may God use this weekend, brothers, to get us all crystal clear. What is that preparation? How can I know and enjoy this indwelling Christ?
The Apostle Paul, I believe, in this event is the model conversion. In other words, every true conversion must follow this pattern. This is the model conversion. I believe that the Apostle himself is the model convert. What do I mean by the model conversion? What I mean is that all the principles of real conversion have to be present, and they are illustrated here. I am not suggesting that in order to be truly saved you need to see a bright light; that’s not the point. I’m not saying that you need to hear a literal voice. That’s not the point. I’m not saying that you need to be persecuting Christians. That is not the point. What I’m trying to say is that there are principles here. For example, Paul’s conversion, if anybody’s conversion was, his conversion was pure grace. Would anybody deny that? It had to be pure grace. If ever a conversion was traced to God alone… When I read the record, he wasn’t at a revival meeting. He wasn’t at a prayer meeting. He wasn’t at a conference like this. He was out hating Jesus. He was out hating the people of God. He was putting to death God’s remnant, God’s flock, and the Lord met him. That’s grace; that is the grace of the Lord. When God stops Saul in his tracks, the one who was fighting Jesus and hating Jesus and hating the people of God, and in a moment he became a new creation, what was that all about? All true conversions must have the grace of God.
“He’s a chosen instrument of mine, to bear My name among the gentiles, the kings and the sons of Israel; I will show him how much he must suffer for my name sake.” (Acts 9:15&16)
“I exhort you, therefore, be imitators of me.” (1 Corinthians 4:16)
“The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice those things.” (Philippians 4:9)
“Be imitators of me, just as I am of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1)
He was selected on purpose. We say, “Well, can I apply that, ‘Be followers of me, as I am of Christ?” Sure, you can, but not like he did. He meant it literally. I read the verse, and he said, “I’m the chief of sinners,” and I say, “Ah, he missed it; I’m the chief of sinners.” No, Paul was the chief of sinners; he was on purpose. He was the most self-righteous and he was the chief. If God did something like this for the chief, He did it for every one of us.
When this man first came to the Lord, very early he was told that he was selected to be the model of the Christian experience, the New Covenant life. All through his ministry he referred back to it. Why is it important that this man with this dramatic conversion be chosen as the model? The answer is because this is final preparation; this is the last step. This is the full explanation of, “The Lord breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” He is God’s example of the exchanged life. Mary saw Christ. Thomas saw the Lord. Those on the road to Emmaus saw the Lord; they saw Him in the Bible by the Holy Spirit and they became a new creation. Now, Paul says, “I’m the last one in that list. I’m the last one. It’s final, and when I saw the Lord I became a new creation.” He is the illustration of that new creation. God breathed on him, a new creation, and now we have the illustration. The Apostle Paul is the new creation. How did it happen? He said twenty-seven years later, “Do you want to know, Felix, how it happened? One day I saw Jesus.” So, we need to talk about that, and may God help us as we look for this explanation.
What I’d like to do is, in one sense it’s a little backwards, we need to understand Paul’s experience and Paul has explained his experience. I want to do what I did with Mary Magdalene and what I did with Thomas; I want to show you the experience. What I was planning originally was to go through the record and show you, “Here’s what happened, and here’s what it means,” but I felt inclined to go the other way. What I’d like to do tonight is say, “Here’s what it means,” and then tomorrow, Lord willing, we’ll look at it, and we’ll have an illustration of the experience. It’s sort of like the dinosaur bones; we can’t deny the bones, but we can deny the interpretation of the bones. We can’t deny what happened to the Apostle Paul, but there are some strange explanations. I don’t know anything more fair than letting Paul explain his own experience, and he does it under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so we have that record. Lord willing, tomorrow we’ll look at the record of it.
Let me just say this, if you’ll pray for me during this lesson, I’d appreciate it, because in a sense by showing Paul’s explanation of what happened, and I don’t like this but I don’t know where to go, maybe it will come across as doctrine, as teaching, and just sort of academic and polemic and oratory; I don’t want that. I want life, and as our brother just prayed before we came up here, that God would turn it into life, I’m going to believe God for that prayer. I know you didn’t come here on purpose to hear me give a catechism. You don’t want that, and I don’t want that. Also, added to that is that I know you’ve heard all this before. I’m not going to tell you anything new. I hope it’s alive. Let me just sort of state it for you, and then illustrate it in the word, and then, Lord willing, tomorrow we’ll look at it.
I’ve already stated it but I’m going to state it again now as a principle, there is a difference, a tremendous difference between a changed life and an exchanged life. This is the last preparation, and what God is saying is, “You better know that difference, because if you don’t know that difference, you’ll be running down the wrong path, and you’ll be frustrated to death and you’ll never enter into that sweet union with the indwelling Christ. You’ve got to know the difference between change and exchange.”
In one sense we look at the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, and we say, “What a change in Saul! The number one enemy of Christ has become the number one friend of Christ.” In one sense that’s true, but in another sense the Damascus Road didn’t change Saul at all; there was no change in Saul. The Damascus Road killed Saul. If you want to call that a change, go ahead. That’s what happened; Saul died, and another rose in his place. That’s not a change; that’s an exchange. The number one enemy of Christ died and the number one friend of Christ was raised again.
I know what causes the confusion is that for years we’ve read about the change and being transformed and being conformed to the image of Christ. We’ve read about growth, and we’ve read about maturity, and we’ve read about bearing fruit, and we hear about a new creation, and we know all things pass away, and we know that everything becomes new, and that sounds like a change. When we worship, we sing change songs. We sing, “Change me, oh God, change my heart, oh God,” “What a wonderful change in my life has been wrung since Jesus came into my heart.” Then we hear testimonies, “I’m not what I will be, I’m not what I should be, but praise God I’m not what I was. I’ve been changed.” We see it on the Tee-shirts, “Work in Progress”, “God is Not Finished With Me Yet,” “The Unfinished Work,” “I’m Being Molded,” “I’m Being Conformed,” “I’m Being Transformed,” “I’m Being Changed.” Those expressions and those sentiments have brought some confusion among the people of God, and even some seasoned saints have not understood this final preparation. There’s a difference between a changed life and an exchanged life. Those who have not had God’s light on that difference are ill-prepared for union with the indwelling Christ. So, may God help us as we look at this. This is the final preparation.
As you know, God used the Apostle Paul to write at least thirteen epistles in the New Testament. I say “at least” because we don’t know about Hebrews. If God used him for that we don’t know, but in the thirteen epistles, he continually wrote about the great mystery of union with Christ over and over again. In the epistles, the church epistles, we have what we call the full mention of the truth of union with Christ. Seventy-eight times he repeats that precious little expression “in Christ Jesus”, “in Christ Jesus”, over and over and over. I’m only going to quote a few verses. There are others I could quote but these are the famous ones. You’ll know these and you’ll be able to recite them as I read them.
“It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me,” that’s not a change; that’s an exchange. Do you see what I’m saying?
“For me to live is Christ, and to die is to gain,” (more of Christ, basically). (Philippians 1:21)
“Indeed, we have the sentence of death within ourselves, so that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.” (1 Corinthians 1:9)
“Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:1)
“For you have died and your life is hid with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:3)
That’s not a change; that’s an exchange. Saul is dead, and the person who now lives in him, he says, is no longer him but somebody else.
If you struggled, as I did in my earlier Christian life, reading all of these victorious life books and reading all the mystics and people so close to the Lord, your heart is panting and is saying, “How come it doesn’t work for me?” If you’ve read some of those books, you’ll probably be familiar with some of these expressions because everybody has their own little name for it. We’re talking about union with Christ, but they all have their own special name, and they write books and I’m looking at all of these names, and I’m thinking, “That’s different, that’s different and I’ve got to read that,” so I went through all of this. Some of the old mystics call it the “union life” or the “Christ life”. Some that were a little further out on the branch called it “the over-soul” or “break-through”, or “the sacramental life”, or “life in the Holy of Holies”. I’m over there going, “Yeah, that’s what I want.”
Dr. A. J. Gordan wrote a book called “The Two-Fold Life”. Major Ian Thomas wrote a little book, and he called it “The Saving Life of Christ”. Miles Stanford calls it “the life of identification”. Watchman Nee calls it “The Normal Christian Life”, and it’s just a normal life. The early Keswick writers, Boardman, Smith, Evans, and some of the others called it “the higher life”, and so they had many books on the higher life. Ruth Paxton wrote a little book called “Life on the Highest Plain”, and it’s a higher life. Dr. Maxwell, who is the former president of Prairie Bible Institute, wrote a book called “Born Crucified”, and it’s the crucified life. On and on it goes. The later Keswick writers called it “the victorious life” or “the Christ-centered life” or “the life of consecration” or “the life of full consecration”. It’s been called “the overcoming life”, “the Spirit-filled life,” “the abundant life”, “the life triumphant”, “the deeper life”, “the second blessing”, “sanctification”, and “the baptism of the Holy Spirit”.
I don’t care what you call it. Everybody is talking about the same thing. How can I know Jesus? How can I relate to Him? How can I have an intimacy with Him? How can we be one? How can I have communion with the Lord? That’s what it’s all about. All those books, though there are different nuances, come at it slightly differently. And then there’s a big war, and everybody is fighting everybody else’s book, “They’re off-centered, and they’re off-centered,” and you get into all of that. I went through a lot of that.
But there’s a title, and even though it’s from man, that has communicated to my heart more clearly than any other, and that’s why I’m using it here. It’s the “exchanged life”, and that’s what I’m calling it. That title I got from Hudson Taylor. It was made famous by him. I haven’t seen anybody in any of the earlier writers use the same expression, but nothing is new under the sun. He got it from somebody, probably McCarthy, because he said that he was the human instrument that led him to see the Lord. I don’t know where he got it, but he used that title in a letter that he wrote to his sister, Amelia. He had been a missionary in bondage, a Christian who loved the Lord, served the Lord and gave his life to serve the Lord, but knew nothing of this intimate union with the Lord until God dawned it on his heart. He wrote this letter in October 1869. You probably know it as “Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret”, the biography that was written by his second son, Dr. Howard Taylor. Anyway, I jotted down a portion of the letter:
“Oh, my dear sister, it’s a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Savior, to be a member of Christ. Just think of what it involves. Can Christ be rich, and I be poor? Can your right-hand be rich, and the left-hand poor? Can your head be full, and the body starved? Dear sister, I saw not only that Jesus would never leave me, that I was a member of His body, of His flesh, of His bones, but the vine I now see is not the root merely, but all; it’s the root, it’s the stem, the branches, the twigs, the leaves, the flowers, the fruit. And Jesus is not only that, He’s the soil and the sunshine, He’s the air and the showers, and ten thousand times more than I have ever dreamed, that I’ve ever wished, and that I’ve ever needed. Oh, the joy of this wonderful truth!”
He goes on; I’ve left a lot out…
“The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another, is the rest which this identification with Christ brings. Dear sister, I am no longer anxious about anything. As I realize this, for I know He is able to carry out His will, and His will is now my will, it makes no matter where He places me or how. All His resources are mine, and He is mine and is with me and dwells in me, and all this springs from the believer’s oneness with Christ. Since Christ has come to dwell in my heart by faith, how happy I have been! I wish I could come tell you about it instead of writing it.”
Then he adds this…
“I am no better off now. May I say, in a sense, I do not wish to be any better off, nor am I striving to be, but I have learned that I am dead and buried with Christ and risen, too, and ascended, and now Christ lives in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Now I believe I am dead to sin; God reckons me so, and He tells me to reckon myself so.”
That emphasis he called “the exchanged life”. The problem with a title is that everybody abuses it, and so I did what many do these days, and I googled the “exchanged life”. My virgin eyes! I couldn’t believe some of the stuff that came up of the hundreds of thousands of hits on “the exchanged life”. There’s an exchanged life movement going on. I don’t want to identify with them. There’s an exchanged life ministry. There’s an exchanged life counseling service. They don’t all mean what Hudson Taylor meant when they say “the exchanged life”. One group has a thing called “exchanged life” to illustrate that the old nature has been completely irradicated: that’s the exchanged life. Another is, “The exchanged life means you are no longer trichotomist—body, soul and spirit—but now there is only one nature, the exchanged life.” Another says, “The exchanged life is the early step in man becoming God.” “The exchanged life,” they’re using my word; they’re killing my whole thing. I love this exchanged life, that expression as Hudson Taylor used it, but enough of Hudson Taylor.
Let’s listen again to Paul. How did Paul explain his own experience? Let me set it before you this way. There’s one word, and usually those who are striving as I was striving to know Jesus in sweet union, they usually get hung up on this word, and since Paul used it two different ways, let me just set that before you. I’m talking about the word “flesh”. Twenty-eight times in Romans alone he uses the word “flesh”.
There are two ways he used it and pretty much we use it the same way. First of all, sometimes he just means this present life, flesh, “I’m alive.” John 1:14, “The word became flesh.” That’s not sinful flesh; the word became humanity. It’s just a Person; He became a man. 1 Timothy 3:16 says, “Christ was manifest in the flesh.” That just means that He was a man. 1 Peter 4:1, “Christ suffered in the flesh.” There’s nothing sinful about flesh, as he is using it there. I’m sure that when in Philippians 1:24 Paul said, “Now, it’s needful for you that I abide in the flesh,” I don’t think he was saying, “It’s needful for you to have a sinner here with you, that I abide in the flesh.” He wasn’t saying that. He was just talking about being alive. When he wrote in Colossians 2:1, “Many of you haven’t seen me in the flesh,” he’s not saying, “You didn’t see me sin.” He’s just saying that you’ve never seen me. In the flesh, that’s what Job meant when he said, “In my flesh I’ll see God.” That’s what David meant when he said, “All flesh shall bless His holy name.” It’s just people; it’s just being alive. It’s what Isaiah meant when he said, “All flesh is grass.” It’s just this idea that we are alive.
But, brothers, there is another use, and that’s what we want to look at. When our Lord Jesus told Peter in…
“The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” What’s that flesh? (Matthew 26:41)
“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires.” That’s what we’re looking at. (Galatians 5:24)
“We are the true circumcision who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh.” (Philippians 3:3)
It’s that use of the word “flesh”. What does Paul mean by that, because he’s the one we’re looking at; it’s him that’s been converted and he’s the new creation.
Here is what I thought for years. It’s wrong, but I thought it for years. Here is what many Christians think, and though I am rather cloistered in my little Rhode Island study, I don’t have a wide view of the body of Christ, like Dana and some of these other brothers have, but in the little view I’ve had among Christians, from my little narrow experience, most Christians think this. Here is what they think the flesh is. They think that the flesh is a proclivity to sin, that there is something in me, that God wants me to go that way and this thing wants me to go this way. It’s a tendency, it’s a bend, it’s an inclination to do the wrong thing; it’s a drive built into my nature not to do God’s will but to go and do my own will. To prove it they take one of the most misunderstood chapters in the Bible, Romans 7, in my opinion that’s one of the most misunderstood chapters, to prove their point. They say that I’ve got this inclination to do wrong.
In other words, here is their idea of victory; “I am naturally selfish and I’m choosing my own thing; God, change me! I don’t want to be selfish anymore. I want to be generous. Will you do a work in me and change me so that I’m not that inclination, but I’m the other thing? I’ve got this pride in me, and I’m always thinking about myself. I hate it. Lord, change me so that I won’t be proud. Make me humble instead of proud.” That’s the idea that they have. “I’ve got this inclination and I hate it. I feed on filth, and I don’t want to feed on filth, and I don’t want my mind to be full of that fleshly gutter stuff. Turn me around, Lord, and change me. I need to be changed because I have that drive. I’m unloving and I want to be loving. I’m unforgiving. I can’t hold my temper. I can’t stop fretting. I can’t stop worrying. I can’t stop hating. I can’t stop holding a grudge. I can’t stop lying. I can’t stop exaggerating. I can’t stop gossiping. I can’t stop swearing. I can’t stop boasting. That’s my flesh. I’ve got this inclination and I’ve got this drive. Lord, please change me. I’m impatient, I’m stubborn, I’m opinionated, I’m insensitive, I’m intolerant, I’m lazy and I’m no good. Lord, change me.” Many people think that is what the flesh is. So, victory is when God comes down and takes that inclination and, by a mighty miracle of God, does something in you, and turns it around so you are no longer inclined that way, “Now I want to do the will of God and I want to honor Him and I want to please Him.”
It will always be flesh. It will never be anything but flesh. Jesus didn’t come to improve it. “That which is flesh is flesh,” and it will always be flesh, and it’s not bad news for me to tell my fallen brother, “God will never change you.” “That sounds like bad news. Why are you telling him that? He needs to hear that there is hope and God will change you.” No, he needs to hear the truth; he needs to hear that there is no change for that, but there’s an exchange, a glorious exchange, a life not his, a life that is God’s. We need to understand what happened to the Apostle Paul, not just one or two tendencies. I was born flesh and I’m going to stay flesh, and God hasn’t promised to change my flesh. He’s promised to do something much bigger than that.
Now, brothers, I don’t know a lot of you, and I’m not looking into your heart. I’ve looked into my own heart, and I know the brothers and the sisters that have come into my life that I’m dealing with, and some of them, I’m telling you, it breaks my heart. They are frustrated to pieces because God is not coming through. They’ve cried out to the Lord, and they’ve been entangled and been in bondage to these things—lust, passion, pride, selfishness, materialism, addicted to many dependencies—to smoking and to drugs and to alcohol and to pornography and to work and to boredom, and all of these things. They are enslaved to these things, and they are crying out in reality. They love Jesus and have said, “Please, change me; I’m losing my life and I’m losing my testimony. Change me. I can’t change; I can’t stop. I need to be helped.” They are crying in vain because He has never promised to change us. Now, He’ll deal with you where you are, of course, and He’ll minister to you, but He’s going to bring you to this message.
Some of the people I have the privilege to share our Lord Jesus with come to me and tell me that they read all the how-to books, and they have been on all the websites, and they’ve listened to all the tapes, and they’ve gone to all the counselors, and they’ve been mentored, and they go from church to church, and they go from conference to conference, because they’re sick of the flesh; they’re sick of it. People talk about victory and people talk about knowing the Lord, and they’re saying, “Why doesn’t it work? Why doesn’t it work for me? How come everybody else talks about this sweet union and victory of this, and I can’t stop sinning?” They want to know. So, God gives us the Apostle Paul, and he said, “Last of all, He appeared to me, and in that day I died, and there was an exchange, a new life, a thrilling truth.” I like the way Major Ian Thomas said it in his book, “The Saving Life”, “It takes God to be a man. It takes God to be a woman. It takes God to be the husband that you ought to be. It takes God to be the father that you ought to be. It takes God to be the brother you ought to be. It takes God to be the elder that you ought to be. You need a life not your own.”
As I stand before you, I can testify that I’ve never been a drunkard. That’s a fact. I’ve never been addicted to drugs, and I’ve never been a murderer. I’ve been a hypocrite. As far as I know, except maybe in my heart or in my mind, I’ve never been a pervert, and I’ve never laid a glove on Lillian. I’ve never been an idolator except in the sense of 1 John. I have a greater testimony than that. I can’t say that God delivered me from a drunkard’s grave. I can stand before you today and say that God delivered me from me. That’s a better testimony. He delivered me from me, and He can deliver you from you. Now, every potential of every sin is in me and it’s in your heart and it’s in all of us, but that’s what happened that day on the Damascus Road. One day, like Mary, he saw Jesus. One day, like Thomas, he saw Jesus. One day, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus he saw Jesus. One day, like those in the Upper Room he saw Jesus, and when he saw Jesus, he died and there was a new life.
Let me try to explain it one other way, and then I’ll close trying to explain it. Tomorrow we’ll look at the record. Let me explain it by the life of Jesus in His two bodies. When He was on the earth the first time He had a body. It was an incarnate body.
“The word became flesh.” (1 John 1:14)
“In the fullness of time God sent forth His Son born of a woman.” (Galatians 4:4)
He lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years and He walked around in a body. They could say, “Look, there He goes. That’s His body; that’s Jesus. I know where He lives, and I know His family. That’s His body.” Whole books have been written trying to understand Jesus in His body.
“He emptied Himself.” (Philippians 2:7)
You should see the books written on “he emptied Himself”, and what’s involved in all of that. The theologians, because they can’t explain it, they just sort of give you a fifty cent word and they give it a name, “Let’s study the theanthropic person; let’s study the God-man, and this is incarnation.” Then they say, “Alright, now let’s look at another mystery. Hmmm, one person, He’s God, He’s man, two natures; let’s discuss that.” So, you read the record, and our dear Lord Jesus says, “Show me where you’ve laid Him,” as if He didn’t know. He’s man, and then all of a sudden He stands up and says, “Lazarus, come forth.” “Whoa, He’s God.” He’s in a ship and He’s sound asleep. He’s man. He stands on the deck and He holds up His hand and He says, “Peace, be still.” He’s God. They push Him all the way to the edge of a cliff because He’s man; He walks right through their midst because He’s God. They say, “When are You coming back?” He said, “I don’t know; it’s not My business. My Father knows and I don’t know.” A little while later He says, “The Son of Man is going to come in the clouds of heaven with all the angels…” So, the theologians studying Jesus in His incarnate body don’t know what to do with that, so they give it a name, “That’s the hypostatic union.” Did that help? Now you’ve got a name; it’s the hypostatic union.
Then you look at His life again and they scratch their heads, and they say, “I don’t understand these wills of His. It looks like He has two wills.” I know according to the theologians that this mystery of God and man is uncompounded and unconfounded, and they begin to explain it. I don’t want to be irreverent but it looks like if He had His way, do you remember in Gethsemane, “Not My will but Thine be done,” it looks like there are two wills; the Father has one and He has one, and if He had His way He wouldn’t do it that way, but He surrenders His will. Ah, but the theologians straighten us out here, “The divine will acts, and His human will submits and co-acts.” Here is how one of the theologians attempts to explain it, “It is infinite inclination and volition which makes it voluntary but it must never be incompatible with single self-consciousness.” Alright, that straightens it out. Do you see what I’m trying to say, brothers? I’m trying to say that when Jesus was here in His first body there was tremendous mystery and all they could do is say, “Well, that’s incarnation and that is the hypostatic union and this is the mystery of the logos.” They give you those words and they say, “Go live with that.”
Brothers, He has returned. He’s neither dead nor gone; He’s alive, except that He has a new body, now. What’s His new body? It’s you and it’s me; it’s us. We are His body and now it’s the same Jesus living again but it’s in His new body. Christians are scratching their heads like the theologians and saying, “Well, how does this Christian life work? I don’t get it. It’s called the abiding life and the abundant life and the higher life and the deeper life and the lower life; how do I get hold of it?” “It’s incarnation, God in flesh.” “I don’t get it; I’m alive, I’m not alive, I’m dead, I live but not I but Christ lives in me. It’s Him doing it but it’s me doing it, and I don’t get it.” “Hypostatic union. Alright, that’s what it is. It’s the same thing.” “Do I choose? Does He choose? Do I have to wait until I get into the mood? What if I’m not in the mood to read the Bible? Should I wait until He puts a hunger in there and a thirst in there? Am I supposed to desire? Well, what if I don’t have the desire? How does my will work with His will?”
Let me end with this. Since it’s Him in you, it’s still you, and to all those who look, it looks like a change. You still think, but now according to the record,
“You have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16)
You are still logical and you still weigh the pros and the cons and you still try to be prudent and you do what you think is right, and you are committed to the Lord and you commit your ways to Him, and He’s thinking through you. Take it by faith. I still have my hands and I still have my feet and I still have my members, and as I once presented them as instruments of unrighteousness, now I present them to Him, and as Peter at the gate called Beautiful said, “Look at us,” and then later in the same chapter, he says to the people, “Why are you looking at us, as if we in our own strength did something? Don’t look at us.” “How about because you told us to!” “Look at us,” but he was saying to look at Christ in us. The Bible says that he reached out his hand and he said, “In the name of Jesus get up and walk,” and then later they went to prayer, same chapter, and they said, “Lord, keep stretching forth Your hand to heal.” Well, whose hand was it? Was it His hand or Peter’s hand? The answer is, “Yes.” You still have your emotions, butRomanssays…
Well, you know what the love of God looks like—joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Self, in the list of the fruit of the Spirit? Self? Indeed, because it’s Him! But it’s not Him; it’s you. And they look at you, and your neighbor looks at you, and your brother looks at you, your sister looks at you and says, “He’s not jealous anymore.” See, love is not jealous. It’s Him! It looks like a change, but you haven’t been changed, and you know it. “He’s not jealous, and he’s not bragging anymore, and he’s not seeking his own interest anymore, and he’s not easily provoked; he’s forgiving everybody, and he’s not taking into account a wrong suffered. He’s bearing all things and enduring all things and believing all things. Everybody that looks at you says, “Wow, you have changed!” You didn’t change at all. Christ is being manifested through you. It’s a different life; it’s a new life; it’s His life. It looks like a change on the outside, but the reality is that it isn’t a change.
Let me give this closing illustration and then I’ll wrap it up. Everybody who knows me knows that one of my gifts is not mechanics. Out of my many non-gifts, that’s one of my non-gifts. I get so frustrated because next to not knowing where I am, I don’t know how to do anything. My neighbor knows all about it. Picture my neighbor looking out his window across the street, and he sees me there with my hood open, and here I am and I’m working on my car. All he can do is see me, and thankfully the window is closed so he can’t hear me, and he sees me kick the tire, and then he sees me take the screwdriver and say something to it, and then I slap the top of my car. “Ed, oh man, he needs to be changed.” But then let’s say that I have a friend who is a mechanic, and he comes and he opens the car hood and I’m standing there and now I’m happy. He’s looking in my car and he knows what to do, and he gets the right tools, and he takes my crowbar and throws it aside; he doesn’t need that anymore. He gets his tools and he begins to work in the car, and my neighbor says to his wife, “Hey, honey, come take a look at this. What a change in Ed Miller. He’s not kicking the tire anymore, and he’s not saying bad things to the screwdriver, and he’s not hitting the car.” Have I changed? No, I haven’t changed. If my friend goes away, I’m going to kick the tire again. But at that moment I’m happy and I’m peaceful. It looks like a change. Here is the mystery. Looking out the window, if this friend was not standing in front of the hood, and if he was living inside of me, and it’s me and the car doing this, my neighbors might say, “He’s not kicking the tire anymore. I wonder what happened to Ed?” No change. It’s an exchange.
Brothers, we need to see the Lord. Mary teaches us that. We need to see the Lord in this book. Thomas told us that. We need to see the Lord by the Holy Spirit’s life. The Road to Emmaus taught us that. We need to have Jesus breathe on us so that there will be a new creation. The Upper Room taught us that. And we need to reckon ourselves dead and alive to God in Christ Jesus; it’s His life and not ours.
Tomorrow we’re going to actually look at the event. This was an explanation of the event, but we’re going to look at the event and watch him see Jesus, and because he saw Jesus, what else did He see? That’s where we’re going. Let’s pray…
Father, thank You for Your word. Burn it in us, we pray. Thank You that even though we don’t use those big words, thank You for the incarnation, and thank You for the hypostatic union, and thank You for the mystery of the logos, and thank You for living in us in our place as our substitute. Lord, we take it by faith that You want to live for us as much as You wanted to die for us. Forgive us, Lord, for asking You to do what You have never come to do. Teach us to appropriate Your life. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
