Liberty and Life

All that you have considered thus far adds up to this: "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Corinthians. 15:22). Your only hope is to be freed from eternal death in Adam, and to be born again so that you have eternal life in Christ.

FROM BAD TO GOOD - When you are able to face up to the bad news, and acknowledge that Satan has you hopelessly bound in guilt, condemnation, and death; it is then, and not until then, that God comes to your rescue and enables you to embrace the Gospel, the good news.

And was there ever such good news? "Forasmuch, then, as the children (of Adam) are partakers of flesh and blood, he (the Last Adam) also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Hebrews. 2:14,15).

THE DIVINE OFFER - God has always taken the initiative. He made the first and every other move toward you, while all your moves have been away from Him. But the blessed "Hound of Heaven" has finally overtaken you.

As one has so well put it, "Mulling over this solitary journey afterward, I had a notion that somehow, besides questing, I was being pursued. Footsteps padding behind me; a following shadow, a Hound of Heaven, so near that I could feel the warm breath on my neck.

"I know I was making for somewhere, some place of light; seeking some ultimate fulfillment of which another reborn me would be extricated from the existing husk of a fleshly egotistic me, like a butterfly from a chrysalis.

"I was also in flight. Being chased; the pursuing and the pursuit, the quest and the flight, merging the last into one single immanence of luminosity."

Just as the Father embraced his prodigal son, so God's love receives you "as is" . "God commendeth His love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). "God loves us the way we are, but He loves us too much to leave us that way."

Could the good news of the Gospel be more explicit? "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). "Whosoever" includes you: you can thank God for that! You escape everlasting death and enter into everlasting life by believing on the Son. Born to die, you are reborn to live. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life" (John 3:36).

What a relief! God laid all your sins upon His perfect Son when He was on the Cross of Calvary. The Lord Jesus took all your sin into death, thereby paying for your justly-earned penalty. Since He Himself had not sin, He was free to come out from under the paid penalty and rise from the dead. He "was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification" (Romans 4:25).

FREELY FORGIVEN - Now God can justly say to you, "Full payment has been made. Receive My beloved Son as your personal payment, and you will be free from the first Adam and born again into the Last Adam."

Yes, Jesus paid it all! "All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ.... For he hath made him (Jesus), who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians. 5:18,21).

Here is a word from God to better enable you to close in on the subject at hand. He says to you, in love, "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Romans 4:5).

Enough! No works, no changing; He just asks you to trust Him as you are: an ungodly sinner. Being a sinful child of Adam, you fully qualify for God's gift of His Son. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." "For Christ also hath once suffered for (your ) sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God" (1 Timothy 1:15; 1 Peter 3:18).

THIS IS IT! - You have earned your wages, but God offers you His free Gift before you have to collect them. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord" (Romans 6:23). If, right now, you want to receive the Savior, there are but two words remaining!

"REPENT" - How to be born again consists of "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21). Repentance means to turn about, to change one's mind. God, the Creator of the universe, asks you to turn from your way and choose His way. And He has personally paid your (Adamic) penalty on the Cross so that you are legally free to make the right choice. "God... commandeth all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30).

Now you can freely pray to Him, "O God, I want You to be my heavenly Father, and I choose to go Your way."

"BELIEVE" - "Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." When you repent and turn to God as your Father, there is no longer any question about trusting God the Son as you Savior. On the basis of what you know of your spiritual need, and what you have learned about Christ's provision, you may now say to Him, "Lord Jesus, I thank you from my heart for dying for my sins, and I now receive You as my own Savior."

That, dear friend, is how to become a born-again Christian.

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The Lord Jesus Christ

WHAT HAPPENED? - As a Christian, it is important for you to know something of what happens to you when you reject the first Adam and accept the Last Adam. You know you have become a Christian, not on the basis of what you feel or don't feel, but upon Whom you have believed and therefore have received. "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name" (John 1:12).

PERSONAL - As Adam brought death by your natural birth, so the Lord Jesus brings life by your spiritual birth. When you accept the Savior, you not only receive what He did for you on the Cross, but you receive the One who did it. By His Holy Spirit, He comes into your spirit to be your Christian life. "Christ, who is our life" (Colossians 3:4).

When you place your trust in the Lord Jesus, God removes you from the fallen Adam family by the cutting-off death of the Cross, and He spiritually re-creates you as a member of the new heavenly race that springs from the Last Adam. "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

ONENESS - As you were one with Adam by nature, you became one with the Lord Jesus by a new nature. God positions you in His Son by means of a spiritual birth, and He places His Son's very nature within your spirit so that you are now His child. Believing, we become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4).

At the moment of your new birth, the Lord Jesus enters your spirit by means of God the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of Christ. In that way you are in living and eternal union with God the Son. "I (Christ) will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter (the Holy Spirit), that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth.... At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you" (John 14:16,17,20).

LIFE HIMSELF - "Believing on God is really receiving what God gives." Becoming a born-again Christian is receiving and being indwelt by a Person. It is not a matter of feeling, but of scriptural fact. It is not making a commitment, or deciding to follow Him, or anything else. God gives you eternal life by giving you His Son who is life eternal. The Lord Jesus said, "I am...the life" (John 14:6).

"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath no life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life" (1 John 5:11-13).

SERVANT SATAN - Now you can see that Satan didn't ruin or alter God's original plan, after all. As a matter of fact, God used him to bring about His purpose for you. By the fallen Adam, Satan brought you under condemnation. But the Spirit-given realization of your lost condition led you to conviction of sin and to the Savior. "Satan is working within the limits of the eternal plan of God." And that in spite of the fact that He fell by originally exceeding those limits.

GROWTH - What is God's eternal purpose for you? Remember? "Let us make man in our image" (Genesis 1:26). And the Lord Jesus is the "express image of his (God's) person" (Hebrews 1:3). Hence, by means of your new birth you were re-created in the image of God.

As you grow in your new life, you will grow in the expression of that image. That is what the Christian life is all about--becoming more and more like your Lord. Paul said of his converts, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you" (Galatians 4:19).

As a Christian, God will be working out His eternal purpose for you, and slowly developing you into His likeness. Like the Father, and like the Son! "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son" (Romans 8:28,29).

You have begun a wonderful new life now, and it will continue throughout Eternity. All the while, you will be getting to know the Lord Jesus more fully; and by Him you will increasingly know and love your heavenly Father. "For in him (Christ) dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9).

HEIR OF GOD - Keep in mind, the Lord Jesus is your very life now, and He will be forever. All that He is, He is for you. All that He has, He will give to you--and that will require all eternity! "For ye are all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus.... Wherefore, thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." "If children, then heirs--heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ" (Galatians 3:26; 4:7; Romans 8:17).

Let us reverently listen to a portion of the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ just before He went to the Cross:

"Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent....

"And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one.... Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:1-3; 22,24).

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The Principle of Grace

BORN BY GRACE - As a new Christian you are able to understand that you were born again on the principle of grace--the unearned, free gift of God. "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord." "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:8).

CONFORMED BY GRACE - As a new Christian it is important that you realize, also, that God saved you in order to conform you to the image of His Son. The Lord Jesus is the express image of God, and it is through Him that God realizes His original purpose: "Let us make man in our image."

LIVE BY GRACE - As a new Christian, moreover, you are to understand that your new life is to be lived on the same principle as your new birth--that of grace. "As ye have, therefore, received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him" (Colossians 2:6).

God created, God gave, God works, "For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). Your Father's good pleasure is that you may become like His beloved Son.

As a babe in Christ you are aware of new life and strength within, and your heart is filled with love for the Lord Jesus. You will become active in church, Bible study, Scripture memorization, and no doubt seek to win your unsaved relatives and friends to the Savior. All good, and beneficial.

WORKS VS. GRACE - In time, however--it may be a few months or a number of years--you may begin to falter in all of these areas. Your love for the Lord Jesus cools, and elements of your old life begin to reassert themselves.

Struggle as you may to regain your spiritual balance, you will only seem to fail the more. For you it becomes, "When I would do good, evil is present with me.... Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7:21, 24).

By means of your struggle and failure to live the Christian life, the Lord Jesus is teaching you the indispensable grace principle of "not I, but Christ" (Galatians 2:20). During this downward path you will finally learn that you cannot live the Christian life in you own strength, nor even with the Lord's help.

THE GRACIOUS VINE - The Lord Jesus expressed this principle in John 15:5: "I am the vine, ye are the branches, he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing."

Your part, as a branch in the Vine, is to rest in Him, depend upon Him, and fellowship with Him. You are joined to the Vine by nature, and His life will flow in and through you, "that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh" (2 Corinthians 4:11).

You will find it a great revelation--and relief--in the midst of your failure, to hear these words, "Now thanks be unto God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place" (2 Corinthians 2:14). You do not triumph by means of your own strength and strategy; it is your Father who gives you life and growth in His Son.

Regeneration by grace; growth by grace--that is the principle of the Christian life. Indeed, the Lord Jesus is your Life Principle. "Now unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us" (Ephesians 3:20).

WALK BY GRACE - Slowly and painfully you will learn to be dependent upon your heavenly Father. He has ordained and laid out His plan for your life, and as you grow spiritually you will be walking in the path He has chosen for you. "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10).

SERVE BY GRACE - You are going to learn that your service is also according to the principle of grace: regeneration by grace, growth by grace, service by grace.

Your Father has promised to provide you with all that you will need for whatever He calls you to do. There will be enough for you, and for others, also. "God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work" (2 Corinthians 9:8).

GRACE WORKS! - The fact that the Christian life and service are by grace does not mean that you flop down and wait for Him to work apart from you.

The growing Christian is a very active individual; he becomes the willing instrument of God's blessed will. In his measure he can say, with Paul, "His grace, which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me" (1 Corinthians 15:10).

"God works, not with what He finds, but with what He brings."

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MJStanford

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(Materials by Miles J. Stanford are republished here under exclusive permission from the author.)