A NEW CLASS OF MEN HERE were giants upon the earth in those days. How the imagination plays with a statement like that. They were physical giants. We have mental giants in our day, but the worlds greatest giants are spiritual giants . . . giants in the realm of faith. They belong to the new order. In Ways translation of Phil. 1: 17 he tells us, Those who are animated by love do it because they know that I am the appointed champion of the Glad-tidings. How my heart thrilled over that. The appointed champion of the Glad-tidings of Christ. If we could get together all the statements that the Father made through Paul, John, and James about the New Creation, I think it would stagger you. He opens the drama with Col. 1:13-14. Let me give you Ways translation of it: He hath rescued us from the tyranny of darkness, and hath transferred us into the Kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have our ransoming, the remission of our sins. Notice what we are. We have been translated out of the thralldom of Satanic dominion. We have been born of God by the Spirit. We have been horn into the Family of God. We have received remission of everything that we ever did in our past lives. We have been made New Creations, created in Christ Jesus. It is our spirit, our real self, the hidden man of the heart, that has been recreated. We have become a New Spirit, a New Self, a New Creation. Our Theologians have never grasped this. They have never understood that we had anything beyond forgiveness of sins. If that is all we have, then the sin nature that required a Substitute has never been removed. It is still dominant in us. The Word declares, Wherefore if any man is in Christ, there is a New Creation, the old things have passed away, Behold, they have become new. Did you notice that strange word, Behold? That is an exclamation of surprise and wonder. Have you taken it in? Something has happened in us. We have become partakers of the Divine Nature, and our past has stopped being. We are New Creation people. In the first creation, (recorded in the first chapter of Genesis,) it took six days to make the first creation. It took three days and three nights to perfect the New Creation. I want you to notice carefully that everything in that first creation was the work of God. Everything in this New Creation is of God, man had no part in it . . . only that he accept it. I wonder if you have ever noticed Ways translation of Col. 1:9-12. It is so striking and literally true that I want to quote it. For this reason I too, ever since the day I heard of you, have not ceased to pray for you. I ask God that you may have in full measure that perfect knowledge of His will which is an essential of all true wisdom, of all spiritual intelligence. I ask Him that you may pass through life in a manner worthy of our Lord, so as to please Him entirely. I ask that in every good work you may, as trees of His planting, still be bearing fruit, still growing higher, in the perfect knowledge of God. I ask Him that with all His strength you may be strengthened, even to the measure of the might of His divine majesty, till you attain to all-enduring patience and forbearance, which exults under suffering, I ask that you may ever render thanksgiving to the Father, who has made us fit to have a share in the inheritance of His consecrated ones who walk in light. The Spirit knew that some of the New Creation folk would doubt the reality of the New Creation, and so through Pauls lips He prays this remarkable prayer, that we New Creation people may be filled with the exact perfect knowledge of His will, and it was to be in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. You understand, knowledge is gained through study and observation, but wisdom is a thing that only God can give to us; it comes with Eternal Life. It is part of the equipment, or accessories, of the Divine Life. We would never know how to use the ability that belongs to us, nor enter into our inheritance, or enjoy the riches of His grace, without special wisdom. So He says these remarkable words, He has given us the ability to enjoy all that belongs to us in that remarkable redemptive work. Now with joy I realize that I am delivered out of the authority of Satan as Israel was delivered out of Egypt. I have been born out of Satans family into Gods family. I am as much a child of the Father as was Jesus during His earth walk. I have the nature of the Father, I have the love that dominated the life of the Master, and I have the wisdom of God in Christ. He is now the strength of my life. He has given to me His own ability. I have a legal right to the use of the Name of Jesus, and all authority in Heaven and on earth is in that Name. I am fully equipped. The living Word is on my lips and in my heart. He is now building Himself into me through the living Word. A confession like this instantly separates you from the old life of failure and weakness. When I have been thoroughly instructed that the old things of weakness are passed away, and I can now walk in the reality of the New Creation life; when I am made to know that I am a branch of the Vine, and that the very Vine Life of Jesus is flowing through me, and that I possess certain rights and privileges in Christ, then I will rise to the level of it. If I have only been taught that my sins are forgiven, and that I have been justified, and that I will only remain justified if I walk carefully, and have never been taught that I have the nature and substance of God in my spirit, and that I am actually a New Self, a New Creation, then sin and Satan will continue to reign over me. In Phil. 1:11 Paul was unveiling himself to that little group of believers at Philipi. Ways translation is striking. He says that he has the heart cry of his Messiah. He says, this is my prayer, that your love may rise higher and higher to its fullest development in the recognition of the truth and in comprehensive grasp of its application, thus furnishing you with a sure test of what is true excellence, so that you may remain untainted by error, unstumbling amidst obstacles till the Day of Messiahs Appearing, (it is the next sentence that gripped my heart) hearing the while a full harvest of righteousness attained through Jesus our Messiah. How few of us have ever really realized what Righteousness has meant to us. The word Righteousness means the ability to stand in the Fathers presence without the sense of guilt or condemnation . . . to be able to stand in the presence of Satan and his works without the sense of inferiority or fear. Romans 3:26 (margin of American Rev. Version) shows us that God Himself becomes the Righteousness of the man who has faith in Jesus. In I Cor. 1:30 Jesus is made unto us Righteousness. In 2 Cor. 5:21, Him who knew no sin God made to become sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him. In the 17th and 20th verses he shows us how we have become the righteousness of God in Him. It is by receiving the nature of God. All the attributes of that wonderful nature of love and grace have been imparted to us in the New Birth. Is it any wonder that he says, Of his fulness have we all received and grace upon grace. In Col. 2:9, For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. In Him are ye made full (or complete). This New Man is no ordinary product of modern educational facilities or of modern civilization. He comes out of the womb of God. He is born of God. He is a New Creation created in Christ Jesus. But that is not all. As soon as he is Born Again, Recreated, and becomes a New Creation, he may become indwelt by the great mighty Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. I Cor. 6:19,20 Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body. We have a legal right to invite Him to come and take possession of us. Remember that Jesus said in Luke 11:13, How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. You see, it is His children to whom the promise is made. It is His children who will ask the Holy Spirit to come into their bodies. We are born of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has imparted to us the nature and life of the Father, which makes us New Creations, gives us a New Self. Then we are indwelt when we invite Him to cone into our bodies, and make His permanent home there. There is no need to tarry fur the Holy Spirit, for He is already here. They tarried on the Day of Pentecost for His coming; He had not yet made His appearance; but He is here now. You could not be Recreated without Him. You are born of the Holy Spirit, and now you have a right to ask His indwelling. He will come in now and make His home in you. You had to become a child of God, a New Creation, first. He did that by imparting the nature of the Father to you. Now he wants to make His home in you; can you imagine what it would mean! Turn to 1 John 4:4 and notice this scripture carefully. Ye are of God my little children, (you see, you have been born of God, you came out of Him, and are part of Him) and greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Who has come into you. The great, mighty holy Spirit. Remember Romans 8:11? And if the Spirit of Him who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead is giving life to your mortal body. You cannot be a failure with Him in you. You may not always take advantage of His presence, you may not always remember that He is there, but He IS THERE, and He is the one whom Jesus promised. He said, When he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth. He shall take the things of mine and reveal them unto you. John 16:13. I prefer this translation, When He, the Spirit of reality is come, He will guide you into all reality. The reality of the New Birth, the reality of your Redemption, the reality of your relationship to the Father, and the reality of the living Word. What a wonderful thing it would be if the Word would become a living thing on your lips. It will be if you will let it be, and you will let it be because that is joy and victory! I should not have said, if you let it be, for that savors of our modern preaching. They tell us what we could do if we had faith, and if we would live right we could have this, and we must give up this to be that. I preached that way for years, until one day I saw what God had made me to be in Christ. I saw what He had given me in Christ. I will never forget the hour when I sat at my desk and wrote sonic of the things I am in Christ. I am indwelt of God; I have His nature and life. And then I wrote this, I am what He says I am. He is in me what He says He is. He can do through me what He says He can do. I trembled as I read it. Then I saw this glorious fact: I did not need to have faith for what already belonged to me, what had already been given to me, and for the things that the Holy Spirit was ready to guide me into. I did not need faith for these things because they were already mine. I did not need faith to use the Name of Jesus, all I needed was courage to use what belonged to me. The Master said, In my name ye shall cast out demons and lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Then I remembered Col. 1:12. He had given me ability to enjoy all that belonged to me in Christ. Let us go back to 1 John 4:4, Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Who is in me? Love is in me and God is love. Jesus was love manifested in His earth walk. The Holy Spirit is Love. Greater is love in me than the hatred and bitterness and jealousy that is in the world. This New Creation man is the Righteousness of God. He has the ability of God. He can dominate the forces of darkness. He reigns as a king in the realm of life, through Jesus Christ. Who is he that overcometh the world? He that is born of God. Take Weymouths translation of Romans 5:17, For if through the transgression of one individual, death made use of the one individual to seize the sovereignty, all the more shall those who receive Gods overflowing grace and the gift of Righteousness, reign as kings in the realm of life through the one individual, Jesus Christ. You see, spiritual death is the nature of the devil, and spiritual life is the nature of the Father God. Jesus came that we might receive Eternal Life, and be taken out of the thrall of Satan and into the family of God. Jesus said, The prince of this world cometh to me, but he has nothing in me. I wonder if you have ever realized that since you are a New Creation and have come into the family of God, that Satan has nothing in you. He has no ground to enter the sacred precinct of the New Creation. If he does enter, it is because you have permitted him to do so. We have had a limited picture of the New Man with Gods life, Gods wisdom, Gods love and grace, in Christ. THE HIDDEN MAN Kindly share this post
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 13:00:01 +0000
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