The True Gospel !?!

[color=990000][b] The Gospel, By Dr. Richard A. Bennett [/color][/b]

Underlined in my Bible are two special references to our Lord Jesus Christ. In one, He is called the Last Adam. In the other He is called the Second Man. Because He is the Last Adam there can be no second Adam. Because He is the Second Man, limitless numbers of redeemed people can be embraced into His new creation until the Trumpet blows and the Church is complete!

We read that the first man, Adam, was of the earth, earthy. However, the last Adam is also called the Second Man and is the Lord from heaven (1 CORINTHIANS 15:47). It is of the Second Man (the Christ of God) that we read: If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new (2 CORINTHIANS 5:17). So how are we translated out of the Adamic race into the new creation? As perfect Man, Jesus not only died for our sin, but because we are in Christ we are identified with Him in His death, burial and resurrection. He therefore becomes God’s answer for our selflife for: “In Him I died; in Him I rose; in Him I triumphed o’er my foes.”

[color=990000]In Christ[/color]
The phrase “in Christ” is one of the Apostle Paul’s repeated themes. Yes, the Holy Spirit baptizes the true believer into the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13). In so doing a glorious translation takes place. Being delivered from our identity in the Adamic race, we are delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the Kingdom of His dear Son (COL. 1:13).

The Lord Jesus not only died to forgive us our sin but as He embraces us into His death He also to delivers us from this present evil world GALATIANS 1:4.

Many years ago, I arrived at a Pastor’s home as
he and his wife were about to leave. “Make yourself at home,” was his cordial greeting. “Please forgive us, but we must slip out to meet with others and pay our respect to a lady who has just died. She is in the funeral parlor for viewing by family and friends.” Upon his return, the pastor had a hesitant smile on his face: “I really shouldn’t be smiling,” he said, “but what I just heard struck me as humorous. Just as we approached the dead body which had been cosmetically prepared for viewing, the lady in front of me gazed at the corpse and exclaimed:[b] ‘My doesn’t she look well!’”[/b]

[color=990000]Unfortunately, that is how many Christians try to live their Christian life. With utter futility, they don the rags of selfrighteousness and put on the cosmetics of Christian activity. So, what God has declared to be dead, they try to camouflage by selfmotivated service devoid of living fellowship with the Lord.[/color]

[color=990000]Fact[/color]
There is a biblical fact which if misunderstood or unknown will imperil vital spiritual fruitfulness: “Know you not, that as many as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?” “Knowing that our old man is crucified with Him” ROMANS (6:4,6). Yes, this is a fact and it is imperative we know it!

Imagine an engine with two carriages as they roll down a railroad. One is called “fact,” another is called “faith” and the other is called “feeling.” Let us put “feeling” in the driver’s seat.

The following carriage is “faith” while “fact” tags along. Surely, it will be an erratic journey! Deflections here, desires there,distractions yonder and disaster at the end of the line, all because “feeling” was in the lead.

Now let us put “fact” in the driver’s seat. “Faith” follows hard after “fact.” This time it is “feeling” that tags along. Only in this way will the journey be accompanied with spiritual fruitfulness as it proceeds to God’s glorious destination.

“Feeling” is in tow with “faith” and “faith” is mobilized by “fact.”

[color=990000]Know the Fact in Experience[/color]

So what is the fact? The fact is that at the Cross, God finished with everything we received from Adam. However, death to self is only the means; newness of life is the purpose. The means: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him. The purpose: That as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (ROMANS 6:6,4).

But that is not all, after we are assured of our co-crucifixion, co-burial, co-resurrection in Christ, we also read of our coascension in Him: And hath raised us up together, and made
us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (EPH. 2:6).

For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (COL. 3:3). Yes, our life is hid with Christ in the heavenlies! But often we are very much aware that our bodies are still on earth. Here, Satan knows that we are his only possible approach to attack our Savior. It is through those of us in whom Christ lives!

[b]Some of the avenues of Satan’s attack are habit patterns of lust: The lust of power: Desiring to control others. The lust of approbation: Craving to be appreciated and recognized by others whereas the Lord Jesus said: “I do always those things that please Him” JOHN 8:29. The lust of material gain: Craving material things. Sensual lust: Craving for sexual fulfillment outside God’s boundaries—including mental lust. Details of life lust: When these become so absorbing that they exclude an intimate and personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. Let us rejoice that Christ, Who lives within us, is totally adequate to meet every venomous attack of Satan.[/b]

[color=990000]Yield[/color]
This is where faith follows fact and acts on the injunction:

Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you (ROMANS 6:12-14).

So as we deliberately lay every part of our life on the altar of sacrifice, we know it is not the gift that sanctifies the altar, but it is the altar that sanctifies the gift and separates us from this evil world! Accordingly, my life will no longer be explained in terms of “me” and my wishes but rather in terms of the absolute sovereignty of the LORD Jesus Christ Who lives in me.

[color=990000]But How?[/color]
Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ, our Lord ROMANS 6:11. Suppose I have three quarters in my pocket but I want to buy something that costs a dollar. If I reckon the three quarters to be a dollar it will never pay for what I want to buy! The word: “reckon” is a precise mathematical expression. I do not reckon that I am dead in order to become dead but because God has declared it as a fact, I can count on it and thank Him for such wonderful grace!

[color=990000][b][u]Through the Spirit[/u]
However, God knows that of myself I could never mortify the deeds of my body (to render them inoperative). So, in His great grace, He has provided a Divine Executioner—The Holy Spirit! But if you through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live (ROMANS 8:13). It is the Holy Spirit Who attests to the “Finished Work” of Christ and the power of His atoning Blood so that it is only He Who can render inoperative the sinful responses of our habit patterns. Such victory becomes ours as we too learn to live by faith in the “Finished Work” of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course this involves our willingness to attend our own funeral as we ask the Lord Jesus to love us to death! Faith continually says: “Thank You Lord Jesus that You are everything that I am not. Now I will continually depend on You for the fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit and rejoice to know that: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me GALATIANS 2:20.”[/color][/b]

Sincerely,

Walter

Ver. 35-50. How do the dead rise again? He now answers the objections these new teachers made against the resurrection. St. Chrysostom reduces them to these two questions: how is it possible for them to rise? and in what manner, or with what qualities, will they rise? To shew the possibility, he brings the example of a grain of wheat, or of any seeds, which must be corrupted, and die as it were in the ground, and then is quite changed, comes up with a blade, a stalk, and an ear quite different from what it was when sown, and yet comes to be wheat again, or to be a tree that produces the same kind of fruit: so God can raise our bodies as he pleaseth. He also tells them that there are very different bodies, terrestrial, and celestial, some more, some less glorious, differing in beauty and other qualities, as God pleaseth. As the sun is brighter than the moon, and as one star is brighter than another, so shall it be at the general resurrection. But all the bodies of the elect shall be happily changed to a state of incorruption. (ver. 42.) Here the bodies even of the just are subject to corruption, to decay, liable to death, but they shall then rise to a state of incorruptibility and immortality: And so he answers the second question, that here every one's body is a weak, sensual, animal body, clogged with many imperfections, like that of Adam after he had sinned; but at the resurrection, the bodies of the saints shall be spiritual bodies, blessed with all the perfections and qualities of a glorified body, like to that of Christ after he was risen. --- St. Paul also, comparing the first man (Adam) with Christ, whom he calls the second or the last Adam, (ver. 45) says that the first Adam was made a living soul, (i.e. a living animal, or a living creature, with a life and a body that required to be supported with corporal food) but that Christ was made a quickening Spirit: he means, that though he had a true mortal body by his nativity of his Virgin Mother, yet that by his resurrection he had a glorified body, immortal, that needed no corporal food, and that he would also give such spiritual and immortal bodies to those whom he should make partakers of his glory. --- But not first that which is spiritual, &c. (ver. 46) that is, both in Adam and in us, and even in Christ, the body was first mortal, which should afterwards be made spiritual and immortal by a happy resurrection. --- The first Adam (ver. 47) was of the earth, earthly, made of clay, and with such a body as could die, but the second man (Christ) was from heaven, heavenly: not that he took a body from heaven, as some ancient heretics pretended, but he was heavenly not only because he was the Son of God, but in this place he seems to be called heavenly even as to his body, after his resurrection, his body being then become spiritual and immortal. --- Such as is the earthly man, &c. (ver. 48) that is, as the first man, Adam, was earthly by his earthly and mortal body, so were we and all his posterity earthly; but such as the heavenly man, Christ, was heavenly, and rose with a heavenly and immortal body; so shall all those be heavenly, to whom he shall give a spiritual, a heavenly, and an immortal body at their happy resurrection. --- Therefore, (ver. 49) as we have borne the image of the earthly man, (that is, have been made mortal, and also by sin subject to the corrupt inclinations of this mortal body) so let us bear also the image of the heavenly one, by a new life imitating Christ, by which means we shall be glorified with him, both as to soul and body. --- Now this I say, and admonish you, brethren, (ver. 50) that flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God; i.e. those that lead a sensual and carnal life, nor the corruption of sin, deserve the state of incorruption in glory. (Witham)