Adam Set Aside for the Last Adam to Come Forth
You see, what He had voluntarily accepted was the setting aside of a particular kind of man. In that awful hour He had voluntarily allowed Himself to take the place of that kind of man. It was God saying, ‘I close the door forever to that kind of being.’ The Cross means that in Christ’s death you and I, as to what we are naturally - men and women by nature - have been set aside. God has in Christ disposed of and removed a kind of being, a degenerate species of creation. He has put it out of the way. In the resurrection of the Lord Jesus that is all done: THAT man has gone. It is not THAT man that is raised from the dead: it is a new man - another. Christ has put off the ‘old’ man, and now assumes the place of a ‘new creation’ man.
And there the Heaven is opened. God accepts that Man, and He is installed and instated forever before God, as the type of man that God has ever had in mind. The Cross, on the one side, sets aside a kind of man, and, on the other side, installs and instates another kind of man. "Wherefore”, says the Apostle, "if any man is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). The Christian life is just that, in principle. The Cross has brought about this - that there is a difference between where we were and how we were and what we were before, in God’s sight, and how it is now. In Christ, there is a different man; by faith in Christ there has come about a different creation. In the resurrection of Christ, the old kind of man has been replaced by an altogether new one. Now there arises the necessity for our first of all accepting this position. We shall never get anywhere in Christ, anywhere on the way to the realm of fullness, until we have accepted that position into which God has put us in the death of Christ. In effect He says to us, ‘Look here: so far as I am concerned, in yourself you are a dead man, a dead woman. I want you to recognize that, when My Son died, you died in Him, and when He rose, you rose in Him too, and there is now a new creation. Until you do that, you will never get anywhere at all. When you do that, then you are in the position to take your place in the reality of Christ risen.’ Sooner or later our growth spiritually will come up against that principle in the form of suffering and discipline.
You see, first of all it is a matter of A POSITION TO BE TAKEN, deliberately taken by faith. This is something that needs constantly to be underlined. It is the basic principle of the Christian life, that we have got to consent to God’s verdict upon us as we are by nature. We are not to dissect ourselves and say, ‘This is good and this is bad, and this is not so good and this is not so bad.’ God says: ‘ALL of you has gone in My Son. I do not make distinctions between what you call good and what you call bad. I regard you as altogether under condemnation.’ "There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10). "In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing” (Rom. 7:18).
Yes, that is basic, and it is vital that we should get hold of this fundamental principle of the Christian life. Many Christians do not make any progress at all, development and growth is stayed and arrested, because they have not got that basic matter settled. They are still trying to make something of the person, the self, the nature, that God says He will never entertain at all. They are still thinking that they can be something in themselves, and trying to be something in themselves. They have never accepted this utter, ultimate position. God says, ‘I have put you in a grave with My Son, and that was the end of that. Now everything has got to be of another kind, from another source altogether. It must all come from Christ risen, and not from you at all.’
That is the key to fullness. It opens up the way, throws wide open the doors. When you get that really settled and by faith take that position, there is no limit to what can be done in the Christian life. But then, when once the position, the utter position, has been taken and accepted, acknowledged, received by faith, then the other side begins - the application of the principle. We accept that ultimate position as a basis and recognise it as God’s own verdict, and then the principle of the Cross begins to work in us. Yes, the tenses again, that we had earlier, are: firstly PAST - we were crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20). Then PRESENT - Paul says: "Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body” (2 Cor. 4:10); and again: "I die daily” (1 Cor. 15:31). And lastly FUTURE - his aspiration was: "that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death” (Phil. 3:10).
Here is the principle at work. It was accepted in a definite act, but now it is being applied as an active thing in the life, on the one side bringing to an actual reality our death with Christ, and correspondingly, on the other side, bringing into our experience our life-union with Christ. As the death works, so the life works. This is just the meaning of the Christian life. What is God doing with us? Why all this trouble, all this difficulty, all this discipline - this chastening, this hard way, this difficult school? Why all this? ‘I thought the Christian life was going to be one continuous song and picnic and joy-ride!’ You find that it is not. It does not mean that joy disappears, but it does mean that we come into a lot of difficulties and into what, to that ‘old man’ of ours, is a very difficult way. What is the meaning?
Ah, God is applying the principle - getting the old man out of the way and making way for the new. Is it not true of a Christian, a true Christian, as differing from any other person, that suffering produces beauty, suffering produces the fruit, the nature, of Christ; suffering just brings out what Christ is? In others, so often, suffering brings out bitterness, resentment. Some of the most difficult people that I have ever met and tried to help have been people who, because of some great adversity in their lives, have turned against God, become bitter, sour. Suffering has done that. But that is not what happens to a Christian. The marvel of the Christian, the miracle of the Christian life, is just this, that you can find some dear children of God, in lifelong suffering and agony, either of body or of circumstances, who are just wonderfully radiant. You go in where they are, and it is the peace of God. The hymns they sing are hymns about the love of God. Such are their favorite hymns, and yet, if they sang at all, you would think, naturally speaking, it would not be about that. I have clearly in mind certain outstanding instances of such people, in my own experience.
What is it all for? Why, the principle of the Cross is at work, clearing the ground for Christ, for this new creation life, making way for the fullness of Christ. That is the first principle.
T. Austin-Sparks - What It Means To Be a Christian
And too many Christians today are trying to be accepted by God by presenting who they are in themselves to God as the basis of acceptance. They are 'trying to be a good person' so God will like them. By grace we are made acceptable through Christ's finished work. They are ignorant of these union truths and see themselves down here and Christ up there and focused mainly on their own thoughts, feelings, desires, and circumstances as being more fundamental than the things of the spirit which must be apprehended and lived out by FAITH.
-Daniel
