Wednesday afternoon, one of the
men who's been with us here ever since I've been here, was here
when I came here, Brother Bill Raleigh, was out here working.
He and I visited a little bit. And he said to me, he said, you
know, I thought God had saved me a long time ago. But sometime recently, he's given
me faith in Christ. and don't really know when. It is my prayer for you who are
here, who yet do not know our Redeemer, that before you leave
here this weekend, you will find yourself believing on the Son
of God. Turn with me, if you will, to
John chapter 14. Just hold your place there. God the Holy Spirit declares
in this book that there are two things revealed in the gospel
that are great mysteries, just two things. There are many mysteries
revealed in the scriptures, revealed in the gospel of Christ, mysteries
of God, mysteries of the kingdom of God, and so on. But there
are only two that are singled out by the Spirit of God with
special emphasis as being great mysteries. The first we're all
very familiar with. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. The union of deity and humanity. What a mystery. It's a mystery
no mortal can comprehend. But a mystery in which we rejoice,
a mystery we believe, a mystery upon which we hang our souls. God was manifest in the flesh. In Ephesians chapter 5, I'd like
you to look there for just a moment if you would. Hold your hands
in John 14. Turn to Ephesians 5. The Spirit of God speaks of
another mystery. Let's begin at verse 25. Husbands, love your wives, even
as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that
he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water
by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives
as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth
himself. For no man ever yet hated his
own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord
the church. For we are members of his body,
of his flesh, and of his bones. For this call shall a man leave
his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and
they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery. But
I speak concerning Christ in the church. The focus is not on the family,
it's on the family of God. I speak concerning Christ in
the church. This is truly a great mystery. Like the mystery of
the incarnation, it is a mystery that no mortal can comprehend.
We believe it. We rejoice in it. And like the
mystery of the incarnation, we hang our souls upon it, but comprehend
it, we cannot, let alone explain it. We are members of his body,
of his flesh, and of his bones. Spiritually, mystically, if you
will, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. We're talking now about Christ
and you. Christ and me. Christ and his
church. I just called my friend Bob Morrell,
there was armed around his wife Jeanette. The man leaves his
father and mother and they too are one flesh. The two of you
will never be one flesh. This ain't gonna happen. This
ain't gonna happen. That lady there been married
to me for nearly 40 years. We're not one flesh. And if you
can't tell the difference, I feel for you. It just ain't gonna happen. I
love her dearly and she loves me dearly, but we're not one
flesh. We abandon everything else for one another, but we're
not one flesh. With regard to my Redeemer, I
am one. as truly one as he is one with
the father and the father is one with him. Bone of his bone
and flesh of his flesh. That's a great mystery. This
matchless mystery is my subject. I have no hope of expounding
it. We're just going to dive in and
slosh around. It's too big to grasp, too big to explain, too
big for for my puny brain, but not too big to rejoice in." John
chapter 14, verse 15. Our Lord Jesus is giving his
final discourse to his disciples, and he promises here the gift
of his spirit. If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and
He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth, whom
the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth
Him, but you know Him. For He dwelleth with you, and
shall be in you. I will not leave you without
comfort. I will come to you. Yet a little
while, And the world seeth me no more, but ye see me. Because I live, ye shall live
also. Now watch this. At that day,
ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in
you. At that day, at that day when
God the Holy Spirit is given to you on the day he creates
faith in you at that time that he comes into you as the spirit
of life to abide with you and in you forever as your comforter
at that day the Son of God says you shall know something he says
you shall know these three things you shall know these three things
if you are born of God And taught of God, you shall know these
three things. He doesn't say you will speak
of them with great eloquence. He doesn't say you will know
what to call them. He says you shall know these three things
by the experience of His grace. Number one, I am in my Father. Is he declaring here that all
who are born of God, all who are taught by the Spirit of God,
understand by divine revelation that there is a union between
the man, Christ Jesus, and God the Father? Between our humanity
and God the Son? That that man who is our Savior
and the eternal God are one? Does he tell us that those who
are born of God and taught of God know that Jesus Christ, the
man who lived here in righteousness and died upon the cursed tree,
is himself God in human flesh? That's what he tells us. Anyone
who denies that denies the very core of the gospel. And you shall
know, second, ye are in me. Ye are in me. How? Just like I'm in the Father. But you can't say that. Oh, I
wouldn't. But he did. And I must repeat
it. You shall know that you are in
me. Those who are born of God Those
who are taught by the Spirit of God, those who are given life
and faith in Christ understand that Christ is their representative,
that He is their substitute. He is our surety. We rejoice
to know by divine illumination that God the Father made His
Son to be our mediator. our representative and our substitute,
so that all that he is in his mediatorial capacity, and I use
that word to kindly hedge, because I don't have a clue what I'm
talking about. All that he is in all the fullness of his being
as the God-man mediator whom we trust, all that he is He is
as our representative. All that He has done and all
that He is doing and all that He shall do until at last He
delivers up the kingdom to the Father and declares, Lo, I and
the children whom God hath given me, He does as our mediator. He does none of it for Himself.
He owed God nothing. He performed nothing for God. Nothing. Not for himself as God. He did it all for us as our representative
before God to satisfy the justice of God and bring glory to the
name of the triune God. He does it all as our representative. And third, when you're given
the Spirit, when you're taught of God to believe the gospel,
You shall know that I am in you. In the very day that my grace
comes in, you shall know that I have come in. Thomas Goodwin
wrote, This union of Jesus Christ and his saints is a great and
imminent mystery of the gospel and the greatest hope of glory. There are many things we look
to and say, this is my hope, all relating to the person and
work of our Redeemer. Christ is our hope. The basis
of our hope is His blood and righteousness. The strength of
our hope is His intercession. But it is specifically written
in Scripture that Christ in you, not Christ living for you, not
Christ dying for you, not Christ interceding for you, Christ in
you is the hope of glory. And you have no reason to imagine
you have any hope before God until you find Christ in you. Christ in you is the hope of
glory. At that day ye shall know that
I am in my Father and ye in me. and I in you as God is in Christ
and Christ is in him so my brother and my sister you are in Christ
and Christ is in you that's the thing I want to communicate
to you in this message If you trust the Lord Jesus Christ,
oh, if God right now opens the windows of heaven and opens your
heart and drops in His grace, giving you life and faith in
His dear Son. If you believe on the Son of
God, you and Jesus Christ are one. in all that you can imagine
that to entail and more. Pastor, you've got to limit that.
You've got to hedge that. I wish I could take away every
thought that puts up a barrier or a limitation of any kind. All that Jesus Christ is, He
is for you. All that He does, He does for
you. And all that he is, you are in
him. And all that he has done, you
have done in him. So that God Almighty looks on
his son and sees you. And he just smiles all the time. Oh, Brother Don, that can't be
so. Oh, sometimes he appears to frown. And he chastens severe. for our good, but he smiles with
a smile of unceasing delight and
approval all the time for he has put away our sin and made
us to be the very righteousness of God in him. Imagine that. You and Christ are one. I and
Christ are one, not two, one. By God's sovereign grace united
to His Son eternally, I can never be divided from my covenant surety. God's free love from everlasting
made me one with His dear Son. Blessed union, strong, unchanging,
I am with My Savior won. In the New Testament, this is
set before us with such clarity and such constancy that it cannot
be missed except you read the Scriptures with blinders on your
eyes. It is set before us constantly
in the Scriptures. It cannot be that this is looked
at as something that's strange or tucked away in a back corner
somewhere. This is a doctrine that is just
not commonly taught. It's taught everywhere. Let me
give you some examples. Every act of our Lord that is
identified in the New Testament, every act, everything He did
while He walked on this earth is spoken of in one way or another
in association with us. Was He circumcised? Was He? The book says in Colossians 2,
we were circumcised in Him. Was He crucified? Paul says,
I'm crucified with Christ. Did He die? The book declares
in Romans 6 that we died with Him. Was He buried in the tomb? We're buried with Him in baptism,
confessing Him. Was He raised up from the dead?
We are risen together with Him, Paul tells us. Did He ascend
on high and set down in glory? God has made us sit together
in heavenly places in Him. Does He live? It's Christ who lives in me. The life which I now live in
the flesh, it's not me. It's Christ living in me. The
faith I have in God is not something I have mustered. It's what Christ
brought with Him when He came in. You understand that? It's
the faith Christ gives and the faith Christ performs. In the
book of God, this union of Christ and His members is traced out
in everything our Lord did, in every act of His obedience, and
in everything He suffered, in everything He has received, in
His glory because of His obedience, and in everything He now performs.
The Scripture shows us this with such clarity that it's amazing
to me there's so little said concerning it. Let me make four
or five statements, maybe six, and I'll be done. Number one,
this union that exists between you and your Savior is an eternal
union. You don't need to turn there.
You're familiar with Ephesians chapter one? The Spirit of God
tells us that we were, before the world began, blessed of God
our Father with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. Now it speaks of these blessings
being given us and bestowed upon us as though we were there personally,
as though we were actually alive. as though we were actually there
at the time when God Almighty gave them before time began.
It does sound like that, doesn't it? That's just what it sounds
like. Well, dare I believe it? Yes, I was there. More really than I can possibly
express personally in my Redeemer. That doesn't make any sense,
Brother Don. I know it doesn't until you've experienced it.
The scripture speaks about a fellow named Levi who paid tithes and
a fellow named Abraham years and years and hundreds of years
before Levi was born. How could that be? Well, Abraham
was his representative. Show me that somewhere. Show
it to me. Well, Abraham was his father.
Now you've got something. He was in Abraham's loins. And Levi sprung from Abraham's
seed, so that the scripture says, Hebrews chapter 7, that Levi
paid tithes to Melchizedek, to Christ the Redeemer, before ever
Levi was born, because Abraham did it. Well, Levi didn't really pay
tithes. Take that up with God, will you? God said He really
did. God said He did. Would you hear
me? Before the world was in the beginning,
before ever God made the heavens and the earth, God Almighty put
into my possession every blessing of grace and glory
forever, declaring then that this man is justified and sanctified
and glorified in Jesus Christ the Redeemer. In Him. Not apart
from Him. In Him. In Him. Not by Him. In Him. Not alone with Him. In Him. In Him. In Him. That's the language of Scripture.
Second, the old writers used to refer to this union as a vital
union. Now turn to Ephesians 1. A vital
union. That means this. It is a union
that is absolutely essential to the being of those involved
in the union. It's a vital union. It is absolutely
essential to our existence as the body and bride of Jesus Christ. absolutely essential to our being,
to our having life with God. That's easy enough. We're the
branches, He's the vine. Cut the branch from the vine,
it withers and dies, John 15. But look at Ephesians chapter
1, verse 22. God the Father hath put all things
under Christ's feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things,
to the church. This is what God the Father did
to and for His Son when He exalted His Son and set Him down in His
own right hand waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool.
He made Him to be the head over all things to the church, now
watch it, which is His body, the fullness, the completion,
the perfection of Him that filleth all in all. Oh, this union for the Jesse is vital
to him. Vital to him not as God. Oh,
no, no, no, no, no. Vital to him as our mediator. Vital to Him as our surety. Vital to Him as our representative. Vital to Him as the God-man Savior
appointed to redeem His people. Accepted as the Redeemer of His
people. As the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
John Calvin and John Trapp both had tremendous statements here.
Let me give them both to you. Calvin said this is the highest honor
of the Church. That until He is united to us,
The Son of God reckons Himself, in some measure, imperfect. What consolation is it for us
to learn that not until we are with Him does He possess all
His parts are wished to be regarded as complete. He must have us. or he can never be complete. Darwin put, he must have you
or he can never be satisfied. It's necessary, it's vital. John
Trapp said, Christ, who having voluntarily subjected himself
to be our head, accounts not himself complete without his
members. In this respect, we have the honor of making Christ
perfect, complete, as the members do to the body. Just cut the end off of that
little finger there. Now you can see that. Cut the end off
the little toe down there. And the body is marred. It's
no longer the perfect specimen of humanity you see here. It's no longer complete. Because one little part of one
member is missing. That's what Ephesians 1.23 declares. Jesus Christ, our head, cannot
lose one particle of his body and be complete. It's a vital
union. All right, third. This is a union. This union of Christ in our souls. is a union of life. Life with
Christ, yes. Life by Christ, yes. Life in
Christ is what I'm driving at. A union of life by the mysterious,
wondrous extraction of life from Him who is declared to be life. Adam is the one who made that
statement that Paul cites in Ephesians chapter 5. For this
call shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall be
joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. The Lord
God, when He made the man Adam, said it's not good for man to
be alone. Let us make a help meet for him. A help meet for
him. one to help him, one who is worthy
of him, one acceptable to him. And the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall on our father Adam. And he cut open his side and
took one of his ribs and closed up the wound in his flesh. And
of the rib that he took from Adam, God made woman. And he brought her to Adam. And
Adam said, Look at that. Let's call a woman
because she was taken out of man. She's bone of my bone and
flesh of my flesh. For this call shall a man leave
father and mother and be joined to his wife. He didn't have a
clue what he was talking about. He didn't have a father except
God. He didn't have a mother. He didn't have a clue what he
was talking about. But our Redeemer knows from whence
his bride came. The Lord God Almighty pierced
him to death with the sword of his justice. And from him sprung
his church. And he says, wow, look at that. This is bone of my bone and flesh
of my flesh. This speaks of a union that compares to nothing, to
which nothing can be compared. As bone of his bones and flesh
of his flesh, we are the possession of our husband. I know that doesn't
sound good in this politically incorrect generation, and it's
incorrect. I'm correct. I'll say it again. It's incorrect.
I'm correct. She's the possession of her husband. Well, I'm not anybody's possession.
Oh, if you could be this kind of possession, you'd want to
be. She's the purchase of his blood. She's the property of
His love. She's the singular object of
His relentless devotion and care. Oh, wondrous thought! We belong to God the Son. We are His peculiar possession. The property of His heart. I belong to Christ alone, just
to Him. "'Tis done, the great transaction's
done. I am my Lord's and He is mine. He drew me and I followed on,
charmed to confess the voice divine. High heaven that heard
the solemn vow, That vow renewed shall daily hear, Till in life's
latest hour I bow, And bless in death this bond so dear. Fourth, this vital, eternal union
of life, life extracted from him who is life, is a union that
is secret. It's kept secret. Known only
to God. Known only to the Father, the
Son, and the Spirit. Not known to any man until that
person is born again. And then it's a manifest union.
And this is what happens in the new birth. I know some folks
are going to say that's hard-shell doctrine. That's all right. That's
all right. I don't care what kind of doctrine
it is as long as it's true doctrine. The birth of a child is not the
beginning of life. Now that's not a supposition,
that's just fact. The birth of a child is not the
beginning of life. A child in his mother's womb
is as much alive as a child outside his mother's womb. The birth
of the child is but the manifestation of life. So too, the birth of
a soul. and regeneration is not the beginning
of life. No, no. No, no. But life and
immortality brought to light by the gospel. Is that the language
of this book? Is that what it says? Let's see. 2 Timothy chapter
1. Now remember what Paul is describing
here. He's talking about the gospel for which he is in bonds. And he says to Timothy, don't
be ashamed of this gospel. The gospel of God, verse 9, who
hath saved us, past tense, and called us, past tense, with a
holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his
own purpose and grace, get it now, which was given us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. but is now made manifest by the
appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, by the appearing, not
his appearing in the flesh, not his appearing on earth, not his
appearing in heaven, his appearing in you, in the gift of life. I'll show it to you, read on.
By the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ who hath abolished
death and hath brought life and immortality to light through
the gospel. Now let me camp here for a few
minutes. Life began for you and me when
Christ Jesus stood forth as our surety. Life began for us when
He stood before the Father as our life and we stood in Him. Brother Chris Cunningham, just
a few weeks ago, wrote a very brief statement in his bulletin.
Here's what he said. I believe that men will argue
about the new nature up until the time they have one. And then
they'll just be grateful to God, the God of all grace who makes
all things new. That's exactly what our Lord
said in our text. At that day, you shall know that I am in my
Father, And you are in me, and I'm in you. You'll quit fussing about it
then. You got it. You got it. It is this impartation of Christ,
this new creation in us, that begins a warfare inside. A warfare with which all God's
people struggle. Oh, how beastly we are by nature. How often, like John Newton,
we sigh, if I love, why am I thus? Why this dull and lifeless frame? Hardly sure can they be worse
who have never heard his name. What doubts and fears many of
God's people experience with regard to their saving interest
in Christ, doubts and fears that arise from a failure to realize
that every heaven-born soul lives in this world with two distinct
natures. In scripture, they're referred
to in this language, the old man, which is corrupt according
to the deceitful lust, and the new man, which after
God is created in righteousness and true holiness, flesh and
spirit. It's commonly assumed by people
who have been taught erroneously that the new birth is the change of a man. Well, the
Lord changed him. Usually it goes this way. He
sure changed. He changed his ways. You need
to change your ways. Changing your ways won't do you
any good. In fact, even if you could change
yourself, it wouldn't do you any good. The new birth is not
the change of a man. The new birth is imparting a
new man. The new birth is creating another
man. The new birth is not a reformation,
but a regeneration. It is not a reforming of man,
it is the regenerating, the re-giving of life in man by God the Holy
Spirit. How many there are who live in
constant turmoil, knowing the abiding evil that's in them,
but never daring to acknowledge it, lest they be scorned by others
who pretend to be holy. The new birth is Christ created
in you. It's the imparting of righteousness
to you. Now, it doesn't matter whether
you call it imparted righteousness, a new nature, a righteous nature,
the new man, Christ in you, the hope of glory, but I'm not talking
about the imparting of a righteous record. You can't impart a record
to somebody. You can stick it in his pocket,
but you can't impart it to him. It is the imparting of righteousness
to you. Christ, our righteousness, put
in you. Christ, our righteousness, taking
up residence in you. In every believer, there are
these two natures, Adam and Christ. Christ in you, the hope of glory,
which John says cannot sin. And Adam, who can do nothing
but sin. In Genesis chapter 5, you don't
need to turn there, but I urge you to look at it. Verses 1 and
2, Moses tells us that all men were created at one time. When
Adam was created, God gathered up some dust, It fixed the shape
of a man, and there he lay, just a pile of dirt. And then God
breathed into Adam's nostrils, and that pile of dirt became
a living soul. Is that what the book says? But
when that happened, in Genesis 5, we're told that all the race
was created. Everybody, you were, I was. We're
not created one at a time as we're born in this world. No,
no, no, we're born but not created. We had our creation in our father
Adam all at one time and now by natural generation we receive
from our father Adam his nature and here it stands. That's what
we are by nature in the same sense. That one who is the last
Adam stood before our God as our representative man, Adam,
before ever the world was. He is that one in whose image
and after whose likeness the first Adam was made. And when
he stood before God as the man Christ Jesus, our representative,
our surety, as our life. As long as he has had existence
as our mediator, we've had life in him. And it brought to us
by his grace at the appointed time of his love. Now we wear his name, the name
he gave us in free justification. His name is Jehovah Sidkenia,
the Lord our righteousness. And we have His nature, the nature
He gives us in free sanctification, in regeneration. And in sanctification,
as in regeneration, as in justification, He is the Lord, our righteousness. And we are called by God Himself,
Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord, our righteousness. Oh, imagine that. God looks on His Son and declares
that I am righteous. And this is just as necessary,
just as vital as is redemption and righteousness. Just as vital. Without the new birth, the blood
of Christ won't take you to glory. Without the new birth, the righteous
obedience of Christ won't make you qualified for heaven. You
must be born again. Except the man be born again,
he can not enter into the kingdom of God. And if you could, you'd
beg for God to let you run off down to hell and take shelter
from heaven because you're not fit for it. There is a holiness
without which no man shall see the Lord. and it's not a holiness
you muster from within, it's not a holiness you perform, it
is Christ who of God is made unto us sanctification, holiness,
and given to us in the new birth. Oh, may God make Him all to you,
giving Him to you, and giving you all in Him. Soon, our Lord
Jesus will come again and He will gather His own to Himself
and He will present us, how does the book put it, holy and unblameable
and unreprovable in His sight with exceeding joy. He will spread us before wandering
worlds and he will say look here what
my grace has done behold these pure chaste virgins holy as God himself is holy perfect
as God himself is perfect accepted before God Almighty as Christ
himself has accepted. For near, so very near to God,
nearer we cannot be. For in the person of his dear
Son, we are as near as he. Amen. Amen.