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Just to state this.
My really exercises from 14 on so we can take up the first part of the chapter, but I'd like to camp on the last part.
Going back to verse 13, what is the thought there where he says there inside himself?
Being excited about what you're talking about? I think so.
That's right, absolutely.
Yeah.
Suppose it's something that we should be giving to be excited about.
We don't want to sit here and just kind of be sober all the time and and say these things that repetition and you know, most of the back seat falls through.
That's why we're.
I've read a few old conferences that have been taken down in shorthand, and the amazing thing is they don't say anything that we don't know. I'm looking for something new, but it's just the same truth. But it seems like they're enjoying them, you know?
Old brother said, He said I see a lot of brothers who know a lot, but they don't see too many happy brothers.
So if we have to meditate upon these things and realize that this is, these are eternal value, eternal verities, this is God's word. This is God's word. That's a simple thing, but this is God's word. We we need to be excited about it.
I think like I said, there is meditation. We within that meditation, we don't, we don't get it. That's right.
So why are so many questions kind of?
Because we don't benefit.
You know why?
Sometimes sometimes it's difficult to get excited reading just one verse. There's a reason why the word of God is complete. So we need to understand, as in the case of this chapter, what's before it gets to that point and what's after. So we hear the subject was to be that being a new creature. But why is that for this chapter begins by building that thought for us. So we find the 1St 8 verses and open up into our at least mention this.
1St 80 verses we have this chapter receives upon and 3rd free house and a heavenly house, but when we understand that it's disturbly versus heavenly that we can look forward to the heavenly country and then SMTP three it seems to fit. Then we find the verse 9:00 to 12:00. It speaks about the judgment. See the price for something which I don't think we talk a lot about the judgment season Christ, but it's important, isn't it.
Some perhaps have a wrong thought, thinking they're fearful that they could be badge, but that's not for thought. If I have someone who can expand more on what the judge can see, the crisis, what we see here, that we would reward us for the things we do.
So once you see the earthly far out earthly body versus the heavenly that we see that we're going to be rewarded and the judgment seeking Christ. Now we should be excited shouldn't wait or that comes that day and it goes more just not just this point. Here is really the whole scripture that we have to learn to rightly divide in you whereby once we see that there are many things to be excited about because we look around us. Nothing should decide us. In fact, as we look around as we should worry.
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Is worried about the construction of this world.
The destruction of environment and so on. But our hope is happening. Visiting.
World is not our own. We want to be as the President forever with the Lord where it is.
The great motivating factor.
Of why a Christian does what he does.
Is mentioned in the next verse 14. For the love of Christ constraineth us. If we're excited about these things, it's because the love of Christ has taken hold of our hearts and has caused us to see things, to feel things and to know things. And it's changed the course of our life altogether. Once we live for self, for our own interests, and now there's been a relinquishing of all those claims and ambitions and taking up with the things of God and the things of Christ. And that's what he mentions in the 14th and the 15th verse.
The love of Christ. It constrains us. It doesn't say love for Christ. We all should love Christ and have love for Him. But that's not what He's talking about. It's talking about His love for us. It's the love of Christ. His love enjoyed in the soul motivates us to live this change life for His glory.
And so verse 15 comes in and tells us that there are only two ways in which a Christian can live. We can live unto themselves.
We can live unto Him. Everyone of us more or less are living either for ourselves or for the glory of our Lord Jesus. And what's going to change a person from self-centered Christianity and a life full of self-interest is the love of Christ constraining us, straightening us out, if I could put it that way, altering the course of our life, where we lay down our lives on His altar and begin to live for Him, unto him which died for them.
And rose again.
How much do we enjoy the love of Christ per day?
It's a challenging question.
Well, if we're thinking of our love to him.
Be easily discouraged.
That's his law for us, the more we think about it, the more injury we are.
I believe this is where a lot of our feeling is.
He loves us 24/7, he's always loving us.
Why do we not feel constrained by that love? And other times perhaps we do a little or a lot. It's because we don't live close enough to him.
Like a magnet. If you had a bunch of nails on the floor here that could be drawn by a magnet. We put them on the floor here, and I held this magnet over the floor and nothing happened. You see what's gone? The magnets got the power to move the nails. Why is it moving them? Well, we know the answer. I got the the magnet too far away from the nails, or I should say, the nails are too far away from the magnet. So I bring the nails closer to the magnet and what happens? They start to move and finally they jump onto the magnet and there's a response.
So if we live closer to the Lord in our personal lives, we're going to feel this constraining power. If we're not feeling the constraining power of his love, it's because we're not living closely to Him, taking time to be with Him alone in prayer and reading the scriptures and what we call a daily quiet time. If we don't do that, we're going to not have this great response from our hearts and scriptures speak so here.
I'd like to make it a suggestion, especially if you need the children and young people that are listening here. Recently we took up the 13th chapter of First Corinthians.
And my suggestion to you is in verses 4:00 to 8:00, there are 16 things, 16 things that love does and love does not do. And I think if we consider them in the life of the Lord Jesus, if you will take some time.
And actually study it out and find examples of these 16 things in the life of the Lord Jesus.
Will change your perspective. I think it is one of the ways that we can be constrained by the love of Christ is to be occupied with it and to think deeply and and meditate about what the love of Christ is. The love of Christ is wonderful. He suffered everything for our sakes and so on. So I just want to challenge each each one here, especially the young people. Take some time and look up those 16 things.
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And they go to the Gospels and see where they're illustrated in the life of Christ. It will do your heart very good.
It's nice to know to have pointed out here in verse chapter 5, verse one.
Speaks of two things that we have as Christians. It says we know and we have, and that's characteristic of Christianity. We've been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ. And so we know the truth, We know the Savior, we have the knowledge of the Father, we're brought into relationship with the Son, and we know the future. We know, as it speaks of here, that our motives really are connected with the love of Christ.
And we need to know, remember that Paul is the one that wrote this and it's Paul that was constrained by the love of Christ. I often think of this verse in connection with Acts Chapter 9 and verse four. It says that Paul or Saul, when he was called Saul heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecute a cell me. Now we don't have a real inflection of the tone of voice how it was exactly said, but I wonder if he didn't hear.
That voice and sense the love of a Savior in that voice, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? He never forgot that voice the first time that he heard the voice of the Savior. And that's what constrains you and I to live for Christ is to hear the voice of the Son of God in his love, constraining us by his love because He is the source of love to live for His glory. It's not the fear of judgment.
That saves the Sinner. It's the constraining love of Christ that brings him to the realization that there's a loving God that sent his Son into this world to do that work.
I suppose it's a girding up of the mind too. We are what we people say we are what we eat, we what we think about, We are what we think about. And that takes diligence because you know, if Darby could say that no infants pleasure is like my wandering mind, we can all set to that. But it's it's a lot easier here. But when we're out, where are we thinking about?
Thinking about the things of this world, what are we thinking about when we sing these hymns? You know, even in the Lord, even in the breaking of bread, we're seeing these hymns. Are we seeing them to the wall, to the ceiling, to each other? You know, it takes, if it's, it takes diligence to keep your mind and think you're singing them to the Lord. That's a very simple thing, but it's a vital, it's a vital that we, we gird up the loins of our minds.
So that we think God's thoughts that I suppose will lead to thinking about the love of Christ, but we think about so many other things.
We're not always conscious who we're talking to. That's it.
You might be talking to her brother here and wondering whether our fares coming on is pretty good or not, or whether it's going to be a failure to sometimes no break, but the fact of the matter is I know who I'm talking to.
That's right.
So you have that trouble too, brother. That's it, That's it. That's Jermaine to all of us. I think that sometimes we start out praying to to God and we start preaching to our brother.
We do have a problem as as human is that we we forget. We think we can do things. Actually we know the answer to most of the things that we ought to do. Let me change subject so slightly. Some of us will go on a diet and we'll change diet. But do we know what we need to do for that diet? Of course we do. But when the dessert comes out, we forget about the diet. We all know here what we need to do with the word of God.
As we've been exalted sometimes when we use the the phrase like we do on a car RPM, well, it doesn't stand for revolution for a minute or rather our reading, praying and our meditation before God. We know that. But then the real problem come is when we use the word I or we into many of these situations. When we go back and say I know I'm going to sit there and read through this. I know I'm going to spend the time to pray and when we start doing that failure already begins because.
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In our homes, we have no strength of our own. We forget that.
It is through the Spirit guide, it is the Lord who put the desire in our hearts. So we have to pray and ask that it will continue to give us that desire, don't we? And the Lord knows. So you might think, well why do we have to remembrance of the Lord every week? Because He knows that even though we know we forget, we forget. So each board state the first day of the week, how do we appreciate this love to remember Him in His death before 1St?
To go through the circumstances of his death, so he would say, for as often as he is bread and drink his cup. What do we do? We're to remember him. It's nothing to do with us. And Lord Steve warning. But you remember him. Oh, but I'm here to worship our Lord. Well, I'm sure worship will go through.
Because of that. But the purpose is to remember Him, so we have Christ before us. Then those things that we know we ought to do is a lot easier.
Because we'll stumble, we'll fail, but he's there to pick us up.
Maybe need to get back to the chapter here.
Actually, Dallas verse four and we look at it that we talk about how we do grown and that we've been burdened by many things about the world.
There's the love of Christ and then there's the the new creation.
And the activities, one of the activities of the new, new life in Christ is the ministry of reconciliation. Could someone connect the dots there? What is the ministry of reconciliation and how does that connect to the love of Christ and the new man?
The Ministry of Reconciliation directly follows the comments about the new creation, doesn't it? The new creature.
Up in verse 18 and verse 19, you're thinking about brother of God, reconcile us to himself. 17 and 18 really.
Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All things are passed away, Behold, all things have become new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and have given to us the ministry of reconciliation.
Yes, yes, there is the apostles, right?
It doesn't apply to us.
That time in this context.
Reconciliation to deliver.
It's not that.
Together was given to the apology was to bring this all the states how they brought because wanting to be reconciled.
Wanting us to be reconciled again.
In life and death he was alone, but now that he has risen, we are identified with him. We are associated with him by the power of the Holy Spirit sent down. So we're reconciled.
God didn't have to be reconciled to us. He always loved us. But it was us who felt that God was against us. Like the prodigal son could say, Father, give me your fault that I'm not enjoying myself.
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But.
When we have a new life and the life of Christ, we see that God is for us, and so we're put back on speaking terms with God. What a wonderful thing.
You know what? What's that verse say? That the righteous died for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, and so we've been reconciled to God.
This was not through the law. What this was not through the law, not reconciled through the law.
So this is ministry of reconciliation has been brought to us through the gospel through Christ is what God has not brought into this world through him and.
To the apostles, and the apostles have delivered it to us.
And that's one of the things to get ahold of that we are now as you say on speaker terms, we can approach him.
In in individually and at every time, whereas the law is not due to the lost solution.
And how does that connect, you're saying, with the 17th verse we're a new kind of person? I think this is written a book on this, that the Lord became the head of a new race.
And we're a part of that new race, and so we're brought into association with him and this new standing.
The thought of reconciliation always has the thought in connection with our being reconciled. We were once enemies of God. We were born in sin shape and iniquity. We had to have a fallen nature. We were enemies of God. We needed to be reconciled. And God sent his Son who became a man. And so in verse 20 it says, Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ stead be reconciled to God.
And so the apostles did. God did use the apostles to preach reconciliation. And so the ministry of reconciliation has been given to those that are men, new race of men.
God didn't give that ministry of reconciliation to the angels. Do they know that man has to be reconciled? They know that God, that man has to be reconciled to God. Is there any reconciliation for a fallen Angel? No reconciliation for a fallen Angel, but for man. God has ordained that men would preach reconciliation. But a new race of men, the fallen race of men are enemies of God and they'll never change.
Apart from a divine intervention, and so we have the Ministry of Reconciliation.
It has to do with being in Christ, doesn't it? That 17.
The 16th verse may be a little confusing as you read it here, especially when he says.
You have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth knowing no more. What he's speaking about is that there's been a new connection that we have with Christ.
We, those at that time were, knew him as the Messiah through Israel and the ministry of having the Israel brought him to replace a blessing in the world and all that.
Because Christ has died and he's become the head of a new creation race, there has we have new connections with him altogether.
Not after the flesh, so we know him no more after.
Flush not the fonts in nature, but after what he is in manhood, in flesh.
And so.
It's Christ on high in glory that our connection is with Him, not Christ as the Messiah on earth. The new creation race takes its character and its substance, its connection, by having a risen, glorified head in heaven. He is the head of the new creation race.
And the occupation of the new creation race is to preach the word of reconciliation. Be busy in his things. Primarily as Kenneth said, he's referring to himself or the other apostles, but they have passed off the scene and that work has now fallen into our hands to carry on our responsibility is to preach to the world, be reconciled to God. So that needs to you need to see that in verse 20.
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It sounds like he's talking to the Corinthians that they need to be reconciled to God. Well, that would make sense because they're Christians and they have been reconciled to God. But the Darby translation takes out the you and the ye in verse 20 and makes it read an awful lot simpler and you get the thought more clear. Let me read it in that way. Now that we are ambassadors for Christ, as though Christ did beseech not you by us that pray in Christ's dead.
Be be reconciled to God. So he's just giving the substance of the message that he preached was be reconciled to God. That's what he preached to the world.
So he's not talking about the Corinthians in his writing, he's telling them.
The substance of His message and ministry of reconciliation, which is to preach to the world be reconciled to God.
We can do that today, can't we? You should be.
So could you say then that the new life in Christ?
That should be manifest in our lives is a witness to the world.
Right, Yes, but it's also the word of reconciliation, which is our testimony by verbally.
Have someone could help on this but when it comes to the brother Robert you were mentioned were enemies, but it's interesting in Colossians chapter one and verse 21 get another thought in relation to it says and you that were sometimes alienated and then these.
Paul speaks of two and Ephesians that.
18 Having the understanding darkened, alienated from the life of God.
I think that really gives us the distinction doesn't between those two.
What we are part of that old creation or alienation from the life of God. There's complete no, there's no compatibility with this, but it's true.
He is speaking to the Gentiles here though, is he not to meet us when it says?
Reconcile not imputing their trespass. It should be their offenses, I believe.
Speaking to the Dent House.
Not that it's not appropriate for you, but I mean to do has descend against God, they trespass against him because they were under law and they didn't.
This is talking about the trespassing, the offensive.
Dealing with mentos that he never dealt with before.
No, it's reconciling the world. Not for this world.
What move the world on themselves?
Well, the 19th verse is when the Lord was in this world, yes, it's not it's not afterwards, not after he rose from the dead, but it's when he was in this world to wet that Christ was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their transgresses, transgressions under them. So it was when he came, he wasn't he was here to reconcile, but.
We might say.
There was number takers.
And so then he went and.
Died for how would I put this he he he died for us. It became the leader of a new race and.
Those who are believers are part of that race. That's the new creation. But that verse is really he was when the Lord was here and the woman was caught in adultery, adultery and all of them left. He said, where are thy accusers? And she said there aren't. He said neither do I have to. I'm on the way to die for those sins if you'll have them. So I think that that's what that passage means.
How would you explain that?
Yes, and then he died, but then the ministry is carried on by the apostles and Christians now, right, so he says, that hath committed unto us. That would be the Christians, the apostles and Christians, the word of reconciliation. So that ministry that is carried on through the new creation race.
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And then he gives in verse 20, as I've already said, the substance of the message is to tell the world be reconciled to God.
He's preaching in Christ stead that is in Christ place because he was cut off from death.
And so it's beautiful to see that through.
The new creation race that this ministry is carried on and the persons are getting saved.
Reconciled to God.
You get something similar to that over in the carrying on of these things over in Ephesians 2 where it says.
Well, let's start with the 15th verse. Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances for to make of himself Twain 1 Newman, so making peace.
And that He might reconcile both unto God and one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. Now this verse, and came and preached peace to you which are far off, and to them which are not. How did the Lord do that? Get it through his apostles. He did it through his so.
Here it's speaking as though he did it, but he came and preached peace to you, which were far off. Well, he's not even here when this is happening.
So it's through his apostles that he's preaching through us that he's preaching his disciples that right? Yes. But there are two headships of Christ that we must not confuse. He is head of the body and we are members of the body. And when that's in view, it is looking at the collective responsibilities and privileges and blessings that we have. But He's also head of the new creation race, whereas we as individuals are connected with him.
And we are in Christ. The church has never spoken of the being in Christ. That's a term that applies to the new creation race, of which each one of us are individual creations in that race, as Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 10 tells us. Let me read that verse first. Excuse me, Ephesians chapter 2.
And verse.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ordained that we should walk in them. So we're created in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is a term that refers to him having risen from the dead, gone back to heaven, and seated there as a glorified man. And in that position that he occupies before God, there is a race of men under him of which he is ahead. And we are in Christ because we are in Christ place before God, and we're here.
To carry out that ministry in his stead, so to speak.
So chapter 2.
Of Ephesians is referring to the body of Christ and I would take it that that there is the headship of the body and view, whereas what we're looking at in Corinthians chapter 5 is more the headship of the new creation race.
Would that be similar to Hebrews chapter 2? Yes.
Might read it in. I think that's verse 10 as well. Hebrews 2, verse 10. It became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, And bringing many sons under glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
As members of the New Creation race, we are viewed as sons of God. We are viewed as.
Christ's brethren, He's the first born among many brethren, and also we looked at as Christ's companions as Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 14, though you have to have the new translation to see that.
So we're viewed in a different way in the new creation race than we are viewed in the the body of Christ.
Two wonderful spheres of blessing that were connected with both, but just looking at it from two different perspectives.
So would you say that verse 10 of Ephesians 2?
Is that map is?
That's collective. I mean that's of everybody because it says for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which he has before ordained that we should walk in them and then you get the body is spoken 1111 on and that's so that's a different headship there that we come in that individual reason. The body begins in verse 1414. OK OK, good when we speak of the new creation race and being created in Christ Jesus. We need to understand.
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That each person is part of that race is a separate and individual creation about God.
When we get saved, you see it with the Holy Spirit.
It is not like the old creation race where Adam was the head. God sent him and his wife in the garden and told him to go and procreate and multiply it.
But when it comes to new creation rates, every believer is a new creation in himself, in connected, connected with Christ.
Adam, the Lord breathed into the nostrils of Adam and he became a living soul. And that first creation after the Lord had risen from the dead, he breathed onto his his disciples and said, Receive ye Holy Spirit. So they come into that new creation. We come into that new creation by his resurrection, right? Yes.
He became head of the new creation race in resurrection Colossians one and verse 10 speaks of that.
Let's read that together. Colossians one and I think it's verse 18 or.
Yes, He is head of the Body, the Church, who is the beginning, the first born from among the dead. So there you have his two headships and one verse. View it as the head of the body, but also the first born among many brethren, which is that new creation race.
But it's in resurrection.
He become head of both.
The body and the race.
So some people are probably saying, well, how is this practical?
Well, this is true of us, isn't it? Well, this takes us back to what Alex was saying.
It gets very practical. We have a responsibility to carry out the word of reconciliation to the world. Are we spreading the Word? Be reconciled to God? Are we busy with the Word?
So it gets very practical, brother.
And are we enjoying sonship and all those things that you've been brought it into the fact that we are we're brethren. He calls us brethren. Everything in this new creation is of God. And we don't have our bodies yet, our glorified bodies which will enjoy it in the glory, but we it's true of us. And we can by thinking God's thoughts and in our spirit, we can enjoy these things. We live in a different world. We think different, we are different.
We need to realize that would separate us from the world, wouldn't it?
We belong to a new race, don't we?
We're a new race of men. You know, I thought of it in this connection is that God is overall.
God is head of all. And then you have, in the old scheme of things you might say you had the angelic beings, and then you had man, the race of men, and then you had the lower creation, the animals. But now, as a result of Christ having come into this world, the head of a new creation, and now seated on high as the head of the body and as the head of a new race, creation, race.
We have God head over all, and then we have that new race of men.
We don't have our glorified bodies yet, but we are part of a new race of men, and then we have the angelic beings.
And then we have the old race of men, the fallen race of men, and then we have the animal creation. So there's a new race of men.
And so we have a higher place before God than even the angels do. And we're we have a new head. We have a head in glory and our association is with him in that scene above. So it might be a help as you think of this as God is head over all. And now there's a new race of men. And if you know the Lord Jesus as Savior, you're a part of that race. You have a higher place in heaven than the angels will ever have.
00:40:03
Then there's that angelic creation. Then we have the lower the fallen race of men, and then the lower creation.
So speaks of dignity, doesn't it? We have that brought into that new race of men. We have the dignity of being the sons of God, and we ought to conduct ourselves in that character.
Not only that, we need to do our brother each other as being in that investigation.
Tendency for us, of course, is to look at our brethren of name. We look at us still being in the old creation that we read each other that way as we we think of each other. But you know, if, if if we look at one another saying.
We're working in this. I don't know as we used to be. Do we do that? I mean, that's maybe not very easy sometimes, but do we look at one another and say, well, he's a new, he's a new creation that I.
Want another that way?
So these are practical things for us to consider that we don't just talk about these things, but do we? Do we leave this room and then we act upon it or not?
John speaks of that, though he doesn't take up the new creation racist. So that's a Pauline line of truth. But in first John chapter 3 and verse two, he says, beloved now are we the children of God? And yet, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Now, as I say, he's Speaking of this, but not really the race, because that's not his line of ministry. But the point he makes here is applicable, and that is that we don't look like we're part of a new creation race with all the Gray hair that's on some of our heads. Here we bear the marks of the old creation and the decay that goes with it.
But God hasn't finished that work with us. We're going to get a glorified body when the Lord comes. And my hair is going to be black and bushy, not white or Gray. And all the rest of it goes along with the nut creation rates, which will be.
Which is the body is superior. It's glorified.
Could give us a word on Ephesians, perhaps from the 21St verse down to the 25th, bringing in really the practical part of of the new creation. Are you referring to chapter 4? You didn't identify which chapter did I Did I say OK chapter 4?
There you get the expression given again in verse 24, having put on the Newman and so on, which is created in righteousness and true holiness. So this is another passage that's speaking about the new creation race.
And he's talking about the new character that the new creates has, the new the new race has. Excuse me?
So it gets very practical as it goes on through the end of the chapter. A number of moral issues that should not be seen with us.
There's a change in character.
Were to display the character of the Newman.
And we're do not display the character of the old man.
It says there that it's what they call me here is then where it's having put on that. So it's not that we all have to remember we got to put on this.
So we've got it already having put it on be able to ask successful.
This is not an expectation to put on the Newman, he's saying having verse 24 put on the new man.
And then verse 25, having put off, lying and so on.
By making that confession of being a Christian, we take a position of separating ourselves from that whole old lifestyle after the old man. Then he says, well then bring your practice up to what you say. You make it professional being a Christian, and that we are. So these things need to be put off as far as practice is concerned, because we have put off confessedly, the old man.
00:45:09
And the Lord never asked you to do anything that isn't true of you already have, having put off, having put on. And that's true of his position. But we're exhorted to do this and we can't do it on our own. We have to be in communion with the Lord that he could do it through us, right? We don't have this life of Christ independently. It's from the source.
When the last verse of our chapter it tells us that there was a price to bring us into that new race, that new relationship with the Lord. He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And so the Lord Jesus was a substitute. It brings that in here in verse 21 for us and our sins needed to be dealt with on a righteous basis.
And so the Lord Jesus was treated.
Just as sin itself, He didn't become in a mystical way the element of sin, but He was treated as sin itself and as a substitute for ourselves. And so He knew no sin. He was sinless, He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. And it speaks here of the results that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. There would be no righteousness apart from Himself.
And that work upon the cross of Calvary and God has accepted that work. And the Lord Jesus is raised from among the dead, seated upon the right hand of the majesty on high. So this is practical as well, isn't it, that we can walk in a righteous path in an unrighteous world. And the result, that's the only, the only reason is because of the work of the Lord Jesus.
And this really has to do that 21St verse with a nature, you know, Christ died for our sins and the the blood takes our sins away. The death of Christ takes us away. And so it's really here the root of the thing that and I understand this to be when it says be made of the righteousness of God in him. We know people talk about being clothed in the righteousness of Christ or.
But the righteousness of Christ is his righteousness. It's not something that you he takes and gives to you.
Or the righteousness of God. It's not something that God has so much of and he can give it to you. That's not the thought of it's. I heard one time I was listening to a Catholic radio and there was a talk in radio show and the man asked, he said, well, I don't feel like I'm righteous enough.
Asked Mary. She's got too much, she'll give you some Well righteousness is not that it's how God can be righteous and still forgive a Sinner. That's God's righteousness. Christ righteousness is his righteousness. He imputes righteousness to us. But here you find that it says made the righteousness of God in him. I take that that we are in Christ and we have Christ place and favor before the Father. We are a testimony or.
Of revelation of the righteousness of God, that Christ is sitting there at the right hand of the Father. That's a testimony that the work is perfect and we're in Him. So we're a manifestation to the angels of how God is righteous.
Because we really, it seems to me that we will be a dictionary in heaven. The danger What is grace?
This point to these people, that's what grace is. God became a man, took humanity, one of his creatures, humanity into his person that he might go to the cross and die for him.
That's great. That's a lot.
So we really are all all the angels will just have to be pointed to any one of us. We are a testimony that of God's grace and God's love or a new creation.
So there's a robe that was put on the prodigal, is that what's that?
00:50:07
Being in righteousness of right. Being honest or reminiscent.
Well, I can't hear your question.
For the prodigal.
Put on him the best.
His righteousness, I suppose you know, it's he imputes righteousness to us because of the work of Christ, but it's not, it's not Christ righteousness and it's not God's righteousness. It's our righteousness. He appears righteousness to us. Is that right?
We might be made the righteousness of God in him.
But can it only be a witness because we're in Christ there?
It's a witness of the righteousness of God.
Somebody may you understand it differently?
What does it mean? Does this verse not bring in the thought of propitiation?
God's righteousness has been satisfied, hasn't it?
And so in the new translation it says that we might become God's righteousness in him.
We have substitution, but we also have propitiation in this verse.
Christ is a display there of God's righteousness, and we're in Him.
Wonder about suitability?
You know, have you ever?
In some place where you're uncomfortable.
Maybe with a group of people that.
You don't know well, or they're perhaps you think they're a class above you. And I wondered in this chapter when Alec was asking his question.
You know, if the connection between the new creation and reconciliation wasn't just that that were suited to be there, isn't is that not part of it? How would you like to be by the grace of God?
Sat next to him. If we weren't in new creation, would we not be uncomfortable?
But we're perfectly suited, are we not? We are communing with the Father, with the Son. And is that? I have a question, then, about a verse in Hebrews chapter 2.
Does that connect with?
What we're Speaking of in our chapter If any man be in Christ, he is new creation in Hebrews chapter 2.
Verse 11.
For both he that sanctified me.
Who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.
You know, the same suitability.
Yes, very good verse to bring in.
Maybe we could sing #67.
#67.
Like.
The O Lord.
How?
James, I thought.
I know.