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No more the airs of grass. Maybe we should read Romans 8.
Missouri chapter. I was thinking about Clem, but I didn't. I wasn't the one to give it out. I wasn't the one to give it out. I wouldn't be. I wouldn't be the one to give it out.
Roman after 8 verse one.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
To walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
What the law could not do.
In that it was weak through the flesh.
God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.
And for sin.
Condemned sin in the flesh.
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That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in US.
We walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh.
But they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
Or to be carnally minded is death.
But to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God.
For it is not subject to the law of God.
Neither, indeed.
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is light because of righteousness.
But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you.
He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
Therefore, brethren.
We are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die.
But if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
For ye have not received the Spirit of ******* again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry ABBA, Father, The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs.
Heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him.
That we may also be glorified together.
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us, for the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered.
From the ******* of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God, For we know that the whole creation groaning and travel within pain together until now.
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit. Even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to whip the redemption of our body, for we are saved in hope.
Or buy hope. But hope that is seen is not hope for what a man see us. Why does he hope for?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we, with patience, wait for it.
Likewise, the Spirit also help with our infirmities. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit.
Because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to His purpose, for whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.
That he might be the first born among many brethren, moreover, whom he did predestinate.
Then he also called and whom he called, then he also justified, and whom he justified.
Then he also glorified.
What shall we say then to these things? If God before us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
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Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. Yeah, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God.
Who also maketh intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine.
Or nakedness, or peril, or sword, as it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, and all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels.
For principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
As believers.
We will look at this whole caster as being what God says about me to have the right reason. This is God's treatise upon the believer. What he's saying about every believer in grace and no condemnation and no separation and all the rest that goes between those two is what God is saying about every believer. What a blessing thing to know.
And.
It's a relative communication to what we had a year ago.
Some of you remember, I say it's really communication that we had from Revelation 3.
The epistles to.
Philadelphia and Laodicea.
And in those.
Addresses to the seven churches.
That the John was to write and send to the Angel of the Church.
Which is really the representative.
He used to write what Christ sees as he looked down here at this.
Church during these 2000 years.
The Lord Jesus is telling us what he sees down here, describing it in those seven churches.
Now instead of.
And might remark that in each of the seven there's one exertation that goes.
He that has a year, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. So we're to listen to the word now. What we have here is what God is saying about the reason.
That's what he's saying about the belief.
And it's like begins like John 316.
God shall love the world that he gave his only begotten son of Whoa.
The opposite We're heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ in this chapter. What a magnificent taste and we can believe.
Tells us that God is light and God is love.
All that God is as light.
In the midst of sin, through the work of Christ at Calvary, all that got in as light, was met there, and answered.
In order that all that God is as love can now flow out freely to sinners and to you and me.
This manifests fully and I thought also that.
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Verse. Well, I'll just call attention.
In the first verse, it talks about the gospel of God. That's what this book is. God's gospel, God's good news for every person in all the world, if they will have it.
And there's a Therefore, in this first verse we read, starting in the middle of a book, we need to go back and consider what we're getting.
There for.
And really it's the way of salvation for Jew or Gentile or whosoever all.
Are dead at trespassing ends. All come short of the glory of God, but the mercy of God and the grace of God comes after all.
That good news.
Now that you've had to believe in the Lord Jesus and be saved, there's all this that God can say about you. No condemnation, no separation. Then he takes up many other things that we get concerned about, like the groaning in this old creation. But the new creation comes in and the new body, and that is such a comforting everything in this chapter is just wonderful for us to have to believe.
It's important to see that it's Christian position that we're talking about here. It is not.
Our condition. It is the position that every true believer in the Lord Jesus occupies, whether he is aware of it or not, whether he.
Enjoys it or not is another matter, but this is the position that you occupy if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus.
I think it's so important that we get a hold of these things, especially as younger believers.
That because you cannot walk properly as a Christian until you understand your position in Christ and the liberty that belongs to you.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
In Christ is the position that you occupy. Sometimes I give an illustration in the Old Testament when God decreed that there is going to be judgment to fall on the earth in the time of Noah.
There was a place of safety, and the time came when Noah was told, Come thou and all thy house into the ark. And Noah went in with his household 8 souls, and God shut them in.
Noah had his his problems. He had his defects, as any of us do as well.
But Noah believed God, and God counted him righteous for that reason.
And inside that ark he was safe from.
All the judgment that was going to fall on that on the world at that time, not one drop of water fell annoyed. All fell on the Ark.
And your brethren, all the judgment fell on the Lord Jesus.
And at the end of those.
That time on the cross, the Lord Jesus said it is finished all the judgment that was against me as a guilty Sinner.
Is finished. It was exhausted completely by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.
And now when I accept him, that is my position. I say, brethren, we can say on the ground of this verse, if any judgment could touch me as a believer in the Lord Jesus, it would have to first touch him. Where is he now? He's at God's right hand, in the pinnacle of glory, accepted his work. That's my position, the same position that he occupies.
I'm in Christ. Absolutely impossible.
That any judgment could touch the believer in the Lord Jesus in Christ.
That's what it means. And 1St John, when it says as he is, so are we in this world. That's in relation to judgment. Where's Christ? Judgment 2000 years back there. Where's mine? Right back there too. And so in Hebrew it says by one offering he has perfected forever those that are sanctified. We occupy the same position as the Lord Jesus does.
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In regards to judgment, what you say is borne out too.
Five where it says He hath made him to be sin for us. That's the first thing, as you say, Brother Bob. But then what's the rest of the verse that we might be made? The righteousness of God in him. And I think our position before God is illustrated very beautiful in the Old Testament in connection with the Tabernacle. You remember that there were those individual boards that made-up the walls of the Tabernacle. And as we've been often reminded and taught.
Those boards, I believe, speak to us of individual believers.
But you find that not only were those boards set in two sockets of silver, which speaks of course of redemption, but we find that those boards were completely covered with pure gold. And as God's eye rested on those boards, what did God see? He saw that gold, which speaks of divine righteousness. And that's the way God views us. This afternoon in the chapter before in Romans, Here there was a man who was had a struggle.
Because he didn't realize what he his position, what he was positionally before God. And there was that inward struggle.
Had to come to the point where he said two things. He said it is no more I but sin that dwelleth in me. He says God doesn't view me in the light of the old man any longer. It's no more I. And then the other thing was before he could get complete deliverance, he had to say, who shall deliver me. It was in a person. And isn't it a wonderful thing, brethren, that though we fail and we have those inward struggles this afternoon?
That God's eye rests upon us and he sees us in the very life and nature of Christ, that it says, Christ who is your life and to get ahold in our souls of the way God views us. As the prophet went up on the mountain and beheld the people of God, what did he say? I have not beheld iniquity in Jacob, and to get that view then will give us true peace. And I don't believe that a believer will ever get true peace and rest of soul.
Until they see themselves in Christ.
And have God's thoughts as to their position.
Pointed out.
First chapter refers to the Gospel of God concerning his Son.
And the principle of deliverance has been brought before us.
And that deliverance comes.
Through the gospel of God.
We read in the 5th chapter of this epistle that where sin abounded grace.
Over abounded and there's no place like Calvary where sin abounded.
Man did his worst to the Son of God.
And.
Judged him unworthy to live here.
And there God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, as we've had mentioned.
So there we get the grace of God.
The forgiveness of sins, and this subject is taken up as we know.
The 1St 4 1/2 Chapters of this book, so that forgiveness of sins is the first deliverance that the soul comes to know.
But beginning at chapter 5 and verse 12, we have the principle of indwelling sin taken up.
So that I find in the word of God, not only did Christ die for my sins.
That they might be put away, but he died for me. That I might be put away as well.
So that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
Old things are passed away, all things are made new and all things are of gone.
In this position that we've had brought before us here in our chapter, all things are gone.
So I am delivered from my sins. I am delivered from myself.
So that now I can say that I am a new creature in Christ Jesus, but not only.
Am I delivered from sins and South, but I am delivered from the law as well?
The law could not do we get in chapter and verse three of our chapter.
The law could not give life if life. There had been a law that given by which life could be had Christ died in vain. So we get deliverance from sins, we get deliverance from ourselves, we get deliverance from the law, we get deliverance from the old man. And so now we present are presented here as in Christ. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature, completely delivered. Now there is the experience to which our brother referred.
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Of exercise of soul as to how to get out from under that.
And I find out that not only was I not fit for God's presence as a Sinner, I also find that within myself there is no good thing.
So with these two conditions facing me, deliverance comes when I realized that everything was done by the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary. So we come now to this chapter, which is position. It is what a Christian is, one who is in Christ for whom there is absolutely no condemnation.
In John chapter 5 and verse 24, we've often been taught.
That if any man hear his voice and believe on him whom he has sent, so that there is no judgement, well, this goes. Beyond that there not only is no judgement that can be applied to me, but there is no way that I, as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, can be condemned.
First verse of our chapter refers back to chapter 5.
Miracle reading justified by faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And verse 2 refers back to chapter 6 and to sin.
And verse 3 refers back to Chapter 7, dead to the law.
Explain those two words, therefore very important they are here. Everything leads up to this, doesn't it? Everything that the apostle has been breaking, bringing out in the previous chapters, all converges, as it were, and we have that word therefore. But we also have that word now, now.
There's therefore no no condemnation. How blessed that is. No, this isn't something that we wait to get to heaven for. It's our. It's our joy and our.
Thankfulness. The source of our thankfulness. You're therefore now well, there are two positions we find in the last chapter and in this chapter. In the flesh and in Christ Jesus, or in in Christ Jesus, or, and as the brother Bob was remarking here.
I believe that God whenever one trusts whenever the. This isn't something for for those who perhaps know a few more scriptures than others, but it's where God places every.
Soul, then maybe the weakest soul that beats in Christ.
Is on that rock. He's in Christ. He's on that rock and there's no condemnation and all around us the the quicksands of doubt and.
But God places everyone on that rock. In Christ Jesus. There is no condemnation. But not only that there can't be. There cannot be the right bomb.
There cannot be.
I was thinking now that.
He comes and feels the wretchedness of having an old nature.
That we're told about that wrestles the wrestle against the Roman 7.
We fail as believers in Christ. We still sometimes sin, but there is no condemnation. God did not remove our old nature that we got from Adam.
The moment we believed in the Lord Jesus as our Savior. So he says in chapter 8, there is no condemnation. The end of chapter seven was looking to Jesus. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now let's go over to chapter 5. I want to emphasize something for us. There is no work that we can do. Our Bob really Bob's brought that out very clearly. It is Christ who has died for us.
But there's some precious things that has been nice that I have enjoyed. Verse 15.
A little bit in the middle of the verse there. Notice it's in free gift.
But not at the offense. So also isn't free gift our eternal life, our salvation in Christ? It is a free gift.
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Now.
Later on in that chamber much more the grace of God and the gift.
And then let's go down to verse 16.
It's talking about as one sin. That was Adam and I was talking about as one.
Christ. So is the gift. It is in Christ.
Notice also in verse 16.
But the free gift?
It's the free gift.
Notice also it's in verse 17.
Receive abundance of grace and of the gift.
And then in verse 18 in the middle of the verse.
By the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
Notice. Free gift. No condemnation. It's a free gift.
No condemnation, it seems to me.
That it's like God is just relieved to be able to say this about men if we think of Jesus.
On the cross?
Perhaps his last word were it is.
Finished. A relief to have that judgment over. He had borne it as a relief to God, I think, too.
God does not delight to judge, but man has made God a judge, so that in Isaiah 28 I think it is He's spoken of his his his strange work.
When God waits and he doesn't judge until it's right.
Well, there was Jesus.
He says finally. It is finished, that judgment was over with and it's never ever going to be repeated again.
Then when you get the judgment in Revelation, turn to Revelation 15 and you'll find.
A simple statement when the 7th Angel sounded.
These things are easy to look at and see God's thoughts about judgment.
They're coming, The Great Tribulation.
And when the 7th Angel sounds.
In chapter 16 it is Revelation 16 and verse 17.
The 7th Angel poured out his vial into the air. There came a great voice out of the temple of heaven from the throne saying it is done.
Now this is at the end I believe.
Does the great Tribulation period. Now we go over to Chapter 21 of Revelation, we find the same thing said again.
But in Revelation 21, we've come down really to the end of all things.
And the first.
6 verses.
Give us.
The eternal state when everything is completed, as to any judgment of any kind.
And so he finally says in verse 6.
It is done. It's over with. God is released. He has had to judge Christ on the cross for us and it was a one time thing. And it'll never be repeated. A complete work. It is finished with the complete work too. Well, when God comes into judgment as earth and the tribulation period, there's going to become a time when he can say he's done.
It's going to be a relief to God to have it over with, but when he winds everything down at the eternal state, he finally says it for the last time. Now here in our chapter we just think of of God looking down here at these men and women sinners.
Lost with the wrath of God upon them and he comes in and does his work and it's a perfect work and it's completeness over with, he said. There's no more judgment for these people.
There's no more separation from the love of God. They're connected with God forever. His children.
There are two words that dominate the whole chapter all the way through I and the law. Here's one who is under the law and I and me. I and me. And then I think it's about 40 times. We get that in the 7th chapter. We get that and then but the first verse of our chapter, oh, what a change. There couldn't be a greater.
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Difference or greater change than we get in the first verses here of the 8th chapter. And here we get the first mention of the Spirit. Spirit for the law he is but after the for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
The Law of the spirit of life, if we turn over to A in John's Gospel, chapter 20, if we might.
Take the time John's Gospel, Chapter 20.
And the.
After the Lord had risen from the dead.
And then in the.
The 20th verse.
Let's see.
Excuse me?
The 22nd verse. And when he had said this, he breathed on them.
And saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.
Well, no. They were born again, just like Old Testament Saints were. Old Testament Saints were born again just as much as you or I, but they were under the law of these disciples.
But after the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, then, as he says in John chapter 10, I am come that they might have life, that they might have it more abundantly.
And here there is that.
More abundant life in the power of the Spirit, that is after the Lord is risen from the dead. It's it's the power of it's in resurrection life, the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus in the power of the Spirit of God, He breathed on them the Holy Ghost.
And oh, what a difference that was. What a difference that makes.
It is that this power of the Spirit is that which delivers us.
We in the 6th chapter why we're set free from the law of sin and death, and the 7th we were free from the law.
But but the law, the spirit of life.
In Christ Jesus.
It's it's Christ who is one who has died, but one who has risen again in a in a in a new life, in resurrection life. And that's what he imparts to every believer. Is that right, Bob?
The light that you and I possess as believers in the Lord Jesus is a life.
Empowered by the Spirit of God, but it's a life that now that is completely different than.
Natural life. In the Old Testament, God gave a law.
And basically you could say that the law was do this and you shall live.
But in the New Testament?
God says, first of all, live and you will do this. That's the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
It's a completely new life that he gives to the believer in the Lord Jesus, a life that delights to do the will of God.
In the Old Testament, man did not delight to do the law of God. It was not his nature to do it. But now we have a life that delights to please God.
And that life.
It's kind of interesting if we could maybe use the word principle in verse 2, the principle of the spirit of life. It's a law, yes. It's something that carries through.
Sometimes we speak about the law of gravity.
And the law of gravity applies generally all the way around the Earth.
The Earth attracts to itself, and if I let something go, it's going to.
Fall to the Earth because that's the law of gravity.
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Why isn't that then, that my Bible in my hand does not fall to the ground?
It's because there is another power acting on this book and holding it up so that the law of gravity is not does not have its effect on this book as I hold it here in my hand.
And so we can say that they, as men in the flesh, there was a law that operated on us. It's the law of sin and death.
A man who was unregenerate.
Is under the ******* of sin.
May not be the same sin for every person, but sin empowers him.
And dominates him, and the end of it is death.
But now there is another principle that God has brought in. It is the law of the Spirit of life. Thank God, dear brother and sister in the Lord Jesus.
It's liberty here. We're talking about made me free. This is liberty.
And so it is a new law. He's given us a life that delights to do the will of God. And that completely frees me from the laws Synod death sometimes in South America, where they had a time of the liberation in Bolivia and all over South America really. They were under the Spanish domination for many for several centuries.
And then there was the liberators that came, and they liberated.
South America from the power of the Spaniards. There are stories. It's interesting to hear them.
Of times in those high Andes mountains, sometimes you get back into those high valleys and and the news didn't get out yet and people thought they were still under the ******* of the Spaniards when Spain had been completely thrown out of the continent.
And those Spaniards would still say to the people you have to obey.
Still the King of Spain.
The word hadn't gotten through to them. And sometimes the enemy of our souls comes to us and says especially to young people. And This is why we have to understand our liberty, dear young people.
Sin comes as a dominator and says obey. You know you desire to do these sins, do it. Don't be a hypocrite, do it.
You and I have.
The privilege of being able to say I no longer recognize the domination of sin in my life.
I recognize the authority of someone else, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I have a life now that doesn't desire to do sin. I have a life that desires to please God.
And that's where I stand. And so you're free from the ******* or from the law of sin and death.
Precious liberty. Oh, to walk more in the enjoyment of a dear young beast. And I say, all of us, really.
It might be helpful for those of us.
By an expression that has been used several times already this afternoon, and that is sin and sins. Because there were two things that were taken up at the cross, and it's true, one of them was the question of my sins, That is the fruit of being part of Adam's fallen race, the fruit of the old man. And we see that in the history of men. Outwardly sins became more manifested. That's what we see today.
The manifestation of sins, and not only is sin, are sins today.
Practice. But they're preached and glorified. But there was something else that was taken up at the cross too, and that is the nature that produces sins. And that's what is referred to as sin in the singular. The Lord Jesus said the axe is laid at the root of the tree. Why was it that it was laid at the root of the tree? Because it's the root of man that's bad. And so at the cross he not only took up the question of my sins, but it says he condemned sin.
Singular. He condemned sin in the flesh.
And as has been said, I don't believe we'll really get peace in our souls until we realize this. Because we sit here this afternoon, we know the Lord Jesus as our savior. We enjoy the fact that death and judgment are behind us, that grace and glory are before. But maybe there's someone here and you say I go out and I do those things that I don't want to do. Well, that's the struggle that the man was having in the chapter before, in the 7th chapter.
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But I say again, he had to come to the realization that he was seen in a new light now, and that brethren, where not only has Christ died and risen for us, but we are dead and risen with Christ.
We we have been brought into this new position now in resurrection life, and of course there's the practical enjoyment of it. But positionally that is our position as dead and risen with and he condemned sin in the flesh, and he didn't try to remake the old man.
You know Brother Bob was talking about the Mosaic law, and the Mosaic Law only condemned. It says in the end of the 5th of Romans, the law entered that the offense might abound. It showed just what the natural man was and that the natural man could not produce any fruit for God could not take one step towards God and it entered that the offense might abound to show man just how bad he was.
But what is the rest of the verse? Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, and God has come in in grace and not remade the old man, but he has set it completely aside and introduced something brand new, so that now we are a new creation in Christ Jesus.
The impotence or impacity of the law to produce any fruit for God.
Is what we have addressed in the third verse.
And God.
Sending his own son.
In the likeness of sinful flesh.
For an offering for sin condemned sin in the flesh when the Lord Jesus Christ appeared into this scene.
It was Emmanuel.
God with us.
For something like 2500 years man had been under the test of God's commandment. This do and thou shalt live the soul that sinneth it shall die.
But now God himself comes in Christ. God was in Christ reconciling man unto himself, not imputing trespasses to them. And here he comes to.
Bring himself into the circumstances of man, so that the most advantageous.
Opportunity for man to produce fruit for God was there. And so we see the life of our Lord Jesus Christ going about doing good and healing all those who are oppressed of demons.
But even this.
Did not produce fruit for God. We will not have this man to rule over us, was their judgment.
We have no king but Caesar. They would not receive that blessed one. And so God, sending his own son as one brother has expressed it, coming as close to man as the human mind can conceive, his own son becoming a man apart from sin.
And bearing sins in his own body on the tree, condemned that evil nature that could not produce fruit for God. So it's wiped off the scene. And God starts over with praise, so that now if we you and I do not have life in Christ, we have no association or connection with God whatever.
Our destiny is the pit. If we do not have life in Christ, we have no connection with God.
But here we have the Lord Jesus Christ as the sacrifice for sin, setting that evil principle aside, and initiating and bringing in the new order of things, the new creation and what we had brought before us and John.
Gospel chapter 20 is the very initiation of that new creation by the Lord Jesus Christ in resurrection, in the same way in which God breathed into Adam the breath of life and he became a living soul.
The Lord Jesus Christ breathed on his own, the Spirit of God, and began.
That a new creation, life of resurrection, life, sinners saved and in connection now with Christ in resurrection. So our verse points up that the law inability to produce fruit for God.
Bringing death and judgment to the center, the Lord Jesus Christ bearing sins in his own holy body.
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Has brought in conditions now.
Whereby we can be fruitful and live for God. And so we get then in verse four what erroneously has been put into verse one.
Christ having given us this life, now it is possible for the righteous requirement of the law to be fulfilled in us. We have a new life energized by the Spirit of God, and we are now able to produce that righteous requirement which the law required but could not produce.
I have a question.
Is it all right?
Is inaccurate to say that God Forgives sins but he does not forgive sin.
Explain.
Sins are the fruit of that evil root that's been brought before us.
They must be forgiven.
Through this man is preached unto you the remission or forgiveness of sins. By him you may be justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. There we have again the impotence of the law, don't we, But when it comes to that evil nature.
It can only be condemned of God.
Condemned and set aside completely no forgiveness for that nature.
Only condemnation.
Before God was the end of that Adam nature.
One brother in the gospel used to say to us.
Christ's death was my death.
Christ's burial was my burial and Christ's resurrection was my resurrection.
I was crucified with Christ, Paul says to Galatians. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live.
Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. That's the new creation that we've been talking about.
And the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I, as to my history and Adam, no longer exist.
Old things are passed away. All things are made new. All things are of God in this place where we've been brought.
Back in Genesis 6, God had said.
The end of all flesh has come before me.
He hadn't wiped off the Adam creation yet in people.
But he bore with it under the test. If they could recover themselves, and especially with Israel for 1500 years, then when they put Christ on the cross.
That was the ultimate there was number more.
Possibility of anything being done to recover the old Adam nature, it's over. With Christ on the crosses in before God completely of the Adam sinful nature, the sinful nature is condemned.
I think what has been said is particularly.
Of a teaching that is being propagated and ingrained in our young people today as they go to school and university. And that is that within within every one of us there's that little spark of good, that little spark of divinity, and as long as it's fanned in a proper way, it will flame up into something wonderful and produce fruit. But it's been said, this is contrary to the teaching of the word of God. And our brother Clemens mentioned the children of Israel.
Who were put under the best of circumstances that were possible in the Old Testament. We might say that they were the best specimen specimen of humanity and the best of environment. When God spoke of bringing a vine out of Egypt and planting it in relation to that nation of Israel, it says when he looked that it should bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild grapes. When the Lord Jesus came, he was prophetically spoken of as a root out of a dry ground.
Because there was number fruit for God. They had the law, they had God's mind. He built a wall around them, so to speak, and did everything that was possible for them. But it just showed what man was in himself. And that's why, I believe, when Nicodemus came to the Lord, he said to the Lord, we know that thou art a teacher, come from God. In other words, he was looking to the Lord as a great teacher, one who would teach him the way to them, the way to God.
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But what did the Lord have to show Nicodemus? He had to show him that man had had good teaching under the law. He'd had everything that was possible, the revealed mind of God under that administration, and so on. Had it brought him closer to God? Had it improved the old man? No, it only showed what the old man was in it, in himself. And so he said to Nicodemus, he must be born again. In other words, he said, what man needs is not good teaching. He doesn't need to be put in a better environment.
Needs is a is a new life and so this is important for us to keep.
Before our souls, it's just like I'm a Canadian, and when I cross the border, I tell them I'm a Canadian. And that's my standing before the customs officer. But we'll suppose I decide to live in the United States and take out Canadian citizenship or American citizenship. Now I come to the border. I'm seen in a new standing. They saw me as a Canadian before, but now I'm not a Canadian any longer. I'm AUS citizen.
And I tell them I'm AUS citizen.
And they looked at me and they say, well, there was a Jim Highland used to cross here and he said he was a Canadian. And now you say he's an American. Well, as the illustration goes, I've died out of that position as a Canadian, so to speak. Now I'm on new ground and I'm seen in a different light before them. And so it's important as young people that when we go to school and they tell us there's that, that good in us to remember that as our chapter tells us.
God has condemned sin in the flesh.
I'd like for the young people to think about it.
Might be easy to get the answer, might be hard.
Do we sin because we're sinners or are we sinners because we sin?
Do we sin because we're sinners or are we sinners because we sin?
Senator is because we.
We sinned because we're sinners. That's where we're born in the world. Psalm 51 is.
Sending My mother conceived me therefore, because I'm a Sinner. That's the old rooting because he's dog.
And his character, Mr. Hale, used to say that.
You sin because you like to, because you want to. Now that's the old nature, with nothing but sin. Nothing but sin.
Indeed you can't, not for a Christian.
We got this new nature. We're to live according to them.
I think about that wonderful scripture, how that Balak hired Balaam to come and curse the people of God.
But he couldn't do it all he could. One of the things he said was that.
He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither has he seen perverseness in Israel.
That's an Old Testament illustration of justification. Justification. How could how could God look at his look at Israel?
After all that he had borne with them during those 40 years in the wilderness, how could he? Well, we have to turn to the New Testament to get that.
God looks at them through Christ, and that's the way God sees us, being justified freely by his grace.
Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, the blood of Christ has cleared us.
Completely before God.
Then the prophet Balaam say the shout of a king is amongst them. God was looking at Christ is coming out of Israel but clear on down to the end so he could say those things.
The cause of grace and what he would do for them.
Rotten to the core by nature, but I don't say that anymore because I appreciated the.
Correction of an older brother who said if you take that, if you eat an apple and you take that core, he said there's seeds in that core and if you plant those seeds, you'll get fruit. But there was no fruit in the natural man and so he wasn't rotten to the core, he was rotten through and through.
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And there could be no fruit for God produced. But isn't it wonderful to think that those of us who sit here in Christ this afternoon have that life that cannot sin and can do nothing but produce fruit for God?
I'd like to go back for the sink.
People, the question that was raised as to whether we sin because we are sinners or we're sinners because we're because we sin.
I just saw a beautiful baby boy before this meeting began.
And if we were to say to 1.
Does that fellow have a beer?
Well, I know.
Just wait. It will come out. And that is the principle that was brought out is that the nature is there and it may lie dormant until the will is at work. And then we become sinners by nature and by practice. And so, as brother has pointed out, we do sin because we want to. We choose the way to go.
And if we choose according to nature, we go on the way of sin.
If we let the Spirit of God direct our life, then we have ability to not.
To fulfill the righteous requirement of the law because we're walking in the spirit, the apostle says to the Galatians walk in the spirit, he shall not fulfill bless his desires.
I think that's why it's beautiful here in verse three, Brethren, to see that.
It wasn't the law that God used to condemn sin in the flesh. In the flesh, finally and completely, it was.
The sending of his own son and.
It's beautiful to see how the scriptures carefully guard the sinless humanity of the Lord Jesus.
It's in the likeness of sinful flesh. It wasn't in sinful flesh. It was in the likeness of sinful flesh. Because there was no sin in him. He was perfect humanity.
When the Angel announced to the Virgin Mary that she was to be the mother of the one that was to be called the Son of God.
He said that holy thing that shall be born of thee, He was the only one that was born fully. We are all born with a nature that likes to sin and as has been brought out.
We they're just as a matter of time until that develops to the point where it becomes evident. But in the Lord Jesus there was perfect goodness.
And that was the final act of condemnation of sin in the flesh, if there was something good in man.
Surely the presence of the Son of God.
Perfection. Every way you can look at him, brethren.
Perfection. There would have been a response in man's heart and instead of that they took him out and gave him the most cruel death possible. God says the test is done. I'm not having any more to do with sin in the flesh. It's over with, you know, sometimes you and I, young people as believers in the Lord Jesus, look inside It often is the case.
Talking to young people find that there's terrible struggles.
I want to say to you, don't look inside.
God is done with what we are as men and women in the flesh.
That's dead and buried, And if something is dead and buried is to be left there, if you're going to keep on digging it up and being occupied with it, it's going to get worse every time you do it.
Leave it there.
And look up to the glory. Look up to the right hand of God. There's a man, a real man of flesh and bones sitting there.
He is our life. You and I can say now that we are believers in the Lord Jesus as we look at Him.
As we think of all his perfection, look at him as he walked amongst men down here.
They could never trip him up. They could never find a defect in him. You can say now, dear young person, that's my life.
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Oh, what a wonderful thing that is to get ahold of. That's our life, brethren. I'm not saying that we don't fail, but oftentimes we fail. It's because we look in and we're occupied with what's inside God.
Not authorize us to do such a thing. He points us to Christ. He says there's your life. That's the reason, Bob, we can leave in our hymn book that line with him that says he wears our nature on the throne. A real man. He was perfect.
From his birth as a baby.
Through death and in resurrection, a perfect man.
He's a man.
And the likeness of fentanyl, black. But a man that never, ever sinned or could have, Doesn't that give dignity to you and to me? To think that we are men after the flesh. But we're going to be like him. We're going to be like him there. What? What? What honor, What dignity?
It's the realization just said, that caused Mr. Wigram to say had the Son of God not become a man, I'd be ashamed to be 1.
In Romans chapter 3 our brother had said there's no good things in man. This emphasizes its importance of what the word of God says over all the teachings of mankind. And verse 10 says as it is written, there is none righteous. No not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. Verse 12. They are all gone out of the way they are together become a profitable.
There is none to do it good, no.
One, the emphasis that God is bringing before us in this chapter of Romans 8 is because I think there is a doctrine that runs around the country and our young people face it, that tells people that once you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you don't sin anymore. Well, then you sin, You say, oh, I've lost my salvation. Well, God has just told us in Romans chapter 8. There is no condemnation. It's the understanding.
God will give us by the Holy Spirit of the book of Romans, to show me that I have an old nature that operates on this principle of sin, that can't do any good, and it will produce me out of me. It'll make fruits of unrighteousness. But I have a nature now.
By faith in Christ Jesus, which only pleases God that new nature.
That is that life that I have in Christ. That is the one that operates on the principle of the life that we read here in verse 2 for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Another emphasis that is so dear to me is that what we get in John's epistle, chapter one, It says if we confess our sins.
Faithful and judgment to give us our sins and to cleanse us for moral and righteousness. That's because we have an old nature in the fifth well. We don't lose our salvation. That's establishing communion and walk with back with Christ because of failure. But it says if we say we do not sin, we are a liar.
It shows us we have an old nation.
Of the law might be fulfilled in US.
Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Well, now the believer.
Actually, this new life in the life of the Spirit, we're unable to go far beyond the law, the Lord said. We're told to love your enemies and lay down our lives for the Brethren.
And this? This goes far beyond the law of Moses.
Again, that might help along what our brother has just said to us.
Verse 4.
For Christ is the end.
Of the law or righteousness to everyone that believeth.
Christ is the end of the first man. One brother writing about that has said the cross of Calvary is the end of man outside of Paradise. That's the end of the first man.
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Christ now is the end of the law for righteousness we get in Galatians.
That the law was our schoolmaster up to Christ.
Now we have a new standard. As our brother was pointing up, it goes far beyond the law. He is our righteousness. He has been made unto us. Wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption. So Christ is everything to us. He's everything to God that in all things.
He might have the preeminence.
Get into the paradise of God, Mule.
I just explained that with your comment in The man outside of the Paradise. Well, as we know when.
Adam sinned. The flaming sword had to be put up to guard the Tree of Life. He had to be expelled.
The Lord Jesus said to the thief on the cross this day.
Shalt thou be with me in paradise.
The apostle was caught up into the 3rd heaven. This is our place, he says. I knew a man in Christ. The place for a man in Christ is the paradise of God, and it will be brought about when God's purposes for this earth have been fulfilled.
So that when God took man out of the paradise of Eden, he was the only one that could get man back into paradise. Exactly. Paradise is gone.
And a place that can never be entered nor corrupted.
Or maketh the life.
A wonderful migration blog and you think, man.
And lost.
And and he lost the right to live here and enjoy the earth as as God had given it to him, but a wonderful the grace of God that opens up the heavenly paradise.
Never any return.
One of the Old English poets has used to write about the.
Paradise Regained? No, Never down here.
It's the heavenly paradise. How wonderful, the grace of God that we lost the right to the earthly paradise. God opens up the heavenly paradise, and that's where Christ is now. That's where He's got Christ, and he's there, and he's waiting the moment when he will come and bring us there too.
Another question.
Are there two things that are given?
And the Spirit.
Yeah, you get the light and you get the spirits. I think I'm going to burst back in, John.
5.
The fact of giving money this life comes from God.
Its eternal life that we would complete. John 316. We quoted the first part.
Where God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish. That's negative, the rest of it said, But have eternal life that comes from God and back in the 5th of John.
And.
Verse 26.
As the Father hath light in himself.
So hath he given to the Son to have likened himself.
And God imparts the light. The sun can impart light, the Spirit imparts life, but we also get the Spirit himself, a person.
I think in the first verse, down to the end of the 12Th chapter verse, we get the Spirit of God as the power, the formative power of life.
In the in the believer working out these blessed traits, we're working out these blessed things. But after that then we get the spirit of God as coming to dwell. He's as as a person he dwells in the believer.
Nothing. Well that's that's our position that the in the flesh but are in the spirit one who is in the in in Christ Jesus.
The spirit of God dwells in that heart. All right, Bob.
Brother has just described is to have the redemption of the body for which we wait. Then all of God's counsels will be made good to us.
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To make a special emphasis says that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled. It doesn't say that the law may be fulfilled in US. It's the righteousness of the law because the believer is never put under law.
And I think it's important to see our position to the law now. God has never undone the Law, that old Law of Moses. It remains. There is a lawful use of the Law in First Timothy Chapter one.
But it is our position that has changed in relation to that law.
Whether Jim is using the illustration of the Canadian government and the US government.
Here in the United States, our position, we have to recognize the law of the United States.
But today we take a trip and we go north and across the border into Canada.
Is the United States law still valid there?
You know, you say, what happened to it? Is it no longer valid anywhere? Yes, it's still valid in the United States, but our position has changed. We are now in Canadian territory and there is another law, another constitution that applies there and I think it is good to see that.
Young I know sometimes people.
Accuse believers in the Lord Jesus of.
Undoing the law. No, brethren, we do not undo the law. The law remains.
But it is our position that has changed. In Chapter 7 it has been mentioned we are dead to the law. We are free from the law by the body of Christ. And so it is in this verse four. It is not the law that's fulfilled in us. It is the righteousness of the law that is fulfilled in us. I think it's important to see you and I as believers in the Lord Jesus.
Are never placed under the Law of Mood, Moses.
The legal use of the law was referred to the right use of it, and I think we ought to look at First Timothy one and see, because it's so clear knowing this verse 9.
That the law is not made for a righteous man.
But for the lawless, the ungodly, the law still addresses the flesh. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not lust. It's still valid, addressed to the old man. But it is not lawful to apply the law to a righteous man. Who should say to me, thou shalt not kill. I have a nature that does not ever want to kill now. So the law is for the ungodly, not for the righteous. Christ is the standard of righteousness for us as believers.
I'd like to ask a question with verse 4 because we're given an exhortation to walk according to the Spirit, not after the flesh, but according to the Spirit. In Galatians we find were to walk in the Spirit. And there might be some here who say, well, what does this practically mean? What does this have for us in the day-to-day life as a Christian and so perhaps we could have something on that in a practical way as to.
Walking in or according to the Spirit.
It's not there is practice, it's a fact.
The small, the righteous of the law might be fulfilled in US and these people who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. There are people that do that. God is telling this about these people. It's not practice, is what God says about the believer. Of course you can bring practice in. Well, that was my thought, because we've been talking about position here. But then there's the practical, the practical side of it too.
It was scary terrific of a believer in the Lord Jesus that he does walk according to his spirit and not according to the flesh.
In order to answer our brother's question as to what it is, let's read First Timothy 316 where it says.
God was manifest in flesh, justified in the Spirit. As to the temptation of the Lord Jesus Christ, he says he was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness. Walking in the Spirit is allowing the Holy Spirit to govern our conduct. That's Simply put, justified in the Spirit is the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Live in absolute dependence upon and in the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
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Games look at that as the perfect law of exactly.
It's a new nature to do these things.
I've enjoyed the fact that when we seek by grace to walk according to the Spirit or in the Spirit, there are two things that are a result. There's fruit for God, and there's fellowship and communion with our brethren. I know some of heard me use this illustration before, but just turn to Deuteronomy.
Because I think we have it brought those two things brought out in a beautiful way.
In the end of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 33.
And verse 24.
And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children, let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil. Thy shoes shall be iron and brass, and as thy days so shall thy strength be.
Well, here we find that Asher was exhorted to dip his foot in oil, and we know that the feet speak of our walk. And oil is used in Scripture as a type of the Holy Spirit, and I like to think of it in connection with walking in the Spirit. But what are the two things that are a result of this?
One, He's blessed with children, which would speak to us of fruit. And as I say, if there's going to be fruit for God manifested in our lives, it's only as we have we are in control. As our brother said of the the Holy Spirit has control of our lives to guide us and direct us. And then the other thing is let him be acceptable to his brethren. That's fellowship. One with another. If you're walking in the Spirit, If I'm walking in the Spirit, we're of one mind.
We go on together and harmony.
Because the Spirit of God can't lead what you contrary.
It can't lead you contrary to the Word. Can't lead me contrary to the Word. And when we're going on in that way, in obedience to the Word as led by the Spirit of God, there's that harmony. And then what does it say after he dips his foot in oil? Well, two. There's two things my shoes shall be as iron. That's power. We want power in our lives. As Christians, we must dip our foot in oil. It's a life in the power of the Spirit.
That's what characterized the Lord Jesus as He was here in this world. His whole life and ministry was in the power of the Spirit. We've been reminded that he was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted. We find 2 That when it came to the work of eternal redemption, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, Bob reminded us of His birth, that holy thing that he would be conceived by the Holy Ghost.
And so it was all in the power of the spirit and it says iron, that's power for our lives. And then brass. Well, what's brass? That's endurance. It's not just enough to have power today and make a good start. But Paul said, the apostle said let us run with endurance. It's the marathon. It's the day-to-day going on for the Lord and for his glory. Let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us.
But and then it says, as by day so shall I strength be. We often quote the last part of this verse, but I believe that I will have strength day by day, power and endurance in our Christian life only as we differ foot in oil and seek by grace to walk in the power of the Spirit.
M254.
For the place and position that we've been brought into because of our Lord Jesus.
And his work on Calvary.
Lord Jesus.
Help this truth to sink into our souls.
That we might enjoy it, That the enjoyment of it may have power in our lives.
That we may walk truly.
In that new life.
That we now have in Christ we ask Thy help and blessing in this Father we confess.
That off time, because of lack of enjoyment of it, we do not walk in the power of it.
But we do ask you there might be more of a reality.
We look up into the glory. We see the Lord Jesus.
In all thy glory, in all thy perfection.
And we can say, Lord Jesus, thou art our life.
The Lord Jesus may be a reality we pray not only for ourselves, but we pray for.
Every one of thy dear people, to whom these things apply equally as to ourselves.
So we commend ourselves to thee for the rest of the evening.
The Gospel meeting Lord Jesus.
And would ask thy direction, giving thanks in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.