77. Christ's Two-Fold Provision on Calvary

Christ’s Two-Fold Provision on Calvary

Then when we look more deeply into the words used to describe Christ’s sufferings and death, we discover evidence of this same two-fold provision for our need. It appears in a striking distinction that is made between His sufferings for our sins, and His death to sin. We read: “Christ suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust” (1 Peter 3:18); “He was delivered for our offences”(Romans 4:25); “He gave himself for our sins” (Galatians 1:4); “We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins”(Ephesians 1:7), all of these and other passages connecting Christ’s sufferings with our sins. But on His relation to sin we read: “For the death that he died, he died unto sin (the Adam humanity) once” (Romans 6:10, R.V.); also, “Behold the lamb of God who taketh (beareth) away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The first Adam and his race were executed and buried in Christ, as He bore the nature received from Adam forever from God’s sight into the tomb, and took all who would ever belong to Him, by the power of His new life in them through His resurrection, out of Adam’s humanity potentially for their victorious living here, and actually in their resurrection when He comes to complete their salvation in the gift of their new and spiritual bodies. So we read: “Our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that we should be no longer enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:6); “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3); “I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20) to be my constant victory over Old Adam; and so we are to “walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the desire of the flesh (Old Adam). For the flesh lusteth (desireth) against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary (antagonistic) the one to the other; so that ye may not (need not) do the things that ye (otherwise) would” (Galatians 5:16-17); therefore “reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but to be living unto God” (Romans 6:11). In a diving bell the passengers sit on a seat around the inside rim of the bell, with their feet well above the water. The water comes up a certain distance on the inside, striving to fill the entire space. But the air stops it before it can reach the passengers, and holds it there. So Old Adam and the Holy Spirit contend for control over the members of Christ’s Body in their inner life. But as long as Christ controls by the fulness of the Spirit, Old Adam cannot possibly do what he otherwise would, for his action is nullified by the Spirit. Satan cannot stumble us, therefore, while we “walk in the Spirit,” for he cannot even get a hearing except when his ally within us is given place.

What a salvation this! What complete provision against the world, the flesh and the devil! And it is all ours the moment we receive Christ. For though it is a two-fold work of grace, it is not therefore a first and second work of grace; though it is a two-fold blessing, it is not a first and second blessing. There are not two salvations, a partial and a full salvation; it is all ours the moment we are born again. But it would be impossible for any one to experience everything that enters into his salvation the moment he is saved, for he is a “babe in Christ,” and therefore needs to “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). It must be the “sincere milk of the Word” before it can be the “strong meat of the Word.”