11 - Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The answer to the second question, "What price did CHRIST pay for His victory?" we have already considered to some extent. The full price we shall never understand this side of Heaven. He did not consider equality with GOD too great a price to pay, but emptied Himself and then paid the additional price of Bethlehem’s manager, Nazareth’s poverty-stricken life, of the going forth in public ministry as a lamb amid ravening wolves, and meeting all the contradiction and opposition of sinful men. Finally Gethsemane, Calvary, and the horrors of death and darkness He suffered in order to conquer our enemies. The price was infinitely great. GOD give us an understanding of it, that we might appreciate our REDEEMER more, as well as the great redemption victory He wrought!
Now for the third question:
How completely were our enemies conquered? What did CHRIST accomplish? "Death is swallowed up in victory(1 Corinthians 15:54)." "Death hath no more hath dominion over Him" (Romans 6:9); nor over those that are in Him. The world was crucified upon that cross, the old man was crucified upon that cross, the curse was destroyed, and we were crucified there with CHRIST. "The Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8)," and "to take away our sins (1 John 3:5)." "Through death He... [destroyed] him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Hebrews 2:14-15)." "Now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself (Hebrews 9:26)." "But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool (Hebrews 10:12-13)." His victory was complete.
The fourth question you must answer. What steps are you taking to secure the fruits of His great victory? Sin has been blotted out, pardon has been procured, every ordinance and claim against us has been nailed to the cross, principalities and powers have been despoiled, the enemy has been utterly routed. This is what GOD wrought in JESUS CHRIST. The only place left to the enemy is the unbelief of human hearts. He has been dislodged from every other place. Victory over him is complete. Therefore GOD conditions our partaking of the fruits of that victory upon faith. All things are possible to him that believeth, because all things are ours in CHRIST. So the devil centers his attack upon our faith. Believe and thou shalt be saved. Believe and thou shalt be delivered from the oppression of the enemy. Believe and thou shalt have victory over all the power of the enemy.
To a nervous breakdown such as I experienced, there are always many contributing causes. The doctors said overwork was the reason. I have never had a strong body. I was born in India, and malaria had taken its toll from my vitality. During the years preceding my breakdown I had had several very severe attacks of intermittent malaria, and the resulting weakness doubtless contributed to the breakdown. But I am also aware of the fact that I had much unbelief in my mind. I was often hounded by accusations of failure. I worked too hard to establish my own righteousness instead of believing. There are subtle forces of darkness in India that oppose the missionary of CHRIST, and their false accusations and subtle attacks in the guise of angels of light are well known to every servant of CHRIST who tries to preach the Cross. I can look back upon my experience and see that now I am free from much that I did not recognize as oppression before. And I date my freedom from the date of my deliverance from my nervous breakdown. Through that experience I have been taught that there is no victory or righteousness worth anything except that righteousness of CHRIST received by faith. In Him we have everything, every victory, if we believe.
CHRIST went to Gethsemane to fully and adequately deal with my sin. He wore the crown of thorns to do away with the curse that rested on my brow. He was scourged that He might provide ointment and medicine for my infirmities. He went to the cross to remove the sting of death and sin; into the tomb to break death’s hold on me. He took my place in Gethsemane, on Calvary, and in the rock-hewn tomb, that He might deliver me from the power of evil. If it was for me, then my life must be the proof of the efficacy of His finished work.
How? Through living faith in the power of the risen CHRIST. This is the proof of His victory that CHRIST desires. He wants to show in my life the greatness and the power of what He accomplished on the cross in the resurrection.
CHRIST wants my victory over sin to prove Gethsemane. He wants my victory over the curse and death to prove Calvary. He wants my resurrection into newness of life to prove the power and reality of His resurrection.
We were studying the subject of the Resurrection in a Bible class in India. The question was raised, "Why did the Lord JESUS appear only to His disciples after His resurrection? Why did He not appear to Pilate, to the chief priests and elders of His people, to the Jews who had rejected and crucified Him?" Many answers were given, helpful and to the point; but the answer given by one of the members of the class deserves to be read and pondered by every man and woman who claims to believe on the Lord JESUS, the risen CHRIST. The answer was this: "Our Lord wanted His disciples to be the proof of His resurrection."
He did not want the truth of the resurrection to rest upon some miraculous, awe-inspiring appearance to the world, but upon the victorious lives of those who believed on Him. Our Lord became incarnate, lived, died, and rose from the dead in order to transform the lives of those who believed on Him. Therefore He wanted them to be the proof of His resurrection. He did not rise from the dead in order to impress the world with the greatness of His miraculous power; so He did not want His resurrection to be proved by awe-inspiring appearances of one who had been dead and had risen again. He rose from the dead as one who had conquered on our behalf. He came forth on the Resurrection morning, the Victor over man’s sin, not His own, for He never sinned; the Victor over man’s curse, not His own; the Victor over man’s bondage to death and the fear of death. He rose to deliver man and to set man free.
The transforming power and the benefits of this Victory were to be obtained through faith. Therefore, according to the claims of CHRIST Himself, His resurrection stands or falls with the lives of those who believed on Him. For this reason it was useless for Him to appear to those whose hearts were sealed through unbelief. He had gone through Gethsemane, Calvary, and the darkness of the grave and hell, in order to deliver those who were subject to bondage because of the fear of death. That deliverance comes to the true believer.
Did the risen CHRIST need historical proofs for the resurrection? Was He interested in proving before a skeptical, antagonistic world that His disciples had not stolen His body? Was He anxious that Pilate and Caiaphas should acknowledge that the hand that had been pierced by the nails, and the body that had been broken on the cross, had triumphed over all their cruelty? I do not think so. Do not misunderstand me. I know He arose from the dead in the body. I know His flesh did not see corruption. But I did not know it until I believed and met the risen Lord. The Lord JESUS, after the resurrection, was not interested in Pilate. But He was extremely anxious that Peter and James and Thomas and the other disciples and believers should know that His hands had conquered the nails, His head the crown of earth’s curse-born thorns, His feet the spikes of iron, His face the shame and spitting, His back the cruel scourge, and His body the horror of the cross. He had undertaken to take Simon, the Galilean fisherman, and make him into a Peter, the unshakable rock. He knew Simon had a body, and because that body was subject to pain, weakness, terror, and death, He wanted to deliver Simon from all fear of those who could harm the body, so as to make him into a fearless witness of the resurrection. So for forty days He showed Himself alive after His passion by many proofs to Simon and to the rest who believed on Him, that through association with Him, the risen Lord, the victorious CHRIST, they might be prepared for the work of being witnesses unto Him, and so be able to receive power from on high for their task.
~ end of chapter 11 ~