In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of God's control over our minds, emotions, and will. He uses an example of being sincerely wrong about the time and missing a plane to illustrate the need for God's guidance. The speaker then discusses the concept of being raised from the dead, explaining that salvation means having life restored to the lifeless. He also highlights the dual relationship of love and dependence on God that humans are meant to have, contrasting it with Satan's attitude of independence. Finally, the speaker discusses the three parts of human beings - the body, soul, and spirit - and the need for sanctification in all three areas.

This morning I had quite a refreshing experience. I wandered into the little library room here of this church and just browsed amongst one or two of the books. I caught a glance of this particular one. It was called The Divine Unfolding. I hadn't seen it before, picked it up, and it was obviously donated by a certain gentleman who had given a number of copies away as Christmas presents. It rather fascinated me when I opened the front page because this was the explanation that he gave. He said, Dear friend, I've heard many people give as an excuse for not reading the Bible that they did not understand the basic underlying principles upon which the story is sounding. Well, that was an echo of our morning meeting. That fascinated me rather a wee bit. He said, I myself have had some thought about this not a few times but after reading this unfolding have had a very much clearer understanding of the whole plan and I feel that what has been so great a help to me will also be a real help to you. So I thought that would be a little bit interesting so I just glanced at the foreword. And if I may take the liberty of doing so I'd just like to read to you a few paragraphs from this foreword. This is a book that was written, from what I can understand, in 1938. The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Sadly enough, the carnal mind frequently remains after there has been an implantation of the divine life in the individual. Just as there was widespread yearning on the part of Israel for the things of Egypt after the Red Sea experience. The very people of God's earthly testimony failed miserably to comprehend His purposes in their redemption or to enter into His thoughtfulness. Of Caleb alone was it recorded and of him thrice repeated that he wholly followed the law. He and Joshua were a small minority but as is always true in spiritual matters were entirely right and the majority entirely wrong. The more we are enabled by the Holy Spirit to put off the old man with his deeds and to be transformed by having our minds renewed the more we are convinced that God's thoughts and man's thoughts are not simply divergent but diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive. And we gradually come to the true realization that the feverish activity that we had deemed extremely pious was animated by unhallowed motives and purposes and was actually inimitable to and destructive of the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. When we have permitted the Holy Spirit to perform the operation of crucifixion upon us by release of the same power by which He offered the Lord Jesus Christ without spot to God we discover that what we had previously thought was real for the Lord was nothing more than partisan fervor for some outward organization and what we had thought was our Christ-like forbearance was nothing more than a course of the least resistance and a craven betrayal of the interests of the faith. Having been raised to newness of life by the Holy Spirit according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead we know that our scale of values was distorted by human and temporal considerations. We had been occupied with the by-products of Christianity lofty and laudatory things in themselves earthly means to spiritual ends theoretically intended to demonstrate the love and compassion of Christ. We had defended certain things as necessary to broaden one's vision, enhance the personality by contributing to a store of culture or we had argued that the exquisite refinement of a certain individual must betoken a latent spirituality or we had condoned a certain state of mind or a given course of conduct as not so bad because associated with someone bound to us by love or kinship. Again, says the Spirit, these also are vanity. High things they are that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God that must be cast down in order that our thoughts may come into full captivity to the obedience of Christ. Masquerading as Christ glorifiers they are in reality thieves of His glory traitors to self-exaltation the praise of men, the pride of life. To enter into the secret place of the Most High there must be desolate exercise of the will and complete surrender to the Holy Spirit working through the oracles of God a strict orientation to the divine revelation. It is necessary to be totally divested of human predilections and evaluations and to be prepared to take the bankrupt law on all that pertains to nature. When the Holy Spirit has brought us down down, down to the place where we are willing to say with the Apostle, let God be true but every man a liar then the mind of Christ Jesus who humbled himself from the pinnacle of the heavenless to the depths of the cross will begin to be in. Well I don't know this gentleman but he talks sense and I was happy to meet him while you were having your discussion and that was a refreshing experience because you see there is only one divine principle and it doesn't matter who finds it it will always be the same. Christianity not a pattern of behavior not a dogma but a principle of life. And this is the principle that today we are seeking to discover in all the profundity of it and the simplicity of it and the wonder of it. A new creature in Christ Jesus one through whom there is the spontaneous expression of the divine life as God once more is allowed to be God in man the origin of his own image the cause of his own effect. Not my response to the popular challenge be a man for God but rather my willingness at last to let God be God in man. You see we are not to try to be a man on God's behalf but just allow God to be himself making us the kind of man he intended us to be and for which we were created. A new creature is what God is at in redemption the restoration of man to his true humanity. For this afternoon's study we'll commence in the second epistle to the Corinthians in the fifth chapter 2 Corinthians and chapter 5 and we'll glance for a moment at a verse that will be very familiar to you you'll find it the 17th verse of the fifth chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature all things are passed away because behold all things are become new. There's a categorical statement of fact it isn't that maybe he will eventually be a new creature if any man be in Christ he is a new creature but I want you to notice that this categorical statement of fact is the logical reasonable conclusion of a specific argument through which the apostle has been directing his readers for the 17th verse begins with the word therefore and as somebody has once said if ever you find therefore in the bible you should ask what the therefore is therefore wherefore the therefore if it says therefore it means that there must be a logical sequence of arguments that bring you relentlessly to this particular conclusion if any man be in Christ he is a new creation and this is the only reasonable conclusion to which you can come concerning a man who is in Christ so we need to discover what it is to be in Christ and the best way maybe we can discover what it is to be in Christ is first to discover what it means not to be in Christ if a man is not in Christ in what condition is he you claim this afternoon to be a Christian there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus and you claim this afternoon to be free from condemnation because you are in Christ tell me this before you were in Christ where were you what was your condition how does the bible describe your condition before you were in Christ well there's only one possible alternative to being in Christ and that is given to us in the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians you'll find it in the 15th chapter and commencing with the 20th verse 1 Corinthians chapter 15 now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept for since by man came death by man came also the resurrection of the dead for verse 22 as in Adam all die even so putting the correct word order all in Christ shall be made alive and there the two possibilities set diametrically opposed to each other in the same verse if a man is not in Christ he is still in Adam as in Adam all die so all in Christ shall be made alive there's no exception to that first rule as in Adam all die for Romans chapter 5 and verse 12 tells us this that as by one man this first man by whom came death as by one man sin came into the world and death by sin so death passed upon all men the first thing you know about a man who is not in Christ is that he is in Adam and the first thing that you know about a man who is in Adam is that he is dead not physically dead but spiritually dead because by this one man death came into the world what happened when by this first man Adam death came into the world this death that has passed upon all men in which condition you in common with every other fallen member of a fallen race of a fallen Adam was born into this world and that we may more clearly understand what happened when through the one man Adam death came into the world we need to understand how God made us and I'm going to ask the forbearance of some for whom perhaps this is very elementary but for others it may be helpful and for all of us it's essential we saw in the closing moments of our morning session from the last chapter of the first epistles of the Thessalonians that Paul's concern for these new converts that the God of peace might sanctify them wholly spirit and soul and body the total man in his tri-entity for man is made up of three parts the most tangible part with which we are the more familiar of course is our bodies we look at it every morning in the mirror sometimes we like it and sometimes we don't the less tangible part of our being but the more understandable may be is the soul folk have a vague idea they've got a soul they're not quite sure how to define it but they know that they go out to business to keep body and soul together because the moment the soul gets detached from the body folk are likely to come along and bury the body so they try to keep body and soul together but the Bible also speaks of a third part of man which is called the human spirit which cannot be detached from the human soul but must never be confused for the human soul and we need to understand just a wee bit what this involves if we are to understand what happened when Adam fell into sin and until we have understood what happened when Adam fell into sin we shall never begin to understand what happens when a man steps out of Adam into Christ and is made alive in Christ now you and I possess a body in common with every other form of created life in common with the vegetable kingdom, in common with the animal kingdom as men we possess this body which the Bible describes in the second epistle to the Corinthians in chapter 5 as our earthly house and we recognize the different varieties of species in the vegetable and animal and human kingdom by the shape of the house in which each lives you recognize if you were looking through the window a tree for a tree as opposed to a cat you know it's a tree by the shape of its body, it's got a tree body and if a boy is climbing it, you know it isn't one tree climbing another tree, it's a boy because he's got a boy body and if a dog ran by, you'd know he had a dog's body and so each is recognized by its specific house in which it lives but the fact that God has given to you and to me a body doesn't in itself make us men that would only make us possibly a cabbage there's an essential difference between the animal kingdom and the vegetable kingdom and the basic essential difference is that God has vested in the animal kingdom a capacity to behave that is not vested in the vegetable kingdom in other words, a tree doesn't get aggravated it doesn't get angry, it doesn't get afraid it doesn't behave it has no mental capacity, it has no emotional capacity and it has no volitional capacity but all forms of animal life within the animal kingdom have a capacity to behave and an animal does not need God to behave any more than you and I need God to behave the fact that you and I may know God does not determine whether we can behave it will merely simply determine how we behave the behavior mechanism which is called the soul which is the seat of all true behavior whether or not it is matched by any physical action is the soul you behave first and foremost within your soul you may or you may not match it by physical action the body is simply that part of you that communicates to the outside world externally what is already going on inside, internally or it may deliberately camouflage externally what is going on internally now in the animal kingdom God built into every individual species of the animal kingdom a certain broad pattern of behavior within which that particular individual animal of the animal kingdom of that particular species will behave so that you know when to go hunting they have migratory patterns mating seasons feeding habits when I was in central Africa I was fascinated by the great mountainous ant heaps created by tiny little insects not half an inch long and yet each one a most complicated economy under the supreme direction of the queen ant who directed all the activities of the individual ants if the queen ant died, the community died because it ceased to have any coordination and yet although each of the individual ants was acting as an individual in himself there was a total entity of behavior there were those ants whose pastime it was to chew the soil and produce a kind of cement that was used by the pasturing squad who either built extensions to the dwelling house or repaired such parts of it as might have been damaged there were other ants who spent all their time chewing vegetables and they produced a kind of compost which they placed on the ground and that was the bed upon which little mushrooms were grown that was for breakfast other ants, they'd go down and find water and other ants come and collect the water and bring it up each had their own particular sphere of activity you know as well as I do that this is courtesy of Beehive one of the most fascinating films, if you'd like to see it produced recently by the Saxon Film Society is The City of Bees magnificently demonstrating the principle you've got one set of bees who stand on one side of the ants and they flap their wings in one direction the other standing on the other side face round about and they flap their wings in the other direction so that no matter how the temperature may fluctuate outside the temperature within the beehive remains constant within a fraction of a degree air conditioning other bees go out as scouts and they discover where the food supplies may be found and they come back and by a most fascinating dance give exact details as to how far the worker bees have to fly how much they have to lay off the wind how much fuel they should take with them to get there and back in terms of their own personal consumption the quality of the food they're going to find when they get there is all conveyed by the scout bees to the worker bees by the way they dance and the direction in which they dance and off they go and back they come other bees, it's their duty as most bees to feed the little eggs in the cell but all one glorious entity coordinated in its total activity forty to eighty thousand bees in every community and yet you couldn't say that each bee was acting out of a sense of moral responsibility they weren't though each acts individually it all takes place within the common boundary of one particular general pattern of behavior that God, so to speak, has built into each one individually by what one may describe as an instinctive interlock what would happen if this instinctive interlock were shattered as between each individual bee and its behavior patterns so that every bee suddenly became bee egocentric forty thousand bee-sensic bees can you imagine what would happen? so that those that had been keeping the temperature inside the beehive constant suddenly down-winged and they look at each other fiercely and say why should we stand here flapping all day long? they can flap their own house and the worker bees come back and they have a suddenly they have a little committee meeting, a union meeting and say why should we slaver? and the nurse bees, they look at those little eggs and say those little suckers, they can feed themselves what do you think would happen to a beehive like that? it would disintegrate into chaos and it would perish now every form of animal life is controlled in its individual behavior patterns within the broad boundaries of that instinctive mechanism that God has built into it man was the only animal for whom God didn't build this instinctive mechanism into it because man physiologically, anatomically an animal wasn't created simply to behave like an animal we discovered this morning already for what purpose God created man he created man to be in his own image he created man to be God-like but we discovered also that man inherently in himself doesn't have the capacity to be God-like God-likeness does not stem from his own inherent capacity to imitate God but from God's capacity to reproduce himself in man what alternative provision did God give to man to replace what the instinctive mechanism furnishes to every other form of animal life God gave to man what he didn't give to any other form of animal life it's called in the Bible the human spirit the human spirit is that unique capacity that God has built into you and to me that enables us to receive nothing less than God himself that's why when I used the illustration of the lamps this morning in the first session I was being entirely biblical because you'll discover in the 20th chapter the book of Proverbs in the 27th verse that it says this the spirit of man, the human spirit is the lamp of God God's lamp that capacity which God has built into man that enables God himself to indwell a man in his humanity and be in man the origin so that the Holy Spirit of truth may so control man's mind may so control man's affections that under the influence of a God-caught mind and God-controlled emotions his will will be used by God himself because ultimately it's the one who controls your mind and who controls your emotions who controls your will I may look at my watch and I may see that it is 20 minutes to 2 and I might say to myself my plane leaves at half past 2 it'll take me at least 15 minutes to drive to the airport I need quarter of an hour when I get there it's time I went and so I make my way to the airport and when I get there I discover that my watch is half an hour slow what's happened to the plane? it's gone was I insincere in the conclusion which I drew? no, I was just sincerely wrong on the basis of false information because my watch was lying and if I dislike the friendship that exists between you and somebody else I might, if I was wicked enough seek to destroy it by whispering all kinds of malicious evil lies in your ear about that person and if you're foolish enough to believe the lies that I tell about them then your own emotional attitude will change towards them quite sincerely and quite legitimately because if they're that kind of person then it would merit that type of attitude but everything I told you was a lie so you see, if you are to draw right conclusions you need truth if you are to adopt right attitudes you need truth and God created man in such a way that the Holy Spirit of Truth the third co-equal member of the Trinity in co-equality with the Father and the Son might come and indwell the human spirit and when God first created man it was in this way that He, by the Holy Spirit indwelling the human spirit might so instruct the mind of man exclusively might so control the affections of man exclusively that the will of man might be exercised exclusively under the influence of a God-taught mind and God-controlled emotions given that man understands the basic principles of his own humanity and he knows that he can only function as God intended God-man to function in declaring the nature of God by his total dependence upon God to listen to all that God has to say and because he loves God out of his love to God he wants to be what God created him to be then his love to God will demand dependence on God and obedience to God all right then look at Adam in his innocency he understands the principles of his own humanity God has made it abundantly clear to him that he will only function and fulfill the purpose of his creation as he not only enjoys the indwelling presence of the God who made him but lives in total, utter abandonment to his will he never exercises his will to do anything to say anything, to adopt any attitude or draw any conclusion other than under the exclusive influence of God the Holy Spirit and his instructions watch him behave who do you see behaving? God who's the origin of the image? God that was man in his innocency and when I say man in his innocency all I mean is that that was man in his normality that was nothing less nor more than man body, yes the means of communicating externally a soul, yes a mind, emotion, will that capacity to behave which behavior could be communicated in terms of physical behavior and within the human soul, the spirit inhabited by the Holy Spirit in supreme control declaring the very nature of God what is the demand of man in his normality? this dual relationship of love toward God giving expression in terms of utter dependence on and obedience to God and then Satan came along and perpetrated in man the same attitude that he had already adopted towards God one of arrogant, pig-headed, proud, stubborn independence for that's what happened when Satan fell into sin that's the fall of Satan, the fall of Lucifer How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground which did weaken the nations? Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my throne above the stars of God I will sit upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north I will ascend above the heights of the clouds I will be like the Most High I will be like God without God yet thou shalt be brought down to hell to the side of the pit it was this attitude that Satan introduced into human experience he came along and said you can be like God without God you can lose God and lose nothing you can be independent you can be as stubbornly self-sufficient as I am and get away with it has God said you'll die on the day that you repudiate His dominion over your life? rough rubbish, stuff of nonsense all you've got to do is to have courage enough to kick over the traces and carve your own destiny and be your own master it's as though I could argue with that lamp and say lamp, did somebody persuade you one day that you needed electricity to produce light? nonsense fancy believing that stuff a great big lamp like you you ought to be ashamed of yourself now pull yourself together throw your own big chest out and be a lamp go on, be a lamp and you'll prove you'll prove the glorious emancipation of being independent go on who told you that you needed electricity? cut out, cut out go on, be on your own, stand on your own two feet supposing the lamp could listen to me supposing the lamp could believe me supposing the lamp could act on what I said and obey the lie and do it what would happen to the lamp? it would go out it would be plunged into abysmal darkness it would still be a lamp it would still hang there beautifully from the ceiling beautifully useless that's what happened in the day that Adam fell into sin he repudiated the basic principles of his humanity he denied God and God switched him out John's Gospel chapter 1 verse 4 says this in him the word who was in the beginning with God and was God and by whom all things were made the creative deity in him was light this light was the light of men and in the day that light went out the light went out that's when it all began but something worse happened not only did Adam profit life which left as its residue death for death does not destroy life death is simply all that's left when there is no life darkness does not destroy light darkness is simply all that's left when there is no light take away the light and take away the light and all you've got left is death and darkness that wasn't all that happened for man destitute of that divine content which alone makes man man was invaded by the devil himself and there was introduced within the human soul a principle that is called in the New Testament the flesh nothing to do with your body nothing to do in itself with your physical members it is a principle of satanic origin it has its roots in the devil it's the other self of Satan as the Holy Spirit as the other self of God the flesh so that instead of the mind acting under the gracious influence of God the Holy Spirit instead of the emotions being exercised alone exclusively under the gracious influences of God the Holy Spirit instead of the will being activated to bring the body into action to do things under the gracious influence of God the Holy Spirit establishing the divine sovereignty invaded by Satan himself through the flesh that upstituted polluting the mind, polluting the affections and twisting the will producing the self that God hates the self that is an expression not of deity but of the devil himself for he that committed sin is of the devil as every true genuine act of righteousness is an act of God in and through man so every act of sin is an act of the devil himself in and through man don't kid yourself every time you commit sin you are simply handing your body over to be the devil's tool you are yielding your members to him, sin, for unrighteousness every manifestation of evil is a prostitution of man's humanity by the devil himself so don't think that you can pretend to be a Christian while your mind is still the devil's workshop if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness you lie, you're just a liar and you do not the truth you can convince everybody except God so the second thing you discover about a man who is in Adam first that he is spiritually dead destitute of God, utterly bankrupt empty of anything that could ever enable him to function as God intended man to function he's dead and secondly he's dominated by the flesh dead spiritually and dominated by the flesh that's the natural man the animal man 1 Corinthians 2.14 that's why in your French Bible it's translated l'homme animale, the animal man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness unto him, neither can he know them he is spiritually dead and he's dominated by the flesh Ephesians chapter 2 and you happy quickens right into the Christians in Ephesus you happy raised from the dead you who were in Adam who were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time passed, verse 2 of the second chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians wherein in time passed you walked according to the cross of this world according to the pimps of the power of the air the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience among whom also we all had our behaviour or conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of God that's why the Lord Jesus Christ Mark's Gospel, chapter 7, verse 20 Mark 7, verse 20 said that which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man for from within, out of the heart of men where this same principle of satanic origin the flesh is deeply entrenched within the inner counsels of the human personality polluting the mind, prostituting the affections and dominating the will that which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man from within, out of the heart of men pristine evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit lasciviousness, an evil eye blasphemy, pride, foolishness all these evil things come from within they're the jerky water that comes from a jerky well they defile the man described in the fifth chapter of the epistle to the Galatians as the works, the inevitable consequences of the flesh in action, in terms of human personality a usurper at the control, at the center and seat of human behavior verse 19 of Galatians, chapter 5 now the works of the flesh are manifest which are these, adultery, fornication uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations wrath, strife, sedition, heresies endings, murders, drunkenness, revelings and such like they are the natural, inevitable consequences of the flesh and that is why, as I reminded you this morning from the second epistle of Paul to Timothy though you may have a form of godliness though you may even give credence to the evangelical dogmas know all the answers by heart and be able to recite passages of scripture from Genesis to the Revelation if something hasn't happened that has replaced this principle called the flesh with the divine principle imparted by the Holy Spirit though you may have a form of godliness it will deny the power thereof and you will be numbered amongst those who are lovers of their own selves egoistic, self-centered pride, covetous, boaster blasphemous, disobedient, apparent and you don't have to go outside a Christian family to find that unthankful, ungrateful snatching, grabbing, gimme, gimme that's the attitude unholy without natural affection, cruise breaker never keeping their word promising to do things they have absolutely no intention of doing false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good traitors, heavy, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God let's have the morning service early so that we can play ball on Sunday afternoon let's cut out our evening service I want to go fishing the flesh the intruded in the absence of God to take over that's the second thing you know about a man in Adam he's spiritually destitute he's empty of God and his behavior mechanism not even governed by those animal instincts that keep a dog pure and forbid divorce even in the animal kingdom not even protected by these animal instincts destitute of God prostituted by the devil dominated by the flesh that's the man in Adam and if nothing happens to change it John's Gospel chapter eight said the Lord Jesus verse twenty-three John eight, twenty-three and he said unto them ye are from beneath I am from above you are of this worth I am not of this worth I said therefore unto you that you shall die in your sin for if you believe not that I am he you shall die in your sin you will die physically as you were born physically spiritually dead still destitute of God and yet with that quality of soul that God gave you with an inbuilt human spirit that unlike the souls of the animal kingdom will survive the disintegration of your body and remain eternally morally answerable to God your maker that's the man in Adam it is out of this condition that Christ redeems you turn back to 1 Corinthians fifteen 1 Corinthians fifteen verse twenty-one as by one man came death by man, one man also came the resurrection of the dead as in Adam all die all dead born dead and to die dead unless something happens this is the good news all in Christ shall be made alive don't make the mistake of relegating that to some future distant event when Jesus Christ comes back again this refers to normal spiritual regeneration that we describe as new birth all in Christ are made alive Jesus Christ does not save you from future death when the Lord Jesus Christ redeems your soul he saves you out of death and restores you to life that's why Paul writing to the Christians in Ephesus says to them you hath he quickened he doesn't say just you hath he quickened in the first verse of that second chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians he says and you hath he quickened and you who and you Christ and you the eyes of your understanding being enlightened verse 18 of Ephesians chapter 1 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling for the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints not your inheritance in him one day I get to heaven but his inheritance in the saints his deity filling now on earth with your two feet on the ground on the way to heaven his deity filling your humanity that's his inheritance in the saints the right to be God again in man the right in you once more to be the origin of his own image and the cause of his own effect the right in you as his inheritance to make you that you will become visible in a visible creation that's his inheritance and I want to tell you this that his inheritance in you is a million times more important than your inheritance in him and yet there are some of you who grasp at the gospel as though God was only concerned about getting oh no the whole purpose and redemption was to restore you to your true humanity to make humanity inhabited by God 24 hours in every day the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints verse 19 of chapter 1 and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe according to the working of his mighty power which he God wrought in Christ when he God raised him Christ happy quick that as the father raised the Lord Jesus from the dead so says Paul to the Ephesian Christians he's raised you from it God verse 4 of chapter 2 in the epistle to the Ephesians God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were past tense dead in sins he has present tense quickened us together with Christ by grace you're saved that's what it means to be saved to be raised from the dead to have life restored to the lifeless you see death doesn't destroy life but life destroys death and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ that reconciles you as a guilty sinner to a holy God was designed in God's eternal economy to kill death dead by making it possible for a holy God to restore life to you the lifeless because your sins have been forgiven because he died for you historically 1900 years ago and now being redeemed and reconciled to God by the death of his son you are moment by moment by moment by moment to be saved by his life as one who has been raised from the dead to live for every step you take and for every breath you breathe and to face every situation as it dawns upon you in all the mighty adequacy of the indwelling Christ who fills you and floods you with himself that's the Christian life and it's all possible in Christ in Christ in the one man are you still in 1 Corinthians 15? have you got lost? 1 Corinthians 15 in Adam all dead in Adam dominated by the flesh in Adam to die on your sins in Christ made alive raised from the dead re-inhabited by God for God for the Lord Jesus in his sinlessness as man was made sin for you and for me and all the holy wrath of a holy God was poured out in judgment upon his spotless head as God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him I want you to realize that when the Lord Jesus Christ came to this world on that first Christmas day 1900 years ago he didn't come into this world to be fallen man he came into this world uninhabited by sin uninhabited only by God miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit he didn't come into this world to behave as regenerate man when the Lord Jesus as creator deliberately of his own pre-volition and willingly came into this world to be man he came to be man as he as God had created man to be man in his normality and for 33 years on earth the Lord Jesus Christ though never left and God always behaved as man in his utter dependence upon the Father no man has seen God at any time, maybe you've never thought of this but if Jesus Christ had come into this world both to be and behave as God nobody would ever have seen him because you see if it takes God to be a man it takes a man to make God invisible that's why John 1.18 says no man has seen God at any time the only begotten of the Father in the bosom of the Father he hath declared it and when Jesus Christ came into this world he came to be the second man the only other man who has ever been in this world who was man as God intended man to be there have only been two men that ever lived in this world who are worthy of the name of man the first was Adam and he lost it because he believed the devil's lie and died by faith repudiated the basic principle of his own humanity and was plunged into the abysmal chaos of darkness and death and the only other man who walked this earth was Jesus Christ that's why in the same epistle 1 Corinthians chapter 15 we are told so it is written verse 45 the first man Adam was made a living soul he died the last, second Adam was made one who raises the dead, a quickening spirit verse 47 the first man is of the earth earth is Adam the second man and the only other that ever walked this earth is the Lord from heaven you are from beneath said the Lord Jesus I am from above the Lord from heaven and the first thing that happens when you come as a self-confessed sinner in humble repentance toward God and put your trust in the Lord Jesus is that your sins are forgiven, thank God for that, you can know it and you can rejoice in the glorious fact of it but don't be swept off your feet by it don't mistake it as the means for the end it's the means to the end you can know that your sins are forgiven and in the moment that the Father receives you as an acquitted sinner this glorious transaction enacted through the atoning vicarious death of Christ is sealed by the restoration to you of the Holy Spirit who is the earnest by his presence in you that you have been redeemed and because redeemed therefore raised from the dead to life by the presence of life that abolishes death and kills it dead that's what happened when you were converted if you'd been genuinely converted God acquitted you for Jesus' sake he recorded your name in the Lamb's book of life as one whose sins he would remember no more for his dear sake who died for you that abolishes death and kills it dead that's what happened when you were converted if you'd been genuinely converted God acquitted you for Jesus' sake he recorded your name in the Lamb's book of life as one whose sins he would remember no more for his dear sake who died for you and instantly God restored life and life he switched yours Christ in the person of his other self came to inhabit your humanity and your body became the temple of the living God you were added to that habitation of God through his spirit which is called on us his body the church of which Jesus Christ alone is the head and every redeemed sinner a living pulsating member in particular so the first thing you know about a man in Christ is what? he's alive the first thing you know about a man in Adam is that he's dead and the first thing you know about a man who's in Christ is that he's alive how is he alive? because God the Holy Spirit has come to indwell his human spirit and re-impart to him the very resurrection life of Jesus Christ himself to what end? the Bible tells us that the righteousness demanded by the law might be fulfilled in us who now walk no longer after the flesh dominated by the flesh but walk now after the spirit dominated by the Holy Spirit in other words the coming of God the Holy Spirit into the human spirit is to the end that he the Holy Spirit might re-invade your soul and re-capture your mind for Jesus Christ and re-capture your emotions for Jesus Christ and therefore re-capture your will for Jesus Christ and whoever re-captures your will captures your behavior and your total humanity once more and you make him the invisible visible as once Christ as man made the Father invisible visible he that has seen me has seen the Father so as you go around the world it should be possible for you to say if you've entered into the purpose for which you have been redeemed he that sees me sees Christ and if you want to know the measure in which you've entered into your redemption it's precisely just the measure in which other people can see Christ not your imitation of Christ not your flowery language about Christ but in your most unconscious moments Christ expressed because a man in Christ is not only alive a man in Christ walks after the Spirit and a man in Christ lives in the power of his endless life said Jesus, John 6 and 57 as the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father so he that eateth me shall live by me in Adam dead dominated by the flesh to die in your sin in Christ alive dominated by the Holy Spirit to live by him as he once lived by the Father the Father dwelleth in me, he doeth the works John 14, 10 Christ who lives in me he doeth the works to me to live is and that's normal Christianity