Our two previous lessons have dealt with this subject of “death.” Someone might well ask, Why dwell so long on the death side of this subject? We answer that it is because human nature is averse to looking at the real facts. So often the painful route of repentance as the necessary fore-runner of the new birth is omitted or passed over lightly. Likewise, death to our Old Adam cannot be avoided or ignored if men and women are to be raised to newness of life. There must be death if there is to be resurrection.
The object God had in mind when He created man was to make him in His own image. This purpose was stated at the very outset of the history of man as recorded in the Bible.
“And God said, Let us _______ man in our image, after _________________. . . . So God ___________ man in his own _________, in the image of God ____________________” (Gen. 1:26-27).
Man fell and Satan injected his own evil nature into God’s creation─man. There had to be a restoration of man to that original pattern. God’s Word reveals the fact that Jesus died that our history in Adam might end. To be born into Christ’s family is wonderful, but the purpose of Calvary was to completely (not partially) undo the evil results of the Fall. It is very clear that God purposed that just as we were created in God’s image, we must be restored to that image as far as our spirit is concerned though body and mind must always suffer in this life from the effects of the Fall.
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did ________________ to be conformed to (to be molded into) the _________ of his ______” (Rom. 8:29).
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all _________________________ in ____________ places in Christ: According as he hath ______________________ before the foundation of the world that we should ___________ and __________________ before him in love” (Eph. 1:3-4).
The Father Planned Calvary
God knew that man would fall. He planned for the restoration of man before He even created the world. This was the prime purpose of the Creation. A. R. Palmer said, “As far as we know, our world was created merely as a theater for the enactment of God’s great plan. The scientist, Wallace, says that the earth seems to be the very center of the whole universe; that as far as he can see, as far as science can tell, this is the only inhabited sphere.”
In order for us to further visualize the grandeur and magnitude of God’s plan for our restoration to the image of His Son, we quote from David Foot Nash. “The death of Jesus Christ was no accident. It was designed. Jesus was not maneuvered into the place where His enemies could get rid of Him. He set His face steadfastly to get there. No one dragged Jesus to His fatal rendezvous. He rode to it in kingly state. The foes of Jesus did not close in on Him. He closed in on them! The Son of God did not have His life taken from Him. He laid it down. He was no martyr. He was a volunteer. Jesus did not die to ‘resist not evil.’ He died to kill the evil. The Lord Jesus did not suffer death. He ‘accomplished’ it! (Luke 9:31). The death of Christ was not designed by man. It was far too terrible, too wonderful, too deadly, too life-giving for that. It was planned by what Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, called the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.”
“Him, being _____________ by the _______________________ and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands, have _____________ and slain: Whom God hath _____________, having _______________________________: because it was ________________ that he should be holden of it” (Acts 2:23-24).
“God timed this death. Even the timing of Christ’s death was something which He carefully reserved to Himself. The Jewish and Roman authorities had little to do with it. Indeed, they would have timed the occasion very differently, if it had been left to them. But it was in higher hands. All they could do was to fall into step with the Divine march of events. They had to act as it was ‘given them from above.’ The result was a miracle of synchronization whereby the death of Jesus coincided exactly with the Jewish Passover.”─David Foot Nash.
The Cross Aimed at the “I” in the Heart of Sin
“For this purpose the _______________ was ______________ that he might __________ the ________________________” (1 John 3:8).
The supreme purpose of God to make man in His own image could never be realized until the “works of the devil” had been thoroughly purged from man’s nature. Where these works have been destroyed, then only is man able to progress toward that ultimate goal─to be conformed to the image of Christ.
So we see that the plan of redemption involved a negative side─destroying the works of the devil, but also a positive side─that we might be restored to the image of Christ. “As long as we have the works of the devil in our hearts, so long is it impossible to fulfill the great purpose of our being,” said Canon Hay Aitkin.
What Are the Works of the Devil?
Surely they were not in man as he came forth fresh from the hand of the Creator. God had looked on all His creation and pronounced that “it was good.” In our former lesson, “The Seed of the Serpent,” we saw how the devil had insinuated his own evil nature within the very heart of man. It was an intrusion.
This intrusion is designated by various names in the New Testament: “The old man,” “The carnal mind,” “The flesh,” “Sin” and the personal pronoun, “I.” When inspired writers mention this inner principle of evil, they always associate it with a word signifying “death.” Is it “I”? The “I” must be crucified with Christ. Death is the sentence pronounced upon this vile nature.
The Pharisees’ conception of uncleanness or defilement was partaking of or touching some outward uncleanness in persons or things. Eating with unwashen hands was in their estimation “defilement.” Jesus showed them that the true evil lay within the heart of man.
“Hearken unto me _____________ of you, and ______________: There is ___________ from _________________ that entering into him can _________ him: but the things which ____________ of him, those are they that ___________________. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 7:14-16).
The disciples, when they were alone with Jesus, asked Him concerning the parable. Jesus’ answer is a classic, for He alone knew what was in man. We quote His word picture of the works of the devil which He came to destroy.
“And he saith unto them, Are ye so without _________________ also? De ye not ____________ that whatsoever thing from ______________________ into the man, it _________ defile him; Because it entereth not into _____________, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats? And he said, That which ______________ of the man, that ____________ the man. For from __________, ______ of the heart of men, ___________ evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these things come from within, and defile the man” (Mark 7:18-23). (See also Gal. 5:19-21).
The Old Man Defined
The term “old man” was for many, many years but a theological term to the writers of this Course, but there came a day when the Holy Spirit revealed to us the fiendish nature which lodges in every human being. Let us notice how some writers describe this old nature.
The Church of England in its Homily on the Nativity, recognizes this inbred sin. “He (disobedient man) was now cursed and abhorred: instead of the image of God, he was now become the image of the devil, the bond-slave of hell, altogether spotted and defiled, he seemed to be nothing else but a lump of sin; and therefore, by the just judgment of God, he was condemned to everlasting death. Thus, in Adam, all men become universally mortal, having in themselves nothing but everlasting damnation of body and soul.”
Godet, a saintly Swiss theologian writes: “The expression, ‘our old man,’ denoted human nature such as it has been made by the sin of him in whom originally it was wholly concentrated: fallen Adam reappearing in every human ‘ego’ that comes into the world under the sway of the preponderance of self-love, which was determined by the primitive transgression.”
Gregory Mantle, a Methodist minister, says: “‘The old man’ is incorrigible and incurable; there is no mending it, educating it, or Christianizing it. It remains the same whether you treat it with encouragement or severity. Everything about it is hostile to God. It hates His law, and tramples it under foot. It hates His will and contradicts it. It hates His ways and refuses to walk in them. It hates His plan of salvation and refuses to submit to it. The ‘old man’ is offensive to God; it is impossible to please Him with anything that appertains to ‘the flesh’─a phrase which may be used interchangeably with ‘the old man.’ The seed of the flesh cannot please Him; the will of the flesh cannot please Him; the wisdom of the flesh cannot please Him; the glorying of the flesh cannot please Him; the confidence of the flesh cannot please Him; the warring of the flesh cannot please Him; the circumcision of the flesh cannot please Him. Whether ‘the old man’ appears in all his rottenness, or whether he assumes a religious and attractive guise, he can never be anything but offensive to God.
“Of all subjects, none is of greater importance than that of possessing an accurate knowledge of the character of ‘the old man,’ because of his power to deceive. He loves to put off his old ways, and calls himself a Christian. He knows how to cover his rags and corruption: ‘to make clean the outside of the cup and platter’; and to appear in a garb so devout and decorous that the very elect are deceived. Christ represents him as claiming, at the last, a life-long intimacy. He has sat with Christ at the same table; he has lived in the streets in which Christ has taught; by His name demons have been cast out, and many mighty works have been done. Yet Christ utterly disowns this religious ‘old man,’ and says, ‘I never knew you.’” (Matt. 7:22-23: Luke 13:26-27).
“Because the ________________ is ________________________: for it is _______ ___________ to the law of God, ___________________________. So then they that are in _____________________ please God” (Rom 8:7-8).
James Caughey, a Methodist evangelist, mightily owned of God, said: “Indwelling sin is Satan’s capital. He who has a small capital will keep adding to it. It is Satan’s investment, and he will not neglect it; the Devil’s stock and he will watch its rise and fall in the market, close as any stock-jobber. Sin is in itself an accumulating principle. A slight cold is prone to additions. It is so with indwelling sin. Its nature is to render you cold to duty, and cold in your affections towards God and His people.”
Dr. Rainsford says of it: “By ‘the old man,’ the apostle means our natural self, with all its principles and motives, its outgoings, actions, corruptions, and belongings; not as God made it, but as sin and Satan and self have marred it. The old Adam never changes; no medicine can heal the disease; no ointment can mollify the corruptions; it can only be got rid of by death.”
Controversy has raged within the Church among theologians concerning the time of this deliverance from sin. They recognize the fact that man must be made holy before he can dwell through the ages in the presence of a holy God, and they say that it is impossible to be free of this sinful nature. They fail to recognize that God planned to dwell with man in this life, and conform him to His own image here. A careful study of the verses applying to the ample provision of Calvary will show that it is not the physical death of mortal man but a death to the old serpent-nature which does not end physical life but results in a newness of spiritual life while still in the body.
John Fletcher, writing to refute the theory that we cannot in this life be rid of this evil within our hearts, says: “Ye directly or indirectly plead for the necessary continuance of indwelling sin in your own hearts and in the hearts of all true Christians. May I be so bold as to ask, who gave you leave so to do? And when were ye commissioned to propagate this unholy gospel? Is it not enough that this murderer of Christ and all mankind rambles about the walls of the city? Will ye still insinuate that he must have the citadel to the last, and keep it garrisoned with filthy lusts, base affections, bad tempers? Who has taught you thus to represent Christ as the keeper and not the destroyer of our corruptions? If believers are truly willing to get rid of sin, but cannot, because Christ has bolted their hearts with an adamantine decree, which prevents sin from being turned out; if He has irrevocably given leave to indwelling sin to quarter for life in every Christian’s heart; who does not see that Christ may be called the protector of indwelling sin, rather than its enemy?
“To plead therefore for the continuance of indwelling sin, is no better than to plead for keeping in your hearts one of the sharpest stings of death, and one of the hottest coals of hell fire. On the other hand, to attain Christian perfection is to have the last feature of Belial’s image erased from your loving souls, and the last spark of hell fire extinguished from your peaceful bosoms. It is to enter into the spiritual rest which remains on earth for the people of God; a delightful rest this, where your soul will enjoy a calm in the midst of outward storms; and where your spirit will no longer be tossed by the billows of swelling pride, dissatisfied avarice, pining envy, disappointed hopes, fruitless cares, dubious anxiety, turbulent anger, fretting, impatient and racking unbelief. It is to enjoy that even state of mind in which all things work together for our good. There your love will bear its excellent fruits during the sharpest winter affliction, as well as in the finest summer prosperity. There you will be more and more settled in peaceful humility; there you will continually grow in holy familiarity with the Friend of penitent sinners; and your prospect of eternal felicity will brighten every day.”
“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name _________: for he shall _______ his people ____________________” (Matt. 1:21).
“There remaineth therefore a _______ to the __________________” (Heb. 4:9).
The Anti-Christ Committee
In every unsanctified heart, there are clamorous voices which demand a hearing from the born-again child of God whenever he is confronted with a choice to obey God. This has been illustrated as a committee which sits within the citadel of the heart demanding that we follow the course of this world. Every command of Christ to the believer is challenged. The committee argue in favor of man’s happiness here and now rather than for the eternal well-being of the soul or for the glory of God. “Be happy,” they cry in unison. “Be successful,” “Be popular,” “Be influential, “ “Be cautious,” “Don’t be in the minority.”
The reason why the new-born soul makes so little progress heavenward, is because the “want-to” of God is voted down by the “don’t-want-to” of the committee. The odds are loaded against him as long as he retains this self-enthroning committee within his heart. How many of us have not gone through the harrowing experience when God asked for obedience in some unusual way! “Don’t go too far,” “Don’t be brainwashed,” “Don’t ruin your prospects of friends, success and happiness,” “Be modern. All these old-fashioned notions are for man in a past age.”
We say without any question mark in our theological thinking, that God designed a salvation to rid the heart of this God-hating committee. He promises to purge our hearts and, when this is so, Satan’s voice may attack us from without, but his fifth column is no longer there as his ally. The all-powerful Name of Jesus routes the foe. Write out the verse found in Psa. 86:11.
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The Old Man Crucified
In the 6th chapter of Romans, Paul mentions three definite steps necessary to appropriating to ourselves all the accomplishments of Calvary. We will state these three steps here.
1. Knowing. It is absolutely necessary to know what Christ truly did for us when He expired on the cross. Paul tells us. He informs us of a vital historic fact. Our “old nature” expired with Christ at the time of His death.
“___________ this, that _________________ is _______________________. That the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we __________________________” (Rom 6:6).
Every man, woman and child was included in that death. Potentially the entire world was included in that amazing death when Christ tasted death for “every man.” There is an old Negro spiritual which is entitled, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” One man told how he sat listening to a beautiful Negro singing that spiritual, and suddenly he saw that he had been there when they crucified the Lord. When the Holy Spirit reveals this to us it is a day in our spiritual history never to be forgotten. My old nature, my history in Adam was finished at the cross. I died when He died. I was “born crucified” but sometimes we go on for years before that intelligence dawns upon our benighted and dark understanding.
Some Japanese soldiers had been fighting in the jungles of one of the South Sea Islands during Word War 2. They had been too remotely situated to hear the great news that peace had been declared. The war was over, but there they were still living under dreadful conditions of destitution, hiding from the “enemy” during the day, and then stealthily creeping out with their weapons of war during the night. Then someone told them, and knowing altered everything. When the intelligence reached them, they had to reckon upon this truth. Can you imagine how from that moment everything would be altered?
2. Reckoning. Once we know that our history in Adam was finished, and we died with Christ, then we must reckon on that fact. We account the deed done. This reckoning is the appropriating faith which makes a universal truth for all become a fact and applied to us personally.
“Likewise __________ ye also ______________ to be _______ indeed unto sin, but ________ unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not ______ therefore _________ in your mortal body, that ye should __________ in the lusts thereof” (Rom. 6:11-12).
Many will say, I have believed that all my life. I have known that I was identified with Christ in His death on Calvary, but I have experienced no change. The priceless Holy Spirit must, must be the agent in our knowing and reckoning. He is the One Who executes for us and on our behalf all that Christ did for us on the cross. Our sanctification and deliverance from sin will be mere theory unless this mighty Agent is the Spirit of life Who touches our intellect and illuminates our understanding. But Christ sent Him here for that very purpose that He might instruct, enlighten and guide us into all truth. We can expect a personally conducted tour through the base regions of our heart right up to Calvary.
Paul said that he was not taught these truths by man but by revelation. Flesh and blood did not reveal these things unto him, but the Spirit of God. And he had caught the central idea of all Christianity when he said,
“I am __________________________: nevertheless I live: ______________, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2:20).
Please look up the following verse and write it out in the blank space:
Gal. 5:24____________________________________________________________
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3. Yielding is the third fact. Because we know we were there when Christ was crucified and have reckoned upon it, we now act upon it by yielding full obedience. As this third point will be dealt with more fully in a later lesson, no further comments will be made here.
Have You Attended Your Own Funeral?
Oswald Chambers says: “No one enters into the experience of entire sanctification without going through a ‘white funeral’─the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crisis of death, sanctification is nothing more than a vision. There must be a ‘white funeral,’ a death that has only one resurrection─a resurrection into the life of Jesus Christ. Nothing can upset such a life; it is one with God for one purpose, to be a witness to Him.
“Have you come to your last days really? You have come to them often in sentiment, but have you come to them really? You cannot go to your funeral in excitement, or die in excitement. Death means you stop being. Do you agree with God that you stop being the striving, earnest kind of Christian you have been? We skirt the cemetery and all the time refuse to go to death. It is not striving to go to death, it is dying─‘baptized into His death.’ . . . Is there a place in your life marked as the last day, a place to which the memory goes back with a chastened and extraordinarily grateful remembrance─‘Yes, it was then, at that “white funeral,” that I made an agreement with God.’
“‘This is the will of God, even your sanctification.’ When you realize what the will of God is, you will enter into sanctification as naturally as can be. Are you willing to go through that ‘white funeral’ now? Do you agree with Him that this is your last day on earth? The moment of agreement depends upon you.”
─from My Utmost for His Highest.”
Only Unbelief Can Keep You Back
Unbelief robs us of the deliverance that Christ provided for all. If Jesus could do no mighty works because of unbelief in Nazareth, how is the Almighty One limited by a lack of faith in cleansing that small space within the human heart!
“Sins committed appeared but as trifles compared with the sin of unbelief which was their cause─the sin which could not or would not take God at His Word, but rather made Him a liar! Unbelief was, I felt, the damning sin of the world.”─J. Hudson Taylor.
Testing Time
1. Why are the fearful and the unbelieving pictured as being in the front of the procession listed foremost in the throngs on their way to perdition?
2. Why do you think Christ said to the five virgins in Matthew 25, “I know you not”?
3. Read the account of the Children of Israel in Numbers 21:5-9 and then read the words of Jesus in John 3:14-15. Why did Jesus liken the lifting up of the pole with the serpent to His own crucifixion when He was lifted up on the cross?
4. Think of the godliest person you have ever met or read about, and mention what things about him or her showed that the “old Adam nature” was dead or crucified.
5. Why would the evils mentioned by Jesus in the human heart keep a person from growing in grace?
6. Read the list of what comes out of the heart of man in Mark 7:21-23, and list which ones show the trend of immorality, and which show rebellion or bad temper, and which show a lack of truth.
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