Throughout these lessons we have dealt with the aspect of death, and so are glad to pass on to the wonderful resultant truth of the resurrection where we walk in newness of life in Christ. There are very many Scriptures which bear out this message of death and resurrection. They are always together, these two words. In Romans 6 alone, death is mentioned eighteen times and life or live seven times. We want to look at three verses in Romans 6 and wish you to write out the verses in the lines below and encircle the words or group of words that depict the resurrection and put a square around the words depicting death.
Rom. 6: 3-5 _________________________________________________________
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Many believers have missed the wonder of this death and resurrection mystery, because they were satisfied to perform the outward rite of baptism which is but the symbol of the deeper mystery Paul wished to convey. Look up the dictionary meaning of “baptize” _______________________________________________________________
Truly, therefore, whether we have been baptized by this or that mode of baptism, the significance is that the old Adam life is left as dead. The word “baptize” is interesting to look into here. The Greek meaning is merely the English spelling of the Greek words, not a translation of their meaning. In classical Greek, the verb “baptizo” is used
Of a blacksmith who dips the red hot iron in water
Of a dyer who dips cloth in color to stain it
Of a wounded soldier who stains the earth with his blood
Of a ship submerged in water
Of a Greek soldier who dipped (placed) the points of his spear in a bowl of blood before going to war.
Paul speaks of our being baptized into His death; that is, we were baptized into Jesus Christ just as the cloth immersed in the dye becomes impregnated with that dye. Notice the prepositions “into” “with” in these verses.
The Man Who Couldn’t Stay Dead
The vibrant note of resurrection life is to be found over and over again through the Book of Acts and the Epistles. In the texts listed below select the phrase which shows that Jesus was resurrected and also by whose power it was accomplished.
Acts 3:15 ____________________________________________________________
Acts 4:10____________________________________________________________
Acts 10:40___________________________________________________________
Acts 13:30___________________________________________________________
Acts 13:37___________________________________________________________
Acts 26:8____________________________________________________________
Rom. 4:24___________________________________________________________
Gal. 1:1_____________________________________________________________
1 Thess. 1:10_________________________________________________________
1 Pet. 1:21___________________________________________________________
Rom. 10:9___________________________________________________________
Eph. 1:20____________________________________________________________
The purpose of Calvary was to end our existence in the First Adam, from whom we have derived our bent to sinning. The purpose of the Resurrection was to begin a new race of saintly men and women. As wonderful and meaningful as is Calvary, equally wonderful is the Resurrection! The one must needs follow the other in order to complete the marvelous plan of God. St Paul felt the importance of this fact when he said:
“If Christ be not _________, then is our ______________ vain, and your _________ is also vain. . . . If Christ be not __________, your _________ is vain; ye are yet in your sins. . . . If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15:14, 17, 19). (Fill in the blanks).
The Last Adam. Christ was termed “the last Adam” because after Him there would never need to be another Adam. He was the one Who gathered up into Himself all the failure, all the sin, all the wretched, miserable history of man under Adam and, by dying on the Cross, He terminated our history in the First Adam. No man needs to count his genealogy from him. Christ tasted death; so ended man’s history in the First Adam.
“The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. . . . The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:45, 47).
The Second Man. In the above verse we find a new title given to Christ─“the second man.” Adam was called the first man. “It is in Christ’s resurrection that He stands forth as the second Man, and there too we are included. (Rom. 6:5). We died in Him as the last Adam; we live in Him as the second Man. The Cross is thus the mighty act of God which translates us from Adam to Christ. Our union with Him as ‘the second man’ begins in resurrection and ends in eternity─which is to say, it never ends─for having in His death done away with the first man in whom God’s purpose was frustrated, He rose again as Head of a new race of men in whom that purpose will at length be fully realized.”─Watchman Nee.
Let us note other names in Scripture for Christ as the Head of a new family, or a new race. Underline in each of the following verses the word or words which describe Christ as Head of the new family:
“But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Cor. 15:20).
“That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead” (Acts 26:23).
“Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” (Col. 1:15).
“And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence” (Col. 1:17-18).
“And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead” (Rev. 1:5).
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29).
“When he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him” (Heb. 1:6).
We Also May Experience Resurrection
Those, then, who have gone to death with Christ may expect to be raised from the dead, even as the Father raised Christ from the dead. A resurrection must follow our crucifixion with Christ. St. Paul asked, “Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?” (Acts 26:8).
“If” is a small word, but it explains the necessary condition for our being raised together with Him! Underline that condition in the verses below:
“If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection” (Rom. 6:5).
“If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him” (Rom. 6:8).
Only dead men can be resurrected. The raising to life of Lazarus was not as great a miracle as that of a man or woman who, being planted together with him in death, has been quickened into life by a touch of God. Eternal life now surges unrestrained and unhindered through that one. He or she is a living person back from the dead:
Fill in the blanks which show that we too are raised:
“But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead ______________________________________________ by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom. 8.:11).
“And God hath both raised up the Lord, and _____________________________ by his own power” (1 Cor. 6:14).
“Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus ____________________________ by Jesus, and shall present us with you” (2 Cor. 4:14).
“Even when we were dead in sins, hath ____________________________ with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And __________________________________, and _______________________________________________ in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:5-6).
“Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ______________________________ through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, ______________________ ______________________, having forgiven you all trespasses” (Col. 2:12-13).
Could you encircle in the above verses the word or phrase which shows who raises us from the dead.
If we have only grasped the truth of crucifixion with Christ, we have realized but part of the truth. It is a necessary thing for our old nature to find its dissolution at Calvary; but, if we have not taken our rightful position, seated together with Christ in heavenly places, we miss the gladsome note from our experience. The floodtide of a perpetual Easter is the rightful possession of each Christian. By faith we must ever take our place there above the terrific opposition and pressures of earth. This is the escape route planned by the Father when the pressures of life become too exasperating for us to bear. But how little do we avail ourselves of this escape from the cares that would overwhelm us, but for such a refuge! We were not meant to be taken out of this world, but given a position where we can fortify ourselves and come back laden with divine strength and riches.
A Christian woman once felt herself immersed in overwhelming circumstances. She seemed to be so involved in the carnal connivings and twistedness of double-minded professors of religion that life became almost insupportable. She waked very early one morning with heaviness of heart and in prayer sought to disengage herself from the hopeless surroundings. To remove geographically was not the way out. To shut herself off like a hermit would not be pleasing to the Father Who had called her.
Then the answer came, “Rise above it all. Take your position with Christ in heavenly places.” She felt assisted by the Spirit to do just this and experienced complete severance in spirit from all the former annoyances and wrongs which still existed, but which were unable to touch her now. Exultantly she sang and praised God:
“I rise to walk in Heaven’s own light,
Above the world and sin.”
In spiritual warfare with wicked spirits, this is the only position from which the Christian can successfully fight the battle that is so stern and relentless. Is this not the answer to the martyr’s joyfully going to the stake? Is this not the reason that the lonely pioneers, spreading the Gospel, were enabled to persevere under all manner of hardships? We, each, as resurrected Christians, have a two-dimension position─in Heaven, to partake of the very atmosphere of that place and to grasp unsearchable riches in Christ; on earth, we are to minister those boundless resources of Christ to needy ones.
I am so weary of struggling,
I am so worn with the strife,
Oh, to be done with the dying!
Oh, for the death-born life!
Hark to the wonderful secret;
Jesus hath taught it to me:
Count yourself dead with Him yonder
When He was nailed to the Tree.
As from the grave He ascended,
Know that you rose with Him too;
Leave all the old things behind you,
Reckon that all things are new.
─A. B. Simpson.
George Bowen in Love Revealed speaks of Christ’s amazing desire for us to be with Him in heavenly places, and says: “‘And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also’ (John 14:3). We cannot but regard these words ‘I am,’ frequently occurring in these chapters, as possessing a profound and special significance. While Jesus was on the earth He yet dwelt in a region far above the earth. He brought all that He could of Himself down to earth, but still there was a fellowship between Him and the Father, Him and the Holy Ghost, that others could not enter into or understand. He found it impossible to translate into the dialect of those who surrounded Him many of the most glorious thoughts of His mind. There was much of Heaven that He could not lay aside, any more than He could cease to be Himself. Into this Heaven His disciples could no more, at that time, enter than they could cease to be themselves. But His constant aspiration was to bring His disciples up to this blessed region of purity and light and strength and perfect love and victory and intelligence with God: ‘that where I am there they may be also.’
“Oh that we might be stimulated by these words ‘I am’! Our souls should dwell in the same region where the soul of Christ abode when He was on the earth. It is a light matter for the Spirit of God to lift us into that region. But have we the aspiration? Are we willing to cut ourselves loose from the vain clogs that chain us to the earth of common humanity? Do we consent to hear the voice which says to us, ‘Come up hither’?
“Faith is like an ethereal gas that struggles to take itself and us away from the grosser airs of the lower atmosphere to a region free from storms and perturbations. It is not more true that Christ died to save us than that He died to procure for us the means of living a divine life upon the earth─a life of wonderful communion with God and with Christ, in which all Christian experiences should undergo a transfiguration, and Christian peace, joy and faith become a thousand times the things they are in an ordinary Christian life.
“‘The Son of man which is in Heaven,’ said Christ of Himself while yet on the earth. Well, this is where He would bring the believer. When our friends sleep in Jesus, with regard to us it is indeed a sleep. They may be blessed, but their hands no longer scoop from the urn of God, blessings for us. Now that which earth intensely needs is that there should be ascension without sleeping─that the believer should by faith ascend to a region where he could hold perfect concourse with the skies without being lost to earth. The Romanist talks of his saint in Heaven; we need saints that shall be at the same time in Heaven for us and on earth for Christ. Then will be fulfilled the word, ‘Arise, shine; the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.’
“Christians are to emulate one another in the great work of bringing down to earth the riches of Heaven. It is treason to humanity to propose working out your own salvation in a way that should secure your salvation and nothing else.”
Branches Of The True Vine
The death and resurrection of the believer are pictured in the parable of the Vine as told by Christ Himself in John 15. It is almost incredible that Christ should think of including the branches of a ruined race within Himself─the true Vine. Underline with one line that part of the verse below which shows the Fall of man, and with two lines that which shows man as God created him:
“I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?” (Jer. 2:21).
These branches of a degenerate vine were to be introduced into the true Vine. Let us consider the process of grafting:
1. The branch must be severed from the old stock. This cutting off from the parent tree is the death to the old Adam. The branch thus ends its history in the old.
2. The branch must be introduced into a wound in the true vine. Thus the two are wounded. Then the vine must have an incision into which the severed branch is to be placed. Our Lord Jesus Christ was pierced at Calvary that we might be united in Him.
3. The engrafted branch is bandaged to the vine until healing unites the two as one. The juices of the true vine now flow through the inserted branch, producing fruit.
The Father, God, is the husbandman or gardener and under His skilful hand the process of uniting us to Christ is successfully completed. (John 15:1).
W. E. Vine, explaining the meaning of the word “planted” in Rom. 6:5, says, “to make to grow together, then, planted or grown along with, united with, the union of the believer with Christ in experiencing spiritually ‘the likeness of his death.’”
Read John 15:1-10 and list the words or phrases depicting the results of resurrection life in the believer:
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Testing Time
1. Explain in a few sentences why Christ was called the last Adam.
2. Explain in a few sentences why Christ was called the second Adam.
3. What truth appeals to you most in this lesson?
4. What do you think Paul means in Phil. 3:10 by the phrase “the power of his resurrection”?
5. Give a brief explanation of what George Bowen teaches that Jesus meant when He said, “Where I am, there ye may be also.”
6. Briefly state what you think Paul means in Col. 3:1-3.
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