Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ

Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ

Identification Truth • Spirituality: A Complete Package by God’s Plan • Phase 1/Phase 2 Crosswork Distinctions • Reality through Reckoning • The Question of Yielding • Spirituality and Obedience: The Law Problem

Freed from Power of Sin Freed from Penalty of Sin

Forgiven in Christ Righteous in Christ Secure in Christ

Forgiven in Christ Righteous in Christ Secure in Christ Dead in Christ Raised in Christ Alive in Christ

Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…” Colossians 3:4 “When Christwho isour life appears…” Philippians 1:21 “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21 “For to me, to live is , and to die is .” Christ gain

“Our position, the source of our Christian life, is perfect. It is eternally established in the Father’s presence. When we received the Lord Jesus as our personal Savior, the Holy Spirit caused us to be born into Him. He created us in the position that was established through His work at Calvary. ‘Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature [creation]’ (2 Cor. 5:17). This is the eternal position in which every believer has been placed, whether he is aware of it or not. The Christian who comes to see his position in the Lord Jesus begins to experience the benefit of all that he is in Him. His daily state is developed from the source of his eternal standing. “Our condition is what we are in our Christian walk, in which we develop from infancy to maturity. Although our position remains immutable, our condition is variable. Through the exercise of faith, our eternal position (source) affects our daily condition, but in no way does our condition affect that heavenly position.” Part Two: Foundations of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 19, Position Defined and Illustrated, pp 77-78 OR

“The truths of identification are those facts in the Word which reveal our identification with Christ in His death unto sin, and our subsequent re-creation in His resurrection. As foreknown believers, our Father judicially placed us in His Son on the Cross—so that we died in Him unto sin, and are now alive in Him unto God.” Part Four: The Realization of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 40, Principles of Reckoning, p 183 “Our position in the Lord Jesus Christ is made up of two parts: death and life. Identification with Him in His death issues in identification with Him in His life. Spiritual growth is the result of the old man abiding in the death of the Cross, and the new man abiding in the risen life of Christ. The way of the Cross doesn’t end at the Cross!” Part Five: A Guide to Spiritual Growth, Chapter 56, Think Position!, p 253

“Sonship is something more than being born again. It represents growth into fulness. It is quite a good thing to be a babe while babyhood lasts, but it is a bad thing to be a babe when that period is past. This is the condition of many Christians. While sonship is inherent in birth, in the New Testament sense sonship is the realization of the possibilities of birth.” (T. Austin-Sparks, What Is Man?) Part One: Principles of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 18, Continuance, pp 72-73

“When we concentrate upon our condition, we are not living by faith but by feelings and appearances. The inevitable result is that we become increasingly self-conscious and self-centered. Our prime responsibility is to pay attention to the Lord Jesus, to rest (abide) in Him as our position. There will then be growth, and He will be more and more manifested in our condition. ‘But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord’ (2 Cor. 3:18). If the believer does not know of his position in the Lord Jesus, and how to abide in Him as his very life, there will be but one result. He will struggle in his un-Christlike condition rather than rest in his Christ-centered position.” Part Two: Foundations of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 19, Position Defined and Illustrated, p 78

In the Spirit (Position-based) vs In the Flesh (Condition-based) Reality through Reckoning! Rom 6:8-11 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

“Our attitude becomes: I gladly and willingly take, by faith in the facts, my finished work of emancipation that was established at Calvary; I reckon myself to be dead indeed to sin and alive to God in Christ. This is taking up one’s cross.” Part One: Principles of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 13, “Discipleship,” pp 55-56

The Christian Life (God’s Plan) Position Position Heavenlies Eternity Reckoning Death/ Rapture Condition Condition

“By faith in the work of the cross, the old man is put off; by faith in our heavenly position in Christ, the new man is put on.” Part Two: Foundations of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 19, “Position Defined and Illustrated,” p 82 “Our reckoning is to be based upon our position. We count ourselves alive unto God in Christ. Through our faith in this fact, the Holy Spirit makes this truth real in our condition, our growth. We abide in Him above, and He manifests Himself in us below.” Part Four: The Realization of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 50, “Reckoning in Philippians 3:10,” p 225 “In spiritual growth, the eye of faith is slowly transferred from our own point of view to His, from condition to position.” Part Two: Foundations of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 27, Sins and Light, p 128

“In the key Book of Romans there is nothing said about growth until the problem of righteousness is completely settled… It is important to note that Romans 1:1–5:11 present God’s remedy for the penalty of sins, while Romans 6–8 present God’s remedy for the power of sin… “It is the captive, dominated by the wretched self-life, to whom the identification truths call. This struggling one, who has long been plagued by doubt, defeat, discouragement, and depression, is being prepared to enter into the reality of the provision set forth in Romans 6–8… “In the light of that realization he is able to appreciate the positional truth that self, the old man, was identified with the Lord Jesus in His crucifixion (Rom. 6:6). This is the gospel for the Christian! Our Savior dealt not only with the symptoms but with the disease, the root as well as the fruit. We have His substitution for our sins; we have identification with Him in His death for sinful self.” Part Five: A Guide to Spiritual Growth, Chapter 56, Think Position!, pp 254, 255

“The trouble of the believer who knows Christ as his justification is not sin as to its guilt, but sin as to its ruling power. In other words, it is not from sin as a load, or an offence, that he seeks to be freed—for he sees that God has completely acquitted him from the charge and penalty of sin —but it is from sin as a master. To know God’s way of deliverance from sin as a master he must apprehend the truth contained in the sixth chapter of Romans. There we see what God has done, not with our sins—that question the Apostle dealt with in the preceding chapters—but with ourselves, the agents and slaves of sin. He has put our old man—our original self—where He put our sins, namely, on the cross with Christ. ‘Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him’ (Rom. 6:6). The believer there sees not only that Christ died for him—substitution—but that he died with Christ—identification.” (Thoughts on Life and Godliness, Evan H. Hopkins p. 50). Part One: Principles of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 8, Identification, p 31

“The Blood can wash away my sins, but it cannot wash away my ‘old man.’ It needs the cross to crucify me … the sinner… Our sins are dealt with by the Blood, but we ourselves are dealt with by the Cross. The Blood procures our pardon; … the Cross procures our deliverance from what we are.” (The Normal Christian Life, pp. 31, 32) Part One: Principles of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 8, Identification, pp 32-33

“God’s way of deliverance is altogether different from man’s way. Man’s way is to try to suppress sin by seeking to overcome it; God’s way is to remove the sinner. Many Christians mourn over their weakness, thinking that if only they were stronger all would be well. The idea that, because failure to lead a holy life is due to our impotence, something more is therefore demanded of us, leads naturally to this false conception of the way of deliverance. If we are preoccupied with the power of sin and with our inability to meet it, then we naturally conclude that to gain the victory over sin we must have more power. ‘If only I were stronger,’ we say, ‘I could overcome my violent outbursts of temper,’ and so we plead with the Lord to strengthen us that we may exercise more self-control. “But this is altogether wrong; this is not Christianity. God’s means of delivering us from sin is not by making us stronger and stronger, but by making us weaker and weaker. This is surely a peculiar way of victory, you say; but it is the Divine way. God sets us free from the dominion of sin, not by strengthening our old man but by crucifying him; not by helping him to do anything but by removing him from the scene of action.” Part One: Principles of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 16, Help, pp 66-67

“There are those who, for one reason or another, by-pass the identification truths of Romans Six, and rely rather upon confession and cleansing for dealing with the problem of sin. But there is no real spiritual progress unless the source of sins is dealt with continually by the Spirit’s application of the cross.” Part Two: Foundations of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 26, Sins and Conscience, p 121 “Now, as long as the believer does not know this dual aspect of his salvation, the best he can do is seek to handle his sins via confession (I John 1:9)—that is, after the damage has been done! This takes care of the penalty of the product but not the source. Is it not time we allowed the Holy Spirit to get at the source and cut off this stream of sins before they are committed? Is this not infinitely better than the wreckage caused by sin, even though confessed? When believers get sick and tired of spinning year after year in a spiritual squirrel cage—sinning, confessing, but then sinning again—they will be ready for God’s answer to the source of sin, which is death to self, brought forth from the completed work of the Cross.” Part One: Principles of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 12, The Cross, pp 50-51

“Unless we see the extent to which the Cross separated us from the old, we will not be able to keep clear of the enslaving flesh and walk freely in the Spirit.” Part Three: The Ground of Growth, Chapter 31, “Diametric Differentiation,” p 147 “For years we try to handle the problem of sin and self directly. On the negative side, we seek to suppress self, or crucify the old nature. On the positive side, we plead with God to change us for the better, and we try to be more Christ-like… Finally, we learn to meet the problem indirectly, by reckoning.” Part Four: The Realization of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 51, “Reckoning in Colossians 3,” p 231

The Two Natures of the Believer We believe: That every saved person possesses two natures. That God provided for victory of the new nature over the old nature through identification with Christ in His death and the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. That all claims to the eradication of the old nature in this life are unscriptural (Romans 6:1-13, 8:12-13; Galatians 5:16-25; Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 3:9-10; I Peter 1:14-16).

“We are given a glimpse of the glory and reality of the truth reckoned upon, and then we are taken into God's processing in order that the truth may be as real in us as it is to us.” Part Four: The Realization of Spiritual Growth, Chapter 43, “Spirit-Applied Reckoning,” p 196

Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ