Amazing Grace (9 page)

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“And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man,
and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead
thereof” (Genesis 2:21).

“And Jehovah God made for Adam and for his
wife coats of skins, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21).

“I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what do I desire,
if it is already kindled? [
Gr
.: and
what is my wish? Would (that) it
were
already
kindled.] But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened [or:
pressed in, constricted, cramped] till it be accomplished! (Luke 12:49-50)

“Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except a grain of wheat
fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it
beareth much fruit” (John 12:24).

“For even as the body is one and has many members, but all
the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ” (I
Corinthians 12:12 Darby).

“Jesus saith to her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended
unto the Father; but go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my
Father and your Father, and my God and your God” (John 20:17).

A few days ago we together learned of our position in
Christ. But for us to obtain the riches in Christ, we must believe. Only those
who are hungry and thirsty could believe and hence obtain. Please remember that
being hungry and thirsty is not a being dissatisfied. Today there are many who
seem not to be satisfied with their lives. They view their present lives as
unsatisfactory; yet they do not have a hungry and thirsty heart; therefore,
they do not seek after God. Dissatisfaction is negative whereas being hungry
and thirsty is positive. Dissatisfaction is that which is related to our
present situation, but hungering and thirsting is related to the future. Hence,
those who are truly seeking are the hungry and thirsty ones.

I would warn you today that all believers who are merely dissatisfied
with life can only know the teaching of the Bible; they are not able to have
spiritual experience. If you cannot experience spiritual things, you are the
only person to be blamed since the fault is yours. All who are not hungry and
thirsty before God can only know the Biblical teaching but cannot obtain the
reality in the teaching. I would repeat here that all who do not have a seeking
heart after God will simply return to where they were. This is because the
truth has no effect on them. May God have mercy on us in causing us to seek
after Him and in giving us a living faith to truly live in Christ and receive
all the promised riches of our inheritance in
Him.

Today we shall resume looking into the four aspects of
Christ’s death and resurrection. But before doing so let us briefly review
together what we have thus far considered and discussed concerning those
aspects of His work. We will recall that we began by considering the first two
of four facets pertaining to the death side of those four aspects of Jesus’
Calvary work. And the very first facet of the death side which was discussed
was the blood of Christ. His blood was shed to redeem us from our sins before
God. This facet of Jesus’ death is objective in nature and in its effect, in
that, due to His dying and shedding His
blood,
God’s
life comes to us who believe.

We then considered the second facet of the death side of
the four aspects of Christ’s death and resurrection; namely, crucifixion, or,
to express the matter more inclusively, our crucifixion with Christ in His
crucifixion. In our consideration of this facet we noted the fact that man sins
because of fallen Adam in us—that is, because of what the Bible has termed “the
old man.” We saw how the old man in us loves to sin, so our flesh has
frequently committed sin. Consequently, for God to save us to the uttermost—that
is, save us completely—He needs to rid us of our old man; and according to the
Bible His method is co-crucifixion. To be crucified with Christ is God’s way of
eliminating the old man. Once the old man is gotten rid of, our new man in
Christ is able to live out God’s life. The Bible tells us that if we are united
with Christ in His death, we for sure will be united with Him in His
resurrection (Romans 6:5).

Christ shed His blood and died. Three days later He rose
again. This latter fact is proof that His work of redemption has been
accomplished. With crucifixion of the old man there is resurrection. And again,
such is the objective side. We now have the new man living inside. So we see
that blood and crucifixion constitute the negative side of Jesus’ work for they
deal with the problem of Adam’s fall. If Adam had not sinned, there would have
been no need for Christ to shed His blood and no need for the old man to have been
crucified. But it is due to Adam’s sin that Jesus needed to die on the cross. All
the foregoing we have already considered together during the previous evenings’
discussions on these two facets of the death side to Christ’s work. We will now
proceed to consider how God accomplishes His purpose.

Before man ever sinned God had already had His purpose
and plan in mind. God had wanted man to have His uncreated life so that he
might be His son. It was for this reason that He created man, and after he had done
so, God placed the Tree of Life before him in the Edenic garden (Genesis 2:8-9).
Then, without uttering a word in reference to the Tree of Life He called man to
accept His uncreated life (2:16). Man, of course, already had life, but what he
had was created life. Being eternal and therefore uncreated, God had desired
the created man to possess His uncreated life, too, thus causing human beings to
rise above the mere status of man and to be lifted up higher before God. (Let
us please note, incidentally, that saying this is not meant in any way to deify
man but to signify what God’s original purpose for man was and still is: that having
God’s life, man may henceforth live by God himself.) Yet Adam fell and thus could
not realize God’s purpose. So God sent His Son to die on the cross for us so
that all our sins could be dealt with by the blood and the cross of Jesus.

The Bible, however, further reveals that God’s Son has
another side to His death which is non-atoning in character. The atoning
side of Christ’s death has been fairly well known by us, but let us
realize
that there is a non-atoning side to His death which is also mentioned
in the Bible—in fact, it is mentioned a number of times. Today we commit a
great error in thinking that the Calvary work of God’s Son is totally atoning
and nothing more, not realizing that the Bible additionally shows us another side
to Jesus’ death which is the releasing of God’s life from within His flesh so
as to cause man also to have God’s life.

Genesis 3:21 is a type or symbolic representation of Jesus’
death involving the shedding of blood: we are told in this verse that God slew
an animal—most likely a lamb (cf. I Peter 1:19)—and used its skins to clothe fallen
Adam. But Genesis 2:21-22 gives us a type of another side to Jesus’ death. The
Bible, in referencing Adam’s sleep here, did not mention any shedding of blood
but explained that God took a rib from Adam and made Eve.

The slaying of the lamb to make of its skins the needed clothing
for Adam points to the atoning side in the death of Jesus: how God through
Christ has accomplished the work of redemption and has now clothed us—who were
once naked before Him—with the robe of righteousness, even Christ himself. All
who are clothed with the skins of the lamb are received by God just as the lamb
itself was received. Similarly, all who are in Christ—the Lamb of God (John
1:29)—are accepted by God just as Christ was accepted. Today all the saved ones
have come to God through the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus by being clothed
with Christ our righteousness (I Corinthians 1:30).

God caused Adam to sleep deeply and made Eve out of his rib.
The sleep of Adam is thus a type or prefigurement of the non-atoning side to
the death of Christ. From within Christ’s flesh God takes out life and gives
this life of Christ—which is God’s eternal and uncreated life—to man. Out of
Christ God takes that with which to build the church.

We know from the book of Genesis that God created many
animals as well as the man Adam. Those many animals belong to various lower
species. In wanting to give Adam a helpmate God did not find such among the
animals; so He took a rib from Adam’s side and made Eve. Thus, Eve’s life is the
same as Adam’s, not that of a lower species. Nevertheless, man’s created life
is lower than God’s uncreated life in Christ. So now God takes out His life that
is in Christ and creates each of us anew so that we may have His life and
arrive at His purpose. Such is the way God builds the church with all the saved
ones as His materials. The life of the church is therefore the same as God’s life
in Christ. What life we receive when saved is therefore a much higher life. The
life by which we formerly lived was of the flesh and earthly, but now God has
given us His life in Christ in order that we might be built up together as the
church of God.

Adam’s sleep mentioned in Genesis 2:21 does not represent
or prefigure the atoning side of Christ’s death, for at that moment in the
Edemic garden man had not yet sinned. Until sin has occurred there is no need
for man’s redemption involving the shedding of
blood.
But an act of sin by man
had
occurred
by the time of the death of the lamb told of in Genesis 3:21, and serves as a
type of the atoning side in the death of Christ. Garments of skin are only
needed once man had sinned. And hence, the slaying of the lamb is representative
of the atoning side of Christ’s death. It is altogether different from the
incident told of in Genesis 2:21. Adam’s sleep mentioned there serves as a type
of the other side of Christ’s death. It was not indicative of a human body’s death
but was a deep sleep. It can be likened to the physical demise of the saved
which for them is actually
sleep
. Henceforth, we believers
in Christ do not die, since death is related to sin. On the other hand, the Lord
Jesus declared that whoever is saved shall never die (John 6:47-51, 58). Hence,
the so-called death of a Christian should be called sleep for his demise has
nothing to do with sin and death.

If we know the Bible, we should be able to differentiate between
the atoning and the non-atoning sides of Jesus’ death. The latter side is
positive for building Christians together as “the bone of His bones and flesh
of His flesh” (cf. Genesis 2:23). Christ releases God’s life that is within Him
in order to create a new man. During the days of His flesh Jesus talked not
only about the atoning side of His forthcoming death but also about the non-atoning
side—the giving to men God’s uncreated life in order to overcome the old
creation. To be saved is to have men’s sins forgiven, thus rescuing condemned
sinners from death. Such is negative in character and all is done by Christ.
But He also has the non-atoning side to His death on the cross, which is: to
give God’s life to us—a life that we never had before. So Jesus’ death has its
negative side of saving us from death and the positive side of giving us a new
life. These two sides are totally different from each other.

Luke 12:49 and 50 are two verses in the entire New
Testament which are most precious yet most difficult to explain. If there be four
or five hard-to-explain verses in the entire New Testament, these two verses would
have to be counted among them. Here Jesus told people that He came to the earth
for a specific reason: to cast fire upon the earth. What is meant by fire here?
The fire in view here is not what is related to combustible matter such as firewood.
What Jesus had in mind is a fire not of the world; so where would that fire come
from? It would come from heaven. Does not the book of Hebrews tell us that God himself
is a consuming fire? (12:29)
Moreover
, in many places
of the Bible fire is shown to stand for God’s life, for we know that the life
of God is righteous and holy as fire.

Hence, we may conclude from the initial words of Jesus
recorded in these two verses of Luke 12 that the purpose in Jesus coming to the
world was to cast God’s fire upon the earth so that people might receive the
life of God that was in Him. At the time of His speaking, however, people had
yet to receive God’s life. So He next said, “What do I desire, what is my wish?
Oh, would that it
were
already kindled.” This conveys
the thought that He wished people could have God’s life that very day, but regrettably
they could not. Why was that so? Jesus’ next words provide the answer: “I have
a baptism [yet] to be baptized with.” In other words, the fire could not be kindled
because Jesus had not yet been baptized.

Is it not strange that at this point in Luke’s Gospel
narrative—chapter 12—Jesus is recorded as indicating He had not yet been
baptized? But Luke chapter 3 clearly tells us that He was indeed baptized. How
do we explain this apparent contradiction? In both Romans 6:3 ff. and
Colossians 2:12, we are told that the baptism referenced here by Jesus points
to His death and not to His water baptism. So when Jesus said He had not been
baptized yet, He meant that He himself was yet to die, and that what His
baptismal death on the cross was to accomplish still remained to be realized.
What must
this
baptism accomplish,
and why? Let us suppose that you are to perform a certain work; what will you
do? You will work till its purpose is accomplished. Similarly, Jesus’ death is
to accomplish God’s purpose of giving His uncreated life to people. Since Jesus
had yet to die, the fire of God’s released life could not be kindled till after
His death.

So these two verses in Luke 12 tell us that Jesus came to
cast God’s fire upon the earth that men might have His life in Christ. Before He
died people did not have that life. Only after His death could people receive
it. In other words, before Jesus died God’s eternal life could not be released
and therefore people could not possess it. Why only after His death could people
receive God’s life? This is explained in what Jesus next declared: “How I am
straitened, constricted, and pressed in.” Why was He in this condition? The man
Jesus had the original life of God within Him, and it was like a seething fire
ever seeking to erupt and be spread abroad. That life fills the universe and is
normally not limited by time and space. God’s life is omnipresent and
omnipotent. At any time and in any place there is His life. And here in Jesus’
words that life is likened to fire. And an unobstructed fire, we know, quickly spreads
and nothing and no one can contain it.

Although Jesus as the Son of God is equal with God, He
came to earth to be man. Nevertheless, this boundless divine life was shut up—restricted
and compressed—within the flesh of the Son of man. And thus this unbounded life
of God was now checked, controlled and restrained by time and space. It could
not be everywhere simultaneously. Indeed, if Jesus, the vessel on earth of
God’s uncreated life, was in Caesarea Philippi, then that life bound up within
the flesh of the Son of man could not be in Bethesda at the same moment. This
flesh containing the life of God might have been in Galilee yesterday and might
today be in Judea, but it could not be in both places concurrently due to Jesus’
outer flesh.

Hence Jesus felt very much straitened: His outer flesh
confined God’s life as a prisoner within the limitation and boundary of time
and space. So the Son of God having become the Son of man was not free to
express himself unhinderedly as before. How straitened and constricted must be
the omnipresent/omnipotent life within Jesus! How could Jesus not have felt
straitened all through His years of ministry on earth? Since He had yet to die,
He felt extremely cramped and restrained in what He could do. But after His
death and resurrection God’s life is released. So the other side of Jesus’ death
was His being relieved of the body’s confinement so that the life of God within
could at last
be
released in fullness. And this is the
baptism He was to be baptized with.

This facet of Jesus’ death causes the Son of man to be freed
from the outer prison of His flesh so that He could cast the fire of God’s life
upon the earth in order that people might receive the eternal uncreated life. Such,
then, is the non-atoning side to Jesus’ death, which is quite different in
character from the blood-and-crucifixion side of His death. The Bible refers to
this facet of Jesus’ death as relating to the flesh (see, e.g., John 12:24). Due
to the limited amount of time left for me to conclude this message, I can only
lay a preliminary foundation in helping us to know and understand this other, non-atoning
side of Christ’s death that causes God’s life to be released.