PREFACE
Fasting and long hours of prayer do not build faith.
Reading books about faith, and about men of faith and their exploits stirs in the heart a deep passion for faith, but does not build faith.
The Word alone is the source of faith.
But the Word will not build faith unless it becomes a part of us. "If you abide in me and my words have their place in you." That is, they have their place in our conduct.
Jesus gave us the key. He said, "The words that I speak are not mine, but my Father's."
And the works that He did were not His, but His Father's.
Jesus acted on His Father's words.
Jesus never needed faith. He had it unconsciously.
Faith is built in us by the Word being built into us, by our acting upon it.
It is "the Word of faith," and so as the Father builds that into us in our daily walk, faith becomes an unconscious asset.
We come to realize that we are a part of Him as a branch is a part of the vine; that He is a part of us as the vine is a part of the branch; that we have His life, we have His ability, we have His love nature, we have His strength.
That gives us an unconscious certainty as we go into His presence.
We know that we are working together with Him to one common end.
We know that He is the strength of our life.
We know that He is our ability.
We know that we are His righteousness in Christ.
We know that He needs us to carry out His will, and so we are taking our place as a son carrying out His dream for man.
Chapter Three
HOW FAITH IS BUILT
There cannot be a real prayer life that is not built upon the Word. The Word is the source of all Faith. The faith must be a quiet assurance, an unconscious faith, something that you do not even think about. You can't conceive of Jesus saying to himself: "If I only had faith."
Men and women who have really wrought mighty things have been those who never thought about their faith life.
The Word was a reality.
What He said solved the problem.
This Word is revelation knowledge.
It is God condescending to speak with man.
THE REALITY OF THE INCARNATION
First there must be a reality of the Incarnation.
John 1:14: "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth."
The Incarnation cannot be a doctrine or a theory or a metaphysical concept.
It must be as real as your birth is to you.
Not something to argue about, but an absolute fact that God has broken into the human realm and has given to the senses a testimony of His reality.
I can never forget when I knew actually that God had been and was manifest in the flesh.
I had an unconscious background of doubt; that disappeared, and another background of absolute certainty took its place.
REALITY OF HIS EARTH WALK AND HIS RESURRECTION
Many of us have reveled in His earth walk, following Him step by step in His miraculous career.
We were thrilled at the demonstrations of Divine ability that characterized Him in every crisis.
He faced a dead Lazarus as simply as you and I would face any ordinary event in life.
He was perfectly quiet in the midst of the storm on the Sea of Galilee.
He walked on the waves that night amid the tumult of a raging storm as quietly as you walk up and down on the sidewalk in front of your home.
There was a royalty about His faith; a divine dignity that thrills us.
But was He raised from the dead?
He raised others. Was He raised?
I fought this for years. It was an unknown battle to those about me.
I used to say, "If He was actually raised from the dead, then His deity and His substitutionary work are realities."
One day as I was reading John 20:1-10 I saw the miracle.
The problem of the Resurrection of Jesus centers first around the question: "Was He dead?" or as one skeptic declares, "He had swooned."
John 19:30-34: "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit.
"The Jews therefore, because it was the Preparation, that the bodies should not remain on the cross upon the sabbath (for the day of that sabbath was a high day), asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. The soldiers therefore came, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other that was crucified with him: but when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: howbeit one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and straightway there came out blood and water."
That Roman spearhead was four or five inches wide, and when he stood there underneath the Master and thrust the spear up into the side of Jesus, it must have penetrated the sack that holds the heart.
What had happened?
Jesus had died!
The body had grown cold.
His heart had been ruptured when He uttered that cry, "It is finished."
And out through the rupture in the heart flowed the blood into the sack until it was filled.
The body rapidly grows cold. As it does, the blood separates. The white serum settles to the bottom, and the red corpuscles rise to the top; and as the body grows colder, the red corpuscles coagulate.
When the spear pierced the sack that held the blood, the white serum or water flowed out. Then the red corpuscles slowly oozed out and rolled down the side of His body onto the ground.
Jesus was dead.
As soon as the Master was dead, loving hearts began to prepare for His burial.
John 19:38: "And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took away his body."
You understand that in every family among the wealthy Jews, there was a slave who understood embalming, for that class always embalmed their loved ones.
John 19:39-40: "And there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. So they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury."
The body was first washed, and then the cloth was torn up into narrow strips and smeared with the sticky substance. Each finger and toe and hand and foot was wrapped with these strips until the legs and arms and body were completely encased in this sticky substance. The head and neck were completely covered except the face.
When it was finished, over the chest and torso there was an inch to an inch and a half of this cloth covered with that sticky substance.
The body was then put into Joseph's tomb.
The climate was about the same as they have in Southern California. In a few hours the embalming garment would become a solid mass, and Jesus' body would be completely imprisoned in the grave clothes.
If He were not dead, this would cause Him to die.
The face was yet to be embalmed. Loved ones laid a napkin upon His face, heavily saturated with something to preserve the face until the third day when loving hands would finish the embalming.
Jesus was dead.
The Roman government had pronounced Him dead.
The soldiers had pronounced Him dead.
The Jews knew He was dead.
John 20:1-10: "Now on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb. She runneth therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. And they ran both together: and the other disciple outran Peter, and came first to the tomb; and stooping and looking in, he seeth the linen cloths lying: yet entered he not in. Simon Peter therefore also cometh, following him, and entered into the tomb: and he beholdeth the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, that was upon his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself. Then entered in therefore the other disciple also, who came first to the tomb, and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. So the disciples went away again unto their own home.”
You notice carefully the ninth and tenth verses. They knew not that Jesus must arise again from the dead. None of them believed in His resurrection so you can understand their surprise when Mary came to the house where Peter and John were stopping, and cried, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid him."
Nothing was more sacred to the Jews than the dead. Mary had been filled with anger and sorrow that someone had dared to desecrate the tomb.
Peter and John ran together. John is younger, lighter of foot. He outruns his heavier partner and arrives at the tomb first. It was a sepulchre cut out of a solid ledge. John stops and reverently looks into the darkened tomb. Peter comes, just bows his head, and enters the tomb. John follows. The grave clothes are lying there on the floor. He sees the napkin that was upon Jesus' face folded up and lying on a niche in the tomb,
John 20:8 says: "Then entered in therefore the other disciple also, who came first to the tomb, and he saw, and believed."
What did John see?
He saw the empty cocoon lying there upon the floor. It had become so hard and stiff that it would almost support one's knee as you pressed upon it. But it was empty.
The body of Jesus had come out of that little narrow aperture at the face.
If John had seen that someone with a knife had ripped that cocoon open and taken the body of Jesus, he would never have believed; the empty cocoon convinced John that Jesus was risen from the dead.
In my imagination I had been with Peter and John when Mary came with her anger and distress, crying, "They have taken away the body."
I had gone with them to the tomb. I had stood there in my imagination looking into the tomb.
I entered into the tomb with John, and I saw what John saw; and for the first time in my life I knew that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead.
It has never been a theological dogma since that hour.
Jesus was raised from the dead.
But what does that Resurrection mean?
That the sin problem was settled.
That Satan was conquered.
Humanity was redeemed.
That God can now on legal grounds impart His Nature, Eternal Life, to man and make him a New Creation.
At last man can become God's actual child, a very son.
There can be perfect fellowship between them.
When God imparted His Nature to man, He imparted His Righteousness. So man is a partaker of the Divine Nature and the Righteousness of God.
Man can stand in the Father's presence, as did Jesus in His earth walk.
Now God can give the Holy Spirit to live permanently in the body of this New Creation, and He can build into that New Creation through the Word, the very character and nature of the Incarnate One; so that we can say softly: "It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me."
Now I know that Rom. 4:25 is a reality: "Who was delivered up on the account of my trespasses and raised because I was justified." (Lit. Trans.)
REALITY OF HIS REDEMPTION
The Church has had a theological conception of our Redemption. It has never been a part of our daily walk.
Col. 1:13-14: "Who delivered us out of the authority of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have our Redemption."
And Eph. 1:7 says that that Redemption is according to the riches of His grace.
In the mind of the Father that Redemption is a reality.
It would have been a total failure otherwise.
That Redemption meant that Satan had been utterly defeated, stripped of his authority and dominion so that any man no matter what his condition has been, how deeply he has been enmeshed in sin, can by whispering the name of Jesus and by confessing His Lordship, step out of bondage into perfect liberty.
Rom. 6:14: "For sin shall not have dominion over you” or “Satan shall not lord it over you.”
It has made the new man, the New Creation, a master of sin.
In the name of Jesus the weakest child of God is an absolute master of Satan and demons.
That Redemption is a reality.
You who have received Eternal Life, as you read this, can whisper, “I am free. The Son has made me free, and I am free in reality.” (John 8:36. Most of these verses are a literal translation or copied from some of our modern translations.)
That Redemption is a reality to the man who knows his place in Christ.
You cannot be in Christ and not be free from the dominion of the Devil.
REALITY OF THE NEW CREATION
What substitutions we have had for the New Creation.
We have called it “Forgiveness of Sins,” “Being Converted,” “Getting Religion,” “Joining the Church,” and many others.
It is just one thing: A New Creation, a child of God, a partaker of the Divine Nature. These all represent the one fact that you have passed out of death, Satanic Nature, into Life, the realm of God.
That is not just forgiveness of sins, but it is the impartation of a New Nature.
The old self, the old man was crucified with Christ.
A new man was resurrected and when you accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and confessed Him as Lord, God imparted His own Nature, Eternal Life to you and you became “a new species,” a new man over which Satan has no dominion.
REALITY IN JESUS' NAME
How little we have appreciated this. It is one of the greatest gifts the Church has ever had given her.
Before Jesus left us He gave to the Church a legal right to the use of His Name. John 15:16: "Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he will give it you."
John 16:23-24 (Note this translation): "And in that day ye shall not pray to me. Verily, verily, I say unto you, if ye shall ask anything of the Father he will give it you in my name. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name. Ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be made full."
Here He gives us the power of attorney to go to the Father and make our requests.
When you pray in that Name, it is as though Jesus prayed.
There can be no denial.
You remember Jesus said at the tomb of Lazarus: "I thank thee, Father, that thou dost always hear me." That is the ground for your assurance.
John 14:13-14 He gives us the use of the Name: "And whatsoever ye shall ask or demand in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, that will I do."
This is not prayer. This is described in Acts 3:6 where Peter and John heal a man at the Beautiful Gate by saying, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk."
It is as Paul used it in Acts 16:18 where he spoke to the demon in the girl and said, "In the name of Jesus come out of her."
Or as the Name was used on the day of Pentecost when they baptized those people in the Name of Jesus.
When we pray we say, "Our Father, in Jesus Name."
That is our approach.
That gives us the assurance of a hearing.
Jesus said, recorded in John 14:17 speaking of the Holy Spirit, "He is with you, but he shall be in you."
REALITY OF INDWELLING
On the day of Pentecost we see four things take place in that upper room.
"Suddenly there came from heaven the sound of a rushing of a mighty wind and it filled all the room where they were sitting." The disciples were immersed in the Holy Spirit.
And when they were immersed, they received Eternal Life, were made New Creations.
They were the first people aside from Jesus that were ever born again. Jesus, you know, is the "first born." (Col. 1:8 and Rev. 1:5)
The second thing that happened, tongues of fire sat upon the brow of each one, indicating the method of propagating this Gospel of the grace of God. It is going to be with tongues of fire.
For example, Steven’s tongue couldn't be withstood, so they had to kill him to get rid of his tongue of fire.
And the third thing, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. He couldn't come in until they were recreated.
And the fourth, they all spake with other tongues.
But note that the great thing was they had not only received Eternal Life, but they had the One who had raised Jesus from the dead now living in them.
We have made a great deal of receiving the Holy Spirit.
It has been majored and we have ignored the fact of His being in us.
1 John 4:4: "Ye are of God my little children, and have overcome them because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world."
Phil. 2:13: "For it is God who is at work within you, willing and working his own good pleasure."
Not only are we Born Again and have become the very sons and daughters of God, but He comes and makes His home in us.
REALITY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
The ministry has kept the Church in the bondage of sin-consciousness ever since the Reformation.
None of us have ever been able to get away from it.
Most of our hymns are about sin.
Most every sermon is about sin.
The Church has never known of her absolute freedom from sin-consciousness.
Heb. 10:1-14 should be studied very carefully. We haven't space to quote it all.
First it tells how the blood of bulls and goats couldn't take away sin, for if it could the worshippers having been once cleansed would have no more consciousness of sins. "But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year."
That makes us think of the altar service where we ask the believer to keep coming Sunday after Sunday to be cleansed from sin.
The blood of Jesus Christ hasn't meant more to some of us than the blood of bulls and goats meant to the Jew.
For it was impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin.
The eleventh verse: "And every priest standeth day by day ministering and offering the same sacrifices which can never take away sin. But he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; for by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified."
He dealt with the sin problem for us perfectly when we were recreated and received the nature and life of God.
At that time He not only put our sin away, but He remitted all that we had ever committed; and at the same time he imparted His own Nature, Righteousness, to us.
2 Cor. 5:21: "Him who knew no sin, God made to become sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him," and by that New Creation we have become the Righteousness of God.
So Rom. 3:26 has become a reality: "That he, (God,) might himself be righteous and the righteousness of him who hath faith in Jesus." (Marg.)
Here God declares that He becomes the righteousness of the man who accepts His Son as a Savior.
1 Cor. 1:30 declares that Jesus has been made to be our righteousness.
God is our righteousness, Jesus is our righteousness, and by the New Creation we have become the righteousness of God in Him.
But you ask, "What is the righteousness of God?"
It is the ability to stand in the Father's presence without the sense of guilt, condemnation or inferiority.
It is the ability to stand there as the very sons and daughters of God Almighty so that you can go boldly unto the throne of grace and make your petitions just as Jesus would if He were here.
SOME FAITH FACTS
Faith in the Father is not built upon the word of man but upon His own Word.
Man's testimony to the truth of the Word has its place, but it cannot take the place of the Word itself.
The Word is the Father speaking.
It is as though the Master were here now in person; that Word is taking His place.
That Word has given us life and made us new creations.
That Word has sustained us and upheld us.
It is the Word of faith that proceeds from the very heart of the Father of faith.
The Word is a part of the Father Himself.
I feed on it.
I breathe it into my spirit.
It is being built into my spirit-consciousness.
Its absolute integrity, its life-giving quality has impregnated my very being.
Man's word like grass, withers.
God's Word like Himself, can never die, can never lose its freshness, its power, its ability to recreate, to strengthen and give courage.
You see, the Word in the lips of faith becomes just like the Word in Jesus' lips.
The Word in lips of doubt and fear is a dead thing; but in the lips of faith, it becomes life-giving, dominant.
Through it the sick are healed; Satan's captives are set free.
This living Word in the lips of faith is God's answer to the heart cry of man.
Man's word may fascinate and satisfy reason for a time, but the heart demands the Word of God.
This Word illumined by the Holy Spirit is God's light on life's pathway.
The Word is a part of God Himself.
You can lean on the Word as you would lean on Him.
You can rest in the Word as you would rest in Him.
You can act on the Word as you would act if He had just spoken to you.
The Word is always Now.
Our modern psychological religions are children of the senses; they use the Bible and quote from it, but it is only man's literature to them. Their writings can't feed the hungry spirit of man; they simply entertain and thrill the people of the senses.
These eternal spirits of ours crave the bread of God. Jesus is the bread of Life; they that feed on Him, have no appetite for the theories of men.
Don't waste time with the philosophies of men. There is no life in them.
In Him is Life, and that Life is our Light.
His word alone can answer the heart-cry of man.
Their words may answer the cry of lost reason-ruled souls groping in the sense realm for light, but never the cry of the heart.
Questions
1. What is the source of all Faith?
2. The problem of the Resurrection of Jesus centers first around the question: "Was He dead?" How do we know He was dead?
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3. But what does that Resurrection mean?
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4. In the mind of the Father that Redemption is a reality. What did it mean?
5. A man who knows his place in Christ understands what?
6. The reality of the New Creation is not just the forgiveness of sins, it is also?
7. When you pray in that Name, it is as though Jesus prayed. TRUE or FALSE
8. On the day of Pentecost we see four things take place in that upper room. What were they?
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9. How has the ministry kept the Church in bondage?
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10. What is the righteousness of God?
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11. If the Word is a part of the Father Himself what should we do with it?
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12. Man's word may fascinate and satisfy reason for a time, but the heart demands the Word of God. The Author lists 6 things in conclusion about the Word. What are they?
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Fasting and long hours of prayer do not build faith.
Reading books about faith, and about men of faith and their exploits stirs in the heart a deep passion for faith, but does not build faith.
The Word alone is the source of faith.
But the Word will not build faith unless it becomes a part of us. "If you abide in me and my words have their place in you." That is, they have their place in our conduct.
Jesus gave us the key. He said, "The words that I speak are not mine, but my Father's."
And the works that He did were not His, but His Father's.
Jesus acted on His Father's words.
Jesus never needed faith. He had it unconsciously.
Faith is built in us by the Word being built into us, by our acting upon it.
It is "the Word of faith," and so as the Father builds that into us in our daily walk, faith becomes an unconscious asset.
We come to realize that we are a part of Him as a branch is a part of the vine; that He is a part of us as the vine is a part of the branch; that we have His life, we have His ability, we have His love nature, we have His strength.
That gives us an unconscious certainty as we go into His presence.
We know that we are working together with Him to one common end.
We know that He is the strength of our life.
We know that He is our ability.
We know that we are His righteousness in Christ.
We know that He needs us to carry out His will, and so we are taking our place as a son carrying out His dream for man.
Chapter Three
HOW FAITH IS BUILT
There cannot be a real prayer life that is not built upon the Word. The Word is the source of all Faith. The faith must be a quiet assurance, an unconscious faith, something that you do not even think about. You can't conceive of Jesus saying to himself: "If I only had faith."
Men and women who have really wrought mighty things have been those who never thought about their faith life.
The Word was a reality.
What He said solved the problem.
This Word is revelation knowledge.
It is God condescending to speak with man.
THE REALITY OF THE INCARNATION
First there must be a reality of the Incarnation.
John 1:14: "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth."
The Incarnation cannot be a doctrine or a theory or a metaphysical concept.
It must be as real as your birth is to you.
Not something to argue about, but an absolute fact that God has broken into the human realm and has given to the senses a testimony of His reality.
I can never forget when I knew actually that God had been and was manifest in the flesh.
I had an unconscious background of doubt; that disappeared, and another background of absolute certainty took its place.
REALITY OF HIS EARTH WALK AND HIS RESURRECTION
Many of us have reveled in His earth walk, following Him step by step in His miraculous career.
We were thrilled at the demonstrations of Divine ability that characterized Him in every crisis.
He faced a dead Lazarus as simply as you and I would face any ordinary event in life.
He was perfectly quiet in the midst of the storm on the Sea of Galilee.
He walked on the waves that night amid the tumult of a raging storm as quietly as you walk up and down on the sidewalk in front of your home.
There was a royalty about His faith; a divine dignity that thrills us.
But was He raised from the dead?
He raised others. Was He raised?
I fought this for years. It was an unknown battle to those about me.
I used to say, "If He was actually raised from the dead, then His deity and His substitutionary work are realities."
One day as I was reading John 20:1-10 I saw the miracle.
The problem of the Resurrection of Jesus centers first around the question: "Was He dead?" or as one skeptic declares, "He had swooned."
John 19:30-34: "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit.
"The Jews therefore, because it was the Preparation, that the bodies should not remain on the cross upon the sabbath (for the day of that sabbath was a high day), asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. The soldiers therefore came, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other that was crucified with him: but when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: howbeit one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and straightway there came out blood and water."
That Roman spearhead was four or five inches wide, and when he stood there underneath the Master and thrust the spear up into the side of Jesus, it must have penetrated the sack that holds the heart.
What had happened?
Jesus had died!
The body had grown cold.
His heart had been ruptured when He uttered that cry, "It is finished."
And out through the rupture in the heart flowed the blood into the sack until it was filled.
The body rapidly grows cold. As it does, the blood separates. The white serum settles to the bottom, and the red corpuscles rise to the top; and as the body grows colder, the red corpuscles coagulate.
When the spear pierced the sack that held the blood, the white serum or water flowed out. Then the red corpuscles slowly oozed out and rolled down the side of His body onto the ground.
Jesus was dead.
As soon as the Master was dead, loving hearts began to prepare for His burial.
John 19:38: "And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took away his body."
You understand that in every family among the wealthy Jews, there was a slave who understood embalming, for that class always embalmed their loved ones.
John 19:39-40: "And there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. So they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury."
The body was first washed, and then the cloth was torn up into narrow strips and smeared with the sticky substance. Each finger and toe and hand and foot was wrapped with these strips until the legs and arms and body were completely encased in this sticky substance. The head and neck were completely covered except the face.
When it was finished, over the chest and torso there was an inch to an inch and a half of this cloth covered with that sticky substance.
The body was then put into Joseph's tomb.
The climate was about the same as they have in Southern California. In a few hours the embalming garment would become a solid mass, and Jesus' body would be completely imprisoned in the grave clothes.
If He were not dead, this would cause Him to die.
The face was yet to be embalmed. Loved ones laid a napkin upon His face, heavily saturated with something to preserve the face until the third day when loving hands would finish the embalming.
Jesus was dead.
The Roman government had pronounced Him dead.
The soldiers had pronounced Him dead.
The Jews knew He was dead.
John 20:1-10: "Now on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb. She runneth therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. And they ran both together: and the other disciple outran Peter, and came first to the tomb; and stooping and looking in, he seeth the linen cloths lying: yet entered he not in. Simon Peter therefore also cometh, following him, and entered into the tomb: and he beholdeth the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, that was upon his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself. Then entered in therefore the other disciple also, who came first to the tomb, and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. So the disciples went away again unto their own home.”
You notice carefully the ninth and tenth verses. They knew not that Jesus must arise again from the dead. None of them believed in His resurrection so you can understand their surprise when Mary came to the house where Peter and John were stopping, and cried, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid him."
Nothing was more sacred to the Jews than the dead. Mary had been filled with anger and sorrow that someone had dared to desecrate the tomb.
Peter and John ran together. John is younger, lighter of foot. He outruns his heavier partner and arrives at the tomb first. It was a sepulchre cut out of a solid ledge. John stops and reverently looks into the darkened tomb. Peter comes, just bows his head, and enters the tomb. John follows. The grave clothes are lying there on the floor. He sees the napkin that was upon Jesus' face folded up and lying on a niche in the tomb,
John 20:8 says: "Then entered in therefore the other disciple also, who came first to the tomb, and he saw, and believed."
What did John see?
He saw the empty cocoon lying there upon the floor. It had become so hard and stiff that it would almost support one's knee as you pressed upon it. But it was empty.
The body of Jesus had come out of that little narrow aperture at the face.
If John had seen that someone with a knife had ripped that cocoon open and taken the body of Jesus, he would never have believed; the empty cocoon convinced John that Jesus was risen from the dead.
In my imagination I had been with Peter and John when Mary came with her anger and distress, crying, "They have taken away the body."
I had gone with them to the tomb. I had stood there in my imagination looking into the tomb.
I entered into the tomb with John, and I saw what John saw; and for the first time in my life I knew that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead.
It has never been a theological dogma since that hour.
Jesus was raised from the dead.
But what does that Resurrection mean?
That the sin problem was settled.
That Satan was conquered.
Humanity was redeemed.
That God can now on legal grounds impart His Nature, Eternal Life, to man and make him a New Creation.
At last man can become God's actual child, a very son.
There can be perfect fellowship between them.
When God imparted His Nature to man, He imparted His Righteousness. So man is a partaker of the Divine Nature and the Righteousness of God.
Man can stand in the Father's presence, as did Jesus in His earth walk.
Now God can give the Holy Spirit to live permanently in the body of this New Creation, and He can build into that New Creation through the Word, the very character and nature of the Incarnate One; so that we can say softly: "It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me."
Now I know that Rom. 4:25 is a reality: "Who was delivered up on the account of my trespasses and raised because I was justified." (Lit. Trans.)
REALITY OF HIS REDEMPTION
The Church has had a theological conception of our Redemption. It has never been a part of our daily walk.
Col. 1:13-14: "Who delivered us out of the authority of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have our Redemption."
And Eph. 1:7 says that that Redemption is according to the riches of His grace.
In the mind of the Father that Redemption is a reality.
It would have been a total failure otherwise.
That Redemption meant that Satan had been utterly defeated, stripped of his authority and dominion so that any man no matter what his condition has been, how deeply he has been enmeshed in sin, can by whispering the name of Jesus and by confessing His Lordship, step out of bondage into perfect liberty.
Rom. 6:14: "For sin shall not have dominion over you” or “Satan shall not lord it over you.”
It has made the new man, the New Creation, a master of sin.
In the name of Jesus the weakest child of God is an absolute master of Satan and demons.
That Redemption is a reality.
You who have received Eternal Life, as you read this, can whisper, “I am free. The Son has made me free, and I am free in reality.” (John 8:36. Most of these verses are a literal translation or copied from some of our modern translations.)
That Redemption is a reality to the man who knows his place in Christ.
You cannot be in Christ and not be free from the dominion of the Devil.
REALITY OF THE NEW CREATION
What substitutions we have had for the New Creation.
We have called it “Forgiveness of Sins,” “Being Converted,” “Getting Religion,” “Joining the Church,” and many others.
It is just one thing: A New Creation, a child of God, a partaker of the Divine Nature. These all represent the one fact that you have passed out of death, Satanic Nature, into Life, the realm of God.
That is not just forgiveness of sins, but it is the impartation of a New Nature.
The old self, the old man was crucified with Christ.
A new man was resurrected and when you accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and confessed Him as Lord, God imparted His own Nature, Eternal Life to you and you became “a new species,” a new man over which Satan has no dominion.
REALITY IN JESUS' NAME
How little we have appreciated this. It is one of the greatest gifts the Church has ever had given her.
Before Jesus left us He gave to the Church a legal right to the use of His Name. John 15:16: "Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he will give it you."
John 16:23-24 (Note this translation): "And in that day ye shall not pray to me. Verily, verily, I say unto you, if ye shall ask anything of the Father he will give it you in my name. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name. Ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be made full."
Here He gives us the power of attorney to go to the Father and make our requests.
When you pray in that Name, it is as though Jesus prayed.
There can be no denial.
You remember Jesus said at the tomb of Lazarus: "I thank thee, Father, that thou dost always hear me." That is the ground for your assurance.
John 14:13-14 He gives us the use of the Name: "And whatsoever ye shall ask or demand in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, that will I do."
This is not prayer. This is described in Acts 3:6 where Peter and John heal a man at the Beautiful Gate by saying, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk."
It is as Paul used it in Acts 16:18 where he spoke to the demon in the girl and said, "In the name of Jesus come out of her."
Or as the Name was used on the day of Pentecost when they baptized those people in the Name of Jesus.
When we pray we say, "Our Father, in Jesus Name."
That is our approach.
That gives us the assurance of a hearing.
Jesus said, recorded in John 14:17 speaking of the Holy Spirit, "He is with you, but he shall be in you."
REALITY OF INDWELLING
On the day of Pentecost we see four things take place in that upper room.
"Suddenly there came from heaven the sound of a rushing of a mighty wind and it filled all the room where they were sitting." The disciples were immersed in the Holy Spirit.
And when they were immersed, they received Eternal Life, were made New Creations.
They were the first people aside from Jesus that were ever born again. Jesus, you know, is the "first born." (Col. 1:8 and Rev. 1:5)
The second thing that happened, tongues of fire sat upon the brow of each one, indicating the method of propagating this Gospel of the grace of God. It is going to be with tongues of fire.
For example, Steven’s tongue couldn't be withstood, so they had to kill him to get rid of his tongue of fire.
And the third thing, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. He couldn't come in until they were recreated.
And the fourth, they all spake with other tongues.
But note that the great thing was they had not only received Eternal Life, but they had the One who had raised Jesus from the dead now living in them.
We have made a great deal of receiving the Holy Spirit.
It has been majored and we have ignored the fact of His being in us.
1 John 4:4: "Ye are of God my little children, and have overcome them because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world."
Phil. 2:13: "For it is God who is at work within you, willing and working his own good pleasure."
Not only are we Born Again and have become the very sons and daughters of God, but He comes and makes His home in us.
REALITY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
The ministry has kept the Church in the bondage of sin-consciousness ever since the Reformation.
None of us have ever been able to get away from it.
Most of our hymns are about sin.
Most every sermon is about sin.
The Church has never known of her absolute freedom from sin-consciousness.
Heb. 10:1-14 should be studied very carefully. We haven't space to quote it all.
First it tells how the blood of bulls and goats couldn't take away sin, for if it could the worshippers having been once cleansed would have no more consciousness of sins. "But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year."
That makes us think of the altar service where we ask the believer to keep coming Sunday after Sunday to be cleansed from sin.
The blood of Jesus Christ hasn't meant more to some of us than the blood of bulls and goats meant to the Jew.
For it was impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin.
The eleventh verse: "And every priest standeth day by day ministering and offering the same sacrifices which can never take away sin. But he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; for by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified."
He dealt with the sin problem for us perfectly when we were recreated and received the nature and life of God.
At that time He not only put our sin away, but He remitted all that we had ever committed; and at the same time he imparted His own Nature, Righteousness, to us.
2 Cor. 5:21: "Him who knew no sin, God made to become sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him," and by that New Creation we have become the Righteousness of God.
So Rom. 3:26 has become a reality: "That he, (God,) might himself be righteous and the righteousness of him who hath faith in Jesus." (Marg.)
Here God declares that He becomes the righteousness of the man who accepts His Son as a Savior.
1 Cor. 1:30 declares that Jesus has been made to be our righteousness.
God is our righteousness, Jesus is our righteousness, and by the New Creation we have become the righteousness of God in Him.
But you ask, "What is the righteousness of God?"
It is the ability to stand in the Father's presence without the sense of guilt, condemnation or inferiority.
It is the ability to stand there as the very sons and daughters of God Almighty so that you can go boldly unto the throne of grace and make your petitions just as Jesus would if He were here.
SOME FAITH FACTS
Faith in the Father is not built upon the word of man but upon His own Word.
Man's testimony to the truth of the Word has its place, but it cannot take the place of the Word itself.
The Word is the Father speaking.
It is as though the Master were here now in person; that Word is taking His place.
That Word has given us life and made us new creations.
That Word has sustained us and upheld us.
It is the Word of faith that proceeds from the very heart of the Father of faith.
The Word is a part of the Father Himself.
I feed on it.
I breathe it into my spirit.
It is being built into my spirit-consciousness.
Its absolute integrity, its life-giving quality has impregnated my very being.
Man's word like grass, withers.
God's Word like Himself, can never die, can never lose its freshness, its power, its ability to recreate, to strengthen and give courage.
You see, the Word in the lips of faith becomes just like the Word in Jesus' lips.
The Word in lips of doubt and fear is a dead thing; but in the lips of faith, it becomes life-giving, dominant.
Through it the sick are healed; Satan's captives are set free.
This living Word in the lips of faith is God's answer to the heart cry of man.
Man's word may fascinate and satisfy reason for a time, but the heart demands the Word of God.
This Word illumined by the Holy Spirit is God's light on life's pathway.
The Word is a part of God Himself.
You can lean on the Word as you would lean on Him.
You can rest in the Word as you would rest in Him.
You can act on the Word as you would act if He had just spoken to you.
The Word is always Now.
Our modern psychological religions are children of the senses; they use the Bible and quote from it, but it is only man's literature to them. Their writings can't feed the hungry spirit of man; they simply entertain and thrill the people of the senses.
These eternal spirits of ours crave the bread of God. Jesus is the bread of Life; they that feed on Him, have no appetite for the theories of men.
Don't waste time with the philosophies of men. There is no life in them.
In Him is Life, and that Life is our Light.
His word alone can answer the heart-cry of man.
Their words may answer the cry of lost reason-ruled souls groping in the sense realm for light, but never the cry of the heart.
Questions
1. What is the source of all Faith?
2. The problem of the Resurrection of Jesus centers first around the question: "Was He dead?" How do we know He was dead?
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3. But what does that Resurrection mean?
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4. In the mind of the Father that Redemption is a reality. What did it mean?
5. A man who knows his place in Christ understands what?
6. The reality of the New Creation is not just the forgiveness of sins, it is also?
7. When you pray in that Name, it is as though Jesus prayed. TRUE or FALSE
8. On the day of Pentecost we see four things take place in that upper room. What were they?
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9. How has the ministry kept the Church in bondage?
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10. What is the righteousness of God?
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11. If the Word is a part of the Father Himself what should we do with it?
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12. Man's word may fascinate and satisfy reason for a time, but the heart demands the Word of God. The Author lists 6 things in conclusion about the Word. What are they?
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