March, 1941
TH E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
91
therefore, salvation demands redemp tion. 2. Sin made every one of us a sinner, penetrated to the innermost part of our being, permeated every part and pol luted every part from the center to the circumference, and thus salvation de mands our cleansing. Sin not only did those two things, but it did something far worse. 3. Sin made us enemies of God, alien ated us from Him, separated us alto gether from Him. We were hostile to Him, and therefore salvation demands reconciliation. 4. Sin in separating us from God made us unclean and unholy so that it demands our sanctification. In this con dition the unsaved sinner is utterly helpless because as an enemy of God he would never want salvation, and as a slave of Satan he is bound by Satan and would not be able to save himself even if he wanted salvation. So he is not only utterly helpless, but utterly hopeless as well. Unless some one does something for him from the outside, there is no hope for the sinner. Salvation demands a Saviour who can save us not only from sin but also from sin’s conse quences; and in our blessed Lord Jesus Christ we can have such a Saviour. Thus we find our redemption is pur chased for us through His blood and that blood alone! “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,” even the blood of Christ! (1 Pet. 1:18, 19). Then our reconciliation is through the blood and the blood alone! “ And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; hy him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled” (Col. 1:20, 21; cf. Rom. 5:10). We now have free cleansing in His blood. “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Let us now consider sanctification through the blood. Separated from God, the sinner belongs to the Satanic sphere. He is in the possession of Satan, under Second in a Series on
the control of Satan, and in the use of Satan. Friends, it is a solemn thought, but it is absolutely Scriptural that on this former side of the Cross, the sinner is one in and with Satan. Now thé saint —the Christian — is separated unto Christ and unto the Church and unto the Spirit. lie belongs to Christ's sphere. He is in Christ’s possession, under Christ’s control, and for Christ’s ex clusive use. How does the believing sin ner become a saint? How is he sepa rated from one sphere and separated unto the other sphere? Hebrews 13;12 tells us: “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.” And Hebrews 10:14 also explains it: “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” What the B lood o f Christ Accomplishes What, then, is effected by the blood of the Saviour ? Three things are ac complished: 1. There is deliverance from Satan. Some of the little words are the most important words in Scripture. Notice the prepositions: "Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Col. 1:13). The. same truth appears in Hebrews 2:14, 15. When God delivers—delivers and delivers from— what kind of deliverance is it? It is an absolutely perfect deliverance. Do you believe it? Do you act as though you believed it? Do you talk as though you believed it, and live as though you be lieved it? It is one thing to believe it in your head, and it is another thing to have that great truth become experi mental in every part of one’s life. 2. Then we are delivered from the world through crucifixion to it: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,- by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14). A double crucifixion takes place the mo ment you and I believe upon the Lbrd Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour. We are delivered out of that Satanic system, called “the world,” so complete ly severed from it in God’s thought and intention that it is just as though we had never been a part of it. . 3. Then there is deliverance from the flesh: “I am crucified with Christ” (Gal.
2:29). Will you for a moment consider this crucified "I” ? I know, as you do, that it means you, yourself. Just as truly as Jesus Christ went to the Cross, you, if you are a true believer, went to the Cross. Christ took that flesh, which stands for the old “I” as it is used in Galatians 2:20, to the Cross, as the only place for it to be. God so completely condemned it that He finds no place for it but the Cross and the grave. If you and I would just take that same esti mate of it and believe that is where God has put it, and that He means it should stay there in order that Christ may be on the throne of your life and mine, that is the first step toward our experi mental sanctification. We are dealing with great facts of salvation in this discussion! They are there in God’s Word whether you know them or not. They are true whether you live by them ,or not—but if you do not, both God and you are the losers, and the world is the loser because people say as they look at your life and mine, “If that’s Christianity, I don’t want it!” Unless we accept these great facts and act upon them, the world sees us as in consistent, carnal Christians. We need to get this thought to begin with, that we are on that Cross just as
truly as Christ is there. We will never understand the depths of sin or the heights of grace until we know the meaning of 2 Corinthians 5:21.' It will take me all eternity to fathom the depth of that passage. He “who knew no sin” —never a sin in a thought, in a motive, in an act, in a word—He “who knew no sin,” was “made . . . sin.” Do not take away from those words; do not whittle them down; do not minimize them! It was for that reason that you and I who had not one atom of righteousness in us were accepted of God that we might become the very righteousness of Gqfl Himself. Until God sees in us the same righteousness as He sees in His Son, we are not acceptable in His sight. Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
With a Saviour who has done that, is there a man or a woman facing these truths today who is so ungrateful, so selfish, so small as to stop for one mo ment to* think of any cost in giving up the world and anything in the world and anything in the flesh for the sake of such a Saviour ? He was the very essence of purity and the very essence wThe Holy Spirit in ijke Life of the Believer 99
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter