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Letters of Truth - Spirit of the Word - Covenant Eschatology - Introductory Note - New Stuff
Redemption . . . All in AllA JOINT-PARTICIPATION
Chapter 9"That I might come to know Him in an experiential way, and to come to know experientially the power of His resurrection and a JOINT-PARTICIPATION in His sufferings, being brought to the place where my life will radiate a likeness to His death, if by any means I might arrive at the goal, namely, the out-resurrection from among those who are dead." [Philippians 3:10-11, Wuest Expanded Trans.].
"And if we are His children, then we are His heirs also: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ-sharing His inheritance with Him; only we must share His suffering if we are to share His glory." [Romans 8:17 Amplified].
As we have already pointed out in the previous chapter, there has been a very insidious weaving of deception in a doctrine of substitutionism, and because men were taught that Christ became their substitute, then they always look for a "substitute" so that they might escape everything that comes their way, which they feel might cause some distress to the flesh. The very teaching that the preacher sowed, he is reaping, and it is killing him. They preach a total substitution, Christ paying our debt, His cross did it all, and we ought to be free from all suffering, etc. And so rather than the congregation learning to bear their load, and becoming an OVERCOMER IN CHRIST, they all cast on their preacher their load, while he has to bail them out of trouble, pray them out of all their distresses, and he ends up with a nervous breakdown. God did not call men to become substitutes for their congregation, to absolve people from being developed and processed by all these circumstances which He sends to them.
Always we want somebody to "bear it for us", but the promise is given this way, "When YOU pass THROUGH the waters, I will be with you; and THROUGH the rivers, they shall not overflow you..," [Isaiah 43:2]. No escape but to GO THROUGH, and to find that HE is with us all the way, to give us grace and bring us into the fulness of His victory.
"IN ALL THESE THINGS we are more than conquerors through (by the means of) Him that loved us," [Romans 8:37]. Not "out of" them, but IN all of these things. In all of what things? The previous verses list them like this-tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and the sword, until "for Your sake we are killed all the day long we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." We thought we were to pray, "Lord, take me out of all these things," but we discover that we really need to pray, "LORD, BRING ME THROUGH ALL OF THESE THINGS, and accomplish all of your purpose, and then make me an overcomer."
The doctrine of escapism produces a weak, impotent, selfish type of people who shrink from pressure and testing which is sent their way, They know nothing of OVER-COMING, and it is high time that this nonsense was stripped away, and people faced up to the process of being developed and growing up in Christ, No more to say, "how can I get out of this," but rather to affirm, "by the grace of God I can come through this thing, and not just somehow, but triumphantly," Amen!
There is a continuity in the work of the Lord, where we are not wavering and double minded in our understanding. We begin to realize that "If we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him: If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him," [2 Timothy 2:11-12], God is bringing His remnant into that place of having a SINGLE EYE unto the Lord, and they are determined by His grace to GO THROUGH and gain the victory .
There are those who, in the midst of their troubles, feel that if one prayer is good, several prayers are better, so they call upon all their friends to help send up a volume of prayer-thinking that if they get enough people praying it will twist God's arm until He has to do something. Storm heaven and get violent, they say, and we'll demand heavenly action on this thing. Sure enough, "the kingdom of God is being preached, and every one strives violently to go in--would force his own way, rather than God's way into it." [Luke 16:16, Amplified]. How much violence the kingdom has endured because people would force, or try to force their own way upon God, demanding that He do this and that in delivering them from the very thing they need for their cross, to work their purification.
In due time it will be realized that all punishments are for man's benefit, and with purpose, "that we might be partakers of His holiness." [Hebrews 12:10] .
"Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless AFTERWARD it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." [Hebrews 12:11]. It does not work its exercise in us if we escape out of it, or if we find a substitute to bear it for us. But it does work the wonders of His grace while we pass through the processing. "I have seen the travail which God has given unto the sons of men to be exercised IN IT." [Eccl. 3:10].
You say, "how come then when I used to pray for deliverance God would always come to my rescue and get me out of it?" Sure He did, and thank God He did, for we first needed to learn that when we called He would answer, plus the fact, He knew just how much of the process we could endure in the early stages of our spiritual growth, and so He gave the victories which would balance the testings.
But one day we come to the realization that suddenly our "prayers" are not being answered in the same old way. And the first carnal reaction is one of self-condemnation, maybe we have backslidden, or maybe God is punishing us for some sin. Thus all the old preachers of doom and condemnation heap their black accusations upon you as well. So you examine your heart, and you wait before God, and know that you are walking closer to Him than any time in the past, so then you seek for a new answer, and learn that HE IS BRINGING YOU THROUGH THIS TRIAL, and using it for your good.
"Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." [Hebrews 5:8]. "Leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps." [1 Peter 2:21]. If the Captain of our salvation could come no other way, then I am sure that following in His footsteps we can come no other way either, but we shall find that this is simply A BLESSING IN DISGUISE, and substitutions would rob us of this part of our blessing.
How would you like to be in a situation where three of you suddenly discovered that there was A FOURTH ONE walking with you, even the Son of God? Oh, you would love to have Him with you like that. Ah, the three Hebrew children found the setting for this rich experience in the "fiery furnace." [Daniel 3:25]. There was no escapism here, nor did they find three of their brethren who would be their substitutes and go through this for them, but they experienced both the testing and the victory, and rejoiced in their God who was with them all the way.
You would love to see God close the mouths of all the lions? Then expect to be thrown into a lion's den. You would desire to see one raised from the dead? Then think it not strange if someone near and dear to you is wrapped in death. Always we want to share the glory, but we do not want to go through the testing. Now God is perfecting OVERCOMERS, and thus the obstacles must be there for us to overcome. Escapism and substitutionism cater to the flesh, for the flesh would always shrink from the cross, and try to find another way. The humanity part of us might pray, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." But deep in our spirit the consecration is made, "nevertheless, NOT MY WILL, BUT YOURS, BE DONE."
Christ drank the cup to its very end, experienced all of its sorrow, and then He filled it up with blessing and offers it to us. And the cup which we bless, is it not the communion of our Lord Jesus Christ? Praise God, that we might drink with Him, both of the sorrow and the joy, and find it communion which is rich and sweet indeed.
Thus we learn to "count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations..." [James 1:2], realizing that God will bring you THROUGH them, and that "there is no temptation taken you but such is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation make a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it."
[1 Corinthians 10:13].
Make a way of escape--the Amplified translation gives a clearer light upon this passage. "But with the temptation He will always provide the way out--the means of escape to a landing place--that you may be capable and strong and powerful patiently to bear up under it."
There are those times when you feel you are simply treading water, with nothing solid underfoot, and then HE provides a way to A LANDING PLACE--not that we are able to get out of it all, escape it an, but bringing us to a place of solid footing, then we are able to BEAR UP UNDER IT until the whole process of God is wrought out in us. "Let patience have her perfect work." "Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord." It is our personal participation in the whole process which works for us an exceeding and aionian weight of glory, even "while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (Greek, aeonian, age-abiding)."
[2 Corinthians 4:18].
While we cannot accept that "confused doctrine" of substitutionism, there are some beautiful scriptures which bring out the wonderful grace of our Lord, and how HE SHARES WITH US of our sorrows and griefs, and imparts of His strength that we might have help to come through to victory.
"The just FOR the unjust, that He might bring us to God." [1 Peter 3:18].
It does not read, "the just instead of the unjust," as we have often been told, but all that Christ did was FOR us. He has a perfect identification with our experience. "He Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." [Matthew 8:17]. He became our Companion, our Burden-bearer, not to exempt us from any burden bearing, not to absolve us, not to cause us to escape it all, but to be with us, that by HIS enablement we might come through it all victoriously.
Galatians 6:2, 5, reads, "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.--For every man shall bear his own burden." There is no actual contradiction here, for there are two different Greek words used. The first word is "baros" meaning WEIGHT, and refers to those heavy weights which sometimes build up, and thus we need to help one another bear these overloads. This is an opportunity for love to find expression. But the second Greek word is "phortion," drop the letter "h" and you have our English word PORTION, and in this regard, Phillips translates this fifth verse, "For every man must shoulder his own pack." There is a specific pack given to you for your development and training, and if you find a substitute to carry it for you, how then can it work in you, and for you, of His purpose ? Gladly do we help carry the overload when the testings become too much, and weighty, but there is that portion which God has given to every man, and he must needs learn to shoulder his own pack.
Someone once wrote, "Must Jesus bear the cross alone, and all the world go free? No, there's a cross for everyone, and there's a cross for me."
HIS death does not absolve us from dying. HIS DEATH ENABLES US TO DIE, AND DO IT VICTORIOUSLY. God deliver us from that confusion which teaches that Christ died in my place, and now I just believe in Him, sit down and twiddle my thumbs, and wait to be taken to heaven, a beautiful Isle of Somewhere. And then while I wait the carnal man plays, and self becomes a distress to all those about me, and we wonder why we have such carnal christians in our gatherings. It is because they were not taught that they needed to be a JOINT-PARTICIPATOR in this death process. He did not die in our place, but He died FOR US. As He did "by the grace of God taste death for every man." [Hebrews 2:9], it was that having fully conquered, now He is able to walk through the valley of the shadow of death WITH US, and HELP US through the process until we have thoroughly died out to all of self and its rebellion. He has blazed a trail through the regions of death, not to provide us a BY--PASS, that we might escape it, but rather that following in His steps we might arrive at the same victory which He obtained.
Praise God, it is written, "I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people." [Psalm 89:19]. While this is speaking of David, chosen to be king over Israel, he is but a type of that GREATER ONE, even our Lord Jesus Christ, and He has become that MIGHTY ONE who is there to help us through all of the travail and process leading to perfection. It was when "we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." [Romans 5:6]. Man could not save himself--were he able to have kept the law, it was written, "This do, and live." But it was weak through the flesh, and being without strength we continued to fall--failure everywhere. So the Father laid help upon One that is MIGHTY, and He came to help bring us through. HE IS OUR SAVIOUR. We did not deserve this help, but GRACE does not operate upon a merit system, it operates upon the need. They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
Now, it is a truth that as we are fully conformed to His image, filled with His nature of LOVE, becoming strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, then we shall also be able to help bear the load of the weak. Not to exempt them from all the load, but to be with them, and to help bear their overload. Love and compassion increase as this truth is made real within. Just because we say that "every man must bear his own burden" does not leave us insensitive to the needs about us. But God would purge us from the mere human forms of sentiment and temperament which would cause us to "bailout" those who are in trouble, when they need to remain there and learn their lesson and be developed unto spiritual maturity. While we will not become their substitute, nor will we bail them out, neither will we abandon them. So they are in prison, and we do not bail them out, then what do we do ? Ah, "I was in prison, AND YOU VISITED ME." You know why we always wanted to bail people out? To pray them out of their trouble? Because we did not want to go to prison with them, nor did we want to become involved with their trouble, and help bear their load, so we just thought everybody ought to escape the whole thing. What a doctrine of "cop-out"! (Original Editor's note: Prison, Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition states, "a state of confinement or captivity; a place of confinement exp. for lawbreakers --compare jail." If we err not, the greatest prison of all is the "death" state of carnal man. Can we through the Spirit visit those in this prison--death state? Can we uplift those who God is speaking to and be God's witness (martyr) and share His truth, the reconciliation-restoration process that God purposed prior to the foundation of time? The authors make a profound statement in the preceding chapter, "Not In Our Stead, But For Us," and we quote, "It was not God against His creation, while the Son was pleading for mankind, but we actually read, "to wit, that GOD WAS IN CHRIST RECONCILING THE WORLD UNTO HIMSELF." [2 Corinthians 5:18]. It was God Himself who planned and purposed the salvation of His whole creation. Jesus was the manifestation which carried it out, but remember, it was GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH, in the personage, of the man Christ Jesus. Jesus was the visible expression of the invisible God, but it was God Himself who was in Christ accomplishing this reconciliation. The man Christ Jesus plainly declared, "I can of Mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and My judgment is just; because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which has sent Me." [John 5:30]. And again, "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do: for what things soever He does, these also the Son does likewise." [John 5:19]. IT WAS THE FATHER'S DOINGS WHICH THE SON WAS MANIFESTING, it was a revelation of the Father's love for His creation. ).
When we are willing to identify ourselves with men, walk with them in their sorrow, then shall we see new life spring forth, and salvation will be theirs also. We do not become their substitute to bear it in their stead, but on their behalf, and for them, we walk together and help carry the load. This is the big difference between substitutionism and true joint-participation.
Jesus Christ NOW holds the keys of death--and He uses this process to bring us into His more abundant life. He came to deliver us from the DEATH-LOAD, not just from death itself. He would deliver us from THE FEAR OF DEATH, and He has brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel. Now we need not fear the process any more, since to be made CONFORMABLE TO HIS DEATH also means that we shall have an active participation in His resurrection life.
But this death-Ioad, this whole body of death, and realm wherein we were bound, we did not have the strength to rise up out of it, we could not, in ourselves, overcome it, SO HE CAME TO BE OUR STRENGTH. "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God THROUGH (by the means of) JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD."
[Romans 7:24-25].
We do not escape the second death, "It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment." But how can we pass through the process and come forth into life? We are too weak in ourselves." It is through our Lord Jesus Christ that we find the strength. HE IMPARTS OF HIS LIFE. He freely gives us of His grace, and then we shall come through. Right now we have but "in part" and therefore we still are not fully LOOSED, but we shall gird up the loins of our mind, and be sober, and hope to the end "FOR THE GRACE THAT IS TO BE BROUGHT UNTO YOU at the revelation of Jesus Christ." [1 Peter 1:13]. We need MORE HELP, and He shall bring it to us.
"Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time (Original Editor's note: The second time will be manifested within the life of the believer. When Christ, when God, as they are ONE, will take residence within the tabernacle, within the "Living temple of God." We are beginning to see the Spiritual Body of Christ coming into view. Those who have "spiritual" eyes can see, and those who have "spiritual ears" are hearing as the Center of the universe, as creation its self is on tip toes, seeing the sons of God returning), without sin, unto salvation." [Hebrews 9:28]. He came, not to save us from the penalty, but from sin itself, not just from death, but OUT OF DEATH. Even as it was written of our Lord, "Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong cryings and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared." [Hebrews 5:7].
"Saved FROM..." in the Greek this reads, SAVED OUT OF, for He was not spared from the Cross, nor from dying even a physical death, but He was saved out of it all by the upsurge of resurrection life.
What is essential here is a change of nature, for we "were by nature the children of wrath." [Ephesians 2:3]. It requires a death to the old carnal nature, and there is no substitution for this death process. We all face the process sooner or later. But, praise God, there is a real deliverance from the body of this death, and it is a deliverance for ALL, for all creation shall yet be delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
[Romans 8:21].
He bore--yes, He took away the SINS OF THE WORLD, and it is this salvation from sin which brings us into His life and the freedom of the Spirit. Not only to take away my past sin, and relieve me from the overload which I could not bear, but now to walk with me and help me through all of the daily travail so that I do not constantly fall back into sin, nor miss the mark. "He is able to keep you from falling (stumbling), and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy." [Jude 24].
Furthermore we find the promises are many that He is with us day by day. "MY PRESENCE SHALL GO WITH YOU, and I will give you rest." [Exodus 33:14]. Again, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." [Hebrews 13:5]. Plus the assurance that "the anointing which you have received of Him ABIDES IN YOU..." [1 John 2:27].
ABIDES-from the Greek word "meno," to remain, continue. It is this abiding of the anointing which continues in us which also brings forth a continuity to our life in a progressive development. Guiding us onward into all truth, remaining in us to work in us the fulness of His will, to bring us to the hour of adoption wherein we shall be swallowed up into the fulness of God.
There is no doubt about it, we need this constant help, and HE is our Comforter, the One called alongside to help. Jesus said, "He is with you, and He shall BE IN YOU" Praise God, what a Source of strength to enable us to overcome, even the Christ who dwells within.
So we find that the whole plan of "atonement" was not to satisfy God's justice, but to reveal His love, for He is our "Just God and our Saviour," being our Saviour because He is Just. Justice is not against the sinner, demanding his condemnation, but rather it is FOR HIM, insuring his total salvation. It is the work of God IN CHRIST, reconciling us to Himself. God is already favorable towards man, and daily makes that favour known even as He causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust, and causes the sun to shine over all. Jesus Christ did not come as our substitute, but to be OUR COMPANION AND HELPER, to be with man, and for man. His life was poured out FOR us, not to save us from the penalty, but to save us from sin itself. And it is self-evident that when there is no sin, neither is there a penalty for sin. He did not die that we might not die, but to deliver us from a death in which we are already involved. He did not live a righteous life in our place, but to ENABLE US TO LIVE THE SAME LIFE, even as we are challenged, "Be holy; for I am holy ." [1 Peter 1:16].
"That I might come to know Him in an experiential way, and to come to know experientially the power of His resurrection and a JOINT-PARTICIPATION in His sufferings, being brought to the place where my life will radiate a likeness to His death, if by any means I might arrive at the goal, namely, the out-resurrection from among those who are dead." [Philippians 3:10-11, Wuest Expanded].
No more need we seek for a substitute, nor for away of escape, for now we are coming to know that HE IS MIGHTY, and He is with us all the way, bringing us all the way THROUGH the present travail, and into the fulness of His spirit-life. Praise God for the glory of His resurrection, and that we shall share in the same, after the travail of the present has accomplished its purpose in us.___________________________
A JOINT-PARTICIPATION
A joint-participation,
A sharing all the way,
To fellowship His sufferings,
Humiliation's day.Conformable unto His death,
All self-will thus to cease,
While God doth work a purging,
From sin to bring release.We would not shun the process,
Nor seek for an escape,
But in the winepress with Him
We'd tread the smallest grape.That out of sorrow's weeping
We then might find the cup
Has overflowed with blessing,
With Him to freely sup.He knows the path before us,
For He has walked the whole,
And now His presence lingers
To succour every soul.His Spirit e'er abiding
Shall guide us to His throne,
The overcomers sharing
The joys as yet unknown.Letters of Truth - Revelation-A Positive Book - Spirit of the Word -
1. The Law of Circularity
2. No Second Causes
3. The Fifth Dimension
4. Time--By Divine Degrees
5. The Scent of Water
6. Christ--Our Mercyseat and Intercessor
7. Christ--Our Advocate and Ransom
8. Not In Our Stead, But For Us
9. A Joint-participation
10. Therefore Choose Life
11. The Corrective Judgments of God
12. God's Wonderful Vengeance
13. Sufficient-The Evil
14. The Potter's Field
15. Jubilee---And The Returning Field
16. By Man Also
17. What Manner of Man Is This?
18. Till All Men Know
19. To The Uttermost
20. All Things Reconciled