Light Brings Salt
Volume 3, Issue 15 April 10, 2005
Dedicated to the Systematic Exposition of the Word of God
Our History In The Last
Adam
Miles J.
Stanford
(edited and expanded)
Our history in the Last Adam, our risen Lord Jesus, begins
on the only basis for resurrection life--death.
Our relationship to the first Adam rendered us dead in sin, but our
death with Christ made us dead to (in relation to) sin (the sin nature) -- the one condition
for newness of life.
IN CHRIST BURIED -- There, in the Tomb, we must
see ourselves as dead unto Adam, but not yet alive in Christ. Our individual
identity has not changed, but our relationship to the fleshly Adam has, thank
God! "We were buried therefore with Him." "In whom ye were also
circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the
body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ [on the Cross]; having been
buried with Him" (Rom. 6:4, ASV; Col. 2:11, 12, ASV).
Death, our ruin, has been made the very means of our
triumph over it. "Death is swallowed up in victory.... Thanks be to God,
who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor.
IN CHRIST RISEN -- His death and burial having
done its liberating work on our behalf, we can now begin to look up -- from
death unto Adam fallen, to birth into Christ risen. When the Lord Jesus Christ
burst the bonds of death, He took us with Him in His glorious resurrection
life.
"Just as Christ was raised from among the dead by the
Father's glorious power, we also should live an entirely new life. For since we
have become one with Him by sharing in His death, we shall also be one with Him
by sharing in His resurrection" (Romans 6:4, 5, Wey.).
Now, safely and forever on resurrection ground in Him, we
can study (1) our new position of life; (2) our new nature of righteousness;
and (3) our new walk of fruitfulness.
OUR NEW POSITION OF
LIFE -- Whereas
our old position in the first Adam rendered us dead unto God and alive unto
sin, (the sin nature), our new position
in the risen Last Adam renders us alive unto God and dead unto sin (the sin
nature). "For you died, and your life is hid with Christ in God"
(Col. 3:3, ASV).
Formerly our Judge, now by means of His Son's death and
resurrection He is free to be our Father, and we His sons. "Beloved, now
are we the children of God." "And because ye are sons, God hath sent
forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (1
John 3:2; Gal. 4:6).
OUR NEW NATURE OF
RIGHTEOUSNESS --
In our identification with Christ, our co-resurrection with Christ, our Father gave us
a new life with a new nature which can only bring forth righteousness.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to
His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3).
The old life is not changed, but exchanged for the which is altogether new. Paul's clearest description of
this is given in 2 Cor. 5:17 and 18: "Therefore,
if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old
things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are
of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ."
Our Father sees each of us as completely new in His Son.
We have been forever freed from our relationship to the first Adam with its
reign of sin and death. And He wants us to see ourselves from His point of
view--new creations in Christ Jesus!
It might be helpful for us to consider further the fact
that in this death-to-life transition our personal identity is kept intact. We
remain the same individual while acquiring a new position, life, and nature in
the risen Lord Jesus. The Father maintains the identity of each believer
throughout the process of the Cross, the Tomb, and the Resurrection.
"And although you were
formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has
now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you
before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach .... When you were
dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you
alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,"(
In Christ Ascended -- Being identified with the Lord
Jesus in His death unto sin and His resurrection into life, we are also in Him
in His ascended life at the Father's right hand. Born from above, we are to
abide above.
"But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love
with which He loved us,
even when we were dead in sins, hath made us alive together with
Christ (by grace you are saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us
sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come He
might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through
Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:4-7).
Our new walk of
Fruitfulness --
As newly created believers, we are positionally in the Lord Jesus in the
heavenlies, while at the same time we are in the Spirit of Christ here on
earth. The Comforter is our environment in this sin-cursed world. "But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that
the Spirit of God dwell in you" (Romans 8:9). It is the Holy Spirit
who indwells each believer who ministers the life of the Lord Jesus in us as
our new life, and who develops the characteristics of that life in and through
our new nature as we grow and mature in the Word illuminated by Him.
On the one hand, He applies the finished work of the Cross
to the life of the flesh within. "Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not
(by any means) fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Gal.
A close look at Galatians 2:20 may further clarify the
distinction between what we were in
the first Adam, and who we now are
in the Last Adam. "I have been
crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me:
and that life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith, the faith which is in the Son of God,
who loved me, and gave Himself up for me" (Gal. 2:20, ASV).
There are vital distinctions here that, when seen, make a
world of difference. (1) I, the old man in Adam, have been crucified with
Christ; (2) it
is no longer the old I that lives, but Christ lives in me, the new creation;
(3) the life which I, the new man, now live in the flesh (body), I the new man live by faith; (4) this faith
is in the Son of God, who loved me as a lost individual and gave Himself up for
me, a sinner.
The oft-quoted words, "Not I, but Christ," tend
to give the believer the impression that he as a person is crucified, and out
of the picture, and now there is only Christ as his new life. He is wont to
feel that he must somehow get himself out of the way, that Christ may be all.
Granted, the old
self must go down--but the new self must grow up.
It is true that He is our risen life, but it is also true
that His is the life and nature or our newly created life. "For to me to
live is Christ." "Christ, who
is our life" (Phil.
I am to realize and rest in the fact that it is my being,
my personality, which
is en-lifed by the human-divine life and nature of
the Lord Jesus. I am
the same person, but with a new life in union with His life. By the ministry of
the indwelling Holy Spirit I will grow in grace and increasingly be conformed
to His image.