Bulletin Edition #267 September 2015

Because I am Crucified With Christ
Joe Terrell

“For I am crucified with Christ…” Galatians 2.20

Theologically, Paul is setting forth an argument for the believer’s freedom from the law: he is no longer under the law, for by the very ministry of the law condemning and punishing the Lord Jesus as He bore their sin, the believer is set free from the law. The law simple cannot hold two men liable for the same sin. If the Law holds Christ responsible for my sin, then it must let me go. Thus, Paul says in another place (Acts 13.39) “And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses.”

But what God did for us through Christ on Calvary He does in us through His Spirit. When the Spirit comes to convince one of God’s elect of “sin, and righteousness and judgment”, He crucifies that man in his heart. Such an act by the Holy Spirit convinces a man of his sinfulness, for a cross is an instrument of punishment for crimes against the law. Furthermore, the inward crucifixion of the Holy Spirit convinces a man of God’s just judgment, for the cross signifies, not mere punishment, but Divine curse, as it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.”

But this would leave a man yet in his sins, suffering forever the pangs of a guilty conscience aggravated by the wrath of God. The Spirit goes one step further, for the child of God is not merely crucified in his heart, he is crucified with Christ. By this method, the Spirit convinces him of righteousness, even the righteousness of Christ. A crucified man is incapable of doing anything – he is nailed to a cross. As insane as this appears to the mind of the flesh, that thief’s only hope lay in another crucified man. Only an act of God can make a man see that. When we are crucified by the Spirit, we lose all hope in ourselves and cast our lot with another crucified man, the Lord Jesus.

Only a man crucified by the Spirit of God can look at the crucified Christ and see a King coming into His kingdom. O blessed crucifixion!

For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified (I Corinthians 2:2)

The apostle Paul declared to a heathen world, and a church being led astray by foolish pride and worldly wisdom, that he preached Christ and Him crucified. The gospel is a person. He was a person in eternity, as the Son of God, the second person of the Godhead. He was appointed as a mediator and surety of an everlasting covenant and as such stood as a person. In every Old Testament prophecy He is set forth as a person. When He appeared on this earth in Bethlehem’s manger he was a person. He lived as a servant under the law of God and was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin as a person. His suffering was real. He hung on a cross and died a real death. He was raised the third day as a person who ate and drank. He had scars to prove himself to be the resurrected Christ. The disciples watched as He ascended into glory as our Great High Priest where He sits at the right hand of God.

Faith lays hold of the person who loved them and gave himself for him. Faith rests in Him as it is persuaded of the greatness of His person. Salvation is not a system or a plan or an offer: It is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God and there is none else.” (Isaiah 45: 22   Darvin Pruitt

It often happens, in the Psalms, that you can scarcely tell whether it
is David, or the Lord Jesus, or both of them, to whom the writer is
referring. Oftentimes you lose sight of David altogether, and are quiet
certain that he is not there; while, at other times, the words seem equally
suited either to David as the type, or to Jesus as the antitype. I think
that this fact is very instructive to us. It is as the Holy Ghost intended,
even in those ancient times, to let God’s saints know that there is a
mysterious union between Christ and His people, so that almost all things
which may be said concerning Him may be said, also, concerning those who are
in Him. They are so completely one, they are so intimately united in bonds
of mystic, vital, conjugal, eternal union, that it would not be possible
always to keep the sayings concerning them apart. — Charles Spurgeon

An eternal union with Christ
The believer’s eternal union with Christ is a subject that few seem to grasp, though it is written as with a sunbeam upon the pages of Holy Scripture. We are “Accepted in the Beloved,” and have been from eternity. That union of our souls with our Savior was made by the triune God himself before the world began, and can never be dissolved or even altered. The Lord God sees us in His Son, as one with His Son, and as His Son, because we really are in His Son, as one with His Son, and as His Son. Therefore it is written, “…as He is so are we.” As no spot, blemish, or any such thing is in Christ, but only perfection, His Father is well pleased in Him, and with all who are in Him. The Book of God declares, “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel” (Numbers 23:21). Therefore, we shall “have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is so are we in this world.”       Don Fortner

I left the pulpit one night and a fellow asked me, “Do you believe ‘the law’ to be a believer’s rule of life?” He seemed surprised when I told him I did not. His very next question was, “How do you know how to live?” I told him immediately that I lived just as the Apostle Paul, “The life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God,” (Gal. 2:20). This was the rule of life for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Abel and all others who have nothing but Jesus Christ to live upon. Someone would say, “You mean you live as you want to?” I wish I could: I’d be filled with the Spirit, I would never sin again, all my motives would be pure, I’d be delivered from this body of death. Oh, I wish I could live just like I want to. The closest thing I have found to living just like I’d like to is living by faith upon Jesus Christ the Dear and Blessed Son of God. – Bruce Crabtree

This Is Life Eternal
Darvin Pruitt

Eternal life is not a feeling or an emotion though these things may be affected by it. Eternal life is not doing things, willing things, or wanting things though it does produce in us the will and want to do certain things. John 17: 3 tells what this life is; “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Eternal life is in knowing God; perceiving God; who can only be perceived in Jesus Christ. “And this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son (perceives him as the Son of God) and believes on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:40).

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