Risen Christ

Risen Christ

Our Position in Christ

Our Position in Christ

 

For in Him we live and move and have our being… (Acts 17:28a).

 

Christianity is not a religious conviction but the family of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Through faith in God and Jesus Christ you become a child of God, a Christian, a born-again believer. Since you are joined to Christ, you become one spirit with Him and God places you in the body of His Son. As you are born of God, you are a son of God and God is your Father. You as a Christian, in union with Christ, should always be concerned about your Father's kingdom and business. You must view salvation in the light of God's purpose to bring forth many sons to glory. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren (Hebrews 2:10-11). God will always shift the emphasis to His family, which finds its expression in the Father-son relationship in Christ. The family of God, which is God's kingdom and business, can only be found in Jesus Christ, the second person in the Godhead, creation's one and only Creator, Maintainer and Redeemer.

 

You must also understand what you have lost in Adam, where you are now in God's restoration plan, and in that light you ought to understand your position in Christ, which is the foundation of your walk with God.

 

God is the Source of all light. His light has substance and dimension. He is the most brilliant and luminous life-form in the universe. All majesty, all righteousness, all love and affection, all forgiveness and grace are contained in the light that is in Him. In Him is no shadow of darkness meaning that His light is all penetrating but His light cannot be penetrated by anything. His light is life and truth.

 

Since the beginning of creation God purposed to bring forth a harvest of sons after His light-image and likeness of light. God's word is light and His sons were meant to be His manifested word.

 

Consequently, the Lord God formed Adam of the dust of the ground and created him in His light-image and likeness of light. Adam was the light of God coming into the earth, a light that shines for all creation to see. Man was a city set on a hill that could not be hidden. God blessed His son Adam (Luke 3:38), who was His godly seed, and Eve to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the earth, and not only the garden, with sons (and daughters) of God. Everything brings forth after its own kind. Thus Adam, son of God, would have produced sons of God. Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your law, ‘I said you are gods?' (John 10:34).

 

Adam was perfect in his spirit, soul and body, complete in Christ, his Creator. His eternal spirit was alive to God and he was one spirit with Christ. His body was immortal and his divine soul was filled with the light of God. He was created a son of God to serve the will of his Father. God created him a living soul (Greek: psuchë; 1 Corinthians 15:45) meaning that Adam responded to God, his own body and all other creatures, things and places predominantly from his soul and not so much from his spirit. That was perfect because there was no darkness in him. His untarnished soul was in harmony with both God and creation and his body fully obey his virtuous soul. Adam knew no conflict. The light of the Word was in him because he was one with the Word of God. He was created to manifest the Word of God. He was the godly seed, the word of God made flesh. He had no need to pray, meditate on the word and wait on God or practice the presence of God. He knew no need or lack. He abided permanently in God's presence. His life was total fulfillment in God. He was so full of life that he lived 930 years after sin entered him and the discord of sin entered his soul and destroyed his godly life. All life in creation lost its power when Adam ceased to abide in Christ, his Creator. His destiny was to grow up and change from a living soul to a life giving spirit in Christ but he wasted this opportunity through rebellious disobedience.

 

Before the fall all things were subjected to God in a universe with one realm where God, man and all of creation lived together in harmony. There was only one kingdom, the kingdom of our God and of His Christ. The number one, the one realm, denoted divine primacy. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Ephesians 4:4-6). One excluded all differences, for there was no second with which it could either harmonize or conflict.

 

The serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which God had made. Before Lucifer fell he was the anointed cherub who covers. He was the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty and he was on the holy mountain of God and in Eden, the garden of the Most High. Because his heart was proud as a result of his beauty and he corrupted his wisdom for the sake of his splendor God casted him down to the ground. He became a horror and God decreed that he shall be no more forever. Why would such a wise creature turned to utmost folly? The Bible does not tell us. However, Scripture reveals that through the ages Lucifer was purposely out to destroy the godly seed. Firstly, he attacked the first Adam, then Christ, the last Adam. The first time he succeeded but the second time his head was bruised. I believe that Lucifer became jealous when God created His son Adam, who was higher in glory and authority than the son of the morning. The idea that the Father purposed to bring many sons to glory might have something to do with him becoming arrogant because of jealousy. This is just my personal opinion and not a big flash of revelation.

 

When Adam sinned he died to God as death entered into his spirit, soul and body. Adam's eternal spirit that was one with Christ died to God as Christ separated His Spirit from his because of sin. God forsook Adam for his sin just as He forsook Christ because of our sin. Adam's immortal body put on mortality, meaning that his body died to God because of sin (Romans 8:10). His soul which was filled with the light of God became enmity against God, for it was not subjected to the law of God any longer, nor indeed could be (Romans 8:7). Adam's light went out and he entered into darkness because he was no longer founded in the Source of all light.

 

Through Adam's offense we all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. In Adam, we all died to God.  We all came into the world separated from God, dead to Him. We are born in sin and shaped in unrighteousness. Independence from God is death because the flow of eternal life ceased when the branch was severed from the Vine. Adam, the godly seed, died to God because he founded himself and his seed, outside of God. He cancelled the birthright of his offspring to have God as their Father and to relate to Him as His sons. Then God needed a new godly seed to perpetuate His dream for a harvest of sons. Only when Christ, the Seed of God, was made manifested in the flesh He revealed God as Father to man and demonstrated to the earth the truth about the Father-son relationship.

 

Adam, through sin, divided the one realm of the universe into two realms, into the spiritual and the physical realms. The number two denotes there is a second. The Lord would not share his glorious dwelling with sinful flesh and blood, which is dead to Him and divorced from His person. Therefore, the Lord God casted Adam out of the garden to till the ground from which he was taken. God placed Adam and creation under his domain into the lower realm of the natural while He occupied supremely the upper sphere of His Spirit. As Adam lived in the natural realm he was no longer aware of God's presence. With time, because of division, the earth was divided into the many kingdoms of men.

 

Then the whole creation started to groan and labor with birth pangs to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God that they once knew. Men began to call on the name of the Lord as they remembered the promise God made to Eve that the Godly Seed will bruise Satan's head and they within themselves, eagerly begin to wait for the adoption, the redemption of their body. Enoch yearned for what Adam had lost in the garden. He discovered the Fountain of life and walked with God and God took him to heaven. Enoch is a prophecy of glories to be revealed in the end time.

 

God never changed His original purpose that He resolved since the beginning of the earth to bring forth many sons to glory. Following the fall of Adam, God's vision was perpetuated in Christ. His vision was to see His seed. He came 4 000 years after Adam to give light to every man coming into the world.

 

God at first established a covenant of works with His people Israel. Then the relationship between God and His people changed according to the contents of the covenant. Through the works of the law they had to justify themselves. If Israel would diligently obey the voice of the Lord to observe carefully all His commandments then the Lord will bless them. If they do not keep all His commandments and statutes, curses will come upon them and overtake them because God is the Righteous Judge (Deuteronomy 28). But showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments (Exodus 20:6). The responsibility was with God's people to uphold the Law He gave to Moses. All people other than the Israelites, the gentile nations, were excluded from this covenant relationship with God.  Because the Law is spiritual, imperfect man could not fulfill its requirements in the flesh. The old covenant failed to produce sons of God.

 

Then God took away the first covenant, the ministration of condemnation that He could established the second, which is the ministry of reconciliation of all peoples, tongues and nations under the sun, in His Son. Though the first covenant came in glory that even the skin of Moses' face shone, the New Covenant was brought in much greater glory, even in the glory of God's only begotten Son. It was only appropriate for the Creator and Maintainer of all things to become Redeemer of His own creation.

 

The Father entered into a covenant with His Son, on behalf of mankind, where He gave Him a people for His own possession. Jesus, for the Father's sake, had to fulfill all the requirements of the law and made it honorable and for the people's sake borne the wrath of God against their transgressions. Then the Father will forgive, once and for all, their transgressions, change their natures by writing His laws in their hearts and sanctify and make them perfect. For man to be a partaker of this covenant man has to believe in God and Jesus Christ whom He sent. Man will then become one Spirit with Christ and God will place him or her in the body of His Son. Then God will call them His people. The relationship between God and man changed again, by God becoming Father to the believer, and the believer becoming a son to God. Man was granted the opportunity and privilege to share in the life and relationship of the Son of God with the Father.

 

The Son of God fulfilled His part of the covenant on the cross. In doing so, mercy was granted to all that believed and those that will still come to the faith in God and in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a covenant of pure mercy and grace. The just shall live by his faith. In Christ alone and nobody else is salvation. Christ alone is the way to bring forth many sons of God to glory. His vision was to see His seed. Christ, the Seed of God, revealed God as Father to man when He was made manifested in the flesh.

 

As the covenant stands now, it is a one-sided covenant of pure grace and nothing else but grace. The Lord Jesus Christ has fulfilled His side of the covenant 2 000 years ago. The Father will have to keep His side of the everlasting covenant forever. One can only relate to God through faith, hope and love. Thoughts, attitudes, words and deeds void of faith are sin. People without a vision of hope perish. Thoughts, attitudes, words and deeds without love counts for nothing even if you give your body up to be burned for Christ's sake.

 

Christ's perfect work is a provision. In a nutshell, it mainly includes the quickening of our entire being which is our, spirit, soul and body unto God. He also subdued all things to Himself making all kingdoms the one and only kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, in a realm where heaven and earth is one. He has reconciled all things to God in Himself.

 

Though Christ completed His work on the cross, you do not yet see your whole person restored alive to God and not all things are subdued to Christ, and the universe is not yet restored beyond its former glory into the one realm of His power. Many lords still have dominion over the earth.

 

What do you see right now? When you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior your spirit is made alive to God. God place you in the body of His Son and because you are joined to Christ, you have become one spirit with Him because of righteousness. However, your body is still mortal, void of perfection of immortality, meaning that it is dead to God because of sin (Romans 8:10). Your soul who is in the blood of your body is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be (Romans 8:7). The universe is still divided into the realm of God's Spirit and the carnal realms of the soul (psychic) and the natural and all things are not yet subjected to Christ. Many lords still have dominion over the earth. Those kingdoms are not yet the one and only kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. We still labor in the sweat of our brow to mainly satisfy the needs and desires of our body of death. The whole creation still groans and labors with birth pangs until now to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God and we still within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

 

If Christ brought all of perfection into manifestation when He died and was raised from the dead it would have been the end of the world. Only the Old Testament saints and those who were Christ's at His resurrection would have been saved and would have been taken into glory at the time when the graves were opened. The Holy Spirit would not have been poured out and the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ would not have been born. All the nations of the earth with their billions of people would not have been born and the gospel of the kingdom would not have reached the ends of the earth. God has done this on purpose. Everything that He is doing is marked by His wisdom. The manifestation of His kingdom can only come about as the body of Christ reaches into it through faith. When the Son of Man comes shall he find faith on the earth? (Luke 8:18).

 

The variance between the perfect work of Christ and the imperfection of the fall that we are experiencing now reveals another side of God's overwhelming love. God made us to be co-creators in Christ Jesus that through a flow of hope and faith we may with Him restore all things. Firstly, we need to learn to trust Him that He will finish the work that He has started in us and creation; that He will bring to pass what He has promised. He could have restored the universe without our faith. But how does He restore our relationship with Him without involving our faith, without making us robots, which is not His image and likeness? A relationship comes from two sides. He will not restore creation that was under Adam's domain without us. He is using our faith, hope and love to restore all things of which our relationship with Him eclipses in glory all other things put together. He will not restore anything apart from our relationship with Him.

 

Our hope in Christ is that we will be alive to God, in spirit (already alive if we are born-again), soul and body when the Spirit of Him (Father) who raised Jesus from the dead will quicken our mortal body (Romans 8:11). Then we will be alive to God as a whole man when the Spirit of God (Father) dwells in us (Romans 8:9). Christ's bodily resurrection is the guarantee that we will be bodily clothed with immortality and incorruption and that our soul that lives in our blood will be made perfect.

 

If you are born-again you can now live with the spirit part of your person in the realm of God's Spirit. It is the only part of you that can experience Him and His kingdom since it is the only part of you that is alive to Him because of righteousness. Your relationship with God is not through your physical senses but by faith. Faith, hope and love is the three doorways into the Spirit, which is the three dimension of a divine relationship (1 Corinthians 13:13). God is Spirit and one with your born-again spirit. He reveals Himself to you in your spirit through the Holy Spirit. It is the will of God for you to live with your spirit in heaven while be physically on earth. No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven (John 3:13, emphasis added). Jesus said he was on earth and heaven simultaneously. Through faith you can have a life in the Spirit (heaven) while being on earth. Waiting on the Lord is one way to train your spirit to be constantly aware of the Lord.

 

Your carnal mind, which is part of your soul, is enmity against God (Romans 8:7). If the carnal mind is enmity against God the entire soul is enmity against Him. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it (Jeremiah 17:9). Paul desperately desired to be freed from the bondage of his sinful soul. His will, which is part of his soul, failed him often. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do (Romans 7:15).

 

A faith-life is when you present your soul to God, which is enmity to Him, as if it is a friend of Him, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ by meditating on things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtues and praiseworthy that you may be renewed in the spirit of your mind. What does it means? It means to constantly remember what Christ has achieved on the cross that you may walk in it through faith. God never called us to die at any stage of our lives. Christ overcame sin and death that you may have life in abundance, in our spirit, soul and body. If He has set you free from death, the last enemy, why would He wish to commit your body over to death again? Death is the enemy of everybody and a friend of nobody. People die because they believe they must die; they give substance to their fear (negative hope). The only scriptural death under the New Covenant is the death that the Lord tasted on our behalf. 

 

If you live like a mere man you will die even if you believe in the doctrine of immortality. If you see yourself constantly in the natural you will subject yourself to the force of sin and death; you will end up like the first Adam – in the grave. To live a resurrected life you need to live like Enoch (without the law), Elijah (under the law) and Paul (under grace), who lived the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you are raised with Christ, live the heavenly life where the eagles soar, not the earthy life where the turkeys gobble. Develop heavenly perception of all things and not a religious view. Perceive all things by the Holy Spirit and not the carnal mind. Live with your heart in heaven and hunger to be alive to God in your spirit, soul and body like Enoch and Elijah did. Remember they were people like us and yet through their faith God took them that they did not taste death. If you never want to die in your body then repent from a life style of death, darkness and deception and turn and remain with the Fountain of live, Source of all light, the Beginning and End and Embodiment of all truth. His name is Jesus Christ. Though He had to die on our behalf, His body never experienced corruption. Learn from Him. Die to the natural realm and be raised in the Spirit where He lives forever more and your body shall never partake of corruption.

 

Your body is dead to God because of sin and is a prisoner of the natural realm. Your body of death cannot experience God with its physical senses because your body lives in the natural realm and God dwells in the Spirit. Because you cannot feel God with your hands, or smell Him with your nose, or hear Him with your physical ears, or see Him with your eyes of flesh, or taste Him with your tongue does not mean He is not there. Your bodily senses and God are in two different worlds, that is why you are failing to notice God who lives in heaven. As the kingdom of God is in the realm of spirit, flesh and blood cannot inherit it. Peter, James and John witnessed Jesus' transfiguration on the mountain. They observed the transfiguration in a vision with the eyes of their spirits because flesh cannot observe in the realm of spirit but are limited to observance in the natural realm. Now as they came down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, "Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead" (Matthew 17:9, emphasis added).

 

If Paul knew flesh and blood could not enter into heaven or see heavenly things, why did he deem it not strange for his body to be caught up into heaven? I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago – whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows – such a one was caught up to the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2, emphasis added). Through faith, Paul lived a life where he saw himself bodily alive to God. He knew that faith is the substance of his hope to be bodily alive to God, hence his bold statement.

 

To please God you present your body, which is dead toward Him, through faith as being alive from the dead and the members of your body though dead, as instruments of righteousness to God. This is how you live your life on earth as if you are in heaven. Paul said that this is acceptable to God, the way a normal Christian should live (Romans 12:1-2). Our faith in God is in hope to attain bodily to the resurrection from the dead and to be perfected in our soul. We also hope to see all things under Christ in a sphere where heaven and earth is one, as it was in the beginning. In the books of God, faith is the substance of our hope even if we have not yet received the promise (Hebrews 11:1). Faith is always in the present and hope points to future fulfillment. Faith is to walk our vision of hope which points to the future, today. Our hope in Christ is when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. While we are living our lives through faith in the Lord we must look to Him in hope for the redemption of the whole man. Our hope is to be alive unto God, spirit, soul and body and to see all things subdued to Christ as all kingdoms have become the one and only kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, in a realm where heaven and earth is one.

 

When God looks at you, He is not looking for perfection but for faith. …when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8b). The religious man (man of flesh) always tries to impress God with some level of perfection while the spiritual man believes God. Faith, hope and love are the virtues that bring joy and fulfillment to His heart. Faith is the substance of the life of Christ in you. When you manifest faith God sees the perfection of His Son in you. You need to express faith toward God according to the measure of grace He gave you, which is the measure of your faith. Faith and hope is not yet attainment to bodily resurrection and perfection of the soul but pressing on in hope that the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead will quicken your mortal body.  However, in God's books faith and hope are perfection in Christ because faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. By faith you procure the treasure of your hope in heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt and thieves do not break through and steal. Hope cannot be seen while faith and love often have visible manifestations. Faith and hope is in part and belong to the imperfect realm because hope is dreaming of perfection and fulfillment and faith is walking in the time of imperfection and lack as if it is the time of perfection and fulfillment. When that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part, faith and hope, will be done away. When perfection comes, faith and hope will become redundant as all things will be perfection and fulfillment in Christ. Only love that never fails will remain. However, for the moment abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13).

 

At the last trumpet, those who went before us, the dead in Christ, who were sown in corruption, will be raised with incorruptible bodies, and those who will be alive with their mortal bodies will be clothed with immortality. The heroes of faith and the rest of the family of God that is captured in the cloud of witnesses is not yet clothed with a glorified body because it is written that they should not be made perfect apart from us. For, if those in heaven would have been clothed with an incorruptible body, Paul would not have prophesied of this perfection to come. We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. Those in Christ will be clothed with an incorruptible, immortal body at the last trumpet that mortality and corruption may be swallowed up of life.

 

In contrast, through faith Enoch and Elijah cross the boundaries of times and seasons as they lived lives where they were more at home in the spirit than in the natural. The realm of God's Spirit is far exalted above all limitations including time and space. The realm of God's Spirit is where faith, hope and love dwells, the three doorways into the realm of God's Spirit, which is also the three dimensions of a divine relationship. Their faith saw heaven and earth fused into the one world of Christ. Separation, death, darkness and deception exist only in the lower realm of the natural that is tarnished with its countless blemishes and imperfections; the prison of carnal man. Though their faith projected them into the realm of spirit they did not see all things subjected to Christ but they saw Christ who is the author and finisher of their faith. In God's book faith or the vision of the imagination of the heart, good or bad, is reality. Their faith demanded that the fulfillment of the last trumpet was to be walked in, in their day. Their faith created substance of heavenly perfection in a sphere where heaven and earth is one. In their world the will of God has being done on earth as it is in heaven. As far as they were concerned they were alive to God, in spirit, soul and body, the New Jerusalem has come down and heaven and earth has become one. Consequently they were changed in their bodies before the time of the last trumpet. Through faith God took them that they did not see death. They had so much life in them that if God had not taken them, they would have still walked the earth today. When God took them into heaven their body did put on immortality and their soul were made perfect as no flesh and blood or any blemished thing can enter into heaven.

 

Paul manifested the same faith as Enoch and Elijah when he groaned within himself to attain to the perfection of sonship. If, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained [bodily resurrected], or already perfected [perfected in the soul]; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me (Philippians 3:11-12, emphasis added). I am convinced that if God did not destined Paul to die for His name sake, he would have attained to the resurrection from the dead just like Enoch and Elijah because of the same faith that was in him.

 

Let me repeat the vision of our hope, which is the cry in our spirit for manifested sonship: "Our hope is to be alive unto God, spirit, soul and body and to see all things subdued to Christ as all kingdoms have become the one and only kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, in a realm where heaven and earth is one." According to Revelation 12 there will be those that will enter in this glorious promise before the last trumpet.

About the Author

How would you complete this? "Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will ________?

"come again."

This is part of the Anglican, Lutheran and United Methodist liturgy.

PS The middle phrase is "Christ is risen" so that the first is past tense, the second present and the third future.

Christ is Risen - Matt Maher