WE are in the next to last chapter of our study in The Complete Green Letters, Chapter 53—Results of Reckoning, an excellent summary of all that we have been studying. Again, to repeat the opening words of this chapter, our author – Miles Stanford, says:
It should be evident by now that the truths we have been studying are interrelated, and interdependent. Together, they form a single unit of truth—centered in the cross and our risen Lord. Their express purpose is to conform us to the image of God’s Son.
THERE are three heading in the chapter, The Continuity of the Cross, The Continuity of Manifestation, and The Continuity of Life Out of Death. And to repeat, we are not going to move quickly through this chapter, taking time to consider these closing thoughts carefully and prayerfully. We will pick up where we left off last time under the third heading.
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10; Isa 30:15; Job 2:10; Jas. 1:2; Prov. 21:30
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Chapter 53—Results of Reckoning – Part 3
The Continuity of Life Out of Death
“So then death worketh in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:12). This is the cumulative result of our life-out-of-death reckoning. What is the essential characteristic of the Lord Jesus that is to be manifested in us? It is the sacrificial quality of being poured out for others. We are not struggling believers who barely exist until we finally fall into heaven; we are recipients of resurrection life for ourselves, and sacrificial life unto all! “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
When we reckon ourselves alive unto God in our risen Lord, we are thereby taking our position as seated with Him in the heavenlies. We know that the anchor and source of our life is safely and eternally hid with Christ in God. We are assured that nothing, and no one, can touch us apart from His blessed will (Rom. 8:35–39). Our attitude is that of looking down upon all that He takes us through—we are not under His circumstances, but above them all in our victorious Lord. Standing in our position, we learn in whatever state we are in, “therewith to be content”; we learn how to be abased, and we learn how to abound (Phil. 4:11, 12).
We enter each day (even Monday), and each situation, from that blessed vantage point. Resting in our risen Lord gives us rest in our pilgrim path. We abide in Him, accepting everything from His nail-pierced hands. “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (I Thess. 5:18).
Always to be remembered is the fact that the One in whom we live in glory is forever viewed as “a Lamb as it had been slain” (Rev. 5:6). While we abide in and reckon upon our life in the Lamb of God, and are taken through the Spirit’s processing, His sacrificial lamb-like qualities will be manifested in and through us. Death works in us, but life in others.
Another blessed result of being alway delivered unto death is a growing knowledge, by experience, of our crucified, risen Lord. As the Holy Spirit delivers us day by day unto the path of the cross, we suffer infirmities, reproaches, necessities, persecutions, and distresses “for Jesus’ sake.” “That I may know him” is closely related to “the fellowship of his sufferings” (Phil. 3:10). Our confidence in the Lord Jesus develops as we realize that His grace is sufficient for all these things, and that His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9, 10). We are compelled to prove His faithfulness at every point of need.
Although we are living in our risen Lord, we are camping in this body of humiliation, and serving in this world of death. Therefore, our Father keeps us in the place of need and helplessness in ourselves. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Cor. 4:7). … to be continued
