Christmas is the obvious occasion to celebrate God’s giving to us some very precious gifts. I think of the gift of God’s amazing virgin born Son at Bethlehem of Judea. What gift could top that? I also am eternally grateful of God’s gift of forever life accomplished through the finished work of His remarkable Son.

This holiday season I want us to think about another gift, one that we might refer to as, well. . . “the ultimate gift.” Ultimate gift? How could there possibly be a gift greater than the Son of God and His offer of eternal life? The gift I have in mind involves a truth found in Christ’s high priestly prayer found in John 17. Note His words:

“And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5).

What was our Lord’s restored glory all about? The answer can be found in a short passage in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church. His subject is God’s plan for an orderly resurrection.

“But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.”  (1 Corinthians 15:20-28)

Christ’s resurrection, according to Paul, became the firstfruits of believers who had died. His resurrection was a prototype – a symbolic foretaste – of a gigantic resurrection to come, the resurrection of believers. Paul continued to explain that in Adam all die but all who are placed into Jesus Christ shall rise again. Being in Christ is God’s guarantee that physical death will not be the end. This resurrection is to be accomplished in an orderly manner – Christ first, and then all those who belong to Him at His coming. It is at the conclusion of this final resurrection that the Lord Jesus Christ will give the ultimate gift.

The preparation for this amazing gift began somewhere in eternity past when the first person of the Trinity (God the Father) determined that all things be put under the feet of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ – excluding of course, Himself (1 Corinthians 15:26). The plan is marked out with Christ’s words, “I have come to do your will, O God” (Hebrews 10:9).  This plan is that God the Son would create all things in time and space, including this universe, this small seemingly insignificant planet, and man. It was His voice that declared in the beginning, “Let there be light.”  It was Jesus Christ who formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed life into him.  It was the Christ who commanded that man and woman not sin, but He was also the one who clothed them with the skins of animals after their disobedience, foreshadowing His extended grace.

At God’s appointed time His grace came to us through a tiny embryo attached by the Spirit of God to the womb of a young virgin. Thus was born in Bethlehem a sinless Savior who is Jesus Christ the Lord. Then came the death of Jesus as a criminal on a Roman cross, His burial in a poor man’s tomb, and His glorious resurrection from the dead. The Father’s plan continued with Christ’s ascension into heaven and His being seated at His Father’s right hand.  His mission continues by His receiving all whom the Father has given Him as gifts to fulfill His own purpose of love and grace (John 6:37-39).

Jesus Christ will ultimately reclaim and restore this fallen earth. This repossession will include receiving His bride (His body), rescuing His people Israel from the clutches of the evil one, and reigning over a kingdom on this earth for a designated time. During this kingdom reign, Jesus Christ will put down all opposition to His Father’s plan. These adversaries include all rule, all authority, and all power – both human and angelic.  And lastly, He will destroy the greatest enemy of all – death (Revelation 21: 4). Jesus Christ will then be crowned King of King and Lord of Lords. Then, as the last Adam, He will populate a new heaven and new earth with a civilization created by God to live forever.

When at last the Son’s reign is complete and God’s will is finished, then a final gift will be given.  Note carefully Paul’s words, “then comes the end when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father” (1 Corinthians 15:26). The pronouns in this passage shout to us. For “He (God the Father) has put all things under His (God the Son) feet.” But when He (God the Father) says, “all things are put under Him (God the Son),” it is evident that He (the Father) who put all things under Him (the Son) is the only exception.  God the Father is the only Being not under the Son’s reign. Now when all things are made subject to Him (God the Father), then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.

Wow! Having finished all that His Father sent Him to do, God the Son will present to God the Father the gift of the Father’s completed will. That will be the ultimate gift!  It is at this point that the Son will be restored to the glory that He had with the Father before time began (John 17:5). What a glimpse of God’s magnificent grace!

I would like to take such a step while thinking of God’s perfect creation and the fall of man.  What we learn about the sinfulness of our sin has tremendous bearing on what we eventually believe about His immeasurable grace. Let’s begin, well, at the beginning.  Believers should recognize that the God who created us became our Savior.  The one who saves us, the Lord Jesus Christ, has all the attributes of deity.  He is eternal, co-existent with God, and co-equal with God, just to name a few.  A life-changing, out-of-the-box glimpse of the miraculous God that we serve is the realization that the second person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the very one who created us. The Bible says that all things were made by Him (John 1:3); by Him were all things created (Colossians 1:16); and God made the worlds by Him (Hebrews 1:2).

Since all things means all things, the words, “In the beginning God created” take on a fresh new meaning.  These words imply that the first works of creation recorded in the Bible – the heavens, the earth, the light, the plants and animals – were accomplished with the direct involvement of the Lord Jesus Christ. It follows, then, that He was also involved in the creation of Adam.

Now we are walking freely out of the box. God’s words, “Let Us make man in our image, according to Our likeness” has enormous implications. Catch this glimpse! The “Us” points to our Trinitarian God’s participation in creating man and in particular the involvement of the Creator of all things, the Lord Jesus Christ. It has been assumed by many that when God said, “Let Us make man in our image, according to our likeness,” He was speaking of the invisible likeness of personality. This is because the Bible makes clear that God is spirit, and spirits have no visible characteristics.  While likeness could very well point to unseen spiritual traits, image does make one think of a physical feature. It is possible that the second person of the Trinity appeared in a recognizable preincarnate form in the Old Testament.

Although Jehovah took upon Himself a human body in Bethlehem, that may not have been the first time that He revealed Himself in a recognizable form. Think of the first wedding – when Jehovah walked Eve down the isle to the man, so to speak.  We read that God fashioned Adam’s rib into a woman and “He brought her to the man” (Genesis 2:22). Is it possible that Adam saw a preincarnate form of the Creator? It is hard to imagine a disembodied spirit presenting a woman to a man.

Following their rebellion against God by eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve heard the sound of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8). Adam heard someone walking! It is difficult to conceive that a spirit could make walking noises as he approached. The guilt of the fallen couple impelled them to hide from God among the trees in the garden. How could one hope to hide from a spirit?

The first visible act of God in providing grace is recorded for us. Adam and Eve had compensated for their new feeling of guilt before God by stitching for themselves designer clothes made of fig leaves (Genesis 2:7). Their clothing did not meet with God’s approval, however, so He made tunics of skin, and clothed them (Genesis 3:21). Again, it is difficult to imagine a spirit stitching clothes and then putting them on someone.

What conclusions can we draw from God’s work as a tailor? First it was an obvious contrast to the couple’s tailor work. Second, it was God who initiated the gracious act. The couple was not asked whether or not they desired the clothes.  Finally, it was God who did the work.  He obviously killed animals – and this was long before the Mosaic Law was given. The picture given the reader is the very first foreshadowing of God’s future work in Jesus Christ.

Now back to the subject of Jesus Christ being the Creator of all things.  The Bible says that Jehovah Elohim formed man from the dust of the ground and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being (Genesis 2:7).  There may have been more to this creative act than meets the human eye. God created us as triune beings made of body, soul, and spirit (1Thessalonians 5:23).

God first created the visible part. One can just visualize the Lord Jesus Christ hovering over a large lump of clay like a potter would do and then reaching down and picking up slabs and shaping it. Slowly the clay began to take the shape of man. Then we picture the divine Potter creating the inward, invisible parts, leaning down and exhaling His breath into the nostrils of that clay form. At that moment, Adam awakened as a conscious being.  The lifeless lump of clay received life from God.

Again, out of the box we go! What is the true meaning of the English translation the “breath of life” in Genesis 2:7?  The original text of the Old Testament is the Hebrew language. The Hebrew manuscripts are those writings that are truly God breathed and totally inerrant. While it is true that the translators rendered the phrase “breath of life,” and surely they had reasons to do so, the literal Hebrew says that God breathed into the man the “breath of lives,” plural.

“Breath of lives” in the Hebrew is nephesh chayyim. Chayyim is a plural Hebrew word. In order to make a word plural in English, we simply add and “s” or an “es.” At the risk of sounding exceedingly simple, we could have one pear or two pears; one house or two houses. In order to make a Hebrew word plural, “im” is added. One might think of one cherub (angelic being) or two cherubim (two angelic beings), or one seraph (one angelic being) or two seraphim (two angelic beings).  You get the idea. God actually breathed into Adam the breath of lives.

In contrast, God had earlier created the animals giving to them nephesh chay, the breath of life (Genesis 1:21).  This is the major way that animals differ from humans. True to our triune nature, Jesus Christ created Adam with a body and then breathed into him a soul with an attached human spirit.  The animals do not have this human spirit. The words soul and spirit are often used interchangeably in the scripture, but there is a difference. The writer of Hebrews says that the word of God is living and powerful and sharp enough even to divide the soul from the spirit (Hebrews 4:12). This implies that they are not the same!

Allow me a little speculation. The soul connects human beings to the earth, giving them the ability to know, to feel, and to choose, in the earthly realm. It provides the appetites for securing food, shelter, protection, and the desire to procreate. In man the soul also had the human spirit attached to it. Adam’s soul connected him to the earthy realm, but his human spirit linked him to God.

Before the fall, Adam had ability and the desire to think and to reason accurately, not only about worldly things but also about heavenly things. Said simply, human beings were created to know God. Their living human spirits gave them the ability to appreciate their relationship with God and to choose to continue in it. With this knowledge, Adam understood the reason for God’s creation and in his innocence he knew that he was created to have dominion over the earth.

 After his sin – as God had warned – he died! He did not fall over dead physically, but his human spirit died toward God. He no longer had the ability to use his mind, emotion, or will toward God. As a result of their spiritual death, the fallen couple hid themselves from God. The residue left upon them was still the image of godlikeness, but it was a defective image. Adam and Eve continued with their human appetites in tact and their intelligence – the ability to think and to reason, to feel and to choose in a limited earthy realm – but still far beyond that of the animals. Adam and Eve had become natural, soulish human beings. This is the very nature that this fallen couple passed to all generations of the human race (Romans 5:12). All sinned and died in Adam (1 Corinthians 15:22).

We are all born with Adam’s death image upon us. The fallen race has the desire to worship gods, but they worship gods coming from their own corrupt imagination. Paul wrote that the soulish person “cannot understand the things of God (human ability) neither can he know them (human ability) for they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).  In clothing the first couple with the animal skins, God established a prototype. If we want to know how God saves today it would not be a bad idea to go back to His original pattern.

God must initiate salvation. The spiritually dead can do nothing to help.  He does not clothe us with animal skins as an act of His saving grace, but He does clothe us. He clothes us with His special sacrifice. The fall did not catch God by surprise. He prepared a Lamb before He created the world (1 Peter 1:20). He eventually gave that Lamb to die on a Roman cross for us, and then He raised Him from the dead (2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 4:25).  He lovingly calls us to Himself as a shepherd does his sheep and gives us the free gift of faith to place in His Lamb (John 6:37-39; John 10:28; Ephesians 2:8-9). He then wraps tightly those believing in His Lamb with the covering of the Lamb. Every believer is said to be “in Christ” (Galatians 3:26-28).  This is thinking out of the box.

In my mind, the call of God to preach His word to the world is the highest calling a human being can have. However, it is hard for some to stay the course amid all the possible pitfalls in ministry – the money that does not come in to pay the bills, church leaders that feel that it is their obligation to stand against everything the pastor suggests, disgruntled church members that think it necessary to keep something negative stirred up all the time, not to mention the personal family pressures. I wanted to say, “Fellows, don’t you remember how and why the living God called you to Himself in the first place?”

My mind went back to my own reasons for hanging tough through the years. How had I been motivated to stay the course through it all? That thought always draws me back to the amazing glimpse of grace that I received in 1989 during a morning walk. God used it to change the entire course of my ministry. I was going through a particularly rough time in the congregation that I was leading. I was looking to God for answers and pondering some passages that I had recently studied.

Centuries ago Paul was facing the same opposition for preaching the gospel. He found that he had to defend himself before the very people who should have trusted him totally. I identified with that! Some even accused him of using the gospel to serve his own selfish desires. Quitting was never an option. Paul said that we are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed.

What enabled Paul to persevere in the face of such suffering? He thought back to the day of His own dramatic Damascus Road conversion when he met Jesus Christ face to face. It has always been fascinating to me that God blinded Paul so that he could really “see” for the first time. From that day on, his ministry was to advance the cause of Jesus Christ, not his own. Then he gave one of his famous conclusions marked by the word “therefore.”

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

I am painfully aware that my outward man is perishing. My body is growing older and wearing out! I do not have all the time in the world to finish the purpose that God has set me apart to do.

Paul went further! We are not to lose heart because the spiritual man inside is being renewed day by day. This is a comforting thought! No matter what is going on around us, the Holy Spirit is constantly renewing our minds and is steadily conforming us to the image of Jesus Christ.

What an encouragement! But how is this possible? Paul made this amazing contrast. He said that our momentary light affliction is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. What exactly did Paul mean by a “momentary light affliction.” He tipped his hand in the same book. Read this recap of his life!

“In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness—besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.” (2 Corinthians 11:23b-27)

This is momentary light affliction? Up against that backdrop, my problem with the congregation didn’t appear so bad. Paul said that all that he was going through in this life paled in significance when compared to the eternal weight of glory that awaited him. Seeing Christ face to face far outweighed the effects of an aging body – the suffering, the defeats, all the heartaches in this life.

What Paul said next became the motivation for my life’s ministry. He said that I was to begin looking beyond the things that human eyes can see and begin to peer into God’s unseen world. The things that I see with my physical eyes are destined to pass into oblivion. They are just temporary passing things. The things that I cannot see with my human eyes are eternal things.

My mind raced on to a third passage that I had recently studied. Contrasting human wisdom with God’s wisdom, Paul wrote these incredible words that God etched forever into my mind.

“But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” (1 Corinthians 2:9-13)

God’s wisdom is knowledge that cannot be seen with human eyes or heard with human ears. That sounded familiar! In fact, God’s wisdom is that which has never entered into a human mind before. Incredible! That would mean that this wisdom is not the rehashed human understanding coming from the mind of man.

Paul then wrote something that has become the motivation for the “Glimpses of Grace” ministry and the day by day church ministries that God has led me to. He said that God has revealed these hidden things to us through His Spirit. Hold it! Is this saying what I think it is saying? Is Paul saying that God’s Spirit opens to our human spirits the deep things of God, the hidden wisdom of God? Is he saying that we can know the things that human ears have never heard, nor eyes have ever seen! We can know the things that no human mind has ever thought. That is exactly what he is saying! This is fascinating!

How is this possible? The next line reads, “What man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man, which is in him?” I alone know my own secret thoughts!
Likewise, the Spirit of God alone knows the deep things of God. My mind began to race. “We have received, not the spirit of this world – but the Spirit who is from God!” Why? “In order that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.” The Spirit of God lives in me. He has a purpose for being there. He can teach me the “deep things” of God. We can know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

The final words of the passage “comparing spiritual things with spiritual” actually sent me into another world. The Holy Spirit brings to the mind spiritual thoughts as the words are read. As I study the written words of the Bible, verse by verse and line upon line, God the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of my mind to see and understand the deep, fascinating wisdom of God behind the scene. That is absolutely incredible. I (we) can know the mind of God!

Here’s a catch! These glimpses into God’s unseen world cannot be found by searching for them. God opens them to us at His pleasure as we study the Bible word after word and line by line year after year. These “glimpses” are not unique to only a few special Christians. They are open to all. Since we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us, we meet the criteria to receive them. There are not different glimpses for different people. Every believer receives the very same truth.

God has not taught me everything that I have desired to know about His plan, but He has been pleased to give me small insights, small “glimpses.” These insights placed together began to etch a beautiful portrait in my mind. God has opened to me His incredible salvation plan, the true identity of Jesus Christ, the immense value of His death and resurrection, and the nature and purpose of the Holy Spirit, to name but a few.  These are truly God’s glimpses of grace.

My wife and I began our spiritual journey together by heading to Winona Lake, Indiana, to attend Grace Theological Seminary. While there, God used me to lead a small youth group Bible study.  A very quiet young guy became a regular. This fellow would also come to my home to visit from time to time and while there he would say very little. One day he announced to us that God was calling him into missions. I have to admit – I was shocked! I had the overwhelming inclination to respond, “You, in missions? No way!” Through a series of events, God propelled this young man into becoming a life long missionary to an indigenous tribe in Panama. God has used him to translate the Bible into the tribal language of this people, thus giving them access to the word of God for the first time. Amazing! It was his testimony – along with many to follow – that taught me that my ideas about those whom God chooses to use in His service are perilously flawed.

One would think that the living God would choose to use people who have superior intelligence. After all, it seems reasonable that smart people get things done, right? Highly educated, intellectual people make the better Bible scholars, the better preachers, the better missionaries, the better all-round servants of God, right? And one would think that God would choose the strong, macho-type to carry His message of the gospel. After all, physically powerful people have more staying power and are better able to weather bad situations, right? And one would think that God would be pleased to use those of noble birth, those with the right family tree.  After all, these folks have the most political influence, and they usually have the clout to get things done, right? Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! 

The way God thinks is just the opposite from the way this fallen world thinks. In this world’s view, strength is strength, weakness is weakness, and intelligence is intelligence. At the top of this world’s list of desired qualities are physical attractiveness, intelligence, physical strength, wealth, and talent. In God’s realm, the seemingly strongest things are the weakest, and the seemingly wisest things are the most foolish. In His plan, the physically strong are often defeated by the weak. Those whom the world considers foolish are used for His glory far more often than the wise. The world’s nobodies are the very ones whom God chooses to use as His some-bodies.

A simple, uncomplicated, uneducated, untalented, believer who trusts Jesus Christ as Savior and who faithfully and humbly follows Him throughout his life is far wiser than the brilliant scholar who seems to take delight in mocking the Bible. The believer, through simple childlike faith, has a personal relationship with the living God and knows what it means to be forgiven and to experience real love. He knows the actual meaning of life and has a vibrant hope for life beyond the grave.

God has placed eyes within the soul, giving the Christian the astounding ability to gaze into the magnificence of His word and the capacity to catch glimpses of His infinite wisdom. The unbelieving scholar, on the other hand, knows nothing beyond his own human thinking and his own physical experience. He sees nothing beyond this life and lives without knowing real love and hope for eternity.

Early in my Christian life I was taught that if I could just lead a great athlete or a popular entertainer to Christ, they could have a tremendous positive impact for Christ. Our Lord did not think like this when He chose His disciples. Few of them would measure up to any of this world’s standards for greatness. In fact, according to God, the greatest man who ever lived, apart from Jesus Christ, was John the Baptist. Think of it!

This man was completely out step with the main stream. He had no money, no official education, no powerful political position, no social status, and certainly no impressive appearance. To put it bluntly, John was weird! He was apparently not much of a looker. He came out of the wilderness wearing a prophet’s cloak, had long hair, and ate a strange diet of locusts and honey. He was a preacher! Yet Jesus said that no one born of woman was any greater than John the Baptist. That twists our human thinking, doesn’t it! In fact, Jesus prayed a prayer of praise to His Father thanking Him that He actually hid spiritual truths from the wise and intelligent and in contrast, He revealed them unto babies.

What I have come to understand through all my years of ministry is that human weakness and frailty are the very traits that God often chooses to use to express His glory. God delights in confounding this world’s attitudes. His amazing power comes to His children when their physical strength is spent. His wisdom is revealed through them when their human intelligence fails.  He opens doors for them for ministry when all doors seem to be shut. He appears to relish in frustrating those who are arrogant and proud by subjecting them to His ministry through the weak and humble.

Why is this true? It is really not complicated. God hates pride. Pride was the reason for the fall of Satan and the reason for the fall of the human race. Human pride remains the mainspring behind all rebellion against God. Our craving for praise, beauty, wisdom, power and material possessions are energized by our pride. In a stark contrast, Jesus said that those who will be the greatest in His kingdom are to possess a simple, childlike faith. 

Childlike trust in God’s ability is the main ingredient for success in the Christian life. Not one of us who know Jesus Christ can stand before God and claim that we had even a small part in our salvation. Not one of us will be able to claim one small smidgen of glory for ourselves in anything that has been accomplished for God through us. All of the glory and all of the praise will go to Him alone. God will have it no other way.  As the vapor of life continues to drift into eternity, God continues to faithfully use those whom the world thinks are foolish, weak, and zeroes.

One of the most fascinating Bible truths is captured by the little phrase “in Christ.” I suppose one could spend a lifetime in study of just this tiny two-word expression and never really begin to plumb its depths. Though we now look through that dim glass, the Bible gives us some small insights into its truth. When the Holy Spirit immerses us into Jesus Christ, incredibly but understandably His qualities become ours. In order to appreciate this character exchange, we must realize some downsides of our position in the first Adam. In Adam all die! Short line but loaded with truth.

We come into this world spiritually connected to the first man’s death. In fact, we are laden with his character traits. We are born physically fallen and spiritually separated from God. But the moment faith is placed into Jesus Christ, we change locations. We are taken out of the old Adam and placed into the new Adam. That’s a remarkable exchange! As a result we are made alive in Christ.

How is this new life received? John said in his gospel that God gives us eternal life and this life is in His Son. The moment we are placed into Him, His life becomes our life. What amazing truth! What kind of life does Christ have? Eternal life,of course! This is why we have eternal life. We have His life because we are in Him.

We also come into this world strapped with the weight of Adam’s spiritual baggage – sin. His sin is attached to us at birth. This means that before we commit our first act of sin, we are already spiritually bankrupt before God. In order to live forever with God, we must have righteousness equal to His. Who has the righteousness we need? There is only one source, God’s sinless Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, when we believe in Christ, we are positioned in Him. At the moment we are found to be in Him, His righteousness is placed on our account. In fact, God made Christ – who knew no sin – to become sin for us. Why? So that being in Him we might have His perfect righteousness credited to our fallen bank account. The necessary righteousness – His righteousness – comes to us the very moment that we are placed in union with Him.

Finally, having been born in Adam, we come into this fallen world as children of the devil. That doesn’t sound very comforting, but it is true nonetheless. We were painfully referred to as the children of darkness living under the power of darkness. What made it even worse is that we were spiritually blind to this fact with no hope of ever finding our way to light. God opened our blind eyes to spiritually understand the gospel and He gave us the faith to place in Jesus Christ. At that very moment the light came in and we were given eyes to see it. We became children of the living God. But how? It is important to recognize that Jesus Christ is the very Son of the living God. What does His identity have to do with us? When we are placed into Him, His identity becomes our identity. We become connected to His heavenly Father just as He is connected to Him. We become children of God. We are all sons of God through faith in Christ. When we are baptized into Christ, we put Him on like a garment. Since we are in Him, His relationship is transferred to us. By being in Him, His life becomes our life, His righteousness is placed on our spiritual account and His relationship to the Father becomes ours. My, what riches we have in Christ!

This truth is evidently what motivated Paul to over and over refer to Christians as those who are – you guessed it – in Christ. We also receive a new heavenly citizenship, the promise of a new body just like our Lord’s and we are some day to reign with Him. We are predestined to be conformed to His very image. It’s simply like father, like son. Wow! God you’re a genius!

“Therefore, if any one be in Christ he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) 

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)

I have always been fascinated with God’s biological wonder of “metamorphosis.” The little caterpillar crawls out onto a small branch, ties itself to a stem and spins itself within a cocoon. Over a period of time, God transforms that worm into a beautiful butterfly. I recently read an article by an electronic design expert on the navigational expertise of the Monarch butterfly. While reading, I was once again caught up in the genius of the Great Architect’s design. The navigational circuits used to guide men to the moon are phenomenal.  However, they are nothing compared to the navigation technology found in the tiny brain of the Monarch butterfly. Some Monarchs leave their cocoon and fly over 3000 miles from Nova Scotia, Canada, to Mexico. Their destination is not only the same general area from which their parents came but often to the same tree. Amazing! These creatures can be blown hundreds of miles off course, only to recover and still find their path.

Before the butterfly is ready to leave the cocoon, however, a struggle must occur. The new creature must battle to free itself from its former home. This struggle plays a major role in the butterfly’s ability to fly. Because of this effort, its wings become strong enough to carry the butterfly to its destination. It has to build up its never-before-used strength in order to navigate to its new world. After the struggle, the butterfly pulls itself free from its former home and takes flight. It leaves its small stem far behind and soars to new heights and a new place.  What a fascinating miracle!

This is a beautiful illustration of what happens to a sinner who is immersed into a permanent union with Jesus Christ. At the very moment that faith is placed in Christ – unlike the butterfly – the believer becomes a new creation in Christ instantly. Old things are passed away and all things become new.  The old life – attached to Adam the first – passes away. The new life of the last Adam takes root. The old temporary life of the first Adam is replaced by the eternal life of the Son of God.  The old relationship as children of Satan is exchanged for the Son’s relationship as children of the living God. An old citizenship that connected us to this fallen world becomes the Son’s citizenship that binds us to His new world.  The old body that is growing old and destined to perish and die will someday be replaced with a new body like His glorious body. The old fate of eternal separation from God in hell is replaced with the knowledge that we are destined to soar in the clouds meeting Jesus Christ in the air and are to share in His future glory. Wow! What amazing truth!

Our new identity involves a struggle.  Like the butterfly, the struggle does not work against us, but it strengthens our spiritual muscles. The struggle begins with an ongoing battle with our sinful nature that is connected to our limited physical bodies – our cocoon. This temporary weight with its constant pressure on us to sin against God becomes an ongoing reminder from whence we have come.  The struggle intensifies with the continuous attacks upon us coming from the master of illusion, the devil.  He lives in order to ensnare God’s butterflies in his nets of worldly pleasure. He masterfully uses the lure of his world system to continuously bombard us with the desire to drink from the poisonous nectar of its beautiful flowers.

God has not left us defenseless in the spiritual battles in our lives. He has given us the gift of His Holy Spirit to live within us and give us the spiritual muscle to overcome in the daily struggle with our flesh.  God has given us the gift of His Word, His manual to help guide us through the maze of Satan’s minefield infested world system. And, finally, He has given us the power of prevailing prayer to negate the power of the evil one’s vicious attacks.  Our key to victory in this life is to keep our eyes on the prize of our heavenly goal and off the pain of the earthly entanglements.

Like the majestic Monarch butterfly, one day we will become free from our cocoon and we will fly. Our destination is programmed to be the third heaven, far above this created universe, right into the very presence of God.  Our future heavenly home is sure and steadfast. The same creator who guides the butterfly to its final destination will guide us to ours. What an amazing glimpse into God’s invisible domain.

The plot thickens when we find that Jesus Christ Himself is baptized. Then we are
absolutely swept away by the knowledge that Christians are connected to Jesus
Christ by baptism. What? Now, hold on a minute. The word has been overwhelmingly associated with water so much so that when the word baptism is mentioned, water seems to automatically jump into the mind. But not so fast! In my opinion, the most important baptism has nothing whatever to do with water.

God didn’t just pluck baptism out of the air with no explanation in order to clarify the most important truth in the Bible. Baptism was not unfamiliar to people in the ancient world. Baptism was quite common. It was linked with dying cloth. If a person wanted to change the color of a garment, he would take it to the baptizer man.  This “baptist” was not a preacher, but one who operated what is known in the west as a laundry. The baptizer would take a tunic, for example, and immerse it into a vat of dye.  The identity of the tunic would be changed from one color to another.

The Romans practiced another form of baptism.  A Roman soldier would have a sword made by a metal smith. He would then go through a ceremony to commission the new weapon for the purpose for which it was made. The tip of the sword would be ceremonially dipped into a vat of pig’s blood. This ritual symbolically identified the sword as an instrument of death. The sword, unlike the cloth, was not really
changed.

These illustrations represent the two types of baptism. There are both symbolic baptisms and real baptisms. Baptism in the New Testament means “immersion for the purpose of identification.” There are at least six baptisms mentioned in the New Testament. I want to zero in for a moment on the baptism of the Spirit.  It is this baptism that connects the believer to Jesus Christ.

This incredible immersion has everything to do with a meeting that Jesus had with His disciples. He told them that He was going away and that they would not be able to follow. He promised that He would prepare a place for them and return and get them.  In the meantime, He told them that He was not going to leave them alone. He was going to substitute a helper – the Holy Spirit – who would come to them. He then uttered an unusual prophecy.  He said that on that day they would know that He was in His Father, and they would be in Him and He would be in them.

What strange words these are. Christ’s disciples would know that He was in His Father? What could that mean? And He would be in them and they would be in Him? How would that be possible? This sets up an incredible glimpse into God’s invisible realm.

Let’s determine first what our Lord meant by I in my Father.  Soon after speaking
these words Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, and was raised from the dead.  He appeared personally to many, demonstrating clearly that He had come back from the dead.  Jesus met one last time with the disciples, telling them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait there for the coming of the promised Spirit. After giving parting instructions from Mount Olivet, He was lifted into the air, departing planet Earth. What a sight that must have been!

We can map perfectly His destination. He went into heaven and was seated upon the throne at His Father’s right hand. The “I in my Father” part of His prophecy had then been fulfilled. The “you in Me and I in you” parts were yet to come. The “you in Me” part of this strange prophecy has everything to do with Spirit baptism.

On the day of Pentecost the Father sent the Holy Spirit. His first ministry was to begin to baptize believers into the body of Jesus Christ.  Like the cloth immersed into the dye,
believers baptized into Christ are changed. Though unseen by human eyes, the very instant someone hears the gospel, believes the gospel, and trusts in Jesus Christ, an amazing phenomenon happens. The Holy Spirit removes them from their connection with Adam the first and immerses them into the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is at that moment that they become forever connected to Him.  His life becomes their life. His righteousness is placed on their account. His relationship to God the Father becomes their relationship, and His destiny becomes their destiny. Wow! This is what Christ meant by His words, “you in Me.” 

Mrs. Polson, my seventh grade English teacher, made us memorize the being verbs: I am, you are, she is, they were, etc.  She emphasized the importance of these little words, and I am so glad she did. Because of the meaning of the being verb “are,” the small Bible line that reads, “Now you are the body of Christ” makes perfect sense. We become a part of His body the moment we are baptized into Him. We are immediately and forever changed. How important is this truth? It becomes the very basis for our identity as Christians.  We are those very special people of God who are at this very moment in Christ. What a wonderful Savior we have!

This is nothing compared to the power of the spiritual seed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It has the amazing supernatural energy to completely transform a life. The gospel when guided by the Holy Spirit is the only force on earth capable of infusing the spiritual life of God into those who are spiritually dead.  

This is why Paul was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. He realized that it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. The success of his ministry did not depend upon his human ability to present the gospel and make it work, but upon the intrinsic divine dynamite of the gospel itself.  Paul did not, nor could he, use human gimmicks to bring about conversion. God uses the gospel to make it happen.

It was in Bible college that I first began to witness this power.  The entire sophomore class went on a witnessing trip to the beach. The point of the outing was to share the good news of the identity and work of Jesus Christ with as many people as possible. I was teamed with a small girl named Nelda Salee.  Shortly after hitting the beach, she walked up to a stately-looking tanned fellow, introduced herself, and began to share the gospel. That was when things became a little tense. He responded with a barrage of intellectual sounding words denying everything she had said. He first attacked the credibility of the identity of Christ and His resurrection.

Her response was striking. She calmly said, “I don’t know about all that, but I do know that if you will believe in Christ, He will give you eternal life.”

He came back with another round of verbal assaults attempting to discredit the Bible and what he called her religious beliefs. She replied, “I don’t know about all that, but I do know that if you will trust Jesus Christ to save you, He will.” This went back and forth for some time. I remember feeling the overwhelming urge to jump into the conversation and give this guy a piece of my mind, but God held me back.

I watched in amazement as something that I never forgot began to happen. This man grew quiet and stopped his verbal abuse. He listened intently to what Nelda was saying. He became strangely calm and right there on the sand he fell to his knees and acknowledged that he wanted to accept Jesus Christ as his Savior. Why? The powerful seed of the gospel is the dynamite of God.  Does this mean that everyone will respond positively to it? Not at all! The Spirit of God must make it happen. But the power of God is unleashed when the message is proclaimed. Its success does not depend upon the skill of the messenger.

The gospel has the power to break through every barrier, every objection, every human argument, and all the rationalization that is thrown against it.  Like the tree and the millstone, it cuts right through them all and simply does its work. The simplicity of the gospel insults both man’s intelligence and his pride.  It alone can give eternal life. 

Several years ago I had the opportunity to go to Vijayawada, India, to teach the Bible to Indian pastors. Before that time,  no protestant missionaries were allowed into India. Yet hundreds of evangelical pastors attended our Bible sessions. So where did the local churches come from that were represented by all these preachers?  I was told that Bibles written in the language of the people had been smuggled into India and distributed throughout the land.  Those who had come to faith in Jesus Christ did so through reading the Word of God. Churches sprang up and grew based solely on the ministry of God’s living seed. They all practiced believer’s baptism and the Lord’s Supper. What an amazing glimpse!

Sometimes this amazing seed lays dormant, maybe wrapped in an old dust-laden Bible tucked away on some bookshelf or in a small crevice in a grass house hidden in a remote jungle. When God is ready, the Holy Spirit guides the seed to a sinful mind and germinates it. The result is the birth of a new heavenly life.

One of the recipients of this amazing seed was considered to be the most dangerous man in all of India. His gang attacked, plundered, and terrified many of the villages of a certain area. He was wanted, dead or alive. While ransacking through a room in one of the small villages that he was holed up in, he found a little black book. At first he started to throw it away, but he noticed that the pages were very thin, just the right thickness to roll his cigarettes.

Each evening after a meal, Ramad would relax with a smoke. He would take out a page in the little book, fold it, and roll it around his tobacco. One evening while rolling up the paper, he noticed that the writing was in his own language. So he began to read the words on the page before he rolled it to smoke.

One day he knelt down and trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior. The small black book was the gospel of John. Ramad was born again from the living seed of the word of God. He gave himself up to the authorities. They quickly tried him and sent him to prison. The prison became his personal mission field. The Holy Spirit had moved the amazing seed of the gospel into that prison through this bandit turned prisoner of Christ. The gospel is still transforming lives today.

The message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is not contained in the Muslim Koran, the Hindu Veda, the writings of Buddha, the book of Mormon, or any other so-called “holy book.” The Bible alone contains God’s powerful seed.

From the very beginning, God established His unchanging blueprint of biological reproduction. God commanded that all living things reproduce after their kind, both plants and animals. This reproductive cycle has held its pattern since the dawn of creation. The phrase according to its kind is repeated over and over for an incredible purpose. Apple seeds produce apples; peach seeds produce peaches; corn seed . . .  you get the idea.

God created human beings and placed them upon the earth. Like the plants and the animals, He told them to be fruitful and to multiply and fill the earth.  He provided all that they would need to thrive. There was only one thing God told them not to do. To disobey Him at this one point would bring death. We know what happened.  The first couple disobeyed, and they died. Their human spirits – their connection to God – died. They became natural, sinful people separated from God. Sin and death had entered the world.

In obedience to God, after the fall Adam and Eve began to reproduce. True to God’s regeneration formula, they reproduced after their kind.  They were now sinners, and they populated a world of sinners. Death spread to all because Adam’s seed had become corrupt seed. God connected the entire biological world to Adam’s fall. Paul said that the entire creation was subjected to futility and locked in the bondage of corruption. All biological seed is stained with death. Regardless of whether we get rain or not, Papa’s garden is going to die. Why? Corrupt seed!

But wait! Amazingly God allowed at least two kinds of seed to slip past the corruption of the fall. These two seeds are the very reason that we become Christians. The first was the miracle seed of the Holy Spirit planted in the womb of the virgin Mary. This seed produced the Lord Jesus Christ.  Without a human biological father, He was born without the sin of Adam.  Thus, He who knew no sin became the sinless Lamb of God who died for us.

The other seed is the living seed of the Word of God. The words of the Bible are living and powerful spiritual seeds. God, You are a genius! This miracle seed is being used to spawn a new generation of people – spiritual people. The apostle Peter said that “we have been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:23-25).

Born again? Yes. Christians experience a second birth – a spiritual birth that connects us to God. An incorruptible seed generates this birth. Peter contrasted all human life that comes from corrupt fallen seed with grass. Like grass, we are all destined to die. And all of our human achievements, no matter how impressive, are fleeting. All of man’s glory – that which sheds light upon man: pride, wisdom, intelligence, beauty, talent, wealth – is temporary.  It appears briefly like a mist, and then it is quickly gone. In contrast, the spiritual seed of the word of God is eternal seed. The only thing that lasts through this fallen world must come from this seed.

Peter stressed that the gospel of God’s grace is that eternal seed. When physical seed, like our corn seed, is placed into the ground and is germinated, new life begins. Likewise, when the gospel is planted into the soil of the fallen human mind and germinated by the Holy Spirit, new life is generated. But this life, unlike the fallen corn seed, will never die because seed that will never die produces it. Amazing, absolutely amazing!  God, what a genius you are!

Compare that tree with, say, an apple tree, a pear tree, or a peach tree. At a certain time of year they have ornaments hanging on them also – plump apples, succulent pears, and juicy peaches. There is a world of difference between these ornaments and those that hung from our dead Christmas tree. These trees produce living fruit because of God’s command that fruit comes from life.

The entire human race – cut down by Adam’s fall – is physically alive but spiritually dead (Romans 5:12). Every human being has the capacity to perform good works. These deeds give the appearance of life, much like the ornaments hanging on our Christmas tree. The Bible refers to these ornaments as “dead works” (Hebrews 6:1). They are dead works because they are works produced by death. These works are often acts of human good performed by the masses generation after generation. They include, among others, giving to the poor, feeding the hungry, taking care of the homeless, generosity in the wake of personal and national disaster – all benevolent acts of human kindness.  As a result of the Fall, these good works – in the eyes of God – are not good works at all.  God views these works as self-righteous acts that will fade like a leaf (Isaiah 64:6).

Are these works wrong? Not at all! In everyone’s eyes they alleviate much human suffering and pain. They are often used by the Holy Spirit to convict the lost of their sin and their need of a Savior.  They provide a bridge for the gospel when the gospel is presented.  But they are still in the category of human good. Compared to God’s divine good, human good is not good at all.

What does the Bible say about these works of righteousness? It says that human works cannot bring to life the spiritually dead. Paul said that we are not saved by works of righteousness that we have done but by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5).  God will judge all work, both good and bad (Ecclesiastes 12:14).  Human good – far from saving anyone – will be the basis for judgment of unbelievers at the Great White Throne (Revelation 20:12). All human good of every person will one day be measured against God’s absolute standard of righteousness. The entire human race falls  far short of God’s requirement of perfection. God by grace gives to those who trust in His Son the righteousness necessary for life (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Compare human good with God’s divine good. Divine good produces living fruit that comes from the life within.  Jesus said that we (Christians) are to glorify God – shed light upon Him – by producing this living fruit. He spoke of Himself as a living vine and believers as branches that grow from Him. Unless the branch abides in the vine, it cannot produce living fruit (John 15:1-5).  The living fruit comes from the vine (the Lord Jesus Christ) through the branches (those who have been made alive by faith in Christ) to the world. This is spiritually speaking, of course.

Christians must remain in fellowship with Jesus Christ in order to produce God’s living fruit. Paul called living spiritual fruit the “fruit of the spirit.” He said that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. There is no law that prohibits that kind of fruit (Galatians 5:22-23). There is human love and divine love, human joy and divine joy, human peace and God’s peace, etc. We are to walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:10).  Works that come from believers in fellowship with Jesus Christ are in the living fruit category. Finally, Paul wrote, “Being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:11). What kind of fruit are you producing?