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As we come to look in the word, I remind my heart and I remind you of the indispensable principle, and that is total reliance on God’s Holy Spirit; He’s the One that gave us the Bible, and He’s the One that illumines our heart so we can see Jesus when we read the Bible. So, we want to commit our time to Him. Before we do, I want to share a passage. This last Sunday when we were at fellowship, brother Lex was sharing, and one of the things he did was he compared the verse in Genesis 3:8 where the Lord was walking in the cool of the day, to that same expression in Song of Solomon where it says, Song 2:17, “He pastures His flock among the lilies until the cool of the day,” but it adds, “when the shadows flee away.” His message was on sweet fellowship with the bridegroom of our soul. It was a wonderful message. That expression, “…until the shadows flee away,” stayed in my heart, and I sought the Lord about it. It just so happens, and we’ll see as we go through this lesson, we’re going to be discussing the difference between the shadow and the substance. It’s a glorious thing when the shadows flee away and we just have the substance. Let’s commit our time to the Lord.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the privilege that we have to gather together, and we thank You for the indwelling Holy Spirit that is in our hearts whose ministry and pleasure it is to continually unveil the Lord Jesus to us in a living and fresh way. We commit our meditations unto You and pray that you would protect Your children from anything I might say that is not from You, and that You would burn into our hearts everything that is from You. We thank You we can trust You for this, and we commit this session to You in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
We welcome you again to our meditation on the Lord Jesus. We gather to see Jesus. Yes, we use the Bible, but we’re not here to know the Bible; the Bible is God’s gift, so that we might know the Lord. We’re here to see the Lord.
We’re in the gospel of John and, in particular, one day before the cross. We’re in chapter 13-17, those five wonderful chapters. We’ve been meditating on that. As far as His ministry to the world, His concern, His teaching, His parables and His healing, and so on, that’s closed. He’s done with that, and now He turns to His own. Just hours before the cross, He unburdens His heart to His own, as if He’s saying, “Before I die, rather, before I go to My Father God in heaven, there are certain things that I really want you to know. You can’t bear them all, but I’m going to tell you certain things.” Among those certain things, He had a focus on what I call the exchanged life. That’s just a title of man; that’s not in the Bible. But for the sake of simplicity, I think that describes the Christian life, the life that God always intended man to live. Right from the beginning, He expected Adam and all of his seed to live this kind of a life. We know the record, that Adam sinned, and Adam failed to live this life, this abundant life, this Christian life, this exchanged life. Romans 5:12, “Just as through one man sin entered the world, death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned.” So, through Adam we all miss how God intends us to live.
The good news is that God sent another Adam. 1 Corinthians 15:45, “It’s also written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam, became a life-giving Spirit.” Jesus is not the second Adam. Second implies third, and third implies fourth. He’s the last Adam; there’s no other Adam. There are only two men who ever lived as God intended man to live. The first was Adam, and he blew it, and then the last Adam, our Lord Jesus. He came to earth as a man, and He lived for 33 ½ years on the earth the exchanged life; He lived the Christian life; He lived as God created man to live. He demonstrated what Adam failed to have. So, we have that in His life. John 14:10, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative; the Father abiding in Me does the works. Believe Me; I’m in the Father, and the Father is in Me.” When Jesus lived as a man, there were two beings, His humanity and the Father who was living inside of Him, and He said, “I deliberately never initiate. I did not trust My humanity. I committed My humanity to the indwelling Father who lived inside of Me.” That’s how God created man to live, to depend on the indwelling Life of God Himself.
He’s now explaining this Life to His disciples because He said, “I lived it, I demonstrated it, I showed it to you, and now I want you to live that kind of a life. As the Father lived in Jesus, He sent the Holy Spirit now to live in us, so that we could live the exchanged life, so we could trust Him. As He denied Himself and trusted the Father, that’s how we’re to live. John 20:21&22, “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you,’” this is after He rose from the dead, “’As the Father sent Me.’ to live that kind of life, ‘So I, also, send you.’ And when He said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” That’s the enablement. How am I going to live that exchanged life? The answer is that it’s by the Life of God. So, you have two lives; you have your life, and you have His Life. You have a choice; you can live by your life, or you can exchange that and live by His Life. I think it’s a no-brainer. I choose to let Him live.
Let me give you the heart of what we’ve called the exchanged life. In His explanation of the exchanged life, in these five chapters, His final hours, He drops principles. If we are really living the exchanged life, this is what it will look like. So, we can take those truths and say, “Does my life look like that?” If it does, I’m living the exchanged life. We’re going through those five principles. I’m sure, because I know my heart, there are many more than five principles. I’m sure I didn’t get everything, and you probably have a lot more, and you can glean that. We’re looking at these five principles, and one observation I made, and I’ll repeat, every one of those five principles surprised me because it’s radical. It goes against the grain. Human wisdom would never figure out this Christian life. No matter how long you try or how educated you are, you would never conclude this. Every principle goes against the natural heart and against human wisdom, and even what man calls logic; it goes against that.
In our discussion we have come to the third radical principle. I’ll just mention the first two and then mention the third and then we’ll continue developing the third. The first radical principle illustrated by the foot washing, and you can see how it went against the grain, is that the Lord Jesus said, “If you are going to have the exchanged life you must allow Me to wear the slave’s apron; I will serve you. I did not save you so you could serve Me; I saved you so that I could serve you and minister to you.” The Son of Man did not come to be ministered unto, but to minister. It’s not possible to serve the Lord until He refreshes us, and then our ministry is just manifesting His Life, the Life that He shows us. That’s radical because Peter resisted. He said, “That’s not right; You’re God; You’re the Creator of heaven and earth. What are You doing washing my feet? I’ll wash Your feet. I’ll serve You; I’ll minister to You. It’s logical.” He said, “No, it’s got to be the other way around.” Listen to John 13:8, “If I do not wash you,” that’s the illustration, “and if I don’t minister to you, and you don’t let Me refresh you, if you don’t let Me serve you, if you don’t let Me unfold My life to you, you have no part in Me; we can’t have intimate fellowship, relationship, union, and communion. That’s how dependent that principle is, and it goes against the grain. Very few, I think, are willing to say, “The Lord saved me, not so I serve Him but so that I can let Him serve me.” That goes against the grain.
The second radical principle was Jesus’ revelation that He is the vine, and we are the branches. In verse 5, “I am the vine, and you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him bears much fruit. Apart from Me you can do nothing.” That idea that mankind, apart from union with Christ, can do nothing acceptable to God…. And someone says, “Well, can’t I love my wife, and can’t I love my kid, can’t I serve, can’t I help people and provide rent and visit the sick and the orphan and the prisoner, and so on? Doesn’t that count?” God said, “Not if it’s not a fruit of the Holy Spirit. If you do that, you can do no good apart from union with Christ.” That’s radical because somebody says, “Don’t tell me that my self-denial and my visiting the sick means nothing.” It means nothing unless it’s part of union; that’s radical.
Then the third radical is this whole thing on sanctification. That’s where we’ve been and that’s what we’re discussing now, and that’s what in the future several lessons we’ll still be on because it’s such a wonderful, wonderful part of the exchanged life. The radical part is the belief, and this is taught in a lot of places, that Jesus came into my life in order to change me. That is not true. You will never be changed. You will be but that change is coming, “We shall all be changed when we see Him in the new body in the resurrection; that change is coming.” But flesh is flesh and flesh will always be flesh and it will never be changed.
I’ve known the Lord since 1958; sixty-seven years, that’s a long time! You would think that sixty-seven years knowing the Lord, you ought to be further down the road in your walk with the Lord than you are right now. What in the world went wrong? I’ll tell you what went wrong. A lot of the sixty-seven years I was working my head off trying to serve the Lord, and I was wearing myself out, and I was getting burned out, and I thought that something depended on me, and I wanted to be better today than I was yesterday, and better this week than last week, and better this month than last month, and this year than last year, and nothing changed, and nothing will ever change. The sanctification does not have to do with God changing me. It has to do with God replacing me, God living in my place instead of me, that I am dead and Christ lives in me. Nevertheless, I live, of course, yet not I but Christ lives in me. It’s that radical look at sanctification that I will not change, and I will not become better, that is the radical part, but that I can live an exchanged life and live a life of sanctification, that is the good news, but how? That’s what we’re discussing. How can I live a sanctified life if He’s not changing me? That’s what we’re discussing. That old life needs to be crucified and taken away. We’ve begun our discussion on that.
Here’s where we left off last time. Let me just mention that and then suggest where we’re moving. Last time I showed you, whether you are talking about justification or sanctification or glorification, man makes those divisions, but it’s all one salvation, and it was all accomplished at the cross. I was completely justified when Jesus died; I was completely sanctified when Jesus died; I was completely glorified when Jesus died. Now, a lot of that needs to be worked out historically, and we’re going to do that. I showed you what justification is as it’s related to sanctification. Justification is instantaneous, and when our Lord Jesus died on the cross, Romans 5:1, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” All at once it was done; I am saved, I’m forgiven, my sins are gone, I’m not going to hell, my name is written in heaven, I have a new family, the Holy Spirit has come into my life, and it’s all done. When He said, “It is finished,” on the cross, it was all finished at that time. Jesus Christ on the cross made salvation objectively true; it’s all true.
Now, sanctification is when the Holy Spirit comes into our life to take what Jesus made objectively true, and He makes it objectively real. So, it’s progressive; it’s not all at once, even though in God’s eyes it’s done, but we experience it progressively. When we ended up, I was showing you why sanctification is progressing. 2 Corinthians 3:17&18, “Now the Lord is the Spirit; where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with an unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” In other words, Jesus knew the Father perfectly; He didn’t have to have progressive sanctification. That depends on your knowledge of the Lord. We don’t know Jesus as perfectly as Jesus knew God, His Father. We know Jesus little by little. We come to the word, and He unveils Christ, and then we’re transformed into that image. We’ll touch on that a little later; we’re transformed into that image, and we see Him again, and we’re more like Him. When we see Him, we become like Him. Sanctification is progressive because the knowledge of Jesus is progressive. The more we see Jesus and become like Him, the more our lives will be sanctified lives. That’s what we were looking at last week, and I ended by saying that here’s where we still need to go; we need to see sanctification as it’s related to the Law of God, and we need to see sanctification as it’s related to the grace of God, we need to see sanctification as it’s related to the word of God, we need to see sanctification as it’s related to faith, and that’s why we’re spending some much time on this one radical principle, because once you see sanctification, you have taken a giant step towards understanding the exchanged life, and that’s why we’re spending more time here.
Let me remind my heart again and yours, and we touched on it a little bit, but the standard, sanctification, what does it mean? People get the idea, “Well, if I’m consecrated to the Lord, that’s sanctification; if I’m totally surrendered to the Lord, that’s sanctification; if I don’t live for self, that’s sanctification; if I resist sin and the enemy’s temptation and even ask God to help me to resist sin, and I deny myself, that’s sanctification. Let’s look at what God calls sanctification. We’ve got to see the standard before we see how to live it.
I mentioned this last time but let me develop it now. 1 Peter 1:16, “Because it is written, ‘You shall be holy because I am holy.’” Same thought in Leviticus 20:26, “Thus, you are to be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy. I set you apart from the peoples to be Mine.” Let me say it this way to begin, that sanctification is based on the character of God, “Be holy as I am holy.” Matthew 5:48, Jesus ended one of His great messages, “Therefore, you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” How is that working out for you? That’s the standard, perfection, be holy as God is holy. In Isaiah 6 we read about the angels of God, the seraphim. They stood above Him, each having six wings with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, with two he flew and called out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is filled with His glory.” The highest angels in the sky take two of their wings and cover their eyes before this holy God. How holy is God? How perfect is God?
Usually, when we think of holiness, we just think of, “We’re going to obey the commandments, and we’re not going to murder, and we’re not going to commit adultery.” Listen to Proverbs 16:11, “A just balance in scales belong to the Lord; all the weights in the bag are His concern.” Even the thumb on the scale, you have fallen short of God’s glory. The cat in the bag (I don’t know if you’re familiar with the cat in the bag), God is perfect and He’s holy. Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law and prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfil. Truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth passes away, not the smallest letter or stroke,” KJV says, “..not a jot or tittle…, “shall pass away from the Law until all is accomplished.” A jot in the Greek is like our dot over the “i”; that’s how small it is, and a tittle is even smaller. Some people write the number seven, and they put a little slash; that’s a tittle, that little mark. He said, “It is so perfect, My word, every dot over every ‘i’ and every tittle will be fulfilled, and I’ve come to fulfill that.” The Pharisees were meticulous in trying to keep the law. Of course, they only did it externally; they didn’t get the Spirit. Listen to Matthew 5:20, “I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses the scribes and pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” It goes beyond; that’s how perfect it is. Of course, they missed it because it was all external.
The holy God spoke His Law. His Law is His will, and His will is as perfect as God. If God said, “It’s perfect, His will is perfect.” If you want to understand sanctification you need to apply it to the standard, and the standard is that He requires spotless adherence to His utmost demands, to His character. One simple defect in your own life, or if it’s not everything, perfection is what He demands. We have such a tendency to combine the idea God has commanded, and we usually confine that to the letter, “God said to do this, and we ought to do that,” but here’s what the standard is. The Law says do this, do it perfectly, do it always, or you’ll enter a curse. That’s a pretty high standard, and that’s what He’s called you to live; that’s what He’s called me to live.
So, you’ve got to ask, “How? How in the world can I live if that’s the standard?” I’m suggesting to you that when we’re done, you’ll see that it’s the exchanged life. In the exchanged life God has made possible that kind of a life, and that’s why we’re studying this. A low view of the standard, a low view of the Law will automatically bring God down; it will bring His holiness down, it will bring His justice down, it will bring His mercy down. You can never be humble unless you see how far from the glory of God you have fallen, unless you see that sin is flawlessness, how you’ve missed the Law. If you don’t see that, it’s impossible to be humble. If God opens your spiritual eyes to see that, it’s impossible to be proud. You’ll be falling before the Lord, “Thank You such a standard, that You can make me the righteousness of God.” I don’t want to say that this is unbelievable because I’m trying to encourage your faith; it’s not unbelievable. God expects us to be holy as He is holy. He not only expects it, but He demands it. It’s His requirement. Sanctification is His solution. So, I’m thanking God all the time that His high standard was not put on my shoulders, and that in some way I could accomplish that.
By way of introduction, I want to press on how confusing, and this is why we’re looking at it so carefully, sanctification is in the minds of Christians. You go up to one Christian and ask, “What is sanctification?” you are going to get very different ideas. I want to illustrate the confusion, to save you from it. Those who really want to know how to live a sanctified life, they ask, “What is the Law?” because I’ve got to keep the Law. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dr. Roberston McQuilken. There are two of them, and this is senior, the first president of Columbia Bible College. He wrote a book called “Law and Grace”, and in that book he goes through the New Testament and shows how the word “law” is used twelve different ways. Imagine how confusing that is! “I’m going to keep the law.” “What do you mean by the law?” “Well, it can mean this, or it can mean this, or it can mean this.” It’s so interesting. So, when Christians say, “I’m not under the law, I’m under grace, you’re not under what? What are you not under? We need to know exactly what the law is. So, that makes it confusing that there are twelve different uses of that word in the New Testament.
I’ll tell you what else is confusing. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to study theology. I would advise against it. I feel like I’m responsible as someone presenting the truth, and I have to do all that donkey work, not to present it, but to understand what is going on. I did, and I studied this, and trust me on this; the Wesleyan view, the Methodist view of sanctification is different from the Reformed view, the Calvinistic view, the and the Covenant view. They also discuss sanctification, but it’s different. And that view is different than the Dispensational view of sanctification; they, also, have their theory. They all have their proof texts. The Roman Catholic view of sanctification has their view. If you ask them, they’ll tell you what it is, and they have verses to describe it. It’s different from the ones I’ve already mentioned. Then there is the Holiness, the Pentecostal view, and they have a view of sanctification, and it’s different from the ones I’ve already mentioned. There was a conference in the late 1800’s and 1900’s called the Keswick Convention. Their whole theme was sanctification, and they have a view that differs from all of the others. I’m telling you that to save you from that and spare your time (I’ve already wasted mine), because I’ve gone through a lot of that. But my whole point is that sanctification is confusing, unless you have the Holy Spirit’s unveiling of it by the revelation of Christ. That’s where my heart is; I don’t want to waste your time, and like I said, some of mine has already been wasted. They all have their proof texts, “Look at this verse and look at that verse,” and son.
The Lord helping me, I’m trusting Him to cut through all of the controversy and give you His heart on sanctification, which I promise you is as simple as it seems complicated. It is not complicated; it’s as simple as pie. We need to see it. We are going to look at the heart, the essence, the very core of sanctification but in order to do that I want to set it up. So, if you’ll be patient with me, I need to explain a few things to get us ready for God’s revelation. We’ll go back again to 1 Peter 3:15, “Like the holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior. It is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’” Do you see how this passage relates to sanctification? That is that we’re to be as holy as God. There’s a huge difference between being and doing; you cannot do holy. You can be holy, but you can’t do holy; I can’t do holy. Being has to do with character, with who you are. God is holy, and that’s His character, and that’s who He is. I used to think that holy was the Spirit’s first name—Holy Spirit. So, that’s His first name. Spirit is the Life of God, and holy is His character. God is spirit; God is holy. Sanctification, like obedience, is to be as holy as God is holy. The holy God gives commands; He has a right to give commands. He can give any command He wants to, and if He gives a command, we’re obligated to obey. God said, and we are obligated to obey it; it’s our responsibility, it’s our duty, it’s obligation. Obedience is demanded. The duty is ours, but the power is not ours; the ability is not ours. We’ll develop that a little more as we go on.
Right now, I want you to understand that the commands He gives, some are based on His character. Let me illustrate it with natural laws. The law of gravity: water is a liquid, fire burns; I’ll give those illustrations. Gravity pulls down, and water is liquid, and fire burns. Those are the laws of God, and they are laws based on His pleasure, and not His character. If it’s based on His pleasure, He can change it anytime He wants to, if it’s on His pleasure. Gravity pulls down. Enoch was caught up; what happened to the law of gravity? Elijah was caught up. Our Lord Jesus ascended. Because it was based on His pleasure, He could overrule; He could transcend that law. He could do whatever He wants to because it’s not based on His character. If it was based on His character, He couldn’t change it. Peter walked on water; I thought water was liquid. All of a sudden it’s solid. Why? It’s because God said so. He can change His pleasure. Shadrack, Mishak and Abendego were in a fire; fire burns, unless God said so, and God said, “Not this time.” It was His pleasure. So, it can be changed, and He changed many things at His pleasure. That’s the whole basis of the dispensational idea, that God keeps changing His pleasure. Anway, we’re not going to get into that. It’s the same thing with Moses; he’s looking at a bush and it’s on fire but it’s not burning. How come? Anyway, laws based on His pleasure can be changed; laws based on His character cannot be changed; they can’t be suspended; no other law can transcend them.
Why is lying always a sin? It’s because God is Truth, and it goes against His character. If it goes against His character, it’s a sin. That’s why all forms of lying—deceit and exaggeration and little white lies, and all of that, “that’s just a fib”—it’s all against His character. It’s all hypocrisy because God is Truth. Why is it a sin to be unfaithful? It’s because God is faithful, and that’s a sin against His character, a sin against His nature. Why is it a sin to be unmerciful or unloving? It’s because you’re contradicting God; that’s who He is and that’s His character. Why is it a sin not to be long-suffering? It’s because God is long-suffering; that’s who He is and we’re sinning against His character. Sanctification has to do with sins against His character. Some things are demanded by God because that’s who God is. Some things are commanded by God because that’s what God said. Some things He is and some things He said. One is based on His authority; we’ve got to do whatever God is, and whatever God says to do. I have a better chance of running full speed, which is not very fast anymore, and bang my head into a tree and not hurt, than to lie and get away with it. Why? It’s because it’s His pleasure. If I run into a tree, usually my head is going to split open and have terrible consequences, but God could change that. It could be like running into a pillow, if He wanted to. My guess is that He wouldn’t do that, but He can change His pleasure. I have a better chance of jumping off a cliff and surviving than telling a lie and getting away with it because I’ve sinned against His character. If I jump over a cliff, He could make it so I’ll jump in a full swimming pool, if He wanted to but He probably wouldn’t. You get the idea that what’s based on His pleasure He can change; what’s based on His character can’t change; that’s tight as 1 – 2. God, cannot lie; if I lie I’ve gone against the character of God.
I want to go back to the law and look at the Old Testament; I’m going to forget McQuilken and twelve uses of the law, and I’m going to use what most theologians divide. Usually, when they look at the law of God in the Old Testament, they have three different divisions. They have what they call the moral Law, God’s moral Law, the Ten Commandments, and that’s based on His character, or most of the Ten Commandments. Then, they have what is called the civil law. When God gave the Ten Commandments, He also gave other laws, civil laws about marriage and about childbirth and about how to respond to neighbors and how to respond to enemies and what my attitude should be if your bull knocks down my fence or my bull knocks down your fence, and so on. There were laws about vows and laws about tithing, and He regimented the kitchen and the field and the dress and all of that kind of thing. So, there are moral Laws, there are civil laws, and then there were the ceremonial laws. Ceremonial laws had to do with the feasts that He gave and the sacrificial system and the animals that were sacrificed and the worship and the days that were set aside and the priesthood and the garments and the tabernacle and the temple, and on and on. There’s the moral Law, there’s the civil law and there’s the ceremonial law. Which of those categories are based on His character? And which are based on His pleasure. The answer is that the moral Law is based on His character. The civil law was based on His pleasure, “Don’t eat pork.” And then the ceremonial law were the types and the figures to prefigure Christ.
Anyway, the moral Law, when we’re talking about sanctification, is what we’re talking about. The civil law and the ceremonial laws, since it wasn’t based on who God is, but what He wanted, His pleasure, could have been changed if He wanted to, and was changed because He did want to. And different commentaries have different answers for this, but why did God say, “You can’t eat pig,” the whole of Leviticus 11, all the unclean foods, and so on? Why did God demand that the Jewish man could not have his beard rounded? If a man had his beard rounded, he sinned against God. Why was that? Why couldn’t somebody wear linen and wool at the same time? Why couldn’t they plant two things in the same garden at the same time? Why were certain penalties given for certain violations, and so on? Some people think that some of that is based what God knows, His knowledge. So, those dietaries laws, God knew about health, and knew about refrigeration, and knew about what was good for you, and what would be contrary to your system, and all. It’s the same thing with the ground; God knew what the soil needed and the nutrients, so He gave those laws. Others says, “No, no, they were more spiritual. They were pictures. So, the Hebrew couldn’t round his beard because in that society there were sun worshippers, and they were worshipping the sun, and they made their beards so their face looked like the sun, and God was just saying to not look like the heathen.” Was it just a principle or was He giving you a command? It certainly was not based on His character because I know Jesus had a beard. It’s probably the only physical description we have of Him because they pulled out His beard, so we knew He had a beard. The same thing has to do with so many of the laws He gave. He gave the law of the first born, and the law of the first ling of the flock, and the law of the first of the herd, and the first day of the week, the Sabbath Day, and the tithe to give ten percent, and all of that kind of thing. Is that just to illustrate some truth? Is it illustrating surrender or picturing dedication to the Lord? Whatever the reason, if He commanded it, we’re obligated, whether He commanded it because that was His pleasure or He commanded it because that was His character. If He commanded it, we have to do it, but if it’s based on His pleasure, He could have changed it.
The same thing was true of the feast, the Day of Atonement and the different sacrifices and offerings; that was based on His pleasure. All the commands based on His pleasure were obligated unless He changed His pleasure. Listen to Mark 7:18&19, “Do you understand that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile because it does not go into His heart, but into the stomach and is eliminated. Thus, He declared all foods clean.” He gave a whole list in the Old Testament, “Don’t eat this,” and in one sentence Jesus declared all foods clean. One sentence, and all those laws about the diet that were in the Old Testament based on His pleasure, for His reasons (and that’s up for grabs), but for whatever it was, Jesus said that it no longer applies because it was based on His pleasure.
The tons of ceremonial laws, the sacrifices, the offerings, the feasts, the special days, did He ever change that because of His pleasure? There’s one word in my thinking that’s summarizes it and that’s why I began with this in the opening prayer, and it’s the word “shadows”. He differentiated the shadow from the reality, or the shadow from the substance. Listen to Hebrews 10:1, “For the law, since it has only a shadow of good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifices which offer continually year by year make perfect those who draw near.” Hebrews 8:4&5, “If He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the law who serve as a copy and shadow of heavenly things.” Colossians 2:16, “Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath Day, things that are but a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”
Those ceremonial observances, once commanded by God, were shadows to picture our Lord Jesus and His finished work. The civil laws and the ceremonial laws were based on His pleasure and Jesus changed the dietary laws with one word, and He changed the ceremonial laws with another word; He fulfilled them. He fulfilled everything that was pictured in the those ceremonies. I love Romans 10:4, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes.” There’s a couple of ways to look at that. Some say, “I’m not under the law. Christ ended the law, so forget it.” Or it could be, “He is the end, the goal toward which He’s the fulfillment of what is pictures by that particular law. Matthew 5:17, “Do not think I came to abolish the law or the prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” All of the sacrifices, the feasts, the holy day, the tabernacle, the temple, the priesthood, the garment, all of that were shadows that pictured Christ, and He fulfilled in detail.
Should we study those shadows? If you’re a good Christian, you’re going to want to study the word of God because you’re going to see Christ. So, I need to study Passover, and I need to study first fruits, and I need to study the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacle and the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement; I need to study them because it sheds light on my adorable Savior. I need to see Jesus in those things. The offering: I need to understand the trespass offering and how it differs from the sin offering and how that differs from the peace offering and how that differs from the meat offering and how that differs from the burnt offering. I need to study my head off under the guidance of the Holy Spirit because it will show me Jesus, but those are shadows picturing Jesus; the tabernacle, the furniture, the arrangement of the tabernacle, I need to understand that. I need to know the historical type; I need to know what it means to be out of Egypt and crossing the Red Sea and being in the wilderness and crossing the Jordan River and the land of Canaan. I need to study that; it’s a shadow; it’s a picture. I need to study the personal types; I need to study Abraham, I need to study Adam, I need to study Noah, I need to study Melchizedek; those are shadows, and they picture Jesus. He has fulfilled them; He’s the substance; He’s the reality.
And now it would be a grave mistake to go backward to the shadow and say, “Now, that is required of me, and I should keep the Passover, and I should celebrate the tabernacle.” No, I shouldn’t; I should study that to know how it pictures the reality, the substance. That’s why I began with what is fellowship? Walking with Jesus in the cool of the day until the shadows flee away; let the shadows flee away. That is a little bit; we’ve hardly touched the exchanged life, but that is the exchanged life, the thrill of walking with Christ without the shadow; it’s the substance.
Hebrews 8:13 says, “When He said a New Covenant, He made the first obsolete. Whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.” We’re looking at sanctification, way back, dead to sin and alive unto God. We’re to obey everything that God commands, and He commands us not to violate anything that goes against His character. So, if any Christians says, “I’m not under the law,” he better know it’s not talking about the moral Law; you are very much under the moral Law; you are responsible to be perfect. Now, I’m not under the law to keep the Law; I’m under grace to keep the Law, but I’m under the Law. Am I under the ceremonial law? The answer is no; He changed that by His pleasure. Am I under the civil law? No, I’m not under that. He’s changed that according His pleasure. More of that next time but let me give you what I promised way in the beginning of this lesson, the basic simplicity of sanctification, without going through all of the views of the Calvinists and the Armenians and all of that; forget that.
Listen to 1 Corinthians 1:30, “By His doing, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” We’re studying sanctification. Here’s the simplicity; sanctification is not a doctrine; it’s a Person, and His name is Jesus. He became sanctification. You’ll know nothing of the life of sanctification if you don’t know that Jesus is sanctification. 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We all with an unveiled face behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” When we come with an unveiled face to the word of God, we’re beholding the Lord and we’re changed into that image.
Theology books are written, “’What is the Image of God?’ Man was created in God’s image. It’s body, soul and spirit, and it’s mind, emotion, will.” I’m going to give it to you straight and simple. Do you want to know what the image of God is? 2 Corinthians 4:4, “In whose case the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ who is the image of God.” What is the image of God? It’s Christ; it’s Jesus. Listen to Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” Hebrews 1:3, “He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature.” Christ is sanctification, and we’re being conformed to Christ, the image of God. What will the result be? 2 Corinthians 4:10:11, “Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, also, may be manifest in our body. We who live are constantly delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus may be manifest in our mortal bodies.” Sanctification is Christ. And the process is that I’m being conformed to Christ. And the ministry is that I’m manifesting Christ. It’s Jesus; it’s always Jesus, only Jesus, ever Jesus.
There’s more; you’ve got to see it as it’s related to grace, as it’s related to the word of God, as it’s related to faith, but for now just know that the simplicity of sanctification apart from all the theories is Jesus, and to be rightly related to Jesus is to have that exchange, that sanctified life. That’s my only hope for pleasing God.
Father, thank You for Your word, and not what we think we understand or know. I prayed at the beginning that you would protect your people from anything I may have said that was not from You. Burn indelibly into our hearts and souls everything that comes from Your Spirit. Work in our hearts everything You inspired this word to mean. We ask and claim it in Jesus’ name. Amen.