Paul And The New Birth

 

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

The Pauline revelation leads us into glorious truths respecting both our position and experience as believers. Indeed, the new birth itself, as it takes place in the believer today, is directly related to the divine baptism by which Christ and the believer are made one.

How was Christ made one with mankind? He was baptized into the human race. He did not merely come to dwell with men. He became man. How? By being born into the race. Was this by natural birth? No, by supernatural birth. He was begotten of the Holy Spirit. But His baptism into the human race did not end with His birth and life on earth. So fully did He become one with man, that He even died man’s death on the accursed tree. He was baptized into death (Luke 12:50) and, as we now know, into our death.

And it is there, at the Cross, that we become one with Him. The moment one looks in faith to Calvary, acknowledging: “He is no sinner; I am the sinner. Christ is dying my death”; that moment he becomes one with Christ; baptized into the crucified, risen Lord Himself (Romans 6:3; Galatians 3:26,27) not only positionally, in the reckonings of God, but exponentially, by the Spirit. And thus a new life is begotten.

By natural birth? No, by supernatural birth. Some hold that the Epistles of Paul do not teach the new birth, but this is an error. His familiar word teknon, generally translated simply “child” in our English Bibles, means literally, “born one.” And he uses this word with regard to our spiritual relationship to God.

Furthermore, the Apostle teaches the very truth of the new birth in Titus 3:5, where he says: “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost.”

 

 

Christ the God Man

By A.W. Tozer

 

We are under constant temptation these days to substitute another Christ for the Christ of the New Testament. The whole drift of modern religion is toward such a substitution.

To avoid this we must hold steadfastly to the concept of Christ as set forth so clearly and plainly in the Scriptures of truth. Though an angel from heaven should preach anything less than the Christ of the apostles let him be forthrightly and fearlessly rejected.

The mighty, revolutionary message of the Early Church was that a man named Jesus who had been crucified was now raised from the dead and exalted to the right hand of God. “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36).

Less than 300 years after Pentecost the hard-pressed defenders of the faith drew up a manifesto condensing those teachings of the New Testament having to do with the nature of Christ. This manifesto declares that Christ is God of the substance of His Father, begotten before all ages: Man of the substance of His mother, born in the world: perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting: Equal to His Father, as touching His Godhead: less than the Father, as touching His manhood. Who, although He be God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by the taking of the manhood into God. One altogether, not by the confusion of substance, but by the unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ (Athanasian Creed, nos. 31–37).

Verse

For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time. First Timothy 2:5

Thought

To be our mediator Christ had to be fully man and fully God. Jesus Christ is the God Man!

Prayer

Lord, You who are the Eternal God took on full humanhood. You are my mediator. You are the God Man.

Audio Sermon

 (1 Peter – Part 29): False Teaching On Obscure Teaching by A.W. Tozer

 

 

Correctly Handling the Word of Truth

By A.W. Tozer

 

Should anyone doubt that Christians, even Bible Christians, habitually ignore the teachings of Christ, let him rise in a business meeting of his church or denomination and quote a passage from the sayings of our Lord as the final authority on a question before the house. He will soon learn how little the words of Christ influence the thinking of the average delegate.

Christians today have developed the perilous habit of accepting the authority of the New Testament on matters that do not concern them and rejecting it on matters that do. And so with too many churches also Jesus is popular but impotent. Surely another reformation is indicated.

Verse

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Second Timothy 2:15

Thought

There is the dangerous tendency among us to treat Scripture passages that condemn our practice as non-universal, restricted in application to the historical and cultural context in which they occur. Therefore they are not applicable to us in our cultural context. At issue is the identification of universal principles in the Word and accurate application of them to us today.

Prayer

Help me, O Lord, to discipline myself to seriously study Your Word, accurately interpreting and applying it to my own situation no matter what others do.

Audio Sermon

 (1 Peter – Part 31): Christian’s Trial and His Committal by A.W. Tozer

 

 

God with Men and Man with God

By A.W. Tozer

 

Even among those who acknowledge the deity of Christ there is often a failure to recognize His manhood. We are quick to assert that when He walked the earth He was God with men, but we overlook a truth equally as important, that where He sits now on His mediatorial throne He is Man with God.

The teaching of the New Testament is that now, at this very moment, there is a Man in heaven appearing in the presence of God for us. He is as certainly a man as was Adam or Moses or Paul. He is a man glorified, but His glorification did not dehumanize Him. Today He is a real man, of the race of mankind, bearing our lineaments and dimensions, a visible and audible man whom any other man would recognize instantly as one of us.

But more than this, He is heir of all things, Lord of all worlds, Head of the church and the Firstborn of the new creation. He is the way to God, the life of the believer, the hope of Israel and the high priest of every true worshiper. He holds the keys of death and hell and stands as advocate and surety for everyone who believes on Him in truth.

This is not all that can be said about Him, for were all said that might be said I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. But this in brief is the Christ we preach to sinners as their only escape from the wrath to come. With Him rest the noblest hopes and dreams of men. All the longings for immortality that rise and swell in the human breast will be fulfilled in Him or they will never know fulfillment. There is no other way (John 14:6).

Verse

Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Luke 5:22b–24a

Thought

“Son of Man” is the designation Jesus uses in referring to Himself in all New Testament occurrences of the expression with but a few exceptions. He is uniquely the “Son of Man” because in Him are fused divine and human authority. He is God. But as man He suffered, died for our sins and rose again, and is forever the God Man.

Prayer

O Lord, increase my understanding of who You are!

Audio Sermon

 (1 Peter – Part 20): Ye Are A Chosen Generation by A.W. Tozer

 

 

Vance Havner Quote:

“Real revival does not begin with joyous singing. Evangelistic meetings may and should so begin, for we are declaring good news, but revival begins with conviction and repentance on the part of Christians. Bunyan says that when God tunes an instrument He begins with the base. We try to make God’s house a delightful place when first it may need to be a dreadful place. Repentance must precede rejoicing. Jacob said, “How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God.” ”

Audio Sermon:

Doing Something About It by Vance Havner

 

 

HEAT AND LIGHT

By Vance Havner

 

He was a burning and a shining light.
John 5:35

So spake our Lord of John the Baptist. The Forerunner had both heat and light. It is a combination not always found in one personality. Some saints have heat aplenty, but they need light, wisdom, guidance. Some have light, but it is cold; there is no fire, no warmth. Someone has said, “Youth has fire without light and age has light without fire.”

It is hard to tell which has done most harm, hotheaded ignorance or cold-hearted knowledge. The wild street preacher, screaming and tearing his hair, needs to burn less and shine more. The cold, intellectual preacher in stiff Sunday-morning formalism needs to shine less and burn more.

John the Baptist burned and shone. “Stir up the gift of God…” “Let your light so shine…” Give us more witnesses with both heat and light!

Audio sermon:

As He Is So Are We by Vance Havner