Chapter 4, part 1

Note: If you are new to this blog, I suggest you start at post #1 ("Introduction") and work your way from oldest post to newest.

"The how of it"

One "instrument of conveyance" (p. 22) that God uses for giving us union and fellowship with Jesus is by revealing himself and his plans in the Bible.

1. Through the Bible, God makes known to us what Jesus is like and the fact that he is indeed in us.

[From the Bible]

[God] gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ.

Ephesians 3:8 New Living Translation

[From the Bible]

For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.

Colossians 1:27 New Living Translation

2. Through the Bible, we know that salvation is free to anyone who chooses to trust Jesus.

[From the Bible]

Brothers, listen! We are here to proclaim that through this man Jesus there is forgiveness for your sins. Everyone who believes on him is declared right with God—something the law of Moses could never do.

Acts 13:38-39 New Living Translation

[From the Bible]

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. As the scriptures tell us, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced."

Romans 10:9, 11 New Living Translation

[From the Bible]

God has raised up his servant Jesus and sent him to you first to bless you by turning each of you away from doing evil.

Acts 3:26 New Century Version

[From the Bible]

This is a covenant not of written laws but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life. Shouldn't we expect far greater glory under the new way, now that the Holy Spirit is giving life? If the old way which brings condemnation, was glorious, how much more glorious is the new way, which makes us right with God!

2 Corinthians 3:6b, 8, 9 New Living Translation

There are two steps in being united with Christ—first, believing the Bible (like accepting the cup of wine to the lips).

[From the Bible]

But not everyone welcomes the Good News, for Isaiah the prophet said, "Lord, who has believed our message?" So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.

Romans 10:16-17 New Living Translation

[From the Bible]

"I [Paul] became your father in Christ Jesus when I preached the Good News to you."

1 Corinthians 4:15 New Living Translation

Then we need to tip up the cup and drink—that is, allow Jesus to come in.

[From the Bible]

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God reaised him from the dead, you will be saved. As the Scripture tells us, "Anyone who trusts him will never be disgraced."

Romans 10:11-12 New Living Translation

Marshall: "Having thus explained the nature of faith, I come now to assert its proper use and office in our salvation—that it is the means and instrument whereby we receive Christ, and all His fulness, actually into our hearts" (p. 23).

We’ll get to this in the next post.

Chapter 3, part 4

Note: If you are new to this blog, I suggest you start at post #1 ("Introduction") and work your way from oldest post to newest.

"What Jesus didn’t come to do"

Jesus didn't come to enable us to produce holy natures in ourselves by our own efforts. It wasn’t possible before he came, and it was no more possible after.

Jesus makes our new natures himself and puts them in us, or we don't have them at all.

1. Jesus became a human for this purpose.

One reason God incarnated himself as a human being was so he could pass on his excellent nature to us.

[From the Bible]

The Scriptures tell us, "The first man, Adam, became a living person." But the last Adam—that is, Christ—is a life-giving Spirit. Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man.

1 Corinthians 15:45, 49 New Living Translation

[From the Bible]

"Look! The virgin will conceive a child!

She will give birth to a son,

and they will call him Immanuel,

which means 'God is with us.'"

Matthew 1:23 New Living Translation

[From the Bible]

For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

Colossians 2:9-10 New Living Translation

Jesus came as living bread, so anyone who allows him to come in (as bread comes into the body), may live by him. Jesus has the life of God in him, and when he comes into us, we then have that life as well.

[From the Bible, Jesus speaking]

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh. I live because of the living Father who sent me; in the same way, anyone who feeds on me will live because of me."

John 6:51, 57 New Living Translation

2. Jesus died for this purpose.

By his death, Jesus freed himself from the guilt of our sins which were charged to him and also from that innocent weakness of his human nature which he bore for our sakes.

Marshall: "And by freeing himself, he prepared a freedom for us from our whole natural condition, which is both weak as His was, and also polluted with our guilt and sinful corruption. Thus the corrupt natural estate, which is called in Scripture the 'old man,' was crucified together with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed" (p. 17).

It’s destroyed in us, not by our efforts to kill it or reform it or tame it or restrain it. We simply take what is already worked out for us by the death of Jesus. We symbolize this by baptism, where we show that we willingly allow Jesus to apply his death to our old natures.

[From the Bible]

Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

Romans 6: 2-4, 10-11 New Living Translation.

[From the Bible]

The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.

Romans 8:3-4 New Living Translation

[From the Bible]

I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.

Philippians 3:9 New Living Translation

3. Jesus rose again for this purpose.

Marshall: "He took possession of spiritual life for us, as now fully [acquired] for us, and made to be our right and property by the merit of His death; and therefore we are said to be [made alive] together with Christ" (p. 18).

His resurrection was our resurrection to the life of holiness, in the same way that Adam's fall was our fall into spiritual death. We don’t make our new holy natures any more than we made our original old corrupt natures. Both are "formed ready for us to partake of them" (p. 18).

By union with Christ, we take in that spiritual life that he took possession of for us at his resurrection, and by having it he makes us able to obey him.

[From the Bible]

So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God.

Romans 7:4 New Living Translation

Next post: The how of it.

Chapter 3, part 3

Note: If you are new to this blog, I suggest you start at post #1 ("Introduction") and work your way from oldest post to newest.

"No other way"

Although the truth about being united with Jesus is "above the reach of natural reason" (p. 13), yet we can discover it if we open ourselves to having God reveal it to us through the Bible.

1. It’s clearly expressed in the Bible that all things pertaining to our salvation are available to us in Jesus, and by having Jesus, and no other way.

[From the Bible]

For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ ....

Colossians 1:19 New Living Translation

[From the Bible]

When you came to Christ, you were "circumcised," but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.

Colossians 2:11-13 New Living Translation

[From the Bible]

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.

Ephesians 1:3 New Living Translation

Marshall concludes: All our spiritual blessings are in Jesus "and therefore we must have our holy endowments out of Him or not at all" (p. 14).

2. We get our holiness out of Jesus by fellowship with him.

[Definition]

fellowship: companionship, company, the quality or state of being comradely

Merriam-Webster OnLine

[From the Bible]

From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.

John 1:16-18 New Living Translation

[From the Bible]

We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

1 John 1:3 New Living Translation

Marshall: "There are other texts that reach the proof of the whole direction fully; showing, not only that our holy endowments are made ready first in Christ for us, and received from Christ, but that we received them by union with Christ" (p. 15).

[From the Bible]

Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.

Colossians 3:10-11 New Living Translation

[From the Bible]

But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

1 Corinthians 6:17 New Living Translation

[From the Bible]

My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20 New Living Translation

[From the Bible]

And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God's Son does not have life.

1 John 5:11-12 New Living Translation

Marshall sums it up this way: "We receive from Christ a new holy frame and nature, whereby we are enabled for an holy practice, by union and fellowship with Him...." (p. 15).

I sum up Marshall this way: First God had to give us the right equipment—a new nature, one formed in himself. Then and only then are we able to invite him to live in us in close companionship. From then on, we can turn to him for everything we need to live life to the fullest—and these resources always come from him, not from our old natures or anything we drum up.

Next post: What Jesus didn't come to do.