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.