Christ the Man #2 — Major Ian Thomas

Transformation Into the Image of Christ

When you turn at the outset this morning to the 12th chapter of the epistles of the Romans Romans and chapter 12 and in the first verse and the second Romans chapter 12 Verses 1 2 I Beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your body a living sacrifice Holy and acceptable under God.

Which is your reasonable service. And then he goes on to say this Be not conformed to this world don't hate its way. Don't try to keep up with the Joneses. Don't jump on its bandwagon. Above everything else never ever allow The lifestyle of a permissive society to invade the church family and try to be mod or Progressive by this world standard.

Be not conformed to this work, but in contradistinction to that these transfer not conform but transfer. Because as we have already seen The stamp of the liberty of a genuine spiritual rebirth is what if any man being Christ You wouldn't recognize him for the same person.

He is a new creature. All that you need him to be before Have passed away. Everything now that you recognize in him is brand new. So we're going to be transformed. Transformed into what? Well if God's purpose in sending his son into this world was to restore a man to his true humanity and man through the fall has Become a distorted caricature of what he was intended to be who was made by God to reflect the glory God's absolute likeness.

Into what do you think God will transform us if we turn to Christ that we might enter into the goods of the remedial measures? That he has introduced. Well, we don't have to guess. The eighth chapter of the epistle to the Romans whom he did foreknow then he did predestinate to be conformed in being transformed not to the world but to the image of his son.

That he the Lord Jesus might be the firstborn among many brothers. So the end product that God had in mind in sending his son into this world is that you and I? Not being conformed to this world but being transformed by that Transformation will now be conformed To the image of his son who for 33 years with this earth in such a way that when the father looked at him He could see him now.

And that's the gospel. That's the gospel. Conformed to the image of God's dear son, of course. We know that this won't be brought to its final consummation until at last we see the Lord Jesus face to face.

Don't turn to it 1 John 3 first because the third chapter verses 1 and 2 he says Beloved what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. He said we do not yet know in entirety to what we will be but at least he says this we do know.

But when he appears we shall see him the Lord Jesus as he is and we then will be like him and then forever with the Lord and This is the end product of what God had in mind when he sent his son to accomplish the redemptive act on the cross 2 ,000 years ago that there might be begun in us the regenerated purpose that putting God back into the man Restores to man the moral competence to discharge the office for which he was made lightly and When in that day seeing the Lord Jesus as he is we're absolutely utterly Unblemished in our likeness where we hope.

Where have we arrived? Genesis chapter 1. But it's in Genesis chapter 1 of man as God made him. Let us make man said he in our Likeness in our image so in the day that in the presence of the Lord Jesus you're restored to the absolute unblemished image of your Creator.

Where have you arrived? Back to normality. The fact of normality nothing new that God's doing for us. That's why in a sense although. I know it's a popular term to talk about a deeper life is a misnomer.

Because if you talk about a deeper life conference Give just a suspicion of an idea that you can get saved get converted to bathe of gospel, and this is an extra. It's an optional. You know for the fanatical.

Or for the elite there's no such thing as a deeper Christian life. There's only the Christian life. Anything less than that of course. Tells Jesus Christ down the river in short changes our Creator. I Preaching to you anything other morning and evening than the gospel.

Maybe a mainstay to God. Not a skin-and-bones gospel. Not a come-to-Jesus gospel not a get-off-the-hook Gospel. Not out of hell in the heaven gospel, but keep God off my back till I get there. That isn't the gospel.

The Gospel as Restoration, Not Mere Forgiveness

I know from the Bible because the gospel is good news. It's the evangelist and it represents the restorative means that God has introduced so that a man to his Satisfaction and from God's point of view might once more become functional not only when he gets to heaven.

But right here on earth on the way to him. That's the gospel. And I'm not in business to shortchange Jesus Christ. God called me to preach the gospel when I was a boy 15. And it wasn't until I was 19 seven years after my conversion at the age of 12 that I discovered what the gospel was.

I knew that Christ had died for me and redeemed me. I accepted that when I was 12 I knew my sins were forgiven, but I hadn't learned what the gospel was about. Not until I was 19 in sheer despair and then at last God in his goodness through the Word of God showed me what he was at when he sent his son into this world and It is that we might be Conformed and be transformed.

From conformity to this world to conformity to the image of God's Son. How's it going to take place? Because if this is what God has in mind in sending his son into this world The one thing we need to know is how that is going to happen.

Well, it tells you doesn't it in that same Second verse of the 12th chapter of the epistle to the rest by the renewing of your mind by the renewing of your mind. So we will become functional again to God's Satisfaction when something has happened to our mind.

Now what do you think it means by the word mind there does it mean that we've got to be Academically schooled. But we've got have a scintillating intellect that we've got to be theological blue-eyed boys.

It isn't talking about mere intellect it's talking about attitude. Talking about disposition and the transformation of character. That is the only purpose which Christ died to redeem us not to get us out of hell in any heaven.

That's purely incidental. He died to redeem us that being reconciled to God. There might be restored to us by the presence of the Holy Spirit that Divine competence we've called it the hidden factor God in the man that makes it possible Once more for man to function as God intended that man should function.

Whose presence as God within the man is absolutely indispensable to his humanity and it's an attitude. It's a disposition That brings this into action. So where we're going to discover? The mind the attitude the disposition that we've got to exercise so that we might once more not be conformed to a Christless world and a permissive society but conform To the image of God's son.

Where we're going to get that attitude disposition from where we're going to look. There's only one place to look. The one who though God played the role of man who is creator gave us a demonstration of the creed.

The Mind of Christ in Philippians

And that's why you won't be surprised When you turn if you will now to the second chapter of the epistle of Paul to the Philippians the epistle of Paul to the Philippians second chapter and You get exactly the same word.

It's better translated in our normal present-day parlance not as mind but Attitude. What is your mind in this matter? In other words, what is your disposition? What is your attitude? It's attitude and what did it say?

First five if ever you and I are to be transformed Into the image of God's dear son and no longer conform to a dirty world. What's going to happen? Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus. You and I've got to adopt that attitude have that disposition that was Characteristic of the ones who though God played the role of man.

Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus until you and I have learned the disposition adopted by the Lord Jesus and the attitude that was his as man toward the father as God will never begin.

Begin to understand what it means to be a Christian how to become one that's baby that's baby stuff you become a Christian. By claiming Christ as your Redeemer being cleansed in his precious blood and reconciled to God, but that doesn't change the character.

Knowing that your sins have been given may create within you the desire to show him in heaven that you're thankful. May create within you a certain motivation to be beautiful and be different. But it doesn't give you the moral competence to be different because the death of somebody 2 ,000 years ago.

That's all he came to do pay the penalty of your sins so that you might get out of hell and get into heaven. That's not going to change the way you behave now. Except as a motivation to be different, but with what?

What did you have before you would be? That operated your humanity only a fallen nature of satanic origin called the carnal mind. That is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be. So if all you've got after your redemption is the same carnal mind the same Adamic nature of Utter enmity toward God, but that's all you've got after redemption.

How are you going to live the Christian life? Let me put it in another way. If before you would redeem before you knew that Christ died for you 2 ,000 years ago. You admired a genuine Christian, and you thought to yourself not in sincerely.

I'd love to be a man. I'd love to be a woman like that and so not knowing the need for redemption. You mobilize your natural resources possessing only an old fallen nature and you decide to live that kind of life.

Would you fail or succeed? In the energy of the flesh that old Adam nature that is hostile about you couldn't help but fail. That's what is humanly unreasonable. In the absence of a hidden factor that makes divinely possible.

What is only possible by virtue of the fact that God created man to be inhabited by his nature? So in the energy of the flesh no matter how sincere no matter how dedicated no matter how noble your aspirations in the image of The flesh before redemption you could not live the Christian life.

You must fail because the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be all right now. Suddenly you're awakened to the fact that you need redemption and in response to some evangelistic appeal you put your trust in Christ.

And say thank you for what you did for me two millenniums ago when you took my place on the cross and Satisfied every last demand of God's righteousness concerning my sin. Thank you so much Lord Jesus for dying in my place now I know that for your sake because of what you did then I'm redeemed, but that's all you know.

That's all you know. Well quite obviously there'll be a sense of gratitude in your heart won't you? You'll want to serve him. Will be a sense of duty apart from anything else you're also. Recompense God for his kindness from sending his son 2 ,000 years ago to pay your debt.

But all you've got is the old adamantion. You don't know that you've been provided with any other resource. All you know is according to the gospel that you've heard Jesus died and all you've got to do is say thanks in your redeemed.

So what do you do now? Well as a redeemed sinner not knowing that you've got any new resources available to you. All you can do is to mobilize your old inherent abilities. You've got to reeducate that Adamic nature to live like a good Bible believing Conservatively evangelical Christian, it's got to go to prayer meeting.

It's got to give money to this church. It's got to Teach a Sunday school class, and what are you trying to do we educate the old adamant? To live the Christian life, but tell me this. If after redemption you still try to live the Christian life in the energy of the flesh.

That fails so abysmally before you will be beaten. How will you get on will you fail or succeed? You cannot help but fail. You'll fail after redemption in the energy of the flesh just as soundly as you failed before redemption in the energy of the flesh.

So what's the difference? Well only one. Before redemption you'll fail in trying to live the Christian life on the way to hell and after redemption. You'll fail in trying to live the Christian life on the way to heaven.

That's all. In other words what kind of a difference would that gospel make if all you were told there was Jesus died 2 ,000 years ago and this by and large alas is what hundreds of thousands of here every Sunday morning every Sunday night prayer meeting and Invitation after invitation to come to a Jesus who died 2 ,000 years ago period that's the gospel.

If that's all there is to the gospel. Then it may make us fit for heaven one day as those who are forgiven, but it will leave us pathetically unfit for earth on the way to him. That's why so many professing Christians are so difficult to live with.

You see nothing's ever changed their lifestyle. Now what's the truth of the matter? Why did the Lord Jesus die on the cross? He said I'm come that you might have what? Life. Life we were born dead dead in trespasses and sin.

Redemption and Regeneration

No boy Go man a woman born ever since Adam fell into sin born other than in a state of total spiritual Destitution physically alive soullessly soullessly active, but the human spirit empty of the Holy Spirit alienated from the life of God that's how it's written the fourth chapter of the epistles of the Ephesians and if you and I are Alienated from the life of God before redemption and we remain alienated from the life of God after redemption.

Then we've no more confidence to live the Christian life after redemption and before redemption. But the whole purpose of the Lord Jesus coming of this world to accomplish the redemptive act was to precipitate the regenerated purpose to get back back into the man and You'll always find the twin prongs as it were of the redemptive and regenerative message linked together Indivisibly in the Word of God don't stand to it.

But Galatians chapter 3 verse 13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. But that's where most people finish the gospel. They put a period right there. That's it man.

That's the gospel doesn't the God. That's just the introduction to the gospel. That's the baby language of the gospel. That's the premise of the gospel. That's the prerequisites of the gospel. That's the first basic requirement of the gospel.

It's the door into the God. Absolutely offensive. It isn't the God. Because we've learned that if when we were enemies we were Reconciled To God by the death of his son. That's not salvation. That's reckoning for you.

Much more being reconciled what next? We should be saved by his life. So it is therefore to reconcile us to God. That he might now save us by his life. That's why the next verse the 14th of Galatians 3 goes on to tell you the true gospel Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Lord being made a curse for us.

Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles. Who Jesus Christ who has redeemed us from the curse of the law? He has redeemed us from the curse of the law that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in other words that everything That God comprehended when he confirmed his covenant in Abraham saying in his seed all the family To be blessed might now be fulfilled in us.

Well, the question big question mark is this. What did God comprehend in the covenant? He confirmed in Abraham that would be made available to you and to me on the grounds of Christ's redemptive transactions.

He told us that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles from Jesus Christ that we might Receive the Holy Spirit of promise that the Lord Jesus and the fullness and power of his resurrection.

When the person of the other comforter might reinvade a man's redeemed humanity and by his presence put God back into the man and give him the moral confidence to discharge the office that he never could apart from the presence of the Creator within the creature and The one his death for you is called redemption and the other is life in you by the Holy Ghost is called Regeneration.

What else do you find it one Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 9 and 10 you look at it. One Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 9 and 10. God hasn't appointed us to judge me though. We deserve it will be as we are.

But he has appointed us to obtain salvation. How we're going to obtain salvation. Well, there's only one way you can obtain salvation through the Savior through Jesus Christ. All right, that's the first verse verse 9.

God hasn't appointed as a judgment. He has appointed us to obtain salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Then the next verse yes, we should have any ambiguity in our minds as to the nature of salvation.

He defines it very clearly for just in case we should think that all that Jesus came to do was to die. So we could get off the hook and escape the punitive consequence of our guilt. In other words get out of hell and one day get to heaven and just go to church once on Sunday pay your tithe.

And if it isn't raining too hard go to prayer meetings. On Wednesday, what's it say? God hasn't appointed us to judgment. He has appointed us to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for.

There's the redemptive act. Who died for you had to do that two thousand years ago to pay our debt. Who died for that that that? There's always a bath. There's always an end product. There's always an intelligent purpose behind the redemptive transaction that.

Whether we wake or whether we sleep that means to say whether I'm still physically alive or already physically dead. Whether I'm in the body or out of the body whether my feet are on this planet or I'm already in heaven whether it's now.

Or whether it's then whether it's here or whether it's there who died for us, but whether we wait or sleep. We should live together with him. That's the gospel. That's the gospel. That's the only intelligent spiritual significance of baptism.

Baptism and the Indwelling Life of Christ

If this isn't the solid substance of what you had in mind when you were baptized, you've never really been baptized. You've simply gone through a certain religious procedure that has made your respectable baptism, but we're not asked to make baptism.

We're told to make Christian. What's the significance of baptism? Well, it's simply this you go beneath the water and by this means you testify. Some professing boy, girl, man or woman who's put their trust in Christ.

You say mom dad brothers sisters my children my neighbors my fellow citizens. I'd like you to know that I agree with God entirely. But all that I ever deserve. Born as I was by nature a fallen member of a fallen race of fallen men and only to with God.

With what took place in the person of another who as my substitute bore in his person the judgments that I deserve I agree with God and So to what I am and have been apart from Jesus Christ, I want publicly to take my place in death.

For I am crucified with Christ. I was the one who was actually sentenced to death in the person of another Jesus Christ so I am crucified with Christ and in token thereof I go beneath the water and by So doing I give you notice right now, but all the characteristics that you knew to be Characteristic of me as an unregenerate sinner uninhabited by God have been buried beneath the water.

That I have consigned them to the place where God in the person of his son took them. So the person you knew me to be you can forget but when I come up out of the water what I'm telling you is This it's my affirmation unshackleable confidence in this glorious fact.

But the one who died for me rose again from the dead so that he and the person of the Holy Spirit Might come and invade my humanity and from within my human spirit by my glad consent. Have access to my soul so that he Jesus Christ alive has brought in me through the Holy Spirit can teach my mind.

Control my emotions direct my will and govern my behavior. So when I come up out of the water mom dad my brothers my sisters my children My parents my fellow citizens my workmates my employees my employers my neighbors down the road I'm telling you this that you have the absolute right to expect only to see in what I do and say and the activity of Jesus Christ whose life I share because I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live but please don't get me wrong not I.

Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in this body I simply live through a disposition an attitude a state of mind. So that allows him to be as much God in me as for thirty three years on earth as man.

By the same disposition he allowed the father to be God at that thing. Was that explained to you when you were baptized. That you were giving public notice to the world that your humanity was inhabited by God.

Christ in the Believer

Are you a Christian? Are you a Christian? If you nod your head if you say yes. Just bear in mind what you're saying. Don't you know 2 Corinthians 13 5 don't you know? The Christ lives in you he says examine yourselves whether you'd be in the faith.

Prove your own self. He says don't you know? The Christ lives in you unless you're a reprobate. What's that word mean? Tony Count to see he says you better examine yourselves whether you're really in the faith.

I Miss one thing to say I'm a Christian. One thing Sam a Baptist. One thing Sam a believer. That says Paul you better examine yourself whether you really understood intelligently what you're at. Don't you know he says that Jesus Christ lives in you unless you're a phony unless you're a reprobate.

He's not there to be a pedestal. He's not there to be put in a glass case. He's not there on exhibit. Occasionally, then we'll unveil him that Jesus Christ as your creator Redeemer has come to reinvade your humanity.

And when you say I am a believer when you say I am a Christian when you say I am a Baptist. If you mean anything at all by the term. You're telling all the world that the God who created the universe is at this moment close in the self and his activity on earth with your humanity, but I I'd say that if it's true that Jesus Christ who see the universe is in the space.

The stars into the far corners of the night. But he the God who at this moment upholds all things by the word of his power. Is it true as you declare that he lives in you? 24 hours a day. The name is probably optimistic your kids at home.

Optimistic. The folks you work with down the road optimism the folks who live across the road your neighbors ought to be amazed. At the quality of a life of a man woman boy or girl actually inhabited by the one who we say created the universe.

Because that's what it means to be a Christian for he died for us that whether we wake or sleep. On earth or in heaven, we should live together with him. How? Well by the presence of the Holy Spirit within the human spirit given access to the human soul.

So that he Jesus Christ living in you will teach your mind control your emotions direct your will and there'll be no other possible Explanation for the quality of your life, but Jesus Christ as God King in his kingdom.

Now that's the gospel. Why? Well, because the gospel is the good news that God has provided in Christ the means whereby guilty fallen sinners can be restored to their Humanity. And when the Lord Jesus walked this earth, of course, he demonstrated true man.

And of course in demonstrating true man He demonstrated true Christian because a Christian is somebody who's opted out of Adam's into Christ to be restored by being made by God a new creation a member of a new order of Redeemed sinners who on the basis of that redemption have enjoyed a spiritual resurrection.

The Washing of Regeneration

Titus 3 5 6. Titus 3 5 6 not by works of righteousness, which we have done according to his mercy. He saved us. How? How did he save us? By the washing of regeneration. Let's say that what's being saved then?

Regeneration, what's regeneration goes on to tell you same verse the renewing of the Holy Ghost. That's what it means to be saved. The renewing of the Holy Ghost the coming back of somebody God the Holy Spirit.

That's salvation. How does salvation the coming back of God the Holy Ghost to whom you share the risen life of Christ on earth on the way To him, how does that take place? The real end part is what God had in mind in mercy when he saved us by the washing of regeneration.

How does it happen? When he tells us the Holy Ghost whom he shed upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior so what did the Savior do? When he died upon the cross made it possible for the Holy Ghost to come back.

So that you could be saved by his indwelling life. Not by works of righteousness, which we have done according to his mercy. He saved us by the washing of regeneration the renewing the coming back of God the Holy Ghost.

Whose presence derived from the fact that Jesus the Savior Has claimed you from sin. Now just one other verse. I'd like you to refer to. Now just one other verse I'd like you to refer to in this connotation and there are masses about it.

You can hardly find anywhere in the Bible redemption being spoken of without regeneration. Never to be confused as I've indicated the one for the other. Because one demands is death for you. The other demands is life in you.

It can never be the same. Simultaneous in time. Indivisible the one from the other never to be confused the one for the other if I think that you birth is the same as. Being redeemed it means I have become a Christian, but I've never begun to understand what it means to be the Christian I have become.

Because you cannot be a Christian in the process of time on the basis of redemption. You can only be a Christian in the process of time on the basis of regeneration. In other words, it's only the life of the Lord Jesus in you that gives you the power to be what the death of the Lord Jesus gave you the right to the time and.

The one is the means to the other end who died for you so that he could read to me. Turn to Galatians chapter 3 a bunch of Christian people who had been invaded by Judaistic pragmatists. They were denominationalists to the fingertips and all that mattered to the Judaists even though they were believers and recognized Jesus as the Messiah and even believe that he died for our sins.

They said what really matters is not that you have a relationship a working relationship to Jesus Christ. But that your good denominations that your good view that you tell the party line that you conform to our religious procedures.

That alone and don't you remember the epistles of the Galatians was written by the Apostle Paul because of this heresy that was introduced of which he speaks. In the 15th chapter of Acts. Where the author of that book Luke who authored Luke's gospel speaks of those who said You must be circumcised.

If you're going to be saved no matter what you believe about Jesus what matters is that you've got the denominational plan and that was apostolic. Reaffiliated by the first crisis conference that was convened in the early church under the chairmanship of James.

And the whole of the epistles of the Galatians was written in answer to that heresy. What was the heresy? So that you can come to Jesus and trust him as your Redeemer, but after that you're on your own you spread it out.

Do your best for God by doing this and doing that and doing the other that's why at the end the fifth chapter in the first Verse of that epistle to the Galatians having unraveled them from this heresy Paul says turn fast in the liberty.

So that Christ may be free. Free from what? That old adamant. Because by the exceeding great and precious promises says Peter fourth verse second. But this one the first chapter. By the exceeding great and precious promises we've been made partakers of the divine Christ has been born in us as once then he was born on.

Faith Versus Religious Performance

So what did he say to these foolish Galatians in Galatians chapter 3, I'd like you to turn to it Galatians chapter 3. Oh, you're poor and silly and thoughtless and unreflecting and senseless Galatians.

That's the Amplified New Testament rendering exactly what was meant in the original. Poor, silly, thoughtless, unreflecting, senseless Galatians. Who's addressing themselves to Christians? Christians who have suffered Unfold damage and the one described in the first chapter as a perversion of the gospel.

And of those who thus perverted the gospel. He said let them be anathema. Accursed because they're poisoning the mind of those who have been redeemed to adopt the mind of Christ. And in these believers there was being Perpetuated the mind that was introduced an attitude that was introduced when man fell into sin for then.

The devil persuaded man that he could be a man without God and these were persuading Christians that they could be Christians without Christ. Jesus is Redeemer. Yes, of course. Objectively, he died for us, but he's now in heaven.

The focus depends on the folks like you and me flexing our muscles clenching our teeth mobilizing our resource. But what's the difference between a Christian trying to live the Christian life apart from the presence of Christ in the Christian and Adam at Satan's behest trying to live the Life of a man without God in the man.

What's the difference? No, it's the same perversion. It's the same corruption. It's the same satanic scrawl. Little wonder there's so many dispirited Christians. Little wonder that you never expect to see more than 10 of any Sunday congregation at any meeting through the week.

That by and large mostly sick of the rat race. Trying to be without Christ. What they want became because of Christ because somebody has persuaded them that they can make it. They've got to do their best to do When their best is still as pathetically inadequate as it was Before redemption, so what is Paul said to these poor silly thoughtless unreflective and senseless relations.

He says let me ask you this one question. It's a rhetorical question because it's so obvious that they know the answer. Did you receive the Holy Spirit as the result of obeying the Lord? In doing it to it.

In other words is the presence of God the Holy Ghost living within you a reward from God because you kept the Lord. Did you know the answer to that? But of course they do. I mean, it's the most elementary question to ask does a man Receive again the Holy Spirit.

He was perfect in Adam. In other words does spiritual rebirth take place In the renewing of the Holy Ghost on the basis of a man's performance. The answer is a resounding no. Because nobody has ever performed to God's satisfaction all of sin and comes full of the glory of God.

So what is a guilty sinner me a redeemer who can cleanse me pay the price? So the only way a person can receive the Holy Spirit Is by the alternative. Which he poses in this question. Did you receive the Holy Spirit as a result of obeying the Lord doing its work?

Or was it by hearing the message of the gospel and believing? Now think objectively about that He says did you receive the Holy Spirit by trying to keep the Lord or did you receive the Holy Spirit by hearing the gospel?

And believing so what is that is Paul the Apostle? Understand will be the consequence of your hearing the gospel and believing. The feeling that which you could never receive by trying to keep the law.

What is the receive that they couldn't by keeping the law but did by obeying the gospel. What did they receive? The Holy Spirit and mr. Paul's mr. Peter's this to get this to the thought Jesus. What is the gospel?

But the whole purpose of the redemption act was to reciprocate the regenerated purpose. But his death chorus was designed essentially to put the life of God in it. Why. Well because he made it. He just made it.

Body soul and spirit human spirit to be inhabited by our Creator God through the Holy Spirit to whom the Lord Jesus as man offered himself as man to the father and to the father as God. Offered himself as God to the son of man.

And we thought yesterday that the Holy Spirit activity was absolutely imperative to his birth. He could only become the man he was to be by the action of the Holy Ghost in Precipitating the divine conception so that a woman though betrothed to a man.

But a wedding that had never been consummated. Because of the disposition and attitude of mind that she adopted towards God that let God be God. Is the human vehicle of that divine conception that the Lord Jesus might be presented by the father with a body just like yours and mine fashioned in the borrowed womb of that virgin girl.

I'm inhabited by him. Inhabited only by God, but it behoves him in all points to do what? Like under his brethren it behoves the Lord Jesus to assume our flesh and blood and. To this end he had to set aside the prerogatives that make God God and deliberately submit himself to the limitations that make man man.

He didn't come to behave as God though God he was God. He isn't God. He came to this world to behave as man. But man as he is God created man to be. Well, it took the Holy Spirit for him to become the man.

He was to be. What did it take him to be the man that he had become? Because in discovering death We shall know the mind that was in Christ Jesus. Don't be conformed be transformed by the renewing of your mind.