Not Becoming, but Being, 1967 — Norman Grubb

Tommy steals all I want to say, and I've got to lift a little of him, haven't I? Blessed are our guests this morning, and Jen too, on the same line, the one person coming to all. Heavenly, the Lord speaking by the same voice to us all.

Once again, as I said previously, I somewhat feel like you've had a good warm flesh, and now you've got to split the flesh open and find there's some bones underneath. At least the flesh needs some bones to keep it in its proper shape.

That's about it. Tommy, by the Spirit, so wonderfully this morning opened up to us. The fact, which is the basis of this life we're talking about, using the various terms such as the baptism of the Spirit, centering on the fact that it is a living union, unity, I'll later on say why I prefer the word unity to union, between the person and we as derivative persons, and such a union and unity that we just live naturally.

The Basis of Living Union With God

And yet, deep down in the centre of our consciousness, it isn't we, but he. In a sense, perhaps, I'm saying this afternoon will be the least interesting, perhaps the driest of the five talks we're seeking to give, because I only want to go over with you the why of the unity, or the union.

What solid foundation can we say that? As I say, opening up to see what lies behind. Therefore, it is, in a sense, commonplace to us all, and most of us here, I hope, are just a reminder. But as I say, I've always been one that feels I must have my feet on earth, solid.

I know the way is under me, if I'm walking on it. There mustn't be any questions with me, why it should be so, and how it can be so. Looking at that this afternoon, we seem, all through these talks, this one fact, that there's this one person, we needn't go over it again, we've gone over it again and again, this one person, this one person who is love, which means he lives other people's lives, he really is other people, get down to it.

Being spirit, he must have his means of manifestation, all manifests him, as Glenn's been pointing out to us, but supremely, persons manifest him, because he's a person. Therefore, the reason for our creation is to be in such a natural unity, that we are as he is, as Tommy pointed out so plainly, not by imitation, but impartation, and know how we live like that.

So, we are the eternal love, as he is, so we are the eternal love. We are other people, this is what comes out. Tommy underlined that again this morning, that whatever term we may use, Pentecost, absolute of the spirit, past sanctification, poorest ever it is, it only has one meaning to it ultimately, a union relationship between him and us, a unity between us, so we are he and we, and yet such a relationship, where it turns out to be just he, I beg your pardon, it turns out to be just we, it's really he, this is the paradox we get onto.

On what basis can we live naturally? Never again questioning this basic fact of this unity, he and we, he by we, he by us, we as he, whatever phrase we like to use. Now, he left it yesterday afternoon at the point of the fact that there's another he who's captured humanity, it's not that he, he's only a created he, but he's God, and he's called the God of this world, and John stated to us, there are two he's, and one he lives in the unredeemed, and the other he lives in the redeemed, so he said, greater he's in you, the redeemed, than he is in the world, and gave them their names, and said, hereby there we, the spirit of truth, that is the person who is the truth, in the believer, and the spirit of error, that is the person, the God who is the error, in the unbeliever, so our, the relationship and the condition in which we come into this world is a wrong God in us, and a wrong God by us, the God of self-centeredness, the God of self-giving, the false one, and we discussed that yesterday, we can discuss that again today I take it, but what we've got to find out is the means by which, and the grounds upon which there's been a change of Gods, because as always, always for humanity, the only possibility for humanity is a change of Gods, the God being the inner person, so joined to us that we spontaneously function as he functioned, how can the wrong one be out, and the right one be in, there's a permanence, so we forget it, and live, so you see I'm going back in a sense to commonplaces, foundations of the gospel, but just to give, it's helpful to give the re-examination of those foundations, we saw, yesterday also, that we're in a hopeless condition, we're captives, we cannot get out, we're captives, there's one scripture which questions if we're slaves, slaves of the devil, slaves of the spirit of self-centeredness, we're captives, we can't get out of it, the only way we can be out is if somebody else gets us out, who can get us out, no man can get men out, because we're one of us, and so we get the great revelation of the gospel, which is, of course, the perfect revelation, of course, the kind of person God is, but love means it exists for need, it belongs to need, it's the possession of need, need's the predator, love's the debtor, and where there's need, love belongs to that need, and the supreme need of the human race is that we've been caught up with the wrong God and going in the wrong direction, and living, and it should be so, living eternally in the consequent distortions, therefore, the gospel is this person, this living person himself being the one who rescues us, and rescue means, the means by which, as I said yesterday, he regains his soul and property, God couldn't create higher than humanity, because you can't create higher than yourself, and he creates us in his similitude, in his likeness, because only can he as a person function through persons, so it's the very topmost of his creation which has been lost to him, and becomes his soul and property, and the whole of human creation, expecting all causes of the activity of self-centeredness, where we're meant to expect all the causes of the activity of self-giving, self-love, self-giving, so there's no other purpose in redemption, than God should regain his soul and property, and be able naturally and easily, through time and eternity, express himself in infinite variety of self-giving love and self-giving activity, instead of humanity expressing the wrong God in all forms of self-seeking.

The Incarnation as the Ground of Redemption

This we know how it is done, by God becoming a man. The Bible leaves us no question about that, because John says that this one who came was the Word, he was with God, he was God, and the Word was made flesh, so he said this one on earth was God.

John says it as differently as Paul says it. Paul says God was manifest in the flesh, now this is a tremendous fact, a fact far beyond reason, that the one who is, it's fantastic to reason, the one who is in a sense the universe itself, the upholder of the universe, the one expressing himself through the universe, became a tiny part of it, a human.

I don't ultimately base my faith on trying to stretch my reason to believe things or not believe things, I base my faith ultimately on what I might call my instinctive ideal, in this, I can't conceive, I can't conceive, I can never conceive anything more wonderful than a God whose real life is living the lives of the people he creates.

I can't conceive of one, a God whose only interest is to live us, to live our lives, so his life, his joy, his gaieties, his fulfillment is being us, being real. I can't conceive any higher than a love like that.

When that love has been exemplified on earth by a person who did that, I'll bet my life on that for God. I'll take all the rest in. So I never have any difficulty with liberalism because I say well, until you find me a better God, I'm going to have this one.

I'm waiting. That's all. She hasn't turned up yet. With all my being, I see in God my ultimate. I can't conceive a higher ultimate. All right, I'll bet my life on my ultimate. And I'll choose the wrong right horse and I'll win in the end.

That's all. So I don't base my faith really on historic facts. Basically, I gather in all historic facts because if it's centered around that person, I take the lot. So on that basis, I take the whole Bible.

If she took the whole Bible, I'd take the whole Bible. The way in which he completed for us a total deliverance without one crack in it is known to us. That's what the Bible presents. And all those who interpret Jesus Christ and him crucified to us on earth, they have the same message.

So if we turn one, then we turn the lock down, Paul says the same, and John says the same, and James says the same, and Peter says the same, that's all that's left. Except Jude, he only goes about 30 verses, so he's still the same too.

Um, the whole lot says the same. We're looking at this fact now. And so we may say leap of faith unless, as I say, if to you this is the only conceivable God there could be, all right, then it's easy to take in what is said by faith.

That this was God become man. As a man, to redeem man. First of all, of course, he had to be one who couldn't himself become a captive to the wrong God. That had to be fought out in one. So he himself refused every kind of solicitation and enticement to become the wrong God which had captured the first animal.

Therefore he was in the condition in which he was free from the captivity and its consequences which seized upon the human race of which he was a member. Now he went in, went through a process which could produce for us a deliverance without a crack in it.

Christ for Us: Death and Resurrection

An entire redemption, whatever we have to call it. This was, of course, through the process of Christ dying, Christ rising, and ultimately Christ ascending. Although we shan't touch on that last one this morning, this afternoon.

Christ dying, Christ rising. The Bible divides the effects of Christ dying and rising into two distinct areas. Presented to us in two distinct forms in the scriptures. Mainly by the apostle Paul, who is the one who really opens up the whole matter for us.

The others do too, but he gives us the whole structure of salvation. You may speak of the two stages of redemption as Christ for us and Christ as us. With their different effects. Christ for us and Christ as us.

It's pictured for us also in a little statement which kind of slips in to one of the comments on the Lord's Supper. Made by the apostle Paul in the 10th chapter of 1 Corinthians. When he speaks about the Lord's Supper, and it's just passing remarks, so that often great truth comes in passing remarks, as you know.

He speaks about the cup of blessing which we bless. Is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread which we break. Is it not the communion of the blood of the body of Christ? You say, I'm just quoting.

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? Now having said that, spoken about the communion the blood of Christ, to the body of Christ, he goes on saying, for we being many are one bread and one body.

He doesn't say one blood. You'd think he'd say, is this not to mean the blood of Christ? Is this not to mean the body of Christ? We being many are one bread, one blood, one body. He doesn't say that. He doesn't say we being many are one blood.

He says we being many are one bread, one body. The bread being equivalent to the body. There's a reason for that. Because there's one necessary, preliminary, necessary part of our redemption, which is something we couldn't touch.

Which he had to do for us, apart from us. So we're not the blood. The blood is his life. We're not that. We're the body, which is not quite as close as the blood. We're the blood. We're not the blood, we're the body.

So it doesn't connect us that way with the blood. Because for this first part, there had to be someone who did something for us, apart from us, which he couldn't do for us else. Because we're caught up in a permanent condition of everlasting separation from God.

The scriptural phrase is eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord. It must be. A race captured by a God of self-centeredness cannot live side-by-side with a race captured by a God of self-giving.

They won't work. They won't be too friendly up there, any more than they are down here. It won't work. It's impossible. There must be an everlasting separation between the two. So we're caught up in this everlasting separation, which has consequences of death.

It's probably read to us, sin which bruises death. And after death, remaining in whatever the consequences are of the everlasting separation. To remain in the consequences of an everlasting separation means to remain in the consequences of self-centered life.

Well, we get a little of the hell you get from self-centeredness down here. A faint shadow of what can be when there's no comfort. We can comfort our self-centeredness a little down here by nice food and nice things and nice services.

When there was nothing except our burning desires, there won't be a pleasant life. Hell starts inside here, but we get a little comfort up here. When we're stripped, what comfort? So we're caught up in a separation which is everlasting, in which, of course, are involved the sins of which we're conscious, and the guilt as a consequence of them, and all that we think of as our lost conditions.

Now Christ, Calvary, shedding his precious blood for us, means the infinite and eternal one, giving up his infinity and eternity for us. That's what he did. He was the one who need never have died. He said so.

No man taketh it from me. I lay down my life upon myself. This was the one who never need die. And he resolved to giving up his right to an ununbroken eternal life to be us, and for us to have to take upon himself a separation which has captured us all.

So the Bible presents us with him, on Calvary, in this aspect, shattered all through Scripture. If you eliminate the blood of Christ, you eliminate the Bible. The two side by side. We begin the equivalent of the blood of Christ in Abel.

The first person of Christ is there to be a substitutionary sacrifice for his sins, right the way through the Bible. Until we come out at the final prophecy before Jesus Christ came. Behold the Lamb of God, the scapegoat who took the sins into the wilderness and so on.

The whole Bible says so. Eliminate the blood doesn't make the Bible. Eliminate the blood eliminates redemption, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. The blood means an eternal life, taking temporal death for our sakes.

That's what blood is, blood is the life, blood is the evidence that life is brought out. And the blood means therefore an eternal life, giving up being eternal and taking upon himself the temporal death which is the effect of sin, which would go on into death being separation from God, would go on eternally, taking upon himself, and causing him to use such expressions, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Well I never was forsaken because he was actually God himself. He was God forsaking God as it were. And ending by saying it is finished. All that he claimed to be finished would have been meaningless unless he had been raised from the dead.

The only proof that the sacrifice was efficacious was that the one who made it was raised from the dead. That was evidence to hope he was entirely accepted and entirely finished. That's why Paul says he was raised again for our justification.

Justification and Freedom From Guilt

Justification is a far, far profound and more marvelous word than forgiveness. Forgiveness is human, can be. Justification is beyond. Forgiveness means, well, if I've wronged you, you might forgive me, I couldn't be quite sure you'd forget it, and I'm sure I shouldn't forget it.

There's an element in forgiveness which isn't complete enough. You might forget it or might not, I'm sure I shouldn't. Justification is amazing, it means you are as if the thing was never there. That's blotting out.

I'm always there, I've had 27 years of foundation on that. I'm always there, it hasn't been sort of well asked for or unforgiven somehow, no, there's a basis to this. And I don't pretend to understand it all.

I dig and think, I don't pretend to understand. But I understand enough for it to cause me to admit I'm a sinner, which I am, and a guilty, which I am, and a rebel against God, which I am, and justifiably under condemnation as having broken the eternal law.

There's only one law in the universe. The law is a convenient term we use for the way everything works. A simple word. You talk about a law of something when you catch the way it works. For instance, Newton thought he founded the law of gravity.

Of course, Einstein tried to disagree with him, but if you understand Einstein, Einstein, God bless you. But at least the law of gravity, what does it mean? Well, there's something that works this way.

There's something that works the way, if you do drop a cup, it will break. Well, the consequence of a broken law, I'll drop the cup. Defy the law, and at least in the days when you've got decent china cups, you get a big broken cup.

So there's an effect of broken law. All those things are important. I may not fully understand it, but therefore the whole of life is broken law. Why? There's only one law of the universe. The law of the universe is the way God works.

How does God work? It's love. That's all there is in the universe. The law is the way everything works. How does the universe work? By personal love, nothing else. So everything which isn't self-giving love is broken law.

And there's only one who is self-giving love, and that's God. So only so far as God is operating by you is there unbroken law in you. All the rest is broken law. It's a poor us. We're poor us. And that simply is made of the fact that there are effects of broken law.

Now I couldn't mount all those up. What real foundation would I have to say, how are they all there? Unless I presented with this gospel, this way of redemption worked out by God. He revealed that he himself became a person.

You see, he could represent humanity because he was humanity. That's the deity, he was humanity. He's the basis of humanity, so he had to represent humanity. And then he took the name son of man, it's a good term, it's a general term.

He didn't call himself son of man, it's just son of man or Jesus saviour, which is what it means. But he was humanity. All right then, he could be humanity. This is the leap of faith. God is manifest in the faith.

And this person giving up what was his normal relationship, normal condition, eternal life, giving it up. Becoming what we are, a person under death. In other words, he took the curse, it says everyone hanged on a tree, it's cursed everyone hanging on a tree and so on.

The condemnation, the judgement, took it upon himself. Well I may not understand it all, but I understand that enough. That in the resurrection, God is saying, this person is perfectly righteous. What he went through isn't there any longer.

And therefore, if I relate it to him by faith, it's not there with me any longer. Look at this, it's not there. It's as if it never was there. It never comes to be this. I'm out. I must ascend this in God's sight as his own son is.

Righteous in God's sight as his own son. That's the care of righteousness. That's the foundation there. I find the freedom in it. So I don't jump into a vague thing called forgiveness because I'm just not quite sure how it comes on a foundation.

The basis of our freedom. And ultimately, of course, the basis of our continual cleansing. That doesn't quite come up now, but when we know this fact, we also learn in our daily lives, it's as quick sinning as quick cleansing.

Because God's attitude never changes. Actually it never did. Because in God's sight, the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world. Indeed, God's a queer person, because he provides remedies before there are needs for them.

The Bible says, before there is Jesus to be saved, before there is sin for us to save us from. That was a bit funny. We usually have the need first and then the supply afterwards. He has a supply for us and digs a hole for the need, then puts a supply into it.

We're the holy dog. So God's, thank God, he knows his own business. I like that. I hadn't heard that before, Tommy. The devils of ass. I think that's a great one. I agree with you. What is yet more important for us, and thank God, wonderfully realized by so many of us here, that's not enough.

Christ as Us: Redemption of the Inner Motive

If that's all redemption is, that's not enough. I told you that the Bible presents us with, peculiarly Paul, the process of redemption, Christ crucified and Christ risen, in two distinct stages, phases, what word to use?

Departments, is the right word to use. Why isn't it enough? Because my ultimate problem isn't the sins I commit, it's the sin that commits them. It's the sins that motivates me is my problem. The sins I've produced, which have caused me to be and express this life of self-sacrifice, are a product of a sin's spirit, which is not me.

The he is that is in the world. The spirit of the world, the spirit of the devil. Jesus is very, very plain. Jesus said some things we don't always like. He said to the Pharisees, but we also have Pharisees until we were saved, we get a little Pharisees every now and then as well, after we are saved too.

But he said this, he said to the Pharisees, year of your father the devil, and the lust of your father you will do it, and say it is yours. He says year of your father the devil, lust of your father, because in this spiritual relationship your father is inside you.

Just as the heavenly father is inside Jesus, so the wrong father is inside the unredeemed. And you are expressing his lusting through you. This was the comment, it was made in 1 John 1, 1 John chapter 3 I should say, where it spoke about loving your brother and not being like Cain.

Do you see what he says? He says, love your brethren, don't be like Cain, who is of that wicked one and through his brother. Why put those words of that wicked one in? Why not just say, don't be like Cain and through his brother, because it wasn't Cain who was through his brother.

There was a hater murderer inside Cain who merely used Cain as an agent. That is what humanity is. The wicked one was the one who hated and murdered through Cain, and Cain was the agent. So you see, I am getting at this, redemption is hopelessly incomplete if it merely removes the consequences of my sins, which have separated me from God, and don't remove the motivator and replace it by a new motivator.

The spirit of holiness instead of the spirit of sin, if you like. The spirit of self-giving love instead of the spirit of self-loving love. Unless it does that, it is incomplete. I was saying, I think I moved off at the moment, I was saying in the middle there, I find that my age, my memory sometimes gives me a jump or two, so if you will pardon me if I miss a point or two, but I was saying about that quick-seeding, quick-cleansing.

I jumped off there, I was saying now of course in God's sight, we are always reconciled, we are reconciled, he never needed to be reconciled to us, oh no. He had to fulfil a process which could reconcile us to him, which could make it possible for us to come back to him.

So we are always reconciled. I mean therefore that there is never a need for us to remain in guilt when we do fall into sin. As quick as we fall down into sin, we can get up again into faith. Because the Bible speaks of the continual cleansing of the blood, it speaks for Hebrews 9, how much more shall the blood of Christ keep cleansing your conscience, now I am not talking about the unredeemed, I am talking about the redeemed, keep cleansing your conscience from dead works to serve the living God, dead works of course are self-effort works, living works are God-effort works.

How much more shall the blood of Christ keep cleansing you, because in other words always is this fact that in that act 2000 years ago everything that ever could be is finished, the whole lot is out, past, present, future.

So in a second when I become consciously guilty again, quite right, I should be guilty as a conscious person. At the moment I am able to move over and say stop there, stop there in God's sight, stop there in my sight.

It is as quick-seeing as quick-cleansing as our basis to continual freedom from guilt. So I am moving on now to this second aspect which must give us the basis of a complete redemption and renewal. If Paul brings it into focus for us, I think Paul got a shock.

Paul's Discovery of Life in Christ

As we will see a little later on, I think that very few of us find what we are talking about now in the one step when we first enter into a relationship with Christ. It is usually the second step which is involved here.

I think it was in Paul, because if I read it right, Paul made the second great discovery when he went to Arabia, because he speaks a great deal about the second discovery in the Galatian letter. He opens it up in its global letter, but he applies it in the Galatian letter.

And in the Galatian letter he says he went to visit a journey in Arabia. He went to Mount Sinai. The shock he got was he didn't find Mount Sinai there, he found Mount Zion there, which is much more convenient.

Because he speaks of both of them. Mount Sinai's glory, Mount Zion's grace. And he saw right into the, thank God for men who were corrupt, he saw right through them. And he saw right through the implications of Christ crucified and Christ risen.

And he saw here the implications as us. Now in one sense we have nothing to do with it. In one sense we, all of us, come to the foot of the cross and see this person who took our place and went through a certain process of burying our sins in his own body on the tree, being made a cross for us, having the judgment of God upon us for our sins, in our place, and removed in his death, and purified by his resurrection.

We don't touch that. We just come there and all the conditions of the sinners are disappeared. We are in God's eyes that the devil was there. The devil was there. But we are coming to the foot of the cross.

But we have to go beyond the foot of the cross. We have to get on the cross. Now Christ for us, we don't touch. That's the blood of Christ. Christ as us is we. That's why that second statement about the Holy Communion says, we are one bread, one body, because the body is part of you.

And this statement requires us, like when Christ is on the cross, we are there, like a body is part of you. One bread, one body. Now what is Paul saying by that? He says, get this clear. If this person was humanity, humanity was there.

Now you don't come to the cross and say he died for me. You say, no, if he was humanity, I was there, therefore if he died, I died. And if he was buried, I was buried. If he rose, I rose. If he ascended, I ascended.

We are getting a bit closer in now. But this is the logic that keen mind could see. God is in all thoughts. It's interesting to get out his great, apply his great revelations in two dispensations. He used two trained minds.

Moses in the old dispensation and Paul in the new. So God uses the fool and the wise and he can only get much fewer wise. No, I won't. Sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. I only meant, I want to protect the wise, not run down too much.

So, sorry. I'll make peace with you afterwards. Thank you. I like, I agree with you. Sorry. So, I'm saying Paul could see the total structure. And he said this. Now watch that, he says. Therefore, if this person was we, it was we.

Now what does that mean, therefore it was we? What are we? We are people with a sin spirit inside us. Actually, as I said before, you'll never get the Bible right where it remains letters and words to you, or things.

You'll only get the Bible right where it dissolves and becomes a person. And so even sin, it took me, it's a great revelation I suddenly saw that sin is a spirit. Sin is the character of the sin person.

And sin, mind you, is just the spirit of satanism. You know that. It's just forms of self egocentricity, that's all. This satanic person. So, sin really means it's the character of this satanic person.

So, sin is a spirit really, same as using the Bible word holiness. He's a holy spirit. He's the spirit of love, the spirit of the products of self-giving love, of the fruits of the spirit and so on. You see, he's the holiness in us.

Do you see what I mean? Jesus Christ is great and does wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. The words dissolve. These tough, dry words. While the Bible remains dry to you, you can be sure it hasn't broken up to you yet.

It lives, oh there he is, there he is. Through the words you find the person. Words are effectively their spirit, their life. The letter gives the spirit, gives life. So, I'm only saying this now, I'm saying this for a reason.

Therefore John is saying, look at this. Paul is saying, look at this. This with the whole humanity hanging there. And humanity is a human race which has got the one God inside it. It's got the spirit, the sin spirit, which is the spirit of selflessness inside it.

Therefore Paul made a remark. He said, God made him to be sin for us. That's a change of heart. He'd always talked about bearing our sins and our sins upon us. Sins were things which had the wrath of God upon them and separated us from God.

They had the judgment and the consequences and all that. That was his blood. That was where he died in our place and took the curse upon himself. That's the other one. That's Christ dying for us. He hadn't talked about sins yet.

Sin is the sin principle, sin spirit, sin person. Now, if somebody says to you, 2 Corinthians 5, 24 or something like that, he was made sin for us. Why? He says, look, Paul says, look, if he was humanity, he was a whole race which was being motivated by a wrong God.

And being motivated by a wrong God is producing all the natural projects of self-love, self-seeking, self-medification, naturally able sentient. Here he was, he says. Now, here he is in God's sight, this was humanity in this person hanging on Calvary.

And therefore he, in God's sight, as it were, he was a humanity with this wrong spirit. Then he said he died. Now, it's very clear in the Bible, he really died. That was the evidence of the soldiers. They wouldn't break his legs.

Because he died, so they pierced his body. And out came the blood and water, which is the evidence of the death. And a dead body was taken out. Why is that so important? Because a death is separation of the body and spirit.

That's why. That's what death is. And therefore he said, look here, if this person represents humanity up there with the sin spirit, and when he died, that's separation. Then humanity was separated from the sin spirit.

Exactly. Exactly. This was what separated the whole humanity from the inner indwelling of control and outworking of this wrong spirit of self-sentience which entered through the wrong tree all those years ago.

This was the negative liberation. If we question about that, we'll go on a little further a little later and see how it works out. When you see its effects, the scientific hypothesis is proved by its effects, isn't it?

Whether it works or not, we'll see. Now, you get that Paul says to us, here's a dead body. That was we. This was humanity. This was humanity lying in a tomb, buried with him. Buried with him is a scriptural expression.

Very well. In that tomb. A dead body. Now Paul says, what can raise a dead body? Well obviously only a spirit. A new spirit. Yes. And therefore he says, Jesus Christ was put to death in the flesh, quickened by the spirit.

Quickly, like the new birth in the womb, the new life in the womb. Quickened by the spirit. Here was his own spirit, God, the spirit of self-giving love, coming into this body which was we. This is the new humanity.

Now this is the printed foundation for a permanent, perfect, indestructible new unity taking place between God and the human spirit, the redeemed human spirit, in the place of the old one which went out in the dead.

And the new one came in the resurrection. There's our foundation. That's how we can operatively, daringly, funnily, enjoyably be in this relationship. It isn't something we vaguely grasp and hope itself.

It's given us a great historical foundation. It should have a historical foundation if sin's in history, redemption's been in history. Certainly. That doesn't mean we live by historical Jesus, no. Paul is pretty bold.

Paul went on to say, yeah, if I knew him after the flesh yet, now I know him no more. I'm not joined now to a Jesus in the human flesh. I'm joined now to a Jesus who is spirit, and yet that spirit has a body.

There's a resurrection body. That's the basis for us having a resurrection body one day. So we ought to argue that just now. So there we are. So now we're saying this. I take this time to remind you of this total, square, historical foundation for us who are sinners in history, by which God provided in the person of his Son, which was himself, this complete redemption, which is a unification, I mustn't say reunification, which there was, a unification of God and man.

From Historical Fact to Personal Experience

Now we have to ask this question, because we have time, difficultly in a way, that aspect, not so much to a company like you, but to many, is that's the more historic type of thing. They say, oh, well, I don't know, that sort of thing happened 2 ,000 years ago, what's it matter to me anyhow?