The Substance of Christ, from The Coming Day of Redemption
The Substance of Christ, from The Coming Day of Redemption
I have preached and written a good deal about the role of the body and blood of Christ in God's plan of redemption. Using the term "substance" rather than body and blood somehow makes the matter clearer to me.
As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. (John 6:57)
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The verse above, John 6:57, has become one of the most important verses in my thinking. It tells us how we are to live.
The believer who keeps on eating of Christ is the one who lives by Christ.
Currently, in Christian thinking, the idea is that the person who keeps on believing in Christ is the one who has eternal life.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. (John 6:47)
I think in many instances our idea of what it means to believe in Christ means to believe the things about Christ: His virgin birth; His atoning death on the cross; His bodily resurrection; and His coming again in the clouds of glory.
Such is our "Statement of Faith."
But to accept these facts as true is not faith; and believing them is not what Jesus means by believing in Him. The demons know all this is true, and they certainly do not have eternal life!
Then, in the same chapter of John, the Lord announced the following:
This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. (John 6:50)
I think that for most of us, believing is one matter, and eating is another.
I would say that a correct belief in Jesus Christ leads us to eat of Jesus Christ. If it does not, our belief is not what the Lord means. It is dead, having no life in it.
Am I saying that we can believe all the facts of Fundamentalist theology and still not have eternal life?
That is exactly what I am saying.
How are we to eat and drink the Substance, the Body and Blood, of Christ?
We eat of the Substance of Christ by bringing Him into our daily life.
When we awake in the morning we can get dressed and eat breakfast as usual. Or we can ask Christ about what we should wear and what we should eat. As we maintain such an awareness of Christ, seeking His Presence and help in all we are doing, He feeds us with His Substance.
We are wise when we pray unceasingly to the Lord that He feed us with His Substance.
Let us say that a fellow Christian has wounded us grievously. Now our mind is filled with hatred, or fear, a desire to have revenge, or sorrow. If we do nothing about this for a few days, our injury can fill our mind with poison. We are not thinking about things that are "lovely," as the Apostle Paul commanded us.
A root of bitterness grows in us.
The thing to do is to tell Jesus about it and ask for a portion of His Substance to enable us to throw off this poison; to help us forgive totally. There is wisdom and power in the blood of the Lamb that can remove completely the evil produced by the injury and fill us with pleasant prospects.
This is how we live by His Substance.
We have so many needs each day, so many decisions to make. If we would live with Jesus we must keep asking for His Substance to enable us to overcome all evil and maintain righteousness, love, joy, and peace.
Christ Himself is the Resurrection. His Substance is resurrection life of such wisdom and power that all of our problems and temptations can be overcome. Overcoming our challenges can require a battle, but through the Substance of the Lord Jesus, complete victory is assured.
The Substance of Christ is that which will enable us to rise to meet Christ when He appears.
Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together. (Luke 17:37,37)
Her young ones also suck up .: and where the slain are, there is she. (Job 39:30)
The blood of Christ answers to the blood of the slain Lamb who appears. Blood calls to blood. Only those who are living by the blood of the Lamb will rise to meet Christ.
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 5:54)
If I am not mistaken, we are in a new day. I believe it is the beginning of the Day of Redemption. The Lord Jesus desires to come much, much closer to us than has been true in time past, except perhaps for a few outstanding personages, such as Moses and the Apostle Paul.
At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. (John 14:20,21)
It may be true that the two thousand years of Church history have been for the purpose of bringing us to the present works of redemption. We might think of ourselves as being ready to cross the Jordan, so to speak.
Going further in the program of redemption will mean death to our self-will, as well as to sinful behavior. Before us lies Canaan, the Land of Promise. What will it mean to us, if we can battle our way into complete victory?
Possessing Canaan will mean being in the inner image of Christ, and in His outer image in the Day of Resurrection.
It will mean reclining with Christ on the Bosom of the Father for eternity. This is where Christ is, and Christ has invited us to be with Him where He is.
It will mean possessing the saved people of the nations as our inheritance.
The promise is that if we will delight ourselves in the Lord, He shall give us the desires of our heart. In His Presence is fullness of joy. At His right hand are pleasures forever.
God did the fighting when we came out of Egypt, to speak in a figure. But in order to enter our inheritance in Christ, we, with God's help, are going to have to fight. It will be a bitter, fierce conflict if we are to dislodge Satan from our inheritance. We simply cannot gain victory in our own wisdom and strength. We have to have the Substance of Christ living in us if we are to possess what God has promised to us.
As I stated previously, Christ is willing to be much, much closer to us than we have experienced. Such closeness with the Lord Jesus must be gained by our continual bringing every aspect of our being and behavior to Jesus that He may infuse us with His Substance.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. (John 6:51)
Eating the flesh of Christ and drinking His blood is not supposed to be a ceremony we observe in church. It is how we are to live each day and night.
We do not eat of the Substance of Christ just once, but continually, day and night, seven days a week. His Substance is our resurrection life. We are attaining to the resurrection each day, if we are diligent. Our progress, or lack of it, will be revealed in the great Day of Resurrection when the Lord appears.
I believe there is considerable misunderstanding in our day concerning the return of Christ. There has entered Christian thinking the concept of a "rapture" that will carry all Christians up to Heaven when Christ appears.
If such a "rapture" did occur, it would be a catastrophe. I would judge that most of today's believers, at least in America, are nowhere near being prepared for the coming of Christ and the setting up of His Kingdom.
I think it is true that we now are in the beginning of the spiritual fulfillment of the Jewish Blowing of Trumpets. The Lord Jesus, as He promised, has come to those who are looking for Him. The purpose of this coming, which will precede His visible coming in which every eye shall see Him, is to prepare us for the challenges that will accompany His worldwide appearing.
We must keep in mind that if we would be ready for the Lord to resurrect us and catch us up to meet Him in the air, we must have attained to the inner resurrection that occurs as we keep eating of Christ's Substance.
Notice the lengths that the Apostle Paul was going to that he might attain to the inner resurrection. Attaining to the inner resurrection is a requirement if we are to experience the outer resurrection that precedes our being caught up to meet Christ in the air:
Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. (Philippians 3:8-11)
"Attain unto the resurrection of the dead"!
It seem that those who are teaching the unscriptural "rapture" are not mentioning also the requirements set forth by the Apostle Paul. It is as though at any moment now, all in America who profess to believe in Christ will be caught up to Heaven to live in a mansion, the purpose being to avoid Antichrist and the Great Tribulation.
Our common sense, plus a rudimentary knowledge of the New Testament, ought to tell us better than this.
Let me repeat what the Lord Jesus taught:
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 5:54)
"I will raise him up at the last day."
How many American Christians of your acquaintance are inviting Christ into their daily life to such an extent that it could be maintained that they are living by the Substance of Christ?
As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. (John 6:57)
"He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me."
If I am not mistaken, we American Christians are dreadfully below the standard set by the Lord. Most of us, I believe, do not live by partaking of the Substance of Christ. We are just ordinary people who have professed belief in the facts relating to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We believe in His virgin birth. Christmas, celebrating His birth and early life in a feeding trough, as the most important holiday of the year. We sing our traditional carols.
But our daily life does not indicate we are sharing His Presence continually. In fact, He might be dead for all we know.
We celebrate Easter, Christ's resurrection from the dead, the second most important American holiday. But I question, with all the ceremony of Easter, if we really are aware that Christ is living today and wishes to have fellowship with us.
God has made sure we will keep His Son in mind at all times by making us utterly dependent on His Substance. If we do not feed constantly on the Substance of Christ, we are spiritually dead.
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. (John 6:53)
In my estimation, there is not one Christian in a hundred that is inviting Christ to enter his life, his planning, his decisions, at every moment; who truly is living by the Substance of Christ.
The Muslims are entering our country in great numbers. They understand we have a religion that is different from theirs. But are they seeing the living Christ in us or just our religious practices?
The truth is, we have formalized the Christian salvation into a religious formality when it is supposed to be a daily walk with Jesus.
Can we say to a Muslim, "I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I am living. Yet it is not I who am living but Christ who is living in me?"
No, what we present to devout Muslims is our stale religious practices. Christian America reveals its heart in all sorts of idolatry and pagan entertainment, much of which comes from Hollywood. I don't think Muslims see the living Jesus in us, and so they are not impressed.
I could be mistaken, but I believe we are in a new day as far as the program of redemption is concerned. We can see that sin is increasing worldwide. Yet the Book says that where sin abounds, Divine grace also abounds.
I am convinced that if any person looks to Jesus and says, "Dear Lord, from this moment forward I want to live by eating Your Substance; I want You to be present with me at all times and guide my thinking, planning, speaking, and doing; I desire Your Presence more than anything else in my life"; that any individual, boy or girl, middle-aged or old person who will pray that prayer will soon experience the Presence of Jesus to a greater extent than he or she has known.
The Lord Jesus is looking through the church world for those who will commit themselves in this manner, turning away from the cheap "accept Christ and you will go to Heaven" approach.
The United States Marine Corps says it is looking for a few good men and women. So is Jesus. It would not take many believers who present themselves to Christ in the above fashion to make a significant impact on our confused country, and possibly the remainder of the world.
You can be one such person. If you look to Jesus Christ to feed you each moment with His Substance, you will save yourself and those who will listen to you throughout the coming moral and physical chaos.
This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. (John 6:58)