What is true of Christ?...

He is the firstborn among many brothers.

Romans 8:29 has stupendous implications. It describes the eternal purpose of God in world history. God is creating by His Divine wisdom and power many brothers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God is insuring that all things work together for good to the future brothers of the Lord Jesus. The history of mankind has taken place within the boundaries of God’s purpose. The release and progress of mankind await the bringing forth of the brothers of Christ. They are a firstfruits to God of the peoples of the earth.

The concepts of Divine foreknowledge and predestination have proved to be difficult for some earnest inquirers to accept.

The saint who desires to grow in the wisdom and revelation of Christ must accept the concepts of Divine foreknowledge and predestination. Apart from them it is impossible to understand the ways of the Lord God of Heaven.

Divine foreknowledge and Divine predestination are truths of the holy Scriptures. The Scriptures are not to be tampered with in any manner whatever.

God is God. He is wiser, more powerful, greater, more loving, more capable of wrath, more able to work according to His own counsel, than any of us are able to conceive.

Perhaps our sinful and rebellious nature would attempt to accuse God of injustice because He works in terms of His foreknowledge and eternal purposes. But we cannot alter the Scriptures. The Scriptures will remain intact when the universe passes away.

God is the Potter and we are the clay. Let God be true and every man a liar.

God’s foreknowledge is universal in scope and totally accurate in detail.

God’s foreknowledge is universal enough and accurate enough to enable Him to chart the course of every one of His creatures, especially those whom He has predestined to be changed into the image of His beloved Son.

God has given His creatures the opportunity to choose to serve Him (although we observed in the seventh chapter of Romans that this opportunity can be hampered seriously by the principle of sin that abides in the parts of our physical body).

God’s foreknowledge enables Him to know in advance the decisions each creature will make. The Divine foreknowledge governs the decisions of God concerning the destiny of each individual.

God cannot be tempted with sin. God never leads anyone into sin or forces him to sin. Sin does not proceed from the Lord God of Heaven.

God knows in advance what each person will do over the course of his existence. We must temper this statement, however, by the fact that the present world is one great area of testing. It is our response to the test that seals the purposes of God concerning us.

God knew what was in Abraham’s heart. But it was after Abraham actually went ahead with the sacrifice of Isaac that God spoke:

And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. (Genesis 22:12) "Now I know."

God judges people by what they do, what actions they take. This is a very important principle of spirituality and of judgement.

Whenever we state that God knows in advance what each person will do we must temper this idea with the fact that God takes chances with people, putting them into situations where there is a possibility that His servant will fall.

Many people disappoint God during their lifetime. The disappointment is genuine. In the days of Noah, God expressed grief concerning the creation of mankind. Some individuals are appointed to great glory and then make wrong choices.

Let no believer ever accept a spirit of inevitability concerning life on the earth. The Scriptures mean exactly what they state. Life is a window of opportunity. We can choose to lay hold on our Divine calling or we can let it slip. This is a real choice that each one of us has, and the consequences are eternal.

All spirits are eternal in existence. If God had no purpose in a particular spirit He would not have created it. Before God created Satan or any other fallen angel, God knew sin and rebellion would take place. Any creature of God that possesses a will of its own is capable of sinning, of rebelling against God.

When God made the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to grow from the ground of the garden, God understood that Satan would be able to deceive the innocent Eve into disobeying Him.

You may ask, Why does God allow circumstances to exist that He understands will result in sin and rebellion, with the accompanying tragedy and anguish? It is so He can immunize His children against sin.

The events of history were allowed to take place because God has purposed to create many sons in His own image, many brothers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

No doubt God, from unimaginable eons past, has been planning to bring a large number of sons into the image of His beloved Son, Christ. God has decided to create a family, to enlarge His own Being.

It may be true that each of the sons who is created in the image of Christ will one day be responsible to Christ for a universe of creatures. It is a very large canvas that the God of Heaven is painting.

A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in his time (Isaiah 60:22).

There is an important precaution that must be taken before sons are created in the image of the Father. Before these immense beings bearing galactic authority and power are established in responsible positions in the universe, their love of righteousness and obedience to God must be perfected beyond any possibility of sin and disobedience occurring at a later time. Can you see the reason for this?

When Satan and the angels fell, as God knew beforehand that they would, the materials were at hand for the immunization of God’s future sons against sin and disobedience.

God’s immunizing power is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Christian Church does not always appear to be aware of this fact. One gains the impression at times that God’s people are looking to their move to Heaven as the solution to the sin problem.

Moving to Heaven will not release us from the chains of sin and rebellion. Not once in the Scriptures is going to Heaven presented as the means of redemption. Sin and rebellion against the Lord God began in Heaven, in the realm of spirits without bodies. Since this is true, being carried to Heaven will not create within the sons of God the virtue necessary for satisfying the Father that sin and rebellion will not be found in them.

The viewpoint of current Christian theology is that the goal of salvation is to bring people to Heaven. Added to this is the belief that going to Heaven will release us from the chains of slavery to sin and rebellion.

The goal and the means of attaining the goal are both incorrect. The goal of the Divine redemption is to conform us to the image of the Lord Jesus. Only the forming and dwelling of Christ in us are sufficient to release us from the chains of slavery to sin.

Because the goal and the means of attaining the goal are incorrect, the plans and procedures of the Christian churches are often ineffective in accomplishing the Divine purpose.

The Christians churches are seeking to increase their numbers, with the understanding that their congregations are on their way to Heaven. The churches are not nearly as intent on the transformation from Adam to the new creation, the image of Christ.

Many of the churches are out of the Lord’s will. They are wasting His time and resources. The pressures God will send in the future shall sweep away the current plans and procedures and replace them with the Bride without blemish.

What is God’s solution to the problem of sin and rebellion?

The solution is the Character, the Person, the Virtue of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only as Christ is formed in us that our heavenly Father can be certain we shall not reintroduce sin and rebellion into His creation. God, understanding all this from the beginning, created Adam and Eve as a beginning step in His plan to form many sons in His image. It is apparent that Adam and Eve were not immune to sin and rebellion. Christ had not been formed in them.

Just as the Lord God knew he would, Satan entered the garden and infected Adam and Eve with sin and rebellion. The material creation thus was exposed to the worst of all sicknesses. Sin and rebellion spread through the earth like the flames of Hell. God was aware this would take place.

In the fullness of time, God sent forth the resistance, the antibodies, that create immunity to sin and rebellion. The resistance, the antibodies, consists of the Person, the Character, the Virtue, of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone who will accept the "vaccination" of being filled with Christ will become immune for eternity to sin and rebellion.

Do you comprehend the wisdom of God?

Nothing takes God by surprise. Nothing can harm one of God’s elect if that individual will continue to dwell in God through Christ.

The wall that surrounds the new Jerusalem is a symbolic portrayal of the resistance, the immunity to sin possessed by the Bride of the Lamb. Adam’s bride was not immune to sin. There may be an actual wall around the holy city, but the spiritual meaning of the wall is the immunity to sin and rebellion, the love of righteousness and holiness, and the obedience to God that are being created in the sons of God.

One day soon God will be able to trust His sons with vast, universal assignments of accomplishment and rulership. They will never disobey God. Why not?

Because it no longer is they who are living but a new creation. The new creation is a unique expression of the Lord God—an expression produced from an eternally inseparable blend of Christ and the saint.

The new creation is not the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not the saint. Yet, both Christ and the saint are present in the new person, the new little brother of Christ.

How can the two become one in this fashion?

The unity of Christ and the saint is the same unity that exists in Christ and the Father. Christ is the eternal Life who has been with the Father from the beginning. God is in Christ. Christ is filled with all the fullness of God. There is an eternal union in which neither Christ nor God has lost His identity.

In the same manner, God is in Christ in us. We are in Christ in God. God the Father has not lost His Identity as a Person. Christ has not lost His Identity as a Person. We have not lost our identity as a person. The new person produced by this union is not the Father, nor is he the Lord Jesus Christ, nor is he we ourselves. He is a new person, not having existed previously.

The new persons formed in this manner are the Kingdom of God—the eternal expression of the almighty God throughout His creation.

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me (John 17:22,23).

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature [a new creation]: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God,.. (II Corinthians 5:17,18).

The new personages, the kings and priests of God, are eternally immune to sin and rebellion even though tremendous areas of opportunity for choice will be opened to them.

How have they become they immune to sin?

They are immune because they have been sick and have died with the disease of sin and rebellion. Then they were raised from the dead by being permeated in every aspect of their personality with the Divine Person and Virtue of the Lord Jesus Christ.

By reason of being filled with the Divine Person of the Lord Jesus Christ they have become an eternally inseparable part of the God of Heaven. Therefore they cannot sin. They have been born of God. They will not sin because Christ will not sin.

Whoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God (I John 3:9).

Now do you understand why God allows sin and rebellion to continue in His creation?

It is because He is building resistance in His sons against the dreadful disease of sin. As soon as each son, each brother of Christ, has been completely immunized, God will cast Satan, every other sinning angel, and every person who refuses Christ into the lake that burns with fire and sulfur.

The lake that burns with fire and sulphur is not a redemptive fire. It is eternal wrath, eternal torment. All sin and rebellion—the horrible virus—will be contained within the dark, oppressive interior of the earth. The virus of sin and rebellion will never be obliterated. It will be confined in one location for eternity. The tormenting fire, and those who dwell therein, will serve as a perpetual reminder to the whole universe of the result of sin and rebellion against the Most High.

Understanding these facts we can begin to gain an inkling of the truly awesome implications of the expression: "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

The arena in which mankind plays out its brief episode on the earth is a working area for the Lord God of Heaven as He is bringing forth sons in His own image. The sons will grow into his likeness during the future billions of eons.

The sons of God will bear responsibility of such magnitude that no language on earth could encompass and convey such grandeur, such avenues of development and expression.

Given such a program it is not surprising that God examines and weighs exceedingly carefully every thought, every motive, every imagination, every word, every action, every posture, every attitude of the heirs of His salvation. They are the seed of the worlds to come. Therefore they must be perfect.

Perfect in Christ! It is extremely important to keep in mind that God is not creating sons apart from Himself. He is creating sons in Christ who are part of God’s own Being.

An "expert Christian," that is, someone who is attaining Christ-likeness but who is not an inseparable aspect of the radiance of Christ’s resurrection Life, is not of God. He is of the False Prophet.

The saints of themselves are nothing. The assembly of saints is nothing. If all the saints on the earth of all time were to assemble in one place and agree on one course of action it would still be nothing and less than nothing.

Such an assemblage would be the worst possible enemy of God in the universe. Be sure you understand this if you would be the friend of God.

The only important aspect of all God’s workings is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. What He is. What He does. Not what we do for Him or in His Name.

It is only as each saint becomes part of the Divine Personage, the Lord Jesus, that any good is performed in the Kingdom of God.

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