Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The Incarnation of Man

Smith Wigglesworth was a British plumber and volunteer worker in Salvation Army missions who later made several powerful evangelistic tours in the 1920's and 1930's. As an agent of God in divine healing he was also concerned with holiness and purity as well as power. The following message is taken from the collection of his sermons that are recorded in the book Smith Wigglesworth on Spirit-Filled Living:

"I especially want to speak to those who are saved. God wants you to be holy. He wants you to be filled with the power that will keep you holy. He wants you to have a revelation of what sin and death are, and what the Spirit and life of the Spirit are. Look at these two significant verses:

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. (Rom. 8:1-2)


"'No condemnation.' This is the primary thought for me because it means so much; it contains so much truth. If you are without condemnation, you are in a place where you can pray through. You can have a revelation of Christ. For Him to be in you brings you to the place where you cannot, if you follow the definite leadings of the Spirit of Christ, have any fellowship with the world. I want you to see that the Spirit of the Lord would reveal this fact to us. If you love the world, you cannot love God, and the love of God cannot be in you (1 John 2:15). God wants a clear decision, because if you are in Christ Jesus, you are a 'new creation' (2 Cor. 5:17). You are in Him; therefore, you walk in the Spirit and are free from condemnation.

". . . So the Spirit of the Lord would bring you into revelation. He wants you without condemnation. What will that mean? Much in every way, because God wants all His people to be clear witnesses so that the world will know we belong to God. More than that, He wants us to be 'the salt of the earth' (Matt. 5:13); to be 'the light of the world' (v. 14); to be like cities built on a hill so that they cannot be hidden (v. 14). He wants us to be so 'in God' (1 John 4:15) that the world will see God in us. Then they can look to Him for redemption. That is the law of the Spirit. What will it do? 'The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus' will make you 'free from the law of sin and death' (Rom. 8:2). Sin will have no dominion over you (Rom. 6:14). You will have no desire to sin, and it will be as true of you as it was of Jesus when He said, 'The ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me' (John 14:30). Satan cannot influence; he has no power. His power is destroyed: 'The body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness' (Rom. 8:10).

"To be filled with God means that you are free. You are filled with joy, peace, blessing, and strength of character. You are transformed by God's mighty power.

"Notice there are two laws. 'The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus' makes you 'free from the law of sin and death' (v. 2). 'The law of sin and death' is in you as it was before, but it is dead. You still have your same flesh, but its power over you is gone. You are the same person, but you have been awakened into spiritual life. You are a 'new creation' (2 Cor. 5:17), created in God afresh after the image of Christ. Now, beloved, some people who conform to this truth do not understand their inheritance, and they go down. Instead of becoming weak, you have to rise triumphantly over 'the law of sin and death.' In Romans, we read: 'I thank God; through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin' (7:25).

"God wants to show you that there is a place where we can live in the Spirit and not be subject to the flesh. We can live in the Spirit until sin has no dominion over us. We reign in life and see the covering of God over us in the Spirit. Sin reigned unto death, but Christ reigned over sin and death, and so we reign with Him in life.

". . . God made you like Himself, and in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus restored to you everything that was lost in the Garden of Eden. Through the agony He suffered, He purchased our blessed redemption.

"People say, 'Could anything be greater than the fellowship that prevailed in the Garden of Eden when God walked and talked and had fellowship with man?' Yes, redemption is greater. Nothing but what was local was in the garden, but the moment a man is born again, he is free from the world and lives in heavenly places. He has no destination except heaven.

"Redemption is, therefore, greater than the Garden of Eden, and God wants you to know that you may receive this glorious redemption not only for salvation, but also for the restoration of your bodies. . . . You have been made free, and all praise and glory are due the Son of God. Hallelujah! No more Egypt places! No more sandy deserts! Praise the Lord! Free 'from the law of sin and death' (Rom. 8:2). How was it accomplished? These verses from Romans answer that question. Pay particular attention to verse three. It contains the supreme truth:

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:3-4)


"Righteousness was fulfilled in us! Brother and sister, I tell you there is a redemption. There is an atonement in Christ. There is a personality of Christ to dwell in you. There is a Godlikeness for you to attain, a blessed resemblance to Christ. The God in you will not fail if you believe the Word of God.

". . . Jesus came to destroy the works of the Devil. God was manifested in Him. The fullness of God resided in Jesus, and He walked about glorified, filled with God. Incarnate! May I embody Christ? Yes. How can I be so filled with God that all my movements, my desires, my mind, and my will are so controlled by a new power that I no longer exist, for God has filled me? Praise the Lord! Certainly it can be so. Did you ever examine the condition of your new birth into righteousness? Did you ever investigate it? Did you ever try to see what there was in it? Were you ever able to fathom the fullness of redemption that came to you through believing in Jesus?

"Before 'the foundation of the world,' redemption was all completed (Matt. 25:24). It was set in order before the Fall. This redemption had to be so mighty and had to redeem us all so perfectly that there would be no deficiency in the whole of redemption.

"Let us see how it came about: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' (John 1:1). He became flesh. Then, He became the voice and the operation of the Word. By the power of God through the Holy Spirit, He became the Authority. Now, let me go further with you.

"You are born of an incorruptible power of God (1 Pet. 1:23), born of the Word, who has the personality and nature of God. You were begotten of God, and 'you are not your own' (1 Cor. 6:19). You can believe that you have 'passed from death into life' (John 5:24) and have become 'heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ' (Rom. 8:17) in the measure in which you believe His Word. The natural flesh, the first order, has been changed into a new order, for the first order was Adam, the natural, and the last order was Christ, the heavenly. Now you have been changed by a heavenly power existing in an earthly body, and that power can never die. I want you to see that you are born of a power and have existing in you the power of God used to create the world. It is 'the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus' that makes you 'free from the law of sin and death' (v. 2).

"Now, let us look at the law without the Spirit, 'the law of sin and death.' Here is a man who has never come into the new law. He is still in the law of Adam, never having been regenerated, never having been born again. He is led captive by the Devil at his will. There is no power that can convert a man except the power of the blood of Jesus. The carnal mind is 'not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be' (Rom. 8:7). Carnality is selfishness and uncleanness. It cannot be subject to God. It interferes with you by binding you and keeping you in bondage. But God destroys carnality by a new life, which is so much better, and fills you 'with joy inexpressible and full of glory' (1 Pet. 1:8). The half can never be told. Everything that God does is too big to tell. His grace, His love, His mercy, and His salvation are all too big to understand.

"Do you not know that ours is an abundant God, 'who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think' (Eph. 3:20)? We are illuminated and quickened by the Spirit, looking forward to the Rapture when we will be caught up and lifted into the presence of God. God's boundaries are enormous, wonderful, and glorious!

"Now, let me touch on another important point. Can you think about Jesus being dead in the grave? Do you think that God could do anything for us if Jesus were still there? After His crucifixion and until He was laid in the grave, everything had to be done for Him, and I want you to see that a dead Christ can do nothing for you. He carried the cross, so don't you carry it [i.e., His cross]. The Cross covered everything, and the Resurrection brought everything to life. When He was in the grave, the Word of God ways that He was raised by the operation of God through the Spirit. Jesus was awakened by the Spirit in the grave, and this same Spirit dwells in your mortal bodies. Jesus rose by the quickening power of the Holy Spirit:

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you (Rom. 8:11)


"If you will allow Jesus to have charge of your bodies, you will find that this Spirit will quicken you and will free you. Talk about divine healing! You cannot remove it from the Scriptures. They are full of it. You will find, also, that all who are healed by the power of God, especially believers, will find their healing an incentive to make them purer and holier. If divine healing merely made the body whole, it would be worth very little. Divine healing is the marvelous act of the providence of God coming into your mortal bodies, and after being touched by the Almighty, can you ever remain the same? No. Like me, you will eagerly worship and serve God."

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