In order to accomplish the task of making sons out of sinners to form the Body of Christ, God firstly had to take care of our past deeds. Do you still remember the things you did before you were saved? If you were to ask me this question, I would say, “Please don’t remind me of this. What I did in the past was too dirty, evil, and ugly. I don’t want to talk about it.” If you think that your past deeds were not bad, let me ask if you have ever stolen anything. When people tell me how good they are, I check with them about stealing. None of us can boast of our past. Since God cannot accept us as His sons with such an evil history, He had to take care of it.
God has dealt with not only what we have done, but also with what we are. Even after being saved, we are still not so good. We are all a problem to others. The wives are a problem to the husbands, and the husbands are a problem to the wives. The children are a problem to the parents, and the parents are a problem to the children. I am a problem to my neighbors, to my in-laws, and to my dear wife and children. Thank God that He takes care of what we are!
Christ’s death on the cross deals with what we have done, and the resurrected Christ living in us deals with what we are. Through His death we have obtained righteousness, and we are therefore justified in the presence of God. By this, the problem of our past has been solved. Now Christ is living in us, working God’s holiness into our being to accomplish for us a subjective sanctification. His death brought the righteousness of God to us, but His dwelling in us works God’s holiness into our very being. In this way He takes care of what we are. By taking care of our past through His death and by taking care of what we are by His living in us, He is transforming sinners into God’s very sons.
As wonderful as this is, it is still not the end of the process. At His coming, the Lord will glorify us. He will bring our mortal body into the glory of God, transfiguring our deadened body into a body of glory. At that time we shall be brought into full sonship. His death has gained the righteousness of God for us, His living is working the holiness of God into our being, and His coming back will bring us into the divine glory so that we may have the full sonship.
In the last message we pointed out that in Romans 5 we are in Adam, in Romans 6 we are in Christ, in Romans 7 we are in the flesh, and in Romans 8 we are in the spirit. If we are in the flesh, we experience Adam, and if we are in the spirit, we experience Christ. The Adam in chapter five can be experienced only in the flesh in chapter seven, and the Christ in chapter six can be experienced only in the spirit in chapter eight. Without chapter seven we do not have the experience of being in Adam. A newborn child certainly is in Adam. But with that little child you do not see the experience of being in Adam. However, the older we are, the more we have the experience of being in the flesh. Whatever we have inherited in Adam is experienced by us in a practical way in the flesh. When we live in the flesh, we experience all the riches of Adam. Mothers, although you love your little baby, that infant is a great storehouse of the riches of Adam. If you do not believe this, I ask you to wait for twenty years. During these years, the stored-up riches of Adam will be gradually shown to you. Then you will say, “Brother Lee was right. Twenty years ago he said that this little one was a storehouse of the riches of Adam. At that time I did not believe him, but now, after twenty years of experience, I am convinced. All the riches of Adam were in fact stored in that little child.” What we have in Adam is experienced by being in the flesh.
In the same principle, the fact of being in Christ can be experienced only by being in the spirit. When we walk according to the spirit, we experience all the riches of Christ. The riches of Christ are far greater than those of Adam. But to experience them we must walk according to the spirit.