Receiving Grace: The Fullness of Christ in Salvation

The Apostle here in this prologue, this introduction to his gospel, is reminding those early Christians to whom he wrote the Gospel and for whom he wrote it of the very essence of the Christian faith. He wrote it because even as early as that certain false teachings have been creeping in and there was confusion with regard to the person of our Lord and with regard to the character and the nature of this great Christian salvation. [00:56:92]

The world is fallen and the world is in sin and The Business of the Christian salvation is to save the world and to save men and the great message is that no man was adequate to this and that is why the Incarnation had to take place all men had failed Adam the perfect man had failed he'd been tempted and had form, and all the mighty succession of Patriarchs and pists and Prophets they've all failed man can't save himself still less others. [01:33:80]

The Christian salvation is entirely in the Lord Jesus Christ we don't save ourselves we can't do that we have all sinned we have all gone astray there is none righteous know not one and the great message is that he is the savior he in his fullness has done everything and that is what makes a man a Christian is that he receives of this fullness. [03:35:68]

Christ is made unto us wisdom if you want to know God's mind about the world and what can be done with respect to it you see it all in Jesus Christ God has acted in this world in the person of his only begotten son so he's made wisdom unto us and this according to the Bible is the only way whereby the world ever can be put right or whereby any individual can ever be put right it takes God's wisdom in Christ to redeem us. [07:04:19]

Sanctification is a process whereby we are renewed in the whole men after the image of God and are enabled more and More To Die un sin and to live unto righteousness now then Christ is made unto us sanctification as well as wisdom and as righteousness and we've been looking into this and we've seen that this process of sanctification means that we are separated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God from the world into the Kingdom of Heaven. [10:51:19]

A Christian is a man who's living this new life in the spirit the Apostle contrasts it with the Life In the Flesh he says when we were in the flesh we did certain things but now we are in the spirit we are living a new life in the spirit that we may bear fruit unto God now then that is the essence of the Christian's position and this of course is of prime and supreme importance. [11:52:63]

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God which worketh in you both the will and to do of his good pleasure now this is a magnificent statement of this whole question and particularly when we take it as we're going to do in its own setting and in its own context now you notice the significant statement work out your own salvation in other words you've been given it you are saved you've got the Salvation work it out now says the apostle. [13:33:12]

The Christian lives in fear and trembling because of the state of the world it's described for us in the 15th verse do all things in verse 14 without murmurings and disputings that you may be blameless and harmless the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse Nation generation among whom you shine as lights in the world now this is a very wonderful picture you as Christians says the Apostle to these people at Philippi are like the stars in a in the heavens on a dark night. [24:21:68]

You are sons of God you've been born again you've become a partaker of the divine nature you've been renewed in the very Spirit of your mind you are not what you used to be there is an absolute division between Christian and non-Christian the non-Christian is a natural man he's a man in the flesh but the Christian isn't that man is an alien from God is under the wrath of God but the moment a man becomes a Christian he's not only reconciled to God he's a son of God. [31:11:32]

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion of a man as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross. [36:41:56]

The Son of God for my sake for my salvation humbled him self laid aside his own rights and prerogatives and what he as it were wanted to do he humbled himself he became obedient in order to save men and to carry out God's wisdom in men's salvation he went through all that ending even with the death of the Cross he was obedient unto death in other words if I may put it in our own terminology what the father said to the son is this. [40:20:56]

Let this mind be in you also that's the way the Christian is Sanctified that's the way the Christian lives the holy life he says I'm not my own I've been bought with a price the Son of God has died for me he left the courts of Heaven he endured the contradiction of Sinners against himself he even bled and died for me I have no right to live as I want to that's sanctification working out this this mind is in us as he did that for me in obedience to his father's will so I must be ready to do anything that I may be obedient to the father's will whatever the cost. [43:02:64]