Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ Identification Truth

Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ

Identification Truth • Spirituality: A Complete Package by God’s Plan • Phase 1/Phase 2 Crosswork Distinctions • Reality through Reckoning • The Question of Yielding • Spirituality and Obedience: The Law Problem

(1 April 1886 – 15 July 1952) Arthur Pink “Is the disciple to be above his Master, the servant superior to his Lord? Christ was ‘made under the law’ (Gal. 4: 4), and lived in perfect submission thereto, and has left us an example that we should ‘follow His steps’ (I Peter 2: 21). Only by loving, fearing, and obeying the law, shall we be kept from sinning. “There is an unceasing warfare between the flesh and the Spirit, each bringing forth ‘after its own kind, ’ so that groans ever mingle with the Christian’s songs. The believer finds himself alternating between thanking God for deliverance from temptation and contritely confessing his deplorable yielding to temptation. Often he is made to cry, ‘O wretched man that I am!’ (Rom. 7: 24). Such has been for upwards of twenty-five years the experience of the writer, and it is still so. ” (The Doctrine of Sanctification, pp. 71, 121. ) Part Five: A Guide to Spiritual Growth, Chapter 58, Law Versus Life, p 263

(19 December 1808 – 31 July 1889) H. Bonar “Redemption forms a new obligation to law-keeping as well as puts us in a position for it. Yes, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, ’ but certainly not from the law itself; for that would be to redeem us from a divine rule and guide; it would be to redeem us from that which is ‘holy and just and good. ”’ (God’s Way of Holiness, pp. 81, 83. ) Part Five: A Guide to Spiritual Growth, Chapter 58, Law Versus Life, p 263

(10 May 1816 – 10 June 1900) J. C. Ryle “Genuine sanctification will show itself in habitual respect for God’s law, and habitual effort to live in obedience to it as a rule of life. There is no greater mistake than to suppose that a Christian has nothing to do with the law and the Ten Commandments, because he cannot be justified by keeping them. The same Holy Spirit who convinces the believer of sin by the law, and leads him to Christ for justification, will always lead him to a spiritual use of the law in the pursuit of sanctification. ” (Holiness, p. 27. ) Part Five: A Guide to Spiritual Growth, Chapter 58, Law Versus Life, p 263

(August 29, 1792 – August 16, 1875) Charles G. Finney “It is self-evident that the entire obedience to God’s law is possible on the ground of natural ability. To deny this, is to deny that man is able to do as well as he can. The very language of the law is such as to level its claims to the capacity of the subject, however great or small that capacity may be. ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and all thy mind, and with all thy strength. ’ “Here then it is plain, that all the law demands, is the exercise of whatever strength we have, in the service of God. Now, as entire sanctification consists in perfect obedience to the law of God, and as the law requires nothing more than the right use of whatever strength we have, it is, of course, forever settled, that a state of entire sanctification is attainable in this life, on the ground of natural ability. ” (Finney’s Lectures on Systematic Theology, p. 407. ) Part Five: A Guide to Spiritual Growth, Chapter 58, Law Versus Life, p 264

(May 1821 – 27 March 1906) William Kelly “Every believer is regarded by God as alive from the dead, to bring forth fruit [not works] unto God. The law only deals with a man as long as he lives; never after he is dead. ‘For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. ’ And that is not at all what is said of us after a ‘second blessing, ’ … or any other step of imaginary perfection. We begin with it… I am identified with Christ dead and risen. It is no longer the law dealing with me to try if it can get any good out of me. I have relinquished all by receiving the Lord Jesus, and I take my stand in Him dead and risen again … as one alive from the dead, to yield myself to God. “The Gospel supposes that, good and holy and perfect as the law of God is, it is entirely powerless either to justify or sanctify. It cannot in any way make the old nature better; neither is it the rule of life for the new nature. The old man is not subject to the law, and the new man does not need it. The new creature has another object before it, and another power acts upon it, in order to produce what is lovely and acceptable to God—Christ the object, realized by the power of the Holy Spirit. ” (Galatians, pp. 125, 137. ) Part Five: A Guide to Spiritual Growth, Chapter 58, Law Versus Life, pp 264 -265

(May 1821 – 27 March 1906) William Kelly “Some good men who in grievous error would impose the law as a rule of life for the Christian mean very well by it but the whole principle is false because the law, instead of being a rule of life, is necessarily a rule of death to one who has sin in his nature. Far from a delivering power, it can only condemn such; far from being a means of holiness, it is, in fact, the strength of sin (1 Cor. 15: 56). “ (The Holy Spirit, p. 197. ) Part Five: A Guide to Spiritual Growth, Chapter 58, Law Versus Life, p 265

(August 19, 1843 – July 24, 1921) C. I. Scofield “Most of us have been reared and now live under the influence of Galatianism. Protestant theology is for the most part thoroughly Galatianized, in that neither the law nor grace is given its distinct and separate place as in the counsels of God, but they are mingled together in one incoherent system. “The law is no longer, as in the divine intent, a ministration of death (2 Cor. 3: 7), of cursing (Gal. 3: 10), or conviction (Rom. 3: 19), because we are taught that we must try to keep it, and that by divine help we may. Nor does grace, on the other hand, bring us blessed deliverance from the dominion of sin, for we are kept under the law as a rule of life despite the plain declaration of Romans 6: 14—‘For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law but under grace. ”’ (The Fundamentals for Today, Vol. 2, p. 367. ) Part Five: A Guide to Spiritual Growth, Chapter 58, Law Versus Life, p 265