Life In The Spirit-part 10
The One New Man In Christ!
Are you amazed when you hear about a Jew becoming a Christian? Does it seem incongruous to you? Do you realize there was a time in history when the Jews were amazed that the Gentiles had become Christians? This is the time we.re looking at because it.s the Holy Spirit that puts Jews and Gentiles into one body and makes them part of His glorious church. We.re going to look at that today as we look at life in the Spirit.
Isn.t it amazing that today you and I are so thrilled or so excited, when we hear about a Jew becoming a Christian? Well, in the days of Peter, the tables were turned because the church heard about the salvation of Cornelius and other Gentiles that had gathered in his home and they were amazed. They weren.t sure that this was really of God, a Gentile coming to believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, Jesus, who was of the tribe of Judah, Jesus, who was of the family and house of David. They would believe in Jesus? Yes, that.s what happened. Eight years after Pentecost when Peter, who was in Joppa got a vision from God and went down to Cornelius and to his household and gave them the gospel, that was a revolutionary day. And word of that meeting reached the elders in Jerusalem mighty quick. Let.s look at it.
In Acts, chapter 10 we have the account of the salvation of Cornelius and his household, the account of the Holy Spirit coming on them just as He did on the Jews at the beginning, at the first day of Pentecost. Now we come to Acts, chapter 11 and it says, “Now the apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea, heard that the Gentiles had also received the Word of God. And when Peter went up to Jerusalem those who were circumcised took issue with him, saying, „You went to the uncircumcised and you ate with them..” What on earth are you doing Peter? Are you crazy? You know that we don.t go into those houses. You know that they.re unclean. You know that they don.t prepare their food right. You know that they mix milk and meat. For heavens sakes Peter, what were you doing?
“And Peter began speaking and he proceeded to explain to them in orderly sequence saying, „I was in the city of Joppa praying. And in a trance I saw a vision, a certain object coming down like a great sheet lowered by four corners from the sky and it came right down to me and when I had fixed my gaze upon it and was observing it I saw the four-footed animals of the earth and the wild beasts and the crawling creatures and the birds of the air and I also heard a voice saying to me, „Arise Peter, kill and eat.. But I said, „By no means Lord. Nothing unclean has ever entered my mouth.. But a voice from heaven answered a second time, what God has cleansed no longer call unholy. And this happened three times,. and everything was drawn back up into the sky and behold at that moment three men appeared before the house in which we were staying, having been sent to me from Caesarea and the Spirit told me to go with them.”
In other words, listen I was directed by the Holy Spirit. Do you want me to disobey the Holy Spirit? He says, “And I went with them without misgivings and these six brethren also went with me. And we entered the man.s house and he reported to us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying send to Joppa and have Simon who is also called Peter brought here, and he shall speak words to you by which you will be saved, you and all your household.”
How does faith come? It comes by hearing; faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ. We have to understand who Jesus Christ is and then understanding that, embracing it, believing it, then we are saved.
And he says, “As I began to speak the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did on us at the beginning. And I remembered the Word of the Lord, how He used to say John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If therefore, God gave to them the same gift that He gave to us also, after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I should stand in God.s way?”
In other words, their salvation was not of me. It was of God. He gave them the same Holy Spirit that He gave us. He baptized them in the Holy Spirit just like He baptized us in the Holy Spirit. Now remember baptize means to be united with. It means to be identified with. So the Holy Spirit moved into their lives. And he says, “And when they heard this they quieted down and glorified God saying, „Well then God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life..” And they recognized that even the change of mind had been granted to those Gentiles by God. What was happening?
I told you in the last program that this is Gentile Day. This is exciting, but this is not just Gentile Day, this is church day. This is the beginning of the mystery of the church. And this is what I want you to see and I want you to go to Ephesians, chapter 2. This is so important.
Now, after Acts then you have Romans, then you have Corinthians, and then you have General Electric Power Company, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. So go to Ephesians. And we.re looking at Ephesians, chapter 2 because I want you to see the awesome, awesome significance of this time and what it means to life in the Spirit and what it means to the mystery of the church.
Now listen in Ephesians, chapter 2. We.ve looked at this chapter before. But he.s speaking to these Gentiles and he.s saying in verse 11 “Therefore, remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision, which is performed in the flesh by human hands, remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
This is the state of all mankind apart from the Jews until Jesus Christ appears on the scene and puts Jew and Gentile into one body and that is the body of Jesus Christ. He says, “But now, in Christ Jesus, you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
In other words, God started with a tree, all right. And with that tree, that tree was Israel. All right, now it was all Jewish branches, but now God has grafted in another branch, a branch that is different than the Jews, a Gentile branch. And so this is what God has done here in the time of Acts, eight years after Pentecost.
It says, “But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ; for He Himself is our peace who made both groups into one.” Both groups what? Jews and Gentiles into one, they.re connected into one. So He.s made them one. And now he goes on to say this: “And he broke down the barrier of the dividing wall.” He broke that barrier down. Now what was the dividing wall? The dividing wall was the law. It was the law that separated the Jews from the Gentiles. It was the law that kept the Gentiles away from the Jews. But now that middle wall of partition, that law has been brought down; it has been broken down by the cross of Jesus Christ. So if you can imagine the cross and one side of the crossbar reaching over to the Jews and the other side of the crossbar reaching over to the Gentiles and now they.re united through the blood of Jesus Christ. And it says, “By abolishing, He broke down this barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in His flesh, in Jesus. flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances.” And it.s all the Ten Commandments and it.s all the ordinances that go with the Ten Commandments. You start reading Exodus 20 and you keep on reading through Exodus, chapter 24 and you.ll get it and you.ll begin to see those ordinances. And Leviticus elaborates on them more. But he says, “abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances that in Himself, in Jesus Christ, He might make the two, Jew and Gentile into one new man, thus establishing peace.”
I have an exiting story that I.m going to tell you when you come back. It.s a story of an Arab that I just ate a meal with, just recently, an Arab that stood up and spoke to a group and told them how he was part of the people in the land of Israel that planned the suicide bombers that made the bombs and went into Jewish territories in order to kill the Jews. And he.s sitting there at a breakfast sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism of Israel at which one of the members of the Knesset, the governing party like our Congress, our Senate, the governing party of Israel was at and speaking. And what happened when my dear Jewish friend heard that Arab just absolutely blew him away because an enemy had become a peacemaker. An enemy had become a friend through the cross of Jesus Christ. Oh, Beloved, the cross erases the enmity between Jew and Gentile. How does it do it? We.ll talk about it after this break.
Glad you.re back my friend. O, I wish that you could have been with me at that breakfast. This was at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention that I.m a member of and I.m on the Board of Directors and they sat me at a table where they had a man who was going to speak after the breakfast who was an Arab, I mean his family, for generations, had been at war with Israel. They hated the Jews. They wanted to kill the Jews. And they were the ones that were responsible for making the bombs and getting them on these suicide bombers. And this guy told me how he had come to know Jesus Christ. It was an incredible story. But what absolutely amazed this member of the Knesset as he sat and listened to him speak at another meeting, he turned around and he looked at me and he said I can.t understand it, how he could be changed, how he could love the Jews now. And I thought that.s Christianity, that.s what happens. Because when we come to know Jesus Christ, what God does is He takes Jew and Gentile and puts them in one body. This was what was happening on the day that Cornelius had Peter explain the gospel to him. And God opened the eyes of Cornelius and his household and they believed on Jesus Christ. This is what happened.
Now look at Ephesians, chapter 2 and let.s look at verse 15 and let me read on. “By abolishing in His flesh, in Jesus flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances.” This is what separated the Jews from the Gentiles. “That in Himself, in Christ, He, God might make the two into one new man, Jew and Gentile, thus establishing peace.” Well this is exactly what happened that day eight years after Pentecost. “And might reconcile them both in one body.” Now what I.ve done is I.ve drawn a little green stick figure as a body over these references to the body because I want us to see and I want to remember that this is what the body of Christ is all about. “That He might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross;” that.s the only way. “That by having put to death the enmity and he came,” now he.s quoting the Old Testament, “He came and He preached peace to those who were far off and to those that were near.” Those that were near were the Jews. Those that were far off were the Gentiles. “So Jesus came and He preached peace to both of them. For through Him, through Jesus we both, Jew and Gentile have our access in one Spirit to the Father.”
You.ve got to mark the Spirit there. All right, so what unites Jew and Gentile into one body? It.s the Spirit of Christ. This is life in the Spirit. Now, go on down and in verse 22 of chapter 2 of Ephesians. “In whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”
So mark the Spirit there. All right, “For this reason I Paul,” Ephesians 3, verse 1, “the prisoner of Christ for the sake of you Gentiles.” When Paul got saved he was sent as a missionary; He says, “that by revelation,” verse 3, “there was made known to me the mystery as I wrote before in brief.” So he.s gonna tell us about the mystery. All right now, what is the mystery? Verse 4: “And by referring to this when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ.” Verse 6: “To be specific that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” This is what happened eight years after Pentecost. Jews and Gentiles came into the body of Jesus Christ.
Now I want us to look at Romans, chapter 11, just so that you understand this whole Jewish picture. So go to Romans, chapter 11 because the book of Romans is written to Jews and Gentiles that are there in Rome, that are part of the church, to explain to them how God worked through the Jews and how He worked through the Gentiles. So Romans, chapter 11. He.s saying O, has God rejected His people? In Romans 11, let.s look at it. “I say then, God has not rejected His people has He?” He.s talking about the Jews. “May it never be! I too am an Israelite, a descendent of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin.”
In other words, now that the church has been formed, now that we have Jews and Gentiles in one body, is God through with all the rest of the nation of Israel? Is He going to throw them away? Should we just disregard them and pay no attention to them and not even try to share the gospel with them or not even try to love them and to compensate in some way for all that has been done to them, all the cruelty in the name of Jesus Christ, all the anti-Semitism that has come from an ignorant church that is just following the teaching of the head of the church? O no, O no! He wants us to understand that God is not through with the Jews. He says, “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.” Look at verse 11. He says, “I say then, the Jews did not stumble so as to fall, did they? Did they reject Jesus so that God is through with the Jews? He says may it never be.” He says, “by their transgression, their rejection of Jesus, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make the Jews jealous.”
And he says, “Now if their transgression be riches for the world and their failure be riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be?” And then he says I want to show you an illustration. I want to take a tree all right, and he says the stump of that tree is Israel. All right? The branches are the Jews, the believers. But all the Jews did not believe when Jesus came to earth. Some of „em rejected Him. So those branches were broken off. They were thrown aside. Now along comes a Gentile and this Gentile says, “hey, I want to believe.” And this is a wild olive tree. So what does he do? He takes this wild olive branch that is not Jewish, but that believes and he puts him in the body of Jesus Christ. And he says okay, now should you look at the Jews and say ha, ha, ha, you didn.t get it; I got it? And he says O no. He says, “You will say well branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” He says, “Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear.”
And then he goes on to say this in verse 25 of Romans 11: “I do not want you to be uniformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation. A partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. Then all Israel will be saved as it is written, „The Deliverer will come from Zion, the second coming of Christ. He will remove ungodliness from Jacob; this is the covenant with them when I take away their sins.. From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God.s choice they are beloved for the sake of the Fathers, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
So know this: that when you call on Him and you ask Him for the gift of eternal life, He gives it to you and He gives it to you by His Spirit. We.ll look at that in the next program and I can.t wait to teach you these precious, precious truths that are irrevocable.
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