(b) Enmity Established
The same is true as to the matter of enmity. It is never a far cry from personal interest and self-realization to war and bloodshed. We do not read of much history between Adam's bid for personal glory and Cain's murder of his brother. The two are one in principle. Whether it be in individual cases, as at the beginning, or in the case of millions locked in deadly destruction of each other, the root is found to be man's desire to acquire. The name Cain means acquisitiveness, or possessiveness. We must be perfectly honest about this. The Christian Church is no exception to this rule. Christians have become divided into thousands of parties, and a very great many of these are antagonistic to each other, or at least distantly suspicious of one another. The enmity among believers is taken account of even in the New Testament. It is the devil's work every time, but even the devil must have his ground. This he has in the old-creation nature of man. Every division among the Lord's people is - in essence - the same as the enmities of the warring Godless world. It is traceable to some old-creation element of "self" asserting itself. There never was - nor will be - a truly Christly division among Christians. Every such division is somewhere a denial and contradiction of Christ. The apparent cause may not be some flaming fleshliness, but it will nevertheless be other than the way of Christ. Enmity is a mark of interrupted, arrested, or broken oneness with God; there we leave it for the moment.
(c) Death
The third feature of this destroyed union with God is death. If life is the perfect adjustment and harmony o man with God, then man has not got lie. The New Testament assumes this, it does not argue it. Death is not - in the Bible sense - cessation of being, nor is it a state of inanimation. It is just a separation from the source of true life, with all the incapacitation which that separation involves. Spiritual death is a powerfully active thing, and in all the things which really relate to God's will it works out in a mighty "cannot."
For the realization of all God's designs and purposes, and the constituting of the creation which He intends, the possession of His own Divine and uncreated life is essential. Man, by nature, does not possess that life, and humanism is one of the most subtle and popular - and the most devastating - forms of the devil's lie. Hence, man as he is cannot see the Kingdom of God. Union with God is a matter of possessing God's life. That provision is an impartation by new birth. Thus we are led up to both the Person and the Cross of Christ.
In Christ a New Humanity
While there remain depths to profound and dangerous for even enlightened people of God to attempt to explore, the one thing that is clear as a conclusion is that the Incarnation is intended to set forth the union between God and man, and man with God, which is the Divine intention. Here we have very God joining Himself with very man. But - and let it be well understood - not with sinful man, or with our fallen humanity. God prepared that body - "that holy thing" (Hebrews 10:5; Luke 1:35). When Christ came into this world there came with Him a humanity which - which being humanity - was different from all the rest. There were therefore two humanities, one represented uniquely by this solitary Person; the other, by all the rest of men. But even so, His humanity was but probationary one. Inasmuch as the animating principle of His physical being was blood, He was subject to tiredness, hunger and thirst, and therefore capable of dying and seeing corruption. That He did die but did not see corruption was due to the sovereign intervention of God, and was due to the moral perfection - or holiness - of His nature. "Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption" (Psalm 16:10). The probationary condition of Christ wholly related to His redemptive vocation. When that was accomplished, He still had a human body, but no longer animated by the blood-principle or basis of life. Now - while a body - it is a "spiritual body," and therefore a glorified body. it is not unto the likeness of Christ's earthly, pre-resurrection, body that we are to be conformed, but "like unto His glorious body" or "body of glory." * [I am aware that what has been said above may raise a question as to the "incorruptible blood" of Christ, but my point is in no wise a question as to His moral nature, simply one of His being placed on the basis of life - for the time being - which made it possible for Him to die physically. "Corruption" is only regarded in this sense, not spiritual or moral. I am also aware that physiologists have not yet ended their debate on the seat of corruption, i.e. as to whether it is the blood. But I thing that the Bible indicates that it is.]
We are pointing out that in Christ God and man have come together, yet in a Man altogether other than ourselves. That is why union with God - which is the major revelation of the Bible, revealed consummately in the New Testament - is always and only in Christ. Until we pass over on to the resurrection life-basis it will always be a faith position in Him; not an actual one in our mortal flesh. But more on this later. In Christ God has His perfect satisfaction, and has therefore committed Himself to Him. The union is perfect.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 4 - "The Lie, Enmity, and Death Annulled in Christ")
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