Well, good evening again, brothers. I trust you had a good day in union with the Lord.
As we come again this evening to look at His precious Word, we are reminded of that indispensable principle of all Bible study and of life: total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit. We sort of prayed that indispensable principle in our last song together.
Let me share a Bible verse, and I would like to pray again and commit our time to Him. The verse is from John 14:2-3. Remember, our Lord Jesus was just before the cross, and He said:
“In My Father’s house are many mansions;
if it were not so, I would have told you.”
That expression gripped my heart: “If it were not so, I would have told you.” If it were not so, that would have been bad news, because the sentence is, “In My Father’s house are many mansions.” If that was not so, basically, I do not want to hear it. That is bad news.
And He said, “If it were not so, I would have told you.” If He is so willing to tell us bad news, how willing is our Lord Jesus to tell us good news? If it were not so, I would have told you. If it were so, I would have told you.
And so He fills His precious Book with good news, and He longs to tell us so. So let us allow Him to do that. Let us pray.
Father, we thank You so much for Your Bible and for the Holy Spirit who lives in our hearts, ever to focus our faith and turn the eyes of our heart unto Him. As we have sung, now we pray: Lord, we do want to see Jesus. We do want to hear Jesus.
By Your grace, we pray that in this season of meditation, we might indeed see the Lord and hear the Lord. Save us from men. Show us Christ. We ask in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, as you know, brothers, we are looking at the wonders of the exchanged life, illustrated by the post-resurrection appearances of our Lord Jesus over a period of forty or so days.
It appears to me that our Lord Jesus arranged those post-resurrection appearances to teach us that He is not dead. By many infallible proofs, He showed that He is not dead. He also taught us that He is not gone. He had that wonderful transition where they could get used to the idea that He was still there, even though He was invisible, and even though it was spiritual rather than physical.
They needed to know that He was not gone. And I have suggested—and this is what we are looking at this weekend—that He appeared those many times, those twelve times, in order to prepare them for that new union, that new relationship.
When Pentecost came, they would discover that He was neither dead nor gone, but He was alive—and He was alive in them. They needed to be prepared for that. That was new. That was different. They had not experienced that.
To relate to an indwelling Christ was so brand new that He had to get them ready for it. In addition to proving that He was alive and proving that He was not gone, He used those experiences to lay down age-abiding principles. They not only prepared them for that day, but everyone who has picked up this Book since that day is prepared to have intimate union with an indwelling Christ who lives in us by His precious Holy Spirit.
Each of those post-resurrection appearances lays down a principle. By appearing to Mary Magdalene, He taught us not to cling to Him in the flesh, and we discussed that together.
She thought she could serve Him without His life. She thought she could explain events apart from His life. She thought she could do, in her own strength and power and enablement, a ministry apart from His life.
But by His grace, when He appeared to her and said, “Mary,” she learned that it was about relationship. She cried out, “Teacher! Rabbi!” It is about relationship.
And when she left the pages of the Bible, remember her final words: “I have seen the Lord.” Preparation number one: if I am ever going to relate to the Christ who now lives inside, I must see the Lord.
And God will arrange it in your life and mine. He will engineer things so that you finally come to that place: “I have been doing this. I have been running here. I have been involved in this, and all the programs and everything else. But now I want to see the Lord.”
That is not everything, but that is the beginning. That is preparation one.
Then He appeared to our dear brother Thomas, and we looked at that this morning. Thomas also needed to be corrected. Mary thought she could cling in the flesh. Thomas thought that sight would help faith, and he needed to be corrected of that idea.
Thomas was given that great privilege, though he did not enter into it fully, of standing where we stand: to know Jesus as we must know Him, based on reliable witnesses.
His reliable witnesses—His friends—have become our Bible. And so, based on the testimony of Mary and Peter and James and five hundred people and the Emmaus disciples and the upper-room crowd, we also say, “He is not dead. He is alive. We have witnesses.”
Mary teaches us that we have got to see the Lord. Thomas introduces us to a new way: we have got to see the Lord in this Book.
Then we looked for a moment at the Emmaus disciples and how the Lord Jesus took this Book and, by illumination—by a miracle, by the Holy Spirit—opened the Scriptures and explained in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
Later they testified, “Did not our hearts burn within us when He spoke to us,” showing Himself in all the Scriptures?
Preparation: He is not dead. He is not gone. He is alive. He is alive in you. How are you going to relate to Him? I need to see Him. I need to see Him in this Book. I need to see Him in this Book by the unveiling ministry of the Holy Spirit, as He opens my mind to understand the Scriptures.
And when we closed, we looked for a moment at that upper room, when our Lord Jesus appeared and breathed upon them. Pentecost was coming; He would send the Holy Spirit. But they got a foretaste of that, did they not?
He breathed on them, illustrating that when I see Jesus—when I see Jesus in this Book, by the Holy Spirit—there is a new creation. He breathed on a new creation.
That was all preparation. The Holy Spirit had not even come yet, and yet, in foretaste, they began to understand. Though we are only beginning to understand as He prepares us, brothers, let me announce it again, and then we will move on.
He is not dead. He is not gone. He is very much alive. And He is alive in you. He is inviting us, dear brothers, to know the Lord through this Book, by the Holy Spirit, so that there is a new creation.
That brings us, then, this evening to the final witness. We jumped over a few things, but I want to come to this: 1 Corinthians 15. Let us reread those verses, please. Follow along, beginning at verse 5.
“He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
Then He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time,
most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep.
Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles;
and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.
For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle,
because I persecuted the church of God.
But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and His grace toward me did not prove vain;
but I labored even more than all of them,
yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”
I would go back, if you would, to verse 8: “Last of all, He appeared to me also.”
Now, we know that the risen Savior appeared to others after He appeared to Paul—for example, John on the Isle of Patmos. In fact, He appeared more times to Paul himself.
As I suggested, this is strange: that he would go back in his mind seven years, list those who saw the Lord literally—they saw Him with these eyes: Thomas and Peter and Cephas and James and five hundred people—and then say, “I, too, saw Him.” He puts himself in the list as if he were there during those forty days. He was not there. This is seven years later.
“Last of all, He appeared to me.” And I am suggesting that “last of all” means final preparation. He was preparing us by those visitations, and the last preparation is this. So we are going to look at Paul as the final preparation.
Now, that expression, “as one untimely born,” commentators have a heyday with that and go in many different directions. The thing that touched my heart the most was how that word was used. It is the word that means abortion.
At least it means very prematurely born, and born with a lot of problems, if you are born at all. But probably he looked back at all of his Jewish life and said, “As I look back now, I was born dead. That is just an abortion. There is nothing there.”
And one so unworthy, a persecutor of the church—that God could have mercy on me, an abortion. But He did. I think that is how that verse is used. God had mercy on him.
And so that experience on the Damascus Road is God’s last preparation, His final preparation. The last thing I need to know; the last thing you need to know.
I need to know that I have to go after the Lord. I need to know that I have to go after the Lord in this Book. I need to know that I have to go after the Lord in the Book, by the Holy Spirit and His life. And I need to know that that is going to produce a new creation.
But there is one more thing I need to know. Now God tells us the last preparation: I need to know, what is that new creation?
What happened to the Apostle Paul on that 136- to 160-mile trip, depending on the route he took from Jerusalem to Damascus? How is that final preparation?
Brothers, I think it goes without saying that the conversion of the Apostle Paul is the most famous conversion of all time. The number one enemy of our Lord Jesus somehow became the number one friend of our Lord Jesus.
Do not read that lightly. That was a tremendous thing. How did the number one enemy of Christ become the number one friend of Christ? Call it what you will—that is amazing. That is going from night to day. That is going from darkness to light. That is going from hell to heaven. A tremendous something took place then.
I read this statement, and I am sort of inclined to it. One commentator said, “The conversion of Saul of Tarsus did not make him better. It made him other.” It is an interesting way to say it.
He was a new creation. So we have got to look at this conversion.
Now, I know you already know this, but in order to illustrate what happened here, let me share some verses. This was a wicked man. He had a vicious past. Before Damascus, he hated Christ, and he hated everybody who belonged to Christ.
He was not a fence-sitter. He was not neutral. He was active. He was aggressive. He was not a compromiser. He was a hater of the Lord Jesus. Listen to these verses.
Acts 9:1-2:
“But Saul, yet breathing threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,
and asked of him letters to Damascus unto the synagogues,
that if he found any that were of the Way, whether men or women,
he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.”
Acts 22:4-5:
“And I persecuted this Way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women.
As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders:
from whom also I received letters unto the brethren,
and journeyed to Damascus to bring them also that were there unto Jerusalem in bonds to be punished.”
Acts 26:9-11:
“I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
And this I also did in Jerusalem:
and I both shut up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests,
and when they were put to death, I gave my vote against them.
And punishing them oftentimes in all the synagogues, I strove to make them blaspheme;
and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto foreign cities.”
Nice fellow.
Philippians 3:6 calls him a persecutor of the church. In 1 Timothy 1:13, he said, “I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious.” This man was wicked.
I know you know that, but enter into it. He persecuted men, women, children. He went into their homes. He dragged them out. He tied them up. He carried them away to prison. He beat them. He tried to get them to blaspheme against the Lord.
He voted against them. He had them put to death. Wicked, wicked man.
Paul’s story, in my understanding, picks up exactly where the upper room left off, where He breathed on them: a new creation. He became a new creation, and we have got to understand that new creation if we are going to relate to the indwelling Christ, because that is what it is all about.
That is the last preparation. Now, I think you know that Saul’s dramatic conversion is recorded three times in the Bible.
It is recorded once in Acts 9 by Luke, the human author of the Book of Acts. That is the event, probably around A.D. 30. Then Acts 22: twenty-five years go by, and he is giving his testimony on the steps of the temple in Jerusalem, in Hebrew.
Two years later, twenty-seven years after the event, Acts 26—about A.D. 64, very close to the time he died—he gives his testimony a third time before King Agrippa.
Now, do not read that lightly. What that means is that there is more inspired space given to Paul’s conversion than to any other event in the New Testament, with the exception of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
If God is going to give that much inspired space to this one event, I think He is saying, “Pay attention to this one event. This is big, brothers.” It is big because it is the final preparation we need in order to relate to the indwelling Christ.
If we miss this, even if we have those other preparations, God is going to have to work in our lives until we get this before we can enjoy that sweet union with Him.
I am not holding anybody’s testimony in suspicion. You are probably already there, and I am just reciting your testimony. But if there is some brother here who has not been fully prepared by the Lord, and you hear all about the indwelling Christ and victory in the Lord and relating to Him and knowing Him, yet you are not clear on it, may God use this weekend, brothers, to get us all crystal clear.
What is that preparation? How can I know and enjoy this indwelling Christ?
The Apostle Paul, I believe—this event, I believe—is the model conversion. In other words, every true conversion must follow this pattern. This is the model conversion.
I believe that the apostle himself is the model convert. Now, what do I mean by the model conversion? I mean that all the principles of real conversion have to be present, and they are illustrated here.
I am not suggesting that in order to be truly saved, you need to see a bright light. That is not the point. I am not saying you need to hear a literal voice. That is not the point. I am not saying you need to be persecuting Christians. That is not the point.
What I am trying to say is that there are principles here. For example, Paul’s conversion, if anybody’s conversion, was pure grace. Would anybody deny that? It had to be pure grace.
If ever a conversion was traced to God alone, when I read the record, he was not at a revival meeting. He was not at a prayer meeting. He was not at a conference like this. He was out hating Jesus. He was out hating the people of God. He was putting to death God’s remnant, God’s flock. And the Lord met him. That is grace. That is the grace of the Lord.
When God stopped Saul in his tracks—the one fighting Jesus, hating Jesus, and hating the people of God—in a moment, he became a new creation. What was that all about? All true conversions must have the grace of God.
Another principle is found in Galatians 1:15-16. He calls his conversion a revelation of the Lord. All true conversions are revelation.
You see, in our day we do not say that. We say, “A conversion is a decision for Jesus.” I am not ruling out decisions for Jesus, but that is not conversion. You can make all the decisions in the world; if there is no revelation of Christ, there is no salvation.
This proud Pharisee was made humble. Those are principles. That is what I mean when I say this is a model conversion. It is by the grace of God. It is by the revelation of Jesus Christ. It is a humbling of a person. It is an awakening. All of that we see illustrated here.
But I do not want to talk about his conversion as the model conversion. I want to talk about Paul as the model convert. That is the point. Himself—as it was Mary, as it was Thomas, as it was the disciples—Paul. “Last of all, He appeared to me.” That is what we want to look at.
You say, “Well, what do you mean, he is a model convert? Aren’t there many godly men and women who are models, examples?”
Is not Moses an example of meekness? Is not Job an example of patience? Is Abraham a model of faith? Solomon a model of wisdom, and Elijah a model of courage? David, a model of devotion? Peter, a model of progressive sanctification?
Are they not all illustrations? Why just stick with the Bible saints? Is Augustine not a model? Luther, Calvin, Whitefield, Wesley, Nee, and all the saints you can name? Why do they have to be dead? How about the saints who are alive today—people you know? Are they not good examples of Christian living?
The answer is yes, they are models, but they are all incomplete models. There is only one complete model: the Apostle Paul. He is God’s illustration.
That is not my idea. That is not Paul’s idea. That is God’s idea. God said, “I am going to give you one illustration, and I am going to take this brother through every Christian experience.”
That is why he could say, “I spoke with tongues more than anybody. I have been through everything. I know all about all the gifts, about everything.” God took that one man through.
Let me share a few of these verses. Acts 9:15-16:
“He is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel:
for I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”
1 Corinthians 4:16:
“I beseech you therefore, be ye imitators of me.”
Philippians 4:9:
“The things which ye both learned and received and heard and saw in me, these things do:
and the God of peace shall be with you.”
1 Corinthians 11:1:
“Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ.”
And 1 Timothy 1:16-17:
“Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy,
that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all His longsuffering,
for an ensample of them that should thereafter believe on Him unto eternal life.”
He was selected on purpose. Now, we say, “Can I apply that—‘Be followers of me, as I am of Christ’?” Sure you can, but not like he did. He meant it literally.
Paul said, “I am the chief of sinners,” and I say, “Ah, he missed it. I am the chief of sinners.” No, Paul was the chief of sinners. He was on purpose. He was the most self-righteous. He was the chief.
When this man first came to the Lord, very early, he was told that he was selected to be the model of the Christian experience, the new covenant life. All through his ministry, he referred back to it.
Why is it important that this man, with this dramatic conversion, be chosen as the model? The answer is because this is final preparation. This is the last step.
This is a full explanation of the Lord breathing on them and saying, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” He is God’s example of the exchange life.
Mary saw Christ. Thomas saw the Lord. Those on the road to Emmaus saw the Lord. They saw Him in the Bible by the Holy Spirit, and they became a new creation.
Now Paul says, “I am the last one in that list. I am the last one. It is final.” When I saw the Lord, I became a new creation. He is the illustration of that new creation.
God breathed on them: new creation. Now we have the illustration. The Apostle Paul is the new creation. How did it happen? He said, twenty-five years later, “You want to know how it happened? One day I saw Jesus.”
So we need to talk about that. May God help us as we look for this explanation.
What I would like to do is, in one sense, a little backward. We need to understand Paul’s experience, and Paul has explained his experience. I want to do what I did with Mary Magdalene and Thomas. I want to show you the experience.
What I was planning originally was to go through the record and show you what happened, and then say, “Now, here is what it means.” But I felt inclined to go the other way.
What I would like to do tonight is say, “Here is what it means.” Then tomorrow, Lord willing, we will look at it and have an illustration of the experience.
It is sort of like dinosaur bones. We cannot deny the bones, but we can deny the interpretation of the bones. We cannot deny what happened to the Apostle Paul, but there are some strange explanations.
I do not know anything more fair than letting Paul explain his own experience, and he does it under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So we have that record. Lord willing, tomorrow we will look at the record of it.
Now, let me just say this: if you would pray for me during this lesson, I would appreciate it. In a sense, by showing Paul’s explanation of what happened, I do not like this, but I do not know where else to go.
Maybe we will come across as doctrine, as teaching—just sort of academic and polemic and hortatory. I do not want that. I want life. Our brother prayed just before we came up here that God would turn it into life, and I am going to believe God for that prayer.
I know you did not come here on purpose to hear me give a catechism. You do not want that, and I do not want that. Added to that, I know you have heard all this before. I am not going to tell you anything new. I hope it is alive.
So let me state it for you, then illustrate it in the Word, and then, Lord willing, tomorrow we will look at it. I have already stated it, but I am going to state it again now as a principle:
There is a difference—a tremendous difference—between a changed life and an exchanged life.
This is the last preparation, and what God is saying is, “You had better know that difference.” Because if you do not know that difference, you will be running down the wrong path. You will be frustrated to death, and you will never enter into that sweet union with the indwelling Christ.
You have got to know the difference between change and exchange.
In one sense, we look at the conversion of Saul of Tarsus and say, “What a change in Saul.” The number one enemy of Christ has become the number one friend of Christ. In one sense, that is true.
But in another sense, the Damascus Road did not change Saul at all. There was no change in Saul. The Damascus Road killed Saul.
Now, if you want to call that a change, go ahead. That is what happened. Saul died, and another rose in his place. That is not a change. That is an exchange.
The number one enemy of Christ died, and the number one friend of Christ was raised again.
Now, I know what causes the confusion. For years, we have read about change and being transformed and being conformed to the image of Christ. We have read about growth. We have read about maturity. We have read about bearing fruit. We hear about a new creation.
We know old things pass away. We know everything has become new. That sounds like a change.
When we worship, we sing change songs. We sing, “Change me, O God. Change my heart, O God. What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since Jesus came into my heart.”
Then we hear testimony: “I am not what I will be. I am not what I should be. But praise God, I am not what I was. I have been changed.” We see it on T-shirts: “Work in progress.” “God is not finished with me yet.” “The unfinished work.”
“I am being molded. I am being conformed. I am being transformed. I am being changed.”
Those expressions and those sentiments have brought some confusion among the people of God. Even some seasoned saints have not understood this final preparation.
There is a difference between a changed life and an exchanged life. Those who have not had God’s light on that difference are ill-prepared for union with the indwelling Christ. So may God help us as we look at this. This is the final preparation.
As you know, God used the Apostle Paul to write at least thirteen epistles in the New Testament. I say “at least,” because we do not know about Hebrews—whether God used him for that, we do not know.
But in the thirteen epistles, he continually wrote about the great mystery of union with Christ, over and over again. In the church epistles, we have what we call the full mention of the truth: union with Christ.
Seventy-eight times he repeats that precious little expression: in Christ Jesus, in Christ Jesus, over and over and over.
I am only going to quote a few verses. There are others I could quote, but these are the famous ones. You know them. You will be able to recite them as I read them.
Galatians 2:19-20:
“For I through the law died unto the law, that I might live unto God.
I have been crucified with Christ;
and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me:
and that life which I now live in the flesh
I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God,
who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.”
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” That is not a change. That is an exchange.
Philippians 1:21:
“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
To die is to gain more of Christ, basically.
2 Corinthians 1:9:
“Yea, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves,
that we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God who raiseth the dead.”
Romans 6:11:
“Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin,
but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.”
Colossians 3:3-4:
“For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”
That is not a change. That is an exchange. You are dead, and your life is hid.
One of my favorite passages, because it stresses the transition to union, to relationship, is Romans 7:4:
“Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ;
that ye should be joined to another,
even to Him who was raised from the dead,
that we might bring forth fruit unto God.”
That is not a change. That is an exchange. Saul is dead, and the Person who now lives in him, he says, is no longer him, but Somebody else.
Now, if you struggled as I did in my earlier Christian life, reading all these victorious-life books and reading all the mystics and people so close to the Lord, and your heart is panting and saying, “How come it does not work for me?”—you will probably be familiar with some of these expressions.
Everybody has their own little name for it. We are talking about union with Christ, but they all have their own special names. Then they write books, and I am looking at all these names, thinking, “That is different. That is different. I have got to read that.” So I went through all of this.
Some of the old mystics call it the union life or the Christ life. Some who were a little further off on the branch call it the oversoul or breakthrough, the sacramental life, or life in the holy of holies.
And I am over there saying, “Yes, that is what I want.”
Dr. A. J. Gordon wrote a book and called it The Twofold Life. Major Ian Thomas wrote a little book called The Saving Life of Christ. Miles Stanford calls it the life of identification.
Watchman Nee calls it the normal Christian life. It is just a normal life.
The early Keswick writers—Boardman and Smith and Evans and Moule and some of the others—called it the higher life. They have many books on the higher life. Ruth Paxton wrote a little book called Life on the Highest Plane.
Dr. Maxwell, the former president of Prairie Bible Institute, wrote a book called Born Crucified. It is a crucified life.
On and on it goes. The later Keswick writers call it the victorious life, the Christ-centered life, the life of consecration, or the life of full consecration.
It has been called the overcoming life, the Spirit-filled life, the abundant life, the life triumphant, the deeper life, the second blessing, sanctification, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
I do not care what you call it. Everybody is talking about the same thing. How can I know Jesus? How can I relate to Him? How can I have intimacy with Him? How can we be one? How can I have communion with the Lord? That is what it is all about.
All those books, though there are different nuances and they come at it slightly differently, are speaking about this. Then there is the big war: everybody is fighting everybody else’s book, saying they are off-center and these are off-center. I went through a lot of that.
But there is a title—and even though it is from man—that has communicated to my heart more clearly than any other. That is why I am using it here: the exchange life.
That title I got from Hudson Taylor. I think you are all familiar with Hudson Taylor. It was made famous by him. I have not seen anybody in the earlier writers use the same expression, but nothing is new under the sun. He got it from somebody, probably McCarthy, because he said McCarthy was the human instrument who led him to see the Lord.
He used that title in a letter he wrote to his sister Amelia. You are familiar with the story. He had been a missionary in bondage—a Christian who loved the Lord, served the Lord, and gave his life to serve the Lord—but he knew nothing of this intimate union with the Lord until God dawned in upon his heart.
He wrote this letter in October 1869. You probably know it as Hudson Taylor’s spiritual secret. This is his spiritual secret. The biography was written by his second son, Dr. Howard Taylor.
I jotted down a portion of the letter:
Oh, my dear sister, it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Savior.
To be a member of Christ—just think of what it involves.
Can Christ be rich and I be poor?
Can your right hand be rich and the left hand poor?
Can your head be full and the body starve?
Dear sister, I saw not only that Jesus would never leave me,
but that I was a member of His body, of His flesh, of His bones.
The vine I now see is not the root merely,
but all: the root, the stem, the branches, the twigs, the leaves, the flowers, the fruit.
And Jesus is not only that; He is the soil and the sunshine,
the air and the showers, and ten thousand times more than I have ever dreamed,
than I have ever wished, than I have ever needed.
All the joy of this wonderful fruit truth.
He goes on. I have left a lot out.
The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another,
is the rest which this identification with Christ brings.
Dear sister, I am no longer anxious about anything.
As I realize this, for He, I know, is able to carry out His will.
His will is now my will.
It makes no matter where He places me or how.
All His resources are mine.
He is mine and is with me and dwells in me,
and all this springs from the believer’s oneness with Christ.
And since Christ has come to dwell in my heart by faith, how happy I have been.
I wish I could come tell you about it instead of writing it.
Then he adds this:
I am no better off now.
May I say, in a sense, I do not wish to be any better off, nor am I striving to be.
But I have learned I am dead and buried with Christ—
and risen too, and ascended—
and now Christ lives in me.
And the life that I now live in the flesh
I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Now, says Hudson Taylor, I believe I am dead to sin.
God reckons me so, and He tells me to reckon myself so.
That emphasis he called the exchange life.
Now, the problem with a title is that everybody abuses it. So I did what many do these days: I Googled “the exchange life.” My virgin eyes—I could not believe some of the stuff that came up in the hundreds of thousands of hits on “exchange life.”
There is an exchange-life movement going on. I do not want to identify with it. There is an exchange-life ministry. There is an exchange-life counseling service. They do not all mean what Hudson Taylor meant when they say “exchange life.”
One group uses “exchange life” to illustrate that the old nature has been completely eradicated. Another says the exchange life means you are no longer body, soul, and spirit, but now there is only one nature.
Another says the exchange life is the early step in man becoming God. They are using my word. They are killing my whole thing. I love this exchange life as Hudson Taylor used it.
Another used the exchange life to prove sinless perfection on this side of the grave. There were many other errors as well. But having said all that, I have still been ministered unto by that expression as Hudson Taylor used it.
But enough of Hudson Taylor. Let us listen again to Paul. Let us go back to Paul. How did Paul explain his own experience?
Let me set it before you this way. There is one word that those who are striving, as I was striving, to know Jesus in sweet union usually get hung up on. Since Paul used it two different ways, let me set that before you. I am talking about the word flesh.
Twenty-eight times in Romans alone, he uses the word flesh. There are two ways he used it, and pretty much we use it the same way.
First of all, sometimes he just means this present life. Flesh: I am alive.
John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh.” That is not sinful flesh. The Word became humanity. It is just a person. He became a man.
1 Timothy 3:16 says that Christ was manifested in the flesh. That just means He was a man. First Peter 4:1 says Christ suffered in the flesh. There is nothing sinful about flesh as he is using it there.
When, in Philippians 1:24, Paul said, “To abide in the flesh is more needful for you,” I do not think he was saying, “It is needful for you to have a sinner here with you.” He was simply talking about being alive.
When he wrote in Colossians 2:1 that many had not seen his face in the flesh, he was not saying, “You did not see me sin.” He was saying, “You have never seen me.”
That is what Job meant when he said, “In my flesh shall I see God.” That is what David meant when he said, “All flesh shall bless His holy name.” It is just people. It is just being alive. It is what Isaiah meant when he said, “All flesh is grass.” It is this idea that we are alive.
But, brothers, there is another use, and that is what we want to look at.
When our Lord Jesus told Peter, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak,” what is that flesh?
Galatians 5:24:
“And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof.”
Romans 7:18:
“For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing:
for to will is present with me,
but to do that which is good is not.”
Philippians 3:3:
“For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God,
and glory in Christ Jesus,
and have no confidence in the flesh.”
It is that use of the word flesh. Now, what does Paul mean by that? He is the one we are looking at. He is the one who has been converted. He is the new creation.
Here is what I thought for years. It is wrong, but I thought it for years. Here is what many Christians think.
Though I am sort of cloistered in my little Rhode Island study, I do not have a wide view of the body of Christ like Dana and some of these other brothers have. But in the little view I have had among Christians, from my narrow experience, most Christians think this.
Here is what they think the flesh is: they think flesh is a proclivity to sin. They think there is something in me—God wants me to go that way, and this thing wants me to go this way. It is a tendency. It is a bend. It is an inclination to do the wrong thing.
It is a drive built into my nature, not to do God’s will, but to go do my own will. To prove it, they take one of the most misunderstood chapters in the Bible—Romans 7, in my opinion—and use it to prove their point.
They say, “I have this inclination to do wrong.” In other words, here is their idea of victory: “I am naturally selfish. I am choosing my own thing. God, change me. I do not want to be selfish anymore. I want to be generous. Will You do a work in me and change me so that I am not that inclination, but I am the other thing?”
“I have this pride in me, and I am always thinking about myself. I hate it. Lord, change me so I will not be proud. Make me humble instead of proud.” That is the idea they have.
“I have this inclination. I hate it. I feed on filth. I do not want to feed on filth. I do not want my mind to be full of that fleshly, gutter stuff. Turn me around, Lord. Change me. I need to be changed because I have that drive.”
“I am unloving. I want to be loving. I am unforgiving. I cannot hold my temper. I cannot stop fretting. I cannot stop worrying. I cannot stop hating. I cannot stop holding a grudge. I cannot stop lying. I cannot stop exaggerating. I cannot stop gossiping. I cannot stop swearing. I cannot stop boasting.”
“That is my flesh. I have this inclination. I have this drive, and Lord, please change me. I am impatient. I am stubborn. I am opinionated. I am insensitive. I am intolerant. I am lazy. I am no good. Lord, change me.”
That is the flesh, and many people think that is what the flesh is. Victory, then, is when God comes down and takes that inclination and, by a mighty miracle of God, does something in you and turns it around so that you are no longer inclined that way. Now you want to do the will of God. You want to honor Him. You want to please Him.
If that is how you think, you are not finally prepared to have union with the risen Christ. That is not the message of the Christian life. It is not a change. It is an exchange.
May God help us as we look at this now. He is not talking about some change in some mood or direction in my heart.
I do not have an inclination that needs to be changed. It is me. Not an inclination in me—it is me that needs to be dealt with.
I have only mentioned some of the negative sides of the flesh. You know, the flesh also has a very refined side, and that is still flesh. We are all flesh, but it is me.
Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:6:
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh.”
It will always be flesh. It will never be anything but flesh. Jesus did not come to improve that. That which is flesh is flesh, and it will always be flesh.
It is not bad news for me to tell my fallen brother, “God will never change you.” That sounds like bad news. “Why are you telling him that? He needs to hear there is hope, and God will change it.”
No, he needs to hear the truth. He needs to hear there is no change for that, but there is an exchange—a glorious exchange: a life not his, a life that is God’s.
We need to understand what happened to the Apostle Paul. Not just one or two tendencies. I was born flesh, and I am going to stay flesh. God has not promised to change my flesh. He has promised to do something much bigger than that.
Brothers, I am not looking into your heart. I do not even know a lot of you. I have just looked into my own heart. I know the brothers and sisters who have come into my life, those with whom I am dealing.
Some of them, I tell you, break my heart. They are frustrated to pieces because God is not coming through. They have cried out to the Lord. They have been entangled. They have been in bondage to these things: lust, passion, pride, selfishness, materialism.
They are wrapped up in this, addicted to many dependencies—to smoking, drugs, alcohol, pornography, work, boredom, and all these things. They are enslaved to these things, and they are crying out in reality. They love Jesus, and they are saying, “Please change me. I am losing my life. I am losing my testimony. Change me. I cannot change. I cannot stop. I need help.”
And they are crying in vain, because He has never promised to change. He will deal with you where you are, of course, and He will minister to you. But He is going to bring you to this message.
Some of the people with whom I have the privilege of sharing our Lord Jesus come to me and tell me they have read all the how-to books. They have been on all the websites. They have listened to all the tapes. They have gone to all the counselors. They have been mentored.
They go from church to church, and from conference to conference, because they are sick of the flesh. They are sick of it. People talk about victory. People talk about knowing the Lord. They are saying, “Why does it not work? Why does it not work for me?”
“How come everybody else talks about this sweet union and victory over this, and I cannot stop sinning?” They want to know.
God gives us the Apostle Paul. He says, “Last of all, He appeared to me.” In that day, I died, and there was an exchange—a new life, a thrilling truth.
I like the way Major Ian Thomas said it in his book The Saving Life: “It takes God to be a man. It takes God to be a woman. It takes God to be the husband that you ought to be. It takes God to be the father that you ought to be. It takes God to be the brother that you ought to be. It takes God to be the elder that you ought to be.”
You need a life not your own.
As I stand before you, I can testify: I have never been a drunkard. That is a fact. I have never been addicted to drugs. I have never been a murderer.
I have been a hypocrite. As far as I know—except maybe in my heart and in my mind—I have never been a pervert. I have never laid a glove on Lillian. I have never been an idolater, except in the sense of 1 John.
I have a greater testimony than that. I cannot say God delivered me from a drunkard’s grave. I can stand before you today and say, “God delivered me from me.”
That is a better testimony. He delivered me from me, and He can deliver you from you.
Now, all the potential of every sin is in my heart. It is in your heart. It is in all of us. But that is what happened that day on the Damascus Road.
One day, like Mary, he saw Jesus. One day, like Thomas, he saw Jesus. One day, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, he saw Jesus. One day, like those in the upper room, he saw Jesus.
When he saw Jesus, he died, and there was a new life.
Let me try to explain it one other way, and then I will close trying to explain it. Tomorrow we will look at the record.
Let me explain it by the life of Jesus in His two bodies. When He was on the earth the first time, He had a body. It was an incarnate body. They call it His incarnate body.
John 1:14: “The Word became flesh.” Galatians 4:4: “When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman.”
He lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years. He walked around in a body. They could look and say, “There He goes. That is His body. That is Jesus. I know where He lives. I know His family. That is His body.”
Whole books have been written trying to understand Jesus in His body. Philippians 2:7 says, “He emptied Himself.” You should see the books written on “He emptied Himself.” What is involved in all of that?
The theologians, because they cannot explain it, give you a fifty-cent word and a name. “Let us study the theanthropic Person. Let us study the God-Man. This is incarnation.”
Then they say, “Now let us look at another mystery. One Person—He is God, He is man, two natures. Let us discuss that.”
You read the record, and our dear Lord Jesus says, “Show Me where you have laid him,” as if He did not know. He is man. Then all of a sudden, He stands up and says, “Lazarus, come forth.” Whoa, He is God.
He is in a ship, sound asleep. He is man. He stands on the deck, holds up His hand, and says, “Peace, be still.” He is God.
They push Him all the way to the edge of a cliff because He is man. He walks right through their midst because He is God.
They say, “When are You coming back?” He says, “I do not know. It is not My business. My Father knows; I do not know.” A little while later, He says, “The Son of man is going to come in the clouds of heaven with all the—”
The theologians, studying Jesus in His incarnate body, do not know what to do with that. So they give it a name: the hypostatic union. Did that help? Now you have a name. It is the hypostatic union.
Then you look at His life again, and they scratch their heads. They say, “I do not understand these wills of His. It looks like He has two wills.”
According to the theologians, this mystery of God and man is uncompounded and unconfounded. They begin to try to explain it.
Now, I do not want to be irreverent, but it looks like, if He had His way—you remember in Gethsemane, “Not My will, but Thine be done”—it looks like there are two wills. The Father has one. He has one. If He had His way, He would not do it that way, but He surrenders His will.
Ah, but the theologians straighten us out here. The divine will acts, and His human will submits and co-acts.
Here is one theologian’s attempt to explain it: “It is infinite inclination and volition which makes it voluntary, but it must never be incompatible with single self-consciousness.”
All right. That straightens it out.
You see what I am trying to say, brothers. I am trying to say that when Jesus was here in His first body, there was tremendous mystery. All they could do was say, “That is incarnation. That is the hypostatic union. This is the mystery of the Logos.” They give you those words and say, “There. Now go live with that.”
Brothers, He has returned. He is neither dead nor gone. He is alive.
Except He has a new body now. Right? A new body. What is His new body? It is you. It is me. It is us. We are His body.
Now it is the same Jesus living again, but it is in His new body.
Christians are scratching their heads like the theologians. They say, “How does this Christian life work? I do not get it. It is called the abiding life, the abundant life, the higher life, the lower life. How do I get hold of it?”
Incarnation: God in flesh. I do not get it. I am alive. I am not alive. I am dead. “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” It is Him doing it, but it is me doing it. I do not get it.
Right? That is what it is. It is the same thing.
Do I choose? Does He choose? Do I have to wait until I get in the mood? What if I am not in the mood to read the Bible? Should I wait until He puts a hunger and thirst in there? Am I supposed to desire? What if I do not have the desire? How does my will work with His will?
The mystery is exactly the same thing. Christ in His mystical body is the same mystery as Christ in His incarnate body.
I am all done, brothers, trying to explain it. I cannot explain it. I do not think anybody else can, at least not to my satisfaction. I cannot explain it. I can declare it.
So let me declare it: God lives in you. One hundred percent of the Trinity lives in you. He does.
I cannot explain it. You are dead, but you are not dead. You are alive. It is Him, but you. It is Him, but it is—hypostatically—I cannot explain it. I just know it is true. He lives in me.
You cannot will until you are drawn, but you have got to will and work out your own salvation. I cannot put it together. I just know it is true.
You can call it whatever you want to call it. God lives in you. It is not you; it is Him. You are alive, but you are dead. Take it by cold-blooded faith.
Let me end with this. Since it is Him in you, it is still you. To all those who look, it looks like a change. It is not a change. It just looks like a change.
You still think, but now, according to 1 Corinthians 2:16, you have the mind of Christ. You are still logical. You still weigh the pros and cons. You still try to be prudent. You do what you think is right, and you commit it to the Lord. You commit your ways to Him, and He is thinking through you.
Take it by faith.
I still have my hands. I still have my feet. I still have my members. As I once presented them as instruments of unrighteousness, now I present them to Him.
Peter, at the gate called Beautiful, said, “Look on us.” Then later, in the same chapter, he said to the people, “Why fasten ye your eyes on us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him to walk?”
“Look at us.” How about because you told us to? But he was saying, “Look at Christ in us.”
The Bible says he reached out his hand and said, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Later they went to prayer, in the same chapter, and said, “Lord, stretch forth Thy hand to heal.”
Well, whose hand was it? Was it His hand or Peter’s hand? The answer is yes. The answer is yes.
You still have your emotions, but Romans 5:5 says the love of God is poured out into your heart. Do you know what the love of God looks like?
Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Gentleness. Self-control. Self is not in the list of the fruit of the Spirit. Indeed, because it is Him. But it is not Him; it is you.
Your neighbor looks at you. Your brother looks at you. Your sister looks at you and says, “He is not jealous anymore.” You see, love is not jealous. It is His life. It is Him.
It looks like a change, but you have not been changed, and you know it. You know it.
He is not jealous, and he is not bragging anymore. He is not seeking his own interests anymore. He is not easily provoked. He is forgiving everybody. He is not taking into account a wrong suffered.
He is bearing all things, enduring all things, believing all things. Everybody who looks at you says, “Whoa, you have changed.”
You did not change at all. Christ is being manifested through you. It is a different life. It is a new life. It is His life.
It looks like a change on the outside, but the reality is, it is not a change.
Let me give this closing illustration, and then I will wrap it up.
Everybody who knows me knows that one of my gifts is not mechanics. Of my many non-gifts, that is one of my non-gifts. I get so frustrated because, next to not knowing where I am, I do not know how to do anything.
My neighbor is a mechanic. He knows all about it. Picture my neighbor looking out his window across the street. He sees me there with my hood open, working on my car.
All he can see—thankfully the window is closed, so he cannot hear me—is me kicking the tire. Then he sees me take the screwdriver, say something to it, and slap the top of my car.
He says, “Yeah, Ed. Oh man, he needs to be changed.”
But let us say I have a friend who is a mechanic. He comes, opens the car, and I am standing there. Now I am happy. He is looking in my car, and he knows what to do.
He gets the right tools. He takes my crowbar and throws it inside; he does not need that anymore. He gets his tools and begins to work in the car.
My neighbor says to his wife, “Hey, honey, come take a look at this. What a change in Ed Miller. He is not kicking the tire anymore. He is not saying bad things to the screwdriver, and he is not hitting the car.”
Have I changed? Have I changed? No, I have not changed. If my friend goes away, I am going to kick the tire again. It is right there.
But at that moment, I am happy. I am peaceful. It looks like a change.
Here is the mystery. They are looking out the window. What if this friend was not standing in front of the hood, but what if he was living inside of me?
Now it is me in the car doing this, and he is not kicking the tire anymore. “He must have been changed. I wonder what happened to Ed.”
No change. It is an exchange.
Brothers, we need to see the Lord. Mary teaches us that. We need to see the Lord in this Book. Thomas told us that. We need to see the Lord by the Holy Spirit’s light. The road to Emmaus taught us that.
We need to have Jesus breathe on us so there will be a new creation. The upper room taught us that. We need to reckon ourselves dead and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
It is His life, not ours.
Now tomorrow, we are going to actually look at the event. This was an explanation of the event. We are going to look at the event and watch him see Jesus.
Because he saw Jesus, what else did he see? That is where we are going.
Let us pray.
Father, thank You for Your Word. Burn it in us, we pray.
Thank You that, even though we do not use those big words, thank You for the incarnation. Thank You for the hypostatic union. Thank You for the mystery of the Logos.
Thank You for living in us, in our place, as our substitute. Lord, we take it by faith that You want to live for us as much as You wanted to die for us.
Forgive us, Lord, for asking You to do what You have never come to do. Teach us to appropriate Your life. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.