Christ Came In to Bring Us Out

I have a lot of things in my heart that I hope to share, and they all have to do with knowing and walking in Christ as the WAY. Now, nearly all Christians are aware that Christ said “I am the way,” and it’s very easy to quote that Scripture. Anyone can do it. But it is one thing to know that Christ is the way, and it is another thing to know and walk in the way that is Christ. And these days, the reality and the experience of walking in this way—the new and living way which is Christ—has become of the greatest importance to me. I’ve come to see that everything depends upon it. If we don’t truly know the way, how can we avoid wandering aimlessly, or getting completely lost during this short time that has been allotted to us here? And if we have learned something of this way, but do not learn to remain in it, how can we ever arrive at the right destination?

So I say again, it is of the utmost importance that we not only know that Christ is the way, but that we both know and learn to stay in the way that is Christ. This is not theoretical religion, or dry doctrine. This is the most practical thing in the world. Time has been given to us by God for one primary purpose, and that purpose is to follow Christ in the living way of regeneration, to abide in Him and walk with Him upon the narrow path that leads to life. I want to talk about what this means. Again, not so that we leave here with correct doctrines in our brains or accurate notes in our notebooks. No, but rather so that you and I spend the rest of our lives carefully walking in this new and living way, staying in it, and experiencing all that God does in those who are willing to abide in it.

I’m never interested in just having correct spiritual words. It seems to me that there are too many today who are seeking accurate words, new words, new and better revelation, but they often do not know the difference between the words and the reality that is behind them. Let’s say you were just told that you had a terminal disease, and you came up to me and told me that you had just a few weeks to live. And after you gave me the bad news, I said, “Don’t worry. I have happen to have right here in my pocket a little piece of paper with the word “CURE” written on it. Now, anybody that has a disease only needs a cure, and they will be ok. So here you go. Please take this cure, go on home, and be happy.” The problem here is of course immediately evident to you. There is a great difference between the word cure, and the experience of a cure. And this is precisely the same difference between knowing that Christ is the way, and walking in the way that is Christ.  

So, I want to talk about the way of walking with Christ and in Christ so that the heart experiences all that is Christ. But in order to rightly understand what this way is, or how to remain in it, we need to take a few steps back, and to work our way towards this subject. Following Christ means following Him OUT of something. It is not following Him aimlessly, wandering here and there. No, following Christ involves a very specific path, a very specific journey. In the beginning, man fell OUT of something, and he also fell INTO something. And it is for this reason that following Christ involves a very specific exodus, a following Christ OUT of what man fell into. 

Man was originally created a living, triune vessel for the glory of God. He was NOT made to be the source of goodness, or of spiritual life, or of righteousness, wisdom, glory, etc., but he was made (far beyond all other creatures) to receive, and bear, experience, enjoy, and manifest the life, goodness, and righteousness of God. This is what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God. It doesn’t mean that man ever had the ability to produce God’s likeness from his own resources. And it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with God’s image having two arms, two legs and a nose. Being created in God’s image means that man was made to receive, experience, and exhibit God’s likeness, nature, beauty, and attributes, more than any other creature, and this was possible because man originally lived and walked in the life and light of God. This is how the first man and woman bore God’s image and likeness,—not because man’s outward form or shape looked like God’s form or shape; God doesn’t have a shape—but because they shared God’s nature, His will, His Life, His purpose, his knowledge, wisdom, etc. 

Now what happened to man, as we all know, is that he turned from this source of good, of life, of light, of righteousness, and sought to be a source of his own. The specific temptation or allurement to this was presented to our first parents in the form of a tree with fruit, and much could be said about that tree if that were our subject today. But suffice for now to say simply that by believing the lie that they could be something, have something, possess something GOOD apart from the life and will and presence of God, they turned from God, lost His life, and became a source unto themselves. They did not just impulsively eat from the wrong tree, or make a bad decision. No. They stopped looking to God, receiving from God, feeding on God, and turned to another source. They turned away from one source to become their own source of good, of life, or purpose, of wisdom, and so they fell from Him, and lost the life of God in the soul of man. This was his spiritual death. This was the fall of man. It was not just a mistake. It was not just a failed test. It was a turning away from the life, light, goodness, righteousness, presence, and power of God in order to find goodness and wisdom and food apart from Him. And when man turned this direction, and chose this course, he fell from all goodness and righteousness into what is called sin. 

Now sin is a very common word in the church today, but it is something far different than what most people think. When you think about sin, you should not think primarily about a list of things that are wrong, as though God made a list of things that are acceptable, which he calls righteousness; and He made another list of things that are not acceptable, and these He calls sins. No, it is not like that. Sin is certainly wrong and unacceptable in the divine sight, but our understanding of sin should be much greater than this. Sin is when something that God has originally made good, some good aspect of creation, ceases to live any longer in and by the life and nature and will of the Creator. Everything that is good in this world has borrowed or reflected goodness, just like the moon gives off borrowed and reflected light. When creation works according to its created design, it receives goodness from God, beauty from God, righteousness from God, purpose from God. It doesn’t produce its own goodness separate from its creator. If you think about it, where could it get that goodness, if it didn’t come from its own Creator? Its goodness comes from (in greater or lesser degrees) an ability or capacity given by God to receive, reflect, manifest something of who or what God is or has. 

So when you think about sin, think about something that is present in God’s creation, or living in God’s creation, that is no longer living by the life of God. It is there, it is present, God created it good, but it is no longer living and operating, moving, willing, desiring, reflecting, acting in the will and purpose of the Creator, but rather in some degree of contrariness to Him. And THIS is the condition into which man has fallen. 

Sin is a lot like a cancer. It takes the life and strength and energy of your body, whatever good it can get from you, to create something that is harmful to your body. It is there in you, using the life, the blood, the warmth that you give it, but it is living and growing in a way that is not your image, not your will, and definitely not your good.

When man fell into sin, it wasn’t just that he contracted a bad habit. What happened is that he LOST the only thing living in him, moving in him, motivating, manifesting itself in him, that was good or righteous. Or in other words, he lost all that had its source and nature in the life of God. There are not TWO sources of righteousness, as though one source comes from God, and another source comes from something else. There is only one source of righteousness, one source of life, one source of true wisdom, and love. And when man lost this source, he became something that continued living (because it had been granted life by his Creator), but which no longer had access to the ONLY thing that could make him truly good, wise, pure, righteous, and spiritually alive.

Do you see what I mean? Man falling into sin is a little bit like an animal that once breathed air being turned into a fish and falling into the sea. Now that he has become a fish, he must remain in that place. He is free to do anything he wants, or to go anywhere he wants in that sea, but he cannot come out of it. He can swim from New York to Japan in the water, but he cannot come OUT of the water. He has freedom in the realm within which he has freedom, but he cannot come out of that condition. This is man in sin. He lost the breath of life, the Spirit of life, the light of life, and though he continues to be a creature in God’s creation, and is free to live and choose and act within the boundaries of the fallen fleshly condition, he cannot escape from it. He cannot come out of it. And everything that he is in that realm, everything he thinks, understands, desires, and does LACKS the only thing that could ever make him good. 

This is what sin is. It is the absence of God’s goodness manifesting itself in God’s creation. The absence of God’s righteousness. It is a vessel that has lost its treasure, and now holds other things. It is man trapped in this condition, not because God inflicted upon him an arbitrary punishment, but because man turned away from the only thing that could make him good, and filled himself with other things.

And so now, whenever any fallen natural man, or any fallen angel, lives or speaks or wills APART from the will, and nature, and goodness, and life, and wisdom of God, this is called SIN. Again, it is sin, not just because it is on a list of things in the Bible that are wrong. No, it's a sin because it is something in God’s creation which was made to receive and bear and reflect His goodness, that is now trying to act and live and speak and will apart from goodness, righteousness, and life. It is man living as a source unto himself. 

There is an interesting verse in John chapter 8 which has to do with this very thing. Jesus is talking to the Jews about the devil, saying that he is their true father because they do his works. And he makes this comment about the devil, which I believe can also be said about fallen man as well. He says,

You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. (John 8:44)

The same thing, I believe, could be said about every created being that does not speak out from God. It speaks from its own resources, and therefore has no truth in it. And this is also why Paul says in Romans 14 that “whatever is not from faith is sin.” (Rom 14:23) This is true, because it is only by faith that man can receive, and walk in, and speak out from that which comes from God.

I hope you can see here the bigness of what sin is. God created everything perfect. He created everything in a condition where, according to its particular ability or capacity, it received something from God, and could express, communicate, manifest, reflect, and become a showcase for the goodness, righteousness, beauty of God… in so many different ways, virtues, attributes, colors, properties, etc. Everything that makes anything to be GOOD comes from God. “Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights.” It doesn’t start below. Goodness starts above, righteousness starts above, wisdom starts above and then comes down. If we try to create a goodness or a wisdom that starts below, then it is “earthly, sensual, and demonic” These are James’ words in 3:15. There is a wisdom from above, and a wisdom from below. There is a faith from above, and a faith from below (which is nothing more than human belief or opinion). There’s a love from above and there is something that we call love that comes from below. One of these is righteousness, and one of them is sin. But WHY is it sin? Again, it is not sin because it is on the list of bad things. It is sin simply because it lacks the only thing—i.e. the life, nature, light, etc. of God—that could possibly make it good. It is sin because it can only act from its own resources. It can only act from what Scripture calls “self.” 

Now this is what is wrong with self, and selfishness, and self love. Self is bad and must be denied for one very simple reason. It is bad because it cannot be good. It simply has no goodness in it. It cannot help but sin, because it has no other resources. It lacks the resources, the attributes, the virtues, the fruits that only come from above. It is a nature that has turned from God and sought to live on its own. It is a nature that has forsaken the fountain of living water and sought to build for itself broken cisterns that cannot hold water. It is a plant with a bad root, that comes from the wrong seed. And this is why Scripture has such strong and terrible things to say about man in his fallen condition. 

After man had fallen, in Genesis chapter 6 verse 5, God says “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” This statement about man’s fallen condition might almost seem like an exaggeration! Every intent? Only evil? Continually? But this is no exaggeration, because all that this statement is saying is quite simply this: “Man, apart from God, cannot produce goodness.” Or, “Man, apart from the life of God, cannot be the source of anything good.” Or, “There are not two sources of good.” And if man lives as a creature here, as part of God’s creation here, without receiving and manifesting the goodness that comes down from above, then everything that man does will be an expression of his own resources. When he acts, he will act out from his own resources. When he speaks, he will speak from his own resources. And this is called SIN. 

This is why selfishness is not an “option” for the natural man. It’s simply what he IS apart from God. And so long as we live in that fallen nature, which is called flesh, we read throughout scripture that this man or nature is “enmity with God.” The natural man apart from Christ is called “darkness”. He didn’t just have a few dark thoughts. He WAS an absence of light. This is sin. And this is why the natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit by himself. Why not? Because he needs to receive the things of the Spirit, like Peter did, coming down from the Father of lights. “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” And this is why no man can produce righteousness of himself. Why? Because righteousness first comes down from above.  Here is a beautiful verse from Isaiah 45:8 “Rain down, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness; Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together. I, the LORD, have created it.” And this is why Cain could not produce an offering in the first birth, or fallen nature, that God could accept. Why? Again, the reason is very simple. Goodness is not in man who has fallen into sin. 

Now if a man dies in this condition, as a creature that lives apart from the life and light and grace and power of God that comes down to man, this is called dying in your sin. For this reason Jesus said to the Jews, “If you don’t believe that I am, you will die in your sins.” You will not pass from death to life. You will remain in death, because you are already in death. John the Baptist says something very similar in John chapter 3:36 He says, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” You see, the wrath of God is already on man, when he lives in that condition that is contrary to God. But it will stay on him, and be his  eternal inheritance, unless he follows the Son of God OUT of that condition. Again, this is why Jesus says to the Jews, “Where I am going, you cannot go.” As long as you stay where you are, you will die in your sins. You will die as a fish in the sea that has never come out of the water, unless you follow me out. You will die in your own resources. You will remain as a creature that has only ever lived, and acted, and spoken according to his own resources.

And THIS is why Christ had to come in! He didn’t come into our condition to deliver true doctrines, or a new life philosophy, or even a new religion. He came in, in order to give man a way out of that condition called sin, to bring fish out of the sea. In a very real sense, He was a fisher of men. And the WAY that He fishes men out of sin, or out of the world, nature, and condition where everything is done according to our own dark and dead resources, is by first COMING INTO IT. There was absolutely no way to call us out of that condition, without Him first coming into it. Do you see? If you imagine our condition in sin like being trapped inside of a big circle, or in an enormous ocean that we had fallen into, someone might ask, “Why couldn’t Christ just stand on the edge of that circle, or on a dock by the ocean, and call us all out of it?” But what power did we have to come out? What power does a fish have to leave the ocean? What strength or ability or wisdom does fallen man find in himself to come out of the fall? Can he use his own resources to come out of his resources? No. We have nothing that can do this. We have no ability in ourselves. A new set of religious beliefs cannot do it. A law describing and requiring righteousness cannot empower us to leave. No, GOD NEEDED TO COME IN!

This is the great miracle of our salvation. God came in. “God was manifest in the flesh,” (1 Tim 3:16) and this was our only hope. God needed to come into this ocean, into our condition, and unite Himself to us in our fallen state. He needed to come into it, to overcome it, and then to come out of it, united to man, so that man, clinging to Him, walking in Him and with Him, could by His power and Spirit, come out with Him in the new and living way. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. God entered our condition. God was manifest in the flesh. God became a “fish” (so to speak) and dove into the sea. NOTHING would ever have changed, if Someone from above didn’t first come down, enter into and unite with man in that condition. And again, this was done by the Son or Word of God, so that everyone who was willing to join their soul to the life that came down, could leave with Him in the way that He opened.

This is called the incarnation of Jesus Christ. And though it may sound a little bit unusual to some people, it is important that we think about the incarnation both outwardly and inwardly. Because Jesus did not only come and unite Himself with His own physical body that came from the virgin Mary. Of course He DID do this, and this is the foundation of our salvation. This is how the Son of God became a man, and offered Himself as the Lamb of God, the sacrifice for sin, the atonement, etc. This is how He opened the way, and was lifted up to draw all men to himself. This is true and of great importance. But while it is true that the Word became flesh in the outward Person of Jesus of Nazareth to do the will of God, it is also true that God sows a seed or gift or implanted Word of this very same life into the hearts of every one of us. He entered our condition and joined Himself to man in the body of Jesus Christ, AND He entered our condition and joined Himself to man in the soul of you and I. 

Because, if Jesus Christ only came outwardly as a Man, as God and Man united in one divine Person outside of us, and only for Himself fulfilled the Law, and obeyed His Father, and suffered His own temptation, His own death, His own resurrection, His own ascension and return to the Father—then what would that accomplish for us? If it was only an incarnation and crucifixion and resurrection that had to do with His own body, and people could only watch it outwardly with their eyes, or read about it in a book, than this incarnation would not be enough to help us. But if this same Jesus, by His omnipresent and overcoming Spirit, also entered into us, and offered a way for us to unite with Him, and cling to Him, and thereby experience His birth, His growth, His obedience, His death, and His resurrection in us, then every one of us that clings to Him and walks with Him in the WAY that He opened, can follow Him out of all sin, darkness, and death. 

And now we are getting a little closer to talking about the WAY that Christ is, and what it means to walk in Christ as our way, which is what I want to focus on in this series. But let me just finish this message by asking you whether what I just described is not precisely the picture that God has painted for us in multitudes of stories and pictures in the Bible. For example, in the story of the Exodus, in order to bring His people out from slavery, out from a hopeless condition of bondage to Pharaoh, did He not first send Moses in? Did he not send him into that land of death and darkness to manifest His judgments, to call a people to Himself, to show them light in their own dwellings, to open a door with blood on it, and to call them out by following him? And in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, were not two angels sent into a city under condemnation, not to save the city, but to invite, and even compel, all who were willing to take them by the hand and follow them out? And in the story of Jericho, did not two men go into the city, declare God’s judgment of that land, and make a way to bring Rahab out. And when Abraham sent his servant to bring a wife back for Isaac, did he not send him into a foreign land, to see if Rachel would humble herself even to water his camels, and then willingly follow him back to his master? And was not Jacob also sent into a hostile land, in order to labor for years against evil and injustice so that, being united to his wife, he could bring her back to his father’s house?

God finds man in a condition that we cannot leave. This condition has various names. It is called spiritual death. It is called slavery to sin. It is called “having no hope and being without God in the world.” Eph 2:12. And in order to get us out, He first has to come in. Moses and Aaron came into Egypt. The two angels came into Sodom. The two spies came into Jericho. Judgment is declared against those places. Salvation is not granted to any who stay in those places. But a WAY is made for them to come out, and that way involves clinging to, joining with, walking with the One who came in. This is the way that I want to talk about.