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"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Matthew 27:46 |
From this cry of
bottomless despair we learn a visceral eternal truth, namely, that even when he
was in the flesh Jesus was as holy and as righteous as his Father. There has
never been a moment, not in eternity nor in time, when Jesus Christ has not been
as infinitely holy and as infinitely righteous as his Father, and thus even in
his darkest moment of despair he resorted to quoting Scripture, specifically
Psalm 22:1. And why?
Because as the Living Word, who in truth
authored all Scripture HIMSELF by the Holy Spirit, in the most holy
moment in the history of creation, he now quoted HIMSELF, for it is
written again, "If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny
HIMSELF." 2 Timothy 2:13
It is said that A.B. Simpson once preached
a sermon solely on the text, "HIMSELF".
I can deeply identify with that
exposition, for as related by A. W. Tozer, this is the very heart of the
Christian life...
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"Dr. Simpson was asked to go to England to preach in a Bible conference. He discovered that he was to preach the third of three messages on sanctification -- and that is a bad spot to be in. The first fellow said in his sermon that the way to be holy and victorious in the Christian life is to suppress the old man. His was the position of sanctification by suppression. The second man got up and took the position of eradication, deliverance from the old carnal life by eradication. "Get rid of the old man, pull him up, turn up the roots in the sun to die!" Doctor Simpson had to get in between there and he took just one word for his text: "HIMSELF". Then he gave his testimony of efforts and struggles to get the victory. He said, "Sometimes I would think I had gotten it, and then I would lose it. What a blessedness when I came to the knowledge that I had been looking in the wrong place, when I found that victory, sanctification, deliverance, purity, holiness -- ALL must be found in Jesus Christ HIMSELF, not in some formula. When I claimed Jesus just for HIMSELF, it became easy and the glory came to my life." Out of that knowledge and out of that blessing, Dr. Simpson wrote his famous hymn, "Once it was the blessing, now it is the Lord. Once His gift I wanted, now HIMSELF alone." Treasury Of A. W. Tozer, Baker Books, 1980 |
That, in a nutshell, is the Christian life. That is the basic Christian life, and that is the deeper Christian life. There is no other.
Of course, I realize there are an innumerable brood of cults who pretend that the Christian life is this or that, but they are all deluded. One cult, for example, leans to asceticism, another to antinomianism, another to legalism, and so on and so forth.
Still another heresy, a heresy as old as the garden of Eden, and held by souls who have no understanding of the Godhead WHATSOEVER, is the cult of the deity of man, which not one single soul who has EVER seen Jesus Christ in his glory by the power of the Holy Spirit could avow, and anyone who states otherwise is the mouthpiece of Satan. He who asserts the deity of man is he who INFALLIBLY has NEVER been indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and knows nothing of the Spirit and his ways, and who absolutely knows NOTHING WHATSOEVER of the GLORY of Jesus Christ. Indeed, those who propagate the deity of man are LITERALLY a FOUL STENCH in the nostrils of the Father, and the judgment for their wickedness will be exceedingly severe in the day of Jesus Christ, when they see him in his glory and thereby realize -- all on a sudden -- how wicked their doctrine truly is. But it will be too late for them then, too late by a lifetime.
Conversely, those of us who have BEHELD JESUS CHRIST IN HIS GLORY by the POWER of the Holy Spirit in the SUPERNATURAL MIRACLE of the new birth know just how utterly wicked and Satanic the gross heresy of the deity of man is, and how blind and ignorant and foolish are those who propagate it. Such souls, souls that propagate this ancient heresy, have no hint of the severity of the judgment of the Lord that is coming upon them. None. Nor do they realize how IGNORANT they appear to the truly regenerate who have BEHELD JESUS CHRIST IN HIS GLORY by the POWER of the Holy Spirit, for once a soul actually BEHOLDS JESUS CHRIST IN HIS GLORY by the POWER of the Holy Spirit, he sees by the Spirit just how high and lofty is he who inhabits eternity, even Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ is SEPARATE from sinners in every essential respect with regard to his being, that he is an infinite being in his own right, and that God's glory is DISTINCTLY his own, and that God gives NOT his glory -- his consubstantial glory, which is to say, the glory of his Godhead, which refers to ANY portion of his deity -- to another, even as Jesus Christ HIMSELF stated when he said --
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"I am the LORD: that is my name: AND MY GLORY WILL I NOT GIVE TO ANOTHER." Isaiah 42:8 And again... "I am God, AND THERE IS NONE ELSE." Isaiah 45:22 |
In a nutshell, it literally IS NOT POSSIBLE for a GENUINELY born again Christian to assert the deity of man. It's not merely IMPROBABLE, but it is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for a GENUINELY born again Christian to assert the deity of man, for not only has the GENUINELY born again Christian BEHELD JESUS CHRIST IN HIS GLORY by the POWER of the Holy Spirit, but in fact that VERY SAME SPIRIT, THAT VERY SAME HOLY SPIRIT, WILL NOT ALLOW SUCH A BLASPHEMY in those he truly indwells, as ALL who are truly born of him know, and that infallibly. There are NO exceptions. None. For further reading, see THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON
Yet another heresy, which is widespread today, elevates doctrine over the living Lord, while others abandon doctrine altogether and assert their own inventions in its place, and so on and so forth, and there are cults for every degree in between, but they all have one thing in common, and that is the fact that they all agree together in relegating Jesus Christ to a secondary level or position, not necessarily in word, but in their praxis, even though Jesus is HIMSELF holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and thus all of these cults are as wicked as they are ignorant and unregenerate, and Tozer likewise has a true word for them as well, for his admonition goes to the heart of all the cults --
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"Those who think poorly of God and well of themselves may chatter idly of "the deity within," but the man who trembles before the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity whose name is Holy, the man who knows the depth of his own sin, will detect a moral incongruity in the teaching that One so holy should dwell in the spirit of one so vile." A. W. Tozer, The Divine Indwelling |
Anyone who has ever actually been indwelt by Jesus Christ knows EXACTLY what Tozer is talking about, nor could ANYONE so indwelt EVER assert the deity of man. Those who do so are as unregenerate as they are ignorant, and they know NOTHING of the glory of Jesus Christ. NOTHING whatsoever.
The truth is, it could almost be said that there are as many cults and as many dead orthodoxies as there are stars in the heavens, but at the end of the day there is only ONE foundational, visceral TRUTH, as the Holy Ghost HIMSELF has related, and that is the fact that ALL of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge -- not some, not many, not most -- but ALL of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found SOLELY in Jesus Christ HIMSELF, and nowhere else -- not in the Church, not in the principles of Christianity, not in the moral precepts of the Bible, not in nature, not in the philosophies of men -- NOWHERE except in Jesus Christ HIMSELF, and thus, the Christian life -- the TRUE Christian life, in a nutshell, is simply this -- Jesus Christ HIMSELF! Colossians 1:27, Colossians 2:3, 1 Corinthians 1:30, Colossians 2:9, John 14:6, John 15:4-8
Every single person on this planet who is GENUINELY born again has had this truth revealed to him SUPERNATURALLY by the Holy Spirit upon the MOMENT of his new birth, when the Father HIMSELF caused him to BEHOLD JESUS CHRIST IN HIS GLORY by the POWER of the Holy Spirit, and he who cannot so testify is he who is deluding himself if he thinks he's born again. Absolutely, utterly deluding himself.
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"A revelation of the Holy Spirit in one glorious flash of inward illumination would teach you more of Jesus than five years in a theological seminary... there is the Christ whom only the Spirit can reveal... you may be convinced that He is the Son of God and still never find Him as the living Person He is. Jesus Christ must be revealed by the Holy Ghost -- no man knows the things of God but by the Holy Ghost... the final flash that introduces your heart to Jesus must be by that illumination of the Holy Spirit Himself, or it isn't done at all." A. W. Tozer, The Tozer Pulpit, Vol II |
If that isn't your experience, you are utterly deluding yourself if you think you're born again. Utterly.
Would you be born again? GENUINELY born again?
Then take wise counsel -- pick up a Bible based on the Traditional Text -- in English, the ONLY VALID Bible based on the Traditional Text is the King James Bible -- and then read with SOLEMNITY, beginning in the Gospels preferably, and beg Jesus Christ to reveal himself to you, and give him no rest until he does, for if you read the TRUE written Word of God, you will find the Lord of Glory, even Jesus Christ, moving upon the face of the waters in its pages, just as he moved upon the face of the waters when he walked across the Sea of Galilee, and if you follow the advice just given, and if you persist, Jesus Christ HIMSELF will verily MANIFEST HIMSELF to you (for he HIMSELF promises to do this for those who truly heed this advice), just as he MANIFESTED HIMSELF to his disciples when he moved upon the face of the waters as he walked across the stormy sea some two thousand years ago, and just as he did with ME not too many years ago, and just as he has done with a FEW others from day to day since that time, in this very generation, and just as he will do for YOU if -- IF -- you heed my advice, and if -- IF -- you persist therein, for he who promised is FAITHFUL. John 14:21, Matthew 14:25-27
The Great Gamble
Regeneration And The Holy Spirit
Where Have All The Preachers Gone?