Miles J.
Stanford

I Know You’re In There!

–
Every honest believer who knows anything at all about the extensive and
all-important Romans Seven experience, realizes that the sins in his Christian
life are identical in character to those he experienced prior to salvation.
They are “the works of the flesh,” the same all-too-familiar traits of the
person of the first Adam.

They are not the manifestation of some residual sinful habits,
left behind by a long-gone, eradicated, Adamic source. And they certainly
aren’t countered and replaced by the development of “good” new habits. Imagine
the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our indwelling Christian life, having to develop
habits!

Every believer who knows the liberating Romans Eight life, “the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (v. 2), realizes that the
righteousness manifested in his Christian life has its source in the indwelling
life of the Last Adam, “the fruit of the Spirit.” “That the life also of Jesus
might be made manifest in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:11).

The nature is the essential character of a person, a
life, the quality or qualities that characterize a person. The traits, the
attributes, comprise the nature of a man—whether it be the first Adam man, or
the Last Adam Man. We have the life of Adam, hence his sinful nature; we
have the Life of the Last Adam, hence His new and divine nature. The
Christian has two (2) life sources within, and the manifestation of their
natures is the undeniable evidence thereof—”the works of the flesh,” and “the
fruit of the Spirit.”

To mention but a few of the more prominent present-day
eradicationists—the late Martyn Lloyd-Jones (via his voluminous writings), John
MacArthur, David Needham, Charles Solomon, John Stott, Charles Stanley, Bill
Gillham, and Bob George.

Further Personal History

– Positionally free from the
Adamic life through my death unto sin in the Lord Jesus, the Father was at
liberty to identify the essential me with His Son; and in His resurrection I was
recreated “alive unto God” in Him. When He arose, as the beginning of the (new)
creation of God (Rev. 3:14), I arose with Him in “newness of life”—a totally new
creation (2 Cor. 5:17).

When the Lord Jesus, now Head of the new heavenly creation (the
Church), ascended to the right hand of His Father, He took me with Him. The
Father, having re-created me in His Son, raised me up and made me to sit
together in heavenly places in Him. “And hath raised us up together, and
made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). Abide
Above!

I was positionally separated by death via the Cross from the first
Adam, to be recreated in union with the Last Adam in His resurrection and
ascension. Old Adamic things positionally passed away in the death of
Calvary. In my condition, they are (slowly) passing away as I
grow spiritually. Actually, finally, they will totally and
eternally pass away at my death or at the Rapture–whichever comes first. “Even
so, come Lord Jesus.”

There I am in my glorious position, “hidden with Christ in God”
(Col. 3:3). In the Lord Jesus I am a new creation, I am accepted in the
Beloved, complete in Him, sanctified in Him, perfect in Him. With that
position, who can question his unconditional eternal security?!

All of that, and much more, has been held in spiritual
escrow for me ever since the One who is my life ascended to the right hand of
the Father. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ”
(Eph. 1:3).

All had to be completed positionally before a single
Christian and the Church could be brought into being, because Christianity is
founded upon and springs from the finished work of Christ. “And ye are
complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and power” (Col.
2:10).

The Condition Factor

– Born into the world in the life
and image of the first Adam, I grew up a condemned sinner, “dead in trespasses
and sins” (Eph. 2:1). In His foreordained time and purpose the Father called
me, and by His grace and the Spirit-caused conviction of sin, I responded in
unconditional faith—responsibly accepting the Lord Jesus as my own Saviour.

At that moment the Holy Spirit, by His indwelling, brought me the
life of the ascended Lord to be my Christian life. Then and there I was placed
in my position as a new creation in the Last Adam. Nevertheless, the old Adam
life continues to indwell my body of mortal flesh.

In the Spirit’s time I came to know of the positional truths of
the Word concerning me—from Romans 5:12 on throughout Paul’s Church Epistles. I
saw that I had judicially died to sin on the Cross, crucified with the Lord
Jesus (Gal. 2:20).

In time, and years of that, I learned via Romans Seven not to
struggle against the fleshly life of Adam within, but to count by faith upon the
positional truth of the finished work of the Cross. “For in that He
died, He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God.
Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to have died indeed unto sin, but to be
alive unto God in Jesus Christ, our Lord” (Rom. 6:11).

Likewise reckoning upon my position—”alive unto God in Christ
Jesus”—the Holy Spirit centers my heart and mind upon the One who is my
Christian life. As I behold Him by means of the Word, in personal fellowship
and worship, the Spirit of Christ causes that completed life to manifest the
“fruit of the Spirit.” With ever increasing growth I am conformed to the image
of the Son. “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory
of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18).

At the Rapture I will receive my renewed body, like unto His
glorious body. Then—and not until then—my body of mortal flesh will be
instantly transformed into my spiritual, glorified body. The old Adamic man
will finally be eradicated, and I will be in eternal condition what has been my
position ever since my death and resurrection in Him at Calvary — yes,
ever since my Father formed me in His heart in eternity past.

Doctrinal Dearth

– The question remains: What of these
great liberating, positional truths have you learned at church—whether it be
through your local Bible church, or elsewhere?

From fifty years of close observation, I would say that your
chances are just about one in a thousand. If the leadership in the doctrinally
sound church realized who and where they are in the glorified Lord
Jesus, would they stop at Romans 5:11, and not enter into Romans 5:12 and
beyond? Would they be Old Testament and Synoptic-oriented, holding the Church
to the earthly level of Israel and her Law?

Would they substitute the synoptic “Gospel of the Kingdom” for Paul’s
exclusive “glorious heavenly Gospel”? Would they subject members of the
heavenly Body of the glorified Lord to Israel’s earthly New Covenant, her legal
Sermon on the Mount, and her Mosaic and Kingdom law systems–that to
which the Christian has died? “For I, through the law, died to the law, that I
might live unto God” (Gal. 2:19).