We Share Christ's Throne
RO69-02

For that reason, the first issue that confronts every human being is resolving the separation which he enters by natural birth from the living God. That separation is a very serious problem because anybody who leaves this life (the physical life) and that status of separation has moved beyond the point of no return, and is forever doomed to the lake of fire. I know you have been disturbed because the implications of all this has gradually been creeping into your thinking. And suddenly, you've realized that you're watching the world around you, which is going like a Niagara flood of human beings into hell. And that's true. You are a very select group. You are a very small group which is going to be in heaven. Vast denominations will never be in heaven simply because they're approaching it on their way of salvation, which they have constructed, but which violates the gift accepting principle on which God functions.

So, it is important for you to believe that. You don't have optional ways of going to heaven. Those who have rejected God's only way are doomed, and we grieve over that. And the Lord Jesus tried very hard to make that clear to us. He said on one occasion that He was the way. Period. And there was no other way. And yet, most of the humanity that you and I know is going to be wasted.

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit

That's what the apostle Paul has been driving home to us. Our union with Christ, as the result of our accepting God's only one way of salvation, has brought us into the position where we have dominion over the old sin nature rather than it further controlling us.

Newness of Life

Now this new quality of life potentially is going to be expressed in our experience. And that part Paul is going to discuss a little later. But at this point, he's simply stating a fact about our position. We have now a new life status. The Christian's position in Christ means that he is united to the death of Christ, and that he is united to the resurrection of Christ. These two important points are repeatedly stressed in Romans 6.

So, a Christian, for this reason, now possesses absolute control of his sin nature. This is not a future reality. As to whether you exercise it or not, that is another question. But you do now have authority over the old sin nature. Previously, it was a sovereign rule over you. So, God, as judge of the universe, has indeed provided a solution for the old sin nature problem. He has broken the back of that power.

Positional Sanctification

Experiential Sanctification

Ultimate Sanctification

So, we have these three stages of sanctification.

We also pointed out to you that the Christian in the church age has a double guarantee of being destined for heaven forever. He possesses the absolute righteousness and the eternal life which are given to believers in all dispensations from God the Father. Everybody who ever lived, who has been born-again, always received two things from God the Father. He received absolute righteousness to his credit. You need that to go to heaven. And along with it, consequently, came eternal life.

We have this in many places in the Word of God. Going back into Genesis 15:6, we read there about Abraham: "And he believed in the Lord, and He (God) counted it to him for righteousness." This is referring to the absolute righteousness which Abraham received upon believing that God was going to provide a solution for his sin problem.

In Psalms 133:3, we read, "Like the dew of Hermon, and like the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forever more." So those who believed in the Old Testament receive the refreshing quality of life eternal. And of course, that is what is stated back in Romans 4:3: "For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness," referring back to that (quoting that) Genesis passage.

So, if you were born again in any age (in any dispensation), you always received two things. You received absolute righteousness to your credit, and you received eternal life.

Union with Christ

Now, when you are placed into a union with Christ (the thing that Paul has been driving home to us is that), you benefit by everything that Christ has done and everything that He is.

So, in Romans 5:17, we read, "For if by one man's offense, death reigned by one, much more they who receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness (absolute righteousness) shall reign in life (eternal life) by One Jesus Christ." So, here you have the statement made that we, by Jesus Christ, receive absolute righteousness. Why? Because we share His absolute righteousness. We have eternal life through Jesus Christ. Why? Because we share His eternal life. Because we were in Him.

John 3:36 tells us the same thing. Romans 5:21 adds the same thing. All of these verses are calling our attention to the fact that those of us who are in Christ have His absolute righteousness to our benefit. We have His eternal life to our benefit.

So, you have absolute righteousness and eternal life, just like everybody else in every other dispensation, because you trusted in Christ as Savior; and, because you have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you got a second impact of absolute righteousness and of eternal life. Now that is a double guarantee. That is a guarantee that you couldn't ask for anything better.

It is really pathetic (if you understand that point of doctrine) for these people who go around worrying about the fact that they're going to lose their salvation, and start going to hell again. Now they're headed for heaven, and they do something, and they turn around, and now they're headed for hell. That is the most absolutely ignorant, benighted, spiritually backward position that you can imagine. And unless you understand that you have a double guarantee, you will think that something far different has happened to you in your relationship to God than really has. You will think you're lost again, and that's all the devil wants, so he can keep you sidetracked, because there's one thing that Satan ever wants you to do, and that's to store treasures in heaven. That is because when you store treasures in heaven, that means that the Word of God (doctrine) is being propagated to human beings; that people are being informed about God's viewpoint; and, that people are going forward. When people are going forward as a result of the money you give; the effort you use; and, the exercise of your spiritual gifts, then the devil's cause is hurt. And he does not want you to be preoccupying yourself with service. He wants you to worry about whether you're dangling over hell or not.

So, remember the double guarantee that you have of heaven. The same absolute righteousness and eternal life that everybody gets in all dispensations, and the special guarantee, because you are in Christ, of those same two things.

Waters of Death

God's Holiness

Now the cross of Jesus Christ is referred to as a tree in 1 Peter to 24. And it indeed is the tree which God has cast into the spiritual death waters that cover all of us. The result of the tree of Jesus Christ cast into these death waters is that these waters have been made living waters. The tree of Jesus Christ has given us a basis for a new quality of life also, which is free from the old sin nature control. It has the power of the resurrected Christ functioning in us.

This is demonstrated to us by another Old Testament illustration which you might want to turn to now in the book of 2 Kings. This is an illustration relative to the prophet Elisha. Our first illustration of the waters of Marah demonstrated how God removed the quality of death with the tree. And Jesus Christ has removed the quality of eternal death with the tree. He has given you, on the tree of the cross, eternal life.

Fruitfulness of Life

Elisha

Bad Water

So, here was a city in a very lovely location, but whose waters were, again, the waters of death. Verse 20: "And he said, 'Bring me a new cruse (that is, a small container) and put salt in it.' And they brought it to him. And he went forth until the spring of the waters, and he cast the salt in there, and said, 'Thus says the Lord: I have healed these waters, and there shall not be from there any more death or barren land.' So, the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spoke."

So, here's a seemingly promising place to live, but which was in fact the place of death, and a place of no production, which is now transformed into a place of productivity by Elisha's casting salt to purify the waters so that the waters would no more produce death. This salt is a picture in the Bible of the resurrected life of Jesus Christ. This is the resurrected life that we are united to through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Thus we are capable as individual believers of great fruitfulness. Whatever your problem has been in your Christian life; whatever your instability; whatever your ups and downs; and, whatever your erratic pattern of Christian living has been, you are capable of fabulous, divine, good production.

1 Peter 2:5 says, "You also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." You are a royal priesthood and a holy priesthood. You are selected by God to serve as His priest in this age of grace with unique and distinctive production (fruitfulness).

In the Old Testament, no offering was ever made without the addition of salt. You may find this in Leviticus 2:13 and Ezekiel 43:24. They were forbidden ever to bring a sacrifice without having a pinch of salt in it, because the salt is what made the sacrifice work, symbolically speaking. Without the salt representing the resurrected life of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice was meaningless. But when you brought the animal sacrifice, and in God's reckoning, you added the salt, you added now the power of the resurrected Christ, and that's what made the sacrifice fruitful.

So, the Christian has a newness of resurrected life in Jesus Christ dwelling in him now for what purpose? To produce fruitfulness. 2 Corinthians 9:8 reads: "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you always, having all sufficiency in all good things, may abound to every good work." You have that capacity. That is the salt of the resurrected life of Jesus Christ which is in you. As the waters of that beautiful city were the waters of death until the salt was put in there, so we are scene of barrenness and death until the resurrection of life of Jesus Christ starts functioning in you.

First of all, I'm simply making the point that you've got the resurrected power. You have that status of the resurrected life. As to whether you're functioning, and whether you're a fruitful Christian or not, or just a clod, is something else. But first of all, the salt is there. The baptism of the Holy Spirit has made you the salty person you need to be.

John 7:38-39 we may add to this: "He that believes on Me the Scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. But this He spoke of the Spirit whom they that believe on Him should receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified." Out of us, with the resurrected life of Christ will flow rivers of living waters. So, everyone we touch will find that there is upon us the touch of life instead of the touch of death.

So, the tree of Christ's death healed our condemnation in Adam, and the salt of Christ's resurrected life removes our spiritual unfruitfulness. This newness of life provided by Jesus Christ can never be lost again to the old sin nature or to Satan, because the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ will carry us right on through to the finish and to heaven itself. Philippians 1:6: "Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. God has begun the good work. God will carry us through.

So, with those two Old Testament illustrations on the tree and the salt, Romans 6:4 opens up to us a great vista of victory now and for glorious rewards in heaven later on. Colossians 3:1-3 put it this way: "If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth, for you are dead and your life is hidden with Christ in God." And the result is our affections and our productivity can be in the direction of heaven and of eternity. It opens fantastic vistas of possibilities of living that we cannot even begin to imagine until you get into them.

We're now moving on to verse 5. Verse 5 sums up what Paul has been saying. In short, it says that union in death means union in life: "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection."

First of all, we are united in death. It begins with the Greek word "gar," which is "for." It is used here to introduce a reason for the statement which has been made in verse 4 about our having the status of newness of life. It introduces a confirmation about the positional truth of our positional sanctification. The next word is "if," and the word "if" is the Greek word "ei." As you know, there are, in the Greek language, four kinds of "ifs." You can't see that when you read in English, but every "if" tells you something. This if is what we call a first class condition "if." The first class condition is a condition of reality. The word "if," in a way, gives you a wrong idea about this class condition, because "if" to us connotes some uncertainty. But in this case, first class condition, "if" does not connote uncertainty. As a matter of fact, you should translated by the word "since" or "since it is a fact."

So, we would begin reading verse 5 in this way: "For, since it is a fact we have been planted together in the likeness of His death." That gives you a totally different picture: "For since it is a fact that we have been planted together." But the English simply translates the one Greek word "if," and that's the word that's in there, but it's in a grammatical construction in Greek such that we can tell that it is first class: "since."

So, here is the first part of a conditional sentence. This is the conditional part of the sentence. The last part of this verse is the conclusion part of the sentence. So, here is the introduction. If (something that is true) you have been. The word "have been" is the word "ginomai." The word "ginomai" actually means "to become." So, it isn't "if you have been," but rather: "for (since it is a fact that we have become something). This is in the perfect tense in Greek, and the perfect tense means that this took place in the past, and that it continues on to the present. It refers to the fact that our identification with Christ in His death took place in the past, and that identification in His death, relative to the old sin nature running our lives, continues to be true of you to the present. There never can come a time when the old sin nature can ever take charge of you again.

Now if anybody knows the Greek language, and he sees this word in perfect tense, he says, "Hey, wait a minute, man. What is all this nonsense about saved today and lost tomorrow? You can't talk about saved today and lost tomorrow and use the perfect tense. That would be God the Holy Spirit lying on the pages of Scripture, because perfect tense says that something happened in the past, and then it just continues right on to whatever point of your presence you are, right on forever."

So, here's a beautiful point: "For (since it is true) that we have become now and forever united" in a certain respect to Jesus Christ – here His death is what we're coming to. Now if you're forever united to the death of Christ, there's nothing you can do to ever lose your salvation. There's nothing you can ever do to un-unite yourself because what you're saying is in effect that there's some sin that you can come up with that Jesus Christ did not die for – some sin that God just did not think of. There is something you are going to pull that slipped by. Some of you are really good at sinning, but you're not that good. You're not going to slip by God on any respect whatsoever.

This is perfect tense. You've got it made forever. It is active. Active voice here indicates that the believer does the believing, and that is what initiates your union with Christ. That establishes your becoming this forever. It is indicative mood, which is a plain statement of fact.

Now the next word is "planted together" and it does not mean "planted." It's this Greek word "sumphutos." It's an adjective. What this word means is "grown together." It does not mean "planted." It means "grown together." "Planted" suggests something that's going to sprout and develop. This is something that's already in operation. It's already growing together. It's like Siamese twins. Siamese twins are already growing together. The life in one flows in the life of the other.

Grown Together

A Likeness

Water Baptism is a Place of Death

That's why people who go scuba diving are always very careful to check their equipment, and they're very careful to check the procedures underneath. They're very careful to know how to take those masks off, and how to take the mouthpiece out so that you can have facility with the equipment, because if you can't handle it underwater, something could happen, or you could have to share it with somebody else. When I was at camp, I had to share my breathing apparatus (I hate to say it) with Charlie Boozer underwater. And he had to take a couple of breaths, and I had to take a couple of breaths, and I kept washing the thing off in the back-and-forth and the mouth-to-mouth. And there was a great big Jewfish that came up and was looking at us, and his eyes were crossed, and he was wondering what was going on. Well, we were surviving. And until you get up to the surface, and get back out of that water, you are definitely in a place of death.

So, this is the resemblance as portrayed by water baptism. To that extent, you have water baptism in this picture here in Romans 6 the water baptism is a picture resembling the death of Christ. You're going down into an element of death, and you're coming back. And when you come back up, you're back into life. But it's portraying a newness of life.

So, the idea is sharing the death of Christ positionally. It is not a reference to our physical death here. It is to the death of the sin nature to controlling us – the death of the sin nature dominating us. So, we have this likeness (this resemblance) to His death. And that word "death" is "thanatos." It refers to the spiritual and the physical deaths of Christ on the cross for the evil of mankind. It also has the word "the," so, it's definite. It's the specific death that Paul has been talking about in Romans 6:4 in the immediate context.

You may have noticed that we've had a kind of a progression of reference to death here. In verse 3, we've had the reference to being baptized by the Holy Spirit into union with Christ's death. In verse 4, we have the statement of being entombed with Christ by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In verse 5, we have now grown together with Christ by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So, you have a progression. You're baptized into a union with Christ in His death; you're baptized into the tomb with Him; and, you're baptized into a lifestyle (a life quality) that you share with Him. All of this conveys progression into greater intimacy.

We would translate this as: "For, since it is true that we have become grown together in the likeness of His death." Then the last part of the verse is the conclusion. It is what the grammarians call the apodosis. This is the conclusion part of the "if" sentence. Our translation here in the King James omits a word which is in the Greek, which should be in there really. It's Greek word "alla." This is an adversative word. It's a word like "de," both of which mean "but." But this word is a stronger "but." This word is sometimes used to confirm something in an emphatic way. So, this should be translated as "certainly." And much is lost if you don't grasp that that word now comes in the conclusion part, because, again, the apostle Paul is driving home that there is no way to elude the consequences of your being united by the Spirit of God through the baptism of the Holy Spirit to the death of Christ, and the consequent new lifestyle. You cannot escape it.

Resurrection

But it is middle, and middle voice means that this is to your personal benefit. You will be greatly benefited. It is indicative – a statement of fact. You will be certainly greatly personally benefited. Also, the words "in the likeness" are not in the Greek text, but they're understood to fill out the meaning. And the likeness will be in the likeness of resurrection. The word "resurrection" is "anastasis." It's a noun. It means a raising up from the dead. Again, it has "the" resurrection, indicating the particular resurrected life that the context has been talking about back in verse 4.

So, we translate it as: "Certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." The community of death with Christ of necessity includes community of life with him as well.

Ascension

The God-man, Jesus Christ (and I mean the human being Jesus Christ) actually traveled through space until He entered the third heaven, the throne room of God. We have this explained to us in Acts 1:10-11, Mark 16:19, and Luke 24:50-51. You can pursue those on your own. The disciples saw Him vertically rise, and He went through the interstellar spaces until He arrived in the third heaven, which is a place. The acceptability of a human being in heaven (God the Father being willing to receive a human being into the third heaven) guarantees our acceptability there someday. That is why you know that you will be someday in the third heaven, because Jesus Christ is there now. Ephesians 1:6 tells us that, as well as 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.

Now, when Jesus Christ returned to heaven, He did so in great glory because of His triumph over Satan and His conquest over sin and death. So, Jesus Christ now sits in heaven in full authority over heaven and earth. Matthew 20:18 therefore declares: "All authority is given unto Me in heaven and in earth."

We are Seated at the Right Hand of God the Father

The apostle Paul demonstrates frequently to us that he's in the habit of stopping to explain something that he has said. We call those things sets of parentheses. You have one in Romans 1:2. You have one in Romans 2:13-15. And if you look in your Bible, you see that the translators have put a set of parentheses around it. And we certainly have completed a big one recently in Romans 5:13-17. All that was parentheses – explaining. We're going to have one in Romans 9:11. We'll have one in Romans 11:18. As a matter of fact, the whole chapters of 9, 10, and 11, which talk about the Jewish people, are sort of a set of parentheses stuck into the book of Romans.

So, the apostle Paul is in the habit of doing this. This is also true in the book of Ephesians, to which I'd like you to turn in closing. Ephesians 3:3-4 are indicated to be a set of parenthesis. Ephesians 4:9-10 are a set of parentheses. Ephesians 5:9 is interjected as a set of parentheses. So, Paul is in the habit of doing this. But as you know, the Bible was not originally written in chapters and verses. It was simply written as a straight document like one writes a letter. So, sometimes the translators actually missed where a parentheses belonged. Sometimes there was a discussion over it. Sometimes they're not exactly sure that this is an explanatory situation.

However, I want you to notice in Ephesians 2:1 that there are some italicized words. Anytime you have italicized words in the English Bible, that indicates to you that these words are not in the Greek Bible, but that they were put in there to try to fill out the sense. Now the verse says, "And He has mad you alive who were dead in trespasses and sins. Now that makes sense. That's what we would call in school a complete sentence. It's got a subject; it's got a verb; and, it's it has the whole bit.

However, for a moment, read it without those italicized words, which are not in the Greek, because here's what the Greek says: "And you are dead in trespasses and sins." In school, we would ask our children: is that a sentence? And if a kid knows something about grammar, he'd look at that and say, "That's no sentence." Why not? It doesn't have a verb. That's right. And that's how it is in the Greek. It's a sentence that just sits there and dangles.

So, the translators said, "We have to make some sense out of that as to what it must mean." And they interjected these words. They give it a verb: "Has made alive." So, it'll make some sense.

But now suppose that you back up to verses 19-20 for just a minute. In verses 19-20, the apostle Paul is dealing with some tremendous realities about the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's what he says. Ephesians 1:19: "And what is the exceeding greatness of His power (God's great divine power) toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ?" God deals with us on the basis of the power that it took to raise His Son from the dead: "Which He brought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.

Now put a parentheses from verse 21-23, because if you read verses 21-23, you will discover that Paul is giving a little further explanation about Christ being set in heavenly places. He just stops, and he is explaining, and filling out, and telling a little more what happened. And just pretend that you're reading this in the original writing without this interjection of chapter two. Take verses 21-23 out, and just read verse 20 connected to chapter 2:1: "Which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His all right hand in the heavenly places, and you, who were dead in trespasses and sins."

Do you see what sense that makes? That's why there's no verb in Ephesians 2:1, because it's supposed to be hooked on to verse 20. And verse 21-23 are probably just another one of those sets of parentheses that Paul is in the habit of throwing in. So, you have a very dramatic statement here. The believer is directly related to the power of God, it says in verse 19 – "the power which raised Christ from the dead;" and, "to the power of the ascension of Christ" in verse 20.

So, we who share the resurrection of Jesus Christ share also His ascension now. Ephesians 2:6 states that in just so many words: "And has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." He made us sit together in the heavenlies. That is what it says: "In Christ Jesus."

You are Enthroned

Now, my point is: let this fact be your frame of reference in your life day-by-day. Right now, just take yourself on a flight of imagination, and imagine yourself right up there sitting on that throne, and looking down through the clouds, and seeing this little speck of earth, and with all these little specks of human beings walking around, including yourself. And there you are seated up there. Now that is Majesty. That is power, because the person that you're related to says, "I have all power over heaven and earth." If He has all power over heaven and earth, you have all power over heaven and earth. You are seated in the heavens. You are seated on a throne, and you are in full command of every feature of your life.

So, look down. And if you have not done it in your mind's eye, in your imagination, it's time for you to shout, "Lord, I'm coming through." You've been living down here. You've been thinking that this is where you have been associated. The time has come for you to shout, "Lord, I'm coming through." You are in the place of total victory. You're in a place of total power. That's newness of life, and newness of life which is befitting people who are royalty.

So, your status and your power each day lies in the fact of your presence in heaven next to God the Father, sharing the ministry of the Son toward His bride the church.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

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