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***The following is an unedited auto-generated transcript and may contain serious errors and speakers other than Dallas Willard. It is included here to assist your study. Please check the original audio for an authentic record of the event.

Dallas: We’re discussing the kingdom of God in various aspects, and last Sunday we talked about what it meant to be lost, or what is the condition of the lost, and this Sunday we’re going to talk about how Jesus Christ remedies that condition. What is it he does to change that condition? Next Sunday, we’ll talk about discipleship. If you wish, we can call that what we do to remedy that condition, and I hope that you will look very carefully at some passages on discipleship, for example, the 14th chapter of Luke. You might look at the 14th chapter of Luke and the 8th chapter of John, and in general in your studies if you will just watch that word, discipleship, and be thinking about it through the week. I’ll be talking about that next Sunday, but the 14th chapter of Luke is perhaps the most important passage for you to dwell upon in preparing.

Now here in Titus, the third chapter, Paul has been telling Titus, who was a young minister of the message of Christ, telling him how to behave and what to do, and in the third chapter, the third verse and following, you first see a description of the condition of the lost, which we talked about last time. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and hymns, hateful and hating one another.

Now that really tells the story, that’s the description of the condition of the lost. Being disconnected from their right relationships to God and to other men, they think into a kind of stupor in which they don’t understand their own lives and don’t see what is good and what is right and what is wrong. You notice it speaks here of serving divers lusts and pleasures, this is a correct description of the condition that is understood in the Bible as the condition of being lost, because it is a condition where you actually serve the lusts, and you serve the pleasures. They are your masters. And again, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another, full of hate, hating one another, deceived, disobedient, sometimes foolish.

This last week in the news there was a story about the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Manson Group, you may have heard it. And in response to this there was a report on one of the networks that in every juvenile home in California there is a band of Manson followers. Now you see, you have to think about the condition of the lost to understand that. And here are groups of young people who have taken Charles Manson as an idol, as someone to look up to, someone to base your thoughts and your feelings for. We want to be like Charlie. Now if you were to move into the inside of the minds of those people, you would find a set of rationalizations and feelings which they would advance as just making this the greatest thing since sliced bread, to be a follower of Charlie Manson. Wow, wonderful, isn’t it great?

Now how do people get in that condition? Being out of a right relationship to God and out of a right relationship to the human beings which surround them as we talked last time, their system begins to degenerate, their mind does not work rightly, their emotions don’t work rightly, and they are finally in a state of corruption. Now you need to think about the word corruption. Corruption, it means to break up, to come apart, to decay. We think of interruption in a conversation, eruption of a volcano, rupture of your body, breaking up, a breaking up, and as we said last time, in the fallen condition of mankind there is a breaking up of the system of human nature which leads to this condition that is described here and which as we read last time in the first chapter of Romans leads us to the point of where we not only do these things and enjoy them and think it’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened by the proof of others who do the same.

You cannot understand why what is constantly presented to us by television and movies and other things, you can’t understand why that is presented and grosses a great profit unless you understand the loss of the fallen, the corrupt condition of human beings. Unless you understand what that affects you, that affects me. We are not standing apart from this, this is where we start, this is at best the pit from which we were dug.

Now Paul goes on, fourth verse. After the kindness and love of God our savior toward man appeared, the kindness and love of God our savior toward man appeared. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. And what we’re talking about this morning is what he did when he saved us. By the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our savior, that being justified by his grace we should be made heirs that is a part of a family according to the hope of eternal life. He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost.

That is to say he saved us by putting us back into a correct relationship to God and man. Just as we spoke last time about at the time of creation God formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed into him the spirit of life and man became a living soul. So in the new birth there is an in-breathing of the Holy Spirit, a power which is beyond ourselves, a renewing of the Holy Ghost so that people begin to function in a different manner because their insides have been renovated. By their insides of course I refer to their heart, the principles of their actions, their choices, their thoughts, their feelings, their dispositions to behave in various ways have been changed and are being changed. And this is a process which as Paul says here was accomplished by Jesus Christ. He did it.

Now I’ve purposely focused upon this verse because you will notice that the saving here is not just a description of his death, it is a matter of regenerating and renewing of the Holy Ghost. And one of our most important things to do as we think about this subject is to try to put in place the meaning of the death of Christ because it is certainly true that his death is at the center focus of his redemptive work. And one of the problems we have is to understand exactly how that works.

Now there is one model of how he saves us that I want to talk about first because I think it has done a great deal of damage. It is a model according to which Jesus in his dying for us accumulated a certain amount of merit which are then transferred to our account in the bank of heaven whenever we perform the meritorious work of believing in him. So that we are accounted righteous because of a simple transfer of righteousness which he accumulated by suffering upon the cross. Now if one believes that all that Jesus did to save us was die for us and that it works in that way, then one is going to be hard put to integrate the saving work of Christ with the rest of his life. And we are today living in a time in which we are reaping the bitter fruit of supposing that there was some sort of legalistic transfer made which you arrange for by believing and then it has nothing to do with the rest of your life.

I think that we have to understand if we look in the New Testament and we wish to make sense out of what’s going on there, we have to understand that there are three main parts to the new life which constitutes a restoration of a right relationship to God and these three are the forgiveness of sin. That is absolutely fundamental. There is no question but what in the message that is presented in the gospels and in the thinking of Paul and the apostles, the death of Christ is absolutely central to that.

But there is also the transformation of character and that’s the second thing that you must understand if you’re going to try to understand what’s going on in the New Testament and what Jesus and the apostles are talking about is the transformation of character. Just before the passage which I read from Titus, the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.

If you listen to the message as it is often presented, you will notice that there are two sides. One is redemption from the results of sin, forgiveness of sin if you wish, and the other is the cleansing from sin itself. That is the transformation of character. The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s son cleanseth us from all sin, not from guilt only, but from sin.

And we’ll be talking more about this next time as we discuss discipleship. And then thirdly, if one wishes to understand what is going on with the new life that is in the New Testament, you have to understand that a substantial part of what is contained in the salvation which Christ offers is a significant power beyond the normal human capacities, a significant power to work righteousness and to resist evil.

So those three things, forgiveness, transformation of character, and power, are essential constituents of the restoration to a new life in Christ Jesus. And if you accept anything less than that, you’re going to be accepting something far short of what is presented in the Gospels and in the New Testament and for that matter in the Old Testament. And if you do, it will not make any sense to you.

Now the truth of the matter is, the message which is presented in many of our churches is just plain boring. And it is boring because it is presented simply in terms of getting your insurance policy fixed up so you can go to heaven when you die. And I go into churches at many places, not only churches, but elsewhere where there are serious speaking people, and I find them saying, I can’t pray, I fall asleep. I can’t read the Bible. I can’t. Whatever. And you find preachers pumping people up, trying to get them to come to church, trying to get them to give, trying to get them to do something. And you have the great model of the manipulated ministry, trying to push and squeeze and shove people into doing something for goodness sakes, and the only reason is because the people are bored to death with the message of being preached.

If they had something to talk about to God, they wouldn’t go to sleep. If you had a chance to talk to Jimmy Carter, regardless of your politics, if you had a chance to talk to him, I guarantee you, you wouldn’t go to sleep. If for no other reason that you would be so impressed with the occasion that you would stay awake, but I would hope you’d have something to talk to him about.

And you see, the problem is, is that in many quarters there has been preached a message which has to do simply with what happens to you after you die, really, and everything else is not essential. And oh yes, there are some things packed on, like you ought to be good, and you ought to go to Sunday school, and you ought to do this, that, and the other, but on the other hand, if you don’t, well, you know, you’re on the pass-fail system, and you’ll pass.

Now I want you to understand me. I am not detracting one whip from the centralness, the centrality of the death of Christ in the redemption of the human soul. I am not detracting one whip from the fact that Jesus Christ is the mediator who made it possible for us to be saved. I want you to understand that. Indeed, what I’m saying to you is that the view that is being presented most popularly, in fact, detracts from that message.

Now let me just talk for a moment about three ways of thinking about the work of Christ. And one way simply sees it as effecting a change in God. The death of Christ merely affects a change in God. Perhaps it merely placates his anger, or perhaps it meets some demand of justice which is inherent in his nature, or his government over the world, or there are various ways of interpreting this. And by the way, if you’re interested, ever interested in really thinking about this topic at some depth, I’d like to recommend an old book by the name of The Christian Doctrine of Salvation by a man named George P. Fisher. And you may not know how many, many different theories there are as to how Jesus Christ accomplished his work in salvation. Many of them. And one of the problems with the theories, one of the problems with the theories is that they tend to conceal the fact. And the fact is the centrality of Christ and our reliance upon him for whatever it is that we need. And many people have theories which get in the way of that complete trust in him for the whole of life.

And one of those, one of the models, though, as I say, is the idea that Jesus Christ, especially through his death, placated the wrath of God or something of that sort, and simply made a difference in God. That is sometimes called an objective theory of the atonement. Now, if you believe that that is all there is to it, then you’re going to have a hard time understanding why it was that Jesus Christ waited until the time he did in which to die. If all that was required was simply the death of Christ to placate the anger of God, he could have come forth as soon as Adam sinned or even before and managed to get that done. And if you understand that as being all there is, it simply will not be clear why there was a history and why it was only in the fullness of time that Jesus Christ came forth to be crucified then.

And this is because his death is the capstone of his life, and his life is the capstone of redemptive history which involves the entire history of the nation of Israel and even before that, man’s effort, God’s efforts to reach mankind and call them out, which came through Abraham and the history of Israel and the preparation of a remnant. And then finally, in one little corner of a completely subjugated land on the east end of the Mediterranean, there were a bunch of simple fishermen who were capable of recognizing Jesus Christ for who he was and of following him and of learning and of watching him die and of establishing the church which Jesus Christ said he would have found upon the acknowledgment of his name and against which the gates of hell would not prevail.

Now, there’s another kind of theory, and that is a theory which just simply says, well, Jesus Christ led a very impressive life, and the way he saves us is that he impresses human beings to believe well about God, and because they change, then God changes. And this is called a subjective theory of the atonement because it starts out with a change in man instead of a change in God. You see, the other one says the death of Christ changes God and then God does something about man. And this one says the death of Christ changes man and then man does something about God. And that is subjective because it refers to the condition, the mental condition and states of human beings.

Now I think that both of those general accounts of the work of Christ are wrong. If you take them simply as they stand, and I would like to present a view of what Christ does in his life and in his death to rebuild the connection between man and God, which I think is more faithful to the scriptures as a whole.

Let me read a passage from Ephesians on this point. Ephesians 2, verse 12. In that time he’s speaking now to a group of Gentiles and he says, in that time ye were without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the world. You see, that’s the lost condition. But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, that is between Jew and Gentile, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to maketh himself of two one new man, so making peace. And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. And he came and preached peace to you that were far off and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

And then it goes on to describe the nature of the church in the following verses which I won’t go into now, which you may wish to refer to later. Because this is central to the concept of redemption, of atonement, of salvation according to Christ, the nature of the church.

And let me just try to put it to you in simple words, as simple words as possible. Jesus Christ came into this world at the fullness of time in the course of history and established a beachhead in the kingdom of darkness by drawing out a group of people in whom he and his Father could fully dwell. And he did this in such a way that he cut it free from all connections with human culture. No more Jews, no more Gentiles, no more slaves, no more bond, no more free, no more man, no more woman. In Christ there is no difference. All is the same in that community.

Now when we speak of in Christ, we are speaking of the body of Christ. You remember that in the book of Acts. After the day of Pentecost, or on the day of Pentecost and after, we’re told that the Lord added daily unto the church such as should be saved. Now that verse is absolutely fundamental because you see it is the Lord’s business to add to his church. He puts people into organic connection with the body of Christ. He comes down into this world and he draws around him a group of people – not a large group of people because size is not really what is required, not a large group of people at all – and he begins to rebuild them. And he carries them through the time of his life with them as he teaches and as he shows forth the kingdom of God and begins to communicate the power of God’s kingdom to them also.

And then in order to complete his work of redemption, in order to be with them in a new and different and even better way, he dies of all things. He says to his followers, it is expedient that I go away. Because you see he is founding a redemptive kingdom, a redemptive body, which is not anything like the human kingdoms with which we are acquainted, whether we call them religious or otherwise. It is a redemptive group of people through whom the power of God flows and comes out and touches the world, touches one another, nourishes them, and restores the connection.

I remember when I was a child there were great polio epidemics and some of my peers were afflicted with that. And I remember it was how terrifying it was. And one of the things which down in the Ozarks words began to come through, there was something called an iron lung. I don’t know if you even know what an iron lung is now. I don’t even know if they have them anymore. But an iron lung was a great rescuing device in those days because people who were certain to die because their nervous system had been attacked and they couldn’t breathe could be kept breathing and kept alive until possibly they began to rehabilitate. And sometimes they got to get out of the iron lung, in fact most of the times because their body had been restored.

And when Jesus came into the world he intends to establish a group of people, a body in which all of the old distinctions are broken down and God dwells in that body to restore the kind of life that he initially intended for human beings before God and before man.

Now because of the presence of this redemptive body, it is now fitting and proper that God should forgive people in a manner in which it would not have been fitting and proper before. There is now a basis for hope so that a person who is forgiven, let me put it in this way, a person who is forgiven now is simultaneously given a glimpse of a new kind of life. They are not simply forgiven and left where they were in their hopes and in their thoughts and in their feelings because now they have come in touch with something that is completely different from the old human way. And being forgiven they are ready to turn into a new life in conjunction with that forgiveness. And now it is fitting and it is proper and it is right because of the work which Jesus Christ did in coming into the world and establishing his church through his death and his resurrected life it is now fitting that people should be forgiven.

And now let me read just a passage from Romans 3. Romans 3. Because you see many people think that it is not proper to forgive people who have done what is wrong and indeed among human beings it is still very rare that you find genuine forgiveness. And one of the reasons back of this is that people think it is wrong to forgive. How can you forgive? You look at all of the atrocities that are done by human beings in this world and one might well say to God, how can you forgive and still be a just God? There are many people who feel that way, that the justice of God depends upon his being ready and willing and persisting in punishing.

But now look at Romans 3. Verse 23. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justified.”

You see, in the human mind there is set up a connection which says if you are justified you’re not just. If you go around saying that things are alright when bad things have been done and they’re not alright, then you couldn’t possibly be just, there must be something wrong with you. And there was a question about God’s character which was raised when Jesus came in as we saw last time and he was so forgiving and so friendly with those who are obviously in the wrong. And the righteous people who were in charge of righteousness said this can’t be right. And the question is how could Jesus both be just and go around hobbing and knobbing with these people who were sinners? And the same question arises with reference to God now. How can he be just and a justifier of those who do love?

And now the answer comes. In Jesus Christ something has been done which makes it better for God to forgive than not to forgive. It may have been true that while people were sunk in their hopelessness about their condition, it may have been quite true that God would have been better not to forgive. Perhaps even if he wished to, on the whole it would have been better for him not. But now that Christ has come forth to show forth the power of a new life and who has brought life and immortality to life through the gospel, now it is right to forgive because being forgiven there is an option of a new life and an ability and a model and instruction and strength available to live above one’s sin.

You see with Christ the basis of justification is shifted. For those who have faith in him, the basis of justification is their faith in him. That is to say, he looks at them and he says, well it would have been nice if you hadn’t done anything wrong. Unfortunately you have, but it would have been nice if you hadn’t. But now since you have, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, upon what basis will I deal with you? And he finds in the heart of this person or that a faith, a reliance, a trust in Christ. And he says, I will count that as godliness. I will take that as pride.

Most of the pride which we see in human life is nothing but the reactions of a bruised ego, a self that has been stomped on and wounded to the point to where it’s like a sore eye, one strikes out when there’s any motion towards it to prevent it from being hit. And all the strutting and manipulation and managing that goes on in people who maintain their positions, whether it’s by becoming a member of a gang or choosing one’s house and car and all of these things in a way which will comfort one’s ego, all of these things are but expressions of a feeling of worthlessness.

I sometimes think the most awful thing that happens to human beings is the sense of inferiority that goes on. And for many of us that has come to us as children. As children we were put in a position where unless there is some miracle we will never believe that anyone really loves us. Never. Never. Because we have been so bruised and so hurt. And you have to remember that as you deal with people.

Now as with that relationship with God is restored through Christ, then the relationship with other human beings begins to be restored also. I meet people and my first question is not what are they going to think about me or what do I have to fear of them or what can I win from them but I’m able simply to stand with them as another child in God’s world. I can exercise a proper humility with and before them.

Humility is not the same thing as shyness, it is not the same thing as fear of man and the mark of a godly humility is always the way one stands up for what is right. The shy person and the person who is fearful of man will put up with anything. The person who is of proper humility before God and relies upon God will not put up with anything. But when what is right and wrong is that issue they will stand for it in all simplicity and in all love. They will neither feel the responsibility to make other people do what is right nor will they be called into silence or consent or conformity because they are afraid. They will rather stand in their confidence before God in what is right and with the confidence of those three resolvable Hebrew children who said to the king, doesn’t bother us, you know, if you throw us into the fiery furnace it’s in God’s hands. But we’re not going to bow down.

And oh how we need a church today that will not bow down to filth and hurt and in the confines of the church itself manipulative and deceitful and destructive devices. People who will simply stand and who will stand with such confidence that they can genuinely say not through gritted teeth I love you but I will not agree with you and I will not be silent I will stand. How can we expect that to happen in government or business when it doesn’t even happen in the church?

We need people who will stand for the truth but we cannot have the rectitude of relationship between man and man until there is a restoration of confidence of peaceful reliance upon Jesus Christ and upon God through him to stand with us and be our God. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sores? May in all of these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us for I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come. Nor height nor depth nor other creatures shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing absolutely nothing. I know a lot of Christians today that are running scared before the economic conditions. They’re acting as if somehow they somehow God had forgotten about and forgotten about death. They’re frightened for their health. They’re frightened for their children. They’re frightened for everything and to those people you see this message has not been preached.

We are as men and women who are alive from the dead because we live on the other side of the cross through our identification with Christ who died that we might die with him and rise with him. The words of Charles Wesley long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature’s night that’s the lost condition. Thine eye defused the quickening rays I woke the dungeon flamed with light my chains fell off my heart was free I rose went forth and followed me. It is true that Jesus paid it all all to him I owe. Sin had left its crimson stain crimson stain its rock its corruption but he washed it like snow.

Let us pray. Lord help us to understand that your work in redeeming us is a reality which we can cooperate with and understand and enter into day by day. Lord hold our faith right so that we may believe that you are building your church and extending your kingdom through it and through us you wish to make the presence of your kingdom real throughout the world. Make our faith see that and when we consider how we fail and when we consider what our shortcomings are help us to remember that you are just in such a way that you can be the justifier of the ungodly and that you want to be and that you love to forgive and that now the means are at your disposal through the work of Christ whereby you can forgive. Make it real to us Lord as we speak with one another now and as we have fellowship use this time to advance that thought in our mind. Amen.

I don’t know where we go from here that someone will help I’m sure. To be a part of the kingdom. Well yes I will replace the question. Do I believe that a person must know Christ in order to be part of the kingdom or do I believe there are people who might be and do not? Well I think the Bible indicates that at least in an important sense there are some people who did not. For example Cyrus and various of the kings of Persia were the servants of God even though they did not know Christ they accomplished his purpose so in that sense they are.

Now the real question comes with whether or not in order to be as we might say loosely say one must know about Christ that may be a part of the question that’s on your mind. Now you know I don’t want to make any absolute statements about that because I’m not in the business of deciding who’s in and who’s out. Let me put it to you the way it presents itself to me practically and that is as follows. If anyone wants to know of me what the best way to go is the only thing I know to tell them is Christ. But if someone wishes to say well is there someone somewhere who has never heard of Christ but who might be in the kingdom of God then I can only give them the witness of Paul in the second chapter of Romans. Maybe I could read.

In the second chapter of Romans Paul is talking about this problem in part addressing this very issue when he says really he’s talking to Jewish people by and large he’s talking to Jewish people who are not Jewish in the sense in which Abraham was and he says that God will render to every man according to these deeds verse 6 of Romans 2 to them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality he will give eternal life but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth whether they in unrighteousness indignation wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil the Jew first and also the Gentile but glory honor and practice and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also the Gentile for there is no respect of persons.

Now you see if so if someone wishes to reason about the cosmic picture this is the best I can give them. On the other hand if someone comes to me and says uh which way shall I try without any hesitation I say to them I would follow Christ if they want to know and I don’t know I don’t know of any other way that I’m certain of.

I do believe by the way that the mercy of God is much greater than we are often attempted to believe from within our own dogmatic little structure but you see I’m not in charge of that and I would hesitate to run around assuring people of anything other than what I do know.

I don’t believe that’s true. I don’t believe the Bible teaches that. It is possible to do good. I don’t think it is possible to live in a holy way without Christ. I think you can cut holiness down in various ways and then you can live that way without Christ but not as it’s put forth in the scriptures.

I mean what we’re looking at like I for all of my life being in largely in the university I have had to deal with a lot of young people and one of the constant things that I get from young people who are in the churches when they go to the university is I’ve heard this over and over again they will say things like this listen I’ve dealt with these people here at the university many of them and many of them are better than the people in my church at home well what does better mean you know better may just mean that they talk to them in a fairly straightforward way and don’t holler at them and things of that sort but the standard is not that the standard is laid forth in the scriptures in the teachings of Jesus and I will turn to those now I assume you know what the sermon on the mount says and things of that sort now I personally believe that Jesus gave us these things to help us know how to live in a happy and a holy way and that he intends to give us all of this if we in faith follow him I know that some people do not believe that he gave them with the intention that we should do them or enter into them and I don’t mean to ride roughshod over that opposite view but just to say what I believe about it I think there are many people who obviously do good apart from Christ I mean you can take the scripture on this the case of Cornelius in the book of Acts and many others that you can find of people who were apart from Christ and who were in fact in Cornelius’s case you remember that peter was sent to him because of his prayers and because of it

many other comments or questions

yes I thought somebody might like to go over that and I do find also people are genuinely troubled about these let me just review them briefly on the first account first type of account actually these are types of accountants not it’s not accounts and if you are if you’re interested in these things and links I really do hope that you may find time to read a variety of books where there’s these things are discussed one of the greatest books ever written on the incarnate on the on the atonement is a book by anselm a man named anselm of canterbury called perdeus homo that is why god man why did god become that and it is an attempt to explain the work of jesus christ and salvea salvation and there’s a lot of good translations around all that but let me just say this that you see you have the one view according to which the difference the initial and primary difference that christ life and death makes is in god he changes god that’s what I call the objective view right now having made the change in god then other things happen elsewhere and then the other view is that the primary and initial change which jesus makes is in man and having made this change in man then other things begin to happen that’s right essentially this is the picture of a god who is simply angry and unforgiving towards the world and because of what jesus does god stops being angry stops being unforgiven towards especially those who believe in christ on the other view it is a matter of people seeing christ and their own hearts being changed by what they see in christ or what they hear and then they’re able to enter into a relationship with an essentially unchanged god

now what i want to say is that if you take the scripture seriously and the history of israel israel including of course a part of the history of israel is jesus christ himself and paul and the apostles all of whom were jewish if you take that seriously you have to understand that jesus christ came into the world to change conditions which exist here as i put it he established a beachhead in the kingdom of darkness so that ever after you have the contrast between the children of light and the children of darkness now because this community exists and this message exists and because of jesus himself and his followers and all that that means because of that it is appropriate that god should deal with the world in a different fashion so that the death and the life of christ and his resurrection and his continued supervision of the body of christ what i call the continuing incarnation for that is the way it is presented in jesus that makes it reasonable that god should forgive and deal with people in a gracious manner which it was unreasonable and unjustifiable that he should do otherwise

now that may stir up a lot of questions in your mind you may want to say some things about that but essentially essentially that those are the views that i’m saying and i’m expressing and i think that last one is so important because you see if you take that and you go back to the fullness of redemption forgiveness transformation of characters power then that makes sense then you understand that you have got a community of people a kingdom of god a church which is functioning on the earth and it is in truth the stone that is cut out without hands which will eventually fill the earth

now i don’t know what your faith is about how this is all going to wind up there are a lot of people who seem to have some very militaristic beliefs about how this is going to conclude you know that god is going to come with the big stick uh i have no doubt about god’s capacity in that connection but i do have some doubts about his intentions and i’m inclined to believe and well this is going to get very complex here and you may want to get into it but let me just say this i’m inclined to believe that the church of jesus christ the body of christ is actually going to come to the place where it governs the earth next week

not next week uh it isn’t necessarily post mill and i think yes it will be during the millennium as far as we can give a precise significance to that term

does it improve seem that way well the question is why does it seem that the church gets feebler and feebler instead of stronger and stronger what would stronger and stronger mean

it happened here right oh yes and it doesn’t happen today it really does the question is why is it that it seems that we look in the new person we see these people understanding and changing and growing but it doesn’t seem to be happening so much today i’m just jumping from one kettle of hot water into the other phrase i think that’s really the answer to that is that we tend to look in the wrong direction for it we tend to think if it was going to happen it should be happening in this big place and that big place or that little place or this program or whatever but i think if you look actually at what is happening in world history and understand that god does not work simply just with what we call the visible church and that many times there is not much of a conjunction between the visible church and the body of christ i don’t think we’re ever in a position to despise the visible church that’s a very another very long story which you may want to talk about i don’t know i don’t think we’re in position ever to do that and i never does myself but uh but on the other hand we always have to realize that there is some divergence between the visible church whether it’s a local church or a denomination or we’re just talking about all of them standing around including our group or whatever at any time there’s always some divergence between that and the body of christ

now i think in the body of christ things are quite are quite going quite well but i think in order to get that you have to look at russia and china you have to look at the uh not only that but you have to look at other in other dimensions like race relations education and things of this sort and many people think this has nothing to do with the body of christ but when you look at what we are concerned with in the bible which is breaking down of all the barriers of pride and fear between individuals groups then you can begin to understand that it may be oh now this is no there’s not a trap store either

it may well be that business and government and many other aspects of our world that god is actually using them in a far greater way than he may be using some mission board somewhere to accomplish his purpose of bringing about a world community in which god dwells and which people live simply and treat one another with dignity and love and go on into the next life joyously and happily

there’s a lot now god is god in the old hessalonians you see he rules over the affairs of man period and he is working through the church but he is not working through the church alone and it may be that before we can estimate what is happening in the body of Christ today we have to look much more widely than we’re we are accustomed to looking in particular as i say to other countries perhaps to brazil or to buganda communist times russia places of this

way back here uh are you saying and what we just said that basically god’s program the world is going to get better and better or come together and create within itself relationships the relate the program god’s program for the world uh let me just read it to you here from adhesions if i can find it

i’m sorry uh i want philippians too instead of that he’s just forgiving now this this is the whole program i don’t read all of it because i don’t think there’s part of this so i don’t think it bears on your question but the earlier part is chapter two but i’ll begin with verse nine therefore god has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of jesus every night me should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth and that every tongue should confess that jesus christ is lord and be very thankful to god about it that is the program as i understand it

i’m i’m not able to tell you exactly when it will be accomplished i don’t have any way of saying that i don’t think anyone else does either i think our real question is to move ourselves and to fellowship with others who are moving into that position now so where we live in thankfulness that jesus christ is lord and we glorify god because of that i don’t think i’ve given you a satisfactory answer to your question

yes and then are you saying in the holland style revelation i’m sorry i don’t i don’t really like to talk about people but i can talk about the general kind of thing which if you’re believing that’s going to happen i hope that you will consider reconsidering

the book of revelation well the book of revelation is to give us i think i can state in general well look there are several purposes one is this one is the proximate purpose of it had a function in the early church which is a very definite one and if you if you know early church history that’s the place to begin like nearly all prophecies they have both a proper and ultimate meaning that’s true not only in the new testament but it goes that way as well for example the book of michael or other parts of the old testament problem now

but beyond that the purpose of the book of revelation which by the way is not the book of revelation the purpose of the book of revelation is to reveal jesus christ and he and it does that by contrasting him and his kingdom with the world order that’s the purpose of the book of revelation the book of revelation is not to provide you with some interesting religious science fiction about what you might hope is going to happen or fear is going to happen or fear is going to happen

i’m sorry that’s really the way it’s often is it often used but it is the book of revelation is above all to show the ultimate judgment of god on this world it shows the hardness of men’s hearts it shows the abuse that they eat upon one another it shows above all the great collapse of the world commercial system which is going to come which is called battling it is a commercial system sanctioned by religion and politics it shows that i think it shows the fulfillment of the time which daniel spoke of when the kingdom of this world are crushed by the stone that is cut out without hands that’s going to fill the going to fill the whole word

now i want to return to your questions because you use the phrase getting better and better and in in my own theological past that’s that’s fighting language the idea was you’re not supposed to say the world is getting better and better and tell you the truth i don’t think the world is i don’t think the best way to describe it is to say that god is working god is going somewhere with the world it is not a matter of us getting better education and better transportation and a better curves on our roads and all these marvelous wonders that turn out to be capable of utter degradation no matter that no i don’t believe in moral progress i don’t believe in a lot of things alone but i do believe that god has not given up on the world and i think that a lot of good things are happening not just in the church visible but also outside of it and i think that time is going to come and i’m going to live in hope of it and i’m going to look forward to it and if i don’t get to view it from this perspective i’ll get to view it from that perspective

all right i think uh lee what’s next i’m not looking over here i’m sorry

i guess what i don’t understand what they’re saying god

You see the Church, you say the ultimate Church in the whole world. Do you see that that is a natural growth, only to require no miraculous, and that it is prevented by God in a characteristic way, especially if you are off of these costs? No, the answer to that is no, it’s not natural, because the Church isn’t natural. The Church is a miracle. One of our problems is that you look around at the biblical Church and so often it isn’t a miracle at all. It’s just something somebody’s grinding out, or they’ve got a good show going, or something. There’s very often something miraculous about it.

The Church of Jesus Christ is a miracle, and there’s going to be intervention, and there has been intervention. In the last 2,000 years, if you look at the intervention of God and Jesus, there’s a lot of big surprises in the history of the Church. You never know what’s going to happen. That’s the one thing about the Church. I mean, that’s true in the history of Israel. The disciples had no idea what was going to happen. You know? It just blew up on them, and that’s happened over and over in the history of the Church. That could be said of the Wesleyan movement, it could be said of the Plagians, it could be said of Luther. Luther had no idea what was going to happen. It’s been true over and over and over, and we have no idea what’s going to happen. I do have a conviction.