Called Unto Holiness # 4

Oneness with Christ

Two Pictures

There are two pictures before us. One is the picture of a satan-controlled, a world-conformed, and a flesh-centered life. The other is the picture of a Christ-controlled, Christ-conformed, Christ-centered life. And they are pictures in color. One is in unrelieved midnight darkness that indicates the uttermost of ruin resulting in eternal death. The other is in unshadowed midday light that promises the uttermost of redemption resulting in eternal life.

In which of these trinities are you? You are in one or the other, for there is no other place to be. There is no middle ground between these two positions. You are either in the trinity of which satan is the head, of which the world is the embodiment, and the flesh is the expression, or you are in the trinity of which Christ is the Head, of which the Church is the manifestation, and the Holy Spirit is the power. Where are you this moment? It is the most important question any human person ever faces in all his life. Will you not face it now and give your answer?

One thing, and only one thing, determines where you are. It is your relation to the crucified, risen, ascended, exalted 
Saviour and Lord. The salvation and the sanctification of the believing sinner required two outpourings: the outpouring of the blood of the Saviour on Calvary, and the outpouring of the Spirit of the Lord at Pentecost.

The Blood of the Saviour

The blood of the Saviour is that which both saves and sanctifies.

"Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his on blood (Revelation 1:5).

"Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate" (Hebrews 13:12).

It is the blood alone that saves. Are you trusting for salvation in anything in yourself, in your character, or in your good works? Or are you trusting in the sacraments or ordinances of the Church? There is but one thing that saves and that is the blood of Jesus outpoured on Calvary's Cross.

It is the blood that sanctifies. It separated us from the kingdom of satan. It crucified us unto the world and the world unto us. And it delivered us out of the sphere of the flesh.

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ put an end to the old creation and separated us completely from everything that pertains to it. It put aside everything but Christ. It placed Christ as Saviour at the very center of the Christian's life, making him Christ-centered.

Now where are you? I want that question to be burned into every heart so that if there is a single person here who is still living in that infernal trinity of midnight darkness of satan, the world, and the flesh, you will not be able to sleep until you have come out of it by putting simple faith in the blood of the Saviour.

Perhaps the majority of us here have chosen to come to Christ by way of the Cross. But, friends, we may think very lightly of the Cross of Christ. We can put a cross on top of a church building or hang it on the wall of our home, we an wear it as an ornament around the neck, we can place a cross as a bookmark in the Bible. But it is quite another thing to let the Cross of Christ make accursed everything in that old life until it is impossible for us, knowingly and willfully, to give the devil a place or to be conformed to the world in any part of our life or to allow self still to have sovereignty over us.

The Cross of Christ is the great divide. It makes a clean-cut cleavage between the sphere of darkness and death and the sphere of light and life. It is the boundary line between the kingdom of satan and the Kingdom of God. It calls subjects out of the one kingdom into the other and compels the sinner to make a choice.

Have you responded to that call? Have you crossed that great divide? Have you put faith in the blood of your Saviour? The answer to this question determines not only with which trinity you choose to keep company in time, but with which one you will spend eternity.

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 5 - "The Baptism with the Spirit")