Union With Christ, #2

The Essence of True and Saving Religion: Union with Christ

0:01 As you have already gathered, I trust, from the announcement given by Dr. Adams relative to the basic structure of the lectures, we really have two concurrent series of lectures. There will be some overlapping, but in wrestling through the whole matter of how to handle this subject while having a distinctive evening audience and a distinctive morning audience, many of you in the morning, here at the evening as well, but a number of you coming in for the evening who are not in the morning sessions, I felt it would be the part of wisdom to have each series rather complete in itself. Hence that division, union with Christ in its theological perspectives in the morning, union with Christ in its practical implications in the evening. And the first subject that we take up this evening in seeking to share with you is the subject of the first part of the series. The first part of the series is the subject of the first part of the series. The first part of the series is to show the practical implications of the doctrine of union with Christ is what we might call union with Christ with reference to true and saving religion.

1:13 Now, if you have a problem with the word religion because your background is such that religion means empty form, well, perhaps you'll want to use the term union with Christ in relationship to real salvation. If that sounds better. If that sounds better on your ear, there's nothing sacred in the terminology, the titles are not inspired, and so I trust you will use whichever one suits you best. As men and women, and there are a few who would perhaps fit the category of boys and girls, I'm not sure, but I think for the most part at least we're safe to say young men and women and not so young men and women, all of us members of a fallen race, all of us appointed to die and to come to judgment, in a very real sense, the two most important questions any one of us can ask are these. Number one, what is the essence of true and saving religion? And the second question, do I possess that true and saving religion? If we were not members of a fallen race, if we were not slated for death and for judgment, many other questions.

2:31 Many other questions could rightfully fill our minds, but because we are sons and daughters of Adam, conceived in sin, because we are sinners by practice, accountable to the living God of heaven and earth, I say there are no two more important questions than these. What is the essence of true and saving religion? The one divine method of rescuing us from a state of sin and condemnation? And having ascertained the biblical answer to that question, the second follows hard on its heels, do I possess this true and saving religion?

3:13 And perhaps there is no text in all of the word of God which more succinctly and yet comprehensively addresses itself to those two questions than does the text that I will seek to open up in your hearing tonight, 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 7. Do you want to know what is the essence of true and saving religion? 2 Corinthians 5, 17 answers that question. Do you want to have some accurate standard by which to evaluate whether or not you possess that true and saving religion?

3:51 This same text has perhaps the most accurate answer to that question as well. Now I want to say just a word about the setting. in which the Apostle penned these well-known words. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.

4:10 Obviously, he did not simply pick them out of the air, but they come in a flow of thought. The first word of the text, of course, indicates this. Wherefore, if any is in Christ. The Apostle has been vindicating his own motives and perspectives as a minister of the gospel and as a Christian.

4:34 As many of you know, the Corinthians or certain teachers had come into the Corinthian church who were seeking to undermine the Apostle Paul's authority and ministry so that the church might rid itself of his influence. And so the Apostle was forced in this letter to vindicate the integrity of his motives and to expound on the whole subject of why he died, as well as what he does as a minister of the gospel. And in this particular context, he has been speaking of some of those powerful motives by which he is governed. For instance, in verse 9 he says, Wherefore, we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well-pleasing unto him. The Apostle is ambitious to be pleasing unto the God who will judge him in the last day. Furthermore, he goes on to say that he is constrained by the love of Christ. It is his understanding of and his believing appropriation of Christ's love to him which holds him, as it were, in a mighty vice.

5:44 He is driven by the mighty power, the energy of this love of Christ for him. Furthermore, he goes on to say that in his dealing with people he is not governed by external appearances. Verse 16, Wherefore, henceforth, know we no man after the flesh. You see, it's in this general setting of the Apostle's vindication of his own motives, his expounding of his own perspectives as a Christian man and a Christian minister that he suddenly introduces these words in verse 17, Wherefore, if any man is in Christ.

6:26 And what he is doing is this. As he contemplates, the transformation that has occurred in his own life so that he is now governed out of this desire to be well-pleasing unto God, as he is motivated by the love of Christ, as he no longer judges by external appearances, he reasons from God's dealings with him as an individual to this broad generalization saying in essence, That which has happened to me transformed me, into a man who is constrained by the love of Christ, who is ambitious to be well-pleasing unto God, a man who is concerned not with externals but with internals, that which has happened to me, transforming me into such a man, is not qualitatively different from that which happens to any man or any woman who comes into the same saving relationship to Christ which is not the same. This is now my own experience. So he is able to move from this intensely personal, biographical material into this broad generalization. Wherefore, if any, and it's not any man, it's just any man, woman, boy or girl, if any is in Christ, a new creation.

7:53 Therefore, this text, I say, is one of the most powerful texts in all of the Word of God, describing the essence of that saving change which not only occurred in the Apostle, but which occurs wherever there is the presence of saving religion. Now, as we think our way through the text tonight, will you consider in the first place what I am calling the essence of saving religion according to the Apostle Paul in this text. The essence of saving religion. How would you describe a true and saving religion if you had to boil it down to its most reducible essence?

8:37 You can't reduce it any more. What do you have? Well, the Apostle does it in these simple words. Wherefore, if any is in Christ.

8:48 He describes the essence of saving religion as being nothing more or less than union with Christ. If any is in Christ. Now, his use of the phrase in Christ in this passage has reference to that vital saving union with Christ, the kind of union that he refers to when he speaks in Romans 16, 7 of two brethren who were in Christ before him. Those of you who are here this morning obviously is not speaking of their being in Christ before him in the eternal counsels and electing love of God.

9:32 For all of us have an equal standing who are believers in terms of that dimension of union with Christ. But rather, he is speaking of that aspect of union with Christ which we would call the personal experience of saving grace. Now, notice he does not say that the essence of saving religion is to be found in our union with the visible church. He does not say if any is in the visible church.

10:00 There are many in the visible church who are not in Christ. Nor does he say if there is any in the way of conformity to the rules and standards of Christ. It is perfectly possible to be found externally conformed to the norms of scripture and not to be in Christ. When he says, if any be in Christ, he is speaking of a vital, personal union with the Son of God.

10:33 A union which is effected from God's standpoint by the mighty quickening influence of the Holy Spirit and from the human perspective by the embrace of faith. This dimension of union with Christ is always a bilateral arrangement. God, by the Spirit, quickens a dead sinner to life in his regenerating power, and the quickened sinner embraces the offered Savior in faith. And when there is the quickening of God, that secret but powerful work of the Spirit begetting divine life and the response of faith, then and only then do you have this kind of union with the Lord Jesus Christ. There are two texts of scripture which place the emphasis where it ought to be placed as we consider this union with Christ that is the essence of saving religion. The first is in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 30. The apostle has been speaking of the gospel that he preaches, the central theme of which is Christ, stumbling block to the Jews, foolishness to the Greeks, but the very power of God

12:00 to those who are effectually called, and in that context he says in verse 30 of 1 Corinthians 1, But him are ye in Christ Jesus. As the apostle thinks of the union with Christ established in the lives of some of the Corinthians, he is not at all embarrassed to trace that union back to the mighty activity of God. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus. To state it as bluntly as I know how, only God can place a sinner in union with his Son. Man can elicit an intellectual response to the gospel from a fellow creature. Men are able to manipulate fellow creatures into professions of faith. Furthermore, men and ecclesiastical institutions are able to manipulate the activities of men and to motivate men and women to great religious activities, even great biblical activities.

13:16 But there is one thing man cannot do. He cannot bring a sinner into vital union with Jesus Christ. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus. When and how then does God do this?

God's Role in Effectual Calling and Union with Christ

13:33 Well, look back to verse 9 of this same chapter. God is faithful, 1 Corinthians 1, 9, through whom ye were called into the fellowship, the koinonia, the joint participation of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. It is in the work of effectual calling that God unites sinners to his Son. God is faithful through whom ye were called, not merely summoned.

14:10 Sometimes the word call means simply to summons. There are probably only two or three such references in the entire New Testament. The majority of the times it is speaking of that work of God in which he not only summons the sinner but powerfully brings him out of a state of nature and into a state of grace. And that is obviously the use of the word here, God is faithful through whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son.

14:41 Well, what happens in effectual calling? The gospel of the grace of God comes to the outer ear of the sinner. The gospel that declares the divine message concerning God, concerning sin, concerning Christ, concerning repentance and faith. And there are the announcements of these great truths.

15:03 And then there are the overtures of appeal and entreaty, as Paul says in this very chapter in which our text is found, as though God did beseech you by us. And what happens? Well, as that message is preached, there are some who hear it with more than the outer ear. And the very summons that comes by the messenger of Christ seizes upon the heart and they find their hearts running out to Christ as he's been revealed in the gospel.

15:32 What has happened? A faithful God has called them into fellowship with his Son. He has begotten them by his Spirit through the word. And the first consciousness of that divine begetting is that they behold the glory of God in the face of Christ and they embrace Christ as he is offered in the gospel.

15:56 Whenever that happens, then you have 2 Corinthians 5, 2 Corinthians 5, 17. Wherefore, if any, is in Christ, in Christ vitally, the Holy Spirit being the bond of that union from the divine perspective, faith being the bond of that union from the human perspective, in Christ in such a way as we shall see perhaps in our lecture tomorrow morning that all human analogies fail to give adequate expression to the intimacy, to the reality, to the magnitude, to the glory of that union. We have analogies in Scripture all the way from the relationship of the various stones in a building joined one to another into a grand edifice to a union that finds some analogy in the very union of the persons of the Godhead. I in them and thou in me language that is absolutely beyond us to grasp and yet language which is seeking to express the nature of this union with Christ which is the very essence of true and saving religion. Now I want to underscore this at the outset

The Effect of Saving Religion: A New Creation

17:23 because we live in days of declension, days when biblical standards have been relinquished, days in which men have adjusted their expectations of conversion to the fruits of man-made manipulated conversions. And this text says if any is in Christ, wherever and whenever Almighty God in covenant faithfulness to his own Son brings a sinner into fellowship with his own Son, then everything that this text says will be true. So then we have in the first place the essence of saving religion union with Christ. In the second place, the apostle sets before us the effect of saving religion. Wherefore, if any is in Christ and if you have the old authorized edition or the 1901 edition or any translation that is careful to translate and not to be a running commentary or to paraphrase, you will notice that the words he is or there is are found in italics. There is no separate subject or verb in the original.

18:52 The best way to bring it over into English to feel something of the weight of it would be to consider the apostle Paul writing these words or dictating them to his secretary, having considered what he had become by the grace of God through union with Christ. Having considered the mighty work of God in transforming him into a man who is motivated by the very things that he once hated. And he sits down to write about this change that occurred in him and in all who are partakers of true religion. And he says, if any is in Christ, and he sets his pen down and he racks his brain, how shall I express it? Union with Christ, the life transforming, the cataclysmic influence of that union, how shall I describe it? And he ransacks his mind for analogies, for metaphors, for similes, for illustrations, for something in the poverty of human language that will express the magnitude of this change. And finally in frustration he picks up his pen and he puts a dash after if any in Christ, dash, and then he puts two words, new creation!

20:13 Exclamation point. Now he didn't write with dashes and exclamation points. Those are punctuation marks peculiar to our language or our linguistic forms, but that's the thrust of what he is doing. As he contemplated the effect of this saving union with Christ, he could express it in no other terminology but the terminology of new creation.

20:40 Now the Apostle loved this concept. We find it again in Ephesians chapter 2 in that very familiar portion of the Word of God, Ephesians chapter 2. And I trust if you do any scripture memory work, you will never memorize verses 8 and 9 divorced from verse 10. You only get it half the picture and half the truth if you do.

21:12 For by grace have ye been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, that no man should glory. Now don't stop there, for there are multitudes who claim to be saved by grace through faith and gladly acclaim that they're not saved by their works, their only hope is in Christ, of whom verse 10 is not true. But the Apostle says, wherever you have a sinner saved by grace through faith and that of faith which is not the product of any kind of human endeavor but is a manifestation of the very mighty work of God, you will also have what is described in verse 10. For we are his workmanship created, here we are again, in union with Christ Jesus, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God aforeprepared that we should walk in them. Wherever there is this gracious salvation received by faith, there is the divine workmanship called the new creation. Again in Galatians, the Apostle emphasizes this using language that is exactly parallel. You have the kine ktesis, the same two words here in Galatians 6.15,

22:37 for neither is circumcision anything nor uncircumcision but a new creation. And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them and mercy and upon the Israel of God. And who are the Israel of God? Those who have entered in to the reality of the new creation.

23:03 Therefore a Christian is uniformly described in the word of God in pictures or in descriptive ways that all point to this magnitude of the effect of union with Christ. A Christian is described as one who receives a new heart. Ezekiel 36. He is one who is a new man.

23:26 Colossians 3.8-10. One who has been raised from the dead. Ephesians 2.1-5.

23:32 One who serves in newness of the Spirit. Romans 7 and verse 6. You see this emphasis upon newness, newness, newness, all the way through the Scriptures. Now why?

23:45 Because the human heart being what it is and the tempter and the deceiver and the arch enemy of God and of the souls of men being what he is, there is always the tendency to be content with something less than the real thing. That's why the Bible again and again says be not deceived. Let no man deceive himself. Let no man deceive you.

24:11 Why is that emphasis found throughout the Scriptures? Why do we find it in the Old Testament as well as the New? There have healed slightly the hurt of the daughter of my people saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace. It's because of what we are and what the tempter is that we must be concerned that we are not deceived in this matter of what constitutes true and saving religion.

24:36 And few things are more calculated to discover that deception where it exists than this concept. The effect of union with Christ is always a new creation. But you say, how can I tell if that effect has occurred in me? Well, the third division of the text answers that question.

The Fruit of Saving Religion: The Old Has Passed, The New Has Come

25:02 For the apostle goes on to say, the old is past and the new has come. Having considered the essence of saving religion as union with Christ, the effect of saving religion a new creation, we now move in the third place to consider the fruit of saving religion. The fruit of saving religion. And what is it?

25:28 Well, the apostle uses these words. Literally, the old things are passed away. And he uses a form of the verb which means they have passed away decisively and with an irrevocable, non-reversible finality. They have passed away and they are done.

25:50 Then he says, behold, they are become new and uses a form of the verb which means they have come and they remain in the state in which they have come. They have become and remain new. Now listen carefully as I try to open up the apostle's word with this word of caution at the outset. Many a sensitive, tender, earnest Christian has been disturbed by this passage because he has read into it something that is not there.

26:26 He has felt that if he were not totally transformed to perfection in every area, he had no reason to believe he was a new creature in Christ. Now that would contradict what the apostle Paul himself says about himself and what he says about Christian experience in general. No, he is not teaching that if we have not become new creatures to such an extent that every aspect of life is totally transformed to perfection, we are not in Christ. If he were teaching that, I say, it would contradict his own experience as evidenced in this very chapter in which he says we that are in this tabernacle do grow being burdened. There are problems arising out of our yet being in this body of humiliation that caused the apostle at times to groan. And this is the same man who said when I would do good, evil is present with me, who said in the book of Galatians, the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. So we must not press into these words a standard that goes beyond the word of God, but we must understand the practical problem in our day is not that.

27:43 It is to bleed them of their obvious meaning. Now having given the qualifying words, let me now attempt to open up their true significance. What did the apostle mean when he said wherever a sinner is brought into vital union with Christ, there is this immediate effect, a new creation. And flowing out of that, there is the fruit of that saving religion, the old is past, the new has come.

28:11 Well let me suggest that the context forces upon us at least three lines of thought in which there is this radical transformation. And as we come to this part of the message, I trust you will not sit as an observer looking in, but that you will place yourself as far as the attitude of your mind and heart in the presence of the God who will judge you at the last day. And ask yourself this question, am I in union with Christ? If so, I have been made a new creation and if I have been made a new creation, then the old is past for me, the new has come and remains.

Three Dimensions of Radical Transformation: View of Christ, Purpose for Living, Focus of Concern

28:53 Has the old indeed passed? Has the new come? May God grant that you will allow the mirror of the word to reflect your true state as we consider these details. First of all, the apostle would have us to understand that when there is the work of God in the new creation, the old view of Christ and his work is done and the new has come.

29:24 In these chapters that are so rich in teaching concerning the work of the Christian ministry, the apostle gives this description of the work of the Spirit of God upon his own heart in chapter four and verse six. Seeing it is God that said light shall shine out of darkness who shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Tie that in with verse sixteen, the very verse that gave birth to this text. He just finished the text and he said, I will not be a man after the flesh that is according to natural carnal reasoning, according to human judgment. Wherefore henceforth we know no man after the flesh even though we have known Christ and that he is in Christ and that he is in Christ he too has experienced this new view of

30:53 Christ. The old is past whatever he knew of Christ before. A new has come, a new that only God could produce. Now, what is the old view of Christ?

31:11 Well, Christ has a common view of Christ. Whatever he says of him, whatever he thinks about him, he sees nothing glorious in Christ, nothing worth his heart's affection, nothing worth his homage, nothing worth the abandonment of his life. So, what is the old view of Christ? Well, the old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. He is the Lord of all things. And the old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all

32:40 things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is

34:08 the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the

35:37 Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all

37:06 things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things.

37:50 The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is that he is the Lord of all things. The old view of Christ is gone. The new has come. The affections have been captured.

39:04 Faith has been drawn forth. Obedience is now a delight to the object of its love. Do you have true and saving religion tonight, sitting right where you sit? Are you in Christ?

39:39 Are you in Christ? If you are, my friend, this text says, which is framed in the language of the well-known hymn, More Love to Thee, O Christ. More Love to Thee. Hear thou the prayer I make on bended knee.

40:22 This is what I call the old purpose for living. The old is gone, the new has come. He tells us in this setting, verse 14, For the love of God and the love of God and the love of the world. And he died for all that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto themselves." Russell describes that common denominator in these few words, living unto themselves. Every unregenerate man, woman, boy or girl, everyone who is still in vital union with Adam,

41:50 who has not seen the glory of God in the face of Christ, is living to please himself or herself. The person who abandons all semblance of religious concern, who gives himself up to the world, who has no other need but himself, is living unto himself. And he describes the new in these simple words, no longer live unto themselves, but unto him. All who have been joined to Christ, though with varying degrees of expression, though in the history of each

43:16 one there are varying stages of development, here is the logical perspective, when there will be the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwells nothing but righteousness and what is the great preoccupation of everyone who is ushered into the new heavens and the new world. I do not believe we will sit around plunking harps. God made us for activity, God made us for growth, God made us for development, and I am personally convinced that there are suggestions particularly in the biblical doctrine of the true life. I am personally convinced that the new creation is the new life. I am

44:45 personally convinced that the new life is the new life. I am personally convinced that if we put this in the language of the Gospels, we see our Lord again and again when he called people to discipleship, what was the first condition of the world? What was the first condition of the world? I am personally convinced that the new life is the new life. I am personally convinced that the new life is the evidence

46:11 of life itself. I don't mean to hurt your eardrums, dear people, but this needs to be thundered from our pulpits. For there are multitudes of living beings in the world who have been transformed and given way to the new because you are not in Christ. My friend, it's not the preacher who is trying to sham the world. It's the old focus of concern. What is the old focus of concern for every man who is

47:39 not in Christ? Why is it what he thinks and feels? It's that which Paul describes in this context as walking by sight. And he says there was a time when that was true of us.

48:18 But now Paul says that there are things seen but at the things which are not seen. Do you see the parallel he's making? There are things seen. Now a thing is not seen.

48:54 But on things substantial realities that are not seen. But the fact that they are not seen does not mean they are not things. There are things of the Spirit. God, Christ, the spiritual realities, they are not seen by the physical eyes.

49:37 And the apostle says as a new man in Christ, I have an entirely new focus in life. No longer are seen but the things that are not seen. Then he goes on to enlarge upon that and talks about that thing that is not seen. And then he goes on to enlarge upon that thing that is not seen.

50:19 And then he goes on to enlarge upon that thing that is not by faith, not by sight. And what is the walk of faith? It is simply living in the light of the unseen realities. That's all.

50:49 That's what faith is. It is living in the light of unseen realities. The lust, all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. It is not of the Father, but of the spirit. It is the life of the soul. It is the life of the soul. And it is the life of the spirit.

52:06 It is the life of socially or does your heart leap within you at the thought that there is some way that you might better please your lord you might be more conformed to his image more transformed into his likeness well in the realm of the new creation you see the old focus of concern is gone granted continually plagued and it's the grief the greatest grief of the true christian is that he is yet plagued by living in the light of the things that can be seen and it's the grief and pain of his heart but that very pain is evidence that his affections and perspectives are in a new dimension there is a new focus of life the unseen world of spiritual reality or in the language of paul in colossians since then you have been raised with christ set your affections or your minds upon the things that are above Above, for ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God, in union with Christ. You dies of earth.

Self-Examination: Is the Old Truly Gone for You?

53:27 Christ's free men soar with him in spiritual reality. Now, my friend, young man, young woman, older man, older woman,

53:42 as you place your own present patterns of life against this text, what does it say? Are you in Christ? If any in Christ? New creation.

53:57 And the evident creation. Not the old ought to pass. The old may eventually pass. The old may pass for some if they learn the secrets of the deeper life.

54:06 That is not what the text says. It says, if any in Christ's creation. Oh, has the old passed and the new come for you? If not, you're not in Christ.

54:24 I don't like it so either-or-ish. I like it so either-or-ish. He that is not with me is against me.

54:35 He that gathereth not with me. Scatter.

54:41 In this the children of God are manifested and the children of the devil. He hath delivered us out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of his love. Oh, my friend, do not be content with some innocuous supposed state of neutrality. There is none.

The Divine Source of the New Creation

55:06 Then look at the first phrase of verse 18. Verse 18. But all things. Are of God.

55:14 What is the source of saving religion?

55:19 The mighty activity of God. And if you read on in the context, it is God sending his Son to be the Savior of sinners. It is God judging sin in the person of the substitute. It is God who then lays his hands upon men and commissions them as his ambassadors to preach the gospel of the grace, of the grace of God.

55:43 God. How is this new creation effected? Who is the source of it? God is. God as revealed in Christ. God as manifesting his own mercy in the sending of his Son. God who sends his servants to preach that he who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. If you've had to face this text tonight and say, I don't see how I could be in Christ. If those things are true and I've seen them with my own eyes in the Bible, what's my hope? Your hope is not in any minister. Your hope is not in any church. Your hope is in this God. This God. All things are of God. And this is the God

56:36 who sets his Son before you in the gospel and says, be united to him. And there's only one way you can be joined to him and that's by faith. And so he commands you in the gospel to believe on his Son. And I trust that by the Spirit of God, if you've been able in honesty in the light of the word to say, thank God, I have been made a new creature. My friend, if you never have before, I hope tonight from the heart you can say with no tongue in cheek attitude at all. Oh, Lord, I acknowledge that this is all of you. Old Adam was never up to this kind of a change. Are you an amazement to yourself? The apostle Paul was. As he contemplated what

57:24 moved him, what governed his thought, what regulated his life, he had to come to the conclusion he was a new creation. The old had passed. The new had come. Oh, may God grant if you're an amazement to yourself, you will gladly fall at the feet of him who has made that transition.

57:42 And brought all of that saving power into your life by virtue of uniting you to his Son. What is the essence of saving religion? Union with Christ. I trust that is your own portion as you sit here tonight.