That is indeed the outworking of the fruit of His life within us, as to our sanctification, but it’s foundation and root is deeper still. It’s root is the resurrection life of Jesus, as both imputed and imparted to the justified believer. Its source is as far from the strength of nature as the budding of Aaron’s rod.

Paul says this righteousness is now revealed in the recently unveiled “mystery of the gospel” (Eph 6:19).

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith” (Ro 1:7).

Paul shows that the mystery that could not come to full light until the revelation of the gospel was fully foretold in the prophetic writings (Acts 26:22-23). Yet, kept secret in times past till the appointed time of revelation (1Cor 2:7-8; Ro 16:25-26). Why only now, with the post-resurrection revelation of the gospel, is this righteousness revealed? Wasn’t the righteousness of God already fully revealed and well established all throughout the scriptures? What kind of righteousness is this that has waited till now to be “revealed”?

How is the righteousness of God which might be seen as a source of terror to a sin stricken conscience to be understood as good news? It is because this is the justifying righteousness of God whereby He justifies the ungodly (Ro 3:25-26; 4:5). It is the righteousness by which a helpless condemned sinner is enabled to stand blameless in the presence of unapproachable holiness.

This righteousness is wholly other, because it is nothing of our own (Ro 10:3; Phil 3:9). It has no point of intersection with even the highest ethic within human reach or power. It is of a completely different origin and source in that it resides in only one person.

Of course we are speaking of the very righteousness of the Lord Himself, but particularly as wrought out, performed, and perfected in only one place. That is the seamless garment of His own humanity as our representative, fulfilling in His flesh so much more, infinitely more, than was lost in ours.

As the last Adam, Jesus’ sinless life qualifies Him to take our place as penal substitute for the debt we owed to the holiness of the law as the ground of God’s just government. His predestined atonement on the cross purchased the Holy Spirit’s eternal right of access to lawfully and justly “quicken whom He will” (Jn 5:21; Ro 3:26; 9:18).

As the risen “second man from heaven”, He becomes the head of a new spiritual race. But even before the atonement was made in time, it was no less the basis on which He quickened His saints before the cross. “I am the the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Mt 22:32).

On the basis of the “blood of the everlasting covenant” (Heb 13:20) that would be shed “in the fullness of time” (Gal 4:4), Jesus was always known to the Father as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8). The eternal surety of the Redeemer’s blood was the only basis by which any of His saints were quickened (Ps 80:18; 119:50, 93; Jn 5:21; 6:63; Ro 4:17; Eph 2:1, 5; Col 2:13), “born again by the Word of God “(1Pet 1:23),  and brought into living union with the divine nature (2Pet 1:4).

Then as now, the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit unless first made alive by the Spirit (Rom 8:7; 1Cor 2:14). Then as now, there were the “children of the flesh” who persecuted those who were “born of the Spirit” (Jn 3:6; Gal 4:29). And Peter will say the Spirit who filled and indwelt the OT faithful (Gen 41:38; Ex 31:3; ; Num 11:26; Deut 34:9; Neh 9:30; Ps 51:10-12; 139:7; Prov 1:23; Isa 63:11; Eze 2:2; 18:31; Dan 5:14; Mic 3:8) was none other than “the Spirit of Christ” (1Pet 1:11).

This is to point out that when Jesus rose as the “second man, the Lord of heaven”, He was made a quickening (life giving) spirit (1Cor 15:54), not only to those who would believe after the cross, but to all the regenerate children of God since the beginning. In all times, it is only by the Spirit that the dead live, and that Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2Cor 3:17).

As our head, Jesus took us with Him to the cross. When He died, we died. “Our old man is crucified with him” (Ro 6:6). When He was buried, we were buried with Him (Ro 6:4; Col 2:12). When He arose, we rose with Him (Eph 2:6; Col 2:12; 3:1). When He ascended, we ascended and set down with Him at His Father’s right hand (Eph 2:6; Rev 3:21).

While there remains an ongoing, active “putting off” of old things (Eph 4:22; Col 3:8), the purpose and the power to “die daily” lies in the freedom of being dead, not only reckoned as dead but actually being dead, having once and forever “put off” (past tense) the old man (Col 3:9). It is this knowledge of something that is finished that empowers victory over the flesh.

Being dead to the first Adam and eternally alive to the “second man, the Lord from heaven”, we are no longer “under the law” (Ro 3:19; 6:14-15). To be in the first Adam is to be in the flesh. To be in the flesh is to be “under the law”. We are “dead to the law” and married to another by the crucified and ascended body of Christ (Ro 7:1-5). This is because we are no longer alive to the “old man” against whom the law breathes out its fearful threatening (Ex 19:16).

Paul’s seeming vehemence against the law in this negative sense, so unique to his writings, is best understood by understanding a single verse. That verse is found in 1Cor 15:56:

“The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.”

For Paul, the strength of sin is the law, not because of any defect in the law, but only because the strength of the law to condemn resides in what Paul elsewhere calls, “confidence in the flesh” (see Phil 3:3-8). The law holds dominion over the conscience as long as confidence remains in anything of natural human ability. It is the problem of self reliance to meet the holiness of the requirement.

Paul fully understands that his kinsmen of the school of the Pharisees knew that trust in God was necessary for salvation. However, they regarded this requirement as fully within their power to perform. They did NOT, as some ignorantly suppose, believe that salvation depended entirely on themselves. This is not their fall.

No, their fall lay in the ill fated presumption that this trust could be mixed with some residual measure of trust in themselves. This is what grace cannot tolerate. Paul utterly condemns the perverse presumption that grace and works, Spirit and flesh, the perfect righteousness of Christ and some measure, any measure, of human contribution can mix (compare Ro 11:6; Gal 5:9). For Paul, grace is all or nothing.

When the heart is divided in its trust, then the broken law continues to have claim and dominion over the conscience. Paul’s point is that the law becomes the strength of sin when there is confidence in the strength of man to meet the holiness of the standard (“But I say unto you”; Mt 5:22, 28, 12:36; 39, 44; James 2:10).

This is the lie that gives sin its strength to accuse. It is also the source of the pride that God must resist. It is this misplaced confidence that gives Satan access and opportunity to accuse the conscience by his prosecutorial use of the law (Jn 5:45; 2Cor 3:9; Rev 12:10).

When Christians fail to grasp the all sufficiency of Christ’s righteousness alone, not only for justification, but also for power, this divided dependence limits, if not completely defeats, the freedom of the Spirit to bear true and permanent fruit unto God (Jn 15:16; Ro 6:22; 7:4; Gal 5:22; Eph 5:9). This is the double mind of which James speaks in Ja 1:8; 4:8. This is what afflicts and binds up many poor defeated Christians, and also many who are in peril of “failing of the grace of God” (Heb 12:15).

Therefore, being dead to the old man over whom the law, and therefore sin and Satan, held accusing, condemning jurisdiction, we have become “dead to the law” (Ro 7:4; Gal 2:19). “In Christ” the law has reached both its goal and termination, but only in the sense of its capacity as a “ministry of death and condemnation” (2Cor 3:7, 9). And also the completion of its tutelage to bring (drive) the despairing soul to Christ who is, in this sense, “the end of the law for righteousness” (Ro 10:4; Gal 3:23-25).

It is in this sense that the law has been completely “taken out of the way” (Col 2:14), and “done away” (2Cor 3:7, 11, 14). We are no longer “in” the first Adam’s nature, but the last’s. “For you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). This is how Paul can say “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20).

Not only is our life located in another person who also lives in us (Col 1:27; 1Pet 1:11); it is in another place, “far above all principalities and power” (Eph 1:21; 4:10), and therefore secure beyond Satan’s reach (compare Rev 12:5 with 1Jn 5:18; especially in light of the implications of Ro 7:17, 20 in light of 1Pet 1:23; 1Pet 3:2; 1Jn 3:6, 9).

Our life is now in heaven, because when He ascended, we ascended and sit down with Him at the Father’s right hand (Eph 1:20; 2:6; Col 3:1; Heb 12:2; Rev 3:21). The language of “set down and seated” implies something that is finished. Like Him, we are waiting till all things are put under (Ps 110:1; Heb 2:8), but as to the certainty of our position and hope of inheritance, “it is finished!” The new creation has irrevocably begun. The first fruits have been secured and brought in. If Jesus is raised, He lives, and if He lives, He is able to come again.

We are not on our way to becoming a new creation; we ARE a new creation! This is because we are safely and forever in Him whose victory over Satan, sin, death, and the grave is the first fruits, not only of the resurrection in its order (1Cor 15:20, 23), but the entire creation (Ro 8:20).

Christ, the whole Christ, not only the death He died for us, but the life He lived for us, is now our very life, so that His appearing will be the appearing of our life. “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Col 3:4). Here is the sublime logic of a most inconceivable glory, promised to every believer: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1Jn 3:2).

Here is a profound principle. Our deeper, fuller transformation into His likeness does not depend on a new reality, but an ever increasing revelation of Him “as He is“. “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2Cor 3:18). This means the  transformative vision that begins now by the Spirit awaits its fullest revelation beyond the veil at at His return when the transformation will be complete. 

As the promised Seed of the woman, Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension has secured the complete reversal of the curse for all who are in Him. That is the key word, “in Him”. He has done this, not only by expiating our guilt, but by imputing to us the very righteousness that He perfected in our representative humanity, as necessarily lived out “under the law” (Mt 3:15 with Gal 4:4).

In this we see that the life He lived was as crucial to our salvation as the death He died. It is the righteousness of His life that He lived for us that is imputed, and put to our account, as though we lived that fully examined, fully approved life.

This is not the righteousness whereby God is righteous in His heaven, though it is in perfect union with that too. No, our justification is located, not in ourselves, but in another person’s righteousness (Ro 3:25-26). That is the righteousness that was perfected in the Lamb of God over 33 1/2 years of spotless obedience under the exacting inspection of the law.

It is this righteousness that is put to the everlasting seal of everyone who has the faith that is “born of God” (1Jn 5:4). This kind of faith is so much more than mental consent to a correct creed. Saving faith is born by the Spirit.

According to Paul, we are inwardly changed and transformed, not only by believing the right facts, but by the Spirit’s revelation of the face of Jesus, which is to say, a revelation of His mind and heart (2Cor 3:18 with Mt 11:27; Jn 5:21; Ro 9:18). That moment of true believing is itself a resurrection event (Eph 2:1; Tit 3:5). “How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed!” (Amazing Grace, John Newton).

This is the only righteousness that God can accept. To presume to come before Him in anything less or other than this man’s righteousness is an affront of intolerable presumption. The imputation of this one, only acceptable, pure, unmixed, fully complete righteousness of Christ Himself is the indispensable wedding garment that alone stands between joyful, abundant acceptance and stern rejection (Mt 22:11-13).

Christians must know by the Spirit the holy dread of presuming to appear before God in any lesser righteousness than this. It is this righteousness that is given to the least truly regenerate believer, not in the part but in the whole, as though perfectly performed by each one under the exacting scrutiny of the law.

If we could grasp this for all its implication by the Spirit of revelation, as a dear brother once said, “the ground would shake before us!” Some things are just too glorious for us to grasp, even when acknowledged as true, unless it comes by the power of divine revelation, and how rare is that?

This righteousness not only exceeds the righteousness of the scribes Pharisees; it even surpasses Jesus’ contemporaries’ highest conceptions of John the Baptist. We must ask, why does Jesus use the example of John the Baptist to send home the point that even the least citizen of the kingdom of heaven is greater than him?  What is Jesus’ meaning here?

Jesus appropriates the popular view of John’s high spiritual and prophetic stature to push their conceptions of him to the completely inconceivable level of “none greater” born of woman (Mt 11:11). He did this to underscore and magnify how much greater the very least citizen of that realm is than even the most spiritual and approved among God’s servants of whom none has ever been greater.

Think how this must have been taken. Jesus is inviting them to conceive the inconceivable, and for one purpose. That purpose, I submit, is to show, not an exceedingly surpassing greatness, but an exceedingly surpassing righteousness. As in the case when Jesus terrifies His Jewish contemporaries with the forbidding task of exceeding the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (Mt 5:20). So here, He sets before them the possibility of exceeding the highest conceptions of John’s spiritual greatness. How can these things be? Exactly!

Jesus is laying the foundations for Paul’s doctrine of justification by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, as a unique kind of righteousness, which has no earthly comparison. He is giving us to understand that this righteousness of the kingdom of heaven is nothing of our own, but wholly His alone.

This is the OT promise of an “everlasting righteousness” (Dan 9:24). It is the righteousness of the new / everlasting covenant (Isa 59:21; Jer 31-34; 32:40). It is the promise that “in the Lord will all Israel be saved with an everlasting salvation” (Isa 45:17). It is the righteousness of the Lord by which “all the seed of Israel shall be justified and shall glory” (Isa 45:25). It is the expectation that in that day, it will be the Lord who works all their works in them (Isa 26:12). “And their righteousness is of ME, says the Lord” (Isa 54:17).

It is the righteousness of the Lord Himself, but particularly as wrought out, performed, and fulfilled in the person of our representative humanity, the scion of David, the curse reversing Seed of the woman, the second Adam.

“Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jer 23:5-6).

The implication of this glorious truth will be totally lost if we assume that John stood on the outside of the kingdom of heaven. Quite the contrary! Some were pressing into the kingdom at that very time and taking it by force (Mt 11:12; Lk 16:16). Others were refusing to enter and blocking the way for those seeking to enter (Mt 23:13).

So this is not a kingdom that is only future on the far side of the great tribulation, as commonly and correctly expected by the Jews. Rather, Jesus is revealing the mystery of the kingdom as present and active, even as the outward structures of this evil age remain.

The kingdom is a revelatory (apocalyptic) phenomenon as well as a chronological event. It can be “at hand”, not only in terms of chronological time, though that too, but in terms of a realm that is only accessible to the Spirit of revelation. One must be made spiritually alive (born again) to see it (Jn 3:3 with 1Pet 1:23). It is present and suffering violence now, as it is being brought decisively near by the presence of its uncrowned King.

The action of the King is the action of the kingdom. The proof that the kingdom has come in power is in the binding of the strong man and the spoiling of his house, as demonstrated by the expulsion of demons by the finger of God (Mt 12:28-29).

So it is clear that John was in the kingdom as Jesus was preparing His disciples to understand its presence among them, as He begins to reveal to them what He calls, the “mystery of the kingdom”. The popular and correct understanding was that the messianic deliverance of the kingdom of God on earth comes only after the tribulation and its climax in the long awaited great day of the Lord. Against this background, Jesus begins to introduce the revolutionary new concept that the promised deliverance of the long awaited kingdom of God has two distinct stages, one present and one to come.

This kingdom that Jesus announces as presently “at hand” is not entirely new. It has always been an ever present and active reality (Ps 103:19; 145:11-13; Dan 4:17, 25, 32), but now “the time is fulfilled” for the great transition that brings the first fruits of the fulfillment of the ancient promise (M 1:15) . Even with the promise now partially fulfilled in the suffering of the Lamb that precedes the glory (Acts 3:18-21; 1Pet 1:11), there is a future glory and greater fulfillment and manifestation of the kingdom of God when all the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea (Isa 11:9; Hab 2:14). But now, even in the temporary absence of the risen and ascended King (Lk 19:11-15 with Dan 7:13-14), the kingdom is no less present in mystery form, as active in the person and power of the Holy Spirit, not only in the age to come but even now.

This revelation of the mystery of the kingdom stood in contrast (but not contradiction) to the common Jewish expectation of one coming of the Messiah in connection with Israel’s post-tribulational deliverance at the day of the Lord. The mystery of the kingdom is based on the unknown secret of two separate comings of Messiah (Acts 26:22-23; Ro 16:25-26).

The foundation of this kingdom is not simply righteousness as the world, with its religions, sects, and cults has always conceived of God and the demands of His character and laws. That understanding is common to man and leaves one fatally short of the righteousness of God that is imputed to the believer in Jesus alone.

No, this is an “apocalyptic” (unveiled) righteousness that requires the Spirit’s revelation to understand and grace, because it is a righteousness of another kind. The Reformers called this an “iustitia alien” (alien righteousness).  It is apart from me; it’s not mine inherently. It belongs to Christ. It’s source is God alone by grace alone through faith alone. Yet the imputation of His righteousness assures that the Holy Spirit has come to work the works of God in and through the justified believer.

This is why we are careful to clarify and insist that “whereas we are justified by faith alone, the faith that justifies is never alone”. The righteousness that justifies us also guarantees its lively working in and through us by the indwelling Spirit of Christ. The truth of whether we are in the faith in vital reality (2Cor 13:5) is shown and vindicated by the fruits of the Spirit (Mt 7:19; Mk 4:20; Jn 15:2; Ro 7:4; Gal 5:22; Phil 1:11; Ja 2:18) , albeit in varied measure differing between believers (“some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred fold”; Mk 4:8).

To see (really see and apprehend by the Spirit) this righteousness of the King, as actually belonging to everyone in the kingdom, even those of the least spiritual maturity or stature, one must be born again, since “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn 3:3).

According to Jesus, the spiritual birth is not new. Nicodemus should have understood this as a fundamental presupposition of all spiritual life (Jn 3:10). This righteousness is the only ground and basis by which anyone was ever justified at any time or dispensation.

The Father already had in His secure possession the predestined work of the Son, counted as already done, even before the beginning of creation (Ro 8:20; Eph 1:4-5, 9-11; 3:11; Heb 9:12; 13:20; Rev 13:8). This is how God could give the Spirit of Christ to OT believers on the basis of a work yet to be accomplished in “the fullness of time” (Gal 4:4), even before the full revelation of how this would be accomplished in the gospel of the Messiah’s twofold appearing to Israel (Acts 26:22-23; Ro 16:25-26; Eph 6:19; 1Pet 1:11)

Can we even begin to take this in? In the words of Fanny J. Crosby, “I scarse can take it in!” Indeed, no one can, except by the quickening of the Spirit’s illumination. Yet when we see this clearly and grasp its implications by the grace of the Spirit’s illumination, we will begin to grasp the unfathomable glory implied by such a righteousness as this.

Can we believe that we really are, not only someday, but right now this very righteousness of God in Christ? The scripture certainly affirms this. “For He made (counted) Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2Cor 5:21).

Only by the grace of revelation can we begin to grasp the inconceivable implications of 2Cor 5:21 and therefore the glory of Jn 5:24. What had, until then, only been associated with a future hope is here declared by Jesus to be the present possession of every truly regenerate believer. “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.”

Could grasping this by the Spirit be what it means to enter His rest? I think so. The writer of Hebrews calls this blessed estate, “the full assurance of faith.” This is far more rare than usually assumed by superficial views of the nature of true, Spirit quickened, saving faith.

This is the overcoming faith that shows itself through testing to be truly “born of God” (1Jn 5:4). It is not the lifeless, fruitless faith that is no better than the faith of demons (Ja 2:19). It is not the superficial, rootless faith that is quickly withered by the heat of temptation and adversity (Lk 8:13). It is the very faith of Christ at work in the believer (Jn 6:28-29; Rom 3:22; Gal 2:16, 20). It is the faith that Paul calls, “the faith of God’s elect” (Tit 1:1).

The Roman Catholics at Trent branded this glorious doctrine of imputed righteousness a “legal fiction”. To which I answer, if it is no legal fiction that He who knew no sin could counted as sin, not by His own sin, but by the imputation of mine; how is it a legal fiction if I should be counted the righteousness of God by a righteousness that is not mine, but His freely imputed to me? Oh wonder of wonders!

“And indeed, this is one of the greatest mysteries in the world; namely, that a righteousness that resides in heaven should justify me, a sinner on earth!” (John Bunyan).

No wonder Jesus said, “except a man be born again, he cannot see …” Not only can he not see the kingdom; he cannot see or understand the kingdom’s unique and only righteousness. This righteousness is not only impossible for the natural man to receive; it is impossible for him to conceive. It must be revealed.

Romans 1:17
“For therein (the gospel) is the righteousness of God revealed ….”

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This profound spiritual principle – manifest throughout the scriptures – is most clearly seen at Israel’s appointed time of national deliverance. The veil covering the Jewish heart will be removed “at the set time” …“in one day”…“at once” when the penitent survivors of Israel will “look upon Him whom they pierced” (Ps 102:13; Isa 25:7; 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10; Mt 23:39; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7; 10:7). But critically, this transformative revelation is given “when He (Yahweh) sees that their power is gone” (Deut 32:36 with Dan 12:7).

The power of His endless life is revealed at the end of the pride of self-reliance (the strength of the veil) which hides the transformative liberating revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2Cor 3:14-18; 4:6). This withering process of crisis is critical for shattering the pride of self-reliance, not only in the unbelieving, but as Paul explains, God wisely uses it even in the lives of the godly (Acts 14:22; 2Cor 1:8-10; 12:7).

At the inception of faith, the free gift of an everlasting righteousness is immediately imputed. But saving faith comes when the Spirit has used the unapproachable holiness of the law to drive the sinner off of any hope in themselves (Ex 19:16m 21-24; 20:18-19; Ro 7:9; Gal 3:10, 19, 21). This is why the Law must come first (Jn 1:17). When the real implications of the law’s holy requirement is brought home to the heart, the gospel of a righteousness that is utterly transcends our hearts becomes exceedingly good news.

What a freedom to no longer cast about in endless fruitless introspection, attempting in vain to find some ground of standing in one’s self! What a liberating glory to find all our righteousness in Him alone, as His alone, yet freely given – imputed to that simple, child-like reliance on His finished work, and united with the glad certainty of His promise to keep His own to the end (Jn 6:39; Ro 8:30-35).

This is not a partial imputation, nor simply the forgiveness that required His death. It is the imputation of the merits of His perfect sinless life, meeting all the demands of the Law as “the last Adam”, our human representative (Mt 3:15; Gal 4:4; Ro 4:3, 5-6, 23-24; 15:45).

Like the gift of faith itself, this magnificent exchange is near and available to any sinner. This gift is not simply faith in the many facts of the truth. It is the simple, undivided trust that His life and sacrifice is enough, all-sufficient – that nothing can be added: “It is finished!”

The Father has “seen the travail of His soul and is satisfied” (Isa 53:11). The work is done, the life lived, and the death died. The resurrection and ascent to the Father’s right hand proves that the debt has been paid – past, present and future – “tetelestai” – paid in full.

To such a simple, undivided trust in Christ’s only sufficient righteousness – with no contribution from anything within the reach of natural power – no matter how weak or how late the hour – to this faith in Christ alone is appended the promise of eternal life, received at once and forever. This Spirit-quickened, regenerating faith unites even the greatest of sinners, at once and forever, to the life of obedience that Jesus lived “under the law” (Gal 4:4) for our sake and in our place.

But the Divine purpose is not only that we might be pardoned from the curse of the law. It also intends that we might be blessed with the blessing which the law itself must confer on the only life that ever perfectly fulfilled the law in all points. Through the purchase of the predestined life and death of the promised mediator (Gen 3:15; Heb 13:20; Rev 13:8), the “Spirit of Christ” could lawfully indwell the OT faithful in the same measure as those living since the cross.

Here is the source of all true doing: In both testaments, it is the same with all His saints. The One working was always “the Spirit of Christ who was ‘IN’ them” (1Pet 1:11). The NT revelation of “Christ in you” made known that the Holy Spirit who indwelt the OT faithful was then, as now, the Spirit of the coming mediator.

Because He is the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world, by the life that He would live and the atonement He would provide in the “fullness of time” (Gal 4:4), the eternal Spirit was – even in OT times – the only source of power by which to acceptably do the will of God. The NT revelation of the mystery of “Christ in you” implies that in the OT period, no less than now, “it is God who is working in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil 2:13).

This is what the imputation of Christ’s righteousness means: the whole of His beautiful, perfectly-lived life counted over to the believer’s account, “not in part, but the whole”. This seems unimaginable, and so it is strongly resisted by reason. It has been called a “legal fiction”, but it is no more illegal that Christ’s only acceptable fulfillment of the law should become my righteousness than that my sin should be counted to Him (2Cor 5:21).

While there may be a great difference in the degree of personal sanctification, maturity, and eternal reward (some 30, 60, 100-fold), the most saintly of saints cannot be more justified or faultless before the throne than the one who has just been born again a minute before Jesus returns. The only source of life and godliness was purchased by His life and death, making the dead to live by the gift of the Spirit.

This standing in grace is as certainly assured to the nascent faith of the newest believer as to the most mature or spiritually gifted. In this once-for-all imputation of Christ’s righteousness, there is no distinction because  all are part of the body of Christ.

Not only did He deliver us from hell by His death, but He also won heaven and eternal blessing by living the only life that could not be cut off by the law, for the law can only bless the doer with an endless life where there is an enduring righteousness.

Listen to the inexorable strictness of the law, as Paul will cite Lev 18:5 in Ro 10:5 in order to make the case that the law must be fulfilled perfectly if life will be won and the curse escaped.

Leviticus 18:5
“You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.” (compare also Deut 27:26 with Gal 3:10; 5:3; Ja 2:10).

That doer – the only true doer – is Christ, first for us, and then by His life in us and through us, albeit only by measure and degree. All other true “doers of the Word’‘ become so only insofar as that life is alive, working in and through them by the indwelling Spirit of Christ. Even Moses who delivered these words to Israel died by this rule, since he also fell short of the perfect doing of the law in all points. But not so Jesus Christ!

The only true doer became a curse in order that the non-doer might be made “the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21). Christ alone is “the habitation of righteousness” (Jer 50:7); the kind of righteousness that counts forever is in Him alone (compare Isa 26:12; 45:22; 54:17; Jer 23:5-6; Lk 18:19; Ro 3:12; 7:18; Rev 15:4). And being made that righteousness of God in Christ (Phil 3:9), every true-born believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, to bring forth fruit unto God by the power of that one source of life that was fully lived out in our human head and representative, the last Adam.

Only the life He lived on our behalf could qualify Him to make the atoning death on our behalf. It is not only His passive obedience on the cross (the death He willingly accepted); it is His active obedience throughout the life He lived under the law, being tested in all points. This quintessential lived-out life rendered the body to be offered up as the perfect and efficacious satisfaction that turned away the Divine wrath (Isa 53:11; Heb 10:5). Therefore, it is the whole of the Lamb (Ex 12:5-10), the merit of His life, as well as the atonement of His death, that is fully imputed to even the newest believer.

Of course, good works will invariably follow, as constrained by the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. As the Reformers were famous for saying, “while we are justified by faith alone, the faith that justifies is never alone.” In fact, it is the liberty of the Spirit that comes from an undivided, undistributed trust in Christ’s finished work alone that guarantees and releases the fruits of the Spirit to which every believer has been predestined to walk in (Eph 2:10).

We are never so dead to “confidence in the flesh” (Phil 3:3-4) as when we know ourselves to be alive to God by an eternal righteousness that is not our own, but forever secure by faith in His finished work on our behalf, and pledged to abide and preserve us until we are perfected at His return (1Jn 3:2). Where there has been this deep severance from all fleshly reliance – as all self-reliance is replaced by a simple, undivided trust that we have been counted, for His sake, the very righteousness of Christ, how will this not bring the greater liberty of the Spirit?

When the pride of self-reliance has been slain, God will give grace to the humble. To the humble, He can afford to entrust the greater fruitfulness, since one is never so stripped of any ground of pride as when one knows himself to be utterly naked, except for the covering of Christ’s righteousness as equally imputed to every child of God (Gen 3:21; Isa 61:10; Mt 22:11-12). Is this not the deep death to self-righteousness that permits God to grant the greater fruitfulness of His life in and through us, as surely as the dead wood of Aaron’s rod was made to bud?

The glory of the mystery of the gospel is that Christ is the only true “doer”, even as He alone was the only true fulfiller of the law. He was no less the only true and living doer in the OT saints to whom the righteousness of His perfectly lived life was also imputed (Gen 15:6; Ps 32:2; Ro 4:3, 5-6, 22). Peter is clear that the OT faithful were also indwelt by the “Spirit of Christ within them” (1Pet 1:11), and this grace of the indwelling Spirit of Christ was only ever given on the basis of the foretold life and death of the coming Deliverer (Gen 3:15; Isa 53:5, 8, 10-11; Dan 9:26; Acts 26:22-23; Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11).

For this reason, the future life and blood atonement of Christ was no less equally availing for the OT faithful. From the perspective of “the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world”, they, like NT believers, also looked back to One whose work was finished in the past, who would not be under the curse, but through the bruising of His heel, would inflict the mortal wound on the Serpent’s head and thus reverse the curse (Gen 3:15). They were no less justified by faith, and no less dependent on the quickening, regenerating power of the Holy Spirit (see the metaphors for necessity of regeneration in the following: Deut 30:6 with Jer 4:4; Ro 2:29; Jn 3:6, 27; 1Cor 2:14; Eph 2:1; Isa 26:12; 45:25; 54:17; 55:1-3; with Eze 18:31; Heb 7:22; Rev 13:8).

Although the OT witness is not as clear and frequent as the NT witness, both testaments agree to show that regeneration by the Holy Spirit is indispensably vital for life. Even before the full revelation of the mystery of the gospel, the OT faithful were no less “born again by the Word of God” (1Pet 1:23), and therefore partakers of His divine nature (2 Pet 1:4).

Examination of these and other select verses will show that aspects of the new covenant that would be established with the nation in “that (future) day” were already available to the individual. Ezekiel is clear that his contemporaries would die in their sins if they did not then, at that very time in history, avail themselves of the available new heart and new spirit of the new covenant (Eze 18:31-32). What will one day be the experience of the whole of the nation was – even then – a present imperative for the individual.

The same is true of the promised “everlasting covenant” that Isaiah calls, “the sure mercies of David’‘ (Isa 55:3). Certainly, the promise in its fullest aspect awaits establishment with the whole of the nation in the coming Messianic era, yet here, the life of this “everlasting covenant” is held forth as presently available to the thirsty soul willing to hear and live at the time Isaiah penned these words (Isa 55:1-3). Even the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was promised as available to the penitent OT believer (Prov 1:23 KJV).

The “everlasting covenant” (Isa 55:3; 61:8; Jer 32:40; Eze 37:25) and the bringing in of “everlasting righteousness” (Dan 9:24) still lay in the future. This is not only because Christ was yet to come in the “fullness of time” (Gal 4:4), but because the scope of the covenant promise required, not merely a remnant, but the salvation of “all Israel” (Ro 11:26).

Paul’s phrase, “all Israel”, envisions that time foretold by all the prophets when all of the nation would know the Lord “from that day and forward” (Eze 39:22). This great transformation would not only extend to the Jewish survivors of the final tribulation (“Zion’s travail”), but would be made equally sure to all future generations of children born to Jewish parents (Isa 45:25; 44:3; 54:13; 59:21: 60:21; 65:23; Jer 31:34; Eze 37:25).

Only when the righteousness of Christ (“the everlasting righteousness” of Dan 9:24) will have been imputed, not only to a remnant, but to the whole of the nation, unto children’s children, “world without end” (Isa 45:17), only then will permanent peace in the Promised Land be eternally secure.

To inherit the Land forever in enduring peace and security requires a righteousness that is permanent, but that righteousness cannot be one’s own. It has only one source. It was wrought out in the humanity of the last Adam on our behalf, over approximately 33 ½ year of spotless obedience under the exacting examination of the holy law of God. It is not only a righteousness that ‘lasts forever’; it is everlasting because it is the righteousness of the everlasting God. Although progress in the grace of personal sanctification and eternal rewards may greatly vary as much as  the varying brightness of the heavenly luminaries (1Cor 15:41), nevertheless, it is the whole of Christ’s life, as fully approved by the Law and the Father, that constitutes the righteousness that God imputes in full to the least and newest believer in Jesus.

What is our part?

This raises the question: “What is our part?” Our part is to yield to the Spirit, and be “led by the Spirit” (Ro 8:24), putting to death the deeds of the body, not by mere human determination, but by the Spirit (Ro 8:13). We understand this mystery of two distinct persons working in union through the power of one common source, in the one Divine nature, by the analogy of how the works and words of Jesus, which were not His own but the Father’s (Jn 14:10-24). This means every word He spoke and every work He worked was in a perfect unity of nature with His Father.

Jesus’ disclaimer that the works and words were NOT His own, but the Father’s anticipates Paul’s claim to a righteousness not his own (Phil 3:9) and of labors more abundant (that he qualifies as “yet not I” – 1 Cor 15:10; Gal 2:20). Since He was untainted by the fall via the virgin birth, the uniquely begotten Son was preserved in a glorious helplessness to do anything independently of the Father.

John 5:19
“Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.”

In a somewhat similar way, with one important difference, the believer , by yielding to the Spirit, is not doing his or her own work but the “works of God”, the very first and chief among which is to “believe on Him whom He has sent” (Jn 6:29), a thing impossible for the natural man to accomplish apart from the drawing, quickening grace of the Holy Spirit (Jn 6:44, 65; Eph 2:1, 8-9; Phil 1:29).

All is to say, there has ever been only one true acceptable doer of that one righteousness that can alone be accepted for eternal life and eternal reward, and this life is only mediated by the precious gift of trusting, child-like faith in Jesus’ blood and righteousness. In both His pre-existence as the Word, and the perfect life He lived by the power of the Spirit, He is the only acceptable source of any works that count forever.

Those precious lines, “Only one life twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last”, might be slightly edited to say, “only what’s done BY Christ will last.” According to 1 Cor 3:12-15, not all works done ‘for’ Christ (in His name) will stand the test of fire. But those works that were led (inclined) by the Spirit will endure as eternal reward, even when done spontaneously and unconsciously because of the love of God that has been shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit (“When did we see You…?”; Mt 25:37-39, 44).

The post The Only True Doer appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

Do you guys have anything on the the theme of testing/purification/refining of the saints during the great tribulation and the end of the age in general?

In contrast to dispensationalists, we believe the saints of the last tribulation are the body of Christ. Clearly then, Daniel’s vision of the refining, whitening, and purification of the saints of that particular, ‘unequaled’ tribulation expects something climactic and unique, distinct from the more common experience of tribulation in general, as characteristic of the age in general.

We know God’s vision for post-tribulational Israel. What is less considered is His perfecting purpose for the church of the last generation. God has not finished with His intention to educate the powers through the church, “the pillar and ground of truth”. It is that holy entity that is called to walk in the path of the Servant, demonstrating the wisdom of the cross before principalities and powers, answering most especially at the end, “have you considered My servant …”

If God will have an all saved Jewish nation, miraculously born and cleansed “in one day” (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9), then God is able to perfect the church unto climactic translation, not only because the chronological clock has struck, but because the church has been brought to something unprecedented, that can only be compared to the translation of Enoch and the catching up of Elijah.

Unlike tribulation in general, as the church by definition is a tribulation people, the ‘great’ tribulation is much more particularly the great transition between this age and the age to come. This is why the great tribulation is compared to a final travail unto the birth of the new age of covenant promise. Also called the time of Jacob’s trouble and ‘Zion’s travail’, the unequaled tribulation ends with the birth of Israel and the translation of the church. This is very significant, because this convergence is not only because Jesus returns at this time, but because of what God has accomplished in these two, elect entities.

In the case of Israel, the beleaguered remnant according to the election of grace has been brought finally, and fully to “the end of their power” (Deut 32:36; Dan 12:7) in preparation to look upon Him whom they pierced when He comes in the clouds (Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39; 24:30; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7). In the case of the church, a process of revelation and experience of divine power in the furnace of affliction has brought the corporate body of Christ to its promised eschatological perfection (Dan 11:32-33, 35; 12:3, 10; Jn 17:23; Eph 4:13; Heb 4:9; 1Jn 4:18; Rev 12:11; 19:7).

This twin event of birth and resurrection at Jesus’ return begins the liberation of the creation described in Ro 8:20, which we see as realized in two stages, pre and post millennial (Isa 24:22; Ro 8:20; Rev 20). All of this means the end of the age is not only waiting on the completion of His purpose to bring Israel back to Him, not only His intention to fully reveal the mystery of iniquity, but His intention to perfect His corporate servant, the church, in a final demonstration before principalities and powers. I call this the ‘final straightening of the church’.

The tribulation, with its clearly marked certainty of the time, and abundance of unsealed revelation and prophetic fulfillment, will function as a kind of birthing canal, emptying not only Israel but the church of their power. This is why I believe we should see the enormous use that God has invested in the first half of the week.

What God has invested in giving the church the critical preparation of the first half of the week is exactly WHY the church will be straightened and prepared for the great transition that takes place at the beginning of the second half. This time will mark Michael’s clearing the heaven of Satan’s hindering presence (Rev 12:7-14 with Dan 12:1).

This brings Satan down for his ‘short time’ (Rev 12:12), but it also signals the time that the two witnesses receive their power, but not ONLY the two witnesses, but a whole body of ‘maskilim’ who receive strength and power at precisely the same time that Michael is evicting Satan (Rev 12:10-11). These who “love not their lives unto the death” are shown in Daniel’s prophecy to be receiving this power to “be strong and do great exploits and instruct many” at the very time the abomination is being placed that begins the unequaled time of trouble (Dan 11:31-33; 12:1-2, 7, 11). It is no accident that THIS is the very time the two witnesses are receiving their power for final tribulation witness.

I hope we can see this. It cannot be too greatly stressed that this great transition at the mid-point of Daniel’s final week is, not only the time that Satan is being thrust out of heaven and confined to earth for his ‘short time’ of unparalleled destruction; it is the same time the daily sacrifice is being taken away and the abomination of desolation placed in Judea to begin the great tribulation, just 3 1/2 years before “the end” (Dan 9:27; 12:7, 11). We must not miss this connection! Michael’s heavenly victory results, not only in woe for the earth, but in great anointing of power coming upon the church for the final testimony that results in a multitude beyond human ability to count coming out of ‘the tribulation, the great one’ (Rev 7:9, 13-14).

As Jesus saw His appointed hour, those of understanding will see and prophetically apprehend the approaching test for all its unparalleled requirement. As the door of the last seven years is shut firmly behind us, many more of the awakening body of Christ will begin to foresee the evil and dig down deep, greatly hiding herself in Christ, knowing her natural inability to stand in the evil day. This will prepare and fit the church, not only for her final purification and perfection unto translation at Jesus’ return, but her ultimate testimony to the nations, more than at any other time moving Israel to jealousy.

As Jesus said of Peter, I believe it can be prophetically said of the church of the last hour, that another will take her and lead her where she would not have gone, even to a corporate cross of obedience unto death (Rev 12:11). So the purification of the saints of the last and unequaled tribulation is unto a divinely ordained perfection that ends in translation, with the removal of the veil cast over all nations (Isa 25:7-8; Rev 10:7). I am suggesting that the testing of the church, I would call it the great emptying of the church, is not unrelated to the veil that is spread over the nations being removed with the finishing of the mystery of God at Jesus’ return (Isa 25:7; Rev 10:7). There is something about the relation of revelation “at the end of power”, which is to say at the end of human self sufficiency, which must always removed as a necessary prerequisite for resurrection.

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In order not to be devoured by all the ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda’s that would overwhelm even the most saintly of saints, Paul warns against looking back: “… but this one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forth …” (Phil 3:13-14). But another, and even more deadly tendency is to look within, in hopes of finding faith sufficient to answer the crisis. That’s not where it’s to be found! It’s only in Him, and His to give. I’m taught of God that faith and peace is not to be found in my reach and power but in His outstretched hand, as when Peter sinking, cried out, and “immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand …” God has deliberately put saving faith beyond human reach and power that to Him might be all the glory when it is given us to miraculously believe and trust and rest.

Our only plea is mercy. There is no other; but we also seek the tender grace of a clear and full assurance that when it is our time to leave this world, we are not occupied with reward or any such thing. Our hope and stay is that our names are written in heaven. Our thought is not reward but mercy. For that assurance, we must put off all hope in ourselves, or any faith that we might produce to stand before infinite holiness. There is no sufficiency in ourselves and we only forsake our own mercies if we imagine otherwise.

With whatever reward we may meet, or whatever higher ground we may have attained, nothing that can be added that can make us anymore righteous or able to stand than the moment we were forever clothed up by the righteousness of another, in ‘the hour we first believed’. There and then and forever, I could never become more righteous than I was at that instant when I was accepted in the Beloved. I think not to appear or presume to appear in any other righteousness than that righteousness that was perfected over 33 1/2 years of Jesus’ active obedience in my behalf.

Not only did He die for me, He lived for me by fulfilling, as He said to John The Baptist, “‘ALL’ righteousness.” It is that righteousness, perfected under the law by a spotless obedience, that is imputed to the least believer, not in the part but the whole. It is not just the act of the cross but His cruciform life, lived under the exacting examination of the law, that covers and clothes us, so that in the matter of justifying righteousness, we thirst no more. Notice that as much as the righteous thirst after righteousness ceaselessly, Jesus speaks of one sense in which they never thirst again. What can that be but in the sense that they will forever have no want of righteousness when called to stand before the Lord? (Jn 4:14; 6:35).

This imputed righteousness is the ‘everlasting righteousness’ of the New / Everlasting covenant. It is NOT a process! It is an accomplished, eternally secure position at the right hand of God in our ascended Lord, whether He is in heaven or on earth. This is something quite distinguishable from even the truest works of the indwelling Holy Spirit in my life. That may factor in my sanctification and reward, but it can have nothing to do with my standing, or the ground of my eternal justification that cannot grow or mature.

The fruits of the Spirit are relative and by degree, but justification is an absolute, relative to nothing but our first and forever acceptance, as based on the righteousness of another, by even a faith born from above that is also, no less a free gift of grace, apart from any working or doing or ‘becoming’.

And that acceptance is also an absolute. It can’t grow; it doesn’t fluctuate. It is NOT a process! It is forever settled in heaven and waits to be revealed at the last day as an already, eternal, irreversible reality, as sure as the very foundation of God, because it has the unshakable seal of His eternal knowledge of His own, even when they, in moments of desperate shaking, fear and doubt, may, God forbid, question their knowledge of Him.

Brother, I have doubted many things to my shame. I have even doubted my own standing in Christ and feared greatly; but I cannot doubt that regeneration, by its very nature, provided it is indeed born from above, CANNOT be reversed. It is as sure as the seal of the foundation of God. I am not speaking of possible fluctuations in my own assurance, which to my shame, I’ve known. I’m speaking of the foundation of God, which is an entirely different matter.

His purpose according to election MUST stand, and in order for it to stand, it must be ‘not of works but of Him who calls’. It has no basis in the willing or running of man (Ro 9:18). He knows His own, so that even if their most hated doubts should rise in unwanted denial of Him, He cannot deny Himself in them, that even if they should doubt of their knowledge of Him, He can never deny His own. They are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh in an indissoluble union that is as sure as the everlasting covenant of righteousness that will stand with all Israel for a thousand years of open demonstration that what God elects, He brings down, and in, and keeps forever.

I long that you could share this conviction with me. I am more sure of it than anything concerning my own spiritual pulse, even if it should go flat-line in my own experience. It is because I know by revelation that it’s true. I know the problems. I know the arguments. I know the fearful warnings of coming short of the straight gate of regeneration. I know how fearfully close a Judas, or an Hymeneaus or Philetus can be, but I cannot doubt of the very foundation of God, which an everlasting covenant, steadfast and sure, well ordered in all things.

All the regrets, all the ‘shoulda, coulda, woulda’s of this beleaguered and halting life, with all its fits and starts, broken hearts, and set backs, with all its shame and regret, it will melt away in His face, as you become just like Him, perfectly like Him, in the moment that we see Him as He is. That’s a great big, astonishing, almost unimaginable promise.

In the meantime, I personally believe there’s a lot here left for us to walk out, so I expect a battle that will purify and perfect, but could never add one cubit to our complete acceptance in our Lord’s own righteousness. The Lord may show us hard things, but He is the resurrection and the life, and we have a divine, purchased right to a peace that passes all understanding. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.”

That’s a peace that doesn’t, or shouldn’t rise and fall with any experience or emotion in all the unexpected vicissitudes of this life. It is something that every believer has a right to every moment, even in the greatest trials that may threaten great discipline but never desertion, even when we may ‘feel’ most deserted. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift, as we know, the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.

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From the Glorious Church 2015 Conference in March. Reggie Kelly made it just in time to be included on the panel for a discussion of the nature and character of the Church during the great tribulation. This video along with messages from the co-panelists can be found at the Glorious Church 2015 YouTube Channel.

Co-panelists Ryan Couch, Fred London and Bryan Anthony delivered additional messages at the event. (Click their names to jump to specific messages)

The post The Glorious Church in the Great Tribulation [VIDEO] appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

In Katz’s book, Ben Israel, he notes his so-called baptism of the Spirit, and indicates that this was an empowering, liberating, delivering experience for him. In your article on “Laboring” you say that at a certain point introspection can become counterproductive when seeking to establish whether we are, in fact, in the faith. Is it possible that some of the difficulties people have may be due to not experiencing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (as distinct from the indwelling or sealing that I understand occurs upon true conversion)? Or, put another way, assuming the experience related in Acts 2 is one that is not extinct, but valid for today, is part of the benefit of this experience a deliverance from certain “strongholds” in our lives — i.e., would it help us overcome areas where we just plain feel helpless?

I‘ve never heard it called that, but yes, I would be a ‘continuationist’, not a cessationist. Regardless of how much we see or think we see that is bogus or contrived in the church world around us, from the standpoint of where prophecy shows that God is taking the church in its last perfection through persecution and confrontation with Antichrist, I can’t see how, even logically and quite apart from experience to the contrary, one could be cessationist without also being a preterist. Of course, this is most often the case. Even John McArthur, who is a futurist, can only sustain his position because he is pre-tribulational in his eschatology. By this, he can make a line of demarcation between the present dispensation and the future tribulation. Only in this way can he be a cessationist, since it clear to any literal reading of prophecy that there is great power to do mighty works by those whom Daniel calls, the ‘maskilim’ (persons of insight and understanding; Dan 11:32-35; 12:3, 10). Then there are the two witnesses, not to speak of the signs and miracles performed by the the false prophets of that time. All’s to say, a post-tribulational premillennial eschatology leaves no logical room for cessationism, theologically speaking.

As time permits, I will be happy to speak with your further concerning the evidence from the scripture that there is a crucial distinction between the receiving of the Spirit in initial regeneration and the baptism or ‘coming upon’ of the Spirit to some that are already spiritually alive. That would be most helpful indeed.

Circumstance forces me to make this shorter than I would like, but I am looking to the Lord to help me say something that would help you in your quest for simplicity and freedom in Christ. First, I will keep you in mind if something should occur to me that I could point you to. In the meantime, let me say that I think our greatest need is know God’s faithfulness in our personal experience of His love.

Our one great enemy is confidence in the flesh. When this is broken, to whatever degree it is broken, and we are broken, we are able to be free from the divided and mixed trust that robs us of His face and sense of His favor. All will be a muddle in our lives to the degree we are foggy and unresolved concerning the simplicity and power of the gospel, as a finished work, and our eternity as sure and safe. I notice that Peter says things begin to break down and we cannot see far off when we “forget that we were purged from our old sins.” It is that forgetting, and failure to reckon with the reckoning that Paul enjoins upon us, that we get into trouble.

In another place, Peter says that those who suffer in the flesh show that they have ceased from sin. I don’t think he’s talking just about some ultimate suffering in a time of persecution. I think he’s pointing to a principle. Believers have a right to be edified and confirmed when they choose the suffering that is always to some degree present when the flesh is being denied. Then there is the fear of God. Do we tremble at His Word? Our discipleship begins with the call to take up the cross and bear it daily, to set ourselves apart to God in all the purposes of our heart. If we indulge the flesh, knowingly and willingly, if we “make provision for the flesh,” we are literally asking to be filled with doubts and fears, and the pettiness of resentment, etc. We are literally inviting access of the powers to persecute our consciences, which are of greatest price. We are essentially agreeing to be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

On the other hand, the victory never comes by a sin focus, but by a steadfast gaze, by the help of His Spirit, on the glory of His face. If we think our standing with God depends on our performance, there will be no power to fight the good fight. Our walk is only as good as the ground under our feet is solid. Blessed assurance is the crown by which alone we can walk without coming under the condemnation and defeat that robs our power to walk in a holiness that depends on the joy that comes in knowing the certainty of our end, because we are dead and our life is hid in God.

Without that helmet fitted down securely, the walk is wobbly at best. To have any success on the misguided principal of a performance based relationship is itself a judgment of divine grief, even provocation, since it is an insult to grace, as it can only minister pride when successful and despair when it is unsuccessful. I like to say that every false gospel is in the first place a matter of putting the horse before the cart. The only walk that counts is one that is on sure footing of an original regeneration that had nothing of man in it. Our continuance, though it has everything of the new man, has nothing of the old man in it either. I always get back to the fact that even Jesus disclaimed the works as his own. So we are never setting light by works, only works of the flesh, since the true works of the Spirit are not, in that sense, our own but issue out of a Spirit born faith that works best when it is most at rest.

To know His heart and mind, His secrets, and the glory of His wisdom, not only as it pertains to us personally, but as it pertains to the glory of His eternal purpose in history. To see Him high and lifted up and to count it the greatest thing just to know the certainty of our destiny is to actually be like Him, that is the one thing worthy of our uttermost pursuit. Since we will be like Him in that day when we will see Him as He is, then that’s the rule for our present change as well. It is to see Him as He is. It is that seeing that transforms, and all of life’s ups and downs, in and outs, joys and afflictions, are geared toward that seeing. That is the light that brightens ever more to the perfect day. As we see, so we are. As we are, so we live. That seeing doesn’t come by anything else than His Spirit’s free and sovereign prerogative to reveal and illuminate whom He will, as He will. This comes to weakness only, to desperation that counts the alternative to such true seeing an unthinkable option.

When one asked a certain old saint what he thought the church’s greatest need, he answered, “the church’s greatest need is to feel its great need of God.” How deeply do we feel that need? To not feel that need intensely, and to not count that pearl of His presence worthy of the most costly exchange, it is a statement that we are full of our selves, and that more than we know or suspect, we are yet full of confidence in the flesh, trusting more in ourselves than in the God who raises the dead. An unmixed undivided dependency on God for all things, that should be our constant prayer, since the crown of true maturity is trust, simple, undivided trust. This is what I covet for us both.

Spurgeon’s testimony of personal salvation reviews the time when an interim preacher directed a word straight to him, something to the effect that the young man would remain miserable until he looked. The preacher exclaimed, looking straight at Spurgeon in the back of the church, having just stepped in to escape the rain, “look unto Me, says the Lord! There’s life in a look. Indeed, there is, but that kind of seeing is a sovereign gift of grace that changes everything in an instant. I hope some thought here will be a catalyst for further light and help to you. His grace overtake you.

In His precious service, Reggie Kelly

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What follows began as an email that turned into an essay, long to read but critical to know.

My trip to the south was put on hold, but I will be going through Vermont, upstate NY and on up into Ontario for some stops. I would especially appreciate your prayer for those days that begin the 21st of this month. I am looking to the Lord for some things to be brought forth that have been long in waiting. It has to do with a revelation I received as a young man, and I believe that it’s the Lord’s timing.

Glad you’ve enjoyed and benefited from your use of Watson’s “Prophetic Interpretations’. He labors the point concerning the literal / actual time of Christ’s three days in the tomb primarily to vindicate his literal approach to prophetic interpretation, proving that a day means a literal day. The whole exercise is aimed to correct the spiritualizing method that promotes the ruinous ‘year day theory’, which makes each day in Daniel and Revelation to count for a year. It is the method that has done the most to undermine and discredit the study of prophecy. It has been responsible for producing one failed date after another. But its greatest mischief has been its tendency to divert the literal application of prophecy away from Israel. Furthermore, the church is robbed of the very means that God has ordained to prepare the godly remnant for the last witness to Israel to and the nations. That is why I thought the most important aspect of Watson’s work is his interpretation of the key importance of the abomination of desolation.

These things are so critical and timely for us now. Watson rightly sees the abomination as the central and pivotal event on which all else turns. It is a decisive key to the church’s readiness for the last battle, even as Jesus directs His disciples to Daniel’s reference to the abomination, with the instruction, “let the reader understand” (Mt 24:15). Furthermore, a true interpretation of Daniel establishes a clear view of the glory of God in history. It is this grand overview of the mystery of God that so moved Paul to such exalted praise and worship (Ro 11:33-36). The prophetic vision is not only for the functional purpose of preparing the church for its final test, it is the divinely chosen context wherein God has set the revelation of His glory for the faith and worship of His people (at all times and under all circumstances).

We should not be afraid of the ‘set times’ of God, since the absolute sovereignty of God over all things is the only bed-rock of certainty. Nor should we imagine that the predetermined fulfillment of ‘the scriptures of the prophets’ (Mt 26:56; Dan 11:36) is in any way detached from the place and role of prevailing prayer. We may be sure that nothing of all that God has determined will be accomplished apart from the treasury of prayer. There is no disjunction; the end will not come apart from the ‘filling up’ of the full measure of the collective prayers and holy groanings of the saints (Lk 11:2; Rev 8:4-5), and this brings me to something that has been on my heart of late.

I believe that an accurate understanding of Daniel’s prophetic vision is critical to the church’s attainment of a corporate ‘heave’ in the Spirit that will be used of God in Michael’s eviction of Satan, which permits the final revelation of the mystery of iniquity. We need to understand what this mystery is and why the age cannot end until it is revealed in the Man of Sin. Furthermore, it is crucial that the church comes to an awareness of its own part in a travail that terminates in Michael’s heavenly victory.

Through the discernable fulfillment of a definitely foretold sequence of preliminary events, the believing remnant will be brought to a place of corporate travail and utterness towards God. In analogy to the way that Jesus said that Peter would be taken by another where he would not have gone, the church will also follow the Lamb into a final obedience unto death. This obedience will not come with dread or uncertainty, but through a love that has cast out fear; it will be greeted with ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory’. Furthermore, all that prophecy makes clear concerning the church’s future is tremendously instructive for the present. I am referring particularly to the role of the church as corporate intercessor in Michael’s pre-tribulational triumph over Satan. I do not believe that Satan’s eviction and casting down to the earth by the agency of Michael will happen apart from the prevailing prayer of the church that knows itself with definite certainty to be at the threshold of the final conflict. [Here are some of the passages that relate to Israel’s delusive peace pact that starts the 3 and 1/2 year countdown to the abomination: Isa 28:15-18; Ezek 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 8:10-14, esp. Dan 8:25; 9:27; 11:23-30; 1Thes 5:3.]

The great transition point in both heaven and earth is initiated by Michael’s eviction of Satan. This event in heaven begins the final unequaled tribulation of the last 3 1/2 years. Note that the same event that meets with such triumphant jubilation in heaven also announces the time of unequaled woe for the earth, as the earth’s greatest sorrow coincides with heaven’s greatest victory since the resurrection and ascension of Christ. In fact, as the imagery of Revelation shows, this transitional point is figuratively represented in analogy with the birth and ascension of Christ. Without question, Satan’s eviction from heaven starts the final persecution of Israel and the church as the woman’s seed (Dan 12:1 with Rev 12:7-17).

It is true that the pattern represented in the apocalyptic imagery of Revelation, has had a measure of fulfillment throughout the entire inter-advent period. But this last 3 and 1/2 years is not merely symbolic of a short time, but is set off by distinct prophetic events that have never yet been fulfilled in literal detail. Therefore, since not one jot or tittle can pass without fulfillment, it is better to see the final tribulation as representing the intense conclusion and fullness of those underlying principles that have generally characterized the conflict of the ages. Here all things come to a head. The church has always known tribulation, suffering, and trial, but this is “the tribulation, the great one” (Rev 7:14 as literally translated from the Greek double article). This is the tribulation without equal or parallel (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21), and so far from the church being absent, it will be the church’s ‘finest hour’ (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3; Rev 12:10).

The church will be deeply prepared by the events leading up to the abomination. This will bring the godly remnant to a ‘Daniel-like’ urgency of travail and prevailing prayer. Such depths of intercession and purification will come in direct relation to the ‘set times’ of prophetic fulfillment, and conversely, the ‘set times’ are inextricably related to the prayers of the saints. So we could say that “when the church will ‘travail’, Michael will ‘prevail’.

Just as Michael came to Daniel’s aid by the removal of the opposing ‘prince of Persia’, the intercessory church, which will be moved to a great urgency by the manifest fulfillment of prophecy, will also receive help from Michael. This mighty break through of kingdom power comes with the final removal of the ‘one that hinders (compare 2Thes 2:7 with Rev 12:10). It is critical that we distinguish between the time that Satan is bound and the time that he is cast down. He is bound at the start of the millennium. He is cast down at the start of the tribulation, 3 and 1/2 years before the Lord’s return. Daniel shows that Michael stands up at the beginning of the tribulation (Dan 12:1), and Revelation shows that when Michael stands up, Satan is cast down to begin the “short time” of unequaled tribulation (Rev 12:7-17). We need to see the relationship of this heavenly transition to the events on earth that start the tribulation in order to understand its affect on Israel and the church.

Our interpretation will depend on whether we can justify making a connection between two key texts, namely, 2Thess 2:3-8 and Rev 12:7-17. We see in 2Thes 2:3-8 that the Day of the Lord awaits a particular event, namely, the revelation of the ‘mystery of iniquity’ in the Man of Sin (2:6), but this awaits the removal of the one that holds back or hinders (2:7). In Rev 12:10, we see that the kingdom cannot come so long as Satan retains his illicit residence in heaven. I believe the evidence will show that the restrainer that holds back the revealing of the mystery of iniquity is Satan. In analogy to Michael’s removal of the opposing Prince of Persia in Dan 10:13, Satan must also be forcibly dislodged from his place in heaven before the kingdom can come with Antichrist’s destruction at the post-tribulational Day of the Lord (2Thes 2:8; Rev 16:14-16; 19:17-21; Dan 7:11; Ezek 39:4-22).

A comparison of Dan 12:1 with Rev 12:7-12 will show that the same time is in view in both passages. Dan 11:36 with 2Thess 2:4 shows that same individual is in view, and Dan 8:11; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11 with Mt 24:15, 21 shows the relationship of all to the time of the abomination. Evidently the heavenly event of Satan’s expulsion is the catalyst for the earthly event of the abomination, since both are depicted as starting the tribulation. But of particular concern for the church is the observance that Michael is divinely empowered to evict Satan in response to the woman’s travail. We are interested to understand why the tribulation cannot begin until this happens and what kind of participatory role the church is destined to have in the travail that precedes the tribulation, a travail that appears to intensify as the time of birth (corporate birth?) draws near.

The metaphor of the woman’s travail to bring forth the seed reaches back to Gen 3:15. Isaiah employs the same language to describe a mysterious ‘before and after’ of Zion’s travail (Isa 66:7-8; see also Mic 5:3). The gospels reveal the fulfillment of the mystery of Gen 3:15 in Christ, the personal seed of the woman. [Significantly, Messiah’s conquest of sin and Satan proceeds according to the pattern of Israel’s history, from miraculous conception (Isaac), and escape (Moses), through rejection by His brethren (Joseph), through death by crucifixion (the exile, particularly ‘Jacob’s trouble), to resurrection, ascension, and return (after ‘two days’ the remnant of His brethren return with the millennial restoration and exaltation of Israel; Ezek 37:1-28; Hos 5:15 – 6:2; Mic 5:3; Mt 23:39).] However, the imagery doesn’t terminate on the personal seed, but extends to the corporate seed of the woman, the godly remnant, the ‘holy seed’, and ‘elect lady’.

According to Revelation 12:1-17, Christ’s return is contingent on a victory in the heavens that accomplishes a comparable pattern of birth and ascent in the experience of the corporate seed of the woman. This is often enough recognized by commentators, but what is too little recognized is the definite time of fulfillment. This great transition in the history of the kingdom of God happens at the mid-point of Daniel’s seventieth week (Dan 9:27), which marks the beginning of the last 3 1?2 years of the unequaled tribulation.

It is important to see that the tribulation coincides with the ‘short time’ of Satan’s wrath. According to Rev 12:10 the kingdom cannot come until after Satan has been cast down from heaven by Michael. This begins the final time of Satan’s wrath and woe for the earth (Rev 12:12). The earthly counterpart to this event in heaven is the self-exaltation of the Antichrist who enters the inner sanctuary of the temple of God at Jerusalem where he places the abomination of desolation (evidently an idol image of himself) in the holy place. Clearly, the great tribulation starts with this event (compare Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:11; Mt 24:15-16, 21; 2Thes 2:4; Rev 11:2; 13:5).

We need to see the relationship between Michael’s forced eviction of Satan to the revelation of the mystery of iniquity as significantly concurrent with the time of the abomination. The revelation of the mystery of iniquity in the final Man of Sin means something much more than the recognition of his identity. This will be apparent well before he is revealed as the Man of Sin through a chronological order of events that lead up to the abomination (Dan 11:23-30). Though the Antichrist can be certainly identified by what is written of his pre-tribulational activities, this is not what is meant by the ‘revelation’ of the Man of Sin. Until the restrainer is removed, he is only ‘an’ antichrist, but his revelation as ‘the’ Man of Sin awaits a transitional miracle that happens in conjunction with Satan’s expulsion and the beginning of the tribulation (Rev 12:12-14).

The revelation of the mystery of iniquity (2Thes 2:7-8) in the final Man of Sin has to do with the point at which Satan takes up a full and unlimited residence in the revived body of the beast that suffered the mortal wound (Rev 13:3, 12). The full incarnation of the Serpent’s seed happens in conjunction with the resurrection of the mortally wounded beast. This happens in conjunction with the time as the result of Michael’s expulsion of Satan. With the miracle of the healing of the mortal wound, the beast is described as ascending out the abyss (Rev 11:7; 17:8) to continue a short space (Rev 17:10). The ‘short space’ of the last beast is identical to the ‘short time’ of Satan’s wrath (Rev 12:12). It is 42 month career of the Antichrist (Dan 7:11, 21, 25; Rev 12:12-14; 13:5) that begins in the middle of Daniel’s 70th week with the abomination (compare Mt 24:15, 21; 2Thes 2:3-4; Dan 9:27; 11:31-36; 12:1, 11).

With the astonishing revivification of the mortally wounded beast, the world of unredeemed humanity is made to “wonder … when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is” (Rev 17:8). This last beast, “who is of the seven,” appears to become the composite fullness of what all the former beasts revealed only in part (Rev 13:2), as the one “whose coming is after the working of Satan with ALL power and signs and lying wonders.” It will be the ultimate deception.

If this mystery is fulfilled in a man (and not in the revival of the Roman empire as some commentators assume), then it follows that the beast returns from the abyss at precisely the same time that Satan is being cast down to earth by Michael. So the heavenly event of Satan’s eviction is answered by a demonic resurrection that sets in motion the events of the tribulation. In the hubris of presumed invincibility, the resuscitated Antichrist proceeds at once to the temple of God in Jerusalem to place the abomination that starts the tribulation.

Paradoxically, all of heaven rejoices with the removal of Satan, even though it means the beginning of the earth’s greatest time of woe (Mt 24:21; Rev 12:12). But for the remnant that have passed through a time of deepest travail in view of what is at hand, the prospect of suffering cannot hurt the oil and wine of their joy, as the casting down of the Accuser will mean that a barrier of hindrance has been removed that permits a mighty break through of corporate power and fullness not seen since Pentecost (Rev 12:10-11). When Jesus said that “some standing here shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom come with power” (Mk 9:1), it is evident that He was not speaking of the kingdom that comes at the end of the times of the gentiles, but his reference was to a revelatory kind of seeing, such as the power that was revealed at Pentecost. This is the kind of apocalyptic in-breaking that the church can expect on the eve of the tribulation.

The wording of Rev 12:10 makes it evident that the power of the kingdom comes in some sense immediately upon Michael’s victory over Satan, suggesting something more immediate than the millennial reign that does not come until the end of the tribulation (Mt 24:29-31; 2Thes 2:8). This is evident by noting the relationship between the words ‘now’ and ‘because’. “Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ, because he who accuses our brethren has been thrown down once for all, he who accuses the before our God and night” (Wuest’s translation of NT).

Since it is clear that the Accuser is cast down in advance of the tribulation, it follows the “strength and power of Christ” spoken of in the above passage comes at the mid-point of the last week, and not only at the tribulation’s end. This would coincide with the time in Daniel when “the people that know their God shall be strong doing exploits” (11:32). So we can reasonably consider that the strength and power of Christ mentioned in this passage does not wait until the Lord’s post-tribulational return, but comes with power on the godly remnant at the middle of the week when the Accuser is cast down. This powerful apocalyptic break-through of revelation power and strength follows the pattern of Daniel’s travail and the opening of heaven over him to receive the decisive unveiling of the future of the kingdom. It is the same here.

Such transitional break-through of revelation and kingdom power may be likened to a birthing, in this instance a corporate birth, the birth of the man child in figurative analogy to the birth of Christ. The subsequent ascension of the man child speaks of an irreversible victory that secures for the seed a place ‘far above all principality and power’. For the believer, this ascent speaks of the victory of the finished work of Christ fully appropriated by an overcoming faith that is born of God (1Jn 5:4). It is the ‘full assurance of faith’ that secures the conscience of the believer out of Accuser’s reach in advance of the final test. This requires a clear apprehension and appropriation of the gospel. So with the casting down of the Accuser, the kingdom of God comes with power on the remnant that has travailed to the full inward formation of Christ, thus receiving the grace that will overcome and not fail in the last martyr witness of the church.

The tribulation church is simply the end-most expression of the apostolic church of the apocalyptic secret, which, I am careful to point out, is nothing other than the Christian gospel revealed at Pentecost, only now in final stages of tribulation fulfillment. The church of the last tribulation is not discouraged by what is coming on the world. They are in union with the exultation of heaven’s hallelujahs, because at this point, the millennial reign of Christ is just 3 ½ years away. The one that hinders has now been removed, thus setting in motion the final tribulation which brings the return of Christ (Mt 24:29-31). The heavenly event that is the catalyst for the abomination at Jerusalem will mark the time with utmost certainty. It will be clear to those of understanding that the Lord’s return is now just 3 ½ years away. Never has the time been so certainly known. We can scarce imagine the impact that these events, in the full light of revelation, will have on the godly remnant, and of the part that such prophetic clarity and decisiveness will play in the church’s final witness to Israel.

Certainly this imagery is rich with implication and application for the church of all time, but its specific timing must also not be missed for the church of the last time. What will this mean for the saints on earth during this time? The removal of Satan from heaven permits the mystery of iniquity to be revealed in the Man of Sin so that Christ can return (2Thes 2:3-8). We need to see the order. Only then, with the removal of the one that hinders, can the last tribulation come and so finish the mystery of God with Christ’s post-tribulational return (compare Rev 10:7; 11:15; with Mt 24:29-31; 1Cor 15:52; Isa 27:13).

The mystery of iniquity is nothing less than the full and unrestrained revelation of Satan in the flesh. It is the eschatological goal of the original enmity that was ‘put’ between the two seeds (Gen 3:15), and headed up in the two princes of Dan 9:25-26, both of whom fulfill a mystery of incarnation at their appointed times (2Thes 2:6). Thus we see that the mystery of iniquity (2Thes 2:7) and the mystery of godliness (1Tim 3:16) constitute a kind of dualism that exists side by side in the comprehensive ‘mystery of God’ (Rev 10:7), which is built around the mystery of Christ’s twofold appearing, all foretold in a mystery in Daniel’s famed seventy week prophecy.

The first century revelation of Messiah’s twofold advent has brought to glorious light the mystery of the two comings that was concealed in Daniel’s prophecy. According to the mystery of the atonement, the messianic Prince is ‘cut off’ (Dan 9:26 with Isa 53:8) at the end of Daniel’s 69th week. The 70th week is divided at the mid-point when the prince that exalts himself places the abomination (compare Dan 8:11-12; 9:27; 11:31-36; 12:11; Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:4). It is the last half of Daniel’s last week that will see the finishing of Israel’s transgression and the revelation of the mystery of iniquity in the Man of Sin (‘the prince that shall come’), “whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming” (2Thes 2:8 with Isa 31:8; Dan 7:11; 8:25).

So the mysterious ‘gap’ that exists between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel comprehends both comings of Christ and the mystery of the incarnations of the two seeds in the two princes. Dan 9:24-27 is at the heart of the Old Testament mystery of Christ (Ro 16:25-26; Eph 6:19; 1Pet 1:11). Paul continually affirmed that his teaching and preaching was according to the revelation of this mystery that is to be known to the nations “by the prophetic writings’ (Acts 26:22 with Ro 16:26). It would be well if our preaching and teaching would be more consciously ‘according to the revelation of the mystery” that was revealed to the first century apostles and prophets, because the revelation of the mystery that brings all the pieces together into a revelation of perfect redemptive wisdom is the supreme apologetic for the vindication of the God of Israel (Rev 19:10b).

In view of the above, it should be very clear that the revelation of the ‘Man of Sin’ on earth (I think by way of spectacular revivification from the mortal wound) coincides with the time Michael casts down Satan to the earth. This heavenly event is soon answered in the abomination in the holy place at Jerusalem, which brings the final desolations of Jerusalem and the final woes on the earth. But all of this assumes that the true church, or at least a remnant of the true church has been brought to something transitional and transfiguring through the foregoing events leading up to this climactic point. How is this accomplished? We need to see that the events of the last 3 1?2 years are preceded by the events of the first 3 1?2 years. These events are likewise described with great detail and specificity (Dan 11:23-30) so that will be recognized by at least a sizeable remnant of the true church of God (Dan 11:33).

These events and the urgency that they signify will have a ‘straightening’ affect on the church. The sure and certain approach of the final tribulation will crowd the church to a place of deepest intercessory travail. Through a process of crisis urgency and transforming revelation, the church will be increasingly freed of the hindering power of self-reliance (2Cor 1:9), since this is what gives Satan power to accuse the saints. Where there is no confidence in the flesh, his power to accuse is canceled. As Israel is transformed only after they have been brought to an end of their power (compare Deut 32:36 with Dan 12:7), so must the church pass through a time of profound self-emptying before it can be raised (or birthed) to the fullness of kingdom love and power.

The veil that holds back the in-breaking of apocalyptic revelation is proportionate to the strength of the flesh. This is a profoundly important principle. This is why it is not until Israel’s power has been broken that “all these things shall be accomplished.” So is it any different with the church? What is the church but a people that have learned that grace only appears when one has come to an end of their own power? So the church that can overcome in the final test is a church that has learned that kingdom strength comes only at the end of our own strength. This is the basis by which we may confidently know that the church will be perfected in love in time for its final witness.

The Accuser will be cast down at that time by the same means that his power is broken now, namely, by the revelation of the gospel. But we must understand that there are degrees of apprehension of revealed truth, and we know that the greater the death to our own sufficiency will be the greater resurrection in the revelation of grace and glory, as the light shines brighter to the ‘perfect day’. This is why that even while the Antichrist is ‘wearing out’ the saints of the most high (Dan 7:25; Rev 13:7), they shall mount up with wings and overcome more and more as they are purged, purified, tested, and made white “even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed” (Dan 11:35; 12:10).

The power of Satan to accuse is broken when human self-sufficiency is broken. Israel’s captivity ends “when He sees that their power is gone” (Deut 32:36). So even before Israel has been brought to an end of their power by the judgments of Jacob’s trouble, the true remnant will also have come to an end of their power, not at first by great tribulation, but by great travail in response to the divine quickening of transforming revelation. So when our strength has given way to His, not only will the Accuser be ‘cast down’, but fear will be ‘cast out’, as love is made perfect through a deeper and clearer apprehension of the glorious gospel of Christ. This is why the next verse says, “and they loved not their lives unto the death!” We must not miss the conjunction between the end of Satan’s access to the consciences of the brethren to accuse, and the confidence that leads to the fearless obedience and selfless sacrifice that follows his removal by Michael (Rev 12:10-11 with Dan 11:32).

Certainly, these are principles that are inherent in the revelation of the gospel for all time, but there is clearly an eschatological maturity of love and gospel confidence that comes in greater fullness and power when Michael engages on behalf of Israel and the church at the threshold of the last 3 1?2 years. Paul implies that the church composed predominately of gentiles attains a ‘fullness’ before the time that Israel attains its own fullness (contrast Ro 11:12 with verse 25). It is my view that this ‘fullness of the gentiles’ signifies something more than mere numerical fullness, but a fullness of stature in Christ (Eph 4:13).

It is imperative that the church comes to see its indispensable role as a kind of ‘corporate Daniel’ in the great transition that ends the age. I believe the church will be brought to this by the powerful constraints and inducements of prophetic fulfillment leading up to this transitional point on the eve of the great tribulation. For the Daniel remnant, the fulfillment of the prophetic word will be in clearest certainty, and this will work a powerful constraint of urgency in those that have understanding (Dan 11:33; 12:3, 10).

The strategic relationship that exists between the preliminary events leading up to the abomination and the role of the church in Michael’s triumph over Satan is absent from most of the church’s consciousness. From the time that the league is made with the Antichrist (Dan 11:23), which Isaiah calls a ‘covenant with death and hell’ (28:15, 18), every day that passes will bring nearer the now certain imminence of the great tribulation.

This will press upon the believing church a great urgency to lay hold of Christ’s strength in view of what is known to be at hand. Just as Daniel was aware that the ‘set time’ of Jeremiah’s seventy years had nearly expired when he ‘set his heart to understand’, so will the true remnant of the church recognize that the last crisis is at hand, and like Daniel, will enter a time of corporate urgency of prayer and spiritual preparation for the final test. The church’s participation in the travail of the heavenly Zion will accomplish a powerful break-through of corporate fullness and perfection of faith and love unto final sacrifice (compare Dan 11:32-33 with Rev 12:10-11). The figurative imagery of Rev 12 compares the church’s victory over Satan to the birth and ascension of the woman’s seed.

Notice in Rev 12:10 that the word ‘now’ marks a critical point of transition. The jubilant declaration that “now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ,” is not tied to Christ’s return at the end of the tribulation, but to the casting down of Satan at its start. This pre-tribulational clearing of the heavens opens the way for the revelation of the man of sin, and the start of the last tribulation which must precede the Day of the Lord (2Thes 2:3-4).

According to Dan 12:1 the unequaled tribulation begins when Michael ‘stands up’. It is the same in Revelation (12:7, 12). That a past event cannot be in view is shown by the fact that the unequaled tribulation ends with Israel’s restoration and the resurrection of the dead (Dan 12:1-2). Furthermore, Rev 12:7-17 shows that the final tribulation begins with Satan’s forced removal; it is evident that he is still in some sense lodged in heaven until that time. This is the inviolable order. Only with Satan’s removal by Michael can the Day of the Lord come (2Thes 2:3-4).

At first hearing, it may seem incredible that Satan would not be doing all in his power to bring forth his man. It is just the opposite! It is well to remember what the revelation of the mystery of iniquity will mean for Satan. It will mean that his time is short (Rev 12:12). Contrary to popular opinion, Satan is in no hurry to bring forth his man, because Satan’s final exposure in the revelation of “that Wicked” (2Thes 2:8) signals the end of his kingdom (Rev 20:2). This is not to say that Satan is holding back evil. On the contrary, he is ‘the one that hinders’ (2Thes 2:7). He hinders the saints by accusing them before God day and night. He hindered Paul (Ro 1:13; 1Thes 2:18). One of his chief princes hindered the messenger of revelation sent in answer to Daniel’s prayer (10:13). He hinders the coming in of the kingdom of God (Rev 12:7-10). It is not that Satan is holding back Satan, but rather the revelation and full exposure of Satan in the flesh, which signals the end of his tenure and heaven and seals his doom. Therefore, if this is what is holding back the Day of the Lord, then it follows that this is an event that Satan is devoted to resist with all his might.

Satan yet resides in the heavenly sphere where he occupies a position of rule among the fallen principalities and powers. He continually accuses the consciences of the brethren and resists the time that he will be forced down to earth, which will mean his final exposure and defeat. The tribulation starts when Satan is no longer able to hold back the revelation of the mystery (2Thes 2:7), which holds back the Day of the Lord (2:3, 6). When the woman’s travail is complete, Michael prevails to dislodge Satan from the place of obscurity and hindrance. His eviction by Michael forces the revelation / exposure of the mystery of iniquity in the Man of Sin which starts the tribulation with his appearance in the holy place at Jerusalem (Dan 11:31-36; 12:11; Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:4). With the removal of the one that hinders, the mystery is revealed that is holding back the day of the Lord (2Thes 2:3-8). The Day of the Lord is the point of Antichrist’s destruction at Christ’s glorious appearing and kingdom (Mt 24:29; 2Thes 2:8). The evidence is too great to ignore. The correlation of events is clear. No other explanation so well accounts for the manifest conjunction of events. This is light for the remnant of whom it will be required to face the final test. It is cause to enter into a unity of corporate prayer for the decisive events that perfect the church and conclude the age.

Notice that Michael’s expulsion of Satan follows the pattern established in the book of Daniel. Certainly this is an instructive paradigm for prayer and spiritual warfare for all time, but the reference is clearly to a specific event that starts the final great tribulation (Dan 12:1; Rev 12:7, 12). Just as Michael was sent in answer to Daniel’s prayer to remove the hindering Prince of Persia, the church can rely on the same gracious divine intervention when it too, will be brought to a place of ultimate corporate travail and prevailing prayer.

The end time church will know what it means to ‘stand in the gap’ (Dan 9:2-21; Ezek 22:30) in priestly intercession for Israel in a proxy of travail, as when Paul said, “For whom I travail in birth until Christ is formed in you” (Gal 4:19). The church and Israel are destined to meet in the wilderness. Both will be in flight from a common enemy. By this time, the true church will know what is coming, but Israel together with most of Christendom will not. “For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape” (1Thes 5:3). The plumb-line of the prophetic scriptures will constitute a widening watershed of division that will ultimately expose the church of the great apostasy (foolish virgins?).

So we see that apocalyptic vision of Daniel not only predicts the final defeat of Satan, but becomes the means by which it is accomplished. By revelation and travail the church is brought to its eschatological fullness in order that Israel’s predestined fullness can follow in due course. This helps to explain why the book of Daniel has been the favorite object of attack by the so-called ‘higher criticism’ of academic scholarship. The late Sir Robert Anderson and the contemporary Josh McDowell have both written books with the title “Daniel in the Critics Den.” All of this is to say that unless one is a complete naturalist, it should be evident that Satan is most particularly threatened by the revelation of Daniel.

With the possible exception of Gen 1-11, the only other portion of scripture that has been the special target of the ‘destructive criticism’ of modern scholarship is the Lord’s Olivet prophecy (Mt 24, Mk 13, Lk 21). Significantly, Jesus’ prophetic discourse is based chiefly on Daniel, as He directs His listeners to Daniel with the instruction “whoever reads, let him ‘understand'” (Mt 24:15). [Note that the word ‘understand’ appears frequently throughout Daniel. The Hebrew is “Maskilim” and refers to those that have insight, particularly as it pertains to Daniel’s revelation.] I personally believe that the one that came to reveal to Daniel what “shall befall your people in the latter days” according to “that which is noted in the scripture of truth” is the same one that stood with His disciples on Mt. Olivet when He gave His church the key of Daniel.

May God awaken us to emulate Daniel and take up his burden for the covenant and the end of exile for both church and Israel. He was a man of ‘an excellent spirit’, full of wisdom and prophetic understanding, a true priestly intercessor in perfect identification and brokenness for his people’s tragic condition. He embodied the wisdom of the cross as a true witness to the God of Israel in the midst of the world’s power structures.

Finally, it is important that we mark the inseparable relationship that exists between intercessory prayer, prophetic revelation, and the set times of God in the church’s final victory over Satan. These are indispensable factors and dynamics that work towards the eviction of Satan in order that the kingdom can come in the only way that it was ordained to come, i.e., “through much tribulation” (Acts 14:22). So whether the church realizes it or not, to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” is a costly prayer indeed.

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie

P.S. I’d like to encourage that the friends that plan to attend our table talks in Vermont, NY, and North Bay spend some time in portions of scripture that deal especially with the Antichrist and the tribulation. I would suggest reading through Daniel as paradigmatic of the church of the last days. Also Rev chapters 11-13, 16-17, Mt 24 and 2Thes 2, Isa 24-28; Ezek 38-39; Zech 12-14 especially. Be on the look out for corroborating passages throughout the OT in general, where these themes are particularly referenced. Those scriptures will also be helpful to have on hand, since the apocalyptic portions are basically a summing up of the great themes of covenant promise and judgment that appear all throughout the OT, particularly in the prophets.

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Nevertheless, Israel in its apostasy also continues to be called Israel, and, as a corporate entity (not every individual, of course) remains the object of both special discipline and special election (the “double for the double;” compare Isa 40:2; 61:7 with Jer 16:18; 17:18; Zech 9:12). Israel is divinely regarded as a corporate national son of special election, and though presently prodigal, is promised ultimate return and blessing, since only then will the covenant oath be publicly and openly vindicated in the sight of all the nations. He has bound up His very Name and Word with the self-assigned ‘mission impossible’ of recovering this very people to covenant favor. “This is My covenant with THEM …”

Israel in this sense is the people of the long exile that has been condemned by its covenant failure and rejection of Messiah to endure an age long blindness and hardening of special suffering and exile among the nations. However, this is never forever, but only “until …” (Ps 110:1-3; Isa 26:20; 32:15; 62:1, 7; Jer 23:20; Jer 30:24; Hos 5:15 thru Hos 6:1-2; Mic 5:3-4; Eze 21:27; Dan 7:9, 11, 22, 25; 9:27; 11:36; 12:9, 13; Zeph 3:8; Mt 23:39; Lk 21:24; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:25; 2Thes 2:7; Rev 6:11). That “until” is invariably the great day of the Lord that ends a final tribulation of unparalleled severity. Israel, as a nation, is never promised deliverance until that time. After that, they are preserved forever as an ALL righteous nation in the Land free and eternally secure from further threat of exile or judgment (Isa 4:3; 45:17, 25; 54:13; 59:21; 60:21; Jer 31:34; 32:40; Eze 39:22, 28-29; Zeph 3:13 etc.) This is what Paul had in mind when he spoke about the time when “ALL Israel would be saved” (Ro 11:26). The time is always the day of the Lord when, after a time of unequaled trouble, a deeply beleaguered surviving remnant, brought to an end of their power (Deut 32:36; Dan 12:7) “will look upon Me whom they pierced …,” and go apart to mourn and weep (compare Zech 12:10: Mt 23:39; 24:30; Rev 1:7). It will be as Paul was arrested on the road to Damascus, and when Joseph revealed himself to his estranged brethren.

These are those whom Paul calls the “natural branches” (Ro 11:16-19, 21, 24). “In that day,” they too will be the “Israel of God,” and true body of Christ on earth, no less than gentiles today who, according to the revelation of the mystery, have been grafted in to the root and fatness of the covenant tree in unexpected advance of the final tribulation and day of the Lord. Though presently blinded, the nation, as a nation of broken off “JEWISH” branches, have an appointment with destiny. The election has never departed from the nation. His love and their election are “irrevocable” (Ro 11:29). The time is clear: It is “when the fullness of the gentiles has come in (Ro 11:25). Then will the Deliverer come out of Zion and turn away ungodliness from Jacob (the natural branches). Jesus spoke of this point in time as the “times of the gentiles,” and the end of Israel’s long captivity and Jerusalem’s subjection to being “trodden down of the gentiles” (compare Lk 21:24 with Rev 11:2). The time of the Deliverer’s return from Zion was a term used in the OT for the great day of the Lord (compare Isa 59:16-21 with 63:4-7). It is the time that Peter refers to in Acts 3:21 as the “restoration of all things …” In 2 Thes 2, Paul will identify the Day of the Lord with the time of the gathering of the saints and the destruction of the Antichrist (“man of sin”).

All throughout the OT, the redemption and deliverance of Israel (the “natural branches”) is placed at the day of the Lord, which is the climax of an unequaled time of trouble (Isa 66:8; Zech 3:9; 12:10; Mic 5:3-4; Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1-2). This is precisely where Jesus puts His return at the end of this trouble (Mt 24:21, 29; Rev 19:19-20), which He, together with Peter, will equate with the Day of the Lord spoken of by all the prophets since the world began (Mt 24:29 with Acts 2:20; 3:21).

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Damnation is self imposed. Salvation happens when the Spirit quickens the dead (Eph 2:1). God is not responsible for the death of the wicked and has no pleasure in it. He does, however, take the highest pleasure in bringing many foreknown sons safely home to glory. I don’t understand it. I don’t have to. It is sufficient that Scripture plainly affirms it. I still find great simplicity in Spurgeon’s helpful truism: “Salvation is all of grace, but damnation is all of sin.” One thing is certain: There is nothing in one that makes him to differ from another that is not altogether the grace of God (1Cor 4:7), else he would have whereof to glory (Ro 4:2).

I agree that if our assurance is based on our obedience as the test of whether we’re among the elect, it can produce uncertainty when we stumble, especially the fruits that give evidence of true salvation seem lacking. But is this only a problem with Calvinists? Wouldn’t most Arminians agree that one lacking the fruits and traits of “things that accompany salvation,” are called upon in scripture to examine themselves, and to take care to make their calling and election sure? (2Cor 13:5; Heb 6:9; 2Pet 1:10)

Many Christian cults claim a new start with forgiveness and hold hope of renewed forgiveness for future sins, but we also see that this is not always proof of true regeneration. Manifestly, not everyone that claims some experience of forgiveness has been born again. Either that, or some would explain that they have lost their salvation, which opens yet another can of worms.

Who will not agree that true regeneration is a straight gate that comparatively few will ever find, while many will say “Lord, Lord” in confidence that their works gave decisive evidence of a regeneration they only presumed to have? In all the works oriented gospels out there, there is great emphasis on grace, but only as it is proven by works of obedience. Grace is made little more than divine enablement to keep the law. This is surely the cart before the horse. It is the Galatian heresy. It is not that true faith does not produce living works; but the cart tends to get put before horse when works are made the evidence of grace. This is affirmed by evangelicals, but also a number of cults would say the same thing. The question is works of what kind? Baptism? Sabbath keeping? No, a person still in the flesh can do many works but none of this is proof of salvation. Rather, when we are fully satisfied with the only sacrifice that can satisfy the holiness of God and the law (Isa 53:11), so that Christ alone is all our righteousness, quite apart from any righteousness of our own, then the joy and sweetness of that glorious assurance cannot but show itself in works of a new and living kind, flowing from a heart of love that has been changed and set free (Jn 7:38).

When works, even works of verification, become the focus rather than Christ’s finished work, then the cart gets put before the horse. It is a deception to make certain works the proof of salvation when only Christ is the proof of any works. Make Christ sure to the heart by faith, and the right kind of works will follow. When the heart is established on the all sufficiency of His righteousness, imputed and sure, works of a new and living kind, the true fruits of the Spirit are guaranteed to become manifest in some real measure (Mt 13:8). Albeit, not without weakness, failure, and the necessity of purging and ongoing chastisement and purification.

This brings us to the question of simple believing without works as the fountainhead of salvation and every blessing. Such believing is more than mental consent, it is a work of God (Jn 6:29). Let us say we make our choice. Let us say we believe and even believe only, putting no trust in our works, not even in any personal virtue such as human sincerity or any such thing. Let us say we are careful not to measure the evidence of our salvation by outward works, but then life goes on and on some more, and the signs of real life never seem to appear, in fact, just the opposite. What then?

Will the scripture support a claim to salvation that is completely devoid of evidence? What of James’s insistence that a living faith will produce living works? What of the Lord’s statement that the seed that takes deep root will certainly and invariably produce some real measure of fruit, whether it be 30, 60, or an hundred fold? What of John’s insistence that those applying for baptism first show fruits / evidence of true repentance, and what of Jesus’s dictum that if one were truly a child of Abraham, he would do the works of Abraham? Certainly these are not the works of the law (within the power of unaided flesh), but living works wrought by the power of the Spirit through faith. The Pharisees were incapable of these kinds of “works” apart from the new birth.

So the question of evidence by which one may take the greater assurance that his experience of divine forgiveness was truly transforming, truly regenerative, and not merely a passing relief from guilt (as claimed by so many), would seem to be the question of evidence. What kind of evidence should count that one is indeed a new creation? Or should evidence have anything to do with it? In view of quite a number of plain scriptures that warn of the absence of evidence, I have trouble when anti-Lordship salvation advocates say no.

The question is not whether one is helpless to know if they are among the elect, but whether one can be sure that they are regenerate. This is not only a Calvinist problem; Arminians also struggle with that question in times of failure and doubt. It is, of course, easier for the Arminian who can always simply be restored, which they prefer to the notion of getting ‘saved again.’ For the Calvinist, the question is even more terrifying. Since he believes that true regeneration is irreversible, a lapse, particularly a recurring lapse that seems incompatible with true salvation, raises the specter of what if I was never really saved in the first place? If not, what will it take to be sure that I am saved? Have I ever really laid hold of Christ, and if I have, how could I have fallen this far?

If I have not yet sufficiently trusted so as to be secure of my eternal destiny, how will I ever know? Must I wait till my works are well in order before I can take comfort that I’m saved? Must I come to a place of faith that is beyond doubt? And so on the questions go. Besides, who will not agree that the scripture is not silent about the marks of true salvation and the marks of its absence? Doesn’t scripture teach that the faith that receives the seal of the Holy Spirit guarantees a new heart that shows itself in new impulses, a love for righteousness and new hatred of sin, the love of the brethren and so on? These realities have tangible evidence of love and good works, do they not? Only such evidence of a heart set free will ever move the unsaved to emulation, but how will we move the unsaved to emulation if we are struggling with the question of assurance ourselves?

Where these fruits of the Spirit are lacking, particularly when they are completely absent, or where “works that deny Him” (Tit 1:16) persist unchecked and undisciplined, is this not due cause to question ones standing in grace? (Heb 12:8) The question is not whether one is elect, but whether one is regenerate, because all who are regenerate are certainly the elect. The Calvinist suffers from the further disadvantage of believing that a mere decision of the will does not always guarantee regeneration. The evidence is against it, as seen all throughout the mixed multitude that makes up most of world Christendom. We have seen untold numbers of professions that show no fruits of repentance at all, let alone lasting change. This brings questions about the true nature of regeneration, as something more rare than many suspect. Even if Edwards and the early New Englanders seem too severe in their guarded care to “look diligently lest anyone fail of the grace of God,” we should sympathize with their effort to raise a standard of rebuke to the scandal of empty and lifeless profession among many that were religious but manifestly lost. What we need to hear is not criticism for their dilemma but a biblical solution.

I believe the only solution to breaking this impasse is to labor to enter into His rest. This “glorious rest” (His rest shall be glorious; Isa 11:10) is the rest of “the full assurance.” It comes as a gift, as there is nothing of works (our own works) in it. It is free and grace. Out of that rest, His life is sure to flow (Jn 7:38) in some real measure as fruits of the Spirit, not only in good works, but most importantly in the inner witness of son-ship as we cry, “Abba Father,” in confidence that we are irreversibly His forever. Otherwise, it seems we’re on the tread mill of always checking to see if we’re safe, but on what basis? What of the gospel that has us now in Christ and now out of Christ with every fall or persistent temptation, endlessly trying to recover the ground of assurance? Is that any better than Calvinism? I think not. Find the true balance here that does NOT leave clear scriptures inadequately explained, and you will have done the body of Christ an enormous service. I’ve seen problems on both sides of the fence, and “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” that is in terms of a truly biblical solution that doesn’t slide off in a direction that leaves too many gaps to be trusted.

The Reformers had a terse saying to resist the tendency towards the perversion of grace they called,’antinomianism’ (the tendency to turn grace into license) It is this: “We are justified by faith alone, but the faith that justifies in never alone?” That is a soundly scriptural statement; but what of the faint of heart who is always anxious to prove whether his works or patterns of behavior show well enough that his faith is true and acceptable to God, i.e., “the faith of God’s elect? It is the vicious cycle of anxiously striving to make sure we’re believing well enough to have the works that show we’ve believed well enough? Is this not also the cart before the horse?

Focusing on the inward evidence of faith can be another trap of self-introspection. It is when we look away from ourselves to Christ that faith is quickened and revived, since a true work of grace will not permit the heart to rest short of the revelation of Christ’s glory, and where Christ is glorified, there the Spirit is given (Jn 7:38-39). When the heart can rest and be satisfied in the perfect and complete righteousness of Christ alone, not only good works, but goodness and mercy are sure to follow by simply taking Him at His Word, not by human exertion and anxious concern, but by the sweetness of His holy person, because when He is all in all, assurance will not be wanting. Then will your light so shine before men that they will see your good works and glorify your Father.

May His grace break through in mighty measure to ground and comfort every true hearted pilgrim in the blessed assurance of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie

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