Which Side of the Cross - Lesson 3 week 3
Mike Doyle · Feb 12, 2017
Which Side of the Cross, No. 06
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926548167389

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We are on lesson 3, question 6, and having to do with Romans chapter 5, verses 12-19. And the question was, is pick seven ways in which Paul insists on the fact that Adam's act of sin affected his race. So, should I just read through and then you say, hey, there's one. Oh, there's another one. You ready? Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world. There's one. Okay. And death through sin. There's another one.

Death spread upon all men because of all sin. For until the law, for until the law sin was in the world, But sin was not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who was the type of him who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by one transgression of the one many died, There's one. Much more did the grace of God and the gift by grace of the one man Jesus Christ abound to many. The gift is not like that which came to the one who sinned. For on the one hand, judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation. There's one. There you go.

But on the other hand, a free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one death reigned, through the one, there is one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through one Jesus Christ. So then, as through one transgression there resulted, the effect was condemnation to all men, there is one, even so, through the one act, of righteousness the result of justification of life to all men. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made or set down as sinners, even so through the obedience of one the many will be made righteous."

Now, we talked last week about sins and sin. What's the difference between when you're reading along and you see in Romans the words S-I-N-S, what are we talking about? Personal sins. And then when you see the word S-I-N with no S on the end of it and sometimes capitalized, what do you think then? Talking about the sin nature. So it's important to know and to recognize, maybe you could say it this way, when you see a capital S, he's talking about the principle of indwelling sin.

Starting in Romans 5.12 is what is commonly known as the doctrine of two men.

These are the two most important men in history. They both bring something to the table. They both influence the entire creation. The one man is Adam. And here's what Adam brought. He sinned. He brought sin into the world. We're still over here on this side of the cross. So you've got sin. The sin, okay? Sin, he brought the sin nature in the world and along with that came death. What's death mean? From what, from to who, to who, from what, from what? From the old man to the new. Before Adam sinned, was there a union between God and his creatures? Yes. So after he sinned, did that union break? Was there a death there?

Because God told Adam, in the day that you sin, you will surely die. You'll surely be separated from me. Now here's a phrase that I think all believers need to at some point get their arms around. Death spread to all men. Why? Because all sinned. So the question is, when did you become a sinner? You were born with a sin. So I'm born with a sin. When was I sent down as a sinner?

Then. Then. Then. Let's say that we eliminate Adam and now Courtney is Adam. Okay? He's in the garden doing his thing. Drill him for water, whatever he does. He's now the head of the human race. He's exactly like Adam, under exactly the same circumstances. Is he going to fall like Adam did? Absolutely he is. Absolutely he is. So the point is, do you get the idea that in Adam we sinned? In him we sin, and because we're just like him, we would do exactly what he did, and we do exactly what he does after he becomes a sinner.

Do you get that? It's a really important thing to get. And here's the other thing. God has set up a principle whereby the man that you're united to, either Adam or Christ, is how he's going to present you to himself. Does that make sense? Your standing before God has nothing to do with what you do. It all depends on which man you're standing in. And that's why this talks about the doctrine of the two men. Here we have statements about sin and how it showed up on the earth, the sin nature. How did it get here? It came with Adam and it spread to all men.

Because all men are sinners. You're sinners in three ways. You know what the three ways are? We talked about that last weekend, right? We're sinners by nature. What else? We're sinners by position and we're sinners by practice. We do what we are. Now what was the nature and what? We are sinners because we have a sin nature. We are in the position of sin and we practice sin. We do it. We actually get down and do it. Now I always thought position meant, position was like, we are positioned. When you have a position of sin, your source is Adam. Your position Our position in Adam, before we were saved, is a position of sin. What does sin mean?

Death. Separated. We were having dinner with some people on Thursday and we were talking about sin. How do you define sin to a non-believer? This one lady was talking about, well, I'm talking to these friends that I was having dinner with and we got in a discussion of sin. Well, what is it? And she said it's missing the mark. Yeah. So how do you define what the mark is? What is the mark?

Jesus. The Lord Jesus. God's holiness. Say that again. God's holiness. God is the mark. Yeah. He says in Romans 1 that his wrath is against all what? What's the term used? Ungodliness. So if you're not godly, you missed it. Which means you have no shot at making it.

That's what it really means. We have a nature of sin because we got Adam's nature. And we have our personal sins because we practice what we are. All of that came by this one man, Adam. That's how it got here. It all came through him. And because, this is the principle that we need to understand, because we were in Adam, The entire human race was in Adam when he sinned.

Now, that's kind of a weird concept because we don't talk about that much, but let me give you an example out of the book of Hebrews. It says that the Lord Jesus Christ in Hebrews is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Now in the Jewish system, what was the priesthood in the Jewish system? Levitical priesthood. Levi. So you had to be from the family of Levi in order to be a priest, right? Moses was from Levi, Aaron was from Levi. But Hebrew says that the priesthood of Christ is way higher than that of Levi. And how did he justify that comment? He said that when Abraham, who's Abraham?

He's the beginning of the race of Judaism, was returning from the wars, he meets this guy, the king of Salem, who is known as Melchizedek. What does he do when he meets Melchizedek? He pays him tithes. He gives him some of the booty from defeating the kings, right? The book of Hebrews says that Levi, who was in the loins of Abraham at the time, he's in Abraham, paid tithes to Melchizedek at that time. So therefore, Melchizedek's priesthood is much higher than the Levitical priesthood because Levi paid homage to Melchizedek.

So Christ is known as the High Priest according to Melchizedek. Does that make sense? It's a biblical principle that God holds us responsible for who we're in. So you'd say we're in the loins of Adam? That's a good way to put it. All of the human race was inside Adam when he sinned. And because we were in him, we became just like him. We all fell. Creation fell.

So when the book of Hebrews is trying to describe who Christ is in his priesthood, because he is a priest, it can't be the Levitical priesthood, he's got to be greater than that. And the example he uses is this Abraham Melchizedek example. Those are the tribe of Judah too. And he wasn't of the tribe of Levi. He wasn't from that. And also Melchizedek was a Canaanite. Which was different, because the priesthood was different. Yeah, because none of the Levites ever became, were the kings of Israel. It was the tribe of Judah that were the kings. So Jesus is from the tribe of Judah.

So I'm saying that so that you understand how the principle of, and it goes all the way back to Genesis. In Genesis, the like begets like principle. You know? Raspberries produce raspberries. Human beings produce human beings and sinners produce sinners.

And you can't change it. You can't change it. So, now verse 2 says, until the law showed up, sin was in the world, but sin was not imputed when there is no law. Now, so if I could hustle back before Moses shows up, I'm in good shape because the law doesn't affect me.

What's the problem with that next verse? Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who hadn't sinned in the likeness of the offensive Adam, who was the type of him to come. What did Adam do? What did he do to sin? He knowingly disobeyed. He disobeyed a law, didn't he? Now from Adam to Moses, were there laws?

No, there weren't. But the problem was that the cemeteries were still filling up. Why were they dying? Why were humans dying? Because they were of Adam. They were of Adam. And Adam has a sin nature. And the sin nature, if you have one of those, you're going to die. So the one irrevocable truth is that in Adam all die. They all die.

We've got cemeteries to prove. So death is still reigning even though there isn't law. Because a lot of times in contemporary Christianity the theology is if you just obey a bunch of laws you'll be okay. No. These people didn't even have laws to obey and they're still dying. Then the law comes in and what does the law do?

It makes it worse, but it also catalogs the sin. It says, well, this particular thing is a violation of the law, and this particular thing is a transgression. And yeah, there were a lot of external ones, but there were a lot of internal ones too, the real deadly suckers.

You can't covet. So in verse 15 he says, but the free gift is not like the transgression. Now we've got another man. who is bringing something to the table that's free, not earned. The transgression was earned at the end of Romans 6. The last verse of Romans 6 says what?

The wages of sin is debt. What are wages? You earned them. So you went to work for sin, and what did you get? You got death. That was what the payment was. But the free gift from God is what? Eternal life. It's free. You can't work for it. But the free gift is not like the transgression. Then it explains, For if the transgression of one, the many have died. And the many is everybody.

Much more did the grace of God And the gift by grace, what's the gift? Salvation. Salvation is the gift. Of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. So we've already established that all men die in Adam. But did the free gift mean that everybody gets saved? It's available. That's the point. It abounded to all men. It's available to all men. But there's a requirement. What's the requirement? Faith. You've got to believe it.

And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. On the one hand, judgment arose from the one transgression resulting in condemnation. That's what Adam brought. But on the other hand, the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. arising out of the many transgressions.

What's he talking about there? The Lord Jesus comes to the table. What does he bring with him? All of the transgressions and all of the sins paid for. That's what he brings. Which resulted in justification. Righteousness before God. Because he took care of the problem. He shows up at the table with the work completed. That's what he brings. Adam brings judgment. Christ brings righteousness or justification.

5. For if by one transgression of the one, death reigned. Do you really understand that death is a reigning principle? We're Americans, we don't know about reign. It's a reigning principle. It is over everything. Everything on this planet is in one stage or another of death, dying, deteriorating. It dominates. Death reigning as a dot through the one.

Much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. The gift of righteousness is salvation and it's a gift. they're going to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. Now think about this. In Romans 5, Paul is telling the readers that those who are in Christ, that have the gift of righteousness, are going to reign over what?

Over death. Over sin. Because their source now is Christ. Not Adam any longer. Does Christ get up every day and struggle with sin? No, He doesn't. So if I'm positioned in Christ, should I get up every morning and struggle with sin? I should rest in the provision that He's given me.

Through the one transgression, the effect was condemnation to all men. That one transgression. Even so, through one act of righteousness. What act was that? Right here. One act of righteousness, the result of justification of life to all men. It comes to all men, that doesn't mean they all take advantage of it, but it's there because of what he did. For as to the one man's disobedience, the many or all were made to become sinners. You were set down as a sinner. by God, even though through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous."

What is the obedience of the one? Christ. And what did he obey? He died. The eternal covenant. The deal he worked out with the Father. If you become a man and die for the sins of the world, I will raise you up. He said, okay, I'll do it, and he obeyed.

So you see the difference in what both men bring? Romans 5 is really an important part because when we get to the actual identification principles to understand the jump we're making out of Adam into Christ is really important. There's a stark difference between these two men. And these are the two most important men in history. There's no two men that are more important than these two, Adam and Christ, because both of them are the heads of a race. Both of them are the prototype men that you come from.

So we don't need to talk about question 7, we've already asked what's the difference between sin and sin. which is, we're not under law, we're under grace. And 21 says, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ. That's the principle we have in our position in Christ. That's why the next part of this course is going to be on grace. That's why we're going to spend some time on what grace does and find out why it's a reigning principle.

And oh, by the way, does it really work? Does it really work? Or is it just a bunch of biblical pious prostitutes? It really works. Grace? If you get it. What if you don't get it? Well then you just keep coming until you get it. I'm not going to make jokes anymore. You're doing fine. We love it. We love it. You've got to do that. You know, this verse, the ways of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life. Jesus Christ our Lord.

I've known that my whole Christian life because I got saved hearing that verse. But it's like, that is just like an explosion of truth that kind of summarizes what I'm studying. I mean that was just a verse to me that was all I knew in a moment. What's interesting about that verse is where is it located? It's located at the end of Romans 6, which is the end of the identification chapter. It summarizes But we just talked about what we'll talk about through Romans 6. Now, did God forgive both sins and sin? We have answers over here. What do you think? I think He forgave sins. He forgave sins or sin? He forgave sins in the whole world. Right. So let's talk about that for a minute.

Unlike this product, sins, unlike the product of the sin nature, sin can't be forgiven. Sins can't be forgiven. Sin, singular. No, the sin nature. For it would be still sin. In other words, a forgiven thief is still a thief. A forgiven sinner is still a sinner. Hence, sin had to be condemned to death. Romans 8-3, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, in other words he is a man, and for sin he condemns sin in the flesh.

So your sin nature and my sin nature hasn't been forgiven. Sins have been paid for. You as a person have been forgiven. Your guilt is gone. But the sin nature has not been forgiven and we'll talk, I'll expand on that as we go. Our sins were forgiven via the principle of substitution.

Everybody know what substitution is? What is it? Well, we gave Jesus all of our sins and he gave us eternal life. And he was our substitute on the cross. And so he was the one that paid the price as our substitute. That allows us, by faith, to be forgiven.

Christ died for sins, plural, according to the gospel, 1 Corinthians 15.3, Paul's gospel. But our sin was condemned via the principle of identification.

2 Corinthians 5.21, For he made him who knew no sin, to be seen for us. So you could say the Lord Jesus did not die for sin, but he died for sins. Being made sin on our sin, he was judged, condemned, and crucified. He in himself, being the sinless one, died unto sin. Very important part to know, this word unto is really important. When the Lord Jesus is on the cross, By himself, he's paying this penalty for our sins, the sins of the whole world.

And why is he doing that? Other than the fact that he and the Father worked out the deal. Why is he doing it? What's the real reason that he's doing that? No, that's not the reason. Because he loves us. No, that's not the reason. To satisfy the father? Satisfy the father. Satisfy the father. Because the eternal covenant, a covenant is a deal, a transaction, an agreement, was between the father and the son. Right? Where were you in that deal? Nowhere. It's between the father and the son. Why are they working it out?

Because sin is an offense against God who is holy. And the only one that can take care of that offense is another holy one, who's Christ. He takes care of the issue. So he's on the cross, satisfying the Father, paying the penalty for the sins of the whole world.

He didn't leave one out, because if he did, that one would still be offensive to them. Do you see that? You've got to get them all. You've got to get them all in. So when I ask the question, the guy that lives in the White House over here, are his sins paid for? Yes.

He's not a believer, is he going to be saved? No. Why not? He doesn't believe. Because he doesn't believe. But what's the mechanics of it? He's still attached to, united to, identified with that sin nature. And what is God doing about the sin nature? He condemned it. So if he happens to leave the planet, having never been separated from that sin nature, never separated from Adam, what happens to him? He goes where the sin nature goes. Where does the sin nature go? Condemnation.

See that? And where did that all start? It started with Adam, way back when. And the fact that we were in him. In the Green Letters on page 141, this statement is made, Had it been possible for God to forgive our own nature, It could then have been restored or reinstated. That's a great statement. Everybody understand that? Yeah, no. That's why you're here. Oh well, I'm hopeless. You should know what I know about how people really feel about me. And where was that? Page 141 of the Green Letters. Complete Green Letters? Page 141. And that's in the complete 141. Did you read it? Yeah, read it again.

Had it been possible for God to forgive our old nature, it could then have been restored or reinstated. Okay. So, let's assume this old sin nature could have been forgiven. Let's say that the work of the cross would allow him to forgive. So how would you restore? How do you restore a nature? Run all the way back to Genesis. What's the principle? Like begets like. And Jesus said, what's born of the flesh is flesh. That's what it is. It's an essence verb. The sin nature is an essence. Do you see that?

It cannot change. It won't change. It can't be fixed. It has no possibility of ever being reconstructed or rebuilt or torn down and built up again because the very nature of it is at enmity with God. That can't change because that's what it's made up of. Do you see that? You can't fix it.

So here you are as God and you say, well, gee, they all got these sin natures and they can't be fixed. What am I going to do? What am I going to do about those sin natures? I'm going to condemn them. I can't fix them. I can fix the person. And how does he fix the person? One, he forgives them. And two is as we expand on what identification is, you'll see how he did it.

Because Romans 6 is really the mechanics and how God takes us from our position in Adam and repositions us in Christ. That's really what Romans 6 is, how he did it. Now you mentioned Romans 5 and then Romans 6. So now in Romans 5, Q. What is Romans 5 supposed to...

A. Romans 5.12, and I think it goes all the way through 21, talks about two men.

Right? Two men. And what... How do I say this? both maybe are, is that right? So these verses talk about two men and who are they and what they are. And I've always looked at it as if these two guys are coming to the conference table, what's each one of them bringing?

One of them, Adam, represents the entire human race. and his whole race is just like him. So that's what he does. He sits there and he represents the entire human race. We just went through the verses of the seven things he brings. Death, sin, condemnation. The other man is the Lord Jesus Christ who has been to the cross, buried, resurrected. Now he's at the table. The other end of the table, what does he bring? He brings righteousness, forgiveness, grace. Now when we get to Romans 6, really what we're going to find out is Adam Christ. How does God, every human being is identified with this guy, right? How does he get us over here?

Because it seems like when you look at those verses in Romans, I've got to get unhooked from this man, and I've got to get aligned with this man. Or I don't have a chance. I somehow have to be from Christ. I am now from Adam. Does that make sense? as believers, we were from Adam.

Now, as we go through this, there's a bunch of nuances here about what's left over in the human being after he's positioned in Christ. But the basic understanding here is you've got these two men, you find out about what one of them is, and I'm attached to him, And then you find out about what the other one is and his relationship to God. I need to get over there. How do I do that? God has made the provision through this vehicle to get here. And once you're over there, everything changes.

Because both men have their own unique existence. Sin and death, life and righteousness. So when you study Paul's epistles, what you find out is that once you get past Romans 6, and all the rest of the epistles including John and James, they're all talking about over here. They all talk about here. And I don't think we've spent enough time talking here.

Because this is reality. This isn't for the Christian. That's reality. This isn't. This is what I used to be. If any man be in Christ, he's what? He's a new creation. That doesn't mean he changed political parties. It means he's a new creation. It'd be like taking my Labrador and making him into a duck. How do you do that? It's that dramatic.

Not only is Christ a new creation, this is an entirely new creation that isn't visible yet, but is there. And this is spiritual also, right? Totally spiritual. And this is where God abides. So what's great about this is that you can't get over here by working. It's too big a gap. The only way to get there is by faith.

There's a scripture somewhere, I don't know where I got this, well it's in the Bible, but one of the reasons was that God, did I just make this up, that He wanted Christ to be the first of like a family. The first born of many brothers? Yes. The firstborn is in terms of position and title. If I'm a member of the Windsor family, you know who the Windsors are? They're the English royalty. Which guy's next? Who's the next guy that gets the throne? Whoever's in line. Who's ever the next in line. Well, God decided that the Lord Jesus Christ as a human being was next in line, so to speak.

He gets it all. And He's a human being. That's the cool part about it. For our sake, He's a human being. It's really cool that He is. Because He's not an angel. He's not just a spirit. He's a human being. Really neat. And guess what? Because we've been moved over into Him, His characteristics are our characteristics.

Just as Adam's were, now Christ's are. Now here's the problem we've got as believers. We walk around and condemn dying bodies, right? When we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, we didn't get a new body. We didn't trade this one in, but we got one coming. We still have the presence of that sin nature in us, But we're not attached to it, we're not aligned to it, and we'll get into that as we go on.

We live in a totally fallen world. We live in a world where the opposition is aggressive. One of the things I'm loving about what's going on politically in our country today is for Christians to see how aggressive evil can be. We all thought, well, gee, the good guy won, so they'll leave him alone.

No, they're not. They've upped the ante, big time. You become a Christian, guess what your sin nature does? Ups the ante. The opposition gets more aggressive, not less. You have to understand that about being a believer. But the Lord Jesus reigns over all of that. The only way we abide in any of that is by faith. That's how we do it. We believe Him. Let me see if I can finish this up.

Ephesians 1.4. This is Courtney's favorite verse.

According to Ephesians 1.4, when were you chosen? Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.

Kind of prehistoric there, isn't it? You could say, before anything was brought into being in eternity past, before the universe, the world, or Adam, I, a chosen, elect, and called person, was conceived in the Father's heart and mind. Now, here's the big question about this verse.

Did God know that I was going to believe in the person and work of Christ? And so because He knew, He chose me? Did He choose me first then and enable me to do it? I don't know. What did He do? Well, the verse says that He chose me in Him before the foundations of the world. In him. In him. See, the key is in him.

Now, the best way I think to understand this is the timeline. How far back does Adam go? Depending on whether you're an evolutionist or not. How far back does he go? All the way. All the way back to maybe 10,000 years. Maybe. I don't know. The point is that he's on a timeline. And there was a time that Adam didn't exist, right? So, he sends, he's a representative man, I come in the world, I'm attached to him. My history goes back to his history.

Didn't he just say that in Romans 5.12? That I send an Adam? Well, when did that happen? I don't know, 8, 9, 10,000 years ago, whenever it was. But before that, there's no Adam.

This man has a beginning. Does this man have a beginning? Does he? In his humanity. In his humanity, but it's interesting, it talks about he was the lamb slain from the foundations of eternity. Here's the point, if God conceives you in his mind, it's done. So has God, everybody in this room, has God always seen you in Christ? Yeah, he has.

And here's why. There's no time over here. And it's hard for us with our brains to think that, gee, we live in an environment where there's no time. The law used to say that eternity is all events coming together, not spreading out. So I can say that God has all knowledge in play right now. Oh yeah, God has all knowledge in play right now. All knowledge in play right now. There's no past or future. It's all now with Him. So if I end up over here, everything's now with me. How long has He known Christ? How long has He known me in Christ? Since the foundations of eternity.

That's the best way I know to explain it. I don't think you can empirically graft it. But I think that's really what's happened. We leave a time-space guy, and we end up in an eternal man. And so the Father can say, Oh, I've always known you in Christ. Now, He brought us forth in time, knowing us in Christ. Here, He brings us forth in time, identified with this guy. We're born, we're sinners, we're everything that Adam is. But at some point, we believe in the person and work of the Lord Jesus, and we end up where He's always known us. You have to understand, though, that God wishes that none should perish, that every single human being would be in Christ. Every one.

The problem is that He gave us a will, and without the will to believe, you're not getting there. I think it's going to be very interesting at the Great White Throne Judgment, how men are going to stand up there and say, I willingly didn't want you then, and I willingly don't want you now. That doesn't seem that a man could do that, but I think that's the way his sin nature is. Last question, finishing up.

According to 2 Timothy 1.9, when was the call given?

2 Timothy 1.9 says, Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and his grace, which he granted us in Christ, from when?

Interlinear says, before time's eternal. Oh, I like that better. Before time's eternal. You have to understand that the Father in time past, eternity past, I mean that's an oxymoron, eternity past, formed me in his heart and mind, positionally as a unique person. That's what he did.

So, Psalm 139.6, Roger and I were talking about this and Roger loves this verse and I'm becoming a big fan. Listen to this. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unformed.

And in your book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. What does that say? It says that my father in eternity past formed me in his heart and mine as a unique person before there was ever me. So once God forms you in his mind or forms something in his mind, guess what? It's done. It's done. He doesn't have to work out the details. It's done.

Do you get that? If you grasp a hold of that and you realize it as you go on in Paul's epistles, he makes these astounding statements about us and he's not kidding. He means every one of them. I have blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. I've already done it. Really? No one explained that to me. How do I enter into that? How do I grasp that?

You just take them at his word and say, okay, it's good enough for me. I'll believe you. Most of the time, what you read in Paul's epistles and in the epistles are things that are true of us that are already done. Whether you experience them or not, whether you know them or not, whether you agree with them or not, whether you're complaining about them or not, they're true of you. Already true. You don't have to work for them, you don't have to do anything, they're just true and all you have to do is acknowledge that they are.

So, as we deal with this issue of identification, you can't empirically prove to me that I was crucified with Christ, can you? Do you remember when you were crucified with Christ? How was it? Kind of a tough day for you, wasn't it? I mean, it was painful.

No, but it happened, and the only reason I know it happened is He told me, and what does He want me to do about it? He wants me to believe Him. And by believing Him, guess what I get to do? I get to enter into it. It becomes part of what my frame of reference in my life is. And God loves us as much as he loves Christ. That's right. Which is no measurement. You can't measure that. That's wonderful. Yeah.

That's close. Our Father, how we thank you for how careful you are to teach us not only that you have given your son to pay the penalty for our sins, but you have started a new creation in which Christ is the head. He's done everything necessary to satisfy you about the sin nature, and then has begun this new creation in which he's included every one of us in it. And we thank you, Father, we pray in your son's precious name. Amen.