What Is a More Abundant Life?

Tom:

In this part of our program we have been talking about the gospel and Dave we’ll never run out of things to say about it. It is such a profoundly wonderful subject, but we have been dealing with some aspects of the gospel with regard to believing and how one is saved and so on, but today I would like to talk about the benefits of salvation.Jesus said in John:10:10The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
See All... “…I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”But the word that I want to key in on today is life.Life in Christ, Colossians:3:4When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
See All... “When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”But Christ is our life and it is an abundant life.What does that mean “life in Christ”?

Dave:

Well the scripture says we are dead in trespasses and sins.Every human being is.Now how would you explain that in relation to our father Adam, our parents Adam and Eve? God created man in the image of God, Genesis:1:27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
See All... “…created he him male and female, created he them.Chapter 2 tells you how God created man out of the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [and] man became a living soul.So life comes from God.It’s not something that as the atheists and the evolutionists would try to say rises spontaneously from matter when the molecules become complex enough.I mean they can’t even begin to explain that.So human life comes from God and I believe that all life comes from God, but man being made in the image of God has a form of life, a kind, I don’t even know the words to express it, because we can’t even explain what life is.But the life that animated, you could say, Adam and Eve, was God himself, his Holy Spirit living within their spirit.I believe the Bible teaches man is body, soul and spirit.I like the way Andrew Murray put it many years ago.The body is the seat of sense consciousness, the soul is the center of self-consciousness, and the spirit is the center of God-consciousness.In other words, it was in the spirit that the spirit of God dwelt and it is through the spirit that man knows God—to know God and experience His life.Now obviously then, when Adam and Eve rebelled they disobeyed God and they were cast out of the Garden.They lost that fellowship with God [and] the spirit of God left the spirit of man and there was a separation between God and man and this is why Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 says that we have been given the ministry of reconciliation and that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.This is through the gospel and we find that reconciliation first of all is in Jesus Christ who is God who through the virgin birth became a man.Now he didn’t cease to be God and he never ceased to be man.He is the one and only God-man.So in Jesus Christ, God and man have been brought together in a way that is even superior to what it was with Adam although Jesus is called the second man and the last Adam.Now when Christ comes to live in us we are born of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of God but the spirit of God is the spirit of Christ because Jesus is God.So now when the spirit of Christ comes to live within us we have a new life.It is not even a restoration of what was lost in Adam, but we have something even better.Because Adam and Eve experienced God walking in the cool of the evening coming to them and they dwelt in the Garden.No, but the spirit of God left them and they were cast out of the Garden.We are told that He that indwells us shall never leave us nor forsake us.There is a new indwelling of the Spirit.In fact Jesus in John 7 on that last day of the great day of the feast Jesus stood and cried “If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink and out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”And then John who is writing it in his gospel gives this commentary:He says, “This spake he of the Spirit which they that believed on him should receive for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Christ had not yet been glorified.Now although the Holy Spirit came upon, and I presume even could indwell the saints in the Old Testament like it did David and Abraham, but yet David prayed in Psalm 51 “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.”But now we have a new presence of God on this earth.The Holy Spirit within the believer since the day of Pentecost, never to leave us or forsake us and so Christ has become our very life.Now this is a life that must be lived by faith.I am still in this old body of sin and there is a conflict the scripture says between the flesh and the spirit.Not between the flesh and my spirit but between the flesh and the Spirit of God dwelling within.Now my spirit has been brought to life by faith in Christ.Now I am to walk in faith, so Colossians:2:6As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:
See All... says “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.”Well how did I receive Him?I received Him as helpless, hopeless, wretched sinner worthy of Hell, who couldn’t save himself.Now that Christ is living in me, now I have to walk in that way too.I am still a wretched, hopeless sinner, but I have been saved by God’s grace.

Tom:

And you have an active vehicle of communication with Him.You have a spirit now that has been born-again.

Dave:

Well He’s living in my spirit now.He’s indwelling me, but I still have the power of choice, I still have this body.Paul said “Oh wretched man that I am! (this is Romans:7:24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
See All...) who shall deliver me from the body of this death?I thank God through Jesus Christ….”Ultimately we have deliverance at the resurrection when we have new bodies of glory like His body, but in the meantime I walk by faith not by sight so that really the Christian life is not a struggle for me in my own strength to overcome temptations, grit my teeth and somehow live a sanctified, self-denying, sober and sad Christian life, but it is allowing Christ to live in me.So the secret of the Christian life is Galatians:2:20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
See All... “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”So this is the Christian life now and it’s something new and it’s wonderful and I think Tom you could remember, I can remember, when I was saved, when I opened my life to Christ over 60 years ago now, there was a transformation.There was something new within and to be led of the Spirit of God and to let the Spirit guide our lives in so many wonderful ways is thrilling.

Tom:

You know for some people it’s very dramatic, but for others it’s just a solid development.You know I am thinking about some of the—well we started with John:10:10The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
See All... and Jesus said He came that we might have a more abundant life.

Dave:

No, no—that we might have life—AND then that we might have it more abundantly.

Tom:

Right and have it more abundantly.But that life—you know I am thinking about Galatians:5:22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
See All...: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith….

Dave:

Temperance, meekness.

Tom:

Temperance, right. Dave these are things—we were talking early about psychology and psychotherapy.

Dave:

Do I dare to say it’s not the fruit of therapy; it’s the fruit of the Spirit.

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

And it is thrilling Tom.

Tom:

Right and this is the abundant life that Christ offers for us not in Heaven some day, but right here and now.

Dave:

Yes, therefore Paul can write “Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice.”He doesn’t say rejoice in the Lord unless you happen to be depressed; unless you can’t do it.He says in everything give thanks.He doesn’t say well unless you don’t feel like you can do it, you are under such a burden.So there is a victory in Christ.“Thanks be to God who always giveth us the victory in Christ and always causeth us to triumph.So that in prison they had been beaten with a cat-o’-nine tails, Paul and Silas are lying on their backs in the muck.They have bloody backs and in this prison cell with their feet in the stocks and they are singing praises to God.Now Tom, that’s not a—

Tom:

That’s not a positive mental attitude, Dave.

Dave:

No that’s not a positive mental attitude—

Tom:

No, that’s the reality of Christ living in them.

Dave:

Absolutely, and this is for every one of us.They didn’t need to go to the psychotherapist to somehow build up their self esteem and help them to feel good in these circumstances.They were rejoicing.In fact the early apostles-do you remember?They were beaten and then they let them out and they beat them and they said don’t preach in this name anymore?They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ.So there is a joy—I remember Richard Wurmbrandt whom I knew very well many years ago.He was tortured for his faith, solitary confinement for many years and so forth, 14 years totally.And he has told me privately that there were times, even when he had been tortured with red hot irons and there were burning holes—I’ve seen the holes in his body, burned by these red hot irons and yet there were times when the presence of Christ was so real in his cell when he was in horrible pain that he danced for joy.So this I would say, is the abundant life.That is available to us in Christ not by our works or our efforts, but through faith in Him.

Tom:

Right, but not just for the Apostle Paul, not just Silas, not just Richard Wurmbrandt, but for everyone who is in Christ.

Dave:

Amen.