12.2 Proving Christ
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
I want to show you something important David said about God. – For You have magnified Your word above all Your name (Psalm 138:2).
In the garden, when the serpent said, “Did God indeed say,” he was not attacking God, per se, but the Word God speaks. It would have been better for the serpent to have “attacked God,” although such an idea has no meaning.
The Word God speaks is the entrance of God into creation; the Word God speaks is Jesus. God places the Word that He speaks above all things, including every other part of Himself. To attack that Word is to hit God in the one place that will hurt Him most.
The Returning Word. Isaiah, also, said something definitional about the Word God speaks, the Lord Jesus Christ. – For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it (Isaiah 55:10-11).
Here is the final chapter, then, when the Word God speaks returns to the Father having accomplished His purpose. – Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28).
Proven Faithful and True. The great issue of the age in which we live, this age of human folly, is the Word God speaks, the Lord Jesus Christ, proven faithful and true. And there is one place only where Jesus proves Himself faithful and true as every Word God speaks in the present today, and that is inside of you as a believer in Jesus and inside your assembly together with other believers. Jesus proves the Word God speaks to be faithful and true inside His Church and against the face of all accusation.
The authority of Christ has come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him… (Revelation 12:10-11 – condensed).
At War. The “they” who overcome the accuser is you, together with your brothers and sisters in Christ. You are NOT at war with your humanity or the humanness of your brothers and sisters. Such a mind is the rebellion of Adam and his sin against Eve. You are NOT at war with “sin in the flesh.” Such a mind keeps you turned away from Christ and only exalts “sin in the flesh.” You are at war against accusation that falsely separates anything or anyone from God, both yourself and your brothers and sisters in the sight of your eyes.
Jesus is Sent by God into your heart and life in order to prove that every Word God speaks is faithful and true.
The Great Contest. There is nothing that excites God more than when you say, “Let it be to me” in response to every Word that He speaks – except this – when you say it together.
This is the great contest all the way through. God speaks Christ into you, His Word of creative power by which you exist every moment. The serpent alters that word, not in the air, but in your hearing with his tried and true one-liner, “You can be that word – IF you do it.” And because the human heart loves self-exaltation, we have heard the serpent’s version with excitement, with our eyes entirely on ourselves, not seeing Jesus our life at all.
God Is Telling Us the Truth. God says, “You are like Me.” The serpent says, “You can be like God if you try.” The first word we receive through faith, with no sufficiency in ourselves, but with the certain confidence that we are receiving Jesus Himself in Person as our very and only life. The second word is the instantaneous creation of the false self, for now we have imagined some sort of sufficiency in ourselves and we set about proving ourselves and not Christ. And the very moment any human attempts to prove him or herself before God, there is only one result – “I am fallen short”; that is, sin and death.
To believe that God is telling you the truth, however, is to make yourself the target of horrendous accusation.
The Place of Victory. The final showdown of this great contest of accusation against the Word God speaks is found in one place. That place is the Church, clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ, and bearing inside her togetherness the authority of His Mercy Seat, bringing forth into visibility the very life of the Word God speaks in the face of all hostile accusation and darkness. That is the picture John gives us in Revelation 12 as he places our overcoming of all accusation into his visual representation of Paul’s gospel.
And you have learned from the start that we do not defeat accusation by “fighting accusation.” We defeat accusation by refusing it because we have our eyes on one thing – Jesus our ONLY life.
Love One Another. This victory against all accusation inside yourself until you walk with no consciousness of sins, having your heart sprinkled as the authority of love, must begin with yourself personally. But the real showdown is with that accusation that is against your brothers and sisters in Christ – the accuser of the brethren.
Here is the most important Word God has spoken regarding His expression in us; all other Word there might be is fulfilled only inside of this Word. – Love one another as I have loved you. Jesus is proven faithful and true ONLY as this Word becomes your only present reality in all fullness right here on this earth, right now in this age.
Seeing the Church. When you see the Church as she is right now as the Proof of Christ in the earth, when you see one another in your local gathering together as the EVIDENCE that Jesus speaks the truth, then the Word is fulfilled, and all accusation is cast down.
The problem is not your brothers and sisters in Christ, they are and will always remain human, foolish and wise, kind and thoughtless, strong and weak, fascinating and boring. The problem is your eyeballs; the problem is the cover over your eyes that prevents you from seeing God revealed through the precious gathering together of your local church.
Jesus lives in your heart. There is only one path from your heart to your eyes, and that is by way of your mouth.
Christ in Your Mouth. The word {Christ, the Word God speaks} is near you [in place and time], in your mouth and in your heart; that is, the word of faith which we proclaim. That, if you speak the same word in your mouth, speaking the Lord Jesus indeed, and believe inside your heart that God raised Him out from the dead, you will be saved. For the heart is believing into righteousness; and the mouth is speaking the same word {that is Christ} into salvation (Romans 10:8-10).
Speaking the same word of Christ “into” salvation is speaking that word together as the Church, for the Church is the fullness of Christ, the end of salvation. – And they overcame [accusation]… by the word of their testimony (Revelation 12:11).
The Greatest Temptation. When you walk together as the Church, you are always being disappointed to aggravation with the things your brothers and sisters do, think, and say.
It is here, then, in your own mind and heart, that the serpent wields his greatest power against you, to tempt you to see “flesh” instead of your beloved Jesus as them. And the greatest temptation of sin, the one that drove Adam’s cold decision, is contempt for these weak and foolish humans who “ought to” know better.
Here is your answer to that greatest of all temptations – the love of God has [already] been poured out [has been shed abroad] inside of our hearts through the Holy Spirit, the One having been given to us (Romans 5:5).
Because God Says. But victory is not you loving them “in spite of” their problem, for such an attitude leads quickly to a fake superiority.
Victory is found in looking at your brother and sister through the pain and frustration they have caused you and to say and to see that they love you more than you could know, that this one who seemingly hurt you so much thinks more highly of you than he or she does of themselves, that they, in tender regard, lay down their life for you – BECAUSE GOD SAYS.
And when you submit in humble regard to the love of God already poured out towards you through your brother and sister in spite of any pain in yourself, Christ Jesus, every Word God speaks, proves Himself faithful and true through you and through your life together as His Church.