Copyright © 1997 Warren Litzman (Christ-Life Fellowship). From the booklet This Then is The Message Which We Have Heard of Him. Used by permission.
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This is The Message Which We Have Heard of Him Point Two: Before the Foundation
A better definition of this point would be "the liberating secret." You've never thought of God as having some secret that He held to Himself and only told a few people. That sounds cultish, as if we have some special edge on God's plan, but at least seven times, the New Testament refers to God having a secret. He had a secret He never told anyone in the Old Testament (Romans 16:25). He had a secret He never allowed Jesus to tell anyone when He was on this earth. He had a secret that became known only on the Day of Pentecost (John 14:20). But men got so taken up with what happened on the Day of Pentecost that they failed to get God's secret. We see that it was not until Galatians 1, when Paul had a revelation that Christ was the life of the believer, that any mortal understood what God's great secret was. What was this secret? It was simply this: the only way the Father was ever going to get sons who pleased Him to live in His house was to birth them. He was going to have to find a way to birth those sons Himself, and yet allow them to remain free moral agents.
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Now, with this, we have the introduction to what is the heart of God's plan. It is love. God is love. What was it He didn't get from Lucifer? Love. He got service, and He got Lucifer's presence. He got everything but love. What is it that a father really wants? He wants love. God had to figure out a way whereby the creature could remain a free moral agent. He decided to take a part of Himself and put it in them. The moment they came to a crisis and cried out for a Saviour, He would do an unbelievable thing. He would take His own Son -- God the Son, a part of Himself -- and birth Him in the creature. Then, from that time on, He would never again depend on that creature. He would depend on His Son in him.
Thus Christ has been made unto us sanctification, righteousness, wisdom, and redemption (I Corinthians 1:30). It was never God's intention to save us, except by another life in us. Multitudes of people live today, go to church, and are very religious, trying to get more salvation, trying to be more like God, when they've never learned the great liberating secret of God, which caused God to say, "The only way I'll save them is by putting a part of Myself in them." Thus Peter said that we are partakers of His divine nature. And Jesus said that you must be born into that to be saved (John 3:3).
Between the time God said He was going to do this great thing and creation, we have several definite scriptures which use the term, "before the foundation". It means that before man was created, before there ever was a world, before there ever was sin in this world, God had a plan already in existence.
Most of us have been taught that when we got into trouble, that was when God became whoever He is to us. A lot of people date God back to the time when they were saved. There are some who date God back to the time their church started, and others date God back to Adam. But none of these dates count. You have to date your life with God back before the foundation of the world was laid.
We have three prime scriptures which are classifications of truth that God had before the foundation of the world. If you do not know these, it will not matter where you go to church, or what you believe, or how many prayers you get answered and how many miracles you have. If you don't understand what God did before you or any mortal came into existence, you may miss the whole plan.
The first verse of scripture which has to do with that which is "from the foundation of the world" is Ephesians 1:4. This verse says that every believer was chosen "in Christ" before the foundation of the world. Some are just coming to the knowledge that we are in Christ. Some of us have known it ever since we have been Christians. Some of us knew it before we were Christians.
But the essence that we are in Christ is not enough. The full essence is that you are in Christ and that you and Christ must become a union -- you must become one. A Christian is not one acting like Jesus; Christ is "in him." If Christ is outside of him, and you take a look at Christ and say, "I'm going to be like Him," that is one thing. That is natural. But that is not spirit at all. If you finally, by the Spirit, know that Christ is in you, then it is no longer you looking at Him and saying, "I'm going to be like Him"; rather, it is that you are Him to the Father, because the Father has made Him your righteousness (I Corinthians 1:30). We have shouted many times, "We are the righteousness of God!" but we do not always believe it and we do not always live it. However, we are now coming to the understanding of what that really means. It is Christ in us, revealed by the Spirit, and ultimately it is Christ in us, as us.
"In Christ." If I were to tell you that this is the most often singly-stated truth in the Bible, that would excite some of you. But this is a fact. Over 200 times, this one truth -- "in Christ" -- is mentioned in the New Testament. It is mentioned more than faith. It is mentioned more than love, more than power, more than the Holy Spirit, more than baptism. It is mentioned more than any other single doctrinal truth in the whole of the New Testament.
The very essence of this move of God we're in now is that believers are coming to the knowledge that it is not we who live, but Another who lives in us (Galatians 2:20). We do live, but only by Him, and by His work in us, and His life in us. Out of these 200 occasions that "in Christ" is mentioned, 146 of them directly refer to "in Christ" position and our union with Him. If you study your Bible and pay attention to what your eyes see and your ears hear and what the Holy Spirit is telling you, you will come to the knowledge of the most important message in the Bible.
As it stands today in religion, you have to serve God 15, 20, and 30 years before you even hear some preacher preach this truth to you. You've been told all along to "get our baptism," "get our membership," "get our catechism," and "get our special classes," "and then maybe you can join us, be a part of us, be in this body, and make it to heaven." All of that is error, in light of the fact that the moment you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, He put Another --Christ -- in you. He put Another into every Catholic who was born-again. He put Another into every Episcopalian who was born-again. He put this Christ in every Presbyterian, in every Charismatic, in every Baptist, and in every Methodist who was ever born-again. He has no means of salvation, other than Christ in you, which is our hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).
The second verse of scripture which has to do with that which is "from the foundation of the world" is Revelation 13:8. There are several verses that reiterate this very same verse, but we'll use this one, where it says their names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life -- that of Him who was "slain before the foundation of the world." This is an awesome thought. You probably thought that Jesus died just for your sins. He did, really, but not primarily. This verse, and several other verses, tell us that Christ died before the foundation of the world was laid. This means that Christ's death must have embraced something other than just keeping you out of hell and getting you saved, because God took His own Son and killed Him, in His mind, before He ever created this world.
Let's look at that for a moment. What does that mean? It simply means God saw this great truth -- how He could have sons who would please Him by taking His only begotten Son, Christ, and birthing Him in every believer (I Peter 1:23). But then the kind of God He is said, "What right have I to do that? If I put My own nature in them, and depend on My own nature, then they'll be perfect. They'll be sanctified and righteous and perfect from the moment they're saved. What right do I have to do that to a believer?" Now, I sense that this is a shocking statement to some of you, because religion has told you that you need more of God. The Church has said, "You'd better get to this meeting, you'd better give money, you'd better join this program, or you may go to hell." Religion hasn't preached this full Gospel -- that the only way you can be saved is by Another. Romans 5:10 says we are saved by His life -- that is, by His life in us.
There is no other kind of salvation. So the moment you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, God birthed, in you, another Person. Galatians 2:20 says, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live..." How are you living if you are a dead man? You live by the life of Another --Christ in you. The life you now live is Christ. So you see, religion would keep this great truth from you. God said, "What right have I to make them perfect, from the beginning, by putting another person in them? I don't have that right. So this is what I'm going to do." True to His personality, true to His sovereignty and honor, God said, "I'm going to take that Son I've put in them and kill Him so that, from the very beginning, life shall come out of death, and their salvation shall come from a Lamb and not from a King because I want them to have My spirit." This is the spirit of God. So you cannot separate the cross (where God offered His Lamb) from the true Gospel. You cannot ignore it. It is the heartbeat of everything God does. It is the whole meaning of your salvation; it is also the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. And only by the slaying of this Lamb has the Father been justified to putting another life in you.
The third verse of scripture, in this category, is Hebrews 4:3. This verse says, "We which have believed do enter into [His] rest." Why do we enter into His rest? Because He said all His works were finished before the foundation of the world. This is very important. Everything God had to do for mortal man was finished before the world came into existence. This means that what happened at the fall in the Garden is secondary. It means that what happened to Abraham, what happened to Jacob, what happened to Daniel, what happened to David, and what happened to Isaiah is all secondary -- God said, "My plan was finished before the foundation of the world."
Once again, our strongest attack has come through Lucifer, who doesn't want us to see this. He is the number one teacher in religion. And he has done his best to keep us working for that which God has already done. Satan has souls working daily in religion and in the Church to try to become what God made us when He birthed us. How can we be any more than the birthing of God? How can you be any more a God-person than when God birthed His Son in you? How can you be any more birthed than when God put His own Incorruptible Seed in you? You can't be, any more than a person who becomes pregnant could have any more of a person in them. They have a total and complete person in them, by the very seed planted in them.
And by that, God said, "That's how I got into you -- total and complete. By a birthing. Now, I want people to believe that. I want them to see that it is a finished work. And if the yoke can be thrown off them that they have to do something on their own to be religious or to be godly, I want it stopped. And if the yoke that says they have to do something or have to go somewhere or have to be something on their own to be religious or to be godly can be thrown off, I want it thrown off. I want them to see that I have already finished the work so that they can enter into the same rest I have."
That doesn't mean you stop working for God. That doesn't mean you cease to win souls and labor and build God's true Church on this earth. It means the very opposite. It means that we do things now -- not to be saved, or to be holy, or to get more of God, or to please God, but we do these things because we love Him. And the more we love Him, the more He does in us and through us. We've come to our rest.
The Church today is much like a slave who doesn't want to give in to his master. The slave keeps running away. He stays in turmoil over how he can get out of this and get out of that. There's no rest for him. That's where the average believer is, even though he has been bought and paid for by a master. Christ in us is our very life, but all of us keep figuring out ways we can get away from Him and escape and evade Him. We're like runaway slaves, but once we, individually, become one with our Master, we can come to rest. Once the slave says, "I only do my Master's bidding, I only go where He sends, I only am what He says I am," he then comes to rest.
So before the foundation of the world, we have at least three prime classifications of Scripture which help us to see what God is doing
One of the things we ought to discuss is the work of the Trinity. What was it that made God say, "For me to have sons, I must birth them?" There was a part of God which said, "I'll be a Father." There was also a part of God which said, "I'll be the Son." But for a father to birth another life in an already existent creature was an awesome thing. How would that creature ever come to know what God did. I venture to say that there may be someone reading this, right now, who never knew that when you were born-again, you had another person placed in you, or that He only looked to that person in you to be all that He wanted you to be. I preached the Gospel for 15 years, in the highest places in my denomination, and never did hear that from others and never did preach it, myself.
God said, "It's going to be possible that my liberating secret will come to somebody, but they'll not know it. Nevertheless, I'll go ahead and put my Son in them." Multitudes thought that when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, that was it. No, the Holy Spirit is not the Son. He is the Revealer of the Son. We need to be filled with the Spirit, because only by being filled with the Spirit will we see the Christ who is our life. But God said, "How shall they come to know this? I must tell them Myself." So there was a part of God -- the Holy Spirit -- whose main purpose was to be a Teacher who would tell the creature that he was in Christ (John 16:13-15). That is why the Trinity, as far as we know it, came into existence -- that it might expose the eternal plan and bring about what God planned before creation.
Copyright © 1997 Warren Litzman; used by permission. The Bible text in this publication, except where otherwise indicated, is from the King James Version. This article appears on the site: http://www.peterwade.com/.
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