Christ and the Father in Eternity (DCLC – July ’87, Part 2)

He is God of the heavens and the earth. And of course, John 1:1, we’re all so very familiar with how John opens, very similar to the way Genesis opens. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

Now I would like to turn to Ephesians chapter 1. Paul, an apostle, starting with verse one of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus, who are faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. And it’s verse three that I wish to read again. Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.

The history of the Christian, the deeper Christian life. I’m not sure you can separate the deeper Christian life from the Christian life, but very quickly, let’s take a look at the Christian life, the deeper Christian life in its context. Perhaps the most frequent mistake we make about the Christian life is that it started on earth with the advent of Jesus Christ. Now, while realizing that I’m taking a term out of the first century and thrusting it back into eternity, nonetheless, I am accurate when I say that the Christian life did not begin on this earth, is not native to our creation, and is not native to our species. And that’s one of the reasons you’ve come here, and you’re having such a difficult time being a Christian and living the Christian life.

The Christian life is not native to our species and did not begin on this planet. And next, you cannot live the Christian life. I’d like for you to know this. Write it down and never forget it as long as you live. You cannot live the Christian life. And if you try, you’ll beat your head out; you’ll go berserk. You will be so frustrated all your life. The thing you’re going to have to lay down is any hope that you can ever live the Christian life. Now, I can promise you that you cannot live the Christian life, because Jesus Christ announced that He could not live the Christian life. He said it clearly. He said it very clearly, and He said it this way. Without the Father, I can do nothing. That means that we’ve got to press the Christian life further back than Jesus Christ. He is not the originator of the Christian life.

Now this takes the Christian life totally and completely out of ethics, out of “do”ism, out of performance, out of that which you do for God and what you do by grit, by gum, by gosh, or by or by, whatever, or by golly. And the fascinating thing, and we will dwell on this later, is that Jesus Christ turned to you and said, “Without Me, you can do nothing.” And therefore, that presses us out before eternal, before time, and we’re pressed back to the original Christian, the only Christian, and the only creature who can live the Christian life, and that is God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He can live the Christian life. He not only can live the Christian life; He is the Christian life. Anything He does is the Christian life, and if He doesn’t do it, that’s not the Christian life. His being, His existence is, His status is the Christian life. He alone can live the Christian life.

Now then, the next fascinating thing about all this is that He does not live the Christian life in time, in space-time. He lives in the eternals in spirit. That’s where He lives the Christian life, and He lives it by the means of His own life. Last week, someone pointed out something really wonderful and graphic. He said we talk about living the Christian life. He said there’s no such term in the New Testament. In fact, do you know the word Christian virtually does not appear in the New Testament? Is it once or twice? Three times. We’re clear on that. It’s three times. Okay. All right. Three times it appears. It does not speak of the believers living the believer’s life. Those references are completely left out. What is put in its place is simply the term eternal life. And this particular brother began quoting all the passages speaking of eternal life, and he substituted the word “living the Christian life.” It worked perfectly. There was no difference.

The first-century Christian understood that eternal life is a higher form of life than human life. Eternal life is a life form, not a state. It is God, God lives the Christian life by means of eternal life, which is the life of His particular species. Are you following me? His species is divinity, and that is called eternal life. That is a kind of life, and He lives the Christian life by means of His own being, which is eternal life, and you cannot live the Christian life by human life. It’s got to be lived by eternal life. Now, eternal life is not physical, does not belong to our planet, does not belong to the physical creation, and is not native to this sphere. It is native to the other realm. Now, have you got all of that? You’re really clear. Good. You’re not clear. Don’t worry about it. This only takes about 30 or 40 years.

Now then, let us return to the fountainhead of the Christian life, and let us make this wonderful, glorious discovery, and that is the Christian life is a spiritual thing lived out in the spirituals. Now I’m going to use the term spirituals. It’s a New Testament term and it refers to that realm which is invisible, non-matter, non-dimensional, cannot be seen, cannot be measured, has no atoms in it, has no molecules, has no electrons nor protons. It is the other realm. It cannot be measured. It is vast, and it is small, and it is neither, and that is where God dwells.

And now, let’s go on. God is spirit. Basically, the Christian life then is confined to that which is spirit, and it is confined to the spirit realm or the spiritual realm. Well, that leaves me way out, because I’m confined to the physical realm, and I have no way in; it sounds like I’m in bad trouble, because the Christian life is lived in the spiritual. Well, be at peace. Good news is coming. Now then, I want us to look at God, and I want us to look at Him and recognize two or three very simple things. Let’s forget that creation has ever happened. Let’s just go back to when God was. He was the All, okay? There’s nothing but God. He is spirit, and He’s spirit in the spiritual, and He’s living the Christian life, and He’s not sweating it. And isn’t it amazing, He is not sitting there reading a theological book. Isn’t it amazing that He is a non-theological God?

It took the gospel reaching the western world, passing over into Greece, where Aristotle reigned before there ever was Christian doctrine. Before that, there were living letters and beautiful stories written by men possessed by their Lord. It took men like Augustine, Ambrose, Tertullian, Origen, and Jerome to give us an Aristotelian breakdown of Christian doctrine, and they literally scissored the New Testament up and pasted it together by topics, and then began to philosophize over their scissored together works. But the God that we see here is not demanding of Himself that He passes out tracts on the street; He is not there winning people to Himself in eternity; He is not saving the lost. He is God, and this is the very first thing we learn about Him.

There is the Father, there is the Son, and the Spirit, and they are not in a stressful environment. They are not in an environment of demand. They are not all these things that we get under there. The Father is the source; the Son is the receiver. The Son cannot live the Christian life except by the life the Father imparts to Him, which is His eternal life, and the Son lives by means of the Father. The Father has not demanded that the Son pass out tracts or read the bible. He has not demanded that He speak in tongues. He has not told Him to go to church every Sunday. There are no demands being met on the Son nor on the Spirit. What we discover there in eternity past is one thing, and that is—It is the fellowship of the Godhead, and therein lies the Christian life lived out long before we ever came along. It is a fellowship of divinity. It is a fellowship in spiritual realms. It is a fellowship in a non-dimensional situation. It is a fellowship without requirements. It is a fellowship without demand. It is a fellowship that is beautiful. It is saturated in a mutuality of love and acceptance; good night, it’s the Godhead, it’s the Father and the Son and the Spirit, and they are in fellowship with one another. And if I could get the Christian life for you and to me down to one basic sentence, I would say it begins, its fountainhead, its origins, its source, its headquarters are when you and I, as believers, redeemed Christians, redeemed believers join into and become part of that eternal fellowship. And that which I have just described is the origin of the deeper Christian life, the fellowship of the Godhead. Are you clear? Wonderful! That’s the origin.