The Love of God: Mary Magdalene (John 20) – Part 1

Then we came to right before He died, and we looked at a brother. Who? John. John was getting a little smarter. John discovered something. What was it? That the Lord wanted to be loved in return. Well, if you ever had to choose to be one of the twelve disciples, which one would you be? Would you? I think John would choose to be John because he needed something no one else knew. I think if any of the other disciples were jealous, it was mostly of John. You know, it must have been a startling thing to see the Lord so loved by one of the twelve.

Well, brothers and sisters, that is not the whole story before He was crucified. The Lord did not have to die for you and for me. What motivating power put Him through that terrible, tragic night? One thing: yes, obedience to the Father, but love, brother, love precedes the obedience. You don’t obey out of duty. Love for what? For you. Love for you. I mean, a passion to have you. To be satisfied. To come finally to satisfaction. To have a place for that driving love to go.

Alright, when He died on the cross, He took every enemy with Him. Now then, here’s where I ask you: do you really believe that? Do you really believe me? If so, then what did He take to the cross? He took all creation to the cross. Was that enough? He also took Himself to the cross.

If you missed the meeting the other night, God is the only reality in the universe. There isn’t any other reality; everything else is a picture. Okay, if that is true, who is the only one who can truly die? God alone can truly die. Man, fallen man, is a picture of Jesus Christ. Can he die? He can kind of die. Adam kind of died; he was put to sleep, and God took out a rib from him. Did God create a woman? No. What did He do? He built her out of what? Adam.

Now, on the cross, Jesus Christ died, and God saw to it that His side was also opened. For what reason? For building.  For the purpose of building. Building what? Okay, His bride. Anybody else want to say anything else? Praise the Lord—the rest of the new species and the first of the new creation. God was left in that hour without anything. It was a terrible moment. From God’s viewpoint, nothing remained in the universe but His eternal Spirit. God was down to the bare essentials: the eternal Spirit. Christ had utterly died, and in that death, He was able to do the same thing a seed can do: He was able to be divided.

God reached into His side and drew out blood, which speaks of humanity, and drew out water, which tells us of divinity. God started getting the rest, the other half of that species, and He got started getting, for the first time, His counterpart.

Now we come to fact; real, genuine fact. Even in the three years the Lord spoke, He spoke often as though He had already been crucified, to tell people what they would be and what they would become. But now we come to the hour when the cross is over with.

I want to ask you one more time: is the creation put away? You say no? Why? Alright, sister, I’m glad you said no. Sister, you’re wrong. Completely 100% wrong. But Gene, that is foolish. I see it here before me. Sister, you see it before you. I see it before me. You all see it before you. Is this not true? God doesn’t see it. Now, sister, either God is wrong, or we are wrong. Now, sister, obviously, who is wrong? We are? No, obviously, God is wrong. Look. What is this thing? What is this? It is the old, fallen creation. You know it’s here. I know it’s here. But what is God’s opinion?

It’s not here. Now you know and I know that we are right. Right? Say yes. And God is wrong. Laugh if you wish, but you’ll never get to a more important point: that even when God is wrong, He’s right. God drew the boundaries between what is real and unreal, true and lie, righteousness and sin. His standard is the standard.

God says that on the cross it was all put away, and through His eyes it is all gone. Now, when He decided that, He’s the one who makes the rules; He sets the bounds; He looks through His eyes, and His eyes are the only ones that matter. He’s wrong. I know it, you know it…but let’s play along with it. (laughter)

Now, brothers and sisters, that has been called true faith, positional truth…and it has also been called something else very dear. It is the accomplished, or finished, work of Jesus Christ. Now, very few people know or have ever heard the term “the finished work of Jesus Christ.” Most Christians in the world do not stand in the perspective of God and look at the finished work of Jesus Christ. Many have heard, not all; less than half, maybe only a fifth or a sixth, have ever heard of positional truth. Most Christians have never heard of the finished work of Jesus Christ, completed.

Now, I would like to take this truth that maybe one fourth or one fifth of Christians have heard about, called positional truth, and I would like to dump it…in the garbage can…forever. But what about the finished work of Jesus Christ? What about that? What shall we do with that? What? Believe it. Believe it? Is that what you said? Praise the Lord, they’ve both got to go. They’re both standing in the way of what the Lord wants.