C o m p l e t e

S a l v a t i o n

b y D e r e k P r i n c e

BOOKS BY DEREK PRINCE

Appointment in Jerusalem

Atonement: Your Appointment with God

Baptism in the Holy Spirit

Blessing or Curse: You Can Choose

The Destiny of Israel and the Church

The Divine Exchange

Does Your Tongue Need Healing?

The End of Life’s Journey

Extravagant Love

Faith to Live By

Fasting

Fatherhood

God Is a Matchmaker

God’s Medicine Bottle

God’s Plan for Your Money

God’s Remedy for Rejection

God’s Will for Your Life

The Grace of Yielding

The Holy Spirit in You

How to Fast Successfully

Husbands and Fathers

Judging: When? Why? How?

Lucifer Exposed

The Marriage Covenant

Orphans, Widows, the Poor and Oppressed

Our Debt to Israel

Pages from My Life’s Book

Promised Land

Receiving God’s Best

Rediscovering God’s Church

Rules of Engagement

Self-Study Bible Course

Shaping History Through Prayer & Fasting

Foundational Truths for Christian Living

Spiritual Warfare

They Shall Expel Demons

Through the Psalms

War in Heaven

D e r e k P r i n c e M i n i s t r i e s

P . O . B o x 1 9 5 0 1 • C h a r l o t t e , N C 2 8 2 1 9

WWW. DEREKPRINCE. ORG

C O M P L E T E

S A L V A T I O N

b y D e r e k P r i n c e

D E R E K P R I N C E M I N I S T R I E S

C H A R L O T T E , N O R T H C A R O L I N A

COMPLETE SALVATION

© 2006 Derek Prince Ministries-Intemational

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-892283-42-9

Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible,

Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, TN, © 1982.

This book was compiled from the extensive archive of Derek Prince’s

unpublished materials and edited by the Derek Prince Ministries

editorial team.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by

any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or by means of any information storage and retrieval system, without

permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the U. S. A.

Contents

Introduction. ..........................................................7

1 So Great a Salvation. ..........................................9

2 New Testament Usage of “Salvation”. ..........23

3 The Cross: Exchange. .......................................33

4 The Cross: Identification. .................................47

5 How to Appropriate What God Has Done. ..61

INTRODUCTION

want to emphasize that our salvation is

great and it is complete, because I believe that

Imany Christians who have experienced

salvation have not experienced all that God

included in the salvation He has provided. It is

as if they are living in a corner of a little house,

whereas they have actually entered a great big,

wonderful mansion that God has prepared for

them. In fact, I do not believe that there is a

Christian on earth today who has experienced

the completeness of all that God has provided

in salvation—and I include myself. I thank God

I am enjoying a lot more than I did when I was

first saved in 1941, but I know there is much,

much more for us all.

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1

O GREAT A SALVATION

n Hebrews 2:3, the writer asks: “How shall we

I escape if we neglect so great a salvation...?”

It is a great salvation that God has provided

for us through Jesus Christ. However, one of

the great dangers is that we would “neglect” it

—that is, not really enter into it. Neglect

includes accepting our great salvation as just a

theological fact or doctrine but not embracing it

in fullness in our experience.

Understanding the Vastness of

Our Salvation

In Ephesians 3:17-19, the apostle Paul prays

for the people of God:

... That you, being rooted and grounded in

love, may be able to comprehend with all the

saints what is the width and length and depth

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Complete Salvation

and height—to know the love of Christ which

passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all

the fullness of God.

I picture entering our great salvation as

walking into a tremendous mansion. It has

many corridors and different types of rooms. If

we look, first of all, at the width—it stretches

out as far as our eyes can see in either direction.

Then if we look ahead at the length, we cannot

see the end of it. Imagine standing on a grand

staircase in the midst of that wonderful

mansion. When you look down, you cannot see

all that is beneath you. Finally, as you look up,

it stretches beyond what you can take in with

your eyes!

Paul’s prayer tells us that God does not

want us to remain isolated in some small corner

of the mansion we have entered, but to

comprehend—to take in and embrace—all the

scope of our great salvation: its width, its

length, its depth and its height.

Throughout the Bible, the word salvation

has a very wide application. For many people it

might simply mean having their sins forgiven

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So Great a Salvation

and becoming “a prepackaged soul for

heaven.” But there is a lot more to salvation

than that.

Salvation is a biblical word for God’s all-

inclusive provision for man. It is used in the

New Testament to describe all the benefits and

blessings of God made available to us through

Jesus Christ. It includes the forgiveness of sins,

the gift of eternal life, the provision of physical

healing, the power to live a life that is different

—in fact, every provision for this life and the

assurance of eternity in the presence of

Almighty God.

The Importance of Trusting in

God’s Salvation

Psalm 78:12-54 describes the Lord’s dealings

with Israel in bringing them out of Egypt and

then taking them through the wilderness. It also

states why the Lord became angry with His

people. Putting it into everyday language, God

was angry because they had such a small view

of Him and His salvation. Similarly, I believe

that sometimes we grieve God by our small

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comprehension of the salvation He has given

us.

If you analyze the passage, salvation is the

all-inclusive word for every blessing and

provision God gave them, from the time they

sacrificed the Passover lamb and were

delivered from Egypt until they entered their

inheritance. It included protection from God’s

judgment through the blood of the lamb, the

supernatural passing through the Red Sea, the

presence of God coming down in the form of a

cloud, being fed every day with manna from

heaven, water gushing out of the rocks, and so

on.

However, despite all the “marvelous things”

God did, the people sinned and rebelled in the

wilderness, tested God in their hearts, and

spoke against Him (verses 17-20). Verses 21 and

22 tell us:

Therefore, the Lord heard this and was

furious; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and

anger also came up against Israel, because they

did not believe in God, and did not trust in His

salvation.

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So Great a Salvation

Have you ever considered what it took to

feed some three million people every day? I

saw a picture years ago of the freight train that

would be required to carry the water and food

for three million people for one day. It was a

very long train indeed—and that was just for

one day! God fed them in the wilderness for

forty years. All that provision was included in

their salvation.

Also included was the fact their shoes never

wore out and their clothes never got old. When

they were sick, God provided healing. In the

heat of the day, He covered them with a cloud

and, in the cold of night, He provided the

warmth and light of a fire. God’s total provision

was summed up in this one word “salvation,”

used in verse 22 (in Hebrew it is yeshuah). Yet

God was grieved because they did not

comprehend the extent of His salvation.

Further on, in verse 41, it says: “Yes, again

and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy

One of Israel.”

I confess that many times I have limited

God in my concept of salvation. I have had a

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need and thought to myself, Can I really trust

God for that need? I think most Christians today

set limits to what they think God will do. These

are not scriptural limits, they are just limits on

how big we imagine God’s salvation to be. We

need to bear in mind that this grieves the Lord.

When the Israelites set limits to what they

thought God could do, it grieved Him.

Therefore, let us resolve in our hearts that we

will not set limits to what God can do, but

rather believe in the all-inclusive,

comprehensive salvation God has provided.

The Perfect Sacrifice of Jesus

Christ

Hebrews 10:14 states what was

accomplished by the death of Jesus Christ on

the cross:

For by one offering He has perfected forever

those who are being sanctified.

His death was a sacrifice, foreordained by

God, on behalf of the whole human race.

When I taught English as a second language

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So Great a Salvation

to African students, one of the things that I

discovered was that I had to teach them the

significance of English tenses. A tense is the

form of the verb that shows the time of the

action. In this verse two tenses are used and

they are very significant. The first is called the

perfect tense. It says, “For by one offering He has

perfected forever....”

The writer to the Hebrews has just

described how the Old Testament priests stood

ministering daily, offering again and again the

same sacrifices, which could never take away

sin. However, speaking about Jesus, he says,

“But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for

sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God”

(verse 12). The contrast is between the priests,

who stood continually, and Jesus, who offered

His one sacrifice and sat down. Why did He sit

down? Because He was never going to have to

make another sacrifice! He had done it all, once

and forever. However, the Old Testament

priests’ job was never finished, because their

sacrifices could not deal with the real problem

of sin. Jesus’ work is complete. It never has to

be added to, and nothing can ever be taken

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away from it. It is forever. That is why the

perfect tense is used.

Speaking about those who are

appropriating the work of Jesus, the writer calls

us “those who are being sanctified” (verse 14).

That is what we call a continuing present tense.

Jesus’ work was perfect, but our appropriation

of it is a continuing process. We are being

sanctified. And as we are being sanctified—as

we are increasingly set apart to God, draw

closer to God and appropriate more of God’s

provision and promises—we enter more and

more into the full provision of the one sacrifice

of Jesus Christ.

I was a philosopher before I was a preacher,

and I observed that the Bible is the only book

that diagnoses accurately the cause of human

problems. The cause is stated in one word: sin.

No other book diagnoses the nature and effects

of sin or tells us the remedy except the Bible. If

we had to deal with the problem in our own

wisdom or strength it would defeat us.

Sin’s remedy is a sacrifice. This is the

message of the whole Bible, from beginning to

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So Great a Salvation

end. Wherever there is sin, there has to be a

sacrifice. All the Old Testament sacrifices were

prefigurings (shadows or types) of the one,

glorious, final, all-sufficient sacrifice which

Jesus made on our behalf on the cross.

Before He died, Jesus’ last triumphant cry

was, “It is finished!” In the Greek of the New

Testament this is one word, tetelestai—the

perfect tense of a verb that means “to do

something perfectly.” My interpretation is that

Jesus’ sacrifice was perfectly perfect and

completely complete. However, our appropriation

of the benefits of the sacrifice is progressive.

New Birth and Salvation

We need to make an important distinction

between new birth and salvation. Let us look

for a moment in John 1:11-13 about the new

birth.

He [Jesus] came to His own [place or home],

and His own [people] did not receive Him...

Thank God for the word “but” that follows.

This was not the end! There are many

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wonderful occurrences of “but” in the Bible (see

Romans 6:23, for example). In John’s gospel, we

continue:

But as many as received Him, to them He

gave the right [I prefer to say “authority”] to

become children of God, to those who believe in

His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of

the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of

God.

To be born of God is new birth. In street

meetings, in the city of London in particular, I

have had the privilege of leading hundreds of

people into the new birth. I said to them, “If

you want to be born again, there is one thing

you have to do: You have to receive Him!” That

is the key to the new birth— receiving Jesus. The

text says, “As many as received Him....” You have

got to open your heart personally and welcome

the Lord in. He also says, “Behold, I stand at the

door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens

the door, I will come in” (Revelation 3:20). What a

blessing it is to assure people that if they

invited Jesus in, He has kept His promise: He

has come in.

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So Great a Salvation

The new birth is a one-time experience. A

person never needs to be born again twice.

Much of it is potential, in a certain sense: we

receive authority to become children of God.

However, authority is useless if not used. What

we become depends on how much we use the

authority that we are given.

When I ministered in Africa, I observed that

an African’s attitude is, “There is no harm in

asking for it.” If you give an African a pair of

shoes, he will probably say, “Thank you! But

where are the socks?” If he knows there is

something to be received by asking, he will

usually come and ask for it. Therefore, it is not

difficult to get people to come forward in sub-

Saharan Africa in an appeal. Rather, it is

difficult to stop them! I struggled to teach my

students that, once they had asked to receive

Jesus, they did not have to keep asking. He had

come in! The real victory was when they did

not come forward again—because then they

had grasped the fact that they had received

Him.

In contrast to new birth, salvation is an

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ongoing process. It is not a one-time experience.

You might be born again but, as for salvation,

how far have you come? Salvation is referred to

in three tenses: in the perfect tense, the simple

past tense, and the continuing present tense.

Ephesians 2:8 says: “For by grace you have

been saved through faith....” That is the perfect

tense. Translated literally, Paul is saying, “By

grace you are having-been-saved.” It is

completed.

Titus 3:5 says: “Not by works of righteousness

which we have done, but according to His mercy, He

[God] saved us.” That is the simple past tense.

For me, there was a specific moment in time

when God saved me: it was about midnight on

a Friday evening late in July 1941. There is one

particular moment when we personally enter

into the provision of God.

In 1 Corinthians 1:18 we find the continuing

present tense: “For the message of the cross is

foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who

are being saved it is the power of God.” The

continuing present tense means “us who are

continually being saved.”

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In summation, we have a one-time

experience in which we can say, “God saved

me.” Through that experience, we enter into a

salvation which is already complete: we are

having-been-saved. But, at the same time,

salvation continues to work in us: we are

continually being saved.

A vivid illustration of this is Noah’s ark.

There are two main arks in the Old Testament:

the big ark of Noah and the little ark of Moses.

Both are pictures of Christ. The big ark speaks

of me in Christ; the little ark speaks of Christ in

me. Each of them speaks of Christ.

Focusing on the big ark of Noah, we see that

salvation came through entering that ark. At a

certain time, Noah and his family entered into

the ark and they were saved. The ark was already

complete and perfect. It had been built exactly

according to God’s instructions. It never had to

be repaired; it never had to be adjusted or

improved or recalled. It worked perfectly! And

thank God it did, because it would have been

too late if it had not! The moment they entered

into the ark, they entered into a perfect

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salvation. But all the time they were in the ark,

the ark was continually saving them from the

waters that raged all around.

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EW TESTAMENT USAGE OF

“SALVATION”

want to draw your attention to some thing

that does not come out in any translation of

Ithe Bible that I know of. In the New

Testament, there is one Greek word for “save.”

Putting it in English letters, it is sozo. This Greek

word sozo is most often translated as “save” or

“saved,” but there are other passages where it

is translated “healed,” “made well,” “made

whole,” “preserved,” and so on. These other

translations conceal the fact that salvation is

being referred to.

To make this clear, I will give seven

examples from the New Testament of the use of

this word sozo where, if we did not have access

to the Greek, we would have no way of

knowing that the word being used is sozo—that

is, salvation.

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Matthew 14:36

And when the men of that place recognized

[Jesus], they sent out into all that surrounding

region, brought to Him all who were sick, and

begged Him that they might only touch the hem

of His garment. And as many as touched it were

made perfectly well.

(verses 35-36)

This is part of the ministry of Jesus. What

the Greek actually says is they were

“thoroughly saved” or “completely healed.” It

is the Greek word sozo, with the preposition dia

in front, which means “through”—implying

thoroughly. Every person was miraculously

healed, or thoroughly saved. In other words,

healing was not an addition to salvation, it was

one part of salvation. It is salvation applied to

the physical body.

Luke 8:36

Luke 8:26-39 gives a record of the so-called

“Gadarene demoniac,” a man who was totally

demonized. He would not wear any clothes;

and he lived among the tombs, cutting himself,

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New Testament Usage of “Salvation”

shouting out day and night. When Jesus came,

the man did one tremendously significant

thing: he came and fell down before Jesus and

worshiped Him (Mark 5:6). In my experience of

helping people get delivered from evil spirits,

they have to be willing to submit to Jesus;

otherwise they do not qualify. This man did

absolutely all he could do; after that, the

demons took over. But he had come to Jesus;

and Jesus saw that, in his heart, was a desire for

Himself. Jesus asked his name and the demons

replied, “Legion,” because many demons had

entered him. Then the demons begged Jesus,

“Do not send us into the abyss!” They pleaded to

go into a nearby herd of swine instead, and

Jesus permitted it.

There have been a lot of interesting

speculations as to why Jesus did this. My

opinion is that it would have been agonizing

for the man if the demons had gone out

unwillingly. Therefore, Jesus gave them an

option they were prepared to accept: to go into

the swine. The swine then immediately ran

down the steep slope into the lake and were

drowned.

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It is worth noting that one man could

contain such demon power and keep it under

control, yet the same demons could destroy a

herd of two thousand pigs. That gives us some

idea of the power of human personality. Many

times in deliverance when I have heard

someone’s story, I have been overwhelmed by

the fact that people could live with what they

have had to fight inside them.

The people who kept the swine went and

told about it in the city:

Then they went out to see what had

happened, and came to Jesus, and found the man

from whom the demons had departed, sitting at

the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.

And they were afraid. They also who had seen it

told them by what means he who had been

demon-possessed was healed.

(verses 35-36)

The word used is sozo again. Thus,

deliverance from demons was not an addition

to salvation. It is a part of salvation.

Luke 8:48

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New Testament Usage of “Salvation”

Jesus returned to the other side of the Sea of

Galilee and was thronged by a crowd when a

woman with chronic bleeding came and

touched Him. Jesus knew somebody had

touched Him and asked, “Who touched Me?”

She was afraid to admit it because, according to

the Law of Moses, a woman with an issue of

blood was ceremonially unclean and was not

permitted to touch anybody. But she was so

desperate that she went against the Law. When

she realized Jesus knew what had happened,

she came trembling, fell down before Him, and

confessed what she had done. In verse 48, Jesus

said to her:

Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has

made you well. Go in peace.

Thus, deliverance from chronic bleeding is

also a part of salvation.

Luke 8:50

Jesus had been on His way to pray for the

daughter of Jairus, who was at death’s door.

The woman had delayed Him and Jairus’

daughter had died. Some well-meaning, but

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negative, people sent a message to Jairus

saying, “Don’t trouble the Teacher. Your daughter

is dead.”

But when Jesus heard it, He answered him,

saying, “Do not be afraid; only believe, and she

will be made well. ”

Guess what the word is? “She will be

saved.” What happened to her? She was brought

back from death to life. This also is part of

salvation.

Acts 4:9-12

After Peter and John had brought

miraculous healing to the lame man who sat at

the Beautiful Gate of the temple begging for

alms, the religious leadership of the day had an

inquiry. (I don’t know whether you have

noticed, but whenever Jesus healed people—

and He usually did it on the Sabbath day—the

religious leaders never bothered about the

people who were healed. All they bothered

about was their regulations for the Sabbath,

which they claimed had not been observed.

That is rather typical of religious people. They

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New Testament Usage of “Salvation”

tend to get so absorbed with their little rules

that they miss the really important things of

God.) When Peter and John were arraigned by

the Sanhedrin, Peter replied:

If we this day are judged for a good deed

done to a helpless man, by what means he has

been made well....

The word again is sozo. Thus, the restoration

of strength and life to the body of a crippled

man is also called salvation. Peter continued

that it was through the name of Jesus of

Nazareth that this had happened (verse 10).

Then he said: “There is no other name under

heaven given among men by which we must be

saved” (verse 12).

Sozo again. The healing of that man was

salvation.

Acts 14:9

And in Lystra a certain man without

strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from

his mother’s womb, who had never walked. This

man heard Paul speaking. Paul, observing him

intently and seeing that he had faith to be

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healed, said with a loud voice, “Stand up

straight on your feet!” And he leaped and

walked.

(verses 8-10)

Paul saw that he had faith to be healed— he

had faith to be saved.

2 Timothy 4:18

This is a completely different use of the

word. Paul, right at the end of his life, in jail

and facing probable execution, said:

And the Lord will deliver me from every evil

work and preserve me for His heavenly

kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever.

Amen!

The word translated “preserve” is sozo

again—saved. Salvation includes the process of

being kept by God for His eternal kingdom.

These examples are instances where the

Greek word for “save” is applied to things

other than the forgiveness of sins. They

emphasize that salvation is the all-inclusive

benefit of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. It covers

every area of human personality and every

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New Testament Usage of “Salvation”

need in any human life in time or eternity.

Whether a need is spiritual, mental, emotional,

physical, or financial, it is covered by the one

sacrifice of Jesus.

I have spent years meditating on Jesus’

work on the cross—ever since I was sick in a

British military hospital in Egypt in 1943. God

sent me a precious sister: a lady brigadier in the

Salvation Army, aged about 76 and a real

warrior of the Lord. She got permission for me

to go out pray with her in a car. God spoke to

me through another sister in that car, saying,

“Consider the work of Calvary: a perfect work

—perfect in every respect, perfect in every

aspect.” When I got out of the car I was just as

sick as when I got in. But God had shown me

where to find the answer: the work of Calvary.

It was a perfect work, perfect in every respect.

It does not matter what kind of need we have,

the sacrifice of Jesus was perfect in every

aspect. From whatever angle you view it, it was

perfect.

Since that time (for nearly sixty years), I

have been considering the work of Calvary. I

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never get to the end of it. And in the course of

time I have discovered two ways of

understanding and communicating the cross.

There are two key words that I believe God has

given me to explain what was accomplished by

the death of Jesus. The first word is exchange;

the second is identification.

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3

HE CROSS: EXCHANGE

he first way to view and understand the

cross is contained in the word exchange.

TOn the cross, a divinely ordained

exchange took place in this sense: God visited

upon Jesus all the evil that was due by justice to

us, so that in return He might make available to

us all the good that was due to the perfect,

sinless, obedient Son of God. To examine the

nature of the exchange, I will present eight

aspects of it. A key chapter is Isaiah 53.

Jesus was punished that we might be forgiven

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have

turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord

has laid on Him [or made to meet together on

Him, Jesus] the iniquity of us all.

(Isaiah 53:6)

We have all turned to our own way. That is

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the problem of the human race, the one thing of

which we are all guilty. We may not have

robbed a bank, committed adultery, gotten

drunk, or stolen; but there is one thing we have

all done—turned to our own way. And God

says our ways are not His ways (Isaiah 55:8).

Going our own way is turning our back on

God; and it is called “iniquity.” It is a strong

word in Hebrew, avon, which means not just

doing wrong, but includes the penalties and

judgment that follow doing wrong. The

revelation Isaiah gives us is that God visited on

Jesus the iniquity of us all. Thus, all the evil

consequences of our wickedness came upon

Jesus on the cross. He took the evil—all the

judgment and punishment—so that, by a divine

exchange, God might make the good due to

Jesus available to us. There was no reason for it,

except God’s grace. God did not owe us

anything. It was purely His measureless grace

and His incomprehensible love.

Grace is what you can never earn. Some

Christians do not really know what grace is,

because they are always trying to earn it. But

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The Cross: Exchange

we cannot ever earn what Jesus made available

to us through the cross. If we try to be good

enough, we will never receive it. It is purely by

grace. And it is received only through faith.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith”

(Ephesians 2:8).

When I spend time meditating on what

Jesus did on my behalf, my mind can never

fully comprehend it. He came down, took our

place—even my place—and endured all the

inexpressible suffering that should have come

upon me. It was grace.

Jesus was wounded that we might be healed

Surely He has borne our griefs [or

sicknesses, pains] and carried our sorrows; yet

we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and

afflicted. But He was wounded for our

transgressions, He was bruised for our

iniquities; the chastisement [or punishment] for

our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes [or

wounds] we are healed.

(Isaiah 53:4-5)

First of all, Jesus was punished that we

might be forgiven. Because He bore our

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punishment, God’s justice is satisfied and we

can have peace with God. “Therefore, having

been justified by faith, we have peace with God

through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

Second, Jesus bore our sicknesses and pains

and, by the wounds inflicted on His body, He

procured physical healing for us. (The word

translated griefs is a word for sicknesses. )

Do you believe it? If you do, then one thing

you have to do is say, “Thank You!” to God.

Thanking is the purest expression of faith. (I

believe that many times we miss out because

we do not give thanks.)

Jesus was made sin with our sinfulness that we

might be made righteous with His

righteousness

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He

has put Him to grief When you make His soul

an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He

shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the

Lord shall prosper in His hand.

(Isaiah 53:10)

On the cross, the soul of Jesus was made the

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The Cross: Exchange

sin offering for the world. According to the

ceremonies of the Old Covenant, when an

animal was brought as a sin offering, the man

who brought the animal confessed his sin to the

priest and the priest laid his hands on the head

of the animal. The sin of man was thus

symbolically transferred to the animal. Then the

animal paid the penalty for the man’s sin. The

penalty of sin is death. Therefore, the animal

was put to death as a substitute for the man.

The writer of Hebrews says, “For it is not

possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take

away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). The sacrifices merely

prefigured what was to happen through the

cross. When Jesus died on the cross, He was

made the sin offering for the human race.

There is no way our minds can begin to

comprehend what it meant for the Lord Jesus,

in all His purity and holiness, to become

identified with the sin of humanity and to be

punished for us. I am not an outstandingly

priggish person, but when I think of some of

the sins that are being committed in our society

today—the awful sexual abuses and

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abnormalities—I shudder to think what it

would mean, even to me, to have my soul

identified with those sins. Yet that is just a tiny,

minute fraction of what happened to Jesus

when He became the sin offering for us.

The writer of Hebrews also says, “But in

those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every

year” (Hebrews 10:3). The sacrifices of the Old

Testament never put away sin. They just

reminded the people that they were sinners.

Their sins would be covered for another year.

But Jesus “offered one sacrifice for sins forever”

(Hebrews 10:12). He dealt with sin forever by

the one sacrifice of Himself on the cross. And

His sacrifice put away sin.

In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul was alluding to

Isaiah 53: “For He [God] made Him [Jesus] who

knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become

the righteousness of God in Him.”

Do you see the exchange? Jesus was made

sin for us, that we might be made righteous. We

are made righteous with His righteousness, not

our righteousness. The best we can do is not

good enough, because Isaiah also says, “All our

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The Cross: Exchange

righteousnesses are like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6).

However, one of my favorite verses says:

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul

shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me

with the garments of salvation, He has covered

me with the robe of righteousness.

(Isaiah 61:10)

Not only are we given the garments of

salvation, but we are wrapped around with the

righteousness of the sinless Son of God. It does

not matter from what angle the devil looks at

us, he has nothing to say against us. We have

been given the very righteousness of God in

Christ.

Are you rejoicing that you are covered with

the righteousness of Jesus?

Jesus died our death that we might receive His

life

Going on with the exchange, Hebrews 2:9

tells us:

He [Jesus], by the grace of God ... taste[d]

death for everyone.

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He tasted death in the place of every human

being. As far as I understand it, the work of

Jesus covered every descendant of Adam; but it

did not cover angels. Jesus was the last Adam

(1 Corinthians 15:45). We can never

comprehend why God should be so interested

in Adam and his descendants.

God began the human race in an

extraordinary way. Adam was created in a

different way than any other creature. The Bible

says, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were

made, and all the host of them by the breath of His

mouth” (Psalm 33:6). But when it came to

creating Adam, God molded a figure of clay.

Then that divine Being—the second Person of

the Godhead, the Word of God by whom all

things were made that were made (John 1:3)—

stooped and breathed into the man’s nostrils of

clay the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). The Hebrew

word for “breathed” is powerful; it is naphach.

The ph sound is a plosive. God “exploded”

breath into Adam! He imparted His life to him.

Think of the physical consequences: a body of

clay became a living human being with

functioning eyes, ears and internal organs! The

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The Cross: Exchange

Spirit of God did it.

To believe in divine healing is very logical.

If your watch goes wrong, you do not take it to

the shoemaker but to the watchmaker. If your

body goes wrong, it is reasonable to go to the

body-maker. And our body maker is the Lord,

especially the Holy Spirit, because it was the

Spirit of God that made Adam’s body come

alive.

When God came to redeem man—He

stooped a lot lower. Jesus Christ stooped to the

death of the cross. Then when He had risen

again and appeared on resurrection Sunday

evening, He reenacted the creation of man in

the new creation. It says Jesus breathed into, or

upon, His disciples and said, “Receive the Holy

Spirit” (John 20:22). The word in Greek,

emphusao, is the same that is used for a flute

player breathing into the mouthpiece of his

instrument. I do not envisage Jesus breathing

collectively on all of them. Rather, I envisage

Him going up to each of them individually and

breathing into them the breath of resurrection

life. It was His divine life that had conquered

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sin and death, conquered hell and the grave,

and conquered Satan. It was a totally victorious

life. It was eternal life, divine life, incorruptible

life, indestructible life.

This was the new birth. The disciples were

born again by the Spirit of God and they passed

out of Old Testament salvation—which merely

looked forward—into New Testament

salvation, which looks back to the

accomplished historical fact of the cross and

resurrection. To enter into New Testament

salvation, you have to do two things: confess

Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Him

from the dead (Romans 10:9). This occasion was

the first time these disciples had believed. It

was New Testament salvation! Jesus tasted

death for us, that we might share His life.

Jesus was made a curse that we might enter

into the blessing

Galatians 3:13-14 shows us probably the

most neglected aspect of the exchange:

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the

law, having become a curse for us (for it is

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The Cross: Exchange

written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a

tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come

upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might

receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

What is the exchange? What was the bad

thing? The curse. And what is the good thing?

The blessing! Jesus became a curse for us, that

we might receive the blessing.

I have often taught for one or two hours on

this subject alone. It opens a whole new door of

deliverance, healing and peace. If you want to

picture a curse, consider Jesus on the cross. He

was rejected by man, forsaken by God, under

darkness, in agony, not on earth and not in

heaven. He was totally rejected, totally

unaccepted. That was the curse. But, thank

God, Jesus was made a curse that we might

enjoy the blessing of God.

Jesus endured our poverty that we might share

His abundance

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus

Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your

sakes He became poor, that you through His

poverty might become rich.

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(2 Corinthians 8:9)

Again, you do not have to be a theologian to

see the exchange here. What was the bad thing?

Poverty. And what is the good thing? I do not

like to use the term “rich,” because it has been

abused by wrong teaching. I prefer to use the

word abundance, because to have abundance

means you have enough for yourself and more

to give away to somebody else. (Second

Corinthians 9:8 describes this as having “an

abundance for every good work.”) Jesus endured

poverty that we might share His abundance.

Jesus bore our shame that we might share His

glory

Think of Jesus hanging naked on the cross

with people walking by and laughing at Him. It

was shame. Hebrews 12:2 tells us:

Jesus ... endured the cross, despising the

shame....

So many people today are tormented by

shame. But I have good news for you! Jesus

endured your shame. He endured shame for all

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The Cross: Exchange

of us.

One main cause of shame, to be very frank,

is that many children have experienced sexual

abuse in their early years. But, praise God, there

is an answer! Jesus endured shame that we all

might share His glory.

Jesus endured our rejection that we might have

His acceptance with the Father

On the cross, the Father rejected Jesus. Jesus

cried out,

My God, My God, why have You forsaken

Me?

(Matthew 27:46)

There came no answer. It was the first time

that the Son of God had ever prayed and got no

answer. And He died shortly after of a broken

heart. It says in Psalm 69:20, “Reproach has

broken my heart.” I do not believe that Jesus died

of the effects of crucifixion; He could have lived

quite a while longer. Rather, He died of a

broken heart—because of rejection. Why did He

endure such rejection? So that we might have

acceptance! God can now accept us as members

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of His family because of what Jesus endured on

the cross. He accepts us and we become the

very children of God.

I think at least 50 percent of the people

around us are struggling with rejection, because

of the failure of parents, divorce, the general

cruelty of human beings to one another, and so

on. But we can walk out into the world and say

we have the answer. It is provided by the death

of Jesus on the cross. Jesus endured rejection for

us, that we might know His acceptance.

The salvation that we have entered into

thus covers all our emotional needs. It is

perfectly perfect; it is completely complete.

46

4

T

4

HE CROSS: IDENTIFICATION

e have looked at the word exchange.

Now I want to consider the word

W identification. To identify with

somebody means to make yourself one with

them—to put yourself in that person’s place.

The cross involves a double identification, it is

twofold.

First of all, on the cross Jesus identified

Himself with you and me as sinners. As the last

Adam, He identified Himself with the whole

Adamic race and He paid the penalty for our

sins. He became our substitute and He died in

our place.

However, salvation comes only when we

respond with the other identification—when

we identify ourselves with Jesus in His death,

His burial, His being made alive, His

resurrection, and His enthronement. That is

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when we enter into what He has provided.

He has made the first identification; it is

finished. But we appropriate salvation as we

identify ourselves with everything that came to

Him from His death onwards.

Jesus as the last Adam identified Himself with

man

Two glorious titles are given to Jesus in 1

Corinthians 15. They are sometimes quoted

inaccurately. Paul says:

And so it is written, “The first man Adam

became a living being.” The last Adam became

a life-giving spirit.... The first man was of the

earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord

from heaven.

(verses 45, 47, emphasis added)

The two titles are the “last Adam” and the

“second Man.” I have often heard people call

Jesus the “second Adam.” but that is not what

He is called. He is called the “last Adam”; and

then He is called the “second Man.”

On the cross, Jesus died as the last Adam—

not last in time, but last in the sense that the

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The Cross: Identification

judgment of the entire Adamic race came upon

Him. Then, when He rose on the third day, He

rose as the second Man—a new kind of man. He

became the head of a “race” that had never

existed before. He was the head of the body, the

firstborn from the dead.

The believer’s identification with Jesus

The apostle Peter says:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord

Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant

mercy has begotten us again to a living hope

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the

dead.

(1 Peter 1:3)

Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ

when we identify ourselves with Him, we are

begotten again: born into the new creation.

Since the resurrection of Jesus, God has done a

new thing in the earth.

Now let us consider the implication of Jesus

dying as the last Adam. Paul amplifies this in

Romans 6. Verse 6 is in the middle of one of

Paul’s long sentences:

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... Knowing this, that our old man was

crucified with Him [Jesus], that the body of sin

might be done away with, that we should no

longer be slaves of sin.

This is a very important statement. When

Jesus died on the cross, our old man (our

rebellious, fallen, Adamic nature) was crucified

in Him. It is a historical fact. We need to

understand clearly that the old man is

incorrigible. God does not try to improve him—

He does not send him to church or teach him

Scripture. He has only one solution for the old

man inside us, and the solution is execution.

However, the message of mercy is that the

execution took place two thousand years ago

when Jesus died on the cross. Our old man was

crucified with Him.

Paul goes on in verse 11 to tell us what to

do: “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead

indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our

Lord.”

What God did on the cross is a finished,

historical fact. It is true whether or not we

know it or believe it. But when we know it and

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The Cross: Identification

believe it and apply it, it works in us. Just as

Jesus was executed on the cross, so I believe my

old, fallen, rebellious, corrupt nature was put to

death. Death is the way out—the only way out

—of the fallen, Adamic nature. And we take the

way out through the death of Jesus on the cross

—through identification. Paul tells us, “Reckon

yourselves to be dead indeed to sin.”

What does it mean to be dead to sin? I

always illustrate this by an imaginary incident

involving a bad man. By the standards of

religious people, he was terrible: He drank

whisky, he swore, he cursed his wife and

children, and he watched all sorts of bad

programs on television. However, his wife and

children were believers. They used to sneak out

on Sunday evenings to the local gospel service,

and he would always curse them as they left.

One night they sneaked out and had a

glorious night at the gospel service. They came

back still singing choruses and, as they walked

into the house, they waited for the curse to

come. But no curse came. Then they looked.

The cigar was in the ashtray and smoke was

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curling up, but the man was not smoking. The

whiskey glass was there, but he was not

drinking. Do you know what had happened?

The man had had a heart attack and died. He

was therefore dead to sin! Sin had no more

attraction for him. It had no more power over

him. He was dead to it now.

When Jesus died on the cross, our old

corrupt, sinful nature died in Him. Thus sin has

no more power over us; sin has no more

attraction for us; sin produces no more reaction

from us —through identification. I meet people

who have traveled all around the world to get

away from their problems; but their real

problem goes with them, because it is the old

man. You cannot escape from the old man by

traveling. There is only one escape, and it is by

death—the death of the Lord Jesus on our

behalf.

The second side of identification, then, is

that we must identify ourselves with Jesus. And

this we do by faith. We do it because the Bible

says it is true. There are five basic steps in this

identification.

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We Died with Him

First of all, we died with Christ—past tense.

It is an event that took place at a certain

moment in time. In Colossians 3:3 Paul, writing

to Christians, says:

For you died, and your life is hidden with

Christ in God.

They were still living on the earth, yet Paul

said that they had died. When did they die? It

was when Jesus died on the cross.

Then in 2 Timothy 2:11, Paul says: “This is a

faithful saying: For if we died with Him, we shall

also live with Him.”

His death was our death. But to enter into

salvation, the sinner, through faith, has to

complete the identification. We all have to say,

“Yes, when Jesus died on the cross, I died too.

His death was my death. My old man died in

Him when He died.” Then we say, “Being dead

with Him, I must follow Him: from death to

burial, and from burial into resurrection.”

Buried with Him

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Christ’s death was followed by His burial.

How are we identified with Him in burial? By

baptism in water. That is why baptism is so

important. The identification with His death is

inward, but our identification with Him in

burial is outward. It is a visible identification

with the Lord.

Water baptism, as expounded by the

apostles in the New Testament, is an act of open

public identification with the Lord Jesus in His

death, burial and resurrection. And there is not

the faintest shadow of a doubt that in the early

church every convert—every person who

became a disciple—was immediately required

to identify himself publicly by water baptism

with the One whom he had confessed as Savior

and Lord. The way into the fellowship of the

church was this way of baptism. In my opinion,

this is the greatest privilege that can be offered

to a sinner on this earth: to be publicly

identified with the Lord. And it is not only

before man but before the entire universe that

this takes place.

In countries where there is a strongly anti-

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The Cross: Identification

Christian government, water baptism is the

decisive cut-off point—whether amongst

Muslims, Communists, Jews, or others. You can

say you believe in Jesus and they might get

angry. But when you are baptized, all hell turns

loose, because that is where you are escaping

from their territory.

Therefore we were buried with Him through

baptism into death, that just as Christ was

raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,

even so we also should walk in newness of life.

(Romans 6:4)

Thus, every baptismal service is, in fact, a

double service. It should be a burial followed

by a resurrection!

In Colossians 2:12 Paul says the same thing:

... Buried with Him in baptism, in which

you also were raised [resurrected] with Him

through faith in the working of God, who raised

Him from the dead.

When we are buried with Him in baptism,

then we have the right to follow Him in

everything that followed His burial.

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Made Alive, Resurrected and

Enthroned with Him

There are three more stages, stated in

Ephesians 2:4-6:

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of

His great love with which He loved us, even

when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive

together with Christ (by grace you have been

saved), and raised us up [resurrected us]

together, and made us sit together in the

heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Notice that the word together occurs three

times. Jesus did not come out of the tomb dead.

He was made alive before He came out of the

tomb. Thus, we are made alive with Christ.

Then we are resurrected with Christ. But we do

not stop there. We are also made to sit together

with Him in heavenly places. What is He sitting

on in heaven today? A throne. Thus, we are

also enthroned with Him!

We not only died, but were buried, made

alive, resurrected, and enthroned together with

Christ.

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All this is totally outside our power to

achieve. That is obvious. There is no way we

can work for it. There is no way we can be good

enough for it or deserve it. We can only receive

it by faith—solely by faith.

Many professing Christians have an uneasy

feeling they ought to be doing something to

earn salvation. The result is that they never

really receive or enjoy it. It is usually easier for

the worst sinners to get saved than

churchgoers. Have you noticed that?

God’s Purpose

After Paul speaks about us being made

alive, resurrected and enthroned in Ephesians

2, he reveals God’s purpose. Why did God do

it?

To demonstrate the riches of His grace

... That in the ages to come He might show

the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness

toward us in Christ Jesus.

(Ephesians 2:7)

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What a staggering thought! Not just in this

life, but forever and ever, we are to be the

demonstration of the riches of the God’s grace

—for the whole universe! Whenever God wants

to show any created being the extent of His

grace, He will say, in effect, “Look at these

people. See how they’re close to Me,

worshiping Me? They are My children! They

were sinners, rebels, cast out, unprofitable,

useless, enemies of Mine. Yet I’ve brought them

near to Me for all eternity!” I hope you are

prepared for that. I hope you realize that

forever you are going to be the demonstration

of God’s grace.

Remember, grace cannot be earned. There

are many things in the eternal counsels of God

that we do not fully understand, but I think, in

a certain sense, God had to let sin happen in

order to have something to demonstrate His

grace with. See? I am not saying God approved

sin but, when sin entered, instead of saying,

“It’s all over,” He said, “Here is the real

opportunity for Me to show My grace to the

whole universe.” Up to that time He had shown

many aspects of His character, but I do not

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think He had fully demonstrated His grace. So

we are His “opportunity”! We are the people in

whom God is going to show the whole universe

the real nature of grace.

To make us His masterpiece

A little further on Paul says:

For we are His workmanship, created in

Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared

beforehand that we should walk in them.

(Ephesians 2:10)

Not only are we the demonstration of His

grace, but Paul says we are His

“workmanship.” The Greek word is poiema,

from which we get the English word poem. It

suggests an artistic masterpiece. Thus, we are

God’s masterpiece, to show the universe the

full extent of His creative genius! That’s

exciting, isn’t it? And just to prove what He

could do, do you know where God went for the

material for His masterpiece? To the scrap

heap! Do you realize that? God can do anything

with anything. He created the stars, the sun, the

seas, the trees, and everything else; but to

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demonstrate His grace and what He could

really create, God said, “I’m going to take these

broken pieces of humanity and I’m going to

mold them into My masterpiece.” Jesus died to

create a masterpiece out of the broken lives of

men and women. What a message! What a

revelation!

If you are not excited about salvation, I do

not know how much of God’s salvation you

have really experienced. People say we are

fanatical if we jump up and down and clap our

hands. I was a logician before I became a

Christian, and I have to say that such

excitement is the logical response to the

revelation of Scripture. Just to sit and say,

“That’s good!” is inadequate and unrealistic.

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5

H

5

OW TO APPROPRIATE

WHAT GOD HAS DONE

have described the provision God has

made. It is perfectly perfect; it is completely

Icomplete. It remains for us to know how to

appropriate it. I could end at this point, leaving

a tantalizing vision of something glorious, but

many of you would not know how to come into

it. Therefore, I am going to describe steps by

which we can appropriate what God has done.

In my thinking, these are four: (1) to repent; (2)

to believe; (3) to confess; and (4) to live out

what we believe.

Repent

No one can ever bypass the first essential

step, which is to repent. The whole Bible makes

it clear that no one can ever be reconciled to

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God without repentance.

I observe today that the church’s teaching of

repentance is very weak and ineffective; and

the church suffers greatly as a result. Over the

years I have counseled multitudes of Christians,

and my conclusion is that perhaps 50 percent of

their problems result from a lack of repentance.

There is no way around repentance; it is

important to emphasize this. Some people teach

that repentance is negative and therefore we do

not need it. It may be negative, but we certainly

do need it!

In Mark 1:15, at the beginning of His public

ministry, Jesus declared:

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of

God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.

God never tells anybody in the New

Testament to believe without first telling them

to repent. In fact, you cannot really believe

unless you have truly repented. You can go

through all the outward motions and forms of

believing, but the reality will not be there.

Repenting is not an emotion, it’s a decision. The

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How to Appropriate What God Has Done

Greek word is translated “to change your

mind” in secular Greek. Repenting is changing

your mind: you have been living one way, but

now you decide to live another way. You have

been pleasing yourself, living by your own

standards, doing your own thing; but you

decide to submit to God and live His way; God

is going to tell you what to do and you are

going to obey. A person who has truly repented

does not argue with God.

Some people want their problems solved in

order to be able to do what they want. They

have their plan for what they would like to do

and be in life. But they are not willing to repent

and submit to God's will. Repentance says,

“Here I am, Lord. Do with me what You want. I

lay aside my ambitions. You may have totally

different plans for me, so I lay down my own

desires and, God, I’m open to whatever You tell

me to do!” That is repentance.

After the resurrection, Jesus explained to

His disciples the Scriptures about His death

and resurrection.

Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary

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for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead

the third day, and that repentance and remission

[or forgiveness] of sins should be preached in His

name...

(Luke 24:46)

What must be preached first? Not for,

giveness, but repentance. We have no right to

leave out repentance and offer people

forgiveness.

I was once in a meeting in Southeast Asia

where a minister preached an excellent message

on healing. He pointed out how we can receive

healing through the Word of God. The message

blessed me, but at the end he said to the mixed

multitude, “If you want this wonderful life and

all these blessings, come forward and receive

them!” He had not mentioned the word

“repentance” once in the whole message. A lot

of people came forward who were idol

worshipers, but they did not get the healing

they sought. The result was confusion.

Clearly, the people had not met the

condition of repentance. But it was not their

fault, because the condition had not been

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How to Appropriate What God Has Done

stated. We, with a background of biblical

knowledge, can sometimes assume that people

know they must repent. However, in many

cultures people have no concept of what true

repentance is. For some, repentance might

mean inflicting suffering on themselves, for

example. But repentance is not inflicting

suffering on yourself. Jesus has endured all the

suffering we deserved on our behalf.

Repentance is making up your mind to change

and be changed, letting go of everything you

are holding on to, and saying, “God, I’m at

Your disposal.”

On the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy

Spirit had fallen, a multitude of people were

convicted of their sins. They did not know what

to do; so in Acts 2:37 they asked the apostles:

“Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Peter gave

them a three- step answer:

Repent, and... be baptized...; and you shall

receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

(Acts 2:38)

What was the first requirement? To repent.

That is still the first step in God’s answer. But it

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is not an installment deal; it is a package deal.

We should do all these things at one time:

repent, be baptized and receive the Holy Spirit.

In Acts 20, we find Paul speaking to the

elders of the church at Ephesus, reminding

them of his ministry.

... I kept back nothing that was helpful, but

proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly

and from house to house, testifying to Jews, and

also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith

toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

(Acts 20:20)

It did not matter whether they were Jews,

Greeks, or who they were. The order was first,

repentance toward God, then faith in Jesus

Christ.

Believe and Confess

I do not know whether to put confess before

believe, or believe before confess. In the New

Testament, the two are not really separated. Let

us see this in Romans 10:8-13, where Paul

describes the conditions for New Testament

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salvation. I want you to notice the order. He

talks about two things: the mouth and the

heart. The first two times he puts the mouth

before the heart; but the third time he puts the

heart before the mouth. We do not tend to think

this way but, in a certain sense, we get faith by

saying something.

It is an interesting fact that where English

says, “to learn by heart,” Hebrew says, “to learn

by mouth.” Each is true. If you want a thing in

your heart, keep saying it with your mouth!

Conversely, if you have something in your

heart, it will come out in what you say. Jesus

said, “For out of the abundance of the heart the

mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). Each is one part

of the total process of believing and confessing.

If you already believe something, the more you

affirm it, the more you will believe it; and the

more you believe it, the more you will affirm it.

On the other hand, if you do not affirm what

you believe, you will cease to believe it; and if

you cease to believe it, you will soon cease to

affirm it.

The word “confess” means literally “to say

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the same as.” Biblical confession is thus saying

the same as God has said in His Word. It is

making the words of your mouth agree with

the Word of God. And it is essential in the

process of salvation. You cannot really

experience salvation without right confession.

Look at what Paul says in Romans 10:8-9:

“The word is near you, in your mouth and

in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which

we preach): that if you confess with your mouth

the Lord Jesus [or Jesus as Lord] and believe in

your heart that God has raised Him from the

dead, you will be saved.

What do we do first? Confess with our

mouth. And we also believe in our heart. That

is not the way we tend to think, but it is

actually true to experience.

Then in verse 10, the third time Paul refers

to the mouth and heart, he says,

For with the heart one believes unto

righteousness, and with the mouth confession is

made unto salvation.

I grew up in Britain among people who

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were good churchgoers, some of whom were

undoubtedly genuinely saved Christians. But

no one ever told me what it was to be saved.

For people in those days, religion was

something “personal” that you did not talk

about. However, that is not the way it should

be with the gospel. We should talk about it—

believe and confess; confess and believe.

In the book of Hebrews, there are three

passages that reveal the position of Jesus as

High Priest in relationship to our confession.

Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the

heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High

Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus.

(Hebrews 3:1)

Jesus was the Apostle sent out by God to

provide redemption. Having provided

redemption, He returned to be our High Priest

in the presence of God. But it says He is the

“High Priest of our confession.” In a certain sense,

if we close our lips on earth, we silence the lips

of our Advocate in heaven. The more we

confess, the more we release His high-priestly

ministry on our behalf.

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Seeing then that we have a great High

Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus

the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

(Hebrews 4:14)

Notice the statement that we are to hold fast

our confession. That means we are to say it and

keep on saying it, without backing off or

getting discouraged.

Finally, in Hebrews 10:21-23, the writer

returns to the same theme:

... Having a High Priest over the house of

God, let us draw near....

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope

without wavering, for He who promised is

faithful.

This passage speaks not of the confession of

our faith, but the confession of our hope. If we

confess faith long enough, it becomes hope.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for”

(Hebrews 11:1); so when we have built a

substance of faith, hope comes. (My definition

of biblical hope is a confident expectation of good.)

In the first passage, we saw that Jesus is the

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High Priest of our confession. Then we learned

that we are to hold fast our confession. Finally,

we are told to hold it fast without wavering.

What does without wavering imply? Let me

explain with a simple illustration. If you are

traveling in an airplane and the “Fasten seat

belt” sign comes on, what does that tell you?

Expect turbulence! What does without wavering

tell us? Expect opposition! Here is where the

battle is fought out, in maintaining our

confession.

When it comes to making the right

confession, there is a dark, evil force that

opposes us and wants us to keep our mouths

shut. So we have to use our wills to open our

mouths and say the right thing. Satan will use

every kind of pressure, every kind of

inducement to oppose us. He will use every

kind of lie, whatever he can, with one aim—to

get us to make the wrong confession. How can

we defeat him? By maintaining the right

confession!

Live Out Your Faith

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Once you have repented, and when you

believe and are confessing, there is one more

thing to do. You have to act out your faith.

James 2:26 says: “Faith without works is dead.”

Faith that is not expressed in appropriate

actions is a dead faith. I want to suggest to you

three appropriate actions that express our faith.

Be baptized

Baptism is your first opportunity to identify

yourself openly with Jesus as your Savior. Jesus

said:

Go into all the world and preach the gospel

to every creature. He who believes and is

baptized will be saved; but he who does not

believe will be condemned.

(Mark 16:15-16)

If you study the book of Acts, no one ever

claimed salvation without being baptized. The

early church attached urgent importance to it. I

do not believe that we are entitled to claim

salvation until we have been baptized. We might

be born again, but I do not believe we have

truly entered into salvation. We have no right

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to enter into resurrection life except by the way

Jesus entered—the way of burial, the way of the

tomb. It is clear.

When Philip led the eunuch to the Lord on

the road to Gaza (Acts 8:26-39) and there was

some water by the road, the eunuch said, “What

hinders me from being baptized?” Note that the

eunuch asks this, not Philip—so Philip had

already made clear to him the necessity of

baptism. Therefore, Philip went down into the

water and baptized him.

In Philippi, when Paul and Silas were in jail

(Acts 16:23-24), there was an earthquake and

everybody was set free. When the jailer desired

to be saved, what happened? He and his entire

household were baptized the same night! They

did not wait until morning. I have heard so

many pastors say, “We have a baptismal service

in three weeks. Put your name down.” But that

was not New Testament practice. Rather, it is,

“Repent, and... be baptized” (Acts 2:38).

I have seen some of the most exciting

meetings in my life when people have believed

and immediately been baptized. One held years

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ago in a swimming pool stands out in my mind,

when all sorts of people got baptized. There

was a group of Baptists that came just to watch,

and there was such a presence of God that

those dear Baptists said they wished they could

have it this way! Just making baptism a

ceremony in the church calendar is like making

salvation something that happens if you come

to church at Easter. It is detaching it from its

real significance.

The first thing you should do when you

have repented and believed the gospel is, thus,

to be baptized. Find somebody to baptize you! I

was teaching on this once in the university of

Youth With a Mission, and was very careful not

to be controversial. I simply said, “Believe and

be baptized!” I did not say anything about the

method. Afterwards, people came up to me and

said, “I want to be baptized now,” so one of the

professors there said, “This is your problem.

You take them!” We marched off to the

swimming pool and they got baptized the same

hour of the night.

When the gospel is not exciting, I think we

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have lost something. When we do not have

action like that, I think there is not much faith.

Give thanks

The second way to express our faith is by

giving thanks. You can do this before being

baptized, of course! The purest expression of

faith is saying, “Thank You” to God. If you

really believe what I have been teaching here,

you will be thanking God even now. Otherwise

you are either an unbeliever, a most ungrateful

person, or are slow to believe.

Some of Jesus’ miracles were achieved only

by giving thanks. At the feeding of the five

thousand (men) all Jesus did was say, “Thank

You!” to His Father in heaven, and five loaves

and two fishes became enough for a crowd of

perhaps ten thousand people. There is almost

limitless power in giving thanks. Jonah was

three days and three nights in the belly of the

fish. He did not come out when he prayed,

although he did a lot of praying. Rather, in

Jonah 2:9, when he started to give thanks, the

fish could hold him no longer. If you are “in the

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belly of a fish” today, start to give thanks!

Be led by the Holy Spirit

To conclude this list of actions, we need to

take note of Romans 8:14, which says:

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God,

these are sons of God.

God does not have one single program for

every believer. The Holy Spirit will show you

God’s plan for your life. Do not pattern yourself

on some other believer, because God has an

individual plan just for you.

Simple but Not Easy

If you are saying to yourself, “There must

be something wrong with me,” because it

sounds so easy yet it is not easy for you, my

comment is this: Appropriating salvation is

simple but not easy. Do you see the difference?

Here are three reasons why it is not easy: we

have three enemies that make it difficult.

The flesh or the carnal mind

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For most Christians, the main battles that

we fight are in our minds. Isn’t that right? We

have an enemy within us, which the Bible calls

“the flesh.” Those who live according to the

flesh are carnally minded—they have an

unrenewed mind.

The carnal mind is enmity against God; for

it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can

be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot

please God.

(Romans 8:7-8)

This enemy resists the things that God

wants us to do. We have to bring our minds

into subjection to the will of God. Paul says in 2

Corinthians 10:3-5 that our weapons are mighty

for “bringing every thought into captivity to the

obedience of Christ.” Interestingly, the word for

“bringing into captivity” refers not to a civil

prisoner but to a prisoner of war. In other

words, our thoughts are naturally at war with

God, so we have to take them prisoner and

forcibly bring them into subjection to God.

Satan

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We also have an enemy without who resists

us, called Satan.

Your adversary the devil walks about like a

roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Resist him, steadfast in the faith...

(1 Peter 5:8-9)

The command to “Resist him” is in a

continuing present tense. Doing it once with the

devil is not sufficient. You have to keep on

resisting him. He will keep on pressuring us, so

we have to keep on resisting him. James tells us

first to submit to God, and then to resist the

devil (James 4:7). Then what will happen? He

will flee! But Satan is stubborn. He has got to be

convinced we really mean it. He probably will

try four or five different tactics before he gives

up.

The world

Finally, we live in a hostile environment,

which the Bible calls “the world.” Jesus told His

disciples not to be surprised if the world hated

them. He said, “It hated Me before it hated you”

(John 15:18). Then, in verse 19 He used the

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phrase “the world” five times:

If you were of the world, the world would

love its own. Yet because you are not of the

world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore

the world hates you.

“The world” refers to people and systems

that are not subject to the righteous government

of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Therefore,

anybody who is not willing to submit to God’s

righteous kingdom and government in the

person of Jesus is in the category of the world.

The world and the church should be completely

distinct. The greatest problem for the church is

when the world gets into the church. That is

where our problems begin.

We thus have three forces that we come up

against: the flesh, the devil, and the world. That

is why it is simple, but not easy.

Let us therefore press on, that we might

learn to live increasingly in the fullness of the

complete salvation that God has provided for

us through Jesus Christ!

C38/1106

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Document Outline

- Complete Salvation

- Contents

- Introduction

- 1 So Great a Salvation

- Understanding the Vastness of Our Salvation

- The Importance of Trusting in God’s Salvation

- The Perfect Sacrifice of Jesus Christ

- New Birth and Salvation

- 2 New Testament Usage of “Salvation”

- Matthew 14:36

- Luke 8:36

- Luke 8:48

- Luke 8:50

- Acts 4:9-12

- Acts 14:9

- 2 Timothy 4:18

- 3 The Cross: Exchange

- Jesus was punished that we might be forgiven

- Jesus was wounded that we might be healed

- Jesus was made sin with our sinfulness that we might be made righteous with His righteousness

- Jesus died our death that we might receive His life

- Jesus was made a curse that we might enter into the blessing

- Jesus endured our poverty that we might share His abundance

- Jesus bore our shame that we might share His glory

- Jesus endured our rejection that we might have His acceptance with the Father

- 4 The Cross: Identification

- Jesus as the last Adam identified Himself with man

- The believer’s identification with Jesus

- We Died with Him

- Buried with Him

- Made Alive, Resurrected and Enthroned with Him

- God’s Purpose

- To demonstrate the riches of His grace

- To make us His masterpiece

- 5 How to Appropriate What God Has Done

- Repent

- Believe and Confess

- Live Out Your Faith

- Be baptized

- Give thanks

- Be led by the Holy Spirit

- Simple but Not Easy

- The flesh or the carnal mind

- Satan

- The world

Table of Contents

Introduction.

1 So Great a Salvation.

2 New Testament Usage of “Salvation”.

3 The Cross: Exchange.

4 The Cross: Identification.

5 How to Appropriate What God Has Done.

Complete Salvation

Contents

The Importance of Trusting in God’s Salvation

The Perfect Sacrifice of Jesus Christ

New Birth and Salvation

Matthew 14:36

Luke 8:48

Luke 8:50

Acts 4:9-12

Acts 14:9

2 Timothy 4:18

Jesus was wounded that we might be healed

Jesus was made sin with our sinfulness that we might be made righteous with His righteousness

Jesus died our death that we might receive His life

Jesus was made a curse that we might enter into the blessing

Jesus endured our poverty that we might share His abundance

Jesus bore our shame that we might share His glory

Jesus endured our rejection that we might have His acceptance with the Father

Jesus as the last Adam identified Himself with man

The believer’s identification with Jesus

We Died with Him

Made Alive, Resurrected and Enthroned with Him

God’s Purpose

To make us His masterpiece

Believe and Confess

Live Out Your Faith

Be baptized

Give thanks

Be led by the Holy Spirit

Satan

The world