Notes from Norman The Total Remedy By Norman P. Grubb A Two-Fold Salvation: The Body and the Blood But that alone, tremendous as it is, would not solve our problem or give humanity its release. The cause is our problem—the sin, not the sins. And we have seen sin to be the term used for the nature of the spirit of error who lived his sin-quality of life in his vessels and by the law of an indwelling spirit; he expresses himself through the human spirit, which he indwells. Sins are the products, but the producer is the problem. And what salvation would it be for a human race indwelt by the spirit of sin and thus compulsively expressing his self-loving nature, to be released from the consequences of a sinful life, but not from the compulsive cause? We should just go on living as before. Therefore the Bible presents us with Christ’s death in a twofold form—in His Blood and in His body, of which we are continually reminded in the memorial Supper. And that is why, in Paul’s Cor.10:16-17 reference to the Supper, he speaks of our communion in the blood and body of Christ. But then he says we are one with Him and His body, symbolized by the bread; but he does not say in the same sense that we are one with Him in His blood. The reason is that a person’s blood is his very self. When that is shed, his life is gone. But a person’s body is more external, more his clothing. His blood, therefore, was uniquely Him going that way of death for us, and in that respect we were not dying on that cross with Him. Rather, we come to the foot of that cross and see the burdens of our sins rolled away into His tomb. But we are His body. "We being many are one bread, one body;" and in that aspect of Him on the cross, we are there with Him, crucified with Him, buried with Him, risen with Him. And what’s the import of that? Because the body is the container of the spirit, and we humans have become containers of that false spirit of error, whose nature is sin, therefore Paul says that Jesus did more on Calvary than "bear our sins in His own body on the tree." He said, "God made Him to be sin (or, a sin-offering) for us." And that meant that in God’s sight we were He, crucified with him, and His body representing us had that spirit of sin in it. And then the glorious fact that when a body dies it is separated from the spirit in it; and so when he died, Paul said he "died to sin" (quite different from dying for our sins). His body, representing us who were "buried with Him," lay in the tomb with no spirit in it—a human race delivered from that old false indwelling spirit of error. And when He rose, it was by the entry of another Spirit, His Holy Spirit. So when we are joined by faith to Him in His death and resurrection, we are no longer vessels containing the spirit of error, but vessels containing the Spirit of God! That is a full salvation—from effects and cause, from products and producer. That is why only the incarnate, crucified and risen Christ can be the world’s Saviour.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 17:30:17 +0000
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