GOD'S TWO MEN

[nChrist]

GOD'S TWO MEN
by F. B. Meyer
1847-1929

Short Bio:  The Rev. Frederick Brotherton Meyer (April 8, 1847 – March 28, 1929) was a contemporary and friend of D. L. Moody. He was a pastor and evangelist in England involved in ministry and inner city mission work on both sides of the Atlantic. He was the author of numerous religious books and articles, and God has used him to help many on a path to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. This material is very old, but it's timeless because God is Glorified, and God is still using it.


In the sight of God there are two men. "The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a life giving Spirit. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven." 1 Corinthians 15:45-47.
I want to speak now about these two men.

The first man. God took the red clay and molded a man in His own image. See! that man is taking his nature out of the hand of God, so that instead of God being its center, he becomes his own center as he takes the forbidden fruit. Next, he is expelled, and in his expulsion from Paradise the whole race passes out. A- legend states that as he and Eve passed out, Eve plucked a flower to take with her, but it withered as she passed the gate. At that moment you and I and all our race passed out of Paradise. Three things followed: the bead -- drop of sweat upon the brow; the pang of travail for the woman; and death. The sweat of toil for man, pain through which all the children of life are born, and the earth seamed with graves. Finally Adam begets a son in his own image; that is, every child born outside the gate of Paradise has a bias to keep outside, no bias to go back. And just as in England, when a man plays bowls upon the sward, each bowl leaving the hand has a bias to turn off the straight, so every one of us is born with a bias off the right. By our first birth we all inherit a lost Paradise, sweat, travail, death, and bias to evil.

Now the second man. I see Him first driven by the gust of temptation as He too stands before the element of life. The first Adam was tempted by a tree, the second Adam was tempted by bread. Just as the first Adam made self and passion his rule, the second Adam made the will of God His rule and said: "If God says I'm not to eat, I'll not eat. Man shall not live by bread only, but by the Word of God." So Milton was perfectly right when he made "Paradise Regained" turn upon Christ's victory over temptation.

See that second man. The bead-drop stands upon His brow also, for He sits by the well at Sychar, tired. The pang of travail is in His heart, too, for He bears the infirmity of man, and by His travail a new earth and a new heaven are born. He also tastes death, He dies. So that there is nothing in our lot as man, except the bias to sin, that He does not know.

Look on yonder cross! The second man is dying. In yonder grave He lies, but from that grave He breaks and is the first man to rise. You remind me of Lazarus. But he did not enter into resurrection; he was simply a prisoner on parole, who went back to death again. But this Man in death and through death passed into resurrection; and if you want to know what you and your dear ones will some day be, study the risen Christ. He spoke, and Mary recognized His voice; and our dear ones will speak to us one day, and we shall recognize their voices, He spoke about the things which had happened on the other side of His death; and our dear ones will talk with us some day about the scenes of Bethany and Nazareth and Galilee where they and we walked oft together.

But mark the risen Man. He passes to the ascention mountain. I never can understand why the Church has made so little of the resurrection and ascension, the ascension pre-eminently. On the ascension mountain He says farewell. In the early morning He had left the city. I suppose the disciples followed Him; they saw Him, but nobody else. The people who met them going through the street saw disciples, but they did not see the risen Savior who preceded them. They came together to the ascension mountain, and He blessed them, and began to ascend, and a cloud, like a chariot sent from His Father's home to fetch Him back, received Him.

Ephesians 1:21 tells us what happened on the other side of the cloud. We are told that " principalities, and powers, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come " -- all waited there to contest our Savior's path. Ephesians 6:12 shows that these principalities and powers were not bright angels, but devils from hell: " We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." All hell was there that morning, sworn to stop Christ from going back. Why? If Christ had been content to go back as God, the devil would have been too sensible to stop Him, for God must go back to God. But Christ took man in Him. He was man, the glorified, risen, ascending man, the second Adam; and all hell tried to stop Christ taking the man to the throne of God. He may go as God, but He must not go as the representative man; or else, just as in the first man the race came out of Paradise, so, in the second man, all who believe in Him will reenter Paradise. Therefore the devil must stop it if he can. But you might as well try to stop a cork rising by piling sea water on it, as try to stop Christ's rising by piling devils on Him. He went through them, and passed into the heavens; and for the first time  -- and it is so wonderful! -- for the first time in the history of the universe the creature was taken into union with the eternal God at the very throne of God Himself.

THE SUPREME CREATED POWER.

O wonderful nature which I possess, and which is worn by the Son of Man, so that dying Stephen said:

"I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."

I stop for a moment, and I call upon every one to raise his heart and say: "Worthy art Thou, O Son of Man, who art also Son of God!" Crowns, crowns, crowns for the exalted second man!

Now remember, by the first birth we are all in the first man, and by the second birth we may all be in the second man. You are born by nature into Adam the first, you are born by grace into Adam the second. "As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name."

Thank God, you may be born again as you sit listening to my voice! Look at my hand. That hand has two sides, the one toward the ceiling, the other toward this floor; two sides of the same hand. That hand shall stand for the act by which we become united with Christ. That act has two sides. Angels in heaven call it "being born again"; men on earth call it " trust in Jesus." If you trust Jesus you are born again, and if you are born again you will trust Jesus, and you cannot tell which comes first, any more than you can tell which spoke of the wheel begins to move first. They all move together.

[nChrist]

GOD'S TWO MEN
by F. B. Meyer
1847-1929

Now, soul, listen. In the past you have been a gay and frivolous woman, or you have been a money; loving man. You have lived a butterfly life, and you have come to hear me, you hardly know why. Some one risked you, and you thought you might pass an hour or two. I tell you that if you will unite yourself with Jesus Christ who died for us, if you will lift your heart to Him now and say: "Jesus I come to Thee, and trust Thee as my Savior," you may not have tears or emotion or a paroxysm, or feel at all, but you do it in cold blood, you do it by an act of your will, you choose Christ. The moment you do that, the Holy Spirit of God binds you in a living union with Christ, and the germ of a new life is put into your soul. You are born again! It will begin to work. It may take years before it works out; but it will begin to work instantaneously, and you will belong to the aristocracy of the universe, Jesus Christ and the new humanity.

Now we must go a step further. It is one of the most wonderful things in the Bible to discover what is known as the aorist tense, the Greek aorist, the definite past act. Now that aorist is used in Ephesians 2:5-6, where the Apostle says, as in Colossians, that we were quickened with Christ, were raised with Christ, ascended with Christ, and are seated at the right hand of God.

Now follow me. God knew all those who would believe in Jesus and become united with Him, and Jesus stood for all of them. When He was on the cross, all who were to believe, who shall believe, His one true church -- all were on the cross in Him, and in Christ we paid the penalty of our sins. It is impossible for me to go to hell, because God saw to it that my sin was punished when I died in Christ. I paid my debt when I died nearly nineteen hundred years ago in God's purpose in Christ. Then when He lay in the grave, and women and men bore Him there and put Him to what appeared to be His last sleep, you and I and all the church lay in the grave too.

My brother, if you go back and live a worldly life, you have to go back through the grave to it, because the grave lies between the body of Christ, of which you are a part, and the world that cast Him out. The world cast Him out, and when they cast Him out they cast us out also, and we were buried in Christ by the world that hates the church.

But just as Eve was taken out of Adam as he slept, the Church was taken out of Christ in His sleep, and when He rose we streamed out a great procession from the grave. And on Easter morning I celebrate not only the resurrection of Christ but my own, for I too was raised in Him.

O! It was a good thing when, as I crossed the Atlantic, we got through that storm. It was such a storm that I could hardly preach to the people in the saloon, the ship was rocking so; but after a while we got through the disturbance, and left the storm behind us. And in Christ, when He died, the ark of God carried you and me through the storm of death into clear water, and above us is the blue sky of God's love.

On ascension day I celebrate my ascension also, and in God's purpose all of us who believe are seated in Christ, and we must live day by day as those who in God's purpose have passed into the heavenly life.

You tell me that when I die my eternity will begin. No such thing. My eternity began when I was born in Christ. Eternal life is in my heart today, and the only difference that will come to me when I pass through what men call death, but which to me is not death -- it is only the shadow of death, for I died in Christ, and I can never pass again through the agony of death, but I will pass through the shadow of death, and no one was ever hurt by a shadow yet, although they may have been a little fearful -- the only difference that will come to me is that I shall get rid, for a time at least, of a rather crazy body, which will lie to wait until my spirit rejoins it in perfect beauty. But God will never love me more than He does today, and I shall never be nearer God than I am today, and already I hunger no more, nor thirst any more, neither does the sun smite me nor any heat, because already the Lamb is leading me day by day to living fountains of waters, and God is wiping all tears from my eyes. Eternity is begun.
Now let us see just how this works out.

POSITION

First, as to your position before God. Your position is IN CHRIST. You are standing to-day in Christ. Never forget to distinguish between your standing and your experience. Your standing is in Christ, your experience is in your emotion. John Bunyan says that our emotion is like our spending money, the money we have in our pocket: it is sometimes more, but generally less; but our standing in our Forerunner is like the money we have in the bank, which is not affected by our daily expenses. I am sometimes happy, sometimes worn, over, tired, inclined to be nervous; but I never mind, because it does not matter to me whether I pass through the dark and the valley of sorrow and all transient depression. My position is unaffected because it is settled in my Forerunner, my Priest, my Savior, my Head, in whom I stand before God. O, blessed be God for that! Do not look, therefore, for evidence in your emotions, but look for your title deeds in Christ the Forerunner.

VICTORY

Next, look at your victory. In Christ you are above the devil. Now mark: The devil was made to be God's vicegerent. He fell. In his stead God made man to have dominion over the earth, and the devil swore that man should never be superior to him. He thought he could get man down under his feet, so he breathed hell into man, and man fell into selfishness, which is hell; and the devil laughed: "Ha, ha, I am supreme!"

Moses went under, Job went under, David went under, all men went under the devil. But Christ came, a man, and the devil fell beneath Him thrice; three galling throws in the wilderness. All through Christ's life He cast the legions out. The devil came to Him on the cross, and Christ broke his head. The devil came to Him in the ascension, and Christ trod upon him. And in Christ our Head, our humanity, our manhood, our new race trod the devil under, and in spite of all that the devil could do, the second Man, the Lord from heaven, took the superior position, and you and I took it too in Him. When, therefore the devil comes to us, let us remind him that he is inferior to Christ. The devil-nature is inferior to the Christ-nature, and if you have got the Christ-nature in you, the devil is inferior to you.

[nChrist]

GOD'S TWO MEN
by F. B. Meyer
1847-1929

I was once trying to explain this to a man. Said I to him:

"To what part of the body of Christ do you belong?"

He said: " I don't know."

"Well," said I, "do you belong to the eye in His mystical body?"

"No," said he, "I don't weep enough." "Do you belong to His mouth?" "No, I don't speak enough." "Do you belong to His heart?" "No," said he, "I don't love enough."

"Do you belong to His hand?"

"No, sir, I don't do enough."

I said: " Man alive, if you are a Christian, you are in some part of the body of Christ. Where are you?"

"Well," he said, "I may be in His feet."

"Well, if you are in His feet, that will serve my purpose, for it is written, He will put all enemies under His feet."

And so it is proved beyond doubt and forever more that the man who has got Christ in him is devil, proof. The devil cannot touch him if he abides in Christ.

Now, the only way in which the devil can get the better of you is to strew some crumbs to get you from under the wing of Christ. As long as you stay there, the devil cannot touch you. So he puts some little morsels of worldly pleasure, and evil imagination, and lust, and passion, and he says: "Come along, come along, come along!" and when you come out, he has you. But if you keep in Christ he cannot touch you. Abide in Christ and let Christ abide in you, and the devil has no power.

POSSESSION

One thing more. Ephesians 4:8 : " Wherefore he saith, When He ascended up on high He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men." Acts 2:33 : " Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear."

When the Son of Man entered the presence of the Father as our forerunner and representative, Peter tells us (the Greek word bears the meaning), that He asked the Father for the Holy Spirit. As the second person in the Holy Trinity, Jesus was one with the Father and the Holy Spirit before all time, but when He became man He put out of use the attributes of His deity for the time being. At any moment He might have used them, and indeed the devil tried to induce Him to do so, but He refused, and was content to live the human life in the power of God received into His human nature. When He went up to God it was still as the ascended, glorified, representative man; and as such He came to His Father and said, so to speak:

"Father, I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. And now I come to Thee, and behind Me there are millions of spirits that are following on the way that I have made for them, millions who are to believe in Me, to become united with Me by faith, and who soon will come to be with Me where I am. I ask nothing for Myself, it is enough for Me to be with You again; but I ask for them that Thou wouldest give to Me as their representative, the fulness of the Holy Ghost, that what I have had I may be able to communicate to them."

So He received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost; not as God, because as such He was one with the Holy Ghost, but as man, as the representative man, that He might be able to communicate Him to men.

A friend of mine was in Switzerland, and two Englishmen came into the hotel where he was staying, and engaged three guides. They were going to take a very precipitous ascent up the side of a mountain, a piece of ice which was almost as steep as the side of a house. When they reached the spot they roped themselves together: a guide, a traveler, a guide, a traveler, a guide. They commenced to climb, and by cutting notches in the ice wall they were able to place the toes of their feet. So they crept up, and they had nearly reached the top, when in some way the last man lost his footing and began to sway. He pulled down the man above him, and he too began to swing slowly to and fro. The two pulled down the third, and the third, the fourth, and all four were swinging over the precipice in imminent danger of being dashed to pieces. The only thing that kept them was the rope around the waist of the first man. As soon as he felt the strain, he took his ice axe and drove it hard into the ice just above him, and held to it for life; and as he stood for an instant or two, the man next him regained his footing, the man beneath, his, and so on to the end of the line, and the whole five stood because the first man stood.

You understand the application. You and I have no power; we swing to and fro; but by faith we are bound to Christ, and because He is in the glory and stands up there, we shall be pulled up at last from the difficulties of this present life, to stand with Him forever in His Father's presence.