From Christ, To Paul, To Us!

Tammy Lacock

“Follow me as I follow Christ.” (Romans 5:10)

In this week’s podcast, Warren Litzman sets out to explain the gospel that is meant for us today, a gospel that after years of preaching, was finally revealed to him by the prompting of the Holy Spirit. He shares with us a gospel that has been plainly written in all of the Apostle Paul’s 14 epistles, and yet is not being preached much at all in today’s churches. The Apostle Paul tells us that Christ revealed this gospel to him personally and he, in turn, reveals it to us!

Warren first reminds us that the Apostle Paul never knew Jesus in the flesh. Although he and Christ may have been in the same circles before Christ’s death, he was not a follower of Jesus. In fact, Paul was determined to destroy Christ’s followers and did so many times. Paul came to know Christ, only in Spirit, when he was knocked off his horse and blinded on the way to Damascus to persecute Christians. It was then that he began a spiritual relationship with Christ. His entire life was radically changed. He moved into an entirely new existence. He was a chosen vessel by Jesus Christ, Himself. Christ revealed to Paul a gospel that was not given to any other writer in the Bible.

Paul’s gospel is this:

Something happened to us, on a personal level, when we accepted Christ as our Savior. Throughout Paul’s epistles, we see that Paul knew Christ differently than any other writer. He knew Him at a personal level, yet in spirit. He received the grace of God through Christ and revealed this to us in his epistles. Paul’s gospel is the gospel of Christ and His grace poured out onto humanity.

He explains it this way:

We were all born into sin by the curse of Adam in the garden by Satan. The only remedy for this sin-nature is Christ. By His death, burial, and resurrection, we are set free from death and this sin-nature, the bondage of this world, and brought to a new life in Him. When we accept Christ as our Savior, at a personal level, we become brand-new creations because of Christ’s life in us now. His nature literally replaces the sin-nature. Only by this exchange of nature, can we truly know who we are now and who God created us to be, God’s bona fide children, reconciled to Him!

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” (Ephesians 1:4)

Ephesians 1:4, Paul tells us that we were chosen as a new creation in Christ, as God’s children, even before the world was created. It was in God’s plan, before we were even created, that our sin nature would be replaced by Christ’s nature, His seed. And it was in God’s plan before the foundation of the world that the Lamb, Christ, be slain for this to take place.

In fact, Paul was the only person in the Bible who could explain how this worked, calling it “the revelation of the mystery.” He was the only one who knew how God made human beings. Paul knew, revealed to him by Christ, that we were created before the foundation of the world to possess the life of Christ. Our sin-nature is contrary to our creation and, therefore, we are not complete until this sin-nature is replaced by Christ’s nature.

Paul explains that we were created a tripartite being: body, soul and spirit. Our new life in Christ is a spiritual matter and in our spirits is where He lives.

“But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” (1 Corinthians 6:17)

At salvation, we are transformed in spirit. However, our bodies and souls remain unchanged. The only way we can live who we were created to be in our bodies and souls, is by our completion in Christ in our spirits. Paul knew, by his personal relationship with Christ now living in Him, that although our spirits are now complete, perfect in Christ, our souls have yet to be complete and perfect. By the help of the Holy Spirit, our souls (where our minds reside) must be constantly renewed in our daily walk. The more we get to know Christ on a personal level, the more our minds and bodies are reconciled to Him.

Paul’s gospel is Christ. It’s a gospel of God’s amazing grace. It’s a gospel of hope in a sin-filled world. And it’s a gospel that finally tells us who we are and who we were created to be, a Christ-person and a child of God, no more separation from God. He passes this gospel on to us throughout his epistles. It’s clearly made known here in Colossians 1:27:

“To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Christ in you and me, before the foundation of the world! Dive into Paul’s epistles for yourself, and may this mystery be revealed unto you!