AN OUTREACH OF IOM AMERICA | INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP OF EXCHANGED LIFE
April 1, 2015 - In This Issue:
INFORMATION ON JIM FOWLER

Jim Fowler has been a pastor at the Neighborhood Church in Fallbrook, California for the last twenty-three years. His wife, Gracie, and their five children (Philip, Charis, Kirsten, Sarah and Sandi) have been very supportive in Jim's teaching, preaching, and writing ministries.

Jim's educational background includes Manhattan Christian College, Friends University, New College-University of Edinburgh, Bethel Theological Seminary, Palomar College, and Jubilee Theological Institute.

In recent years, Jim has spent much of his time writing, as can be viewed within the resources of his website. He is currently researching and writing several other articles and books.

 Feel free to contact him at [email protected] 

 

Practical Studies
"The purpose of Jesus' incarnational advent and His ministry here on earth as a man was not to establish a new religion, nor to inculcate a new teaching, nor to lay down a new morality system. Jesus came to bring Himself, the presence and dynamic of His own divine being, expressed in the humanity of one perfect man, so that He might be expressed as divine, eternal life in the humanity of all men. The gospel that Jesus brought was entirely Christocentric. There is no message of "good news" apart from the ontological reality of the very Being of God in Jesus Christ who is the essence of Christianity. Christianity is Christ!" - Jim

 Learn More About Jim's Studies:
"This book details the primary discussion of this year's World Grace Summit. I considered the discussion of "Dialectic Formatting" to be of the highest priority of dispelling Universalism in its attack on the true Church of Christ."  
"When Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral. When they speak of being "in Christ" or of Christ being "in them," this is not simply a way of saying that they are thinking about Christ or copying Him. They mean that Christ is actually operating through them..." ("Mere Christianity" Macmillan Publishing. 1978. pp.64-65). -C.S. Lewis

HISTORICAL CHRISTIAN BIBLES 
For over a decade now, Jim Fowler has been collecting Bibles for an exhibit that shows "The History of the Christian Scriptures." A new website has been developed to show featured items in this collection. View at www.fowlerbiblecollection.com 

The Cross of Christ (part 3)
By Jim Fowler

Spiritual Identification with the Cross

 

The "finished work" of God in Christ must not be considered only with theological objectivity. Christ's activity will of necessity affect us personally and subjectively. Though this might all be regarded as the theological significance of the cross, it is being separated under a different heading to emphasize the subjective elements of His death and life in the Christian, by referring to spiritual identification with the cross.

 

Previous mention has been made of an objective "spiritual solid-arity" that all men have with Jesus Christ because He substitution-ally took the death consequences of our sin. That "spiritual solidarity" becomes efficacious for us individually and subjectively when we receive by faith the complete death and life that God effects in Jesus Christ. The spiritual exchange of our regenerative conversion is the occasion of this personal spiritual identification.

 

Paul explains in Romans 6:6, "that our old man was crucified with Him (Jesus Christ), in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin." It is important to observe several particulars of what Paul writes in this verse:

 

First of all, he employs a compound Greek word, sustauro�, which means "to crucify together with." This has often been referred to as the Christian's "co-crucifixion" with Jesus. It is best to avoid such terminology, as the English prefix "co-" can mean "jointly" or "together with." But it also can mean "equally," "in the same degree," or "as a complement to." We would not want to imply that our subjective crucifixion experience is of equal significance or in the same degree as the crucifixion of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Nor would we want to imply that our experience of being crucified is a complement to Christ's crucifixion, in order to complete it. Jesus said, "It is finished" (John 19:31) ­completed! Our having been "crucified together with" Jesus must be understood in terms of spiritual solidarity. When Jesus died on the cross, He died there for me, but He also died there as me. When He died, I died. I was "in Him" when He died. The entire human race was represented by Jesus when He took the death consequences for sin upon Himself, but that spiritual solidarity becomes personally and subjectively efficacious for me when I receive Jesus Christ by faith. The verb is an aorist tense indicating that "to have been crucified with Him" was a definite occurrence historically enacted when Jesus died on the cross, and which becomes experientially effective at the definite occasion of our spiritual conversion.

 

Secondly, Paul writes that our "old man" has been crucified together with Christ. The designation "old man" signifies our spiritual identity when we were a "man of old" in our old spiritual condition of un-regeneracy. Our pre-Christian identity was that of a "natural man" (1 Cor. 2:14), a "child of wrath" (Eph. 2:3), an "old man." That "old man" identity was "laid aside" (Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9 [both NKJV], both aorist tense verbs) when we became Christians and received... Read Full Article 


Jim Fowler
P.O. Box 1822
Fallbrook, CA 92088-1822

e-mail address:

[email protected] 



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