Morning Star Testimony - Sermon Notes

Jesus Christ, the Last Adam, the Second Man - “The Measure of the Stature of the Fulness of Christ” – Part 6 by Pastor Doug Riggs

by John Mark on 05/12/24

This message was originally recorded January 5, 2014, the sixth in a series of 8 messages.

My notes:

"Christ Himself as a person can be measured; and He's measured by the fullness of God... Jesus is the one who fully contains and holds that which the heavens can't contain."

Why did God create such an immeasurable universe? Doug shares one reason: "So He could have an illustration of His faithfulness to Israel... 'If man can measure the heavens, then I'll break my promise that I made that I would establish you (Israel) as head of the nations, and that there would be a descendent of David who would rule and reign.'" Those who err in the doctrine of 'replacement theology' should take note.

Were we to try to contemplate "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ",  the measure of Jesus Christ, the creator of the universe, we might begin by observing the faintest touch of its reality as we consider the countless constellations of countless stars that blanket the night sky. "His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made." Therefore, man is without excuse, and in scriptures, called "stupid", those who say there is no God.

"The boundaries of God; He is boundless, but if they could be seen, they're in the boundaries of a glorified Man." In this session, Doug is more relaxed as he takes us on a journey into the vast ocean of the heavens, contemplating the incomprehensible measureless creation and all put there by a God we can barely imagine as to His power and might, His boundless creativity and genius sense of artistic grandeur. Jesus "upholds all things by the word of His power"... this entire universe, not only as God, but as the Man in glory.

The church is the body of Christ, the corporate new creation, the temple (dwelling) of God in Christ. "Is this temple going to contain the Lord? The heavens can't contain Him; the universe can't hold Him. Will this temple hold Him? Absolutely! You look at that temple - the bride - the city... you look at that, and you'll see all there is of God in ever increasing measure... The church, which is His body, is the fullness of Him (Ephesians 1) who fills all in all [or by means of all]." He is doing the filling, but we are included in that work because we are inseparably connected to Him as the head of the body.

"Religion is the greatest enemy of mankind - deception that Satan can bring upon a people is religion." "All the way along, the writer to the Hebrews dismantles everything that would allow the Hebrew Christians to go back to a system that was a shadow and didn't hold the substance of the reality... You better move on, or you're going to face judgment." Doug and I had several conversations about how very well-meaning and sincere Christians who believe they are deepening their understanding and relationship with Yeshua Hamashiach. In reality, they are turning back to the types and shadows where the veil still exists that keeps Israel blind to realizing who their Messiah is. Not only is it going backwards, but it is setting them up for judgment if they don’t move on into the reality of Jesus. We are not Jews any more than we are Gentiles, we who are in Christ. Isn’t Christians of Jewish bloodline trying to find their ‘Hebrew roots’ quite like Gentile Christians looking for our pagan roots.

As Doug challenges us to press on in our spiritual journey, Christ being fully formed in us and us being conformed to the nature and character of Christ, he adds: "Spiritual warfare is not an issue of the authority of Christ. It's more about how much do we correspond to the nature of this One. How much of that nature is formed in us?... The more of that nature that becomes our possession - you don't see spirits manifesting that much anymore. They are terrified."

Link to today's audio: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/1-5-14+Sunday+Assembly.mp3

 

Maranatha!

John Mark

...hereby committing this unto the providential care of the enthroned Head of the Church; whose Name is blessed forevermore, Yeshua Mashiach - Jesus Christ!

 

To opt out of receiving these emails, please reply with a request to unsubscribe.

 

 

Jesus Christ, the Last Adam, the Second Man - “It is Finished!” – Part 5 by Pastor Doug Riggs

by John Mark on 05/08/24

This message was originally recorded December 29, 2013, the fifth in a series of 8 messages.

My notes:

Why would those Christians who were addressed in Hebrews want to go back to Moses, the law, and the types and shadows of the old dispensation and not go on to perfection which is accomplished in the work of Christ on the cross? Why are Christians today doing the same thing, those caught up in a 'Hebrew roots' movement? The writer to the Hebrew Christians warned of the imminent judgment which came only a few years later when the entire Jewish system was destroyed and millions lost their lives, including born-again Christians who returned back to the law and their Jewish traditions. As the Word is as much alive today as it was when written, the warning still stands. Christians today who are not looking to Jesus as the Author and Perfecter of our faith, but back to the old covenant meant for Israel and not the church, are in danger of judgment - losing their lives before they finish their course. They are not in danger of losing salvation - but are in danger of the judgment of God who is described as 'a consuming fire', and not only that, but the loss of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. Doug said: "If we really see the Lord, we will fear as Christians more than anything else, standing before Him at the bema seat, and not have every aspect of our life having been brought into correspondence with Himself."

While we still have breath, we still have the opportunity to finish our course and attain full reward, that which God wants to give to each of us. "Past failures is not going to determine whether Christ will be fully formed in us or not; it's what we do from this day forward with the time God has given us. That's what matters. Are we stewards - good stewards - responsible stewards of the time that He's given us?"

The first Adam failed to attain the fullness God intended for man. It took the second man, the Lord from Heaven, to reach that goal. It is only through this last Adam who became a life-giving spirit that we in Him have the opportunity to attain to this fulness. Jesus is the originator, the leader, the one out ahead of this new creation who also brings us to completion as we cooperate with Him, abiding in Him as He abides in us.

"The identity, attributes, and characteristics of the old man (the outer man; the first man) in contradistinction to the new man (the inner man; the hidden man of the heart; the second man) - those who are spiritual vs. those who are natural - these are the definitions of the two humanities."

Once again Doug addresses those swayed by the drawing back to the law in the Hebrew roots error. This is not from a disdain for our brethren so misled, but for the error itself. "The sheer power of logic crushes to the ground anyone who would want to go back to the law. Anyone wanting to go back to Judaism, you have no logical explanation for your heresy, for your departure from the fact that Jesus Christ has fulfilled every single type. [If] you go back to that - you are apostatizing, and you should fear falling into the hands of the living God, born-again Christian." For further teaching and correction of this error, I recommend the 3-sessions Doug gave in 2020 on The Hebrew Roots Movement (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtE2EQ9mIvN8ZhL-tb7lvNbquXDLE7sJa).

Personal note: We should clearly see from the word of God that there is a great 'fiery judgment' coming to brothers and sisters in Christ who are caught up in this. Were I to observe people heading for a life-threatening accident they may be unaware of, I would feel it very important that I warn them even if they erroneously thought I was being critical or judgmental. I recently discovered I was born 1/4 Jew. However, I do not call myself a "Messianic Jew" - I wouldn't even if I were born 100% Jewish. There is no Jew in Christ - nor Gentile. We are a new creation - a new species - neither Jew nor Gentile. It's a critical point of this entire series of messages, that Jesus is the last Adam, the second man. "As the second man, He's not a Jew. As the last Adam, He was a perfect Jew, and He died as a Jew. But, as the second man, He is a new creation."

"You need to make the transition, you Hebrew Christians! If not, there's the certain fiery judgment that you can expect to come upon you... You're going to die; " This doesn't only apply to first century Christian. It applies equally in these last days, especially what we've come to know as 'the day of visitation' where this is not the only error and deficiency being dealt with as the bride prepares herself and will soon be raptured ‘without spot or wrinkle’. The term wrinkle speaks of age, and to the degree we are adhering to the old aged covenant, we are not manifesting the new creation life in Christ.

In this message, Doug elaborates on the real meaning of who Jesus is as the mediator between God and man. Instead of a common belief that there's a God up there full of wrath and fury ready to punish all our disobedience, but there is Jesus pleading for us, we discover something very different. The mediation occurred 2,000 years ago on the cross while we were in the sleep of death. Rather than me trying to explain it, I believe you'll enjoy Doug's way-better examination.

As you will hear, there are portions of the message that are very difficult to understand due to a very poor recording. I did what I could to clean it up.

Recommended resource: Erich Sauer's In the Arena of Faith (https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/in_the_arena_of_faith.pdf)

Link to today's audio: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/12-29-13+Sunday+Assembly+%231+edited.mp3

Link to Doug’s notes on forerunner, author, and mediator:  https://www.dougriggs.org/Bible_Study_Notes.pdf

Maranatha!

John Mark

...hereby committing this unto the providential care of the enthroned Head of the Church; whose Name is blessed forevermore, Yeshua Mashiach - Jesus Christ!

 

To opt out of receiving these emails, please reply with a request to unsubscribe.

 

 

 

Jesus Christ, the Last Adam, the Second Man - “It is Finished!” – Part 4 by Pastor Doug Riggs

by John Mark on 05/05/24

This message was originally recorded December 22, 2013, the fourth in a series of 8 messages.

My notes:

'Consider Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith' - the One 'who began a good work in us who will bring it to completion', 'the last Adam, the second man, the Lord from heaven' (Hebrews 12:2; Philippians 1:6; 1 Corinthians 15:45, 47). As the second man, "there will be no successor to Him." There are no more humanities than that in Adam and that in Christ. Satan's attempt (since the days of Noah) to modify and manipulate God's creation via hybridization (fallen angels cohabiting with human women to produce offspring) does not create a third species of humanity recognized by God. (Though today's teaching doesn't mention this, I thought it would apply.)

Those who are born once will experience the second death – eternal separation from God in hell - it's the second because all born in Adam are born spiritually dead, our first death. Only those who are born twice will experience eternal life. Therefore, as Jesus said, we 'must be born again'. Our becoming born again is only available to us because of Jesus' becoming born again at His resurrection, 'the firstborn from the dead'.

In Isaiah, Jesus is described as being 'marred more than any man'. You may be surprised to learn this did not refer to what Jesus suffered physically. This is one of the departures from reality and truth the Roman Catholic church takes as it emphasizes the physical suffering and blood of Christ. You'll hear Doug explain the reality as perhaps something you didn't realize before, that the sufferings of Christ go way beyond anything physical. He yielded His soul unto death; the stripes He received were so much more than those from the Roman soldiers. It was the Father's judgment that went immeasurably further than any man could do to Jesus as He became sin on our behalf.

In this message, Doug corrects the common evangelistic message that one must repent of their sins to receive Christ as Lord and Savior. If this sounds not-quite-right to you, you'll hear the explanation in this teaching. Also, how often we hear the gospel presented that Jesus died for our sins without including the fact that Jesus didn't just die for us, but AS US. He took us, the first Adam, into death and into the grave to be left there, forever judged and condemned by God, never to rise again. Jesus as our representative, the last Adam, died, and in newness of life, the new man, the new humanity, as the second man, the Lord from heaven, He was raised and we with Him, a new creation, not the resurrection of the old one. Our water baptism is the symbol we have to illustrate this, though it may not be apparent that we leave the old man behind in the water unless it is explained to us.

The whole human race in Adam was baptized (identified with / incorporated) into Christ's death. When He died, we died. Well, you may say, "I wasn't even born yet! How could I have died 2,000 years ago?" Well, the Bible tells us that when Adam sinned, we sinned. Well, you may say, "How could I have sinned 6,000 or more years ago? I wasn't born yet." If this is new to us, we are learning positional truth. In Adam, the first representative of the corporate human race, we sinned. His sin is accounted to us as our sin. You may think this unfair. Well, 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ, the second man, the second representative of the corporate human race, was crucified. His death is accounted to us as our death. In Adam, we sinned; in Christ's death, we died. This has to do with what Jesus cried out on the cross: "It is finished!"

When we discover we are dead, what do we come to realize we need most? We need life - we need to be born again. When we receive Christ, we are transferred out of the old Adam into the second Adam, the new man in Christ, resurrected out of death into the newness of life in Christ. Christ's death, burial, and resurrection is ours just as if we were right there 2,000 years ago. That's positional truth; now we learn to live out that truth experientially. That's sanctification.

Doug makes this astounding revelation: "On the cross, God took responsibility for allowing Satan to tempt man in the first place; and He took responsibility for man's sin. He took care of both." How did He do that? By the crucifixion of Christ on the cross. So if any of us have any complaints about being charged with Adam's sin, our mouths are shut by this reality. If we don't like being charged with Adam's sin, we'll surely want to claim Jesus' act of righteousness on our behalf when He took care of the debt we owe due to our sin (positional and experiential).

Doug quotes Stephen Kaung: "Our biggest problem is not that we don't have enough strength; it is that we have too much strength." He closes this message with a searching question: "Are we perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord?" 

Doug mentioned a message by Eric Ludy he thought was titled "The Ineffable Name" - it may actually be The Unspeakable Name (https://ellerslie.com/the-unspeakable-name/)

Also recommended: The Celestial Court series (see our Video page)

Link to audio: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/12-22-13+Sunday+Assembly.mp3

Maranatha!

John Mark

...hereby committing this unto the providential care of the enthroned Head of the Church; whose Name is blessed forevermore, Yeshua Mashiach - Jesus Christ!

 

 

 

Jesus Christ, the Last Adam, the Second Man - “It is Finished!” – Part 3 by Pastor Doug Riggs

by John Mark on 05/01/24

This message was originally recorded December 18, 2013, the third in a series of 8 messages.

My notes:

As Doug continues the theme of the revelation of Jesus Christ as the last Adam, the second man, he relates the passage in Philippians 2, known as the kinosis (self-emptying) of Jesus. I know Doug has taught us well through the years, but for me, only upon recently listening to an amazing message by Art Katz, Growing Unto Sonship (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65d8Key9Z1E&list=WL&index=5&t=15s), did I come to the realization that Jesus laid aside EVERYTHING pertaining to deity and became fully man. His life was a demonstration of man as God intended man to be and live, in complete dependence on our Father in heaven. Therefore, everything we read of Jesus' life, everything He did, all the miracles and supernatural activity was not his divinity peeking through, but what we can expect when we live in complete dependence on the Father - doing only the things we see Him doing - speaking only that which we hear Him speaking. I know I've got a long way to go before that's a 24/7 reality in me, but that revelation floored me. And what floors me further is what Jesus said, "Greater things shall you do, because I go to the Father." (John 14:12)

Doug adds, "As I think about Christ... every day that He got up and faced His day, His first thought was, 'I'm here to please the Father. I only do those things that are pleasing Him.'" "As the last Adam, all that which God intended in the first Adam was realized in Him."

Here's something to think about: "God did not redeem Adam." Before you think Doug went off the rails here, listen to how he explains it. "He doesn't save Adam. Adam dies! We are saved judicially as we put our trust in Christ. And when we put our trust in Christ, the legal justification of God is imputed to us in terms of the righteousness of God in Christ. But in terms of being alive unto God in Christ Jesus, that's only on the ground of resurrection. There's nothing of Adam that survives. God did not save Adam. He didn't save anything good in Adam, even the best of Adam... all that is dead to God."

In Adam, we died. We in Adam weren't saved. We were born again - born from above - born as a new creation in Christ. How much of our Christian life is trying to make our old Adam better? We call that 'self-improvement' and buy many books to help us accomplish nothing. Jesus didn't die on the cross to improve who we are in Adam. He died and took us with Him. It's only in resurrection as the new humanity do we discover our lives as not improved, but replaced.

Perhaps we thought that people were born again during the age of Israel. Jesus was the first man to be born again. "He was born again, not because He needed personal salvation, but He's the first begotten from the dead."

"Eternal salvation is justification, sanctification (growth in holiness), culminating in glorification." Jesus is the source of our salvation, justification, sanctification, and glorification.

The bible tells us to "press on to maturity ('perfection')" as Christians. So, does this mean "I have to grab my bootstraps and do something", as Doug asks? No, "We let God do it. Why? Because He's already in Christ, the perfected one, as Man for man." The better rendering of this is, "Allow Him to bear us along to maturity... That perfection is already ours in Him." Doug continues, "Where we still have roots in Adam, those roots gradually shrivel up through the internal work of the cross, and we gradually through death transition practically and experientially out of Adam into Christ."

Resource mentioned: The Historical Account of the Revelation of the Mystery: The gradual unveiling of the church in the book of Acts

(https://www.salembible.org/the-historical-account-of-the-revelation-of-the-mystery/)

Link to today's audio: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/12-18-13+Wed+Assembly.mp3

Maranatha!

John Mark

...hereby committing this unto the providential care of the enthroned Head of the Church; whose Name is blessed forevermore, Yeshua Mashiach - Jesus Christ!

 

 

 

Jesus Christ, the Last Adam, the Second Man - “It is Finished!” – Part 2 by Pastor Doug Riggs

by John Mark on 04/28/24