Jesus Christ: The Heavenly Man The Prototype of the Corporate New Man - by Pastor Doug Riggs

This was originally recorded on January 29, 2017.

My notes:

"For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21) "For me to be living is not doing something... it's a Person." And what is "to die is gain"? "You gain Christ in fullness." "We need to know what that is. Otherwise, we're living under the law; living under rule; living under some sort of obligation... There's Somebody that's already lived your life for you; He's already walked your path... We don't try to imitate Him... His walk is recreated as we begin to walk out by faith in the Son of God." Jesus walked in the power of the Holy Spirit in complete surrender and dependence on the Father, and this is to become our walk.

As Doug was speaking of manhood, "He who looks at a servant of God and sees Jesus Christ, well there's something of manhood there. To whatever degree people do not see Jesus Christ in us, we're still living out of an old Adam, and the second man, His features have not come forward in us yet."

"Jesus Christ is the only heavenly Man; He's the only one who knows what a man is," man as God intended man to be, as Major Thomas would say. "Everything about who He is in His manhood as the second man has no roots or history in Adam or this earth, although He walked this earth. It was completely one hundred percent a life out from God as the source."

Doug reminds us there's a huge difference between entering the kingdom of God and having an inheritance in the kingdom of God. "When you're born again, you enter; but inheriting, that's a whole other matter. That's conquest. Inheritance; it's always related to conquest." Apart from Jesus we can do nothing (John 15:5), but we "can do all things through Him who strengthens" us (Philippians 4:13). We are to "be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might" (Ephesians 6:10). "What a distance there is from new birth, being begotten of God after the patter of which He (Jesus) was begotten, to come to that place where people begin to see God the Father in us in the person of Jesus."

What about the cross of Jesus Christ and His resurrection? "As the last Adam, I will terminate that species. As the second man, I bring in a new species; I bring in a new creation."

"A heavenly man - a spiritual man - is the consequence of a soul-life that's dying, a soul-life that's crucified; a soul-life that is not here for self anymore; but a soul that's under the government of the human spirit in union with the Holy Spirit that's here to do the will of God. A spiritual man can be determined rather 'Do you know what the will of God is? Do you know what the purpose of God is? And are you doing it the best that you know how, in the light that God has given you?' And does it cost? The spiritual man knows it's a cost, and it's always a cost."

"I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you, that is the Christian life. He is the Christian life... He, as the last man, (the Lord) from heaven."

Link to Audio: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/1-29-17%2Bsunday.mp3

Link to Transcription: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/2017_01_29+Jesus_Christ-The_Heavenly_Man-The_Prototype_of_the_Corporate_New_Man.pdf

Link to Discussion: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/1-29-17%2Bdiscussion.mp3

Resource Mentioned: Bruchko: The Astonishing True Story of a 19-Year-Old American, His Capture by the Motilone Indians and His Adventures in Christianizing the Stone Age Tribe (https://amzn.to/4ekN024)

Maranatha!

John Mark