Herald of Life M A Y - A U G U S T 2 0 1 3 Things that Differ I n our day many are Pastor Joe McIntyre coming to understand that everything we need for a healthy and overcoming Christian life has already been accomplished by the work of Christ (Eph. 3:11). Coming to an understanding of this awesome provision can be and is life-changing. Everything Christ has done for us is freely given to us in the grace of God. We cannot earn it nor is there any way to deserve it. It all comes freely from the benevolent heart of our great Father God. Our part in this great Redemption is to grow in our ability to receive what has been purchased for us. This is the faith life. All that grace supplies is received by faith. Kenyon describes these two aspects of our Redemption as the Legal and Vital sides of Redemption. All that Christ purchased is truly ours but we must learn how to receive and walk in it. Legally, it has been given us by the Father in Christ. Experientially, we must grow up into it. When believers overemphasize the Legal side of Redemption, it can create a passive attitude. Jesus did it all; I don t have to do anything! Jesus did do it all, but that doesn t mean we don t have a responsibility to respond to His grace. That response is called faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). Faith is the hand that receives what the grace of God freely gives. Faith pleases God because it enables us to receive what God wants us to have. The life of faith is learning to walk in a (continued on page 2) T The LegalSide of our Redemption here are two phases of Redemption. In the earliest days of my study of the Word there was much confusion in my mind. Few teachers made distinction between what the Father has done through Christ, and what the Holy Spirit does in us through the Word. At first I saw that the Bible was composed of two legal documents, an Old Covenant and a New; that the word covenant meant contract. God had made a contract with Abraham, and they had sealed the covenant. Abraham had circumcised himself, and God had furnished an offering, so that blood was mingled and a contract was consumated. With that contract came the law and the priesthood and the sacrifices and ceremonies that gave to us the Jewish race and the Old Testament. Out of it came Jesus and the New Covenant. Jesus came and fulfilled that Old Covenant, and established a New in His own blood. Instead of circumcision, He became the Lamb; and His blood, the blood of humanity and Deity, was poured out on the Cross. We have the sealing of His Work with His Own blood. Then, after His resurrection, He carried His blood into the Heavenly Holy of Holies, and the Supreme Court of the Universe accepted that blood. It is now the seal to this New Covenant and the document of our Redemption. Adam became a legal criminal, an outlaw. He had rebelled against Heaven. His descendants became partakers of his nature; they became rebels. So man was a legal outlaw. Jesus came as a legal Substitute for fallen man. God legally assumed the liabilities of the fall, and His Son became answerable. Jesus death was a legal death. He became our legal Substitute. God laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. Him Who knew no sin, God made to become sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in Him. (continued on page 5)
Herald of Life NEWS of the Ministry I Bonnie & Jim Dofelmier n my last News of the Ministry I mentioned that our beloved President thought that this great country was no longer a Christian Nation. Well I couldn t disagree with him more and today I ll tell you why. I really think this country needs a rival for Christ, and from our end we can see that it might be happening. It appears our Prison Ministry is picking up steam, as many are requesting our books even more than they have in previous years. Should the Lord touch your heart to tithe to this great cause just designate it with your offering. Let us not forget that Jesus wants no one left behind, but all to know Him and be saved. I ve also noticed that some of our distributors these past few months have increased the size of their orders by more than double with some ordering twice a month. Nevertheless if the Lord should move you to help us with our printing bills it would be greatly appreciated. The demand abroad is great and that demand is picking up greatly in this Christian Nation. (Smile) God is good and hasn t given up on this country yet. So we are doing well and we give all the credit for our success during these difficult times to our Lord Jesus. He is faithful. Speaking of being faithful I must mention the Kenyon team. Words cannot express the gratitude we have for each of you. All of you are continually in our prayers, as without your kindness and generosity things here at Kenyon s would be quite different. We may just be a publishing company! May it never be! God has seen each of your hearts and He is truly pleased with your tithes and offerings. We will never disappoint Jesus or either of you in your great efforts through this Ministry in spreading the Gospel through the books of Dr. Kenyon. Thank you so much for your faithfulness. On the lighter side of things; after waiting for so long, God finally blessed Bonnie and I with two grandsons that we just adore and live for. Well on July 19th, He blessed us with a granddaughter that we will spoil greatly. Her name is Aria Fay and she is as beautiful as any baby girl could possibly be. In conclusion, the News of the Ministry is good and may I say that Bonnie and I truly trust in Jesus for all things in our lives and in our service for Jesus through Kenyon s. Now may the peace of God and all that He has; rest and abide with each of you always. A peace that the world does not know or understand, but all of you do. Together we will do our part to help them along in knowing the Prince of Peace our Lord Jesus Christ. God will bless each of you. > Things That Differ (continued from page 1) Pastor Joe McIntyre relationship with the Father resting in what Christ has done for us. It is not passivity, but grace-inspired activity. Grace is more than unmerited favor. It is God s love working in us to conform us to the image of Christ. He that has begun a good work in us will complete it (Phil. 1:6). As the revelation of His grace comes to us, it imparts power to walk in Christ and His perfect work. Faith is the hand that receives what the grace of God freely gives. > What We Believe We stand for the whole Bible as the whole revelation of God in Christ, and that what God revealed in Christ is every true believer s heritage. We believe in the Eternal Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ. We believe in the Holy Spirit, and His indwelling presence. We believe healing is for us. We believe the miracles of the Book of Acts are to be perpetuated. We believe in the new kind of love that Jesus brought to be the law of the brethren, and we believe that we are to walk in that love. We believe in the Great Commission. We believe in the eternal reward of the righteousness and the eternal punishment of the wicked. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Head and Lord of the Body. We believe in the Second Coming of our Lord. ~ NOW IN STOCK! ~ New Kenyon book: What We Are In Christ $7.50 plus shipping & handling 2
He ThatBelieveth Hath C hristianity is not a religion. It is a relationship. It is not a faith relationship. It is a relationship that was born of faith, but it does not require faith to maintain it. It requires faith to enjoy it as does every human relationship. Prayer is really not a faith proposition. It is a legal thing. When you were Born Again, you came into the family of God. You have rights and privileges in the family. You have a legal right to conversation and fellowship with Him. He expects you to take advantage of it. You have a right to make your requests known unto Him and it is His joy as a Father to give you the things that you need. He gave you a legal right to use of the Name of Jesus. Jn. 14:13-14, Whatsoever ye ask in my name that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the son. If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it. He does not say, If ye shall ask me anything. Some of our translators have misunderstood this scripture and have inserted the word me. But Jesus is saying, Whatsoever ye ask or demand in my Name, I will do it, or make it good. This is not prayer. This is when we are facing life s problems. Here is a child over whom the adversary has gained the dominance. We say, In Jesus Name Satan leave my child. Or it may be that the adversary has some disease on the child. You lay your hands on the child and you say, In Jesus Name disease, leave this body. You remember that that disease was laid on Jesus and Jesus bore it. You know that By His stripes the child is healed, and now in the Name of Jesus you command the symptoms of that disease to leave. This does not require faith, that is in the sense which we understand faith. When Jesus said to the Jews, Believest thou that I am able to do this? He was challenging their faith in Himself as their Messiah. He had not revealed Himself yet as a Savior. He is not asking faith in Himself as their personal Savior, but simply faith in Him as the Messiah they had been expecting. Whatsoever ye ask in my name that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the son. If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it. Jn. 14:13-14 They were Jews under law. They knew nothing about Christ s death and Resurrection. They believed that He was the Messiah, their deliverer from the Roman Empire and the restorer of their national life under the first Covenant. They did not know that He came to fulfill that Old Covenant and to set it aside and everything connected with it. He had come to establish a new Covenant with a new law and a new sacrifice. That was not known until the Father revealed it to the early church through the apostle Paul. You can see that Christianity is based upon legal grounds. We have been legally Redeemed. We have a legal right to partake of the nature of God and become New Creations, created in Christ Jesus. We have a legal right to the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. We have a legal right to the use of the Name of Jesus which gives us access to the Father and authority over the work of the adversary. We have a legal right to the Word with its marvelous promises and encouragement. We have a legal right to the Father s presence and fellowship. If you have a legal right, you do not need to strive to get faith. All you need to do is to enter into your inheritance. God wrought all that we will ever need in Christ. When Christ arose from the dead and carried His blood into the Heavenly Holy of Holies and sat down at the right hand of the Father, He had finished our Redemptive work. He had perfectly satisfied the claims of justice on our behalf. He had made a complete and finished Redemptive work. He had made it possible for the Father to legally give to the man who took Christ as his Savior and confessed Him as the Lord of His life, His own nature, making him a New Creation. All this is based on legal grounds. That Covenant He cut with Abraham was a legal document. The New Covenant is also a legal document. On the ground of that we have legal rights. The sinner has a legal right to Eternal Life. All he needs to do is come and get what belongs to him. After he comes into the family, he has a legal right to freedom in Christ without Satan s dominion over him. He has a legal right to his healing, because God laid our sins and our diseases upon Christ. He was made sin with our sins. He was made sick with our sicknesses. He was filled with our pain. By His stripes we were healed. In the mind of the Father we were healed. In the mind of Jesus we were healed. According to the Word we were healed. All we have to do is to accept it and act on the Word. We look up and thank the Father for (continued on page 4) 3
Love Never Fails As we walk in love, we walk in the light of faith. As we walk in the light we cannot fail. There is no failure in the love life. Failure comes from selfishness. As we walk in love we walk in the light of His Word. There is the sense of God s protection and care continually. God is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? He is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? As long as you walk in love you are in the light. When you are walking in the light, you will not stumble. There is a fearless certainty about your life, about your decisions, about everything connected with your life. You can confidently rest in the Word that says, Fear thou not, for I am with you. God is with you. God is in you. God is the strength of your life. You cannot be sick. You cannot be weak. You cannot be ignorant of His Will. You know what His mind is, because He is imparting to you Himself, His ability. He whispers, Fear thou not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed for I am thy God. He really means, I am thy Father-God, your lover, your protector, your caretaker. It is easy to casts every care and anxiety upon Him. It is easy to rest in Him with a fearless joy. I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my Righteousness. Never has Righteousness been so beautiful. God s Righteousness is upholding us. God s Righteousness is making us fearless. God s Righteousness is making us conquerors, overcomers, victors in every fight. Now we can put up a solid front to the world. Now we can enjoy His fulness. We know now that we are what He says we are, and we rejoice in it. > He ThatBelieveth Hath our healing. We thank Him, because we are in His Family. He is our Father, we are His child. He made a perfect provision for a life of fellowship and communion with Himself. That is all ours. It is not necessary for the Father to give us any special blessing. Everything we would ever need or ever want in the spiritual real was wrought out in Christ and became ours the moment He sat down at the right hand of God. Eph. 1:3, He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. (continued from page 3) If He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, we are indeed blessed. In that same epistle He declares that we are Redeemed, we are New Creations created in Christ Jesus. We are created out of the Righteousness and holiness of God. We have the very fulness of God in us. Jn. 1:16, Of His fulness have we received and grace upon grace, or grace and abundance of grace. This grace is to enable us to enjoy, our privileges and to enter into the fulness of this life in Christ. We are now the fulness of God in Christ; the very wealth of God is ours. Everything that Jesus did, everything that He was, and all that He is, is ours now. You don t need to pray for strength because, Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. You don t have to pray for love, because God is Love and God is in you. You don t have to pray for grace, for the grace of God is Jesus, and the life of Christ is yours. It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me. This crying and praying for strength and healing and help is a confession of our ignorance and a denial of the Word. > 4
The Lost Rest Jesus said, My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Peace is rest. Israel, if they obeyed the Word, were promised national peace. That meant no enemy could break in and carry them away captives. Peace in the New Covenant means peace of heart, quietness of mind, where no enemy can break in and rob us of the treasure of peace. Matt. 11:28 Jesus says, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. This was His invitation. We have accepted it. We have come into His rest. Ps. 37:7 Rest in Jehovah, and wait patiently for Him Fret not thyself because of evil doers. Happy is that man who has taken the Lord as his rest and in quietness teaches his heart to wait patiently for the Lord. One of the most beautiful expressions is found in Ps. 23:3: He restoreth my soul. The soul is the mind. We become so restless, so anxious, almost overwhelmed by the cross currents of life yet He can take us quietly alone and restore the quietness that our hearts need. 1 Pet. 5:7 Casting all your anxiety upon Him. Heb. 3:12-19 should be read carefully. Heed the 14th verse about holding fast to our confession, firm unto the end. > The Legal Side of our Redemption The Legal Side of our Redemption (continued from page 1) Before He arose from the dead, He was justified. God accepted what He had done as a sacrifice and a substitution that met the claims of justice. After He was justified in spirit, He was made alive in spirit; and there He legally conquered the Adversary before He arose and stripped him of the authority that he had taken from the first man, Adam. Rom. 4:25: He was delivered up on the account of our trespasses and was raised when (or because) we were justified. That is the legal side of the Redemption. When Jesus arose from the dead, He had dealt with the sin problem. Now He takes the token, His own blood, and carries it into Heaven. God accepts it, and Jesus is seated at the Right Hand of God. Jesus is the Head of the New Creation. In Col. 1:18 He is declared to be the First Born from the dead. Jesus is the Head of the New Creation. He is the first person ever recreated. He had to be recreated because He was made sin with our sin. He then was made righteous. Him who knew no sin He made to become sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in Him. This is the foundation of our legal Redemption. Faith comes to man through a knowledge of the legal work that God wrought in Christ. No man ever acquires real faith by listening or reading the testimonies of miracles performed in the lives of others. He is incited to study the Word, to listen to it. The miracle shows what God can do for a man. Now he comes to believe what God did in Christ for Him. Then comes faith. Then faith comes from the legal side of the plan of Redemption. We have tried to promote faith and produce faith in people by preaching the vital side of Redemption. We have thought that miracles would produce faith. It promotes faith, but does not produce it. The Word alone is the faith giver. > 5
T The New Vision The New Vision here is coming to some of us a new vision of the Risen Lord and of His relation to us. We are seeing ourselves in a new light. It is not philosophical nor metaphysical; it is really seeing Him at work within us, realizing that all He did for us in His great substitionary work can be accomplished in us now through the Holy Spirit, for it is God at work within you, willing and working His own good pleasure. We are beginning to understand what it means to be united with Omnipotence, to actually fellowship with the Creator of the universe; to be so one with Him, so a part of Him, that we can actually realize that as He is the Vine, we are the branches. This fellowshipping Omnipotence, this catching a glimpse of what we are to Him and what He is to us has changed our whole outlook on life. Christianity had always been a struggle to be good. A combat with evil. Now we know that Christ, before He arose from the dead, put to naught or paralyzed the destructive power of Satan. That only becomes true in the one who recognizes his union with Christ. He found us in the realm of weakness and failure. We have become failure-conscious, weakness-conscious. Selfishness was the mainspring of our ambition. Then there came flooding into our spirits a new life, bringing with it the very nature of the Father. This actually unmoored us from that old life. We swung out into the current of His Will and His Life. We are just beginning to realize how big that makes life. Selfishness makes one small. Love enlarges, elevates the mind, lifts us out of the turgid, muddy stream of selfishness. Love brings with it all the God-like qualities and traits. Makes us gentle, tender, and long-suffering. It adds that dainty touch of the Divine that we see in Jesus. We instantly become burden-bearers. The strong takes over the overload of the weak, and life becomes beautiful with God, as the very center of it. > This newsletter is available online only. It is financed by Tithes & Love Offerings. Check out our updated website at www.kenyons.org and also now on Facebook Kenyon s Gospel Publishing P. O. Box 973 Lynnwood, WA 98046-0973 Call us toll-free at 1-866-743-4243 ~ NOW AVAILABLE ~ New Kenyon book: What We Are In Christ $7.50 plus shipping & handling 6
The Cross Was His Own - Selected They borrowed a bed to lay His head When Christ the Lord came down; They borrowed the ass in the mountain pass For Him to ride to town. He borrowed the bread with which He fed The crowd on the mountain side; He borrowed the dish of broken fish With which He satisfied. He borrowed a ship in which to sit When He taught the multitude; He borrowed a net in which to rest ñ He had never a home so rude. He borrowed a room on His way to the tomb, The Passover Lamb to eat: They borrowed a grave for Him ñ a cave; They borrowed a winding-sheet. The thorns on His head were worn in my stead; For me the Savior died. The guilt of my sin the nails drove in When Him they crucified; Though the crown He wore Were His own they rightly were mine.