Part 8 - An Article By Norman Grubb

This Article is part of a multi-part Study Series called Identification.

What follows are a few words spoken by Norman Grubb, in Japan in 1954, concerning this matter of how we need to go on by faith, identifying with the truth of Christ’s death as our death to our old man, and Christ’s resurrection life as our new life. Please read this as if you were hearing Norman’s Englishman’s voice.

“We have to be what God says we are, and have what God says we have. Now you know if you’re talking to an unconverted person who argues, you won’t allow him to get out of conversation by saying, “Oh, I couldn’t keep it up.” You say, “Brother, you mustn’t look at it that way. You must just see you’re a hell-going sinner. Get quick to Jesus, and get that Blood cleansing you. Leave the future alone. God sees to that.” You don’t allow him to get out of present salvation by saying, “I couldn’t keep it up.”

Likewise, we have no business to say, “Oh, I can’t really say that I’m crucified with Christ because tomorrow I’ll probably lose my temper, or I’ll do some such sinning.” We all have likely said that. But we have no business to say that any more than that person who can’t come to Christ saying, “I can’t receive salvation because I’ll fail and lose it tomorrow.”  No, we must act according to “the obedience of faith” in the moment.

What is required of us is the obedience of faith, which is to trust in the truth. That’s one of the great words of Romans. It comes in the first and the last chapters of Romans. “the obedience of faith.” Faith is seen in obedience. Faith means …I accept, if you like, blindly - it isn’t wholly blindly, but better blindly than not at all - I accept blindly, absolutely, completely, determinedly, exactly what God says is so, and I stake my life on it. And though I fail a million times, I still stake my life on it. Though every man is a liar, God is true. (Rom 3:4).

So, in I step, and I say, “because God tells me so, I’m crucified with Christ”. I have “died with Him”. I have been “buried with Him.” And I have made a public show of it, somehow or other. I have been raised with Him, it’s Christ in me, and I’ve ascended with Him.” Now that is the obedience of faith.

Beware lest you are a disobedient soul because you’re looking “this way and that” and it hasn’t worked or something. It isn’t a question of whether it works or not. It is a question of obeying today; obeying is faith. It’s the obedience of faith to stand on the truth of the gospel. So be sure that you are not a disobedient child, be sure that if God has shown you things in His Word you’re not walking around them and making excuses and making wangles or something to get out of the flat obedience of faith.

The flat obedience of faith is to state with all your soul that what God says is so. God tells you to reckon yourself dead indeed unto sin and now alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ - the world crucified unto you, and you are crucified unto to the world. Galatians 6:14 But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. You’ve crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. Galatians 5:24 And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. You’re crucified with Christ. Be sure you say so.

Be sure you plunge right out like good old Peter did on those waves and found the waves held him. He got a dipping. But better get a dipping and walk than the other disciples who got no dipping and didn’t walk either. I’d rather be the man on the water and get a little wet than the man who stays in the boat and just laughs and gets nothing. Don’t you stay in that boat! Come out. Walk on those waters.”

So faith isn’t as easy as it looks. You begin to find that when you face the challenges of the present impossible. That’s when you face it. That takes faith. When you face the challenges of the past or future, it’s not quite so difficult. That’s why salvation by grace isn’t quite so difficult. Because when you first come to Jesus for salvation, in the main you are concerned about those past sins which are damning you and your future security in heaven. It is a little easier to believe something way in the past or the future. But it is a much harder thing to believe in immediate possibility. Now that’s why you begin to find that faith for sanctification isn’t so easy. Because you have to believe you are what you are not. That takes some doing. We’ve to call the things that be not as though they were. I Cor. 1:28. And we’re people that slip away into sin and our lives are inconsistent. We’re heavy one day and peaceful another, and all these things which we’ve gone into before. We aren’t conscious of the purity of heart which we ought to have, and we have to believe we have it when we haven’t. That takes some doing. We have to believe the present impossible.