Angelic Conflict part 210: Human history (the Church) – 1Co 12-13; Mar 12:41-44; Rom 12:1-2; 8:29; Heb 13:15-16; Tit 3:3-7.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 210: Human history (the Church) - 1Co 12-13; MAR 12:41-44; ROM 12:1-2; 8:29; HEB 13:15-16; TIT 3:3-7.

 

Christianity is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ living through a believer, all of whom are His temple and sanctuary on earth.

 

The last five chapters of Romans are concerned with the living of this life by the individual Christian in the sphere of life in which God has placed him. If we are not to be led astray, we must have our foundation well established.

 

REV 1:5-6

To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood, and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father; to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

 

1CO 3:11

For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

 

The life that the Christian is to live here on earth is dependent upon Christ living in us, and Christ's life within us comes through the great redemption which God has provided for us in Christ's death upon the cross. The doctrine brings deep understanding of that redemptive work and how it can flow through the believer in life.

 

ROM 12:1 I urge you therefore [based on the 315 verses of the first eleven chapters], brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

 

An entirely new foundation is given in the CA, which is the reality of Christ's death and life. The first 11 chapters of Romans show our bankrupcy as well as our deliverence in Christ, chapter 8 being the great culmination of God's unfathomable mercy. Now God turns to us and as new creatures in Christ urges us to present ourselves to Him as living and holy sacrifices. This is the new ethics of the Scripture, not the ethics of the Law, but the ethics of Christianity - the way of the children of God.

 

It is useless to present our bodies without first presenting ourselves, our inner selves.

 

2 Cor 8:5

but they [Philippians] first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God.

 

Out of a great deal of affliction and deep poverty their abundant joy overflowed in the wealth of their liberality.

 

It is true that Christians who attempt to perform acts of self-sacrifice cannot please God unless there has been, first of all, the surrender of the inner core of self to the Lord.

 

Just as Paul says to the Corinthians:

 

1CO 13:3

And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

 

So we see, with the inner changes that come from spiritual growth, humility, and a giving over of the life to the Lord in great love for Him that our physical bodies can be used in the production of divine good.

 

The ascetic, monastic life finds no justification in the word of God. In fact, with the truth behind all things as given in the word, we can enjoy the things of the world as they are never our goals but they are by-products in life that have no bearing on the believer's contentment.  

 

Following His example we will be living out in the world of people where He placed us. We are to grow up as Christian people, and take our place in life wherever our lot may lie. We are to meet life and to live life and most of all enjoy life from the unshakable position of our foundation.

 

JOH 16:33

"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."

 

A glum, brooding, puritanical, complaining Christian is not living in Christ's victory and therefore is not living the CWL.

 

God does not dwell in buildings in the CA. God dwells in the bodies of believers. They are His sanctuary on earth.

 

We worship God in our minds, souls, and spirits, but it is through the body that we have contact with the world and so the body is used in spiritual service when, and only when, the inner life is transformed through the teaching ministry of GHS using the word of God.

 

This includes the limbs, the five senses, and the tongue, meaning, what you say.

 

ROM 12:1 I urge you therefore [based on the 315 verses of the first eleven chapters], brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

 

Sacrifice has come to mean a loss or a death or a surrender, but when understood in the scripture, this word means to the CA believer nothing but the fragrant aroma that the burnt offerings gave to the Father.

 

Our sacrifices amount to performing divine good in our bodies from the power of the Spirit and the word. These benefit us more than if we did not do them.

 

HEB 13:15-16

Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing; for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

 

These are acceptable to God [the word means "well pleasing"] when done in His power and in the proper motivation of love for Him. God does not accept any energy or production from the flesh.

 

The unbeliever will never see the difference, for to them a work is a work. The ignorant believer will see the same, but in him he may feel the tinge of guilt when he is improperly taught, that he must do things to please God - give, work, serve - and without divine power he will struggle and grow to either hate the work or the work will make him supremely arrogant. The ends do not justify the means. The positive believer abounds with divine energy in his work of service and he knows that it is a benefit to him, and in some cases even more than the benefit of the ones he serves.

 

ROM 12:1 I urge you therefore [based on the 315 verses of the first eleven chapters], brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

 

Donald Barnhouse, in his commentary on this passage, tells of a man his own age, who lost his left arm at the shoulder when he was only seven years old. Until he was twelve, he cried himself to sleep every night. It was hard to regard this amputation as the good, well-pleasing and perfect will of God. Then he began to conquer his handicap. Working on a farm he learned to hoe as many rows as his brothers by tucking a long-handled hoe under his armpit, and he didn't get as tired as they did, hoeing with two arms but using their wrists. Later, he sold life insurance and was a success. He learned to play hand ball, soon beat all comers, and held the national championship for many years. One day he learned that a thirteen-year-old boy had just gone through the same amputation. The boy had no will to live and his condition was rapidly worsening. My friend took his scrapbook and went to the hospital to see the boy. Nothing was said about the arm, but the boy looked at the various newspaper clippings which recounted the one-armed champion's prowess at golf, hunting and fishing. Finally, he asked it it were really true. My friend removed his shirt and shoed his armless shoulder. The boy sighed deeply and soon fell asleep. Three days later he was on the mend, and he left the hospital soon after. My friend has spent his life with insurance, athletics and Christian work among young people (in ascending order of importance), and he has testified many times to his satisfaction with life and with the will of God for him. Oh, it was not well-pleasing at first to be the town cripple, but the compensations were so great that he soon learned that God's way was the best way for him, and he would not have it any other way.

 

The word translated spiritual is logikos, which is where we get our word logic from and so it is often translated reasonable. However, there is no link to human reason in worship without the wisdom of the word of God and the teaching, leading, and influencing of God the Holy Spirit, so it is rightly translated "spiritual service."

 

"spiritual service of worship" - reasonable spiritual worship based on ones position in Christ and dependence on doctrine and the Holy Spirit.

 

This gets to the underlying motivation and reason as to why a believer does what he does. Is it just overt, going through the motions, in other words, an overt show of worship as the Pharisees were with the Law, or is it an outward manifestation of an inward spiritual life? This is why no one can judge the spiritual status of another. There are a variety of gifts, ministries, and effects, but there is one Lord, one Spirit, and one mind that is causing the growth. With genuine growth comes genuine service that is well pleasing to the Father.

 

ROM 12:2And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

 

One of the great attacks of satan against God's church is the world system. "Conformed" - suschmati,zw [suschematizo] = to fashion or shape one thing like another.

 

You might notice that in the center of this word is "scheme", which according to the Oxford English Dictionary is:

 

"A complex unity in which the component elements cooperate and interact according to a definite plan; a system of correlated things, institutions, arrangements, etc.; also the manner in which such a system is organized." [Oxford English Dictionary]

 

This is a wonderful definition of the world system. The schemes of the world, satan's schemes, are all directed toward one goal - the destruction of the church as the representative of Christ.

 

The word used in ROM 12:2 is not kosmos but aion, the word for "age."

 

This "age" (world) is a reference to the church age and therefore to the specific schemes of the world system that are aimed at the church.

 

Though some of the methods of the past age, the age of Israel, might be similar, there is a different target and so the method of rolling out these attacks will take on different nuances. Lies, deception, idolatry, religion, etc. are used to topple a client nation that is a monarchy as well as a client nation that is a constitutional republic, but the ways of the attacks will vary as the target varies, therefore, some things are similar and some things are different.

 

More than ever the goals of fortune, fame (internet now), power, and pleasure have been dangled in front of mankind. These goals are not sinful in themselves, but the method of attaining them according the rules of the "age" are absolutely evil and God makes it abundantly clear that is what He thinks of them.

 

What the present "age" calls goals are by-products to the positive believer, whose goal is realizing the fulfillment of God's plan for his life.