Angelic Conflict part 335: Future work of Christ [Bema seat] – Joh 15:1-17; Eph 4:1-3: Gal 5:13-6:5.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 335: Future work of Christ [Bema seat] - JOH 15:1-17; EPH 4:1-3: GAL 5:13-6:5.

 

 

a. The Bema seat of the church, 2CO 5:10. Identifying good and bad things.  

 

We have been talking about motivation or intent for the performing of divine good in time, for which we will receive reward in heaven at the Bema seat of Christ. This is in the soul or thinking and any false intent or motivation makes any deed or thing bad. God the HS will not empower us or lead us on an endeavor in which we have wrong motivation.

 

Because of the superhuman requirements which rest upon the believer, the Spirit's filling unto supernatural power is demanded.

 

The HS can be depended upon to enable the believer only as the believer's life and effort are conformed to God's will and plan for him in this age. Anything else is a mind pursuant upon the flesh and is sin, will result in more personal sin, and the production of human good or dead works.

 

Keeping Christ's commandments and so adjusting to His perfect will keeps the way clear for the needed divine power to flow from the Vine to the branch.

 

The believer is ever facing the facts of his own weakness and of the masterful foes which are against him; and only by keeping Christ's commandments, which means adjusting to His perfect will, is the way kept clear for the needed divine power to flow into the believer as sap flows into the branch.

 

JOH 15:10 "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love.

 

This passage illustrates the importance of a right objective and method in the Christian's life if he is to be made spiritual through the imparted divine energy.

 

Though in perfect and unalterable union with Christ, the believer will be fruitless unless he remains in that obedient relation to Christ wherein the power of the Spirit may be realized in and through him.

 

PHI 2:5, 8

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus … And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

 

For the believer the method of living is either in one of two procedures. He can depend upon his own ability or the power of the indwelling Spirit [grace]. These two methods are wholly incompatible. The Bible states that they are in opposition to one another.

 

The body of truth now to be considered [JOH 15:1-17] concerns the daily life of the believer, and no issue is more determining than that of the reason or principle which actuates the one who would attain to a God-honoring life in the way God appoints through the power of the indwelling Spirit.

 

The Holy Spirit cannot cooperate or engender any reality of experience when the very basis of a grace relationship to God is ignored.

 

How could the Holy Spirit empower a life which is completely misguided and wrong in its objectives, methods, and motives? His benefits, of necessity, have significance only for those who recognize and believe that they are perfected once-for-all by simple faith in Christ as Savior and that their new obligation is not to make themselves accepted but rather to walk worthy of the One in whom they are accepted.

 

EPH 4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,

 

EPH 4:2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love,

 

EPH 4:3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

 

In John 15:1-17 the words of Christ relative to abiding in Him are recorded.

 

In this context a fundamental distinction must be drawn between the believer’s union with Christ and his communion with Christ.

 

Too often it is supposed that in this passage Christ is teaching that the branch, which represents the Christian, must maintain its union with the vine, which represents Christ. That communion, however, is in view throughout the passage is clearly indicated.

 

JOH 15:1 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.

 

JOH 15:2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.

 

The words "in Me" declare the perfect union of the fruitless branch to Christ.

 

JOH 15:3 "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

 

You must fully understand and have faith in your position in Christ. Spiritual growth through a fundamental understanding of your position in Christ must come before any production of good in the Christian life.

 

JOH 15:4 "Abide in Me, and I in you [communion, fellowship, partnership, Christ and His word at home in your heart]. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

 

"Abide in Me, and I in you." = communion, fellowship, partnership, Christ and His word at home in your heart.

 

The obligation upon the branch is to continue in the relation to Christ which makes communionfellowshippartnershiplike mindedness possible, whereby the divine life or energy may flow into the branch so that fruit may be borne.

 

JOH 15:5 "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me [through our own effort] you can do nothing.