Angelic Conflict part 340: Future work of Christ [Bema seat] – Eph 4:17-24; Col 3.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 340: Future work of Christ [Bema seat] - EPH 4:17-24; Col 3.

 

 

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

 

As we have completed GAL 5:1-6:5 we concluded that the believer is given the power to overcome evil and the power to do good from God the Holy Spirit through the word of God understood and believed in the heart. No other power can do this. Yet this given power does not annul the volition of the believer. The believer always has the freedom and self-determination to make decisions in accordance with the will of God by means of this power or against the will of God by means of self-effort and self-will.

 

Part of your inheritance shared with Christ is this power and the fruit of the Spirit. Those who choose the flesh in either grieving or quenching the HS will lose out on this vital aspect of Christ's inheritance which is manifested and recognized in the soul. We cannot always bank on overt blessings but prosperity of soul is the legacy of every believer since they are in union with Christ.

 

The ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer will be further explored when we return to Joh 16.

 

Yet we continue for a short time to explore the difference between good things and bad things or divine good and dead works.

 

In dualism bad has to exist with good and is coequal with good, which would make God the source of it. Dualism is incorrect. God cannot perform evil or bad and hates it. Bad is the production of creatures who oppose the will of God.

 

As we learn more and more doctrine we come to identify bad and evil more clearly and without judging those who perform it and without condemning ourselves for it but rather laying it aside.

 

EPH 4:17 This I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,

 

EPH 4:18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;

 

EPH 4:19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality [anesthetic], for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness [motivation of self-interest].

 

EPH 4:20 But you did not learn Christ in this way,

 

EPH 4:21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus,

 

EPH 4:22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit [inordinate desire and the deceit is that it will fill an empty life and an empty heart],

 

EPH 4:23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind [doctrine],

 

EPH 4:24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth [separation from lies and deceit].

 

It is obvious here that renewing the mind through copious amounts of doctrine is what is needed for understanding and motivation that puts on the new self.

 

Put on, the Greek word enduo means just that. In the middle voice it means to clothe yourself. Clothe yourself or wrap yourself up in the new self, which is the life of Christ, for as we will see in a moment that our new life is Christ; they are one in the same. I also found it fruitful to look at the other places in the NT that this word is used in reference to us putting on something.

 

"put on" - evndu,w[enduo] = to clothe oneself (middle voice). NT documentation…

 

GAL 3:27

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

 

We see here that it is the will of God that what we are in Christ is what is to be experienced in time. As positional sanctification is to be practical sanctification so being clothed with Christ forever is to become a walking in time as one who is clothed with Christ. The seamless inner garment which represents the word of God and the power of the indwelling Spirit is to be upon us at all times by means of grace, which is through faith, and putting on that inner garment when we find that we have laid it aside in our hearts. It is inner since the soul and the heart of the soul is what is clothed. When we return with Christ at the Second Coming this garment will be revealed overtly. We have the privilege and opportunity in time to wear this within ourselves and thus become witnesses in time.

 

EPH 6:11

Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

 

EPH 6:14

Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,

 

COL 3:9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices,

 

COL 3:10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him

 

COL 3:12 And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;

 

COL 3:13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

 

COL 3:14 And beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

 

1TH 5:7-8

For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.

 

Put on the new self, Christ, the armor of God, the breastplate of righteousness, a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and the breastplate of faith and love, and the helmet of happy confidence in future deliverance from all things.

 

We must choose this life, this direction, for this is exactly where God the Holy Spirit is walking us. He does not walk with us in the practice of the flesh, or in wrong motivations, or in the pursuit of things that are not the will of God. Our minds are to be transformed by doctrine and the Spirit so that we may prove or exhibit what the will of God is, that which is good, acceptable, and perfect (ROM 12:2).

 

[Barnhouse, Commentary on Romans] Wherever there is a will that resolves, determines, impels to action, and does not bow itself before Him, and wherever there are hands that labor, or feet that run, at tasks and in paths self-chosen and unconsecrated by reference to our Father in Heaven, no matter how great and beautiful subsidiary lusters may light up their deeds, the very heart of them all is transgression of the law of God in Christ. All things work together for those who love God and those who love God keep His commands as our Lord did in JOH 15:10.

 

And just to connect this life to resurrection life, the word enduo here is also used for putting on the resurrection body for all of eternity.

 

1 Cor 15:54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory.

 

Col 3 is a great place to see the difference between good and evil.

 

COL 3:1 If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

 

COL 3:2 Set your mind [phroneo] on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.

 

Popular at the time is the ascetic Gnosticism, licentious Gnosticism, and Epicurean sensualism [wise pleasure of the day but no afterlife, all things, even the soul made of atoms] of which all have the same fundamental error of concentrating on earthly, mundane things.

 

COL 3:3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

 

"Your new spiritual life is no longer in the sphere of the earthly and sensual, but is with the life of the risen Christ, who is unseen with God." [Vincent's New Testament Word Studies]

 

Some believers only want the new spiritual life if it comes along with enough of the earthly and the sensual and in this inordinate desire they attempt to limit God to what their eye has seen, and their ear has heard, and what has already entered into their heart. This quenches the Spirit and is in violation of PHI 2:5.

 

1CO 2:9

"Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard,

And which have not entered the heart of man,

All that God has prepared for those who love 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.

 

This is not to say that God will not include much of the earthly and sensual things as blessings to the believer who has capacity for them, but capacity does truly mean that a believer is fully content in the spiritual life without any of these things.

 

Don't limit God by setting your mind on the things of the earth.

 

COL 3:4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.