Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 36 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; Rom 5:12- 6:13.

Title: Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 36 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; ROM 5:12- 6:13.

 

Announcements / opening prayer:  

 

 

If the monarch of your life is forever grace, righteousness, and eternal life by your position in Christ, then what should be your character?

 

Paul now turns from justification to sanctification.

 

The only evidence for these truths is from what God says. There can be no earthly proof to them. There is no biological test that can be done that will determine a person is in Christ, identified with Him in His death and identified with Him in His resurrection. Sin was removed at Calvary, and only God's word says so. Do we need more evidence? There is nothing more needed when faith is the way of appropriation. In every other religion man essentially puts faith in himself since they all call for human merit. Only in Christianity does a person put his total faith in God. Salvation is by faith only and so is living the life. If you doubt the principles of our current study; if you doubt that you are in Christ in His death, resurrection, and ascension, and if you doubt the ramifications that that will have on you and your life then you will never live the justified life, though you will be forever a justified creature.

 

Every believer has the power to choose such a character but he doesn't have the power to execute it. He must choose to strive for it by means of the Holy Spirit.

 

ROM 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?

 

This idea was a distortion of Paul's teaching on grace. The distortion was a typical method for a person to falsely interpret a thing so that they may find a way to continue in lust while suppressing their conscience.

 

The question now can be further interpreted to mean, "Shall we continue habitually to sustain the sane relationship to the sinful nature that we sustained before we were saved, a relationship which was most cordial, a relationship in which we were fully yielded to and dependent upon that sinful nature, and all this as a habit of life?" The fundamental question is the believer's relationship to the sinful nature.

 

ROM 6:2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin [this is the nature of us] still live in it?

 

Death means separation. God has fully cleaved the old sin nature, yet it still resides in the body as a crucified nature.

 

The divine nature hates sin and loves righteousness and the old nature has the direct opposite affections.

 

Paul declares the mechanical impossibility of a Christian habitually sustaining the same relationship to the evil nature which he sustained before he was saved.

 

The believer can expend a lot of time and energy in submitting to the sin nature, but he will never find the same relationship to it as he once had.

 

At salvation the sin nature was laid aside and the new nature was put on.

 

COL 3:9-10

you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self

 

COL 3:3

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

 

ROM 6:3 Or do you not know [are you ignorant of these truths] that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

 

By the baptism of the Holy Spirit at salvation, the believer was placed into union with Christ, being identified with His death, burial, and resurrection.

 

When the believer is tempted by the sin nature he can easily identify with the death of Christ. He can reckon to himself that this nature is dead and no longer reigns in his life because of the cross. This nature is so horrible that it demanded the sacrifice of Christ. A few seconds of this recall of these principles of faith renders the temptation quite weak. If the believer succumbs to the temptation and sins, as he acknowledges his sin he is again thinking the same thoughts … this nature is dead and it no longer reigns in life because of the cross. He has again seen it in all its ugliness and he chose to act on its behalf, but due to the finished work of Christ, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Forgetting what lies behind he walks ahead in newness of life by means of the word of God and the filling of the Spirit. He is refreshed and joyful and feels the freedom of life in Christ. In this he identifies with Christ in His resurrection. He can say to himself, in faith, "It is because of the resurrection of Christ that I can walk in such a way."

 

Our Adamic nature is revealed to us for what it really is. God reveals to us what we have been saved from, but that understanding can only come after salvation. Then we swiftly move from Rom 6 to Rom 7.

 

ROM 6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts,

 

ROM 6:13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

 

ROM 7:15 For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.

 

ROM 7:16 But if I do the very thing I do not wish to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that it is good.

 

ROM 7:17 So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me.

 

ROM 7:18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.

 

ROM 7:19 For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish.

 

ROM 7:20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

 

ROM 7:21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good.

 

ROM 7:22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,

 

ROM 7:23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.

 

ROM 7:24 Wretched man that I am!

 

This proves that we have been saved. The unsaved man never goes through the terrible struggle described here.

 

The unsaved man never knows the godly sorrow that leads to repentance.

 

2CO 7:10

For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation; but the sorrow of the world produces death.

 

But in the Spirit there is victory. The struggle of Rom 7 will greatly diminish in the life of a believer who grasps his position in Christ's death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.

 

ROM 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

 

ROM 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

 

ROM 8:3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,

 

ROM 8:4 in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

 

ROM 8:5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

 

The victory here is sure. But it is through the Spirit and by the believer who has understood through faith that his old self is crucified, and not by himself, but by Christ. It is a life for the one who reaches up in faith to the heavens and brings it down to himself in time. It is occupation with Christ who is the life, the Father who is the planner, and God the Holy Spirit who is the revealer and executor. It is a heavenly life. If you are united with Christ in His death and resurrection you are surely the same in His ascension and session. As soon as we look away from Him, the old nature asserts itself and the dullness and apathy of ordinary living envelops us.