Angelic Conflict part 282: Reigning in life – Rom 5:12-21; 8:1-11; 6:13; 1Co 2:9-12; Joh 15:1-8; 16:12-16.Title: Angelic Conflict part 282: Reigning in life – Rom 5:12-21; 8:1-11; 6:13; 1Co 2:9-12; Joh 15:1-8; 16:12-16.
What does it mean to have eternal life, a life that has no beginning and no end?
1Jo 5:11 God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
This is difficult for us to understand, to say the least. We have all had a beginning and when we believed in Christ we had a second beginning. But at that second beginning, God gave us His life, a life eternal with no beginning and no end. How can this be?
God the HS placed you in union with Christ at the moment of salvation and He and Christ came to indwell you. In that moment you were also placed into a life that has always been - God's life through Christ. Think of a train going around in a huge circle continuously and eternally. It never started, it just has always been. And God took you and dropped you on that train the moment you accepted Christ as your Savior. That means all believers are already in a life from God that will go on forever and has gone on forever, therefore, God's desire for us is that we shall begin to live the life of eternity while we are still in time. Our introduction to the life had a beginning, but the life has always been and it is now within us and will be forever, and it must begin to have its way now.
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 [life and liberty].
Rom 8:3 For what the Law could not do [make one righteous], 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 [living in righteousness], who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit [pursuit of happiness].
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.
Rom 8:6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace
The heart of this passage can be stated as follows. You are in Christ; you have been redeemed; you have been justified; you have seen yourself as joined to Christ; you have known in your minds the truths of your high position in Christ. But practically speaking you know that, at times, your condition falls below that which your position calls for, and when it does you can be sure that you are in death, not in fellowship with God, and after the flesh. However, in grace recovery of life from death is and always will be completely on the shoulders of the Savior, and we can be 100% sure that He has already accomplished it at Cavalry almost 2000 years ago.
We must be sure to understand that death in this passage does not refer to physical death, or the second death, or the sin unto death.
walking death = loss of the life given by Christ which is dedicated to God and blessed in Him on earth. Living existence of a born again believer that is on a lower level than the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
We all experience this temporarily from time to time, but unfortunately, for the believer who is seeking after the flesh, he is carnal as a lifestyle and therefore walking in this death.
1Co 3:1-3 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to babes in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?
Walking means that this is a practice or a habitual occurrence and not the occasional screw up.
Every Christian will experience moments of dryness; every Christian will get out of fellowship or communion with Christ from time to time. But God does not want us to continue to live away from Him.
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 [loss of communion]; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.
Joh 15:3 "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
Joh 15:4 "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
"Abide" is not union with Christ, that is immutable, but communion/fellowship/partnership with Christ.
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 you can do nothing.
If we remain out of communion He will not leave us, but He will draw close with divine discipline from His perfect love.
Joh 15:6 "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
A believer cannot lose his salvation, his union with Christ, and so this is not a reference to the baptism of fire or the lake of fire but to the fire of divine discipline. Dried up is a perfect description of the walking death.
Joh 15:7 "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.
Joh 15:8 "By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.
He does not want us to fall into despair because of defeat or to remain as babes without growing up into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Eph 3:19 to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up [pleroo = to fully influence, e.g. full of joy, full of sorrow] to all the fulness of God.
His passionate desire is to empower us through His word and His Spirit to reign in this life.
Just like you can have more joy when your capacity for joy increases, so God can more fully influence you when your capacity grows from spiritual growth and wisdom.
The best way of avoiding walking death is in coming to know the full and royal life that God has for us in His Son.
The best defense is a great offense.
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."
1Co 2:10 For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
1Co 2:11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.
1Co 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God
The things given to us by God as presented in the word of God are revealed by G/HS and fulfilled in our lives through Him.
This revelation and fulfillment are not seen, heard, or known in the same fashion as the eye sees, ear hears, or the heart knows. Divine revelation comes through God the Holy Spirit. He bears witness with our divine Christ given spirit as to the bottomless abyss which Adam took us in our fall and the heights of the new life in Christ. God the HS in His supernatural way takes the word of God as it is heard or read and makes it understandable, and in the same way He gives us the power to apply it. If we choose this spiritual life with Him as our priority in life then we will walk with Him to our destination, which destination is the fullness of God, which fullness is used for all three members, God the Father, God the Son, and God the HS.
Eph 4:13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ.
The fulness of Christ and the fulness of the Father are stated as results or goals of spiritual growth, while the fulness of the Spirit, the teacher, empowerer, and guider is commanded in the present tense for all believers.
Eph 5:18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation [wastefulness, lasciviousness], but be filled with the Spirit
Salvation is a deliverance from something, sin and death, as well as a deliverance to something, life and peace.
We only come to fully know what we have been delivered from and to what we have been delivered to because the Spirit teaches us through the word of God the heights for which God has formed us. There is no phase of the CWL that belongs to the natural man; our faith, that which we are asked to believe, is supernatural from beginning to end, and every part of it comes from divine revelation.
1Co 2:9-12 is the fulfillment of Joh 16:12-15.
Joh 16:12 "I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
Joh 16:13 "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide [to lead the way] you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.
Joh 16:14 "He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you.
Joh 16:15 "All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said, that He takes of Mine, and will disclose it to you.
I love the use of the word "things." In my own personal experience with God I find that I have a unique and personal concept of the "things of God" that is not like anyone else's. I'm not saying that I see different things. They are all the same things for each of us, but my concept of them, my experience with them, my growth in them are unique to me, and that is a wonderful "thing" which is intimacy with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
/pic\
He's finding treasure. Where is your treasure?
2Co 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves
Mat 6:21 where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Mat 12:35 "The good man out of his good treasure brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth what is evil.
Mat 13:45-46 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
|