REST IN HIM

"He has created us through our union with Christ Jesus for doing good deeds which He beforehand planned for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10, Wms.).

The turning point in our Christian life comes when we begin to "let God be God," the day we throw all caution (fear) to the winds and look to Him to carry out His purpose for us in His own time and way.

"Our Father never does a thing suddenly: He has always prepared long, long before. So there is nothing to murmur about, nothing to be proud of, in the calling of God. There is also no one of whom to be jealous, for other people's advantages have nothing to do with us. 'It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy' (Romans 9:16). Our heritage, our birth, our natural equipment: these are things already determined by God. We may pick up other things in the way, for we are always learning; but the way is His way. When we look back over our life, we bow and acknowledge that all was prepared of God. To have such an attitude of heart, that is true rest." -W.N.

"Let us take care lest we get out of soul-rest in seeking further blessing. God cannot work whilst we are anxious, even about our spiritual advance. Let us take Him at His Word, and leave the fulfillment of it to Him."

"For it is God Himself whose power creates within you the desire to do His gracious will and also brings about the accomplishment of the desire" (Philippians 2:13, Weymouth).


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DESIGNER AND DESIGNED

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3)

Since the sovereign God has every atom in the universe precisely timed and controlled for the carrying out of His perfect will, it should not be difficult for us to understand why He is so meticulous in His development of us as His instruments. "Being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Ephesians 1:11).

"You are one of God's rough diamonds, and He is going to have to cut you so that you may really shine for Him. It takes a diamond to cut a diamond. You are to be ground and cut, and hurt by other diamonds, by other Christians, by spiritual Christians. But the more cutting and the more perfecting, the more you are going to shine for your Lord." -G.M.

"God in His wisdom has ordained our trials, and it is our folly that causes us not to welcome them. God sends us such trials as are exactly fitted for us. Our Heavenly Father knows what will best serve us. He serves us by trials and by comforts. Let us remember that our trials are few our evil ways are many; our worthiness nothing; our comforts great. When God tries us let us consider how we have been trying Him. By grace we will not murmur, but humble ourselves under His mighty hand, and He will exalt us in due time."

"Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you" (1 Peter 4:12).


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DEPENDENT RECEPTION

"Walk in [dependence upon] the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16).

Those who have thoroughly learned full dependence on Him for justification will come to understand that sanctification is by the same faith principle. We are to rest in His finished work both for birth and for growth.

"We are not to overcome the lusts of the flesh in order that we may walk in the Spirit. We are to walk in the Spirit in order that the lusts of the flesh may be overcome. The enemy can hold up young Christians on this point for a long time, so that they do not really get started on the Christian walk. They feel they cannot expect to begin to walk in the Spirit until they have, in some degree at least, dealt with the lusts of the flesh.

"They wait for some vague time when they hope they will have reached a more satisfactory position in regard to the lusts of the flesh, and will feel more confident about attempting a walk in the Spirit. But that is all the wrong way around. If we are to wait until we have, in some degree, mastered the lusts of the flesh before we venture to walk in the Spirit: if we are to wait until we feel that we can give some sort of security to ourselves and to God that we shall do a bit better in the future than we have done in the past, then we never will walk in the Spirit. For until we walk in dependence upon the Spirit we shall not, and cannot, overcome the lusts of the flesh." -D.T.

"Be filled with [controlled by] the indwelling of the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18, Cony.).

For those who receive Christ (Jhn. 1:12) and welcomes Him into their life (Rev. 3:20), being “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20) is in a mystical and spiritual sense because there were only two who were literally crucified with Christ (Luke 23:29-43), but nevertheless, it’s an actual occurrence for the saved in the regeneration of our spirit (Mat 19:28).

All that we have and all that we are in our new life is vicariously either imparted or imputed to us from the Father, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit and this is the chain of continuity from God to us. An example of something imparted to us is being partaker of Christ’s “divine nature” (2Pe 1:4), from which our new nature originated (Eph. 4:24), and that which is imputed is His righteousness (1Cr 1:30) and justification (Rom 4:25), neither of which we can ever be produced by a non-divine, but only partake of. Everything always begins with the Father and ends with His Spirit, especially in the new life that is now being lived in us, by Christ Himself—through the Spirit. This is a threefold consistency of us personally which is our personhood, our “new man” or nature, and the Holy Spirit, who is the primary entity whereby we are in the Father and the Son and by whom the life of Christ is lived in us.

In his book, “The Complete Green Letters”, Miles Stanford writes: “Especially, in our early years as believers, most of us have felt that it was our responsibility, with the Lord’s help, to live the Christian life. Our unqualified failure in attempting to do so has been the Holy Spirit’s means of showing us that we cannot “produce,” nor are we meant to. Only the Lord Jesus can live His life through us; and He does this as we reject our own resources, to walk in reliance upon the Spirit of life. What it takes years for us to learn thoroughly is that the Holy Spirit ministers all. By the Spirit we are sealed, we live, we grow, and we shall be raised (Eph. 1:13; Rom. 8:10; 2Cor. 3:8; Rom. 8:11). It is especially important for us that He is the Spirit of Life. Even though we are alive in Christ Jesus, we have no power by which to live the new life; for that, as well as for everything else, we must rely on the Holy Spirit.”

“Too many Christians today are seeking to live for the Lord on the basis of the principle of love. Their thinking is, “He loved me and gave Himself for me, therefore the least I can do is love Him and give myself to Him.” Such a motive is good, high and altruistic; but it is neither the best nor the highest, nor is it spiritual. Our love is far too weak and vacillating for such an undertaking. Self will see to that! “For to will is present with me; but [how] to perform that which is good I find not. . . . For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members . . . bringing me into captivity to the law of sin” (Rom. 7:18, 22, 23).”

“There is only one true and adequate motivating power for living the Christian life, and that is the very life of the Lord Jesus---ministered within by the Spirit of Life Himself. This is not a motivation of love, but the empowerment of life. “For to me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21). It is not, “Only what is done for Christ will last,” but rather, “Only what is done by Christ will last.”

"As the life of the Vine flows by the Spirit of Life, the fruit of the Spirit is increasingly manifested in the branch . . . “against which there is no law” (Gal. 5:22). In the Vine, we are complete; in ourselves, we are being completed “completed” through the growth based on reckoning. We are gradually being conformed to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:29).

Stanford so aptly wrote, in his book, “None but the Hungry Heart”: “The Christian life is not our living a life like Christ, or our trying to be Christ-like, nor is it Christ giving us the power to live a life like His; but it is Christ Himself living His own life through us; 'no longer I, but Christ.”

I do not believe the Scriptural definition for sinner is merely “one who sins”, because the Christian isn’t referred to as a sinner, in Scripture. The only passage that appears to indicate Christians are sinners is 1Ti 1:15; “. . . Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.”

The word “am” in the above Scriptural passage is the Greek word “eimi”, pronounced “ā-mē” and can mean, according to context, had been or was. The law of hermeneutics, which is basically “Scripture interpreting Scripture”, calls for the “was” definition in this context. If Paul were admitting he is, at that time, the worst of all sinners, his claim would conflict with the remnant of Scripture, which is devoid of any references that anyone who is of God is a sinner.

This in no way intends that Christians do not sin, which would be a grievous misunderstanding and evidence of great ignorance and self-deception, nor should we allow this concept, or any understanding, to “puff us up” (1Cr 8:1). I believe the issue to sin is partly why, but mostly how. One who is truly of God encounters a continuous conviction of the Spirit’s chastisement when dealing with sin and therefore, the sin committed is never willful because the Spirit will ensure it is always accompanied with remorse and should be confessed.
“For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish” (Gal 5:17). “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1Jhn 1:9).

The why-factor has always been an issue with God, as evidenced by the following Scripture passages: “So, the priest shall make atonement for the person who sins unintentionally, when he sins unintentionally before the LORD, to make atonement for him; and it shall be forgiven him. But the person who does [anything] presumptuously, [whether he is] native-born or a stranger, that one brings reproach on the LORD, and he shall be cut off from among his people” (Num. 15:28, 30). These were in the Mosaic Law to the Jews and the issue concerning the why-factor of sin continues to retain significance. “If we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins” (Heb. 10:26).

I would define a sinner as “one who sins willfully and without regard to God.”

We continue to deal with foundational facts, since the life can be no better than its root, its source. Youth and immaturity tend to act first and think later, if at all. Maturity has learned to take time to assess the facts. Our patient Husbandman is willing for us to take time and learn the eternal facts, without which we cannot be brought to maturity.

Our Lord Jesus so often uses natural facts in order to teach the deepest spiritual truths. He first teaches us about our natural, Adamic life before we can understand and appreciate our new spiritual, Christ-life. This involves the vital source principle: "after its kind." Every believer first learns that he is complete in Adam -- he sprang from him: he is like him. "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners" (Romans 5:19a). "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing" (Romans 7:18a). When, through our failures and struggles, He has taught us about the natural, we will be ready to learn of our spiritual Source. "By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous" (Romans 5:19). "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him" (Colossians 2:9-10a).

There are two main aspects to this source principle. First, the Lord Jesus is the Source of our Christian life -- we were born into Him; God has made us complete in Him. This truth we are to hold by faith; it is true of each of us. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature ..." (2 Corinthians 5:17a). Second, as we hold to this fact by faith, we are brought into the practical reality of it day by day in our experience. Little by little we receive that which is already ours. The important thing to know and be sure of is that all is ours, we are complete in Him, NOW. This fact enables us to hold still while He patiently works into our character that life of ours which is hid with Christ in God.

"Progress is only advancing in the knowledge, the spiritual knowledge, of what we really possess at the outset. It is like ascending a ladder. The ladder is grace. The first step is, we believe that the Lord Jesus was sent of God; second, that in the fulness of His work we are justified; third, we make His acquaintance; fourth, we come to see Him in heaven; we know our association with Him there, and His power here; fifth, we learn the mystery, the great things we are entitled to because of being His body; sixth, that we are seated in heavenly places in Christ; seventh, lost in wonder and in praise in the knowledge of Himself." --J. B. Stoney

Since we are complete in our Lord Jesus, it will not do to try and add to that finished work. It is now a matter of walking by faith and receiving, appropriating, from the ever-abundant Source within. Walter Marshall is concise here: "Christ's resurrection was our resurrection to a life of holiness, as Adam's fall was our fall into spiritual death. And we are not ourselves the first makers and formers of our new holy nature, any more than of our original corruption, but both are formed ready for us to partake of them. And by union with Christ, we partake of that spiritual life that He took possession of for us at His resurrection, and thereby we are enabled to bring forth the fruits of it; as the Scripture showeth by the similitude of a marriage union. Romans 7:4: 'Married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.'"

Our part is not production, but reception of our life in Christ. This entails Bible-based fact finding; explicit faith in Him and His purpose for us in Christ; and patient trust while He takes us through the necessary processing involved. No believer ever fell into maturity, even though he is complete in Christ. Spiritual growth necessitates heart-hunger for the Lord Jesus; determination, based upon assurance, to have that which is ours in Him, plus meditation and thought. We will never come into the knowledge of our spiritual possessions through a superficial understanding of the Word. How can we ever expect to have intimate fellowship with One we know little of?

The following truth by J. T. Beck may be a good opportunity to exercise and develop some of that meditation and thought. "What is needed is a meditation, in which God concentrates His own peculiar Spirit and Life as a principle in a human individual to be personally appropriated. In a revelation, which is really to translate the Divine into man's individual personal life, in truth, to form men of God, the Divine as such -- that is, as a personal life -- must first be embodied in a personal center in humanity. For this reason; as soon as something strictly new is concerned, something that in its peculiarity has not yet existed, every new type of life, before it can multiply itself to a number of specimens, must first have its full contents combined in perfect unity, in an adequate new principle. And so, for the making personal of the Divine among men, the first thing needed is one in whom the principle of the Divine life has become personal.

"Christianity concentrates the whole fulness of revelation in the one human personality of Jesus Christ as Mediator -- that is, as the mediating central principle of the new Divine organism, in its fulness of Spirit and Life, in and for the human personal life. With the entrance of Christ into the human individual, the Divine life becomes imminent in us, not in its universal world-relation, but as a personal principle, so that man is not only a being made of God, but a being begotten of God. And with the growing transformation of the individual into the life-type of Christ there is perfected the development of the personal life out of God, in God, and to God -- the development not only of a moral or theocratic communion, but a communion of nature!"

A seed embodies in full the reproduction of the life from which it came. That much is complete, and can never be added to. "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible" (1_Peter 1:23a). "Thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed" (Leviticus 19:19). It is to be "not I, but Christ." The Seed has been implanted -- now the entire question is one of growth and maturity. This alone will bring forth fruit that abides. "The development of the divine life in the Christian is like the natural growth in the vegetable world. We do not need to make any special effort, only place ourselves under the conditions favorable to such growth."

Only those who have sought to grow by effort and failed are in the position to appreciate the fact that God is the aggressor in the realm of development. "All the powers of Deity which have already wrought together in the accomplishment of the first part of the eternal purpose, the revealing of the Father's perfect likeness in the Man Christ Jesus, are equally engaged to accomplish the second part, and work that likeness in each of God's children." Wm. Law agrees: "A root set in the finest soil, in the best climate, and blessed with all that sun and air and rain can do for it, is not so sure a way of its growth to perfection, as every man may be whose spirit aspires after all that which God is ready and infinitely desirous to give him. For the sun meets not the springing bud that stretches toward him with half that certainty as God, the Source of all good, communicates Himself to the soul that longs to partake of Him."

Not only is our life complete in Him, but likewise the essential victory in all the many exigencies of that life. "When you fight to get victory, then you have lost the battle at the very outset. Suppose the Enemy assaults you in your home or in your business. He creates a situation with which you cannot possibly deal. What do you do? Your first instinct is to prepare yourself for a big battle and then pray to God to give you the victory in it. But if you do so defeat is sure, for you have given up the ground that is yours in Christ. By the attitude you have taken you have relinquished it to the Enemy. What then should you do when he attacks? You should simply look up and praise the Lord. 'Lord, I am faced with a situation that I cannot possibly meet. Thine enemy the Devil has brought it about to compass my downfall, but I praise Thee that Thy victory is an all-inclusive victory. It covers this situation, too. I praise Thee that I have already full victory in this matter." --Watchman Nee

P.S. Don't rush -- He won't. "The Japanese artist, Hokkusai, said, 'From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the forms of things. By the time I was fifty I had published an infinity of designs; but nothing I produced before seventy is worth considering.' He died at eighty-nine, declaring that if he could have only another five years he would have become a great artist."

“Personality doesn’t determine the nature of a person. Conversely, it’s the nature which determines the personality. What we think, say and do is the summation of our personality but it’s the nature, which is the essence (dictionary definition of nature), that controls the personality and determines thoughts, words and performances. Scripture stresses the significance of the nature of an individual to the level of referring to it as a “who” or “him” and a “man” (Col 3:9 Eph. 4:22).

I believe the root of all the sin within us is contained in our nature and that this is why it required crucifixion. “Our old man was crucified with [Him], that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin” (Rom. 6:6). We too, along with the old nature, were “crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20) and I prefer to comprehend it, that our old nature is still on the cross (alive but no longer in control: Rom 6:12; Rom 7:20, 21; 1Jo 1:8, and we are no longer on the cross, but have risen. I believe the Spirit, through the Cross of Christ, keeps the old Adamic nature from controlling us the majority of the time and this control of our original nature will continually lessen as He continually increases our conformity to Christ’s image. The Lord’s Cross is not to be confused with our “cross” (Matt. 16:24). His was to produce salvation. Ours is to show we’re in His salvation. John Gill wrote, “Take up his cross: cheerfully receive, and patiently bear, every affliction and evil, however shameful and painful it may be, which is appointed for him, and he is called unto; which is his peculiar cross, as every Christian has his own; to which he should quietly submit, and carry, with an entire resignation to the will of God, in imitation of his Lord.” As we continually take up our cross because of our new nature, Christ, through the Spirit, continually applies His Cross to our old nature.

“Some have attributed the “new man” to mean Christ. It’s not Him but is a part of Christ “which was created according to God . . . to the image of Him who created him,” (Eph. 4:24; Col 3:10) and this is how we are “partakers of the divine nature” (2Pe 1:4). Word usage disqualifies the concept that the “new man” is Christ because it’s something new, which means it has never existed before and is said to be “created”. This is what is used to “conform us to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29), through the Spirit. It’s this partaking of Christ’s divine nature, which is progressively (glory to glory: 2Cr 3:18) displacing our “old man” or “carnal mind”. “Because the carnal mind (nature) is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (or, ever will be)” (Rom. 8:7).”

Concerning “partakers of the divine nature” Gill wrote, “not essentially, or of the essence of God, so as to be deified, this is impossible, for the nature, perfections, and glory of God, are incommunicable to creatures; but by way of resemblance and likeness, the new man or principle of grace, being formed in the heart in regeneration, after the image of God, and bearing a likeness to the image of His Son, and this is styled, Christ formed in the heart, into which image and likeness the saints are more and more changed, from glory to glory, through the application of the Gospel, and the promises of it, by which they have such sights of Christ as do transform them, and assimilate them to Him; and which resemblance will be perfected hereafter, when they shall be entirely like Him, and see Him as He is (1Jo 3:2).

Norman F. Douty wrote, “When we say Christ’s life has come into us to displace ours, what do we mean? We do not mean that this life of the Lord Jesus has come in to displace our personality. When I speak of our fallen life, I do not mean the human personality as such. I mean the poison which permeates our personality, the poison of sin which degraded and defiled and distorted our humanity. It is not that this new life of the Lord Jesus comes in to take the place of our personality, to take the place of our faculties created by God, but it comes in to take the place of the sinful life which is operating in our personality and employing our faculties. The vessel is the same, but the contents are different—the same vessel, the same person, the same faculties, but the contents different. No longer this sinful element, but the very holy nature of the Lord Jesus Christ filling, interpenetrating, permeating.”

Miles Stanford adds, “Our Father is not seeking to abolish us as human beings and have the Lord Jesus replace us. He is seeking to restore us as human personalities so that we may be the vehicle through which Christ will express Himself. Therefore you find that whenever God gets hold of a man, instead of abolishing his personality, He makes it what He intends it to be. Redemption is the recovery of the man, not the destruction—so the man will be left, glorified in union with the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I've presented this material, which concerns our eternal assurance, not to refute opositional concepts to its ideals, but because I thought it should be seen. I don't believe the Truth needs defended, anymore than a lion needs defended!



Ephesians 1:4, ". . . He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world . . . ."


"The knowledge of the truth" (Heb 10:26). Knowledge of the truth, which is salvation by Christ; of which there may be a notional knowledge, when there is no experimental knowledge; and which is received not into the heart, but into the head. Gill

Before Christ saves us, we willfully sinned and those that continue in this manner, even after having knowledge of the truth (which only leads to salvation but doesn't save, Christ saves), will not come to salvation in Christ. These are the same as those who "draw back" (Heb 10:38, 39) or withdraw (1 Jhn 2:19) before entering into salvation.

"The blood of the covenant that sanctified him" (Heb 10:29) must refere to Christ being sacntified by "the blood of His covenant" (Mat 26:28). As Aron and his sons and grandsons were sanctified by blood for the priesthood (Lev 8:30), so is Christ also sanctified, for His "unchangeable priesthood" (Heb 7:24).

The reason why the phrase "the blood of the covenant that sanctified him" cannot refer to an apostate is because all who are sanctified by Christ are "perfected (complete) forever" (Hbr 10:14). Once being sanctified by Christ and saved, it is eternal, "For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (Rom 11:29).

"For [it is] impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put [Him] to an open shame" (Heb 6:4-6).

"Enlightened, as to see the evil effects of sin, but not the evil that is in sin; to see the good things which come by Christ, but not the goodness that is in Christ; so as to reform externally, but not to be sanctified internally; to have knowledge of the Gospel doctrinally, but not experimentally; yea, to have such light into it, as to be able to preach it to others, and yet be destitute of the grace of God." Gill

"Tasted: There are those who taste, but dislike what they taste; have no true love to Christ, and faith in him; or have only a carnal taste of him, know him only after the flesh, or externally, not inwardly and experimentally; or they have only a superficial taste, such as is opposed to eating the flesh, and drinking the blood of Christ, by faith, which is proper to true believers; the gust they have is but temporary, and arises from selfish principles." Gill

"Partakers of the Holy Spirit: is sometimes meant the gifts of the Spirit, ordinary or extraordinary, 1 Corinthians 12:4 and so here; and men may be said to be partakers of the Holy Ghost, to whom he gives wisdom and prudence in things natural and civil; the knowledge of things divine and evangelical, in an external way; the power of working miracles, of prophesying, of speaking with tongues, and of the interpretation of tongues; for the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost seem chiefly designed here, which some, in the first times of the Gospel, were partakers of, who had no share in special grace. "Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness' " (Mat 7:22, 23).

Think of the closer-than breathing, bone “of his bones” (Eph. 5:30) relationship of life we have with the very Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Although He is seated in glory at our Father’s right hand, He is not far off—His life is in us where we are, and our life is in Him where He is. Absolute oneness. “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit with Him.” “For we are His workmanship, crated in Christ Jesus. . . . Now in Christ Jesus ye who once were far off are made nigh . . .” (1Cor. 6:17; Eph. 2:10, 13).

He Is Our Head: When we see Jesus Christ as the sovereign Lord of the universe, we acknowledge Him to be the ruler of our personal lives and our circumstances. He is our Head; we are His body on Earth. Our Father “hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him that fills all in all.” “He is the head of the Body, the Church: Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell” (Eph. 1:22, 23; Col. 1:18, 19).

He Is Our Intercessor: The better we know Jesus in His glory, the more fully we will depend on Him as our personal Intercessor. “Wherefore He is able to save them to the uttermost that comes unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them.” “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intersession for us” (Heb. 7:25; Rom. 8:33, 34).

When the believer sins, his relationship to the Father is not affected, but his fellowship with Him is impaired. It is for this self-induced exigency that we need the Lord Jesus at the Father’s right hand as our Advocate and Intercessor. He is Jesus Christ the righteous, our defender in heaven against all the accusations of the Adversary. Since we have been “the righteousness of God in Him” (2Cor. 5:21), He justly and continually clears us from all charges. And because He “of God is made unto us . . . righteousness” (1Cor 1:30), He is never our prosecutor. Again, though our sins in no way affect our position in the light, or alter His thoughts of love toward us, they can and do affect our thoughts and attitude toward our Father. They can never cloud His view of our Advocate, but they can and do obliterate [to make imperceptible by obscuring] our vision of His advocacy. They immediately hinder our communion and fellowship with the Father and the Son. The dark cloud of guilt and conviction of sin settles down on our heart and conscience, unless we learn to judge ourselves and willingly confess our sins before God. “for if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged” (1Cor. 11:31).

When we fail to confess our sins, or to judge ourselves in the matter of sin, we must be chastened. When our Father’s child-training is applied, it is always well deserved and for our good. Our Lord Jesus bore all the wrath against sin on the cross, therefore we grow by means of the chastening. “Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto to them which are exercised thereby” (Heb. 12:11).

There are many Christians who feel that confession of sin is unnecessary. They reason that if their sins are already fully forgiven, why bother to confess them? It is true that we need not ask for forgiveness when we sin; rather, we are free to thank Him for that forgiveness provided at Calvary and received in Christ. But it is necessary to honestly confess our sins, thus siding with Him against ourselves (old selves), else how can we enjoy true fellowship with the One who is holy and hates sin perfectly? (Parentheses mine)

The primary ministry of the Holy Spirit is to reveal to us the Lord Jesus as our new life and to occupy our minds and hearts with Him. When we step down into the old life and consequently sin, the Spirit is grieved and must occupy us with ourselves (old selves) until our honest confession of sin to the Father brings restoration of fellowship. (Parentheses mine)
Yes, frank and immediate confession of sin is vital. Think for a moment of someone who observes a loved one sinning against him. Wounded, but ever loving, he forgives and says nothing. Meanwhile the loved one, although knowing there is forgiveness, does not confess his sin. Forgiveness is there, love is waiting. But now where is the fellowship and integrity of this relationship?

“But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses is from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves [not Him] and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1Jhn. 1:7-9).

He Is Our Life: By now we should be seeing more clearly the wonderful truths concerning the fact that the Lord of Glory is our life and that we are, as individuals, new creations in Him. There is but one place, one position, where we are to abide and that is in Him where He is. The resources and motivations of our daily lives are in the Son who is seated at the right hand of the Father. The expression of our new lives here is the indwelling life of Jesus manifested in our mortal flesh.

Our position and our resources as new creations are certainly not in the old man. Our death on the Cross now and forever separates us from the reign of sin and we are free to reckon on that fact. Our mind does not have to dwell on and become involved with the indwelling sinful nature—death is there; life is in the Lord Jesus.

We are looking in the wrong direction, whether we dwell on the old man and are pulled down in depression and defeat by its sinfulness, or conversely consider that nature to be quite harmless and good. We have to slip past the Cross and violate our identification with Him in His death to sin, in order to traffic in that realm. Paul asks, “How shall we who died to sin still live in it” (Rom. 6:2)?

Our position as new creations is not in this sin-cursed world. We are traveling through it, but not abiding in it. How is that the growing believe can rest and be at peace in the midst of this world of death, free to hold forth and share the Word of life? It is simply because his anchorage and source of life is in another Person in another world. Keep looking down! [As now being seated with Him in heaven; Eph 2:6].

The death of the Cross stands not only between us and the old nature, but also between us and this world system. “But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14).

There is nothing here for us to rely on: there is everything there for us to depend on. On earth, death; in glory, life. “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, it is much more [certain], now that we are reconciled, that we shall be saved [daily delivered from sin’s dominion] through His [resurrection] life” (Rom. 5:10).

If today the roots of your life are in the old nature and therefore in the world, absorbing the poison and death of those cross-condemned sources, it is time to move! There is a quiet and restful abiding place just where our Father has positioned us. Our communion is with the Father and the Son, where they are.

Is it not time to hide from the old by hiding in the new? In that attitude of faith and walk of fellowship our Lord Jesus will have another life through which to reach and replenish others. Therefore, “if any one preaches, let it be as uttering God’s truth; if anyone renders a service to others, let it be in the strength which God supplies; so that in everything glory may be given to God in the name of jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and the might to the Ages of Ages. Amen” (1Pet 4:11).

Fellowship with the old life results in nothing but sin and chastening; fellowship with the Lord Jesus results in love and love for others!

Thanks my friends in Christ for your encouraging replies.

"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life" (1Jhn 5:13).

We can be saved only one time, because that’s all it takes and there’s no Scriptural evidence of anyone being saved twice.

We know that to be saved, one must come to Christ, for He said “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jhn. 14:6). We also know that it requires the drawing of one to Christ, by the Father, for “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him” (Jhn. 6:44).

Can anyone who is drawn by the Father, to Christ, refuse to come to Christ? “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me” (Jhn. 6:37). This is, at the least, declaring that all who come to Christ is because of the Father’s drawing, but I believe that it intends that all whom the Father draws “will” come to Christ, because the phrase “gives Me” in v 37 is synonymous with “draw him” in v 44.

Does anyone who comes to Christ for salvation, ever leave Him? “That of all He has given Me I should lose nothing” (Jhn. 6:39). 

One can appear to be in Christ by profession, but a said faith is a dead faith. “But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works” (Jam 2:18).

One can appear to be in Christ by demonstration. “Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Mat 7:23).

Abiding in Christ is the evidence of being in Christ, because if they leave, it shows they never were in Christ, regardless of their profession and demonstration. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but [they went out] that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us” (1Jo 2:19).

Romans 10:4 Christ is the end of the Law unto righteousness to every one that believeth. There has been much discussion of the meaning of the word "end" here. Let us see if Scripture does not clear up the matter for us. When Christ died, He bore for Israel the curse of the Law, for they, and they alone, were under Law. Divine Law, being broken, does not ask for future good conduct on the part of the transgressor; but for his death,--and that only. Now Christ having died, all the claims of the Law against that nation which had been placed under law were completely met and ended. So that even Jews could now believe, and say, "I am dead to the Law!"

To him that believes, therefore, Jew or Gentile, Christ, dead, buried, and risen, is the end of law for righteousness,--in the sense of law's disappearance from the scene! Law does not know, or take cognizance of believers! We read in Chapter Seven (verse 6) that those who had been under the Law were discharged from the Law, brought to nought, put out of business (katargeo), with respect to the Law! The Law has nothing to do with them, as regards righteousness.

The Scripture must be obeyed with the obedience of belief: "Ye are not under law [not under that principle] but under grace" [the contrary principle]. "Ye are brought to nothing from Christ [literally, "put out of business from Christ"], ye who would be justified by the Law; ye are fallen away from grace" (Gal. 5:4). Paul writes in Hebrews 7:18,19: "There is a disannulling of a foregoing commandment, because of its weakness and unprofitableness (for the Law made nothing perfect), and a bringing in thereupon of a better hope, through which we draw near unto God." Again, "Christ abolished in His flesh the enmity [between Jew and Gentile], even the Law of commandments contained in ordinances" (Eph. 2:15); again, speaking as a Hebrew believer, Paul says, "Christ blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us: and He hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross" (Col 2:14).

If these Scriptures do not set forth a complete closing up of any believer's account toward the Law, or to the whole legal principle, I know nothing of the meaning of words.

The words Christ is the end of the Law, cannot mean Christ is the "fulfillment of what the law required." The Law required obedience to precepts--or death for disobedience. Now Christ died! If it be answered, that before He died He fulfilled the claims of the Law, kept it perfectly, and that this law-keeping of Christ was reckoned as over against the Israelite's breaking of the Law, then I ask, Why should Christ die? If the claims of the Law were met in Christ's earthly obedience, and if that earthly life of obedience is "reckoned to those who believe" the curse of the Law has been removed by "vicarious law-keeping." Why should Christ die?

Now this idea of Christ keeping the Law for "us" (for they will include us among the Israelites! although the Law was not given to us Gentiles), is a deadly heresy, no matter who teaches it. Paul tells us plainly how the curse of the Law was removed: "Christ redeemed us, " (meaning Jewish believers), "from the curse of the Law, having become a curse, is seen in Deuteronomy 21:23: "He that is hanged is accursed of God." It was on the cross, not by an "earthly life of obedience, " that Christ bore the Law's curse.

There was no law given "which could make alive, " Paul says; "otherwise righteousness would have been by it." Therefore those who speak of Christ as taking the place of fulfilling the Law for us,--as "the object at which the Law aimed" (Alford); or, "the fulfillment or accomplishment of the Law" (Calvin); give the Law an office that God did not give it. There is not in all Scripture a hint of the doctrine that Christ's earthly life--His obedience as a man under the [Mosaic] Law, is "put to the account" of any sinner whatsoever! That obedience, which was perfect, was in order that He might "present Himself through the eternal Spirit without spot unto God, " as a sin-offering. It also was in order to His sacrificial death, as "a curse," that Christ died for our sins" (1 Cor. 15:3). William R. Newell, Romans, Verse by Verse

LAW OF LIFE

"For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).

We need not submit to the law, nor do we need to struggle against it. It is now a matter of our standing on heavenly ground in our risen Lord, free from the influence and demands of the entire principle of law. In Christ Jesus we are motivated by a higher law, 'the law of the Spirit of life' (Romans 8:2).

There is no way of deliverance from the law and its bondage, into that liberty for which Christ set us free except to believe, and to keep reckoning, that we died to the law with Him, and are now risen, and joined to Another, the Risen One--even as Romans 7:4 asserts: 'Ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ; that ye should be joined to another, even Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God.'" -W.R.N.

In man the law and the flesh always go together. The Cross was the end for both in the sight of God. The flesh was judged and condemned there; it was treated as a dead thing before God--dead and buried; and the law which deals with the flesh we are dead to. We have passed out of both; we are not in the flesh (Romans 8:9), and we are not under the law (Gal; 2:19). -W.K.

"But you are not living the life of the flesh, you are living the life of the Spirit, if the [Holy] Spirit of God [really] dwells within you--directs and controls you" (Romans 8:9, Amp.).


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4-20. SOLID GOLD TRIALS

"For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God" (2 Corinthians 4:15).

Since He is both my God and my Father, and since all of the hardships He takes me through are specifically designed to conform me to the image of the Lord Jesus, how can I help but trust Him and rejoice in His faithfulness?


It is well to remember that the deepest and truest spiritual qualities are not learnt or established in us by our happy or enjoyable times, but in the difficult ones! There is nothing wrong in times of great joy and spiritual blessing; in fact we long for more of them, and look back perhaps to some days of much blessing in our lives or in the work of the Lord; but in the securing of Christ in greater measure in our lives, we find that it is by the things which we suffer that we learn most. So let us give thanks for the joyful days, and learn all that the Lord intends by the days of waiting and difficulty." -C.J.B.H.


"Faith asks for no props from the men and things around it; it finds 'all its springs' in God; and hence it is that faith never shines so brightly as when all around is dark. It is when nature's horizon is overcast with the blackest clouds, that faith basks in the sunshine of the divine favor and faithfulness." -C.H.M.



For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17).


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4-21. TRINITY-TRAINED



"He comforts us in our every affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction by means of the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted of God" (2 Corinthians 1:4, Wey.).



It is a great comfort to know that everything our Father takes us through--much of which may be hard and heartbreaking--has a dual purpose. That which He utilizes to cause us to grow spiritually is at the same time designed to prepare us for His service. He does nothing in vain; He wastes nothing.



"In the very service itself God makes the servant fit to carry it out. A person is first disciplined for service, and then in the service he is made fit by it for the character of it. God has not servants ready made. He makes them fit for His own service in connection with the race they have to run. The word 'chasten' is the same as that used in Ephesians with respect to bringing up the children: it is nurture. We attach too much the idea of severity, or retribution, to it." -J.B.S.



"Why does God take some through such deep and trying experiences? Why is it that He does not allow some of His children to have an easy way and to be satisfied and gratified with elementary things? The needs of others--that is why.



"We know quite well if any have been able really to help others, it is because they have gone through deep experience, they have pioneered this way, they have paid a great price for this freedom. It has been costly, but worthwhile if others can be really helped."



"But to God be the thanks who in Christ ever heads our triumphal procession, and by our hands waves in every place that sweet incense, the knowledge of Him" (2 Corinthians 2:14, Wey.).

"And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock [and] one shepherd " (Jhn 10:16). Jesus sent His Apostles "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mat 10:6). The "lost sheep" are the Jews who "hear His voice", as the Apostles did and other believing Jews. The "other sheep" are the believing Gentiles, and these two classes make "one fold" and "one new man". Among these there is no difference but there is a difference with the unbelieving Jew. There will be a difference between those who believe in Christ before His return and those who believe in Him after His return, only because they will see Him.

Notice He said of the Gentiles "other sheep", not "lost sheep". The Gentiles weren't of the lost sheep of Israel, they weren't called until the Jews had their oportunity. We are one with the believing Jews, not the unbelieving Jews which will partake of the New Covenant of God in Ezekel's prophecy.

Christian Jews and Gentiles partake now of Christ's New Covenant in His blood'" (Mat 26:28). The covenant of Christ's blood isn't between us and Christ but between Him and the Father, that Christ would save us by His blood, for the Father (Heb 9:12). It's not our covenant but They made us partakers of it!!!!!

Not that Paul had more revelation of Christ but of His Body, the Church and Bride (Eph 5:32). Jesus only mentioned His church to the Apostles (Mat 16:18) but waited to use Paul to teach it. It's founded, ofcourse, on the Gospel of Christ, which is salvation by Him only, which they all learned from Christ.

It's not that Paul was superior, we're all equeal in Him, but are used by Him in various positions, as Paul was, to be the one to reveal the Church dispensation. Not to say that any of them were superior to the other but the difference of Christ communicating to His Apostles after His ressurrection and before His ascention, wasn't the same as His communication with Paul after His ascention and back in His glory.

I believe the mystery of the Church is mostly that it may comprise only those who believe in Christ before they see Him (Jhn 20:29). Finally saved Israel and Judah (Ezek 36:27) may have a different eternal position in God (they won't believe until they see Him) but we will still be "one flock". Israel eternally inheriting the New Earth, and the Curch (Jews and Gentiles who believed without seeing) the New Heaven? Scripture isn't direct on this concept but it seems to be indicated so.

The Lord Jesus, as Israel's Messiah in His pre-Cross humiliation, "went about all Galilee, teaching in their [Israel's] synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom" (Matthew 4:23).  It was at this time that He sat upon the mountainside and taught His disciples the Sermon on the Mount.

The Lord Jesus Christ, after the Cross and in His ascension glory as Head and Life, ministered His "glorious Gospel of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:4) to His Body--and He did it through Paul. "I want you to know brothers, that the Gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ." (Galatians 1:11,12). "...I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven" (Acts 26:19).

Not one of the apostles or disciples taught the Gospel of the kingdom, or any other gospel, to Paul. The "glorious Gospel of Christ," of and to the Church, had been hidden in God--it was not in any of the Scriptures--until the glorified Bridegroom presented it to His Bride, through Paul.

Dr. William R. Newell presents clearly the new-creation difference between the Lord Jesus as Messiah speaking to His earthly people, Israel, and the glorified Lord Jesus Christ as Head speaking to His heavenly Body. "He is the Head of the Body, the Church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead..." (Colossians 1:18).

There are two great revelators, or unfolders of Divine Truth in the Bible--Moses in the Old Testament, and Paul in the New Testament. Some may ask, "Is not Jesus the Great Teacher?" In a sense that is true, but actually He is the Person taught about, rather than teaching, in the Gospel. The Law and the prophets pointed forward to Him; the Epistles point up to Him; and the Revelation points to His second coming, and those things connected with it. The Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, is the theme of the Bible.

Unto none of the Twelve Apostles did God directly reveal the great body of doctrine for this dispensation. Just as He chose Moses to be the revelator to Israel of the Ten Commandments and all connected with the Law dispensation, so He chose Saul of Tarsus to be the unfolder of those mighty truths connected with our Lord's death, burial, resurrection and His ascended Person. And all the "mysteries," revealed to the Church in this dispensation by the Holy Spirit in the Word, are set forth by Paul. Finally, Paul is the revelator of that great company of God's elect, called the Church, the Body of Christ, which is also His Bride--members of the Lord Jesus Himself.

Paul is the glorified Lord Jesus' declarer of the Gospel to us. Take his thirteen Epistles of Romans to Philemon out of the Bible and you are bereft of Christian doctrine. If you were to take Paul's Epistles from the Word, you could not find anything about the Church, the Body of Christ, for none of the Apostles mention that Body.

You could not find the exact meaning of any of the great doctrines, such as: 1) Justification, 2) Redemption, 3) Propitiation, 4) Reconciliation, 5) Identification, or 6) Sanctification. You could not find what is perhaps the most tremendous fact of every Christian's life, that of his personal union with the Lord Jesus Christ in glory.

Saul already stood in clearer light regarding the Risen Lord than did the other apostles; for they had known Him primarily in His humiliation, and they were His messengers to Israel, of whom is Christ according to His "human ancestry" (Romans 9:5). But Paul's first vision of Christ was as the Glorified One, the Son of God, in ascension glory.

The concept of the Lord Jesus in Paul's Epistles is one of constant, unspeakable glory. We do not mean that the other apostles did not recognize the Lord Jesus as the Son of God. They had, long since (Matthew 16:16; John 1:14, etc.). But their first testimony at Jerusalem and to Israel had been more of the Messiahship and Lordship of Jesus, as the Crucified and now risen King, who was ready to return to Israel and set up His kingdom if they would repent (Acts 2:36; 3:19, etc). But Paul received his teaching all from heaven, from the Lord Jesus Christ in glory, rather than on earth in Jewish connections. Paul's glorious Gospel has nothing Jewish about it.

You can discern a man's preaching or teaching by this rule--is he Pauline? Does his doctrine start and finish according to those statements of Christian doctrine written by the glorified Lord Jesus Christ through Paul? No matter how wonderful and popular a man may seem in his gifts and apparent leadership, if his Gospel is not Pauline, it is not the Gospel; and we might as well get our minds settled once and for all as to that.

Failure or refusal to discern the Pauline Gospel as a separate and new revelation, and not a "development from Judaism," accounts for most of the confusion in many people's minds today as regards just what the Gospel is.

4-13. DUAL RECKONING

"For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9).

"Reckoning" on the work of the Cross is the only relief from the carnal burden of self. Then comes the spiritual burden of Christ--to be more like Him. "Reckoning" is the answer there, too. "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through [in] Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6.11). If we seek to escape the death, we will not experience the life.

"We are not to try to crucify self, but we are to agree (reckon) with what God has said and done. In the lives of most believers self has usurped the place belonging to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a criminal worthy of death, but the trouble is that they do not realize that this self-life has been crucified on the Cross. They do not believe the facts of the Word, and sin therefore reigns in their lives; they live in bondage to sin, praying for deliverance, praying that they may die to sin, but refusing to believe what God says He has already done." -L.L.L.

"The constant tendency is to try to improve the manner of one's life here below by adopting Christian principles, whereas you will never arrive at it unless you start from 'crucified with Christ.' Then it is not thinking of what I am, but of what He is, 'Christ liveth in me.'" -J.B.S.

"And ye are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power" (Colossians 2:10).


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4-14. APPRECIATION, NOT DEPRECIATION

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" (Colossians 3:16).

As believers we rejoice in the fact that the Lord Jesus died for us, but few are affected by the fact that He arose for us. Fewer still realize that we died and arose with Him. Learn the facts! There will be continual struggle and failure until we gain adequate understanding of the liberating truth.

"The Lord Jesus on the Cross removed the barriers which separated me from God--my guilt, my sin, the law; and He dealt with my enemies--the world, the flesh, the devil. These six things were dealt with, so that we need no longer be in bondage through fear and that we may come boldly to the throne of grace.

"Have we given a hearty assent to these things which the Lord Jesus did for us? Or have we, as we read the Word, drifted by them, taking it all for granted? Let us lay hold of that for which God has laid hold of us. Let us gird up the loins of our mind and consent to that which He did for us. Let us enter into all that which being united to Christ as our Life means. Let us rejoice in all that was accomplished for us on Calvary." -L.L.L.

"It is necessary that the truth conferred by grace should be known as a possession and the virtue of it apprehended, before there can be any walk in keeping with it. For if there be ignorance or misapprehension, the truer the conscience, the more defective is the practice." -J.B.S.

"Set your affection on things above" (Colossians 3:2)


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4-15. PURPOSE, PROVISION, PROCESS

"I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory" (Exodus 33:18).

There are three vital factors that will keep us on the path, and in the power, of spiritual growth: (1) study to know that God's purpose in saving us is to conform us to the image of His Son (Romans 8:28, 29); (2) learn to reckon upon the finished work of the Cross as His provision for that purpose (Romans 6:11); (3) yield to the Holy Spirit as He carries out the daily process of that purpose (2 Corinthians 4:11).

"Christ Jesus' earthly life showed the path, His heavenly life gives the power, in which we are to walk. What God hath joined together no man may separate. Whosoever does not stand in the full faith of the Redemption, has not the strength to follow the Example. And whosoever does not seek conformity to the Image as the great purpose of Redemption, cannot fully enter its power. Christ lived on earth that He might show forth the image of God in His life; He lives in heaven that we may show forth the image of God in our lives." -A.M.

"God has but one way of revealing Himself, it is 'Christ in you.' He has no other way of showing Himself to men except as Christ lives in us; not by the Shekinah glory in the temple built with hands of men, but in lives redeemed and freed and cleansed as they walk about in this dark world with Christ living in them." -L.L.L.

"And we all, while with face unveiled we behold in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are ourselves transformed continually into the same likeness; and the glory which shines upon us is reflected by us, even as it proceeds from the Lord, the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18, Cony.).