Months ago, a brother said to me,
“We are not guaranteed a spiritual life.” And that disturbed me. It disturbed me enough to do my own
study.
I wondered...
1. ”How can I not have
a spiritual life if I am Born Again ???”
2. Who is this “new man” God has
created in Christ Jesus Who is my life?
3. Who is this new man renewed
after the image of the One who created him.
4. If, as the Word says, I have
been given a new spirit and a new heart of flesh
and
not of stone – where do they reside...
in this earthly body of sin?
5. Hasn’t this old man been
crucified with Him, so the body of sin might be
done away with...so that the Holy Spirit can now
take up residence in a child of
God?
6. And how can we be a heavenly
creature if not spiritual?
7. If my citizenship is in heaven
and of the household of God then I must be a new
heavenly being because “flesh and
blood cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
Obviously, there is a big IF there. If one is NOT born from above, one has no spiritual life... can’t even recognize it. Imagine, with all the beauty of God’s creation around us, not being able to even see the Kingdom of God.
And 1 Cor. 2:14 says, But the natural man receives not the things of the
Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned. So,
“spiritually discerned” proves to me that I, at least, have some spiritual
understanding... but that verse says, “the natural man cannot know the things
of God.” It is all foolishness to him.
More Proof... These Things are NOT
Foolishness to Us!!!
Imagine the rest of the world, the “natural” man... they which reject Jesus cannot SEE, and do not know the Kingdom of God or anything about God. Spiritual discernment is how the born-again child of God learns, but the spiritual man currently lives in this body of flesh in the form of a “quickened” soul. That which was dead to God He has made alive in Christ. But if we allow the natural man to rule our lives, we “quench” the Holy Spirit, and 1 Thess. 5:19 says, Quench not the Spirit.
If we quench the Holy Spirit, we will not ”come together in the unity of the faith”, nor to “the full knowledge of the Son of God” neither “unto a perfect man” nor attain to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Eph. 4:13
And in John 3:6 Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” If you are born of the Spirit, you have a spiritual life. Anyone who does not have the “Spirit-born” life is still DEAD in their sins.
Rom. 8:2 says, ...the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. The liberating law of the life-giving Spirit has freed us from the enslaving law of “death-giving” sin. The flesh, if not crucified with Christ, is still enslaved in the law of death, Gal. 5:24.
Old Testament saints did not have
the same spiritual life that God has gifted to us. They did not have the
in-dwelling Holy Spirit. Imagine the power God has given us! They had the Law,
which no one could satisfy. The law was supposed to show people the
impossibility of attaining to God’s righteousness by one’s own will and effort.
The Law was supposed to show man... the Jews, the need for God’s Grace and
mercy apart from the Law.
In 7:14 Paul said, “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am
carnal.”
And in Rom. 7:19 he said,
The good that I want to do, I do not do; but
the evil which I don’t want to do, that I do. O wretched man that I am, who
will save me from this body of death? I thank God trough Jesus Christ our Lord.
Man thought that to “get to” God, one needed to go through the Law. But it was just the opposite. To keep the Law, one must go through God. Jesus has been the only example of that perfection. He did not tease when He said, “Go and sin no more.” How was He perfect? He loved God and He loved His neighbor. That is instruction and the lesson for us.
Rom. 8:3-4 says, God, by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not live our lives in the ways of the flesh guided by worldliness, but live our lives in the ways of the Spirit guided by His power.
God’s own Son was to be THE propitiating offering for sin because He came “in the likeness” of sinful man to condemn sin as only He could in the flesh because He was SINLESS. “So that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us.”
What is the righteous
requirement of the Law? It is to
Love God and our neighbor. Jesus accomplished that and thereby fulfilled
the righteous requirement of the law perfectly. So why did He have to die being
perfectly righteous under the law? He didn’t. He voluntarily submitted
to the power of death - for us in vindication of the law whereby God
imputes to us His death as having satisfied the law, and His righteousness,
again by imputation, wherein we are reconciled to God.
All this by the Grace of God and
the faithfulness of Jesus.
The “righteousness of the law” IS
Christ, which God our Father wants to “fulfill” in us here and now. We
literally do not have time for recreation if we have not yet been perfected in
Christ. To some people this sounds like religion; or something one hears only
in “church.”
Our inheritance is eternal life with Jesus. There is no eternal life without spiritual life which is fellowship with God through the sacrifice of Jesus. He, God, made us who were DEAD in sin, ALIVE in Christ. That life is forever. That life is salvation. That spiritual life is essential for fellowship with God. God did for us what He did for Adam and Jesus. He made us new, without sin...
Eph. 4:24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. And... 2 Cor. 5:17 If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
This new creation is not only spiritual, but in union with Christ. Regarding the new man, it has the meaning of “the real nature of that to which reference is made” ...we are referred to as CHRIST-ian. The reference is... belonging to Christ! I am not saying we are divine because we are in union with Christ. I am saying without union with Christ we have no spiritual life.
A spiritual life of fellowship with God is guaranteed. What is not guaranteed is our WANTING TO grow into the mature man, to the measure... (standard of judgment; a determined extent, and it is lofty) ...the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; which is our spiritual completeness in Him. It’s not guaranteed because that part is up to us, and apparently there are some believers in the world who either don’t know that we have to grow into it (because of ignorance of the word), or have decided it’s not necessary (which is complacency).
Eph. 2:4-5 says, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love
wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has made us alive
together with Christ.
The spiritual life with Christ IS
not only eternal life, imparted and guaranteed to believers at
their conversion, as Col 3:4 says, but believers are also guaranteed
a spiritual life here and now. What is not guaranteed is “perfecting”
that spiritual life, or maturing fully into Christ.
Gal. 5:25 says, If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
The two most important things in
our profession of holiness are the life of faith and the walk of
faith.
There are those who labor
after holiness of life, and we see many manifestations of their labors. Some
are “in church” almost every day performing whatever rituals are necessary;
some are prolific “religious authors” telling everyone else “how to” be holy;
some are severely austere to the point of asceticism. Then there are others who
labor after holiness only on Sundays, and then only to hear a sermon. We are
not “washed by the word” because we hear a sermon. These all deny the faith,
like the Pharisees did.
To live and walk in the Spirit, we
must ABIDE in Christ as Christ abided in God.
Eph. 5:30 says, For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His
bones.
This can only happen by, and in
the power of the Holy Spirit.
Rom. 7:6 says, But now we have been released from the law, having
died to what held us captive, so that we may serve in the new life of
the Spirit and not under the old letter of the law.
New life in the Spirit IS
spiritual life. Anyone who does not have spiritual life is spiritually dead.
The effect of the spiritual life, for the believer identifying with Christ in His death, is to render the body inactive in regard to sin. The Christian faith can be “imitated” without tapping into spiritual power. We see this all around us. When this is done, Christianity becomes a human religious pursuit, relying on well-organized tenets advocating morality and good deeds (works), but devoid of the power of God. The power of God has not gone away or been diminished, it is denied.
Paul says to the Corinthians, I, brethren, am not able to speak to you as to spiritual,
but as to carnal—as to babes in Christ. Paul speaks to Corinthians but cautions
all Christians!
Paul says to the Hebrews in
chapter 5... by this time you ought to
be teachers, but you... have come to
need milk and not solid food. Everyone who partakes only of milk is unskillful
in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.
The Greek word “unskillful” used
only here in Hebrews, means without experience... i.e., ignorant. We
cannot become skillful at anything without the experience of DOING! And the
“doing” ...the Christian spiritual life... requires the experience which comes
with maturity. Anyone satisfied by the milk of the word has lost interest in
the deeper truths of Christianity.
I have professed to be a believer
for over 40 years. Does that make me a Christian? God knows. I am a babe in
knowledge. I am a babe in service. I am a babe in wisdom. I am a babe in Christ. By this time, Paul says, I
should be “skilled in the word of
righteousness” by virtue of the fact that I have professed a faith in
Jesus Christ for many years now, so there is some maturity in age. Paul says to
the mature among us... “Get up and teach us the Word of Righteousness for
our edification.”
In fact, believers should also be
diligent to NOT “fulfill the desires of the flesh and of the mind” anymore,
because to do so, is to sin, and Jesus said, “SIN
NO MORE!” We need to reconcile the understanding of what Jesus
said. Are we going to sin? Or are we going to sin no more? Fulfilling desires
of the flesh, grieves the Holy Spirit, and “kills” the spiritual life.
Eph. 4:11-16 says, And he gave some, apostles; and to some He gave prophets; and to some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
The ”perfecting of the saints” denotes
“to prepare fully, an end accomplished as the effect of a process."
The “process” is – being edified by apostles, prophets, evangelists,
pastors or teachers. This process is a two-way street for here and now not when
we are in Glory. There is no process between the instant of the “Rapture” and
Glory. That is an event not a process. The Word says, “In
the twinkling of an eye.”
We are to receive the wise
instruction of those God gave to counsel and instruct us.
Proverbs 19:20 says, Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in the days which you have left. The phrase, “be wise” is used here to mean, (be wise to make wise); “having the substance of understanding; the knowledge of wisdom” with the promise of “becoming an instructor in wisdom” ...i.e., the stature of the fullness of Christ!
Edifying means “building
up!” Building up into what?
“Unto
a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness
of Christ.”
We’ve already seen that “measure” means, the standard of judgment; a determined extent, and it is God Who measures.
Dear brethren, we are safe and secure in our salvation because that was ALL the work of God Who chose us before the foundation of the world, procured by Jesus the Christ. Even our faith came by the Holy Spirit. It is ALL of God. Shouldn’t we live by the standard and stature that Jesus left for us in the Power (dynamic) of the Holy Spirit? The world, which is going down the tubes, does not see the perfection of Christ in the mature believer. I believe we will have to answer for that.
Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus
(2)
Next, this partaking of the life of Christ is brought out in two striking
forms--as a partaking, not only of His resurrection, but also of His ascension
"to the heavenly places." This is "in Christ Jesus," in
virtue of a personal and individual union with Christ. It implies
blessings, both present and future, or rather one blessing, of which we have
the earnest now and the fulness hereafter--for the resurrection and ascension
of Christ are even now the perfection and glorification of humanity in Him.
(3) So
far as we are really and vitally His members, such perfection and glorification
are ours now, by His intercession (that is, His continued mediation for us in
heaven) and by His indwelling in us by the Spirit on earth. The proof of
partaking His resurrection is "newness of life," "death unto
sin, and new birth unto righteousness" which is in Colossians 3:12
expressly connected with the entrance upon unity with Christ in baptism.
The proof of having "our life hid in
Christ at the right hand of God," is "the setting our affection on things above"
(Colossians 3:1), by which "in heart
and mind we thither ascend, and with Him continually dwell."
(4)
These proofs are seen only in measure here. Through the change which we call
death, we pass at once to a still higher stage of life, by fuller union
with Christ (2Corinthians 5:6-8), and at the great day we shall have both in
perfection--perfect newness of life in "likeness
to Him" (1John 3:2), and perfect
glorification in Him in that communion with God which is heaven (John 17:5; John 17:10; John 17:24). The one thing which Paul does not attribute to us is
that which is His alone--the place "at the right hand of the Father."
~Ellicott’s Commentary
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