Light Brings Salt
Volume 3, Issue 17 April 24, 2005
Dedicated to the Systematic Exposition of the Word of God
Rulership Distinguished
by P/T
If we
are to grow and advance as believers in Christ we must learn to distinguish between
the old life, before salvation in Adam, and the new life in Christ. After salvation it will become evident to the
new believer that there is indwelling him or her two potential rulers. First is the condemned sin nature from
which we have been delivered at the Cross is alive and well and seeking to
continue dominating our life. Second is the
indwelling Holy Spirit and the truth of the Word of God that we are learning
which the Holy Spirit is illuminating.
As we
noted in our study of Galatians 5:16-17 these two rulers are in opposition to
one another and that only one is dominating the life of the believer at any
given time. We can walk by the Spirit or
one can walk by the flesh, the sin nature.
Choice is ours!
Unless
we arrive at an understanding of the extent to which the Cross separated us
from all that we were in Adam as an unbeliever which includes the sin nature,
we will not be able to keep clear of the enslaving flesh and walk freely in the
Spirit. The awesome provision of our Father positionally separated us from the
sin nature by our identification with His death, burial, resurrection, and
raised us up to walk in this new life in the Lord Jesus Christ. (Gal. 2:20)
In that
we have two distinct potential rulers seeking expression through the means of
our as-yet-unredeemed body, which occurs at the rapture, we must keep them
separated in our thinking. In itself the old nature is ever strong seeking to
promote and dominate through the various lust patterns. Only by the indwelling
Spirit illuminating the truth of the Word are we able to walk by faith, to walk
by the Spirit and therefore bring forth righteousness.
The Spirit and the Old Nature
The
sinful nature dooms the unbeliever, the sinner, and when it dominates or rules
our life as believers we are defeated and separated from our relationship with
the Father and the Son. The growing Christian is sadly aware of the many
ramifications of the flesh that fester within. "19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident,
which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality,
20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts
of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions,
21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these,"
(Gal.
5:19-21).
The progressing advancing believer not only
discovers the characteristics of the fallen nature, but he comes to know and
experience its overpowering strength, despite the fact that he is a new
creation in Christ. The sin nature within is undergirded
by the influence of
the body, and the world. "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.
At some
point the defeated must come to understand that the Holy Spirit is the divine provision who is commissioned
to deal with the power of the sin nature. 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire
of the flesh. 17 For the
flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the
Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that
you may not do the things that you please. [Gal. 5:16, 17).
Now
this is most important to grasp a hold of. Although He could do so, the Spirit
does not deal with the sin nature and its lust patterns by means of His own
strength. He doesn't have to. He depends on what God has already done about the
sin nature. And so we must also! The key to deliverance from the works of the
sin nature is not our strength, as we must ultimately learn. Freedom comes by
means of explicit faith. As we count as true, or in the KJV to reckon our
identification with Christ, that is
The Spirit and the New Nature
While
the Spirit draws on the death of the cross to render the old nature powerless,
He empowers the life of Christ to render the new nature productive. He works
according to the principle of life out of death.
11
For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake,
so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Cor. 4:11).
It is
the faithful Spirit who gives growth to our new-creation life, slowly
manifesting the very image of its Source. This growth is evidenced by the fruit
of the Spirit being manifest in the life as set forth in cluster form in
Galatians 5:22 and 23.
We
might give some thought to the first segment of that fruit of the Vine, which
is love. Obviously this love is that love manifested in the life of the believer
in response to His love for us. He is love and therefore love is resident in
His nature, and as new creations in Christ we are to reflect this love, as well
as all the other characteristics of His life.
Before
considering how to pursue love, we must understand how we are not to walk. What
are some of the characteristics of the sin nature that we are to quickly
identify and deal with? It does not
suffer long; it is unkind: it envies, vaunts itself or brags, and is usually
puffed up. It behaves itself unseemly, seeks its own, is easily provoked, and
continually thinks evil.
The sin
nature rejoices in iniquity, and does not rejoice in the truth, it refuses to
bear all things, believe all things, hope for all things, endure
all things. Quite the contrary. And it always fails!
Why be occupied at all with such a negative characteristics in your life?
How are
we to follow after or pursue love? We are to see where God has positioned us,
and live there. By means of our crucifixion and resurrection with Christ our
Father has released us from the domination or slavery to the old life, the sin nature, that cannot love properly, and brought us into union
with the life of the one who is Love. "Your
life is hid with Christ in God." "God is love" (Col. 3:3; 1
John 4:8).
As new
creations in Christ we no longer have to be ruled by the indwelling sin nature
and produce the sins that flow from its domination of our life; in fact we are
commanded to stop letting it rule, since the cross has freed us from its power
(Rom. 6:12). But we are responsible to abide in Him by faith, in order that His
love and righteousness may be manifested to this needy world through us. Much
of the mechanics, the how of escaping the old and becoming established in the new is embodied in
Romans 6:11-13 (NASB).
(1) "Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ
Jesus."
(2) "Therefore let not sin reign [stop letting sin reign] in your mortal
body that you should obey its lusts."
(3) "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."
Each
of us make choices daily as to which ground we are going to live on, that is, to what is the basis of my life
on that day: either to be dominated and defeated by indwelling sin, or to be
freed and growing in the Lord Jesus Christ. There can be no neutrality.
The
Lord Jesus has made it very clear: "No
man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other;
or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other....He that is not with
me is against me" (Matt. 6:24; 12:30).