How do I form a factual faith to an expected end, that is the question? If being born again is only about going to heaven, then it seems my expectations have been meant. But no my friends, the Bible says there is more, much more! The incidents here on earth are mine, but the end was accomplished by another, that end is not the by and by only, but life lived here and now, a different kind of life, one born from above, a complete change realized through faith's facts.
My born again experience, was just that a experience, for me it could be defined no other way. The problem was my attempt to remain in the experience. I learned the hard way that is not the way in which God would have us form our faith. Faith also is not merely hope, although it provides great hope, thank God! Some in the world might describe faith as a mist, coming and going without a firm base, or even believing in something that your natural self tells you is not true, as in having a love crush on the prom queen and dreaming of her attention toward you; never going to happen, but never the less persisting in the dream, against all odds. No, now I know that the faith that will endure is carried in the knowledge of the one in whom it is placed; not available to the natural man, who cannot understand the things of God, and held in weakness by the carnal [milk fed] Christian, and therefore bringing much falling away and struggle to maintain his place.
Let us always remember that the Word of God tells us "without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God". If our faith formed after the initial reception of truth to please Him, requires knowledge, then my friends we have some work to do. We know God's Grace takes us into His salvation with the first blush of belief, but to please our heavenly Father we must grow in the formation and understanding of that completed act. After all if mere belief was the final appeal then many, including Satan, would qualify for the Gift. No the Christian, belief leads to faith, also a gift from God, the question is will we unwrap the present? Or will we continue to trudge the road of happy destiny satisfied with defining our faith in the weakness of our flesh, [the first Adams personality] enjoying the experience along the way perhaps, but continually suffering the consequences of not growing into the spiritual mature personality we are called to be.
Transformation is our constant condition, even though we are often unaware of it taking place. Through the facts found in faith by God's word, we have the privilege of His knowledge available to us. The fact is we are described and defined by His Word and can realize by faith to be in a new condition upon the earth, perhaps sometimes on a unsettled quaking platform, so that we might discover through our weakness our completeness in our heavenly position. His reveled truth about my privilege and responsibility before Him, has led me to ask; is my Christianity just a stagnant ritual an empty vocabulary or has faiths facts, which tell me I am a entirely new creature in Christ, my life's motivation?
In order to be motivated I needed need, then I could acquire desire, but I was still held back from becoming all that I could be in finding myself in Christ, held in check on the road to factual knowledge by my great enemy fear. Well just what was I afraid of you ask? I suppose you could say the requirement I would be under once enlightened, as in success breeds responsibility. You see the things I was learning about my position in Christ were fearful because my eyes were still on the visible things, the judgement of men, I found no assurance there. In my first Adam's fear I was held back.
Faith is held in abeyance by our earthly personality. When released by the Holy spirit however faith works and reckons on the things of God only. Having this kind of faith is not ordinary to man, not found in strength in the first Adam personality, where we tend to spend our time you could say. We now are called upon to close our eyes to the visible and in a new light acquire a divine judgement about all that we are. Faith's facts now act to separate us from the usual and must be maintained by the diligence of seeking growth in Gods word. If we do not seek this new order, and strive to maintain it we will revert to our old self and again find the world as our master. We cannot serve two masters its either gain under the control of God or leave our feet plunged in the muddy waters of the earth.
There is a complicity in inaction, in the lack of striving to find the facts of our true being in Christ we enable the first man and remain weak and ineffectual in our Christian adventure and settle for a place of satisfaction of a worldly view, the carnal Christian. I for 35 years, and I believe many, bathe in the luke warm waters of contemporary comfort. The radical path growing weeds and not smoothed because of so few travelers trudging its road of discovery. But wait if a ordinary fleshy weak man such as I can find the new creation and have his eye opened to the New Man in him there must be hope! What is it that we must discover to find our way into the joy and peace promised for all who live in heaven under the spiritual heritage given us by blood, in Jesus Christ the Second Adam.
Our Lord knows the nature of the obstacle He has to overcome in our first Adam; who in us is always available if honored. This first man was our federal representative, in whom the whole human race dwells. The Adam personality which is carried in our mind, and for the natural man is in control unto death, never to be in the presence of God as to life eternal. Because this first man could not be accepted he was sentenced to die in a representative form by the Cross of Christ and by asking Jesus into our life we are given the Holy Spirit and Christ death is federally ours also. We are dead indeed by that act , not dead in our selves, but in Christ as the representative before the Father of His loved children. When we are born again we abide [live forever] in that representative reality. God has done this work in Christ and not in us as individuals. His death and resurrection were all inclusive but accomplished fully apart from us. It will be that by this formed fact of this truth we can experience a mature spiritual personality. It is our history in Christ which must be experienced and that is the history we must acknowledge as their is no spiritual experience apart from Jesus Christ. All that Christ experienced is ours, not of ourselves, but in association with Him. We are the vine he is the branch. All that we can be and will ever be is found in Him. It is not our exclusive personal experience. Any thing that we are is already true in Christ. These facts formed will lead to a life lived in Christ our new man the second Adam now our federal representative. A life lived in biblical pursuit of the faith formed by a positional /identification factually occupied mind will lead to the peace that passes all understanding. I know because the Bible tells me so.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Saturday, July 20, 2013
REVEALED REVELATION
The life I now am living is becoming the life which has been reveled in my identification in my Saviour Jesus Christ. That new life is much more the normal Christian life than my previous existence, as Ive come to see that it is the way God intended; a earthly replica of the heavenly reality. No longer living two lives, I can now live the life I inhabit, not living each day knowing there is another life which I ought to have lived. How can I know this to be a fact? And how do I maintain that standing?
The simple truth is for many years I did not know there was even another life for the Christian to live. The Holy spirit had nor revealed it to me. I was so very grateful for my salvation, but nerve went beyond the place of my justification [born again experience], which still left me in my old nature, which I did not know was dead. It was always, Jesus died for you, not you died in /with Him, a great difference there, one I have discussed at some length in past blogs. The problem with discussion, and even when we see this truth in black and white, directly in God's Word, is how in the world do we experience it. This my friends you might be relieved to know has been a vexing difficulty for many, including men and women whom we now think of as very godly and look up to. And the sad truth , I believe, is many more simply do their duty, moral men and women filling the pews, taking in a hour or too of another man's thoughts about their Christianity. Its onward Christian solider going off to war. My friends, dead men have no need to go to war, for them the battle is over, and in our case won by Jesus Christ. I found in my positional studies this can be realized and lived. How? By the revelation of the living God, available to all, received by few.
When I first discovered that there was a different life I could live than the one I had grown accustomed to in my inherited Christian traditions, I became very concerned, because I had become use to living out my Christian experience in the old Adam, a carnal Christian, satisfied with lack of fulfillment and accepting the limitations my flesh told me was the ordinary Christian experience. You could say, the old life was comfortable because of ignorance and the new life I now glimpsed, became fearful to enter in because of knowledge. But I trudged forward encouraged by what I was being taught by the Holy Spirit, from the very words I had read a thousand times, but had struggled to find meaning in. Something new happened a gift was given born from need. A gift from the same almighty power that formed the cosmos and gave life to my spirit. That most glorious incite was a direct revelation from God Himself. Sounds fantastic I know, maybe I should buy a tent and go on the road. No I shouldn't get carried away. I learned this revelation I received was available all along not only to me but to everyone. There it was right in front of me Gods Words in black and white, The Bible. Which we as Christians believe to be His inspired word, and it contained a new revelation for me.
The Bible teaches us there are three types of men; the natural man unable to receive the things of God, the carnal man, one who has received the word believed but remains a baby or milk feed Christian, and the spiritual man, one who has received the word and accepted that his total value before God is only found in the object of Christ, as his identity. This reveled revelation truth from God leaves us in a precarious position as Christians. It seem we have a choice, even a responsibility. Perhaps a metaphor my be of help here; we as Americans were give a opportunity by the declaration of independence, namely the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Our founding fathers provided, in their wisdom, the chance for each man to employ enlightened self interest, to acquire the gifts available under a individual freedom form of government. It was our responsibility to avail ourselves, and it made this country great, beyond any ones expectations. We now as Christians have that same sort of individual responsibility to seek the Holy Spirits revelation as to who and what we might become. How might this be done?
The answer is in believing the direct revelation of God, that belief acted upon is called faith, not in a hope only, but in the reality of a new creation, which the Bible declares we are, in its revelation to us when we first believed, and then emphasized by Paul's words, written directly from the Fathers Revelation, which encourages us to grow into the image of his Son by becoming spiritual men just like His Son. We find this faith by a free gift, but we build the spiritual man by reckoning. " Likewise, reckon yourselves also to be dead to sin," here referring to Christ death on the cross to be ours also. The word reckon means count as true, but the root of the Greek is a accounting term, as in a column of figures when added together equals a number always the same regardless how one arranges the numbers in the column. In other words the math can't lie, it is always accurate and true! That my friends is how we are to read the Bibles description of us, and by that understanding see our position and identification growing into mature spiritual men and women. The Bible tells us we are to occupy and realize that new nature; just as the natural man and the carnal immature Christian still relies upon the defining personality of Adam the first, as we grow up to be a spiritual man or women in Christ, we see and define our nature in the Second Adam and therefore become new creatures in our conscious thought process and personality.
The great temptation is to look within, acquiring a certain appearance; this is the carnal Christian. The road the spiritual grown up Christian must take requires what is required of all successful examples of a firm adulthood, namely hard work with a clear image as the goal. For the Christian man or women this comes first by the quality of the image of our faith clearly defined in God word. I learned the Holy Spirit does not implement the change required, He simply emphasizes the change that has already taken place, in our image and object Jesus Christ and therefore us. This emphasis will be encouraged by our desire for it, and this will bring a more mature faith by His power to our understanding. A illustration I read in the Normal Christian Life puts it like this " Faith Fact and Experience are walking along the top of a wall. Fact walked steadily on turning neither to the right or left and never looking behind. Faith followed, and all went well so long as he kept his eyes on Fact; but as soon as he became concerned about Experience and turned to see how he was getting on, he lost his balance and tumbled off the wall, and poor old Experience fell down after him". My friends you will avoid this fate by reading the Bible for all its worth as it surely teaches, all who would care to lean, that we are entirely new creatures able to fully live our earthly lives in the confident identification of the revelation to us of the living God, Jesus Christ from fact to faith never changing.
The simple truth is for many years I did not know there was even another life for the Christian to live. The Holy spirit had nor revealed it to me. I was so very grateful for my salvation, but nerve went beyond the place of my justification [born again experience], which still left me in my old nature, which I did not know was dead. It was always, Jesus died for you, not you died in /with Him, a great difference there, one I have discussed at some length in past blogs. The problem with discussion, and even when we see this truth in black and white, directly in God's Word, is how in the world do we experience it. This my friends you might be relieved to know has been a vexing difficulty for many, including men and women whom we now think of as very godly and look up to. And the sad truth , I believe, is many more simply do their duty, moral men and women filling the pews, taking in a hour or too of another man's thoughts about their Christianity. Its onward Christian solider going off to war. My friends, dead men have no need to go to war, for them the battle is over, and in our case won by Jesus Christ. I found in my positional studies this can be realized and lived. How? By the revelation of the living God, available to all, received by few.
When I first discovered that there was a different life I could live than the one I had grown accustomed to in my inherited Christian traditions, I became very concerned, because I had become use to living out my Christian experience in the old Adam, a carnal Christian, satisfied with lack of fulfillment and accepting the limitations my flesh told me was the ordinary Christian experience. You could say, the old life was comfortable because of ignorance and the new life I now glimpsed, became fearful to enter in because of knowledge. But I trudged forward encouraged by what I was being taught by the Holy Spirit, from the very words I had read a thousand times, but had struggled to find meaning in. Something new happened a gift was given born from need. A gift from the same almighty power that formed the cosmos and gave life to my spirit. That most glorious incite was a direct revelation from God Himself. Sounds fantastic I know, maybe I should buy a tent and go on the road. No I shouldn't get carried away. I learned this revelation I received was available all along not only to me but to everyone. There it was right in front of me Gods Words in black and white, The Bible. Which we as Christians believe to be His inspired word, and it contained a new revelation for me.
The Bible teaches us there are three types of men; the natural man unable to receive the things of God, the carnal man, one who has received the word believed but remains a baby or milk feed Christian, and the spiritual man, one who has received the word and accepted that his total value before God is only found in the object of Christ, as his identity. This reveled revelation truth from God leaves us in a precarious position as Christians. It seem we have a choice, even a responsibility. Perhaps a metaphor my be of help here; we as Americans were give a opportunity by the declaration of independence, namely the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Our founding fathers provided, in their wisdom, the chance for each man to employ enlightened self interest, to acquire the gifts available under a individual freedom form of government. It was our responsibility to avail ourselves, and it made this country great, beyond any ones expectations. We now as Christians have that same sort of individual responsibility to seek the Holy Spirits revelation as to who and what we might become. How might this be done?
The answer is in believing the direct revelation of God, that belief acted upon is called faith, not in a hope only, but in the reality of a new creation, which the Bible declares we are, in its revelation to us when we first believed, and then emphasized by Paul's words, written directly from the Fathers Revelation, which encourages us to grow into the image of his Son by becoming spiritual men just like His Son. We find this faith by a free gift, but we build the spiritual man by reckoning. " Likewise, reckon yourselves also to be dead to sin," here referring to Christ death on the cross to be ours also. The word reckon means count as true, but the root of the Greek is a accounting term, as in a column of figures when added together equals a number always the same regardless how one arranges the numbers in the column. In other words the math can't lie, it is always accurate and true! That my friends is how we are to read the Bibles description of us, and by that understanding see our position and identification growing into mature spiritual men and women. The Bible tells us we are to occupy and realize that new nature; just as the natural man and the carnal immature Christian still relies upon the defining personality of Adam the first, as we grow up to be a spiritual man or women in Christ, we see and define our nature in the Second Adam and therefore become new creatures in our conscious thought process and personality.
The great temptation is to look within, acquiring a certain appearance; this is the carnal Christian. The road the spiritual grown up Christian must take requires what is required of all successful examples of a firm adulthood, namely hard work with a clear image as the goal. For the Christian man or women this comes first by the quality of the image of our faith clearly defined in God word. I learned the Holy Spirit does not implement the change required, He simply emphasizes the change that has already taken place, in our image and object Jesus Christ and therefore us. This emphasis will be encouraged by our desire for it, and this will bring a more mature faith by His power to our understanding. A illustration I read in the Normal Christian Life puts it like this " Faith Fact and Experience are walking along the top of a wall. Fact walked steadily on turning neither to the right or left and never looking behind. Faith followed, and all went well so long as he kept his eyes on Fact; but as soon as he became concerned about Experience and turned to see how he was getting on, he lost his balance and tumbled off the wall, and poor old Experience fell down after him". My friends you will avoid this fate by reading the Bible for all its worth as it surely teaches, all who would care to lean, that we are entirely new creatures able to fully live our earthly lives in the confident identification of the revelation to us of the living God, Jesus Christ from fact to faith never changing.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
REDEMPTION'S RECOVERY
A friend of mine who has a way with words, after reading my last blog said, "redemption equals restoration, clarification and intensification of one's self". When I completed, what was for me, a life changing writing, using personality as a platform to view what is really our redemption, I wrote the following; "I Michael, in Christ am found Identified by the Father as myself, the same me as always, except now the Father sees that redeemed person me, accepted by the judicial price paid in the death of His Son to sin, and that now my sin nature has therefore, been judged, and is no longer alive, so death has no power over me, it is dead. I am redeemed. I am free to be myself, the same Michael who God loves, but now by faith the life I live, is the life the Father has given me as a new man, with a new nature. The very nature of His Son who represents me before the Father as me, and is me by the occupying power of the Holy Spirit in me, The Mind of Christ".
This new life that now occupies me is Christs life, not the old Adamic life. My new nature is not in any way allied with our meant by God to make the old better. The intent of God is to completely do away with the old man Adam, not to help him. There is not a bit of the old sin nature found in the new born again creation, but I am still there, the essential me, but now in union with the living God, Jesus Christ. I am as He was, with Him in me on this earth now. Jesus did not come to affiliate Himself with fallen man on the earth, but to separate us, to due away with us as a fallen race, and impart a new identity, realized in our own conscious self awareness of these identity truths.
My great fear and unfortunate observation, is that many Christians I speak with, and once I also, do not understand this identification truth. They as I once did, live to serve and certainly have faith to believe in the Son of God and even His redeeming example on the Cross, therefore justified, a truly wonderful thing. But because they have not understood that by faith, and by having their minds enlightened by the Word of God, they find themselves living with a mindset of a mutual objective in their first man's personality, with Jesus in making the old Adam have a common end with the wishes and example of Christ, a well meaning performance of what they think is right, or what the institutional church has taught them is the fulfillment of their Christian duty and spirituality. Therefore, at least as to the freedom to be found in the new nature, are caught in the place of the old dead personality, the flesh. Something Paul teaches over and over is not to be the fate of the believer. Why is that so?
As I'm sure we all know, when Christ died on the cross, He died in the view of God, representing all of humanity, and all that a Holy God could not receive [sin in the flesh] was put to death on behalf of us, all in His Son's sacrifice. But somehow this was not taken to mean, in the mind of my belief, for many years to be a open door to a very radical concept; I, if represented by Jesus, in the death of my old man am done away with, and may now live in a eternal state having access to God, then am I not also represented by this same Jesus in Resurrection to a new life, uncluttered as to realization of it, clearly seeing by faith in the Biblical truth that I am walking this earth as a new creature in Christ. We my friends are offered that. It is our responsibility to seek it out. Oh it is a completed fact in that Jesus Christ was Sanctified to that truth by His father and by that us too. But in order for us to live in the active realization of our being sanctified we must choose the radical path. Death to the old nature and find that by, study, contemplation and prayer the faith to live under the heritage of what the Bible declares; we are now found in Jesus the Second Man The Last Adam, no longer needing to succumb to what we were in the First.
Perhaps it would help to understand our spiritual reality in Christ, as that of being found in another. How does that work? It was a great help to me when I saw how the Biblical concept of heritage works. The ancients thought of themselves as corporate beings, a part of something larger than themselves not individualistic in their contemplative self assessment. The Jews considered that their very nature [value of being] was present in Abraham long before they were born. Genealogy was a concept that established legitimacy. Note the great effort the writers of the Gospels took to record the lineage of Jesus, in both Joseph's and Mary's family histories. We could also simply think of ourselves as being present in the lives of our forefathers in that if not for them ,we would not exist. We in that way, by association, were effected by the nature of another, identified if you will, in them.
In order to establish our new creation, human/spiritual identity, we must look under this concept to another. That first other for us, in the big picture is the first Adam, so we were seen as a human personality by God, being identified in the sinful nature that Adam entered into in the fall. You could say we inherited Adams propensity to sin [which was a potential in him from the very beginning] in our humanness, identified in another. For the Christian, thank God, the story does not end there. Jesus Christ is also know as the Second Man, The last Adam, we are said to have a new nature [identity] which is established in us when we are born again, sealed in us by the Holy Spirit. What is it that is sealed ? Its our new nature, our new identity, which in the eyes of the Father[the only eyes that count] makes us inheritors of a new spiritual personality[nature] which we received by our born again association by faith with the Second Man, The Last Adam. So that makes us seen, and legitimizes us in Gods economy, the same as His Son, Jesus Christ. We by this understanding are positioned in Christ Just like we are positioned in the first Adam. The all important difference being, in the first we were born of water, as all human babies, inheriting our standing before God by the physical natural means, baby first Adams. Whereas in the second birth we receive and are sanctified [separated] to the heritage, standing, living source of us, by faith in the reality of our presence in Christ The Second Adam. And all of that was made available to us by His life in human form lived in perfect obedience to faith in His Fathers care as a human personality [empowered by His awareness of His heritage and personal identity in the Father] and that was what qualified Him to be the sacrifice which did away with the first mans heritage, a sin nature and therefore ours also by association as He represented us as a human man. And upon His Resurrection He was shown to be The New Adam we could find our life in by faith. POSITIONAL/IDENTIFICATION in the Second Man, Jesus Christ. We are now as He was, a child of God on this earth and for all practical purpose in the economy of God are living in Jesus who is in heaven, our Adam in whom our being is represented before God
Well my friends you may be wondering why this guy keeps going on and on about the positional truth doctrine ? Its because I came to realize that its the only one that counts! While there is much to learn about Gods gift of Christianity from the Bible, not knowing who you are in Christ will only make it wood hay and stubble, a mere intellectual pursuit. Why bother with this Christian life if we do not live it as God, in His unfailing love would wish for His children too. His word is clear I just wasn't listing for 35 years. So dear readers you can count on this blog continuing in a positional /identification theme, or until Christ is my life. I will leave you with a quote from C. H. Mackintosh.
" The more clearly we enter in by faith, into objective truth, or what is true of us in the Lord Jesus, the deeper more experiential and practical will be the Spirit's subjective work in us, and the more complete will be the manifestation of the moral effect in our life and character."
This new life that now occupies me is Christs life, not the old Adamic life. My new nature is not in any way allied with our meant by God to make the old better. The intent of God is to completely do away with the old man Adam, not to help him. There is not a bit of the old sin nature found in the new born again creation, but I am still there, the essential me, but now in union with the living God, Jesus Christ. I am as He was, with Him in me on this earth now. Jesus did not come to affiliate Himself with fallen man on the earth, but to separate us, to due away with us as a fallen race, and impart a new identity, realized in our own conscious self awareness of these identity truths.
My great fear and unfortunate observation, is that many Christians I speak with, and once I also, do not understand this identification truth. They as I once did, live to serve and certainly have faith to believe in the Son of God and even His redeeming example on the Cross, therefore justified, a truly wonderful thing. But because they have not understood that by faith, and by having their minds enlightened by the Word of God, they find themselves living with a mindset of a mutual objective in their first man's personality, with Jesus in making the old Adam have a common end with the wishes and example of Christ, a well meaning performance of what they think is right, or what the institutional church has taught them is the fulfillment of their Christian duty and spirituality. Therefore, at least as to the freedom to be found in the new nature, are caught in the place of the old dead personality, the flesh. Something Paul teaches over and over is not to be the fate of the believer. Why is that so?
As I'm sure we all know, when Christ died on the cross, He died in the view of God, representing all of humanity, and all that a Holy God could not receive [sin in the flesh] was put to death on behalf of us, all in His Son's sacrifice. But somehow this was not taken to mean, in the mind of my belief, for many years to be a open door to a very radical concept; I, if represented by Jesus, in the death of my old man am done away with, and may now live in a eternal state having access to God, then am I not also represented by this same Jesus in Resurrection to a new life, uncluttered as to realization of it, clearly seeing by faith in the Biblical truth that I am walking this earth as a new creature in Christ. We my friends are offered that. It is our responsibility to seek it out. Oh it is a completed fact in that Jesus Christ was Sanctified to that truth by His father and by that us too. But in order for us to live in the active realization of our being sanctified we must choose the radical path. Death to the old nature and find that by, study, contemplation and prayer the faith to live under the heritage of what the Bible declares; we are now found in Jesus the Second Man The Last Adam, no longer needing to succumb to what we were in the First.
Perhaps it would help to understand our spiritual reality in Christ, as that of being found in another. How does that work? It was a great help to me when I saw how the Biblical concept of heritage works. The ancients thought of themselves as corporate beings, a part of something larger than themselves not individualistic in their contemplative self assessment. The Jews considered that their very nature [value of being] was present in Abraham long before they were born. Genealogy was a concept that established legitimacy. Note the great effort the writers of the Gospels took to record the lineage of Jesus, in both Joseph's and Mary's family histories. We could also simply think of ourselves as being present in the lives of our forefathers in that if not for them ,we would not exist. We in that way, by association, were effected by the nature of another, identified if you will, in them.
In order to establish our new creation, human/spiritual identity, we must look under this concept to another. That first other for us, in the big picture is the first Adam, so we were seen as a human personality by God, being identified in the sinful nature that Adam entered into in the fall. You could say we inherited Adams propensity to sin [which was a potential in him from the very beginning] in our humanness, identified in another. For the Christian, thank God, the story does not end there. Jesus Christ is also know as the Second Man, The last Adam, we are said to have a new nature [identity] which is established in us when we are born again, sealed in us by the Holy Spirit. What is it that is sealed ? Its our new nature, our new identity, which in the eyes of the Father[the only eyes that count] makes us inheritors of a new spiritual personality[nature] which we received by our born again association by faith with the Second Man, The Last Adam. So that makes us seen, and legitimizes us in Gods economy, the same as His Son, Jesus Christ. We by this understanding are positioned in Christ Just like we are positioned in the first Adam. The all important difference being, in the first we were born of water, as all human babies, inheriting our standing before God by the physical natural means, baby first Adams. Whereas in the second birth we receive and are sanctified [separated] to the heritage, standing, living source of us, by faith in the reality of our presence in Christ The Second Adam. And all of that was made available to us by His life in human form lived in perfect obedience to faith in His Fathers care as a human personality [empowered by His awareness of His heritage and personal identity in the Father] and that was what qualified Him to be the sacrifice which did away with the first mans heritage, a sin nature and therefore ours also by association as He represented us as a human man. And upon His Resurrection He was shown to be The New Adam we could find our life in by faith. POSITIONAL/IDENTIFICATION in the Second Man, Jesus Christ. We are now as He was, a child of God on this earth and for all practical purpose in the economy of God are living in Jesus who is in heaven, our Adam in whom our being is represented before God
Well my friends you may be wondering why this guy keeps going on and on about the positional truth doctrine ? Its because I came to realize that its the only one that counts! While there is much to learn about Gods gift of Christianity from the Bible, not knowing who you are in Christ will only make it wood hay and stubble, a mere intellectual pursuit. Why bother with this Christian life if we do not live it as God, in His unfailing love would wish for His children too. His word is clear I just wasn't listing for 35 years. So dear readers you can count on this blog continuing in a positional /identification theme, or until Christ is my life. I will leave you with a quote from C. H. Mackintosh.
" The more clearly we enter in by faith, into objective truth, or what is true of us in the Lord Jesus, the deeper more experiential and practical will be the Spirit's subjective work in us, and the more complete will be the manifestation of the moral effect in our life and character."
Saturday, July 6, 2013
THE EMANCIPATION OF PERSONALITY
Something very powerful happened along the way, in writing my last few blogs. As Ive said before this blog is not really written for the readers. It written for me, to grow and be filled with the Holy spirit , as I travel along the same road we are all upon, the Christian highway. But my friends I am grateful for any passengers God provides to keep me company while I trudge along. This journey of late has caused me to reflect more closely on my condition, in Adam, and I'm finding myself grateful for the company of my sin nature, of all things. The enemy of that "good Christian life" it turns out is much needed.
I now can see my flesh as a necessary partner in faith. A reminder of my need to live by faith. Now thank God, a better defined faith, in identification with Christ in Glory where He dwells, and I also, by association with Him, in His Death, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension. A spiritual place, only known by faith, which has been made more real to me by my flesh's personality and its ever present companionship. You see my friends I once simply lived out my Christian experience in the old mans place, as a Adam, not with any conscious understanding of my position granted me by the King, in His Death to that very man. I see now, like an image in a mirror, my life changing in the spirit of my defined faith, that the reality of my life's existence is actively made eternal here and now, and that by Gods use of the flesh personality and influenced by the Holy spirit, in my salvation and justification, given by His Grace, I now may choose heaven as my spiritual condition in this place now. I am so thankful that the parallel personalty of the old man, by its contrast of a sin nature has opened my eyes to see my presence in Christ and the death of my old nature present in Him, representing me before the Father, and I now am beginning to understand what Paul meant when he said " no more consciousness of sin". That my friends is true freedom!
I have recently been in a study of Galatians 2:20 " I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by, the faith which is in the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me". I have been reflecting on these words and this study for over a week now and have come to the personal conclusion that this verse might just be the most important statement in the entire Bible as to our positional standing before God, and that by delving into its meaning we will step into the truth of identification with and in Christ; a understanding of which, all Christians should, in their conscious mind be confirmed and convicted of, and live by, also simply known in Biblical terminology as abiding in Christ.
" As you have, therefore, received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him" Col. 2:7. It was one thing for me to have an appreciation of what Christ had done in saving me, but quite another to gain a inner life and communion with Him as a personality. We are clearly told we are to be like Jesus, even that we are now, as He was on this earth. That we are a new creation and our home is heavenly, we are not dwellers of the earth, we are strangers here. The struggle for me was always being able to realize what my faith told me was true in these statements and the seemingly counter actions of my human personality I contended with daily, and it became necessary to make peace with the man that I was.
Personality is the visible aspect of ones character, a persons as an embodiment of a collection of qualities, the quality of being a person, existence as a self conscious human being , personal identity, the essential character of a person. The emphasis on the word personality as a spiritual condition, I believe will shed light on the active presence of our duel nature, Adamic/ Christ, and give a platform for understanding just how it works in the real life we deal with in our Christian understanding of Biblical truth. These defining thoughts have been inspired by a reading I have been enjoying for some days now by Norman Douty. I will warn you now my friends , put your thinking cap on. This blog might be a littler longer than most I write, but if my joy and growth, found in encountering this subject might be used as a measure, I hope, well worth your time.
When we were born again a new life or if you will, personality entered in; The God-man Jesus Christ via the Holy Spirit. He did not come in to you to supplement your old Adamic personality and nature, He came to supplant it, a new nature. But that act did not displace our normal every day personality; I guess you could say the collection of qualities that make up our being. He came in to displace the fallen aspect of our person hood, the sin nature. Which he accomplished on the cross in substitution for us, to fulfill before the Father, the judicial demand of a perfect God, resulting in death, in the Fathers view, to the sin which permeates us and the whole world.
This new life has come in to take the place of the sinful life, which is present in our normal personality and will use sin to its own end. But now by His act we have available to us by faith, the very human-divine life of the Lord Jesus. His mind [The Holy Spirit] now may occupy our new nature and impact our now existing new personality for His Glory. He has changed us! I say this so that we might realize it is not in the actions of our old nature, that we develop the faith of our new creation personality, are is it in how we go about doing good [works] that defines our Christian identify. But its in Faith's understanding and the hard work of seeing ourselves in the New Mans personality, identified with Him in heaven, positional truth.
When Adam was in the garden he was created with a personality and it was that same personality which God loved. God did not love him for his shape and form as a human specimen, but for who he was as a personality. Gods love for mankind has never changed since that time, even though Adam turned away and became a self centered man, thereby sin entering in, and that sin did stain Adams personality and hence all of mankind and the whole world. By understanding that God sees and loves me for my individual personality, I can know Gods love for me just as I am, not ashamed of my association by being made in Adams likeness as to sin, or hate myself because I sin. While it can never be an excuse for my sin, to see myself this way it is never the less freedom to know of Gods love for me even though my personality has been impacted by Adams disobedience. Of course we know Gods remedy for mans dilemma was to do away with the stain,[by the Cross] of the sin personality, not mans individual personal nature which He loved, his essential being.
As Mr Douty explains; "Paul refers to himself seven times, and he does not always mean the same thing. Sometimes he is speaking of himself considered as a created personality, as Adam was in the Garden and in effect we all are, and sometimes as a sinful personality, as Adam became and effectually all of us. Therefore he can say, " I have been crucified together with Christ". Just what does Paul mean by that? Does he mean to say that he, considered as a mere personality, has been crucified with Christ, he himself his essential being. No Christ died for us considered as sinful personalities. Paul and all believers were crucified together with Christ in the capacity of a sinful being. That is what Paul means and which also applies to us. " I" considered as a sinful being, have been crucified, and it is no longer" I" considered as a sinful being that lives". If it is no longer Paul and by the effect of the cross us, that lives then who does?
Before I make my final argument, perhaps it will help to look at our Christian life applying and understanding the term flesh: while it can mean our collected being in one respect, the new testament uses it to signify the sin personality that Christ died unto. Israel was separated by God, by the symbolic act of circumcision according to the Bible, Josh.5:9 This was done to display the cutting off of the flesh as a act which took away the reproach of Egypt[where they formerly dwelt] a symbol of the world and sin. A shadow of what was to come in our separation, by Christs death to the flesh. Colossians teaches us circumcision is a type of " putting off the body of Flesh". Flesh being our sin personality here, but not our body, our essential being our qualities as a person, now newly instilled by the personality of our new man, with the arrival of the Holy Spirit for all those who believe. It must be understood that sin in the flesh personality is not a member of the body, the sinful flesh personality, in Gods view died at Calvary on the cross. Therefore we are to put off that flesh personality and but on the new mans personality, the body of Christ. I believe for me in seeing my life with this concept of my Christian nature being defined I may measure this Biblical truth in my own life. Thereby I can make a intelligent choice, live influenced in the body by the sin nature, or be free, not that we will not sin, but that now by our knowledge of the indwelling new mans personality we my choose not to.
Again Mr Douty summed it up like this. " When Jesus Christ went down onto the grave, He went down as though He were us considered as a sinful personality[the flesh]. Hence we in the divine mind, went down into the grave with Him; I therefore having been crucified have been brought to an end in my flesh's sinful personality. And it is no longer we that live, but Christ. Where does He live? In us!" Paul's writing in Gal.2:20 could be finalized in our understanding like this. " I[considered as a sinful personality] have been crucified together with Christ;and it is no longer I [viewed by God as a sinful personality] that live, but Christ lives in me [ as the personality of the new man] and the life I now live which I [as a continuing new personality] live in the flesh[ seen here as our total being] I[ as the new mans personality] live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, Who loved me [ being what I was in my sinful flesh personality] and gave Himself for me".
I will end this blog with this final statement also taken from Douty. "We must distinguish when scripture speaks of the sinful personality and when it speaks of the personality as such [ mans essential being and qualities] It is the personality, it is the man with all his faculties, created of God which is now redeemed by the Blood of Christ. God is not seeking to abolish us as human beings[ with all our weakness] and have Christ 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 [ the duty bound, works, formal Christian], He makes his [mans] personality what He intended him to be. Redemption is the recovery of the man not the destruction of the man."
I now can see my flesh as a necessary partner in faith. A reminder of my need to live by faith. Now thank God, a better defined faith, in identification with Christ in Glory where He dwells, and I also, by association with Him, in His Death, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension. A spiritual place, only known by faith, which has been made more real to me by my flesh's personality and its ever present companionship. You see my friends I once simply lived out my Christian experience in the old mans place, as a Adam, not with any conscious understanding of my position granted me by the King, in His Death to that very man. I see now, like an image in a mirror, my life changing in the spirit of my defined faith, that the reality of my life's existence is actively made eternal here and now, and that by Gods use of the flesh personality and influenced by the Holy spirit, in my salvation and justification, given by His Grace, I now may choose heaven as my spiritual condition in this place now. I am so thankful that the parallel personalty of the old man, by its contrast of a sin nature has opened my eyes to see my presence in Christ and the death of my old nature present in Him, representing me before the Father, and I now am beginning to understand what Paul meant when he said " no more consciousness of sin". That my friends is true freedom!
I have recently been in a study of Galatians 2:20 " I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by, the faith which is in the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me". I have been reflecting on these words and this study for over a week now and have come to the personal conclusion that this verse might just be the most important statement in the entire Bible as to our positional standing before God, and that by delving into its meaning we will step into the truth of identification with and in Christ; a understanding of which, all Christians should, in their conscious mind be confirmed and convicted of, and live by, also simply known in Biblical terminology as abiding in Christ.
" As you have, therefore, received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him" Col. 2:7. It was one thing for me to have an appreciation of what Christ had done in saving me, but quite another to gain a inner life and communion with Him as a personality. We are clearly told we are to be like Jesus, even that we are now, as He was on this earth. That we are a new creation and our home is heavenly, we are not dwellers of the earth, we are strangers here. The struggle for me was always being able to realize what my faith told me was true in these statements and the seemingly counter actions of my human personality I contended with daily, and it became necessary to make peace with the man that I was.
Personality is the visible aspect of ones character, a persons as an embodiment of a collection of qualities, the quality of being a person, existence as a self conscious human being , personal identity, the essential character of a person. The emphasis on the word personality as a spiritual condition, I believe will shed light on the active presence of our duel nature, Adamic/ Christ, and give a platform for understanding just how it works in the real life we deal with in our Christian understanding of Biblical truth. These defining thoughts have been inspired by a reading I have been enjoying for some days now by Norman Douty. I will warn you now my friends , put your thinking cap on. This blog might be a littler longer than most I write, but if my joy and growth, found in encountering this subject might be used as a measure, I hope, well worth your time.
When we were born again a new life or if you will, personality entered in; The God-man Jesus Christ via the Holy Spirit. He did not come in to you to supplement your old Adamic personality and nature, He came to supplant it, a new nature. But that act did not displace our normal every day personality; I guess you could say the collection of qualities that make up our being. He came in to displace the fallen aspect of our person hood, the sin nature. Which he accomplished on the cross in substitution for us, to fulfill before the Father, the judicial demand of a perfect God, resulting in death, in the Fathers view, to the sin which permeates us and the whole world.
This new life has come in to take the place of the sinful life, which is present in our normal personality and will use sin to its own end. But now by His act we have available to us by faith, the very human-divine life of the Lord Jesus. His mind [The Holy Spirit] now may occupy our new nature and impact our now existing new personality for His Glory. He has changed us! I say this so that we might realize it is not in the actions of our old nature, that we develop the faith of our new creation personality, are is it in how we go about doing good [works] that defines our Christian identify. But its in Faith's understanding and the hard work of seeing ourselves in the New Mans personality, identified with Him in heaven, positional truth.
When Adam was in the garden he was created with a personality and it was that same personality which God loved. God did not love him for his shape and form as a human specimen, but for who he was as a personality. Gods love for mankind has never changed since that time, even though Adam turned away and became a self centered man, thereby sin entering in, and that sin did stain Adams personality and hence all of mankind and the whole world. By understanding that God sees and loves me for my individual personality, I can know Gods love for me just as I am, not ashamed of my association by being made in Adams likeness as to sin, or hate myself because I sin. While it can never be an excuse for my sin, to see myself this way it is never the less freedom to know of Gods love for me even though my personality has been impacted by Adams disobedience. Of course we know Gods remedy for mans dilemma was to do away with the stain,[by the Cross] of the sin personality, not mans individual personal nature which He loved, his essential being.
As Mr Douty explains; "Paul refers to himself seven times, and he does not always mean the same thing. Sometimes he is speaking of himself considered as a created personality, as Adam was in the Garden and in effect we all are, and sometimes as a sinful personality, as Adam became and effectually all of us. Therefore he can say, " I have been crucified together with Christ". Just what does Paul mean by that? Does he mean to say that he, considered as a mere personality, has been crucified with Christ, he himself his essential being. No Christ died for us considered as sinful personalities. Paul and all believers were crucified together with Christ in the capacity of a sinful being. That is what Paul means and which also applies to us. " I" considered as a sinful being, have been crucified, and it is no longer" I" considered as a sinful being that lives". If it is no longer Paul and by the effect of the cross us, that lives then who does?
Before I make my final argument, perhaps it will help to look at our Christian life applying and understanding the term flesh: while it can mean our collected being in one respect, the new testament uses it to signify the sin personality that Christ died unto. Israel was separated by God, by the symbolic act of circumcision according to the Bible, Josh.5:9 This was done to display the cutting off of the flesh as a act which took away the reproach of Egypt[where they formerly dwelt] a symbol of the world and sin. A shadow of what was to come in our separation, by Christs death to the flesh. Colossians teaches us circumcision is a type of " putting off the body of Flesh". Flesh being our sin personality here, but not our body, our essential being our qualities as a person, now newly instilled by the personality of our new man, with the arrival of the Holy Spirit for all those who believe. It must be understood that sin in the flesh personality is not a member of the body, the sinful flesh personality, in Gods view died at Calvary on the cross. Therefore we are to put off that flesh personality and but on the new mans personality, the body of Christ. I believe for me in seeing my life with this concept of my Christian nature being defined I may measure this Biblical truth in my own life. Thereby I can make a intelligent choice, live influenced in the body by the sin nature, or be free, not that we will not sin, but that now by our knowledge of the indwelling new mans personality we my choose not to.
Again Mr Douty summed it up like this. " When Jesus Christ went down onto the grave, He went down as though He were us considered as a sinful personality[the flesh]. Hence we in the divine mind, went down into the grave with Him; I therefore having been crucified have been brought to an end in my flesh's sinful personality. And it is no longer we that live, but Christ. Where does He live? In us!" Paul's writing in Gal.2:20 could be finalized in our understanding like this. " I[considered as a sinful personality] have been crucified together with Christ;and it is no longer I [viewed by God as a sinful personality] that live, but Christ lives in me [ as the personality of the new man] and the life I now live which I [as a continuing new personality] live in the flesh[ seen here as our total being] I[ as the new mans personality] live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, Who loved me [ being what I was in my sinful flesh personality] and gave Himself for me".
I will end this blog with this final statement also taken from Douty. "We must distinguish when scripture speaks of the sinful personality and when it speaks of the personality as such [ mans essential being and qualities] It is the personality, it is the man with all his faculties, created of God which is now redeemed by the Blood of Christ. God is not seeking to abolish us as human beings[ with all our weakness] and have Christ 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 [ the duty bound, works, formal Christian], He makes his [mans] personality what He intended him to be. Redemption is the recovery of the man not the destruction of the man."
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