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."
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