Part 14 of 14

The Essential Spirit – and God’s New Creation

As we have seen, we had been the workmanship of the Devil. We were lost, without God and having no hope, destined for perishing. But now, having received the resurrected “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” we are in Christ and Christ is in us with His eternal life.

We now have become Christ’s workmanship – we are the ones in whom He now works by His life within our being as our new essential spirit-self. Ephes. 2:10 For we are his (Christ’s) workmanship…

Now we may appropriate the victory of Christ over the Sin nature that is resident in our body of flesh.

We do this by identifying with Christ’s death and resurrection life as being our own death and resurrection life… by simply looking away to Him lifted up on the cross as our as our source.

Many Protestants are offended by the sight of the Roman Catholic Crucifix, seeing Christ still on the cross – they say “But He has risen,” and so He has. But now, I’ve come to see Christ on the cross as me, Art Licursi, as to my Old Sin-poisoned Man, who is the one still left on the cross – where I stay as I identify with His death as mine. Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ… This is my Old Man’s continuing status in Christ – I am crucified with Christ!

I am told that Saint Augustine relates a story of his experience that reveals the truth of his realization and belief in his death with Christ. Augustine apparently had a wild life before his conversion. After some years, one day he walked down a street sidewalk and across the street was a former prostitute that he had frequented in years past. She saw him and called, “Is that you Augustine?” His rely was “it is no longer I” - as taken from Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I…”

Where is Christ now; where is His cross? He and His cross are in our spirits. So, we look to identify with the crucified Christ who now indwells our spirits as our new life. Our Old Man’s death is only made effectual in our union with this very Christ who is now in us. He bears to us the outworking of our Old Man’s death as part and parcel of our new man’s life that we have by His resurrected indwelling life. Our looking away to “Him lifted up” is to look to Him within. We may simply turn our heart from fighting the temptations of the indwelling Sin of our flesh unto Him, to abide in union with Him who is our life in our supernatural spirit-life. This is an aspect of our abiding union with the Christ-Spirit in us; we are in union with His death as ours – therefore, victory over Sin comes from “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” who now is our indwelling life. It is in this way that we may put to death the deeds of the flesh that “doth so easily beset us” (Heb 12:1).

Romans 8:13 … if ye through the Spirit do mortify (put to death) the deeds of the body, ye shall live (zao, you shall have had the experience of Christ’s Spirit-life).

From Romans 8:13 above we see that we can mortify (kill) the deeds of our Sin indwelled flesh. Though Sin is not dead, we mortify those “deeds” that it would try to prompt in us. We do this by our moment by moment abiding in union with Christ in our spirit. As soon as we are tempted we should flee to Christ within our spirit. (Note that it is the deeds of the flesh that are to be mortified, not the flesh or even Sin itself.)

Thus, we who were originally of the race of Adam that fell due to a grasp for independence, now find our salvation from the temptations of indwelling Sin in our flesh through dependence upon Him who loves us and gave us victory over Sin through our union with His life now in us as the new us.

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