Part 9 of 14

The Essential Spirit - The Believer’s Dilemma

Since the time of Adam’s fall all men are born into this world with a presumed self-godhood in their mindset. That mindset is their false self, the result of their being “conceived in sin” according to the original lie. Adam and Eve believed the Serpent’s lies and ate of the forbidden “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” that they hoped would make them “wise” (Gen 3:6). This original lie of the possibility of self-godhood abides within the mindset of both the believer and non-believer alike. Both the Christian and non-Christianity possesses the Sin-spirit in their body “members” (Rom 7:5, 23), and they will so long as they live in bodies of flesh. That Sin spirit is the “spirit of error (delusion)” (1John 4:6).  At the very same time, the believer also possesses Christ’s “spirit of life” as the “spirit of truth” within his human spirit…therein is the Christian conflict and dilemma.

Every believer needs to know what and who his true essential self is. The believer’s true self is who he is by Christ righteous “Spirit of life” indwelling his spirit as his new real self. Paul says it clearly here in Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me…

Paul describes his realization of an apparent dual nature within him in Romans 7:15, 17 – “What I want to do I don’t, and what I don’t want to do I do.” Paul goes on describing his dilemma at the end in Romans 7:15-23, and then immediately to Romans 8. Contrary to the teaching of some, in Romans 8 we see that Paul must have been a believer at the time he was recounting his Romans 7 dilemma concerning Sin still resident within his body members. My proof is seen in Romans 8:2 where he speaks of something that he came to know through the trial of his dilemma. He realized by his abundant revelations that he received from the ascended Christ (2Cor 12:1, 7), that “the law (normal operation of) Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free” (Rom 8:2). It is by the spontaneous operation of the indwelling “spirit of life in Christ” that we have been and are made free from “the law (normal operation of) Sin and death.” Only believers possess the “spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” Thus, Paul must have been a believer with the indwelling “spirit of life in Christ” in his spirit at the same time he struggled with “the operation of sin and death.”

Paul says “Sin”, as a Nature, is “in the flesh” (Rom 8:3)… “in your mortal body” (Rom 6:12)

Romans 8:3 what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned (sentenced) sin in the flesh:

Romans 6:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey (as a soul) it in the lusts (desires) thereof (of the body).

By these Scriptures and more, we know that Satan’s Sin spirit and nature is located specifically in the flesh members of man’s body. We know the address of the Sin spirit. We also know that Sin is not destroyed; rather it is we, as to our “old man,” are the crucified ones; and thereby Sin does not reign over us any longer – we are dead to Sin. Romans 6:2 …How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? …

Let’s look at these verses closely from two versions of the Bible.

Romans 6:6-7 (KJV) Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed (of no effect), that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7For he that is dead is freed from sin.

Now note these same 2 verses in the Weymouth New Testament.

Romans 6:6-7 This we know—that our old self was nailed to the cross with Him, in order that our sinful nature might be deprived of its power, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin;

The “body of sin and its sin nature” is not “destroyed,” as written in the KJV, but rather “deprived of its power” because … we, as to “our old man,” are now d e a d. From the Weymouth above you can see that the body of Sin is not “destroyed.”  Rather, from the Greek word for destroyed is “kartargeo,” meaning “to be made of no effect.” Our death deprives Sin of having us as its subject, under its dominion. How? Because we were crucified in Christ, so His death is our old man’s death. Romans 6:3 … so many of us as were baptized (put) into Jesus Christ were baptized (put) into his death? Thus, “he that is dead is freed from sin.” (Romans 6:7).