His
All-Sufficient and All-Inclusive Life
Romans
6:6-14, Strongs definition inserted in verse 6
6Knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of
sin might be destroyed … (Clarification:
“destroyed” in Greek is “katargeo”, Strong’s from Greek 2596 (kata)
and Greek 691 (argeo); to be (render) entirely idle, become (make) of
no (none, without) effect, made of none effect),
…
that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7For
he that is dead is freed from sin. 8Now
if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live
with him: 9Knowing
that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no
more dominion over him. 10For
in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth
unto God. 11Likewise
reckon (logizomai,
“count”)
ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but
alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 12Let
not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the
lusts thereof. 13Neither
yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but
yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead,
and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 14For
sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law,
but under grace.
We Are One With Him In His Death
& His Life
From
the above scripture we can see that Christ’s death is in fact our death
and Christ’s life is now our only life since we’ve died with Him and
alive in Him. It is we who died with Christ. Satan, sin, and the flesh are
not dead. In verse 8 the word “live” is the Greek word “suzao”,
meaning, “to live in common
with”. In Him, we share His literal life. From verse eleven we see
that we are now to count ourselves alive in Him, since we died in
Him.
Christ is Now The Spirit of Life In Us
The
God/man, Jesus of Nazareth, has changed form; He has become “the
life-giving Spirit” (2Cor. 3:17, 1Cor. 15:45) in order to make Himself
available to come into the human spirit of every person who will
receive Him (John 1:12). It logically requires Spirit to touch spirit
(Rom. 8:16), much the same as we each require a physical body to touch and
participate in the physical realm. God made man uniquely to have a human
spirit so a union of spirits may come to pass when that man receives the
Spirit of the resurrected Christ (Zechariah 12:1) into his human spirit.
Formerly God, who dwells in unapproachable light, could not be in man, and
Jesus of Nazareth, the god/man of 2,000 years ago, could not gain entry
and dwell in man. However, as the resurrected Spirit of Christ, He is now
able to enter (1John 4:13) and dwell in man’s human spirit as that
man’s life (1John 4:13,1Cor 6:17, Col 3:3, 1John 5:11-12).
The
life of Christ as His Spirit of Life is complete with all that He now is,
after His resurrection. The term “the spirit” even when not
capitalized in Paul’s writing most often is speaking of the “one
spirit” that is our human spirit in saturated union with His Spirit of
life (1Cor 6:17). Paul obviously knew that true worshippers only can
worship, walk with and serve in spirit and truth (John 4:23), in fact Paul
declared that he served God in his spirit (Romans 1:9), which had become
that “one spirit” by his regeneration that day on the road to
Damascus. It is our spirit that is swallowed up by Christ’s “Spirit of
life” (Rom. 8:2) at the moment of our rebirthing (John 3:6), which Paul
calls “regeneration” (Titus 3:5).
The Spirit of Christ is All-Inclusive
All
Jesus of Nazareth’s experiences, those of the man Jesus, were added to
the divine Godhead. These include all that He endured in the days He lived
in the body of His humiliation, … His incarnation, … human living,
…His suffering, … His death, … His resurrection, His… ascension,
and …His glorification. These are part and parcel of the now the Spirit
of Christ that is now available as “Spirit of Christ” (Romans 8:2) to
makes us complete persons (Col. 2:10) in Him. It is by such human
experiences as Jesus of Nazareth endured, that Christ can now be “touched
with the feeling of our infirmities”. He was endured and overcame
temptation, “tempted in all ways like as we are, yet without sin”.
The divine Godhead has forever been altered to include the uplifted
humanity of Jesus. Not this remarkable scripture that declares such a
change in the Godhead “made according to the seed of David according
to the flesh, who is declared to be the Son of God” (Rom 1:3-4).
Truly, there is now a God/man in the heavens and He is in us at the same
time as our life. Thus we have resident within us the overcoming life of
Christ who is the completed human in us that we were meant to be. The Son
of God became the Son of man who has, who by enduring His human
experience, and resurrection, as the federal head of His body, … has
borne recipient mankind to be forever in God (Col. 3:3-4a).
Our Co-Death is Found Effectual … In His Life
Paradoxically,
I therefore believe that the effectual benefit of Christ’s death is
found and experienced in the outcome of His experience- His resurrection
life that is in us as our new life. Our new life is to be lived out by
abiding in our union with His life, which is His “Spirit of life” (Rom
8:2a). His life contains His life and His and our death. We abide in that
co-death simultaneously as we simply abiding in the spirit of life. This
is the basis of our experiencing liberation from the tyranny of the body
of sin also (Rom 8:2b), called this body of death (Romans 6:6, 7:24).
Though the body of sin itself is not yet dead until we pass from this
earth, the believer, by “the Spirit” may mortify the deeds of the body
of sin, because the believer is dead to the once tyrannical rule of this
body of sin in which we live daily on this earth. As we abide (stay) in
union the Spirit of life we are alive and delivered from the death life
that is latent within these bodies of death.
Our Relationship To The Body of Sin & The
Spirit of Life
We
are able to make the body of sin of none effect by the spirit (Rom 8:13).
In Romans 8:6 we learn that we can set our soul’s mind in only one
place at a time. It may either be set upon in agreement with the
prompting of the flesh (body of sin), resulting in death; or upon or in
accord with the spirit of life, resulting in life’s greatest
manifestation on this earth – rest and peace. The killing element of His
cross is found in His Life. Simply put, the Spirit
of life within our spirit has made us free from sin
and death in our flesh (Rom. 8:2).
One Turn Toward Him
Picture
this. A single turn of your body 180° away from one object toward another
is simultaneously a turning away from that other object that was
originally opposite you. In this we can see that our “reckoning
ourselves alive by Christ’s life in us” may be appropriated by an
inward turn to Him in our spirit. This one turn is simultaneously a
turning away from our outer “flesh” man; this is a reckoning of our
old self to be dead. For years many Christians have looked outward, AWAY
from Christ in their spirit as life, toward the “flesh of sin”, in an
effort to fight it, to mortify it, and reckon it dead. The proper
direction is to look from self-effort to look inward to Christ dwelling
within us - in our spirit as our overcoming life. This one turn will
simultaneously negate, mortify, or make of none affect, the deeds of the
flesh. It is said that what you look to or take hold of … will take hold
of you. We look to Christ within, not only as the author, but also the
finisher of our faith. By the simple act of inward turning we confess that
in Him “it is finished”.
Which Law Do We Live By?
“For
the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from
the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:2
“…
for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Rom
6:14b
“And
if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no
more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace:
otherwise work is no more work.” Romans 11:6
In Him we live by the moving
of “the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus” that
“has made us free from the operation of the law of sin and death”.
We in this dispensation of the grace of God may forget God’s law of
outer commandments and the 613 Mosaic laws. Christ has been
“dispensed” into us as our inward law of life. He is the
righteous one in us who desires to live righteously through us. Hopefully
by now the outer law has served its purpose, which was to
stir up sin (Romans 5:20) in order to convince us of our utter
helplessness and hopelessness to live the God-life by our self-effort’s
willpower. The law was only intended to thereby drive you to the “Christ
in us as our hope of glory” (Col 1:26-27). The issue for us is to
abide in union with His life within us, our learning to trust, and live,
by that life alone. We must come to know that we are freed from the demand
outer law by our co-death with and in Christ (Rom. 6:7, 7:4).
Now Living As His
Submissive Spouse
We’ve died as the
masculine, independent “old man” of self and we take our position as a
dependent, trusting spouse. When we turn away from Him to live apart from
Him who is within, even if we’re doing “good” stuff, we make Him of
none effect (Gal. 5:4). Ours then is to enjoy Him and His true life by
abiding in the union we have in His life, which is in us now as our life.
Though we may sometimes commit unnatural acts of sin, it is no longer
indicative of who we are by nature (1John 3:8). We just get up, turn our
heart to Him, tell Him we are sorry, and walk on in Him. Remember He has
already paid for every sin, past and future. He is not dismayed when we
fail because He knows that this is how we learn to turn to trust Christ
(Eph. 4:20), out of recognized need. By these failures, which we suffer
(Heb. 5:8), we will ultimately learn to return to Him and trust who it is
that we are by Christ in us as our only life. <End>
