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Christ Faith Love
Ephesians 3:17
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
Verses 17 to 19 continue to state Paul's purpose for his fervent prayer for his beloved friends in Ephesus. He agonizes over his great desire that believers stedfastly pursue that which builds them up in faith, the Word of God, taught by the Holy Spirit, and lodged in the hearts of believers.
The most important weapon in combatting sin, in having victory over personal sin, is the Word of God locked (rooted) in the soul. By faith we understand the Word; by faith we believe it; by faith we accept it. Christian growth is the process of learning and applying the Word of God so that a system of divine standards is built up in the soul. God's "wisdom and prudence", with their continuous influence in our decision making and our problem solving, are the tools with which we function in the Christian life.
Isaiah 28: 9-13
Christ did not speak in parables to make the meaning clear to just any reader! From the very beginning, God has supervised the writing of the Bible so that it cannot be understood without outside help. Even prophets and righteous men of old did not understand, nor did the multitudes who heard the parables of Christ. According to Romans 11, the meaning is veiled from most of mankind until the day God offers them salvation. They are relegated to unbelief until a later time (i.e. the Millennium or Great White Throne Judgment), lest they rebel and must be destroyed.
This is very similar to Jesus' explanation of parables. God says He scatters understanding on any given subject throughout the Bible, and our job is to put it all together and see the amazing truth that results. Therefore, parables cannot be interpreted alone; they rely on the revelation of the rest of Scripture.
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Thessalonians 5:23
Having set down the general goal that the Apostle desired for these and all believers, he then particularized the process to stress even more emphatically the total sanctification God wants for all believers. “And” introduces us to the further details. The very next word in Greek is holokleros, “complete, sound in every part.” With that, man’s entire makeup is focused on—spirit, soul, and body.
What the Apostle means by this three-fold division of the believer is the big question of this passage which has been the object of a tremendous amount of debate among theologians and Bible students for a long time. Robert L. Thomas has an excellent summary of some of the various explanations for the Apostle’s expression, “spirit and soul and body.”
Hebrews 4:12
On the radio program already referred to, the Bible Answer Man was asked if he would “explain Hebrews 4:12, where it says that the soul and spirit are to be divided by the Word of God.” In reply the Bible Answer Man relayed “the explanation given by a very great Greek scholar, Dr. J. Oliver Buswell.” According to Marshall's Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, Hebrews 4:12 reads as follows, “For the Word of God is living and operative and sharper beyond every two-edged sword and passing through as far as division of soul and of spirit, both of joints and of marrow, and [is] able to judge [the] thoughts and intentions of a heart.” The Bible Answer Man gave a rather long and confusing explanation of the use of soul and spirit in this verse, but the conclusion and essence of his explanation was that “the soul and the spirit are two forms of the same thing.”
The Fall of Man
Genesis 2:15-17
AC 122. Verse 15. And Jehovah God took the man, and put him in the garden of Eden, to till it and take care of it. By the "garden of Eden" are signified all things of the celestial man, as described; by to "till it and take care of it," is signified that it is permitted him to enjoy all these things, but not to possess them as his own, because they are the Lord’s.
AC 123. The celestial man acknowledges, because he perceives, that all things both in general and in particular are the Lord‘s. The spiritual man does indeed acknowledge the same, but with the mouth, because he has learned it from the Word. The worldly and corporeal man neither acknowledges nor admits it; but whatever he has he calls his own, and imagines that were be to lose it, he would altogether perish.
Peter 1:23
1:23 Which liveth - Is full of divine virtue. And abideth the same for ever.
23. Christian brotherhood flows from our new birth of an imperishable seed, the abiding word of God. This is the consideration urged here to lead us to exercise brotherly love. As natural relationship gives rise to natural affection, so spiritual relationship gives rise to spiritual, and therefore abiding love, even as the seed from which it springs is abiding, not transitory as earthly things.
of … of … by—"The word of God" is not the material of the spiritual new birth, but its mean or medium. By means of the word the man receives the incorruptible seed of the Holy Spirit, and so becomes one "born again": Joh 3:3-5, "born of water and the Spirit": as there is but one Greek article to the two nouns, the close connection of the sign and the grace, or new birth signified is implied. The word is the remote and anterior instrument; baptism, the proximate and sacramental instrument. The word is the instrument in relation to the individual; baptism, in relation to the Church as a society (Jas 1:18).
John 6:63
No man—by scholarship, human reason, or intelligence—can comprehend the whole truth of God apart from the Holy Spirit. Only by the intervention of the Spirit are we called to understand it. God, by divine revelation through the help of the Spirit, opens our minds to the "mysteries" of the truth, allowing us to discern what is truly vital to our salvation.
This is a simple yet profound statement. God's Spirit is truly more than words, but to understand this point, it is enough to know that God's words—"the words I speak to you," as Jesus says—are spirit, and they play a large role in producing the abundant life God intends we live. This quality of life is not achieved through physical things. Material things can be helpful, but without the true concepts contained within God's Word, the abundant quality will be missing because true abundance ultimately depends upon spiritual things, not material ones.
Corinthians 15:45
25} And so it is written, The {x} first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a {y} quickening spirit.
(25) That is called a natural body which is made alive and maintained by a living soul only in the manner that Adam was, of whom we are all born naturally. And that is said to be a spiritual body, which together with the soul is made alive with a far more excellent power, that is, with the Spirit of God, who descends from Christ the second Adam to us.
(x) Adam is called the first man, because he is the root as it were from which we spring. And Christ is the latter man, because he is the beginning of all those that are spiritual, and in him we are all included.
1 Corinthians 2:14
2:14 But the natural man. The natural man is the unregenerate, one who has the spirit of the world, one not born anew of water and of the Spirit. Man is a triune being--body, soul and spirit. The natural man is under the dominion of the soul, the animal life.
Receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. The spirit must be stirred from its dormant condition, and born again, before one can comprehend the things of the Spirit.
They are spiritually discerned. They can be discerned only by the spirit of man. It is only when a spiritual hunger is felt, when one is born again, and when man becomes a spiritual instead of an animal being, that he can understand the deep things of God (1Co 2:10). But blessed be God, the A B C's of the gospel, which the ignorant and unlearned men can understand, are sufficient to convert and prepare one for a higher knowledge.
Mans Dilema and Remedy
Romans 7:15
There is something sobering in the instruction Jesus gives here. What was the cross or stake in reality? Was it not the instrument of Christ's death? It is what He was killed on. Certainly, He was killed by sin. We could carry that further, but the actual instrument of His death was the cross. He had to carry His own instrument of death with Him. He stumbled under it, and another had to help Him.
. Here is a converted man, an apostle of God, long after he was called, yet sin still lived in him. Every once in awhile, it would get control over him, and he would find himself under its domination once again. That cross that we have to bear and carry with us right to the grave is our own mind laden with sin! Sin lies at the door, as God said to Cain (Genesis 4:7). It is at the door of our minds all the time. God has given us an interesting challenge: Everywhere we go our cross is with us. It is sobering.
THREE Life Governing Laws
Ephesians 1:13-14
Though Jesus says God gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask, the Bible further qualifies this with conditions. God will give His Spirit only to those who have demonstrated in attitude and behavior that they have repented. Then they must be baptized and obey His commandments. No one who continues to live a lifestyle apart from God's law has received the Spirit of God or has the power of God working in him.
The Holy Spirit delivers us from death and leads us to the gift of eternal life. We inherit mortal life through Adam, but God gives His Spirit to endow eternal life on His faithful and obedient children. Since the Spirit is God's gift, neither are we born with it, nor can we earn it.
Romans 8:2
{3} For the {b} law of the Spirit of {c} life in {d} Christ Jesus hath {e} made me free from the law of sin and death.
(3) A preventing of an objection: seeing that the power of the Spirit is in us is so weakly, how may we gather by this that there is no condemnation for those that have that power? Because, he says, that power of the life-giving Spirit which is so weak in us, is most perfect and most mighty in Christ, and being imputed to us who believe, causes us to be thought of as though there were no relics of corruption and death in us. Therefore until now Paul reasons of remission of sins, and imputation of fulfilling the Law, and also of sanctification which is begun in us: but now he speaks of the perfect imputation of Christ's manhood, which part was necessarily required for the full appeasing of our consciences: for our sins are destroyed by the blood of Christ, and the guiltiness of our corruption is covered with the imputation of Christ's obedience, and the corruption itself (which the apostle calls sinful sin) is healed in us little by little, by the gift of sanctification: but yet it is not complete, in that it still lacks another remedy, that is, the perfect sanctification of Christ's own flesh, which is also imputed to us.
(b) The power and authority of the Spirit, against which is set the tyranny of sin.
(c) Which kills the old man, and brings the new man to life.
(d) That is, absolutely and perfectly.
(e) For Christ's sanctification being imputed to us perfects our sanctification which is begun in us.
The Genesis of Christ
John 1:14
1:14 Flesh sometimes signifies corrupt nature; sometimes the body; sometimes, as here, the whole man. We beheld his glory - We his apostles, particularly Peter, James, and John, Luke 9:32. Grace and truth - We are all by nature liars and children of wrath, to whom both grace and truth are unknown. But we are made partakers of them, when we are accepted through the Beloved. The whole verse might be paraphrased thus: And in order to raise us to this dignity and happiness, the eternal Word, by a most amazing condescension, was made flesh, united himself to our miserable nature, with all its innocent infirmities. And he did not make us a transient visit, but tabernacled among us on earth, displaying his glory in a more eminent manner, than even of old in the tabernacle of Moses. And we who are now recording these things beheld his glory with so strict an attention, that we can testify, it was in every respect such a glory as became the only begotten of the Father.
Philippians 2:5
2:5-11 The example of our Lord Jesus Christ is set before us. We must resemble him in his life, if we would have the benefit of his death. Notice the two natures of Christ; his Divine nature, and human nature. Who being in the form of God, partaking the Divine nature, as the eternal and only-begotten Son of God, Joh 1:1, had not thought it a robbery to be equal with God, and to receive Divine worship from men. His human nature; herein he became like us in all things except sin. Thus low, of his own will, he stooped from the glory he had with the Father before the world was. Christ's two states, of humiliation and exaltation, are noticed. Christ not only took upon him the likeness and fashion, or form of a man, but of one in a low state; not appearing in splendour. His whole life was a life of poverty and suffering. But the lowest step was his dying the death of the cross, the death of a malefactor and a slave; exposed to public hatred and scorn. The exaltation was of Christ's human nature, in union with the Divine.
Mans Regeneration through New Birth
19:28 Ye. The apostles.
In the regeneration. At the coming of the Lord the second time.
When the Son of man shall sit, etc. In his final triumph over all evil.
Shall sit upon twelve thrones. Christ shall sit on the throne of his glory and the apostles also shall have thrones.
The twelve tribes of Israel. The reference is probably spiritual rather than literal. The inspired preaching of the apostles presented the conditions of pardon under the New Covenant. Thus they bind and loose, or judge. In judgment, salvation will turn on whether the Jews, or the true Israel (Ga 3:29), have obeyed the apostles' doctrine. The apostles even now judge the church.
The Work of the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ
In 1 Cor. 1: 24, Christ is called "the power of God, and the wisdom of God;" and in 2 Cor. 13: 4, it is said that "He was crucified through weakness." But "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (1 Cor. 1: 25.) In the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ I see God's combination to make good His ends, and to give effect to His counsels and purpose — in contrast with man's too.
And here first burst forth the light of God's character in truth, holiness, and grace. Cover over what Himself was, and what man, in contrast to Himself, was, He could not have been revealed in truth. He told it all out in and by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The character of His estimate of what became Him to do in dealing with sin, and what the sinner deserved at His hand, was seen there also: in holiness it was fully told out.
And as to grace! what free-gift actings in love are there seen. The only begotten Son sent down from the glory on high, to bear the wrath due to us that we might be enabled to share the glory given to Him, and be loved even as He is loved.
And the marvel of His person may not be passed by — God manifest in flesh. Such was the Lamb of God. Sin in man was the denial of God being over and above man. The Son of God, as Son of man, bare its judgment. To Him the judgment was no little thing. It drew forth from Him the cry, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Words of full and agonizing import in themselves, yet but feeble expressions when He used them of what He felt, the volume of whose heart and mind was infinite. Who He was stood plainly forth, too, then and there, as Psalm 22 shows, for what no mere creature could do was found in Him. Forsaken by God, He did not forsake God.
Such was the light which shone in our Lord Jesus Christ's cross. And what a measure does it give of what we were ere we called Him, Lord. A measure of what God thought of our sin — of the only thing which we could call our own. Who should carry it into God's presence? Who should settle it? And having borne its judgment, settle our consciences for ever? One and but One alone could do these things; and His glory stands forth confessed by His having taken up that cup, and set us free for ever!
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