He who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes, to him
I will give of the hidden manna, and I will give
him a white stone, and on the stone a
new name written, which no one knows but he who
receives it.
(Revelation 2:17)
Even as the Father has loved me, I
also have loved you. Remain in my love. If you
keep my commandments, you will remain in my love; even as I have kept
my Father's commandments, and remain in his love. I have spoken these
things to you, that my joy may remain in you,
and that your joy may be made full. "This
is my commandment, that you love one another,
even as I have loved you. (John
15:9-12)
This
is part of the practical
application of acting on
Jesus' invitation to eat
His flesh as the manna we
must have in order to experience
the life of knowing God intimately.
The joy
is experienced in the sweet fellowship
of intimacy
for which our heart was
created, and without
which it will never be
satisfied with any
substitute.
With my whole heart,
I have sought you. Don't let me wander from your commandments. I
have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin
against you. Blessed are you, Yahweh. Teach me your statutes. With my
lips, I have declared all the ordinances of your mouth. I
have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies, as much as
in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts, and
consider your ways. I will delight myself in
your statutes. I will not forget your word.
(Psalms 119:10-16)
What
is the purpose of hiding
the manna of God in our heart? How
can we ingest the words
of Jesus and the testimony of Jesus? It involves both His words
as well as what was communicated in His body
language as He related to
everyone around Him. So
what is most needed change
in our perceptions to get
us unstuck from spinning
our wheels but making very little progress in our spiritual growth?
We are
coming to see that one of the core issues being fought over in this
war is the truth
about identity. God's
identity and trustworthiness
is at the very center of the controversy, but also caught up in this
is the identity of every
human being who by design
are reflectors
of God's identity. Without addressing the condition
of the reflectors of God,
the reputation and credibility
of God cannot be
effectively vindicated. Thus how
we perceive our own identity
is intimately linked
to the salvation of our
God.
New
Name/Identity
I will give him a white
stone, and on the stone a new name written,
which no one knows but he who receives it.
This
stone is all about
identity as the war is
really over what we perceive and believe about both our identity and
that of God. What we
believe about our
identity and where we get
it from affects how we
make every decision. In turn our choices
direct the development of our character
which determines whether we will be able to thrive
in God's fiery presence
or we will shrink back in
terror when we encounter
that intense power of
love. This is why the
war is over what we believe about identity.
The
gracious Saviour also promised to give to every conqueror in this
holy war “a white stone.” In those times, when any person accused
of crimes against the state was tried by the suffrage of the
citizens, they voted for
his acquittal by a white stone,
and for his condemnation by a black one: so that Christ, the sole
Judge of his people, in promising to give them a white stone, assured
them of their full justification
at the great day of account, and of the present comfortable sense
that they were pardoned and accepted
in him. (Acts 26:10) The
name written upon it is probable that of “children of God;” and
it represents the inseparable
connexion of adoption
into his family with forgiveness of sins. This name would be, as it
were, inscribed upon the pardon given them, and made legible to the
soul by “the Spirit of adoption.” (Romans 8:14-17) But “no man
knoweth it saving he that receiveth it;” for the ground of this
knowledge is laid in his
inward consciousness and experience;
it is communicated to the lively Christian by “a witness in
himself;” the world knoweth not the children of God; (1 John 3:1-2;
5:10) and even their brethren cannot exactly distinguish them, but
sometimes suspect or condemn the upright, and think well of specious
hypocrites. But when the Holy Spirit illuminates his worn work in the
believer’s soul, this new name, and its real import, become legible
and intelligible to him, and he knows himself to be a child and heir
of God. (Thomas Scott commentary)
At the
macro level of this war, God's
name has been under attack
from the very outset, and it
is His reputation that will be finally judged
and must be vindicated
before the universe can be restored to its original design of
functioning while relying on love,
truth and freedom alone.
We are all caught in the crossfire of this
war which involves our
perceptions and beliefs about identity.
This is because we are all
inescapably reflectors of
what we believe God is
like at our heart level.
When
Satan seduced our first parents into accepting lies about God and
themselves, all humanity became infected
with his dark lies
resulting in all the malfunctions
that sin produces ever
since. Satan
then insisted
that because of our sins we
deserve punishment and
none of us should be pardoned or allowed to receive mercy, for that
would violate what he claimed to be justice. Yet this was predicated
on false presumptions
inherent in Satan's invention of commerce that distorts
the truth about God, a
system of living where earning
and deserving dictates
everything that happens, where imaginary scales
are used to determine an presumed need for balance
of good and evil and a
system of debts and
credits must always be
restored to balance to cancel
each other out. Thus
Satan uses black stones
and votes against every
human being, insisting that because everyone has sinned, no
one deserves mercy so all
should die the punishment deserved. Otherwise, he insists, God cannot
be just. This is all part of the war, for it involves a
war over the very definition of sin,
of justice
and whether or not mercy
and justice are even compatible.
Look carefully at
the following quotes that help to expose the real issues being fought
over in this war.
In the opening of
the great controversy, Satan had declared that the law of God
could not be obeyed, that justice was inconsistent with mercy,
and that, should the law be broken, it would be impossible for the
sinner to be pardoned. Every sin must meet its punishment, urged
Satan; and if God should remit the punishment of sin, He would
not be a God of truth and justice. When men broke the law of God, and
defied His will, Satan exulted. It was proved, he declared,
that the law could not be obeyed; man could not be forgiven.
Because he, after his rebellion, had been banished from heaven, Satan
claimed that the human race must be forever shut out from
God’s favor. God could not be just, he urged, and yet show mercy
to the sinner. {DA 761.4}
One of the first casualties in
the war was the truth about the very nature of justice. We
have lived so long under the darkness of Satan's lies about truth
and justice that for many it comes as a stunning revelation that
what we assume is justice is really a fraud, a
distorted counterfeit relied on by most all societies on
earth. According to popular opinion, justice and mercy are in
tension with each other, yet this is an artificial divide
that is completely unfounded except in our fallen imagination
reinforced by false religions. The war being conducted by the
Lamb is out to expose this lie and defeat it by
revealing the truth that alone can set us free from the
bondage created by lies.
The counterfeit
justice that Satan advocates is abhorred by God. His censuring
must not be imitated by any who are partakers of divine mercy and
love. Guard your own soul, my brother, my sister; watch
closely for the first jealous thought, the first suggestion to
question or judge others. We must not be severe with the
infirmities of others, but attend zealously to our own individual
case.{SW September 25, 1906, par. 10}
Jesus was a
fountain of healing mercy for the saving of the world; for by precept
and example he represented the justice and love of God to men.
When the nature of man is renewed by grace, he
will be full of tenderness, sympathy,
and love. Thus the
character of God will be unfolded to the world as it is, and
Satan will not be able to fasten the minds of all humanity in
his snare, charging God with his own attributes,
and misrepresenting his character.{ST November 28, 1892, par. 6}
The
whole notion of earning
and deserving, debits
and credits along with
motivation through
enticements of reward and
threats of punishment has
infected all of our thinking so thoroughly that it makes it extremely
difficult to appreciate
the truth about God's love
and grace without intervention
by the Holy Spirit to
bring the light of truth into our soul. The only way our heart can
believe in God's vote for
us with a white stone and
a new name
on it, is to believe that
God is only like
Jesus and not like we
have imagined Him to be for so long. Satan's
arguments against us seem
irrefutable until the
Lamb brings the light of truth exposing
the scandal of Satan's slander
as being unfounded. It was unchallenged
presumptions hidden
within insinuations about
God by which he duped our
first parents originally.
Ultimately
it will be revealed that all
humanity is not guilty as charged
by Satan, because the original
charges brought against
us by Satan are fallacious
and fraudulent. It will
be exposed that our choices to believe and follow Satan's temptations
were rooted in faulty
information. This exposes
Satan as being the real cause of all our sin,
not humans.
This
truth frightens many people who assume
if we don't keep the blame
on sinners, they will not
have incentive
to scare them into
repenting to turn to God.
Yet this is part of
Satan's scheme, for it
presumes that God relies on the laws
of commerce rather than
relying on the principles
of cause and effect.
Reward and punishment is a counterfeit
of cause and effect,
and this needs to be plain in order to expose the nature of the
subtle deceptions
that keep us in slavery to
fear.
This
is not to suggest that
there are no consequences
to rebellion and sin. The undergirding principle of cause and effect
that is designed into every other principle that govern creation
makes this unavoidable. What must be clarified is the
source of the bad effects of sin.
It is not God inflicting
punishments as Satan
asserts, but rather the natural
outcome of violations of
principles designed to
bring life. This
distinction is vital to appreciate, for anything
other explanation infects us with lies
that keep us afraid and
distrustful of God's heart,
which is the very seed of
sin itself.
Pardon versus
Cancelled
In the
end God will not merely
pardon some humans as
religion often claims, but God will cancel
the original
charges against all
humanity, meaning Satan
will be exposed as the originator
and cause of all evil, not humans. Canceled
charges versus pardoning
result in vastly different outcomes in a trial; cancelling
charges reveals that the charges
were illegitimate
to start with and are disallowed, while pardon
presumes the charges
were valid
but exemption from
punishment is granted.
When you were dead in your
transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you
alive together with Him, having forgiven [charizomai]
us all our transgressions, having canceled out the
certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us,
which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the
way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed
the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of
them, having triumphed over them through Him.
(Colossians 2:13-15 NAS95)
I want
to address this issue of forgiving
our transgressions which may seem
to conflict with the idea
of cancelled
charges. But first we need to explore cancellation a bit more and
then come back to that.
The
white stone with a new
name on it shared
privately
with each person represents the truth that our identity
in Christ alone is safe
to trust and embrace.
No other source should ever be allowed to define who we are as being
less than fully loved by
God. All Satan's
accusations are rooted in commerce logic
and are illegitimate, because God
does not rely on commerce
or endorse its balancing
of good and evil. The
white stone is God's vote declaring that we
are innocent due to the false premise
presented by the accuser that led us to malfunction. All
the charges of guilt
against all humanity by the great accuser are thus disarmed
and publicly exposed as
fraudulent when that
whole system was exposed
by Satan viciously attacking Jesus
as an innocent victim on the cross. In doing so, Satan's insistence
that his system of justice was right was defeated by his own actions.
In killing the Prince of heaven, Satan destroyed
the last vestiges of doubt
about his lack of integrity and erased
all lingering sympathy by
heavenly inhabitants for his insinuations
about God's ways and motives.
This was the major turning
point in the war, but not
the end of battles. All creation has yet to be brought to see
the real truth and
acknowledge
that God is light
and in Him is no darkness
at all.
The
death of Christ triumphs
over all accusers in
history. His death was not
an appeasement of an
offended deity
as religion makes it out to be. No, His
death exposes the very
foundation of Satan's kingdom as rooted in false
charges against God and
humanity. By killing the innocent Son, Satan proved his system of
justice to be a fraud
and all his charges baseless. His decrees
based on his abhorrent justice claims are canceled
as null and void.
Charizomai
Now
let's look at what it
means to say that God
forgave us all our
transgressions. If forgiveness is necessary, doesn't that imply
that there is a legitimate debt
to be paid? Many raise this challenge, insisting that reference here
to forgiving all our transgressions proves
that God had to be satisfied
with a payment for sin
before He could forgive
us. Yet this arises out of a common distortion
of the very concept of
forgiveness itself, which
is a whole other topic of discussion. Let me just say that there are
two primary Greek words
translated as forgive
in English that mean very
different things in the
original, which is why most people are in confusion
about what forgiveness by God actually involves.
The
word used here is charizomai
and relates to what
happens in God's heart,
whereas the other word apheimi
is about what needs to happen
in our heart and mind in
order to embrace the truth about what is already
true in God's heart and
mind. Charizomai
involves an unconditional
kind of forgiveness, a state of never
holding onto any offense,
never even taking offense to start with. In essence, forgiveness
involves letting go of an
offense. Yet if God
never takes offense to
start with, how can it be possible for Him to let it go?
Understanding this is key, for if God
never holds a grudge or
desires to pay offenders
back with punishment for
wrongs committed against Him, then all attempts
to convince God to forgive
us in this way are misplaced,
even rooted in unbelief. This is why
we misunderstand how and
why God cancels the handwriting of debt that is against us.
This
handwriting of debt or certificate of debt has roots
in the false presumptions
that we hold about how God
feels towards those who
commit offenses against Him. Because God never holds onto an offense
there is never any need to
change His mind about us
because His love is
everlasting; nothing can
ever alter that in the slightest. Thus it is never
His heart that needs changing
but rather ours. This is why all
reconciliation that needs
to take place must all be in
us, it is never needed in
God. When we ask God to forgive us then, we are asking Him to remove
our fears and misapprehensions about Him from our hearts, not change
His mind about us. Apheimi forgiveness is the cleansing of us from
all sin. This is the forgiveness
that we need to experience
to be reconciled and united with God.
The
next logical question follows: If this is all true, how
could anyone be eternally lost?
If the original charges
of sin and rebellion deserving of death are all
cancelled, why
would anyone die as a result of sin?
What could ever possibly lead anyone to choose
death instead of eternal
life with God? Some cannot imagine that anyone given enough truth
about love, would ever even turn it down.
Part
of the problem in unpacking this profound truth is affected by how
deeply we are still infected
with the paradigms of
earning and deserving and
false notions about justice and law enforcement. What needs to become
clear as soon as possible in our study of Revelation is that the
principles of commerce are
all counterfeit and false.
While they are the very foundation of all governments and used for
societal order, they are
not God's design but
rather deadly imitations. God's
ways are higher than our
ways and His thoughts are not like our way of reasoning based on tit
for tat and vengeance desired for offenders. The ways
of love are vastly
different and define true
freedom in contrast to
the system of imposed rewards and punishments based on fear. Yet why
many will die in the end
is vital to understand or this idea of cancelling
charges will be viewed
as a heresy we should
avoid.
God's
laws are natural and
self-enforcing
while counterfeit law
must be artificially
enforced because it is
not rooted in natural
design or inherent cause
and effect. This is a key
that unlocks many things when coming to understand the truth about
salvation. God is not obligated to enforce His law because natural
principles always enforce themselves
unless overruled by God.
Yet
Satan accuses God of breaking His own laws when God interferes with
the natural outworking of His principles of cause and effect. This
may explain why Satan asserted that justice and mercy were in
opposition to each other, yet in reality this has never been true
except in our twisted perceptions. Yet God has to meet us where we
are in our distorted reasoning until He can lead us to embrace
underlying truths that expose our illogic, replacing it with true
understanding. This is why spiritual things can only be discerned by
spiritual people inspired by God's Holy Spirit. All
who resist the truth
brought by God's Spirit become
double-minded, making it
impossible
for them to receive wisdom
from God. This is why plain
truth can hide in plain sight,
not because God is trying to hide it from us but because
our prejudices and
distorted reasoning blinds
us to simple truths
because they don't meet
our demands for so-called
justice
that is based on commerce thinking. Remember what we just read?
The
counterfeit justice that Satan advocates is abhorred by God.
So why
will people experience eternal
extinction if the charges
against them have all been dropped,
canceled, exposed as fraudulent? This is an extremely
important question to
look at seriously. Why so? Because this
is all part of the war
over how we see God and directly affects how we will come to judge
Him as fair or arbitrary.
Our current study of these key issues is how we
are participating in the war
described in Revelation. We must come to realize that we are not
merely observers or curious onlookers as we look into this book.
Rather we find ourselves immediately caught up in the thick of the
battle between light and
darkness as we wrestle to
decide what we will do with truth that the Spirit of the Lamb is
bringing to our attention.
First
of all, the lost will not
die because God is compelled to punish them
for their sins or because the law
demands satisfaction in
this way. That thinking is rooted
in Satan's counterfeit
system of imposed rewards and punishments but is foreign
to how the kingdom
of heaven operates.
So if
the death of the lost is
not punishment imposed by God,
why would anyone die? This is the underlying question that motivates
many to embrace universal salvation,
insisting that no one will ultimately die, even Satan himself, but
that all will sooner or later accept salvation and live happily in
love for all eternity. I cannot find significant support for that
doctrine, but I am assured that the death of the lost is not
because God is obligated to kill
them. Doing so would be a violation
of their freedom to
choose, but more importantly it ignores
a central principle of character development
and how natural
consequences play out
from a lifetime of choices
made for or against love.
This
principle of cause and
effect must ever remain
central as one sorts
through what all this means. Cause and effect must not, however, be
insinuated to mean sin compels God to punish sinners. The effects
of choosing selfishness
and sin (rather than dying to self to embrace our true identity as
defined by Christ), develops a character
incompatible with the glory
of God's love. It is character
that determines how each person reacts
when encountering the full
energy of the love of God
when it will be released into the universe as never witnessed before.
Our resistance to love is
what unfits us for
heaven, not some arbitrary decision on the part of God involving
imposed rewards or punishments.
In the
end, everyone will embrace
what they have chosen to value
most. It will be seen in the end that God
never directly forced
anything on anyone. This truth is central
for vindicating and exonerating God
in order to ensure that sin will never again rise up. Yet at the same
time, everyone will always
remain free to chose love
or to turn away from it while also free
of fear throughout all
eternity. It is those
who have allowed love to
transform them so as to
enjoy it who will thrive in it, proportional to the extent their
character has been developed to receive it. In contrast, all who have
seared their hearts in
resistance and unbelief
against God's love find
living in His presence intolerable
and will sooner or later demand
to be allowed to embrace extinction
rather than continue to live in the torment that love elicits in
their resistant heart.
God
has given to men a declaration of His character and of His method of
dealing with sin. “The Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for
thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that
will by no means clear the guilty.” Ex 34:6,7. “All the wicked
will He destroy.” “The transgressors shall be destroyed together:
the end of the wicked shall be cut off.” Ps 145:20; 37:38. The
power and authority of the divine government will be employed to put
down rebellion; yet all the manifestations of retributive justice
will be perfectly
consistent with the character of God as a merciful, long-suffering,
benevolent being.
God
does not force the will or judgment of any.
He takes no pleasure in a
slavish obedience. He
desires that the creatures of His hands shall love
Him because He is worthy of love.
He would have them obey Him because they have an intelligent
appreciation of His
wisdom, justice, and benevolence. And all
who have a just conception of these qualities
will love Him because they are drawn
toward Him in admiration of His attributes.
The
principles of kindness,
mercy, and love, taught
and exemplified by our Saviour, are a transcript of the will and
character of God. Christ declared that He taught nothing except that
which He had received from His Father. The principles of the divine
government are in perfect harmony with the Saviour's precept, “Love
your enemies.” God executes justice upon the wicked, for the good
of the universe, and even for the good of those upon whom His
judgments are visited. He would make them happy if He could do so in
accordance with the laws of His government and the justice of His
character. He surrounds them with the tokens of His love, He grants
them a knowledge of His law, and follows them with the offers of His
mercy; but they despise
His love, make void His law, and reject His mercy.
While constantly receiving His gifts, they dishonor the Giver; they
hate God because they
know that He abhors their sins. The Lord bears long with their
perversity; but the decisive hour will come at last, when their
destiny is to be decided. Will He then chain
these rebels to His side?
Will He force them to do
His will?
Those
who have chosen Satan as
their leader and have
been controlled by his
power are not
prepared to enter the presence of God.
Pride, deception, licentiousness, cruelty, have become fixed
in their characters. Can
they enter heaven to dwell forever with those whom they despised and
hated on earth? Truth will never
be agreeable to a liar;
meekness will not satisfy
self-esteem and pride; purity is not
acceptable to the
corrupt; disinterested love does not
appear attractive to the
selfish. What source of
enjoyment could heaven
offer to those who are wholly
absorbed in earthly and selfish interests?
Could
those whose lives have been spent in rebellion against God be
suddenly transported to heaven and witness the high, the holy state
of perfection that ever exists there,—every soul filled with love,
every countenance beaming with joy, enrapturing music in melodious
strains rising in honor of God and the Lamb, and ceaseless streams of
light flowing upon the redeemed from the face of Him who sitteth upon
the throne,—could those whose hearts
are filled with hatred of God, of truth and holiness,
mingle with the heavenly throng and join their songs of praise? Could
they endure the glory of
God and the Lamb? No, no; years of probation were granted them, that
they might form characters
for heaven; but they have
never trained the mind
to love purity; they have never
learned the language of
heaven, and now it is too
late. A life of rebellion
against God has unfitted
them for heaven. Its
purity, holiness, and peace would be torture
to them; the glory
of God would be a consuming fire.
They would long to flee
from that holy place. They would welcome
destruction, that they
might be hidden from the
face of Him who died to
redeem them. The destiny
of the wicked is fixed by their own choice.
Their exclusion from
heaven is voluntary with themselves,
and just and merciful on the part of God. (GC 541-542)
The
key difference between being saved or lost then is not God's
determination but our own fitness
and capacity to encounter the intensity
of living in the rarified
atmosphere of love. This
atmosphere is defined by transparency,
vulnerability, humility, kindness
and is seen in selfless and passionate
service for others,
viewing them as more important than one's self. All who remain
allergic to any of these
things will find the
atmosphere of heaven intolerable
and will prefer death
even while having full
access to live as long as they wish.
On the
other hand, all who have allowed God's Spirit to transform and heal
them to thrive in love find fulfillment, joy, satisfaction and
endless potential for growth. This is the
essence of the war –
who we will choose to serve now and who
will determine the shape of our character
and destiny then.
Blessed is the man who hears me,
watching daily at my gates, waiting at my door posts. For whoever
finds me, finds life, and will obtain favor from Yahweh. But he
who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love
death. (Proverbs
8:34-36)
If it seem evil to you to serve
Yahweh, choose you this day whom you will serve;
whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the
River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: but as
for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh. The people answered, Far
be it from us that we should forsake Yahweh, to serve other gods; for
Yahweh our God, he it is who brought us and our fathers up
out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and who
did those great signs in our sight, and preserved
us in all the way in which we went, and among all the
peoples through the midst of whom we passed; and Yahweh
drove out from before us all the peoples, even the
Amorites who lived in the land: therefore we also will serve Yahweh;
for he is our God. Joshua said to the people,
You can't serve Yahweh; for he is a holy God; he is a
jealous God; he will not forgive your disobedience nor your sins.
If you forsake Yahweh, and serve foreign gods, then he will
turn and do you evil, and consume you, after that he has done you
good. The people said to Joshua, No; but we will serve
Yahweh. Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses
against yourselves that you have chosen you Yahweh, to
serve him. They said, We are witnesses.
(Joshua 24:15-22)
We
begin to see better how the warfare over what God is like has been
going on for a very long time, with much confusion from the enemy
that must be clarified. This can only happen by focusing
on the only trustworthy revelation
of the real truth about God, the Son of God.
Elijah came near to all the people,
and said, "How long will you waver between the two sides? If
Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him."
The people answered him not a word. Then Elijah said to the people,
"I, even I only, am left a prophet of Yahweh;
but Baal's prophets are four hundred fifty men."
(1 Kings 18:21-22)
Counterfeit
religion insists the war is all
about behavior and is won
only through strict obedience
to arbitrary rules,
either our perfect obedience of the obedience of Christ as our
substitute. If this was the case, then the primary
focus of the war would be
determining who is to
blame for all the bad
things that happen, and then assigning
punishments and enforcing
them. This is what most
people assume, and
because of this they treat
others in the same way,
relying on the blame game
to try to shift responsibility to someone else to avoid
being condemned, shamed
or punished themselves.
But if
the war is not about
rewards and punishment and behavior,
but rather about
trustworthiness and whose
ways are viable to maintaining harmony
and peace in societies, then there must be a dramatic shift
in focus from assigning blame to discerning integrity and
truthfulness with
character as the primary
focus instead of labels
and appearances.
As the living Father sent me, and I
live because of the Father; so he who feeds on me, he will
also live because of me. This is the bread which
came down out of heaven--not as our fathers ate the manna, and died.
He who eats this bread will live forever."
These things he said in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.
Therefore many of his disciples, when they heard this, said, "This
is a hard saying! Who can listen to it?"
But Jesus knowing in himself that
his disciples murmured at this, said to them, "Does
this cause you to stumble? Then what if you would see the
Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the
spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The
words that I speak to you are spirit, and are life.
But there are some of you who don't believe."
For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who didn't believe,
and who it was who would betray him. He said, "For this cause
have I said to you that no one can come to me, unless it is given to
him by my Father." At this, many of his disciples went
back, and walked no more with him. Jesus said therefore to
the twelve, "You don't also want to go away, do you?" Simon
Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom would we go? You
have the words of eternal life."
(John 6:57-68)
Don't you know that to
whom you present yourselves as servants to obedience, his
servants you are whom you obey; whether of sin to death,
or of obedience to righteousness?
(Romans 6:16)
Once
we come to see that the
war is about the condition of our spirit
more than about the strictness of our behavior, we can learn how to
overcome like the Lamb
overcame. Overcoming
happens in the spirit,
for the heart and the spirit are inextricably connected and God
is after our heart. He is
not interested in slavish obedience but in open hearts bonded in love
to each other. This is the difference
between identity based on
flesh labeling
and identity rooted in God's love for us in Christ.
For the mind of the flesh
is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and
peace; because the mind of the flesh is hostile
towards God; for it is not subject to God's law, neither indeed can
it be. Those who are in the flesh can't please God.
But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the
Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man
doesn't have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.
(Romans 8:6-9)
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