God’s Original Intention (part 2)

It is only in Christ Jesus that we have life and life abundantly (John 10:10b). We experience this life by experiencing Christ, who in resurrection became the life-giving Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45b). Today we experience Christ as the life-giving Spirit in our spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:17 says that “He who is join to the Lord is one spirit.” Our spirit has been mingled with the Spirit to become one spirit. The Spirit as the reality of Christ is life. When the Spirit entered into our spirit at regeneration our spirit became life. According the Romans 8:10 “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.”

However we need the life in our spirit to spread into our soul swallowing up the death that permeated it. According the Romans 8:6 when we set our mind on the spirit we experience life and peace. This is to have the life in our spirit spread into our soul represented by our mind. As we experience this life spreading into our mind we are renewed and transformed in our soul and experience Christ’s making home in our hearts.

Finally this life wants to spread not just through our entire soul, transforming us and conforming us to the glorious image of Christ, but this life will invade our mortal bodies, transfiguring the body of humiliation into a body of glory (Phil. 3:21). Gradually we are experiencing this according the Romans 8:11, “…He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.”

This is the salvation of life that the Bible reveals to us in Romans 5:10. We have been saved through His wonderful all-inclusive death and we are being saved in His life. One day this salvation of life will reach its fullness affording God His original intention in His creation of man. Praise the Lord.

God’s Original Intention (part 1)

God’s original intention is seen in the creation of man. Man was created with a body, soul and spirit. It is with the spirit of man, gave him by God’s breathing the breath of life into him in Genesis 2, that man can contact and receive God. Thus we see from creation that God intended the man created by Him to receive and contain Him as a vessel by partaking of Him as the tree of life to be filled with life to express and represent God in His image and with His authority.

Before the man created by God could receive God into him to contain God as his content and express God and represent God, Satan, God’s enemy, came in to deceive and trick man to receive another element into his being. Through Satan’s plot man was deceived and actually took Satan himself in. This caused man to die a death. Satan came into man through man’s partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was this tree God said “in the day you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17). However Satan caused man to question God’s word, and take his word instead of God’s word. In doing this man became one with Satan. Satan dwells in man as sin. In Romans 7 sin is personified. It dwells in man and ruling over man. However this is not all in Romans 5:12 we are told “through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death.” Death is the real enemy of God and man. In the fall man became fully involved with sin and death becoming absolutely ruined for God’s purpose.

However in Jesus Christ God became a man sharing in blood and flesh that through death He might destroy him who has the might of death, that is, the devil (Heb. 2:14). And according the John 12:24 Jesus Christ was the one grain of wheat that fell into the ground through crucification to die that He might produce many grains. These many grains of wheat are the many member of Christ produced according to God’s original intention.

Further in Ephesians 2:4-5 we see “But God… when we were dead in our offenses and sins made us alive together with Christ”. And in Colossians 2:13 “And you, through dead in your offenses… He made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our offenses.” Praise the Lord in Christ Jesus man has been released from his sins and has been brought into an organic union with the Lord Jesus, who is life. This affords man the salvation of life which reverses the dying condition man is stuck in and brings man back to God’s original intention. 

 

Salvation of Life

In this post we want to seen the salvation of life. As the black background to this wonderful salvation of God we have to realize the ultimate issue of man’s fall was death (Romans 5:12; Ephesians 2:1). In order to reach fallen man it was not sufficient to simple forgive man of his wrong doings. Man needs the release from his death condition (Hebrews 2:15; John 11:25).

John 1:4 tells us that “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Jesus Christ, the wonderful Godman, came as life. It is this life that saves man from the death that issues from sin. John 5:24 tells us that “he who believes has passed our of death into life.” In the resurrection of Christ we were made alive together with Christ. Colossians 2:13 tells us that “God made us alive having forgiven us all our offenses.

Romans 5:10 talks of the much more salvation in the very life of the Son. We are not just reconciled back to God from being enemies but we are now in the very life of God in the Son. Praise the Lord for the wonderful saving life of Jesus Christ. In this life is salvation.

This salvation brings us into a wonderful organ union with our Lord who is life. As branches in the vine we share the same life and nature as the vine. We have the ability and capability to fulfill every commandment of the Lord in this wonderful saving life (1 John 2:3). This is our proof to know were we are at. As ones in the saving life of Christ we are full of ability and capability. However if we find ourselves short of this ability we can know that we are dead. Roman 8 speaks of the spontaneous working of the law of the Spirit of life, which operates as we set our mind on the spirit where this law is operating to have the salvation of life.

Satan’s Plot

In this post we want to see Satan’s plot to spoil man and the real significance of man’s fall. Satan, the devil always acts before God in a crafty way to frustrate God from fulfilling His intention. In Genesis 3 we see Satan coming to man in the form of the serpent to deceive man by touching man’s mind to question God’s word, stir up man’s emotion to desire the tree of knowledge and moving man’s will to chose the fruit from this tree by taking it into man’s body. This fruit entered into man’s body transmuting the body into the flesh as the dwelling place of sin becoming the evil within man. Man’s soul became contaminated with the evil thoughts and desires of the Satan. Man’s spirit was deadened losing the ability to contact God.

Satan in his craftiness come to the woman Eve the weaker vessel to tempt her to take the headship. Once Eve engaged the devil she was defeated. We need to see this principle. Whenever the tempter comes to us we need to flee to our Husband, taking the position of the wife under God’s headship. 2 Corinthians 11:3 tells us that the serpent deceived by craftiness our thoughts. Satan allows comes to contact man by touching the mind. In Revelation 12:9 we are told that the enemy, the devil is deceiving the whole inhabited earth. As long as we stay in our mind we are under Satan’s deception. This deception is through injecting himself into man until man is unable to distinguish between his own thought, feeling and actions and those of the devil.

The result of man’s fall was that his whole being was brought under the usurping devil. Man’s body became indwelt by sin and death (Rom. 5:12). Man’s soul become poisoned with Satan’s personality (Rom. 7:21). Man’s spirit become deadened losing the function to contact God and received God as life (Eph. 2:1). But God in His economy would recover fallen man back to himself through His marvelous process in the New Testament economy. Through His judicial redemption and organic salvation we are born children of God, transformed and built up into the Body of Christ and transfigured in glory in the coming kingdom of God!

Vessel

This week we come to the creation of man and God’s intention in the creation of man. According to Genesis 1:26 man was created in the image of God and according to the likeness of God. God’s image and likeness are not lifeless outward forms. Thus man was created in a living way in the image and likeness of the living God. This indicated that man was created according to Christ. In Colossians 1:15 the image of the invisible God is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. and 2 Corinthians 4:4 tells us the Christ is the image of God. Hallelujah man was created to contain Christ who is life and to expression Christ the image of the Triune God.

The man created to contain Christ is a vessel with a spirit, soul and body. With the body man contacts the physical realm, with the soul man contacts the psychological realm and with the spirit man contacts God. John 4:24 says that God is Spirit. So man being created with a spirit is for man to be able to contact and receive God into his vessel. This is God’s intention in created man. He desired to be life to the man created in His image and likeness. However God would not force man to receive him but would put man before two trees. These trees represent two sources with two lives. Man was commanded to eat of the tree of life and warned not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God in His greatness wanted man to choose Him. Man’s choice is expressed by what he eats.

In John 6:57 the Lord told us that he who eats Him shall live because of Him. We need to take God into our vessel by eat Christ as the tree of life. This fulfills God’s intention in His creation of man and this gives man’s existence purpose.

Dealing with Our Inward Parts

 

Here we will speak about our dealing with our mind, will and emotion. In the last post we saw that our dealing with our inward and hidden parts starts with the heart and continues to our spirit, the conscience, fellowship and intuition. However for the free flowing of the living water we need to continue our dealing with our inward parts by coming to the Lord to be dug (Numbers 21:17-18). This digging takes place in our mind, will and emotion.

We need the mind to be dug so that it would sensed by the intuition of our spirit can be understood with a renewed and transformed mind. It is not enough to sense something in our spirit but we need to understand what the Lord as the anointing is doing within to be produced as the proper material for the building up of the church.

Second we need to dig the will to be completely submissive and obedient to the Lord will. This is crucial in understanding what is the intuition. John 5:30 says that the Lord did not seek his own will but the will of Him who sent Him. This is a result of the digging away of all the dig in the human will.

Third we need to dig the emotion. I was very touched by the word that often our emotion has the Lord’s permission but not His pleasure. We need to away the emotion to be dug by going to the Lord until our love the Him only Him. Mark 12:30 says that we should love the Lord with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength.

These dealing are not for our being perfect christians but for our being produced as proper material for the Lord building. We are dealing with our inward parts and hidden part for God’s economy to gain His corporate expression the reality of the Body of Christ.

“To fear God, to worship God, and to believe in God (that is to receive God) are all inadequate; to love Him is the indispensable requirement. To love God means to set our entire being—spirit, soul, and body, with the heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30)—absolutely on Him, that is, to let our entire being be occupied by Him and lost in Him, so that He becomes everything to us and we are one with Him practically in our daily life. In this way we have the closest and most intimate fellowship with God, and we are able to enter into His heart and apprehend all its secrets (Psa. 73:25; 25:14).”                                     -1 Cor. 2:9, footnote 3, Recovery Version

Our Heart

In our experience of Christ as life in God’s economy we need to deal with our heart. We need a heart that is single and pure. This requires us to deal with our heart that is full of mixture. The heart of man in the gate way to his entire being. If our heart is not soft and open the Lord as life He can not have any way to move within us. In dealing with our heart we need to speak the truth and apply Hebrews 9:14; 10:22 and 1 John 3:20-21.

Having brothers boldness for entering the Holy of Holies in the blood of Christ we need to come forward with boldness to the Holy of Holies having our heart sprinkled from an evil conscience because if our heart blames us we know that God is greater then our heart, but if our heart doesn’t blame us we have boldness. Our heart blames us through our conscience. The conscience can only be satisfied through the application of the precious blood of Christ. Under the blood of Christ our conscience is at peace and we have boldness to come forward to God in our spirit to have fellowship with Him to receive the life supply. We must deal with our heart to be pure and single in order to open our whole being to the Lord. This dealing is a matter of loving the Lord. Through this dealing we need to move on to deal with the conscience.

The conscience needs to be made keen and alert. It is through our conscience that we have the proper feeling toward sin, world and our self. According the 1 John 1:9 if we confess our sins God is faithful and righteous to forgive us and cleanse us. This restores our fellowship with God in the light. Then according to 1 John 2:27 the anointing abiding in us and teaching us concerning all things which through the intuition in our spirit bringing us back to God’s direct rule.

Through the sense of life in our conscience we are tested and proved that we may be supplied in our fellowship with the Lord. It is through the testing and proving that our condition before the Lord is determined. The goal of all our deals is to be brought completely back to God to enjoy Him as our only goal and aim through maintaining an affectionate love toward our dear Lord Jesus.

The Inward Parts and the Hidden Part of Man

We need to be clear regarding the parts of man if we are going to experience God’s economy. In God’s economy Christ is all and in all but in order for Him to be all and in all in our experience we need to know, exercise and deal with our inward parts and hidden part.

According to 1 Thessalonians 5:23 man has three parts, a body, soul and spirit. Man’s inward parts are his soul and man’s hidden part is his spirit. Man’s heart is made up of the soul plus the conscience in man’s spirit. The soul comprises the mind, emotion and the will. The human spirit is made up of man’s conscience, fellowship and intuition.

Man first needs to deal with his heart in order to experience Christ as life. Our heart is the entrance and exit of our being. If we are going to experience Christ our heart must be turned to the Lord. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says that whenever the heart shall turn to the Lord the veil is taken away. When the heart is turned and soft toward the Lord man’s spirit can exercise to receive Christ as life. Our spirit is our receiving organ. However once our spirit receives and contains Christ as life through regeneration it becomes our inner man with the soul as it’s organ.

Through the fall, man lost God and man’s spirit became deadened and man’s soul became the self the person of fallen man, the old man. After our regeneration we need to deny our soul, our old person, the independent I and exercise our spirit, taking it as our person, to live Christ and magnify Christ with the soul as our expressing reflecting organ. Praise the Lord for the parts of man in God’s economy.

The Two Spirits, the Divine Spirit and the Human Spirit

We need to know our spirit to experience life (Romans 8:10; John 3:6). Our spirit is the key to God’s economy. When we talk of the experience of life we are speaking of our experience of Christ. Christ today is the life-giving Spirit who is life (1 Corinthians 15:45b; Romans 8:2). When the Spirit enters into our spirit, our spirit is regenerated and becomes life. These two spirits become one mingled spirit for the believers experience of Christ as life (1 Corinthians 6:17).

We need to know where our spirit is. Our spirit is the deepest part of our being and according to Hebrew 4:12 it is contained within the soul. This is why Hebrews 4:12 speaks of the dividing of soul from spirit. If our soul is not divided for our spirit we confuse the things of the soul with the things of the spirit. Thus our experience of Christ as life is greatly limited and frustrated. For the dividing of soul from spirit we need the living and operative word of God. This word of God is sharp and well able to divide soul from spirit in us.

Our greatest problem is being distracted from our spirit. Primarily we are not distracted by evil or sinful things but good things. Our human goodness becomes a huge distraction from our exercising and contacting our spirit where the Holy Spirit dwells. Our doctrinal understanding also frustrated our contacting and exercising our spirit causing us to be satisfied with mental apprehension when we are short of the reality in our experience. Also spiritual gifts can lead us to miss aim, causing us to neglect the mingled spirit.