MOVING FORWARD

MOVING FORWARD

                “For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away it is impossible to renew them again to repentance since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.” Hebrews 6:4-6.

                Bonnie and I have been on a long journey. It has been a journey of religion, then no religion and then into spectator religion and then finally into a living breathing relationship with the Lord in which we are guided by the Word and by the Holy Spirit. We have learned to live for others and not for ourselves. We have learned how to love and to serve the body of Christ. We have learned to live every day by divine appointment.

                In this way of life there is peace with God as we become containers of the Holy Spirit and we learn how to live by that which has been planted in us. Sanctification is not that of accepting a list of doctrines or laws, but in learning how to live by the Spirit of God rather than by our flesh. We have been adopted into the royal family of heaven and now we are learning to live like His sons and daughters.

                Romans chapter 8 has become sort of like home base for us because here Paul describes for us what Christian maturity is. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.) Rom. 8:14)

                So if a couple of nice people come to our door and say that they have special truth to share with us and in the course of our conversation they say: “Oh, by the way, Jesus is not God and the Holy Spirit is not a person.” Our conversation is over. Firstly the Bible is very clear both in the OT and the NT who Jesus was and is, and Jesus Himself declared exactly who He was and having participated in the indwelling Holy Spirit, we know that the Holy Spirit is exactly who the Bible says He is and that He is dedicated to bring the very presence and person of Jesus Christ into our hearts.

                Not only that but He has promised to guide us into all truth. Jesus said in John 16:7-8

                “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you; but if I go away I will send Him to you. And He when He comes will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”  (Do you get that? It is no longer the Law that convicts us of sin, but the Holy Spirit. The Law has already put us to death in Christ, so we are no longer under its jurisdiction. We are now being led by the Holy Spirit)

                Jesus further asked the Father saying: “Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth. As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” John 17:17-18. The Word and the Spirit always work together and in agreement, so in living by the Spirit we are living according to the Word… and the word says that we are now in a New Covenant and under a new priesthood in which the Law is becoming obsolete. It is for the sinner and not for the saint who live by the power of Christ.

                Just before Jesus left this world, He breathed on His disciples just as He had breathed into Adam’s nostrils and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” so He breathed upon them the Holy Spirit, but that was not the end of it for His first breath upon them was to make them alive with His presence, but then He told them to tarry in Jerusalem and don’t do anything until I have sent to you the promise of the Father.

                Well, we are told in Acts chapter one that Jesus’ parting instruction to them just before He lifted off was this: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth.

                So with His first breath He gave us the Comforter to dwell in us and to guide us into all truth, and then upon His ascension to the Most Holy Place in heaven, He sent His power to us so that we could continue His mission in the world having the same power of the Holy Spirit that had empowered Jesus so that we could preach the Gospel of the kingdom with signs and wonders following.

                Christianity over the past 2000 years has fallen far away from that power and purpose and today we argue over doctrine and every nuance of the Law, ever polishing the form of religion, but denying the power thereof.

                But it is our privilege and joy to learn how to walk in the Spirit and in the Word just as Jesus did and He made a huge point of letting us know that what He was bringing us was not what the Pharisees had brought them. It was not about laws and rules and doctrines, since by then their traditions and interpretations had led them to reject Him rather than to embrace Him.

                Hebrews is clear in telling us that we have entered into a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil that is His flesh. This living way takes us right into the Most Holy Place where Jesus has entered as our High Priest. “For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.

                Jesus died to bring us a New Covenant that is made possible by His indwelling Holy Spirit so that instead of keeping laws with unchanged hearts, we are now being transformed into His image from glory to glory by His indwelling Holy Spirit.

                We are promised that if we live by the Spirit we will not carry out the deeds of the flesh and this is possible because of a new priesthood that is better than the temporary one set up in the Old Testament. This one is administered to by a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, which the writer assures us, came 430 years before the Law was given.

                So the New Covenant works on an entirely new dynamic (which is actually the old dynamic first established in the garden of Eden) and the major part of our maturity in this life is learning how to live by that new dynamic rather than falling back into “the weak and beggarly elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again, for you observe days and months and seasons and years …” (Gal. 4:9, 10. Paul was pleading with the Galatians not to fall back into what they had come from, saying: “My little children with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you.” Gal. 4:19

                The Galatians had been falling back into Law, into Old Covenant types and shadows rather than into the living realities of life in the Holy Spirit. HE said to them: “Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law?” and then he goes on to describe two covenants represented by two women, Hagar the slave woman and Sarah the free woman. There he equated Hagar with Mt. Sinai and Sarah with the New Jerusalem above.

                Still so many Christians struggle on trying to keep the New Covenant with an Old Covenant heart under Old Covenant priesthood. The struggle is very real and we battle with it daily, for as Paul said in Gal. 5:17, 18 “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh for these are in opposition to one another so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under Law”

                What he is saying here is that resorting to the Law will not solve the problem of your struggle between Spirit and flesh. And he says: “But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

                Again, I say that maturity or sanctification is a matter of learning to be led by and empowered by the Holy Spirit rather than by your flesh. It is within our own souls that we either worship idols or we worship the true and living God. It is within our own souls that we either have rest or turmoil. It is within our own souls that the Law is fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

                So when those who are under Law come and tell me to get back under Law, the Spirit rises up in my and warns me not to fall back into the weak and worthless things of the flesh, but to walk by His Spirit and by His Word and I will not carry out the deeds of the flesh.

                I have been made a partaker of the Holy Spirit and have tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and I will not again ”crucify to myself the Son of God, or to put Him to open shame.” Jesus has with His own blood brought to us a New Covenant and a new Priesthood and I am learning to live by that covenant and that priesthood. It is administered to us by the Holy Spirit and the Word, so that when we rightly divide the Word of truth, we are guided by the Holy Spirit to walk in the powers of the age to come.

                Rather than clinging to what was, we need to move forward to what is and what is to come.