A Review So Far

God's Word is powerful.  He said so.  God's Word is Living.  He says that too.  Those two realities are enough to transform anyone.  Power, Life - this is Who Christ is.  This is Salvation to us and WHO Christ IS in us.

What we are fighting on this planet is simply the blinding, deceiving lies of Satan to veil God's Truth.  We do not have to get in there and battle with the devil himself or demons.  Praise the Lord!  What we need to do is exactly what God told us to do - BE STRONG in the LORD and in the power of HIS might!

There is nothing in the Scriptures we cannot do or come to know as the reality of our salvation.  God has given us His Holy Spirit to KNOW the things freely given to us in His Son, Jesus Christ.

It absolutely makes sense to my heart that if I allow the Holy Spirit to teach, enlighten, work out in my understanding, God's Truth, and someone else does too - we will come to the SAME conclusion. 

The matter is with the heart and will of man.  All we have to do is desire Truth - the pure Truth and nothing short of it and this is absolutely, what we shall get.

Paul has laid out for us in Romans 5 that we ALL were once in Adam.  Sin and death entered through him - by the transgression.  All men became evil - ALL!  And their father became the devil himself.  Sin and death are not of God - He is Life.

So he explains that coming out of Adam into Christ is through believing the Gospel - through RECEIVING the Son of God (who is life).  He shows that we are to appropriate being crucified with Christ at the cross - buried with Him, raised with Him.  We are to indeed demonstrate that we believe God - that His Son did this at the cross.

God was judging, crucifying the old creation (Adam) through His Son, Jesus Christ.  When God raised Him from the dead, He is the New Man, the New Creation of God.  A whole new man!  Pretty awesome, huh?

Well to be in Christ is to be in the New Man, the New Creation.  Christ bore death, bore sin - God judged Adam completely.  It is finished!  God says that old Adam and what came through him judicially is done away with!

Now Paul goes on to explain this further in Romans 6.  If Adam's represents all sin and death, and we are now in Christ - then Christ represents nothing but Life - Resurrection Life.  Paul explains that through Life now fruit is born.

The smashing point of Romans 6 is that since we have been raised with Christ (in Him) - we have died to sin and come OUT of ADAM!   All that the old creation represents shall not have dominion over us anymore! 

What do you do with a statement like this?  We are called to believe God.  All fruit bearing - all everything starts and ends with FAITH in Jesus Christ! Just plain believing God and saying, "This is true!"

So in Romans 7, Paul is going to further illustrate why one who is in Christ now is not gaining anything by returning to fleshly efforts to keep God's Law.  He emphatically says there is nothing wrong with God's Commandments like "Thou Shall Not Kill, Steal, Murder..."  There's not a child of God on this planet who would disagree that those are good things!

But Paul explains the HOW to keep from doing those things in our lives is through the Person, Jesus Christ now dwelling in our hearts.  Sin's power is still in the world.  It's a power that wants to seduce even the child of God into bondage again.

However, Mr. Sin (that's what I will call him) is not lord anymore.  Jesus Christ is!  Jesus Christ is power, life, wisdom, and the Holy Spirit in me.

So through faith, through receiving, abiding, understanding that we are no longer in Adam (sin and death) but in the New Creation of God who is Christ we walk out true LIFE, liberty, and fruit.

If I return to something other than this Truth, this Reality, I will live the Romans 7 pattern.  And I did, and so have you.  God has to destroy the mind's ideas of Christianity and bring us into the mind of Christ.  As long as we keep traditions of men, false notions, false teachings, we cannot KNOW the absolute wonders of Christ's Resurrection Life and Power dwelling in these jars of clay.

Romans 7 is clear.  Do not return to the Law.  Instead look at JESUS CHRIST alone - we are married to another now.  This Person Jesus Christ can and will get every ounce of good out of us, because it is His Life bearing fruit in and through us.  The life of Jesus is the Holy Spirit in us.

We are NOT to return to the Law for Righteousness and Fruit, but SOLELY live unto God through Christ, His Son in faith and abiding. 

Sue Gaither