Part 14 of 14 -

The Essential Spirit –

and God’s New Creation

As we have seen, we all have formerly been the workmanship of the Devil. We were lost, self-loving, without God, having no hope, and destined for perishing. Eph 2:12-13   That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: We were lost, but are now -  ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.  Now, as believers who are “in Christ,” we stand before God holy and blameless, clothed in His love. Eph 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: ⁴ According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

We who were dead now have received the eternal, resurrected, “spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” which makes us eternally alive. Eph 2:4-6   But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, ⁵ Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened (gave life to) us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) ⁶ And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

We now have become Christ’s workmanship – we are the ones in whom He now works by His life within our being as our new essential spirit-self. Ephes. 2:10 For we are his (Christ’s) workmanship… Philip 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Now we may appropriate the victory of Christ over the Sin nature that is still resident in our body of flesh. We do this by identifying with Christ’s death and resurrection life as being our own death and resurrection life… by simply looking away to Him lifted up on the cross as our as our death, and source of new life. Many Protestants are offended by the sight of the Roman Catholic Crucifix. Seeing Christ still on the cross – they say “But He has risen,” and so He has. But now, I’ve come to see Christ on the cross as me, Art Licursi, as to my old Sin-poisoned self, who is the one still left on the cross – where I stay, identifying with Jesus’ death as mine. This is my Old Man’s continuing status in Christ. Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ…

I am told that Saint Augustine relates a story of his experience that reveals the truth of his realization and belief in his death with Christ. Augustine apparently had a wild life before his conversion. After some years, one day he walked down a street sidewalk and across the street was a former prostitute that he had frequented in years past. She saw him and called to him, “Is that you Augustine?” His rely was “it is no longer I”; as taken from Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, Christ liveth in me…”

Where is Christ? Where is His cross? His life, with His cross as our death, is now within our spirit. Christ’s life within us bears to us the outworking of our old man’s death, as part and parcel of our new man’s life that we have by receiving the resurrected indwelling “Spirit of life” (Rom 8:2). Now we must look to Christ within, identifying with His death as our death. I do this by trusting and yielding to the Christ alive, yielding to His voice in my spirit’s conscience. Being dead to Sin, I’m now free to obey His voice. My old man’s death is only made effectual by my life-union with Christ. We do not “fight” Sin. Rather, we may simply turn our heart (soul) from fighting the temptations of Sin…unto Him; to abide in union with Him who is our supernatural innermost life. By abiding in His life, we are in union with His death, as ours. It is in this way that we may put to death “the deeds” of the flesh. Rom. 8:13 … if ye through the Spirit do mortify (put to death) the deeds of the body, ye shall live (zao, experience of Christ’s Spirit-life). From Romans 8:13 we see this; though Sin in our body of flesh is not dead, we can mortify the “deeds” that Sin would prompt in us. Victory over Sin comes from learning to yield to Christ as my indwelling life. We do this by turning our heart to depend upon Christ within; Christ’s life then is spontaneously effective. As soon as we are tempted we should turn within; flee to Christ, by calling upon Him (2Tim 2:22) within our spirit (2Tim 4:22).

Thus, we who were originally of the race of Adam, who fell due to a grasp for independence, now find our salvation from the temptations of indwelling Sin in our flesh through dependence upon Him. God loves us and gave us victory over Sin through our union with Christ’s essential Spirit that is now in us, as the new us. <END>