THERE IS THEREFORE NOW NO CONDEMNATION TO THOSE WHO ARE "IN" CHRIST JESUS
At first glance it may seem insignificant to stress the word "IN" when quoting
the above verse. Yet, stop and think about it, the people who are the most
self-condemning are those who consider themselves Christians. Our failures and
fears rise to the surface continually, like rocks in a New England garden.
Will they ever cease? I don't think so. Not as long as we are in this "body of
death." Our lives should greatly improve by the influence of the Holy Spirit,
and we can go on to deeper things of God, but our security, or our confidence
of acceptance by God can only be found in Him. He is our Peace. This is why
the above verse follows the analytical examination that Paul reveals in Romans
chapter seven concerning his inability to save himself. In this conclusion he
comes to the understanding that Christ alone can save him, if he trusts only
in Christ and not himself! The strength of man, or the pride of life in a man
is a false place of security, and until it is removed from our everyday
thinking, it will be our place of confidence. (We must count it as dung!)
In the Old testament there is reference to safe cities, or cities of
refuge. Your safety was guaranteed while you remained in the city. The same is
true in Christ. In an attempt to lure you out of that safe place, the
tempter, ("the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field"..Gen.3:1)
seeks to entice us with perverted words that "sound" good, yet their end
results are disaster. Subtle twists in what the Word says, what God says,
words that speak to our flesh while they are disguised as precepts of God!
Paul writes: "For I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve
through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity
that is IN Christ. For if he that comes preaching another Jesus...or another
gospel." (2 Cor. 11: 3-4) This warning pertains to the boasting of the
flesh of the Corinthian Christians who appear to be looking down on Paul
because of his apparent weaknesses. So, the other Jesus, and other gospel, are
those that strengthen the flesh of a person with the subtilty of presenting
itself as spiritual.
Just prior to this warning, Paul instructs them about weapons of
warfare. Most of the teaching excludes, matter of fact I don't recall any
teaching that includes, the first verse of this instruction in 2 Corinthians
chapter 10. That verse contradicts most of the modern thinking about our
approach to this warfare. It is the opposite of the militant approach that
teaches us to take on the enemy in a manner that resembles the Don Quixote
battles of imaginary fears I have referred to in the past. The verse starts
out with Paul stressing how important this approach is: "Now I Paul myself
beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ." (2 Cor.
10:1) Everything that follows, the warfare, imaginations and obedience of
Christ, and I might add, putting on the armor, is based upon this foundation!
The meekness and gentleness of Christ, contrary to our human nature, is
being formed in us. Though our flesh resists this transformation, God does not
stop the process that conforms us to the image of His Son (see Romans
8:28-29). "...cast off the works of darkness, and let us put ON the
amour of light...put ON the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for
the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." (Rom. 13: 12 & 14) Putting ON, or
being IN Jesus is like entering into that city of refuge. The security is IN
Him, IN His armour! When we read of David going up against Goliath they tried
to equip him with Saul's armour (which represents the flesh). Goliath had been
taunting the men of Israel, and even though Saul promised great rewards to the
man who killed Goliath, none came forward. Finally, David, as a boy,
overmatched by the giant, stepped up and said, "The Lord delivered me out
of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out
of the hand of this Philistine." (1 Sam. 17:37) After David took off
Saul's armour, David said to the Philistine "You come to me with a sword,
and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to you IN the name of the Lord
of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day will
the Lord deliver you into my hand." (1 Sam. 17: 45-46) David had not
"proved [tested]" Saul's armour, but he had proved God's! (1 Sam. 17:39)
His confidence was IN God, not the sling that he used. He "put ON" this armour
of God, his confidence was IN God.
Why then would we resort to confidence in our ability to wage warfare? At
the end of 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, Paul writes concerning the
reconciliation that Jesus Christ has obtained for us. He goes on in Chapter 6
writing about the grace of God that we received. Paul, quoting Isaiah 49:8
writes about God the redeemer and His Holy One, "I have heard you in a time
accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured you: behold, now is the
accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (2 Cor. 6:2) "We
then, as workers together with Him, beseech you also that you receive not the
grace of God in vain...Giving no offense in any thing, that the ministry be
not blamed: But in all things approving [exhibiting] ourselves as the
ministers of God, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, In stripes,
in imprisonment's, in tumults [beatings], in labours..." (2 Cor. 6:1, 3-5)
Returning to 2 Cor. 10:1, "Now I Paul myself beseech you by the
meekness and gentleness of Christ...though we walk in the flesh, we do not war
after the flesh [as some report of him]; (For the weapons of our
warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong
holds;)" (2 Cor. 10: 1-3) He is not writing about a confidence in the
mighty weapons that he wields like a Christian Goliath, but a mighty God in
whom he has confidence. It is a security issue that guards his heart and mind
against all opposition that is attacking his flesh. The meekness and
gentleness of Christ is not to get free of the fleshly obstacles, but rather
to devalue them, to lesson their importance in his life, to dethrone them from
ruling his life! When this truth hits home there is a freedom IN Christ that
surpasses what this life or man can do to you. When Paul refers to counting
all things in this life as dung, it is in regard to the comparison to the
righteousness that he finds IN Christ! (More on this later) When the obstacles
of this life become our focus we no longer exalt Him, but them. When the enemy
comes to wage warfare it is to get our eyes (confidence) off of Jesus Christ
and put them on ourselves, and our ability or inability to secure us. It is
very natural, very reasonable, it is carnal. These weapons that protect us,
identified as the armor of God, each represents Jesus Christ. Were we to
examine each item of this armor in Ephesians chapter 6, we would see that they
are descriptions of Jesus, our refuge, high tower, and most of all, our
Righteousness!
With confidence in this Provision of God we are equipped to repel the
fiery darts of the wicked that war against our mind and our soul. These
strongholds and imaginations are fleshly cords that bind you to this life as
you walk in unbelief battling, binding, casting down, rebuking things that
have no power over you that are IN Christ! Jesus, "Who did no sin, neither
was guile found in His mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again;
when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judges
righteously." (1 Pet. 2: 22-23) When He was reviled (slandered,
reproached, vilified, abused and railed against), did not rail back at those
who railed against Him. Are we greater than Him? Do we falsely imagine that we
should be spared or delivered from the injustices of this life? Who has
bewitched and beguiled us into waging a warfare that seeks the comfort of our
flesh rather than the peace of our souls? My own inadequacy to fully convey
Peters words that follow this are to me a blessing. My inadequacy makes me
rely upon the Lord Himself to reach us all. Jesus, Who His own self bare
our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should
live unto righteousness: by Whose stripes you were healed. For you were as
sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd Bishop of your
souls." (1 Pet. 2:24-25, quoting Isaiah 53:6)
Because of sin, "For it pleased the Father that IN Him should all
fulness dwell; And having made peace through the blood of the cross, by Him
to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him...And you, that were
sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works [like
Adam], yet now has He reconciled [by His stripes] IN the body of His
flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable
in His sight: If you continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be
not moved from the hope of the gospel." (Col. 1: 19-23) The battle was and
is the Lords! This Faith in Him that we are to be grounded and settled in, and
not moved from, is our only defense, our only protection against the fiery
darts that accuse us of our failures. Presenting us Holy and Umblameable and
unreproveable is not declaring us innocent, on the contrary, it solely relies
upon the mercy of the judge, Him who judges righteously. Another version words
this that we are "free from accusation." That is, "if you continue in the
faith" or continue to have confidence in the Blood of Jesus Christ to be the
eternal payment for sin. When we are baptized into His death we become dead to
sin, it no longer has dominion over us, and righteousness does. The battle
that rages on is one of conscience and confidence. Only the Blood of Jesus
Christ cleanses the conscience of its guilt. Not the blood of bulls and goats,
not the efforts of you and me. Paul casts aside all other confidences that
conflict with his confidence in the cross where Jesus shed His blood for you
us.
A dear Saint, IN Christ, once explained to me what the Lord showed her
concerning what a stronghold was. It is another area that I keep finding my
inadequacy to fully explain what I see in what He spoke to her concerning it.
A stronghold is not a simple addiction of the flesh that we can't seem to
subdue, it is more like when we call something good when it is evil, or call
something evil that is good. That subtle beguiling of the Truth and the lie
changing places is a stronghold. We "believe" something to be true that is not
and it becomes so much a part of us that even when the Holy Spirit comes to
correct us we assume it is the enemy trying to attack us. Our reflex reaction
is to "rebuke" him, assuming it is the enemy. This dear friend received it
like this: "A stronghold is a sympathetic thought toward evil." To date, my
explanation above is the best I can do with that statement.
Connecting this back to the armor of God and the weapons of our warfare,
I'm seeing that the accuser of the brethren attacks with truth's or partial
truth's about our flesh, our failing, etc. When we honor those attacks, by
fearing them, we exalt the accusations and devalue Christ's accomplishments on
our behalf. When we exalt Jesus, Lift Him up as our only defense, we abide IN
Him, place our confidence only in His Blood to atone, and we remain secure in
our place of refuge---the actual place that Jesus went to prepare for us!
Everything else, all the accusation, true or false, and we should be
"Casting down [these] imaginations and every high thing that exalts
itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought to
the obedience of Christ." (2 Cor. 10: 5) While we are to be obedient unto
the faith and to the truth, it was the obedience of Christ, "made in the
likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and
became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." (Ph. 2:7-8)
"For as by one man's [Adam's] disobedience were many made sinners, so
by the obedience of one [Jesus Christ] shall many be made righteous."
(Rom. 5:19)
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