We've discussed prior to this, how the Holy Spirit's main ministry is revealing Jesus as our Savior to the world and revealing God as our Father to the Church. He reveals Jesus to the world as the sin bearer and the only way to salvation. And, He reveals the Father and His new covenant to God's "new creation" family.
The Church still views God as the Old Testament God, without the Holy Spirit's revealing Him as Father. We seem to return to the Law instead of grace and we try pleasing God by our works. This part of the Holy Spirit's ministry has probably been the most difficult part of His job.
It's difficult for us to view God as Father, even though we refer to Him as Father. We seem to understand more about Him as our Father, but less about us as being His family. We carry around the Image of the way He dealt with man in the old covenant, more than the Image of how He deals with His family in the new covenant. The Holy Spirit has worked for more than two-thousand years, trying to teach man that Jesus is the Only Way to understand the heart of our Heavenly Father. When we witness Jesus' attitude towards the people, we see the Father's attitude towards mankind. Jesus never used sickness to chasten or teach the masses, but He always healed them from what sin and satan had done to them. We, however, have come to believe that the opposite is our Father's way of teaching His children.
Hebrews 1:3 (Amplified) tells us that Jesus is our Image and example of how we are to see the Father. Thus, it says, "He (Jesus) is the sole expression of the glory of God (the Light-Being, the out-raying or radiance of the divine), and He is the perfect imprint and very Image of (God's) nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty Word of power. When He had by offering Himself accomplished our cleansing of sins and riddance of guilt. He sat down at the right hand of the divine Majesty on High."
These verses should be enough for any believer to God as Father and as the One Who shows grace and mercy and not judgment on His family. The very same way Jesus taught the masses, is the exact way the Father teaches us today. Sickness and disease were the enemies to covenant people and they still are today, because sickness, sin, disease and death are under the curse of the Law. Some people think that the Law means the Ten Commandments, but they're not the same thing. The Law allowed God to deal with His people by grace. As long as the people obeyed the Law, they could be protected from the consequences of the Curse. Without the Law, the old covenant people would have to bear the results of what Adam brought upon all mankind.
The curse wasn't God's idea, but was the result of Adam's disobedience. God's idea or plan for man was blessing. The Law we've been redeemed from can be found in Romans 8:1-2 (Amplified) which says, "Therefore, (there is) now no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong) for those who are in Christ Jesus, who live (and) walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit." Verse 2 goes on, "For the law of the Spirit of Life (which is) in Christ Jesus (the law of our new being) has freed me from the Law of sin and death." This is the Law that Jesus has freed us from. The Ten Commandments are not a law to the New Testament people, but the "walking after the Spirit of Liberty," because violating the Ten Commandments puts believers in a place of bondage.
We follow after righteousness by the Holy Spirit's leading and not the Law of Moses. The people under the Law of Moses couldn't walk under the Spirit's leading because they weren't born again. They could only obey the Laws that would keep the flesh under control, but they couldn't overcome it. We have overcome the flesh by our new covenant with Jesus.
We read about Paul's struggle with his flesh, by observing the Law of Moses in Romans 7:24-25. It was his understanding our new covenant that set Paul free from the condemnation of guilt from his past transgressions. Thus, Paul says, "O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from (the shackles of) this body of death? O thank God! (He will!) through Jesus Christ (the Anointed One) our Lord! So then indeed I, of myself with the mind and heart, serve the Law of god, but with the flesh the law of sin."
Paul spoke about the Law of God in reference to the "Law of the Spirit of Life which is in Christ Jesus" in Romans 8:1-2. The Law of the flesh Paul spoke about was the Law of sin and death.
We're still engaged in this same "warfare" in our bodies today. None of us are so pure in ourselves that we are free from wrong thoughts or deeds. What Paul was simply saying was summed up in Hebrews 1:3 (Amplified) which says, "[Jesus] had by offering Himself accomplished our cleansing of sins and riddance of guilt."
Paul was determined to walk in and by the Holy Spirit. If we spend all of our time walking in guilt or the condemnation from our failures, then we will never rise to the place of being successful in god's victory over our flesh. We could spend our lives in guilt or shame from our past. Or, we can live our lives in the Law of the Spirit of Life which is in Christ Jesus.
Until we reach the fullness of our salvation and the redemption of our body, we will continue walking in the forgiveness that is ours in Jesus. By not doing this, we remain under the Law of sin and death and will never be allowed to "feel" like we can walk in holiness and purity needed to operate in God's family.
We alibi our sense of guilty by saying, "God is doing this to teach me," but truthfully, we walk in it because we won't believe Jesus has "released and delivered us from the shackles of this body of death," like Romans 7:24-5 says. Paul became so convinced of this truth, that he later wrote 1Corinthians 4:3-4 (Amplified) which says, "But (as for me personally) it matters very little to me that I should be put on trial by you (on this point) and that you or any other human tribunal should investigate and question and cross question me, I do not even put myself on trial and judge myself. I am not conscious of anything against myself, and I feel blameless; but I am not acquitted before God on that account. It is the Lord (Himself) Who examines and judges me."
Here stands a man who has trained his senses to walk to much in the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, that the Law of sin and death no longer can hold Paul down with guilt and shame in the flesh.
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