2Corinthians 5:17 (Amplified) says, "Therefore, if any person is (ingrafted) in Christ Jesus (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old (previous moral and spiritual condition) is passed. Behold, the new has come."
I made reference to the new condition people as being the Living Ark of the Covenant in yesterday's teaching. Few of us have ever thought much about this or have truly understood it. Paul writes in 1Corinthians 3:16-17 (Amplified) saying, "Do you not discern and understand that you (the whole Church at Corinth) are God's temple (His sanctuary) and that God's Spirit has His permanent dwelling in you (to be at home in you, collectively as a Church and also individually)? If anyone does hurt to God's Temple or corrupts it (with false doctrines) or destroys it, God will do hurt to him and bring him to the corruption of death and destroy him. For the temple of God is holy (sacred to Him) and that (temple) you (the believing Church and its individual believers) are."
Paul went on to speak about false doctrines that corrupt God's temples with worldly wisdom in Verses 18-20 saying, "The world's wisdom is foolishness, absurdity, and stupid, as far as what God has to say, and (human reasonings) are futile." As the temple of God or the Ark of the Covenant, we (the new creation people) have an entirely new place here on this earth. We are not like the old covenant people. God's Spirit would come down upon them and then lift off of them, but the Spirit of God permanently indwells us.
The Ark of the Covenant was so holy that even a beast touching it, would die. It was so powerful with the Holy Presence of God, that anything unclean touching the Ark would die. As new creation people, we are filled with the very same power, Spirit and Holiness that was there with the Ark. The only thing preventing anything or anyone from dying when touching us, is the grace and mercy of the new covenant we live in.
We've been taught we are still in a state of sin and are not truly righteous. When we were saved and received Jesus in our spirit, the Word says the we "died and were made alive in Him." The Holiness of God came into our dead (by sin) body and spirit, so when something unholy touches it (like with the Ark of the Covenant), we actually died. The thing that was raised from the dead, is a new creation in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:3-5 (Amplified) says, "Are you ignorant of the fact that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by the baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious (power) of the Father, so we too might (habitually) live and behave in newness of life. For if we have become one with Him by sharing a death like His, we shall also be (one with Him in sharing) His resurrection (by a new life lived for God)."
We've been waiting to share His resurrection when we die, but according to Paul, we have already died (I understand we are still in this natural body) and we've already shared Christ's resurrection into this new creation. At the time of our physical death or at the catching up of the Church, we will put on a new body (like Jesus has), but we've already been raised from the dead when we died with Him, were buried with Him and were raised with Him.
This sounds like utter foolishness to the natural man and to carnally minded Christians, this sound too far out. But, to God, this is the new creation, a new people who never existed before He raised them up. We are brand new and have become the new and living Ark of the Covenant. We continue seeing ourselves as "alive," because we walk and talk. However, the Word says that "All Life comes from the Spirit and without the Spirit there is nothing that lasts."
We've come to seeing baptism and even communion as being symbolic and not in the power of what they really are in the Spirit and Truth. They became symbolic and ritualistic , because they are performed by the flesh. If they only remain as "fleshly rituals," then there is no power in performing them without knowledge and faith in what they really are. To the new creation, everything is now in the spirit and is carried over into this natural realm.
The baptism is actually the burial and resurrection from death, in the natural and the spirit. We were already dead in trespass and sin in our spirit man, without Christ. We we become born-again, our natural man died. When the pure Holiness of God comes into a sinful human being, the sin filled body cannot live, just like unholy things touching the Ark of the Covenant. When we receive communion, we acknowledge the death and Blood of our Sacrificed Lamb and declare to the destroyer that, "The debt of sin and death has been paid in full and he no longer has the right or cause to enter our homes or lives."
When we understand that Jesus died as our Lamb, by faith in receiving communion, we declare His Blood over our lives. We declare that, "The Law of sin and death has been fulfilled in our lives. Death has come, the Law has been fulfilled and by the Blood of Jesus, we are free and the destroyer must pass over us." The legal requirements of the covenant, depends on faith in the Blood of Jesus as payment of this legal requirement.
Without having this understanding, baptism and communion are no more than religious, symbolic ritual. Our understanding of what has truly happened and placing faith in that, is what makes the power of the Blood and new creation function, according to the Law of the Spirit of Life which is in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:2 (Amplified) says, "The Lord would say, even to the Church, By our traditions we have made the Word of no affect in our lives."
The Spirit realm is more real than the natural realm and operates on Spiritual Laws that must be closely followed. We've never known about these laws, because we've never been taught about them and have been left to wonder why things happen in our lives that seem with be without cause or purpose. As new creation people, we walk in a place where we should study to understand and listen very closely to the Holy Spirit, our Teacher.
No comments:
Post a Comment