Thank you, Almighty God, for choosing me before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in Christ Jesus,[i] my sinless Savior.[ii] I thank You for the revelation that the crucifixion, death and passing away of my old man[iii]* with its heart of stone was a necessary requirement for receiving a new, undivided heart and a new spirit[iv]** and entering into a New Covenant with You so that I can now know and love You personally.[v]
Therefore, I agree with and welcome Your just judgment and rejection of my old, rebellious,[vi] evil self,[vii] a sinner[viii] that was spiritually dead in Adam[ix] in the offenses and uncircumcision of the “flesh,”[x] a slave of sin,[xi] hard hearted and alienated from You through ignorance,[xii] one with Darkness,[xiii] led astray, senseless, disobedient, enslaved by various lusts and pleasures, full of malice and envy, hateful[xiv] and hostile toward You,[xv] deceitful above all things, godless, hopeless,[xvi] worthless,[xvii] an enemy in my mind by evil works,[xviii] exceedingly perverse and corrupt beyond cure,[xix] I lived in the lusts of my flesh, following both the desires of the flesh and my mind and, therefore, an object of Your just wrath just like others.[xx]***
I thank You that Your mercy towards who I am now in Christ Jesus, the Last Adam,[xxi] has triumphed over the judgment against who I was in the first Adam.[xxii]
NOTE: See the Footnotes for this chapter on page 56.
[i] Ephesians 1:4 “…He chose us in Him before (the) foundation (of the) world, for us to be holy and without blemish before Him in love….” Also see 2 Timothy 1:9.
[ii] Hebrews 4:15 “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, but was in all points tempted like (us, yet) without sin.
[iii] Romans 6:5-6 and Colossians 3:9 “For if we have been joined together in the likeness of His death, so also shall we be in the resurrection;** knowing this, that our old man was crucified with (Him), that the body of sin might be annulled, so that we no longer serve sin.” “Do not lie to one another, having put off the old man with his practices.” Also see 2 Corinthians 4:16 and 5:17
* Note: The term old man can also be rendered as the original (man) [in Greek], old self, former self, or old nature, referring to the essence or spirit of an unregenerated human being with the same sin nature as the fallen Adam, for all mankind is “in Adam,” the father of the human race. This state of being spiritually dead towards God can change only by being reborn with a completely new nature (inner man) through and in Christ by faith in His finished work on the cross. The old man which was of Darkness is thereby removed by circumcision (spiritually, not physically) as stated in Colossians 2:11. Jesus described this necessary spiritual regeneration in Mark 2:22 with the analogy of the wine skins. The old wine skin (old man) cannot be patched to receive the new wine (the Holy Spirit) but must be replaced with a totally new skin for it would burst and both the skin and new wine would be lost. So, rebirth is actually a re-beginning (regeneration) – not a mere remodeling – of a believer’s core or essence. He is, therefore, transformed into a brand with a new past, present and future “in the last Adam,” Jesus Christ. He is now, by nature, a saint (holy, set apart by God) because the sinner essence (old wine skin) was replaced with a “new spirit being” – the new me alive through and in Christ.
**Additional Note: This resurrection does not refer to the first resurrection of Christ in whom the new (spiritual) me was raised from the dead but to the great resurrection on the Last Day when Jesus returns in victory, raising up and transforming every believer’s physical body, thereby accomplishing “full redemption.”
[iv] Ezekiel 11:19 “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.” Also see Ezekiel 36:26, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 2:20, Romans 7:22, Ephesians 3:16 and 4:21-24 and Colossians 3:10 for “inward man” and 2 Corinthians 4:16 for “outward man.”
***Note: At rebirth, God sovereignly replaces one’s incurably evil human spirit with a new spirit (inward/inner/inside/new man or essence) so that the new me is now fit for 1) being one with Jesus in God (John 17:21) and 2) being lived in as His holy temple – a new “wine skin.” My outward/outer man (soul and body as opposed to my inward man – the real me who is a spirit being) is still being sanctified by the Holy Spirit. This must happen – even though I (the new me) am already justified and sanctified in Christ and, therefore, made righteous (in right standing) with God – for all of me eventually to become fully sanctified. Currently, I (a spirit, with a soul, living in a body) am a finished work in progress. Also see 1 Thessalonians 5:23
[v] Jeremiah 31:31,33,34 “The time is coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. … I will put my law within them and on their hearts will I write it; and I will be their God and they will be my people … for they will all know me from the least to the greatest … and I will remember their sin no more.”
[vi] Proverbs 17:11 “An evil man is bent only on rebellion; a merciless official will be sent against him.”
[vii] Luke 11:13 “‘Then if you being evil know to give good gifts to your children, how much more the Father out of Heaven will give (the) Holy Spirit to those asking Him.’”
[viii] Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
[ix] 1 Corinthians 15:22 “…for as all die in Adam so also all will be made alive in Christ….”
[x] Colossians 2:13 “And you, being dead in the offenses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made alive together with Him, having remitted all your offenses.” Also see Ephesians 2:5.
[xi] Romans 6:17 “But thanks to God that (though) you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from (the) heart the form of teaching to which you were delivered.”
[xii] Ephesians 4:18 “Having been darkened in the intellect, having been alienated (from) the life of God because of the ignorance being in them because of the hardness of their heart,”
[xiii] Ephesians 5:8 “…for you then were darkness, but now light in (the) Lord; walk as children of light.”
[xiv] Titus 3:3 “For we also once (were) senseless, disobedient, led astray, slaving for various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.”
[xv] Romans 8:7 “…because the mind of the flesh (is) enmity towards God; for it is not subject to the law of God, for neither can (it be).”
[xvi] Ephesians 2:12 “…having no hope, and godless in the world.”
[xvii] Romans 3:12 “All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
[xviii] Colossians 1:21 “And you then being alienated and enemies in (your) mind by (your) evil works, yet now He reconciled.” Also see also Romans 5:10.
[xix] Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart (not yet reborn) is deceitful above all things and beyond cure (desperately wicked). Who can understand it?”
[xx] Eph. 2:3 “… among whom also we all conducted ourselves formerly in the lusts of our flesh, doing the things willed of the flesh and of the understanding, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as the rest.”
****Note: The Greek for flesh has more than one meaning. It can simply mean one’s physical body which is not, in itself, evil. However, Jesus revealed to Paul, according to Romans 6:18 that there is a force within even a Christian that works against his best intentions.
“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh for I have the desire to do good but cannot carry it out.”
Many still think that this is a reference to the “old Adamic man” as though it is still in operation. But actually, as Dr. Neil T Anderson’s explains in his book The Bondage Breaker, the term “flesh” refers to all the “programming” left over from the old, Adamic nature which can still influence decisions and behavior of the saint – if followed. The term flesh cannot mean the old man itself because it was crucified on the cross, it died and then was buried with Christ by faith, according to Galatians 2:20 and 2 Corinthians 5:17. One cannot have two essences or natures simultaneously. No one can be in Adam and in Christ at the same time because Light can’t unite with Darkness.
So, what are some of the “works” of this second definition of the word flesh? Mental remnants of the old man such as selfish attitudes, moods and dispositions, wrong habits and mind-sets, addictions, and ungodly appetites, past negative experiences and actions – all dead works. The only way to have victory over this common dilemma described in Romans Chapter Seven is to experience rebirth in Christ and learn how to walk according to the Holy Spirit as described in Romans, Chapter Eight. The remedy for this “battle in the mind” is New Covenant repentance – replacing the former “tape recording” of wrong beliefs with the truth of Jesus’ Grace-based Gospel, thereby enjoying progressively the freedom of Jesus’ victory over lies and misconceptions. Right believing produces the Holy Spirit’s fruit of right living.
Meditating on the chapters of Every Christian’s Testimony is specifically intended to help you accomplish this transformation/sanctification of the natural mind so that you will think more and more as Father-God does and behave accordingly – just as Jesus, our model, did. Also, my extensive study book Is There An Elephant In YOUR Church? explains this process of renewing your mind in great detail through the grid of Jesus’ whole Gospel of grace which is not commonly understood or applied today. Also see John 5:19.
[xxi] 1 Corinthians 15:45 “So also it has been written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul;’ the last Adam (Jesus) a life-giving Spirit.”
[xxii] Ephesians 2:4-5 “But God, who is rich in mercy and because of His great love for us – even thought we were dead in sins – made us alive together with Christ. By grace you are saved.”
Coming Next Week: Chapter 4 My Regeneration by Identification and Transformation through the Finished work of Jesus Christ – His Divine exchange with Me
life, that is, Jesus himself.