Questions have been raised about HIS REST or rather, MISCONCEPTIONS about His Rest and what it TRULY is!

First, I am quoting Charles Spurgeon from His Commentary on the Psalms called
"THE TREASURY OF DAVID" This can be found online and even downloaded for free if desired.

Here is the commentary on Psalm 91: 1. Before I post this, REMEMBER just who wrote this. Spurgeon. This man is almost idolized by many, INCLUDING the Baptists (maybe I should say especially the Baptists)

What Spurgeon speaks of is EXACTLY what I have been referring to when I speak of HIS REST! Please carefully and Prayerfully consider these words>>>>

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Psalms 91:1
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PSALM 91 OVERVIEW.

This Psalm is without a title, and we have no means of ascertaining either the name of its writer, or the date of its composition, with certainly. The Jewish doctors consider that when the author's name is not mentioned we may assign the Psalm to the last named writer; and, if so, this is another Psalm of Moses, the man of God. Many expressions here used are similar to those of Moses in Deuteronomy, and the internal evidence, from the peculiar idioms, would point towards him as the composer. The continued lives of Joshua and Caleb, who followed the Lord fully, make remarkably apt illustrations of this Psalm, for they, as a reward for abiding in continued nearness to the Lord, lived on "amongst the dead, amid their graves." For these reasons it is by no means improbable that this Psalm may have been written by Moses, but we dare not dogmatize. If David's pen was used in giving us this matchless ode, we cannot believe as some do that he this commemorated the plague which devastated Jerusalem on account of his numbering the people. For him, then, to sing of himself as seeing "the reward of the wicked" would be clean contrary to his declaration, "I have sinned, but these sheep, what have they done?"; and the absence of any allusion to the sacrifice upon Zion could not be in any way accounted for, since David's repentance would inevitably have led him to dwell upon the atoning sacrifice and the sprinkling of blood by the hyssop.

In the whole collection there is not a more cheering Psalm, its tone is elevated and sustained throughout, faith is at its best, and speaks nobly. A German physician was wont to speak of it as the best preservative in times of cholera, and in truth, it is a heavenly medicine against plague and pest. He who can live in its spirit will be fearless, even if once again London should become a lazar-house, and the grave be gorged with carcases.

Division. On this occasion we shall follow the divisions which our translators have placed at the head of the Psalm, for they are pithy and suggestive. Psalms 91:1-2 -- The state of the godly. Psalms 91:3-8 -- Their safety. Psalms 91:9-10 -- Their habitation. Psalms 91:11-13 -- Their servants. Psalms 91:14-16 -- Their friend; with the effects of them all.



EXPOSITION

Verse 1. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High. The blessings here promised are not for all believers, but for those who live in close fellowship with God. Every child of God looks towards the inner sanctuary and the mercyseat, yet all do not dwell in the most holy place; they run to it at times, and enjoy occasional approaches, but they do not habitually reside in the mysterious presence. Those who through rich grace obtain unusual and continuous communion with God, so as to abide in Christ and Christ in them, become possessors of rare and special benefits, which are missed by those who follow afar off, and grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Into the secret place those only come who know the love of God in Christ Jesus, and those only dwell there to whom to live is Christ. To them the veil is rent, the mercyseat is revealed, the covering cherubs are manifest, and the awful glory of the Most High is apparent: these, like Simeon, have the Holy Ghost upon them, and like Anna they depart not from the temple; they are the courtiers of the Great King, the valiant men who keep watch around the bed of Solomon, the virgin souls who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. Elect out of the elect, they have "attained unto the first three", and shall walk with their Lord in white, for they are worthy. Sitting down in the august presence chamber where shines the mystic light of the Sheckinah, they know what it is to be raised up together, and to be made to sit together with Christ in the heavenlies, and of them it is truly said that their conversation is in heaven. Special grace like theirs brings with it special immunity. Outer court worshippers little know what belongs to the inner sanctuary, or surely they would press on until the place of nearness and divine familiarity became theirs. Those who are the Lord's constant guests shall find that he will never suffer any to be injured within his gates; he has eaten the covenant salt with them, and is pledged for their protection.

Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. The Omnipotent Lord will shield all those who dwell with him, they shall remain under his care as guests under the protection of their host. In the most holy place the wings of the cherubim were the most conspicuous objects, and they probably suggested to the psalmist the expression here employed. Those who commune with God are safe with Him, no evil can reach them, for the outstretched wings of his power and love cover them from all harm. This protection is constant -- they abide under it, and it is all sufficient, for it is the shadow of the Almighty, whose omnipotence will surely screen them from all attack. No shelter can be imagined at all comparable to the protection of Jehovah's own shadow. The Almighty himself is where his shadow is, and hence those who dwell in his secret place are shielded by himself. What a shade in the day of noxious heat! What a refuge in the hour of deadly storm! Communion with God is safety. The more closely we cling to our Almighty Father the more confident may we be.

There is more to the commentary but this is sufficient.

Notice what Spurgeon says about these people who live in the HOLY of HOLIES.

"Those who through rich grace obtain unusual and continuous communion with God, so as to abide in Christ and Christ in them, become possessors of rare and special benefits, which are missed by those who follow afar off, and grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Into the secret place those only come who know the love of God in Christ Jesus, and those only dwell there to whom to live is Christ. To them the veil is rent, the mercyseat is revealed, the covering cherubs are manifest, and the awful glory of the Most High is apparent: these, like Simeon, have the Holy Ghost upon them, and like Anna they depart not from the temple; they are the courtiers of the Great King, the valiant men who keep watch around the bed of Solomon, the virgin souls who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. Elect out of the elect, they have "attained unto the first three", and shall walk with their Lord in white, for they are worthy. Sitting down in the august presence chamber where shines the mystic light of the Sheckinah, they know what it is to be raised up together, and to be made to sit together with Christ in the heavenlies, and of them it is truly said that their conversation is in heaven.

THIS is HIS REST and anything SHORT of this IS NOT HIS REST!.


Here are a couple of articles on related subjects>>>>

http://z12.invisionfree.com/Apostles_Den/i...howtopic=44&hl=

http://z12.invisionfree.com/Apostles_Den/i...howtopic=37&hl=

http://z12.invisionfree.com/Apostles_Den/i...owtopic=196&hl=

I will end with this article based on something the Lord showed me back in 1997>>>>

ENTER THE HOLIEST

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Here is part of a teaching about ENTERING the Holy of Holies. I would like to start with a vision I had back in 1997 while we were at services.

VISION:

We were in church and all of a sudden I saw the Lord in my spirit standing at the front of the assembly. He raised His arms and said quietly, yet so everyone could hear, “Whoever has found the Secret Place of the Most High, stand to your feet.” A good number of people stood. Then He said, “Whoever THINKS they know how to Enter into the Holy of Holies, TRY!”

It was then that everything changed. Many people ran and, it almost seemed like they fought their way up to the front in order to push themselves into the very presence of the Lord. ALL were rebuffed!

However, a VERY few people, as soon as the Lord said the last, fell on their faces, crying in repentance and declared that only Jesus was worthy to ENTER in and that the ONLY way for us to Enter was to come thru Jesus Himself! (End of Vision)

I would like to go to the Old Testament and look at the procedure for the High Priest to enter the Holy of Holies.

First of all, I am NOT going to put all of the verses that explain this here. There are CHAPTERS of Exodus that explain everything that was needful for Aaron to wear and do to ENTER the Holy of Holies. Ex 28-31 goes into the details of what was required for him. Now some of what is stated in these chapters is the anointing procedure. This was a necessary step for the entrance into the Holiest. We see that each article of clothing, each action he made, every ritual that was performed has to be specifically copied each time, or the Lord would strike the high priest dead!

My friends, it is very true that we do not have to perform THESE rituals to come to the Lord. However, ALL the things in the OT are a symbol and a sign for us, a shadow of the reality that is found in Christ Jesus who live in these NT days. Hebrews tells us they were written to give us an example of how we are to be. Have you read thru those 4 chapters? There are references that say things like the following>>>>

Exo 28:35 And it shall be upon Aaron when he ministers, and its sound will be heard when he goes into the holy place before the LORD and when he comes out, that he may not die.
Exo 28:38 So it shall be on Aaron's forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things which the children of Israel hallow in all their holy gifts; and it shall always be on his forehead, that they may be accepted before the LORD.

Exo 28:43 They shall be on Aaron and on his sons when they come into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister in the holy place, that they do not incur iniquity and die. It shall be a statute forever to him and his descendants after him.

Exo 29:35 "Thus you shall do to Aaron and his sons, according to all that I have commanded you. Seven days you shall consecrate them.

Exo 30:19 for Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet in water from it.
Exo 30:20 When they go into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to the LORD, they shall wash with water, lest they die.
Exo 30:21 So they shall wash their hands and their feet, lest they die. And it shall be a statute forever to them--to him and his descendants throughout their generations."

Lev 10:9 "Do not drink wine or intoxicating drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations,

(I would like you to notice something that occurs throughout the OT. Many times, God tells Israel that HE has established some ordinance FOREVER. Yet, we find when we get to the NT, that ordinance is SUPERCEDED and no longer required. This is a key to understanding the laws and commands of the OT in the light of the NT. The PRINCIPLES remain, but the commands do not. They are shadows that point us to Jesus Christ)

I hope I have shown you how intricate it was for the priests to be sanctified and cleansed prior to their even entering the tabernacle, let alone for the high priest to enter the Holy of Holies. God showed them that it was NECESSARY for them to abide by all of these rituals for cleansing and sanctifying OR THEY WOULD BE KILLED!!!! That is pretty serious! They even tied a rope around the high priest’s ankle in case he died while sprinkling the Mercy Seat with the blood. There were just so many rules they wanted to make sure that they meticulously kept them.

It was this meticulous keeping of all of these commands of God that brought about the Pharisees! They did keep meticulous track of all of these tiny rules, BUT as Jesus said, they left the heavier matters of Justice, Righteous, Mercy, etc alone! In fact, they ignored them! However, we cannot!

Now that we have seen how difficult it was for the high Priest to enter the Holiest, let us look at what Jesus went thru. Remember, according to Phil 2:4-11, Jesus laid down all of His attributes as God when he came to the earth. He NEVER used them while He was here. Everything He did, He did by the Power of the Holy Spirit that is available to us! The only difference being is He NEVER sinned during His whole life, we of course, cannot say that!

So what did Jesus do to prepare? HE walked without sin for 33 yrs on the earth. He was rejected by those to whom He was sent. He was betrayed by one of His close friends, spent the night before His arrest in prayer (which He often did anyway) and chose to obey God and face the death of the Cross rather than disobey.

Jesus was arrested illegally, tried illegally, sentenced to be beaten within an inch of His life, made to carry His own cross to the place of His crucifixion, and was cruelly treated, wounded, and killed! He died and was in the grave for 3 days and finally was resurrected. According to the Bible, Jesus sprinkled His own blood on the Heavenly Mercy Seat in the Heavenly Holy of Holies! It was ONLY by His own death that Jesus, as a man, earned the right to ENTER the Heavenly Holiest!

That is what Jesus went thru to prepare Him to ENTER! Do you honestly think we can just Enter any way we want to? Of course His blood provided the means. Of course His death allows us in there. Do you honestly think that we can just go there any ole time we want to? If we did, don’t you think that there would be a VERY CHANGED life as a result?

The precedence is that to Enter the Holy of Holies takes a great deal of preparation, refining, purity, and ABOVE ALL, dying!

If Jesus did not go before us, there would NEVER be a way for us to enter. BUT that does NOT mean it is easy to do so. There is preparation!

Let us look at the Tabernacle. There were three areas that made up the tabernacle. Each area was entered by the use of some type of door. From the outside, there was the Gate. It was a heavy linen braided sheet of purple, white, blue and scarlet. When you enter the gate, you are then in the outer court. This is where the bronze laver and altar were. In order for the priests to enter the Holy place, they had to wash very specifically in the laver. They also had to don their priestly garments that were made of linen. There was NOT to be the sweat of man in the Holy Place.

Now, if we study the typology of the tabernacle, we find that the gate and the door are both identical. They both represent Jesus. So, in order to enter the Outer Court and in order to enter the Holy Place, we MUST GO THRU JESUS! The gate can be related directly to salvation. The door can be directly related to the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. I wish I had some of my notes from school so I could give you a better description of all of this. But the articles in the outer court dealt with sin, while the articles in the Holy Place dealt with the ministry of the priest for the people, prayer, the light of the scriptures and the altar of incense.

But there was another entrance that was inside the Holy Place. This was the VEIL that led to the Holy of Holies! It was Identical to the gate and door, except for one thing; it was embroidered with cherubim. This denotes the risen Lord Jesus Christ. This is the veil that was torn from the top to the bottom when Jesus died. It took a death for that to happen and that is still the ONLY way of entrance into the Holy of Holies.

In order for the High Priest to enter the Veil, he had to make sure that he had dealt with all personal sin, that he followed all of the prescribed rituals and took the blood with him when he entered. According to Jewish tradition, the High Priest did NOT move the veil in order to enter the Holiest. What he did was, take the candlestick and the bowl with the blood and stand before the veil, and God would translate him thru it! Now before you say that was just a story, think about this. The high priest could not lay down the blood or the candlestick; he had both hands full and no one was allowed to help him, he had to move a 4 inch thick piece of linen that was about 8feet tall and 12 feet wide and was one piece. (it was longer, but only that much hung down inside) So you explain how the high priest got inside.

Now, we are to come to before the Lord. We must lay down our lives, as Jesus commanded. We must put ourselves on the altar for Him to deal with, burn up the dross and refine the gold within. We are to come to this place and join the Lord in His death (read Romans 6) our lives become united with His and everything in our lives that is not from Him is no more. (how can a dead man sin?) Then as we bow before the Lord, we submit our lives to Him and He will bring us in.

What is in the Holiest? The Ark of the Covenant (the real one that is in heaven) The Mercy seat that Jesus poured His blood on and the Glory of God! No other light, no sin, nothing that is NOT from God! There, we cease doing our own works; we have NO agenda that does NOT come from Him. We have ENTERED HIS REST! We can now see as He sees, from His perspective. We can make TRUE RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENTS, for we do not seek our own will, but the will of Him who sees ALL! We promote only Jesus, for it is all about Jesus!

My friends, this is a real place and we can live there! It is where the Lord wants us to live. It is a place where we do not promote ANYTHING except Jesus; we do not have any agenda but to Glorify the Lord with our lives on the earth in all things! If we are willing to pay the price, it is possible for us to live in this place. Not because of our righteousness, but because of the Blood of Jesus Christ and the life He lived which allows us to be partakers of the Divine Nature.

There is more to all of this, and perhaps we can discuss this and realize the reality of all of these things with the insight of so many people! I pray that we would be willing to pay that price, to lose our lives to gain the life we cannot lose!

God bless you all!

A bondslave in Christ Jesus, Dirk


Once all these things have been read and taken to the LORD HIMSELF, I would love discussion on this.

BUT NOTE THIS: Do not base your understanding of these things on what you currently think or have been taught by man; in fact, do not base what you are thinking on what your yourself have studied.

God TOLD me these things. He spoke to me, asked me questions, open my understanding, etc. IT DID NOT COME FROM MAN AT ALL!

Be carefull not to rely on any man for your understanding of these things, NOT EVEN YOURSELF!

God bless!

a bondslave in Christ Jesus, Dirk

Thank you so much, Dirk!

Yes, Yes, Yes! This is what God taught me. Also....it is not a 1 time experience, but we must APPROACH God daily in this same way. Rom 12:1,2 I have also been taught by God that worship and humbling myself are literally "forehead to the ground; prostrate yourself"

As I come before the Lord every morning, I come to the altar where the sacrifice was made for sin..........I surrender my life to the Lord's right to rule over me daily; I then ask the Lord to reveal all unconfessed iniquities that have come between He and I ; I write these down and ask Him to grant me Godly sorrow and repentance.

I have now moved on to the laver for cleansing.

At this time, the Lord usually has a conversation with me as to the motive behind these sins.....sometimes He goes indepth to deal with the motive;unforgiveness; or any wounds of the heart that have not been dealt with.

When He is finished revealing; exposing; and giving me understanding, THEN He grants me Godly sorrow and repentance. I confess the sins He has exposed and forgive others and then ask for His forgiveness. At this time I am usually praising Him and thanking Him also.....because of gratefulness and love.

I then move on to the Holy Place. I ask the Lord to fill me with His Holy Spirit and conform me to the image of Jesus Christ. I ask Him what He wants me to accomplish today; what plans He wants me make and their details; who He wants me to call or write; I then ask Him to teach me whatever He desires at this time. I start writing down whatever He says in order to later obey His instructions. When He ends this teaching period, I ask who does He want me to pray for and what does He want me to pray for each of them. (This is what God told me He calls "praying in the Spirit"......not what I had heard or learned in denominations)

I then write down all that He dictates and then begin to pray out loud what I just wrote.
The Lord gives me grieving and great travailing at this time.

When the Lord says I am done....He grants me His Peace and I begin to worship Him, at which time I enter the Holy of Holies. Then the Lord releases me from this worship time to go about obeying His plans and instructions for the day.

At this time, I am walking by His Spirit and we are in fellowship and we dialogue throughout the day.......unless I commit sin and grieve/quench His Spirit. But all I have to do is quickly confess as soon as I am convicted or aware of the sin; ask for His forgiveness and ask Him to cleanse me and fill me with His Spirit.

It took only a few weeks to learn to walk this way ALONE; but many months to be able to stay in His Spirit when there are other conversations and distractions.

Now after 6 years, His Spirit flows. There are seasons of purification and purging; or seasons of testing and trials where I spend more time repenting then walking Spirit filled.

There have been so many miraculous things that have come from this way of approaching God.......but the one thing that amazes me is that this way of "praying in the Spirit" eliminates my self, my will, my plans,my desires....and is totally God's will from God's mouth. I get to understand His will and plan for those I pray for, including myself, and because I know what He is interceeding for I then begin to literally see, or watch, God answer those prayers in His way.

Praying according to the Spirit's leading in the way I just described has fulfilled this verse in my walk with God.

Mar 11:24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive [them], and ye shall have [them].

God's desires have now replaced my desires in prayer and therefore, whatever God had me pray WILL be done because He prayed the prayer and , quite frankly, allowed me to partner with Him. This so amazes me....because He does not need me at all, but He bends down to allow me to be a part of His intercession and plan.

Happy,

Perhaps there is some misunderstanding somewhere. Thisd realm I speak of is easy, there is no striving, we do not work for it. It is a HUMBLE SUBMISSION to Him at all time and HE does all the work.

Yes, we must remain in submission to him BUT that should be our nature to do so.

When I say nature to live in a certain way, I mean just that. A bird, at least most of them, flies. A fish swims and breathers water. In both cases, it is the EXCEPTION that does not naturally do those things.

I will limit my resonse to just a few passages.

Col 2:11 In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, but in a [spiritual] circumcision [performed by] Christ by stripping off the body of the flesh (the whole corrupt, carnal nature with its passions and lusts).

Jesus does this.

Eze 36:23 And I will vindicate the holiness of My great name and separate it for its holy purpose from all that defiles it--My name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned among them--and the nations will know, understand, and realize that I am the Lord [the Sovereign Ruler, Who calls forth loyalty and obedient service], when I shall be set apart by you and My holiness vindicated in you before their eyes and yours.
Eze 36:24 For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all countries and bring you into your own land.
Eze 36:25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness; and from all your idols will I cleanse you.
Eze 36:26 A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
Eze 36:27 And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall heed My ordinances and do them.
Eze 36:28 And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and you shall be My people, and I will be your God.

God does this.

Eph 4:20 But you did not so learn Christ!
Eph 4:21 Assuming that you have really heard Him and been taught by Him, as [all] Truth is in Jesus [embodied and personified in Him],
Eph 4:22 Strip yourselves of your former nature [put off and discard your old unrenewed self] which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion;
Eph 4:23 And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude],
Eph 4:24 And put on the new nature (the regenerate self) created in God's image, [Godlike] in true righteousness and holiness.

The profane cannot produce the pure. Nothing we do will ever be considered good, pure, righteous, holy, etc.

We cannot create this new man. It is in Christ Jesus that we receive. This new man is created to BE LIKE GOD in TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS and Holiness. Man is INCAPABLE of producing this.

We can never leave the Lord, for the day we leave the Lord that is the day we die once more. For all that is sin, all that is in the world, in the flesh, and comes from satan, is INDEPENDENCE from God.

Our job, if you will, is to strive to ENTER IN. Once we do TRULY ENTER, we CEASE from all our works just as God ceased from His works when He created the universe.


Heb 4:9 So then, there is still awaiting a full and complete Sabbath-rest reserved for the [true] people of God;
Heb 4:10 For he who has once entered [God's] rest also has ceased from [the weariness and pain] of human labors, just as God rested from those labors peculiarly His own. [Gen. 2:2.]
Heb 4:11 Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief and disobedience [into which those in the wilderness fell].

If we have TRULY entered this rest, there is NO daily repentance, there is NO SIN. Not that we will be sinlessly perfect, for that will NOT occur on this earth. But we will not have to work at that. We will not have to try to "be good"

The Lord Himsefl chagnes us on the inside.

Just as there was a great preparation of the temple of Solomon. They took orginary things, cups, bowls, tables, etc, and cleansed them with BLOOD and then dedicated them to the Lord; they consecrated all the items for God's EXCLUSIVE USE. Then when it was all done, they presented it to God and He showed up and FIRE FILLED THE TEMPLE!

That is what happens to us as well. Our hearts are cleansed so that NOTHING in this world has a hold on us any more. NOTHING!

Until we are in that place of total consecration, we will not be able to Enter His Rest.

Again, I am not sure if you are saying these same things. The way you seem to be saying it appears as though you are consecrating yourself all the time and sometimes you fail and sin. THAT is NOT HIS REST!

When I was given the Vision of the HOLY of HOLIES, I was made to know that SIN was NOT possible for us if we lived in that place. And we CAN live there RIGHT NOW.

The only thing that prevents us from living there is ourselves. When we come to the place where we recognize there is NOTHING we can do and HE does it all, then we lay down our lives, offer Him the LIVING SACRIFICE and HE FILLS IT with HIMSELF! We do not have to try to be good. We just have to remain absolutely dependent on Him at all times.

THAT is our work!

a bondslave in Christ Jesus, Dirk

Perhaps I am not where you are, yet.
I do not "try" . I depend/trust in God to lead and change me. I walk according to His Spirit and while I am walking according to His Spirit I do sin at times. I still have heart sins...unGodly emotions that are stirred up at times.....for instance..... having expectations; frustration; pride; desiring comfort and convenience; boredom; unbelief; suspicion; being afraid, etc etc Any one of these or other sins crop up in my heart sometimes and that sin quenches the Holy Spirit and I am walking in my flesh until I have confessed and repented.

It is true, that as long as I am walking according to His Spirit (Spirit filled/Spirit controlled) I am not sinning....that can last for days at times......BUT I am still CAPABLE of sinning and quenching His Spirit until my soul has been purified completely by God.

Dear Happy,

Here is a portion of the book, The Gospel Message by Steve Bray>>>

(Notice especially the last section which is part of the testimony of Hannah Whitall Smith)

The Saving Life of Our Lord
Steve Bray

Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” (John 6:28-29 NKJV)

Then Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things. And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him.” John 8:27-29

The Son of God came into the world to provide a perfect sacrifice for our sins. He was the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. It is in this sense that the Hebrew writers asks, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 9:14) Yes, through the justification that Jesus Christ has provided, and the resulting new birth, it is now possible to have a conscience that has been completely cleansed from all sense of sin. This, in turn, sets us free from the dead and useless works that people try to use to make themselves feel right before God.

There are many people within the church today who still need to experience this great work of the Lord that truly cleanses the conscience and makes it possible to know a deep sense of peace with God. Others have experienced this work of justification and the new birth, but have fallen short of the saving life of our Lord. They do not realize that Christ’s work of justification is merely a door that leads to His real work of saving the soul from the sinful nature.

There is a natural tendency for Christians, who are still living in a justified state, to turn to the temporal world to find spiritual fulfillment. You will find them attempting to develop their spiritual life through their relationships, their possessions and by what they can make of themselves through their human efforts. Because they generally live by sight, they only look to God for spiritual help when their various worldly means have failed.

God never intended for His children to find their life from the temporal realm. It was His purpose from the beginning to manifest His own eternal life {“aionios zoe”} through the souls of everyone who lived by faith in Him. The eternal life is more than a life that goes on forever. It refers to a very special quality of life that will manifest the Son’s “light of life” from heaven through the human vessel. This divine {“zoe”} life has its source in the Father, but it must flow through the Son to individuals by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are expected to receive the firstfruits of this eternal life today if we desire to share with God in His divine life forever. It is in this sense that Paul would not only tell Timothy, but every Christian, “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal {zoe”} life, to which you were also called…” (1 Tim. 6:12)

When Jesus died, He removed the veil that had separated man from the divine life of God. Here is the difference between the Old and New Testaments. We have a record of people being justified before God beginning soon after the Fall of Adam. When Adam received a covering from God through the shedding of the blood of an animal, he was brought back into a justified state. But Adam was still barred from the Garden of Eden. The word Eden means pleasure. It represents the pleasure that man can enjoy within his soul when he is sharing with God in His eternal life. Because of what Christ did on the Cross to rend the veil, man can now enter back into the firstfruits of the eternal life. It is a heavenly life imparted to the soul that no one from the Old Testament could experience. Christ had to actually die before He could begin sharing His eternal life {“aionios zoe”} with those who live entirely by faith in Him.

Jesus displayed the eternal life when He lived in a mortal body. He also spoke of the living water that He can give as welling up from within to a display of the eternal life. He said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14) The word “everlasting life” refers to the special quality of “eternal life” that comes from God. This eternal life can now begin welling up from within our soul as an ever-flowing fountain and keep us from ever again thirsting for things of this world.

There was a rich young ruler in the Jewish religious system who had heard Jesus speak of the eternal life. He had also been able to see this heavenly quality of life being manifested through the mortal body of Christ. He therefore came to Jesus and asked how he too might receive this eternal life that Jesus spoke about. He ended up turning away from the promise of this eternal life because he was not prepared to follow Jesus in His way of life and begin wholly sustaining himself on the living water that comes from heaven. Once again we must say that those who depend on “things” from this world to develop their own form of spiritual {“psuche”} life, cannot gain access to the living water that God will supply to those who depend on Him alone for their fulfillment.

Everyone who has experienced a cleansed conscience and deep sense of peace with God, needs to begin asking themselves if they have been fighting the good fight of faith in order to take hold of the eternal life. Has the living water that continually wells up to perfect love, joy and peace begun to flow through your soul? Do you still find yourself thirsting for things of this world {including a reputation} and depending on temporal relationships, possessions, and the need to be recognized and honored in order to be lifted spiritually? If so, you need to press forward in your faith by turning away from your dependence on the temporal realm until Christ begins to manifest His eternal life through your soul. We can say with Paul, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His {indwelling “zoe”} life.” (Rom. 5:10)

There is a full salvation to be received in this world that will establish Christ’s eternal Kingdom-life within the heart. The Kingdom-life is what enables us to fulfill all the righteous requirements made known in God’s Word, including the high standards found in our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. It was not God’s intention for us to strive at obeying His laws through our own human efforts. His purpose was to enable us to be partakers with Him in His divine nature so we could do by nature what He requires of us. In the same sense that you do not need to command a bird to fly in order to make it respond in the way that God had purposed for it, you do not need to force a person who is sharing with God in His eternal life to act as God has purposed. It naturally occurs when we are fully sharing with God in His nature of perfect love. This supernatural and naturally self-sacrificing love is what enables us to fulfill all the righteous requirements of the law. “For the kingdom of God {within the heart}…is righteousness {perfect love} and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Rom. 14:17)

Most Christians are still attempting to fulfill the righteous requirements of the law through their own human efforts. They are living by law. And some, because they are highly disciplined, do quite well. Like the Pharisees, they show forth an outward display of holiness that impresses many people. But inside their hearts are far from being perfect in love. They have never truly died to the self-life that would permit the Lord to manifest His heavenly life within their soul. It is why there is a hardness that is displayed through their lives and actions, in spite of all their profession of holiness. They end up putting out the fire of many new-born Christians who have come to Christ with a flickering flame. Since they live by law, they use the law in a way that kills. They have not understood the following passage that Paul wrote to the Galatians:

Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life {the divine eternal life of perfect love}, truly righteousness would have been by the law… But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. (Gal. 3:21-24)

God gave laws in order to control sin. He needed a means to keep some order in this world until Christ came and began to establish His Kingdom-life of righteousness and peace and joy within the heart. The law, when used properly, will expose the corrupt nature and convict of sin. It will turn people to Christ and the justification that supernaturally cleanses the conscience. But again, this is only the beginning of salvation. These new Christians are then expected to press forward in their faith by turning from the temporal realm as the source of their spiritual life, and waiting on Christ to manifest His eternal life through their soul. While the law cannot impart the heavenly Kingdom-life to the soul (Gal. 3:21), Christ can!

The divine life of Christ within our soul is what enables us to do by nature what God requires of us. The law exposes the fallen nature within us so we will be prepared to die to the temporal world and enter into the eternal life that enables us to fulfill all the righteous requirements of the law. “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled {fully met} in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Rom. 8:3-4) The indwelling life of Christ alone can make the heart perfect in love and enable us to fulfill all the righteous requirements of the law.

The Hebrew writer therefore explains how Christ, the Great High Priest, came “according to the power of an endless life.” (Heb. 7:16) He came to overcome the old Adam-life that everyone has inherited through the fall, and has begun a new line of people who live through the eternal life as He did. While the laws of God reveal how we are expected to live, we are not expected to fulfill these requirements through our own efforts. We are expected to press forward in our faith until Christ comes to us in “the power of an endless life”, so we may manifest His life of perfect love in everything we do. Only then will all our actions be right before God. “For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect...” (Heb. 7:18-19) But praise our God, Christ can. “Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him…” (Heb. 7:25)

We can see that faith has a much greater work to do than to enter into a justified state through our dependence on Christ’s shed blood. You are to “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called…” (1 Tim. 6:12) It will require a much greater faith to enter into this much fuller salvation. You must choose to die to the ways this world uses {feeding from the temporal realm} to develop spiritual life. You must learn to sustain your spiritual life on Jesus alone. You can also expect to be tested. The Lord will often leave us without anything to hold us up spiritually, other than the promises found in His Word, while our faith is being tested. If you will hold on by continuing to wait on the Lord to do what He has promised, without turning back to temporal means to develop your spiritual life, He will lift you up spiritually in due time, by manifesting His eternal life within your soul.

He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me…and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. (John 14:21)

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your cares upon Him, for he cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while {in dying out to the self-sustaining ways of the world}, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.” (1 Pet. 5:6-10)

Christ will surely fulfill His promise by manifesting His eternal life within your soul if you will hold on through the time of testing. But you must avoid turning back to the world and its things. There will also come a point when you must stop depending on other human beings for your spiritual support. God expects to be your all in all. When you reach that point where you are truly dead to the temporal ways of the world, He will lift you spiritually into His eternal Kingdom-life where you can always enjoy “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

To help distinguish between the way of law and the way of grace through faith, the following testimony of Hannah Whitall Smith has been provided. As she has noted, it sometimes takes years for Christians to make this great transition. But this process does not need to take so long. This death to self and the ways of the world can take place in a short period of time. If you have an understanding of the truth and are willing to press forward in your faith according to your understanding, this death can be a short process. But you must know that a real death to the old Adam-life must take place before it is possible to enter into an enjoyment of Christ’s eternal life.

I was born in Philadelphia, Pa., February 7, 1832, and was converted in my twenty-sixth year. My conversion was very clear and unmistakable. After long years of legal striving, in which I resorted in vain to every expedient [supposed advantage] my soul could devise for gaining the favor of God and the forgiveness of all my sins, I was taught to see my own utter helplessness in the matter, and to trust entirely to Christ to save me. I knew that I was born again; and never from that time have I doubted this…
As time passed on, the Lord graciously led me into the knowledge of much truth. My guarded education in the Society of Friends, of which I was at the time a member, had already separated me very much from the vain fashions and amusements of the world, and my chief interests were all centered around the religion of Jesus Christ.

But my heart was ill at ease. That I grew in knowledge I could not deny; but neither could I deny that I did not grow in grace; and, at the end of eight years of my Christian life, I was forced to make the sorrowful admission that I had not even as much power over sin as when I was first converted. In the presence of temptation, I found myself weakness itself. It was not my outward walk that caused me sorrow, but it was the sins of my heart that troubled me—coldness, deadness, want of Christian love, intellectual apprehension of truth without any corresponding moral effects, roots of bitterness, want of a meek and quiet spirit—all these inward sins over which the children of God are so often forced to mourn.

At times, some new discovery of the truth of God in the Bible would seem for awhile to carry me above temptation and make me more than conqueror. And my heart rejoiced at the thought that now at last I had found the secret of living and that henceforth my continued defeats would be turned into continued victories. But after a while, as the aspect of truth in which I had been rejoicing became familiar to me, I found to my further sorrow that it seemed to lose its power and I was left as helpless as ever, only under deeper condemnation because of the increased responsibilities of increased knowledge. [She rejoiced in the law as every born again child of God will do. But she did not have the power and the fullness of heavenly life that would enable her to do by nature what the law requires.]

In this time of sore need (1863) God threw into my company some whose experience seemed to be very different than mine. They declared that they had discovered a “way of holiness” wherein the redeemed soul might live and walk in abiding peace, and might be made “more than conqueror” through the Lord Jesus Christ. I asked them their secret and they replied, “It is simply ceasing from our own efforts and trusting in the Lord to make us holy.”

Never shall I forget the answer. “What! – do you really mean that you have ceased from your own efforts altogether, and that you do nothing but trust the Lord? And does He actually and truly make you conquerors? “Yes,” was the reply, “the Lord does it all. We abandon ourselves to Him. We do not even try to live our own lives; but we abide in Him, and He lives in us. He works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure, and we hold our peace.”

Breaking away from Smith’s testimony, we need to consider what is being said from a biblical perspective. Jesus said we are to follow Him and live in the same way He lived.
A careful study of the Gospel of John will reveal how Jesus did not do anything out from Himself. He said such things as, “I can of Myself do nothing.” (John 5:30) “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh {human effort} profits nothing.” (John 6:63) “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself.” (John 8:28) In other words, when we enter into the kind of walk by faith that Jesus Himself had taken, we too will learn that all true life – divine life – flows through the soul by the power of the Holy Spirit. Everything has its source in God. Human efforts do not profit anything. We receive the eternal life by grace, through faith alone.

Once we begin to realize that Jesus did not do anything out from Himself, but was required to depend on the Father for everything if He was to walk fully as man, we can begin to see why He asked us to learn of Him and His ways. If we will truly die to the self-originated way of life that everyone inherits from the first Adam, we will be in a position to enter into the eternal Kingdom-life where God becomes the source of everything. When Jesus came as the Second Adam to begin a new lineage of people who live this way, nothing He did was self-originated. He died to Himself before He was ever nailed to the cross, for the purpose of permitting the Father to live through Him. He could therefore say that everyone who had seen His life had actually seen the life and the works of the Father. Similarly, God has made it possible for others to see the life of Christ through our mortal bodies when we have truly died to the old self-originated Adam-life. It is in this sense that we are to make every effort to cease from our own works and live through the life of our Lord. (Heb. 4:9-10) Of course, not everyone can take this truth in right away, as Smith testifies to.

Like a revelation, the glorious possibilities of such a life flashed upon me; but the idea was too new and wonderful for me to grasp. I had never thought of Christ as being such a Saviour. I had known, indeed, that He gave me life as a free gift, without I myself being able to do a single thing toward obtaining it, except to believe and to receive. But that He should now live my life for me in the same way, without my doing anything except believe and receive, surpassed my utmost conceptions. I had learned how to trust Him for the forgiveness of sins; but I had always trusted myself to conquer them. I had seen the sad error of legality as regarding my redemption; but I was altogether legal in my thoughts as regarding my daily holy living. I had never dreamed of trusting the Lord for that, and I did not know how.

So I went to work harder than ever. Over and over again I tried to dedicate myself to God. I sought to bind my will with chains of adamant [unbreakable chains], and to present it a holy offering before the Lord. I lay awake whole nights to wrestle in prayer that God would grant me the blessing He had granted these other Christians. I did everything, in short, but the one thing needful. I could not believe; I did not trust; and all else was worse than useless. But perhaps not altogether useless; for it taught me my own utter and absolute helplessness.
Here again we need to take a closer look at God’s plan of salvation. Fallen man is naturally self-sufficient. Ever since the Fall, he has been living through his own efforts. He has made himself into an independent god and has tried to get by without the eternal life that only the one true God can provide. God is required to break this self-sufficient spirit in fallen man before it is possible to truly walk as Jesus did in the eternal life. That is why Peter speaks of Christians all over the world going through a time of testing and suffering before God establishes His Kingdom-life of perfect love within their heart. (1 Pet. 5:9-10) He also said, “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.” (1 Pet. 4:12-13)

Yes, there will be a day when the Lord comes back to reveal His glory to the whole world. But Peter was also referring to a glory that was manifest to first century Christians after they went through a period of suffering. He is speaking of a time of testing that completely destroys the self-sufficient spirit that resides in fallen man. Once this old spirit has died, the Lord of Glory is able to manifest Himself to individual souls in this age of fulfillment. As promised, Christ has been coming back to individuals ever since the first Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came to reveal God’s life of perfect love within the souls of the first disciples. (John 14:19-21)

Christ promised to give the same glory that He had received from the Father to His disciples. The glory of God is His spiritual image. For those who are willing to pass through the time of testing, which is a place where suffering occurs as the self-sufficient spirit and the self-originated way of life dies, there is the promise of receiving the glory of God within the soul. You are therefore to rejoice in the sufferings that are designed to destroy your self-sufficient spirit, so that “when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.” Yes, Jesus has given us access to the glory – the life of perfect love – that He received from the Father, which is a truth that has been clearly revealed in His high priestly prayer:
And the glory which You gave Me I have given them {access to}, that they may be one {in nature} just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one…that the love with which You love Me {perfect love} may be in them, and I in them. (John 17:22-26)

God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. (1 John 4:16-17)

The salvation that Hannah Whitall Smith will be describing enters into the soul when there has been a real death to living by law through human efforts. If there was a way to bring people to the end of themselves without suffering, God would do it. But God must bring us to the point where we agree to die to self and our own self-sufficiency before He can fill the soul with eternal life. Thus, the law must have its opportunity to bring about this willingness to die to our own developed righteousness before He can do the work.

At last, however, I saw clearly that I was indeed truly nothing; that I needed the Lord just as absolutely for my daily living as I had needed Him in the first place to give me life. I discovered that I was just as unable to govern my temper or my tongue as I had been long ago to convert my soul… I saw that all my efforts, instead of helping, had only hindered the work.

Then I began anew to search the Scriptures. I found that the salvation he had died to procure was declared to be a perfect salvation, and that He was able to save to the very uttermost. I found that He offered Himself to me as my life, and that He wanted to come into my heart and take full possession there and subdue all things to Himself. I felt that a salvation such as this world satisfy my longings, and unspeakably I desired to appropriate it as mine.

But here I was met by another enemy. It seemed as if I could not trust the Lord; as if I was actually afraid to do so. Legality had been met and conquered, but unbelief still remained, and threatened to shut me out altogether from the promised land of rest. Although God had declared the Lord Jesus to be a perfect Saviour, sufficient for my daily and hourly needs, I could not believe he would really prove to be so. It seemed too great to trust to repose in the divine Saviour. But in His infinite love, He broke down this last remaining barrier.

He sent to our house a young man whose soul was in great darkness because of doubts concerning his salvation. It was my privilege to point him to a Saviour just suited to meet his needs, and to tell him of the completeness and present reality of the salvation purchased by Him. And as I talked to him and set forth the boundless love and the divine power of Christ to save all who come to God by Him, my heart was rebuked for my own unbelief. Was I to urge another to believe that his prayers for forgiveness were answered when I did not believe that my prayers for conformity to the image of Christ were, or ever would be!
My heart shrank back at the thought of such inconsistency, and the last barrier of unbelief was broken down. The Lord revealed Himself to me as so worthy of my utmost confidence that I could not help trusting in Him. He showed Himself to me as a perfect, and complete, and present Saviour, and I abandoned my whole self to His care – telling Him that I was utterly helpless, that I could not feel, nor think, nor act, for one moment as I ought to do, and that He must do it all for me – all. I confessed my own absolute inability to dedicate myself to His service, my powerlessness to submit my will to His and I cast myself, as it were, head-long into the ocean of His love, to have all these things accomplished in me by His almighty working. I trusted Him utterly and entirely. I believed the truth that He was my practical sanctification, as well as my justification, and that He not only could save me, and would save me, but that He did. The Lord Jesus Christ became my present Saviour, and my soul found rest at last – rest from all its legal strivings, rest from all its weary conflicts, rest from all its bitter failures. Christ was made unto me wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification.

At first my faith was but a weak and wavering one. Almost tremblingly I hung on to Christ moment by moment, saying continually in my heart, “Lord, I trust Thee, I trust Thee. Look Lord, I am trusting Thee.” But I found to my astonishment that it was a practical reality that He did deliver me. When temptation came, I did not try to conquer it myself, but at once handed it over to Him, saying, “Lord Jesus, save me from this sin. I cannot save myself, but Thou canst and wilt, and I trust Thee.” Then I left it with Him, and he fought for me, while I stood by and held my peace. And He always came off the conqueror.

Thus that flesh, which I had discovered to be so utterly corrupt, I now found could be reckoned to be dead and consequently abandoned… And now, if I am asked what is my life – with a deep sense of my own nothingness I can only answer that, insofar as I am faithful, Christ is now my life. Once I had truth about Him, but now I have Himself! Once I tried to live in my new nature, independent of Him; now I am joined to Him in a oneness that is indescribable, knowing that I have in truth no other life but His, and seeking more and more to live only there. Christ is always the same, and the way of access by faith is always open; He is faithful to keep that which I have committed to Him, and He confirms my soul steadfast and immovable in Him

We can now begin to see what it means to walk by faith. It is much more than simply believing that Jesus has saved us from our past sins and will one day take us to heaven. There is an eternal Kingdom-life that needs to be fully established within our hearts, through faith, if we are to ever have the full victory over the old nature and walk in perfect love. The Hebrew writer therefore says, “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…” (Heb. 12:1-2)

There is something for us to do. We are to be “diligent to enter that rest...” (Heb. 4:11) As Jesus was scourged and suffered greatly on the way to the cross, we too can expect to go through some suffering. “For whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” (Heb. 12:6) He is referring to born again children who He eventually receives into His Kingdom-life of perfect love. It is a place where His children are enabled to share with Him in His own life of righteousness and holiness. In effect, He brings about the end of our self-life through suffering, “for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (Heb. 12:10-11)

How then do we enter into the life and nature of our God? We do it through the faith that persistently looks to the Lord to do what He has promised. Regardless of the painful period of testing He will permit us to go through, we need to realize it is all for our own good. You will be able to see how much of the self-life truly remains, which will be evidenced by your complaining spirit and by your resistance to the self-sacrificing ways of God. Rejoice in the suffering, knowing that your Lord will soon reveal His life through you, if you learn to patiently let Him do with you as He knows best.

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing…(James 1:2-4)
…Nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. (1 Cor. 10:10)

Blessed is the man who endures temptation {in the time of testing}; for when he has been approved {after the time of testing}, he will receive the crown of life {the Kingdom-life of perfect love} which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. (Jam. 1:12)

He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me…and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. (John 14:21)

If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put of, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph. 4:21-24)

I am NOT saying I am living here. I am not. BUT, I have learned more than enough of all of this directly from the Lord that I know it is absolutely true and am somewhere in there from that recognition and truly coming to the very end of everyrthing in my own life and believing and receiving the Life of Christ by faith.

(does that make sense to you all?)

I am an open book. If any have any questions, PLEASE ASK. I will do what I can to answer correctly or at least steer you in the right direction. We must always remember, it is ALL about Jesus!

a bondslave in Christ Jesus, Dirk

Sorry.....

I am not seeing a discrepancy between what I believe and what the article has stated.

I am walking by faith (trust, dependent upon God); following the Holy Spirit's instructions; the article states that the death of the Adamic nature is a process.

When one is born again, our spirit is regenerated....thus the New Man is formed in us. Our spirit is our personality, the essence of who we are.....what makes each person one of a kind. Our spirit is made holy at the new birth....never to be corrupted again. This experience happens only once in our lifetime. Began and completed all at once, instantaneously.

But our soul (the Adamic nature; the flesh; sin nature) is not regenerated at our new birth. Our soul consists of our mind; will; emotions. The regeneration of our soul is a process. As we walk by faith; deny self; and surrender to the authority of the Lord, our old nature/flesh is crucified and the corrupt is exchanged for the incorrupt nature of Jesus Christ. This is not a 1 time event.....it is a process, as the article stated. This is called SANCTIFICATION.

When our spirit was regenerated/made holy at the time of our new birth, we came into the POSITION of being holy before God. Even though sin still resided in our souls. Why? Because Jesus said He would complete what He began in us. So, even though it was something that was "unseen" at the time of new birth, it was as if completed because it was based on Jesus' promise to complete us.

As we are progressively sanctified by faith, Jesus brings what was once "unseen" into the "seen". His holiness and His nature are now filling us progressively and being manifested outwardly to the world.

This is a process of our sinful nature being sacrificed unto death, piece by piece, and Jesus' holy nature being resurrected in its stead. An exchanging of the corrupt for the incorrupt.

Happy Trails

Happy,

Here is the thing. According to the scriptures and all the Holiness writings of the last few centuries, there IS a process of consecration.

This is what you have been speaking of. However, there is a specific TIME when all has been consecrated and GOD sanctifies TOTALLY!

The whole, corrupt, carnal nature is PUT TO DEATH! After this, we receive the TRUE NEW MAN, that is Created to be LIKE GOD in TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS and HOLINESS.

AFTER!

Just like the tabernacle and temple in the OT. Just like the Day of Pentecost of which Peter says in Acts 15 it was when they had their HEARTS CLEANSED!

A one time event. To get there is a process, But there comes a point when the old man dies. That is a one time occurance. Before that time, the OLD MAN is alive, after, he is dead.

Can we all understand that there IS a process of salvation?

It is not one day, we decide we need to get saved. There is a process during which we begin to respond to the wooing of the Holy Spirit. As time goes on, we respond more and more until there comes a time when faith is built up enough and we are regenerated.

But that regeneration happens in an instant of time by the Power of God. Before we were NOT saved, after we are.

So too is everything else in TRUE CHRISTIANITY. There is a process of preparation. Then when everything is set, the vessel has been properly prepared and tempered and tried, THEN comes the day, a moment in time when the FIRE of God FALLS, consumes the sacrifice that has been offered (for that is what happens)
and the Manifest Presence of God NOW makes His Home in the New Vessel of Honor.

John 14 describes this well.

Does this makes sense?

a bondslave in Christ Jesus, Dirk

Dear Dirk,

I have modified my last post. After inquiring of the Lord, He has explained and revealed some points that were left out of my original post.

The Lord then explained what you were communicating to me.

I am indebted to my Beloved.