Chapter 4 - A Dead Old Man
These next two chapters are the ones that really blasted this whole idea of "exchanged life" home to me. The whole idea of being crucified and resurrected with Jesus -- not in a figurative sense, but in reality, coupled with the concept of the "old sinful me" being dead and Jesus Christ living in me....WOW! Its all right there in black and white in the Bible, and I've read those scriptures hundreds of times, but have always just skimmed over them. Hard to understand? Don't worry about it. Fit them into your understanding of God. Rather than: Hard to understand? What is God saying here? Since I accept the Bible is true, how do these scriptures change my understanding of God?
I am certainly one who grew up with the idea that we have two natures -- good and bad. And our job was to get the bad under control. So, for much of my life I have lived in a constant ongoing struggle of working harder to move to the saint stage. 100% sinner. 100% saint. Can't happen. Can't be both. I feel like I can hear Paul saying to me, "You foolish Galatians..." Galatians 3:1-14. Saved by faith, but living as if all else depends on works.
We are so good at believing two contradictory things at the same time. If we are living in this ongoing struggle of good nature vs bad nature we feel the conflict because something we do or think or say makes us feel bad; as if we shouldn't have done it. Why is that? If you are 100% sinner, those things shouldn't bother you -- after all, your nature is to sin, so you are doing what you are supposed to do. If you are 100% saint, those things will bother you, because you are doing things that are against your nature. Here's a quote out of Lifetime Guarantee by Bill Gillham (GREAT BOOK!) :
Please understand that God had no plan for joining His Holy Spirit to any person's old sin nature. He had no plan to give birth to a spiritual Siamese twins who are half spirit-child of Satan through Adam and half spirit-child of God through Christ. Jesus said, 'Any city or house divided against itself shall not stand" (Matthew 12:25). God would never set you up for guarantee failure by making you a 'house divided against yourself.' I'll agree that my experience and my feelings at times "tell" me I am a house divided, but since God would never set me up for certain failure, I must search His word to find another cause for my strife within. I am not a house divided."
See how easy it is to believe two contradictory statements -- "It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God -- that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption." 1 Corinthians 1:30, vs. 100% sinner. The Bible clearly tells us in so many places that our old sinful nature is dead! Why do we choose to think otherwise?
Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves [our old man] were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. Romans 6:2-7
What died? Our old sinful selves...our sinful nature...our old man! Can it be any clear than that? Why do we work so hard to convince ourselves that our old man is still alive and well and our life in Jesus is not? The old man is dead, dead, dead! We are new creations in Christ!
Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden With Christ in God. Colossians 3:2-3 If you want to argue that my old nature; my Adamic nature, is still there, then show me who died! Do I think I understand this better than God, who has laid it out in black-and-white?
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