Life Study Intro

September 23, 2007 |

Author Theophilos

GRACE, FAITH and LIFE
A Personal Statement of Christian Faith and Practice

THE FALLEN NATURE OF HUMANITY:

Genesis 1:1-3 (NASB)
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

Genesis 1:26-28 (NASB)
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

The second chapter of Genesis explains how Adam was created in God’s image. And that God breathed the breath of life into man. The soul consists of the ‘MIND, EMOTION and WILL’. Animals have this, but animals don’t consider where they came from or how they came to be. Animals don’t have the “breath of life” which God gave man.

The Bible and our personal experience indicate that man is ‘BODY, SOUL and SPIRIT’.

Man was created by God, in the image of God; created with free-will, the ability to choose among possible options.

Satan’s lie to Adam and Eve was that they would be like God. In other words, they would not need to fulfill the purpose for which they were created; they could be independent doing their own thing.

The third chapter of Genesis explains how Satan deceived Eve into disobeying God by eating of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which God had forbidden. With the help of Satan, Man sinned himself into alienation from God.

GEN 3:1-30

Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the imagination of their mind. They wanted to be like God. Satan deceived them into thinking they would be like God if they would just do this thing which God had forbidden.

Because of this act, they did indeed acquire knowledge of good and evil. They were immediately afraid of God due to their guilt for having disobeyed. They tried to hide from God and put the blame on someone else.

They received some knowledge of good and evil, what we call conscience. But they didn’t receive any power over this knowledge of good and evil. The imagination of our heart is always identified as evil and confused.

Genesis 3 explains the results of their “sin” of disobedience. God withdrew His spirit. This resulted in what is known as the “fallen nature” of man. So this “fallen nature” is a person without the spirit of God.

It does not take much observation and experience to realize that the fallen nature is in general not just not good, it is very self-centered, devious, depraved and evil. It doesn’t take much thought to come to the conclusion when you observe what we do to each other, and how perverted the human mind is, not just with depravity but with power and right.

Adam was made in the image of God; but when fallen he begat a son in his own image, sinful and defiled, frail, wretched, and mortal, like himself. Not only a man like himself, consisting of body and soul, but a sinner like himself. This was the reverse of that Divine likeness in which Adam was made; having lost it, he could not convey it to his seed. Adam lived, in all, 930 years; and then died, according to the sentence passed upon him, “To dust thou shalt return.” Though he did not die in the day he ate forbidden fruit, yet in that very day he became mortal. Then he began to die; his whole life after was but a reprieve, a forfeited, condemned life; it was a wasting, dying life. Man’s life is but dying by degrees. (Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry Concise Bible Commentary, WORDsearch CROSS e-book, Under: “Chapter 5”.)

All the human soul has accomplished, with the help of the prince of this world, has been to accumulate things for a privileged few at the expense of many.

Without the Spirit of God to guide us, we are at the mercy of our fallen nature which controls and frustrates us in many ways. The soul of every Man is restless and searching. This restlessness is a deep spiritual desire to be reconciled to God.

St. Augustine wrote “Our souls are restless until they find their rest in thee.”

Rest is when our conscience and imagination are at peace, because who we are, and who we want to be is resting in the love and grace of God. The spirit in man longs to be reconciled to God, to return to our created relationship with God. But, not everyone recognizes this as their basic problem.

Many are blinded and controlled into thinking that someone or something in this world can fulfill this spiritual longing. Others think that being a Christian is to try to live Christ’s life the same way he lived it, when Christ is the only one who can do that. This is our imagination, conscience and pride working in us just as it did in Adam and Eve.

Romans 3:23 (NASB)
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 5:18 (NASB)
18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

The Bible describes this condition as being dead. What we need is LIFE not just salvation.

Only God and God alone can reconcile Man unto himself, fulfill our spiritual longing to rest in His love and grace, and give us His LIFE.

So, it is important for new Christians to learn and all Christians to understand, that God has reconciled us unto himself. That being a Christian is more than just getting our sins forgiven it is simply seeking to know, to experience, the fullness of the grace of God.

When we are “born again”, we become a new creation. We have a new nature, a new life. We are not only totally forgiven, we are reconciled to God by the death of Christ and we are also saved by receiving his life.

Romans 5:10 (NASB)
10 For if while 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 life.

[Many of us don’t accept the fact that ALL of our sins have been forgiven, even those we haven’t committed yet so there is nothing for us to do except believe..]

Romans 6:6 (NASB)
6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;

So, forgiveness of sin is only half of the gospel. There is more to salvation than just forgiveness and escape from Hell. We have been born into a new life, the life of Christ.

All Christians need to come to this understanding, that their salvation is not only getting their sins forgiven and eternal life, but a personal relationship in the life of Christ, in their life right now.

Romans 7:6 (NASB)
6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

This is the grace of God. Grace is God, through His Word, acting in our heart and mind.

Being a Christian is a spiritual relationship with Christ not a religion, it is not something we do, it is who we are. Hopefully, this study will convey the meaning of these terms in a new and living way.

The most important thing for Christians to understand is that there is nothing for us to do except believe, and to understand what it means to live in this personal relationship with Christ living his life through us.

Many Christians are still looking for God’s will for their life, looking for something to do. They are still looking for meaning and purpose, based on performance – significance, fulfillment, satisfaction and acceptance.

God’s will for our life is for us to know (experience) the fullness of his grace. To understand who we are in Christ, we also need to know who we were before coming to Christ, who we are in the flesh.

We need to know what we are up against in this World and how, by the Grace of God, we have been given the Holy Spirit, who teaches us all things pertaining to Christ, in order for Christ to live His life through us and free us from the bondage of this flesh. In this study we will be considering relationships of some very familiar terms.

BODY SOUL SPIRIT

MIND EMOTION WILL

CONSCIENCE IMAGINATION TEMPERMENT PRIDE

CIRCUMSTANCES SATAN WORLD

GRACE FAITH LIFE

TRUTH FREEDOM LOVE

We may not be able to figure it all out, but we can diagram it for discussion.

We will discuss:

WHO WE ARE

HOW WE THINK

OUR EMOTIONS AND CIRCUMSTANCES

HOW WE ACT AND REACT, BASED ON WHAT WE BELIEVE (THE ATTITUDE OF OUR HEART)

WHY WE ARE THINKING WHAT WE ARE THINKING AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT.

AND WHAT WE OUGHT TO BE THINKING ACCORDING TO SCRIPTURE HOW WE BELIEVE – AND HOW OUR MINDS ARE RENEWED BY TRUTH

All of this will be directed toward understanding the dynamics of what Paul was talking about in Romans 7:8-25, how we can come to know the difference between the spirit and the flesh.

Scripture is very clear in telling us that we ought to walk by faith. We walk in the spirit and not the flesh.

The Holy Spirit is to renew our minds with the mind of Christ.

We are to be in the World but not of the World. We are in a spiritual warfare.

Romans 7:18-25 (NASB)
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.
19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.
20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.
22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,
23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

Romans 8:1-16 (NASB)
1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,
7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,
8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.
10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
12 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—
13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,