The Quick and The Dead
What is our greatest struggle? Is it our marriage, our work, our finances, our relationships with our family? The bible says, in this world we will have tribulation. But be not dismayed, Jesus said, Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.
The battle is not against others or against circumstances. The battle is a spiritual battle, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness form on high. The battle is for our hearts and lives. As men of God, we have been called to be counter-cultural. We’re not of this world. From God’s perspective, we’re already seated in heavenly places with Christ.
According to Romans 8, “who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Who is he that condemneth? Is it Christ who justified, whom God raised from the dead? What shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation, or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
The church in Ephesians battled the guilt and condemnation of this world. According to Ephesians 2, “AND you hath he quickened (made alive,) who were dead in trespasses and sins; 2. Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”
When we accepted Jesus Christ as Lord, we were “quickened,” we were made alive in Christ. We’re no longer dead in our sin nature. We’re no longer tied to a dead body. Paul exclaimed in Romans 7, “O wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from this dead body?” This is a picture of one of the worst forms of capital punishment. The executioner would strap a dead body to the condemned man to rot with the decaying body on his back. Paul cried as he struggled to do the right thing, “who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
The answer is in Romans 8. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. For The law of the spirit of life in Christ has made me free from the law of sin and death.” We have a moment by moment choice to walk after the flesh nature we inherited form Adam or the spirit nature of Christ that we inherited from God when we were born again.
Before we were born again of God’s spiritual nature, we walked according to the course of this world, the spirit that works in the children of disobedience. We are no longer children of wrath. Through the price Jesus paid on our behalf, we have been made the righteousness of God in him. Even though we slip and fall out of fellowship with our Lord, 1 John 1:9 says, “if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Ephesians 2:4 continues, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5. Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us (made us alive) together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;). 6. And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7. That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”
A hard taskmaster has no mercy and no grace. The wages of sin is death. Sin deserves a righteous judgement of death. However, God is rich in mercy and great in love. He has made us alive according to his grace. We’re righteous not because of our own nature of the flesh but because Jesus Christ who was without sin was made the perfect sacrifice for sin on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him.
The Jews thought that they were righteous in their own works. They believed that they were righteous because they kept the Old Testament law. They knew that unto them were given the oracles of God. They knew that they were God’s chosen people and that their lineage had been blessed through God’s promise to Abraham. They thought that they were destined for eternal life but everyone else was condemned to death. However Jesus came to set the captives free. According to Galatians 8:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
According to Romans 5:8, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for the ungodly.
He has made us alive according to his grace and mercy and has seated us in heavenly places in Christ. Salvation is for God’s own glory: That he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
The conclusion is in Ephesians 2:8-9: For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, (his great work, his magnum opus, his masterpiece) created in Christ Jesus unto good works which he has foreordained that we should walk in it.
We have been made a new creation in Christ. And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
He has quickened us together in Christ so that we would be to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael