Churches That Give Life

Life Giving Unity

Jn 17 v 23 & 24 “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me

Unity of this type is way beyond the ‘let’s agree to disagree so we can work together on the things we do agree about’ concept of Christian co-operation. Since there is absolutely not even the faintest shadow of disagreement within the Godhead between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it is strange that we consider it a virtue that we will work together in a climate of tolerance while strongly disagreeing with each other. That is not really the kind of answer that Jesus was aiming for with His prayer. Any form of teamwork is admirable but the ‘agree to disagree’ sort of harmony can be achieved by unsaved people so is not the kind of oneness that causes the world to know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

To answer our questions we will need to approach our subject from a very different direction than the one we normally use when we consider the unity of the body of Christ. The oneness of Jesus prayer is a thing of the spirit which comes from our new nature which is manifest to the world when we live out of that spirit rather than trying to create unity with our body and soul, so we can say to people we are one in the spirit. To see what this means and how we can live it in practice we need to see an essential fact that made our salvation possible and we find it in the answer to a question posed in 1 Cor 2 v 8which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory..

What didn’t the Rulers of This Age Know?

When Jesus became sin for us and paid the price of death which it demanded it didn’t contaminate the holiness of his spirit. 1 Cor 15 v 42 – 44So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. Where it reveals a difference between the first man Adam and the last man Adam. The first was a living soul and the last was a life giving spirit. Although Jesus was fully human and lived exactly as we do He was also God

Satan Doesn’t Know it All

When God made the promise that He would provide a Saviour from the seed of the woman it was spoken directly Satan who was masquerading as a serpent. Gen 3:14 – 15 Because he was a created being Satan didn’t know everything, especially the council of God concerning salvation which was planned before the creation began. He thought that the Saviour would just be a man like Adam and that was his downfall. In the beginning it says that Adam was made in the image of God whereas when Jesus was born it says he was in the exact image of God. Heb 1:1 – 4. Adam was body soul and spirit but his spirit was not divine, not like the new spirit we get when we are born again. Adam was innocent but not holy so he used his sovereignty to go against what God had said and when he did he died to God in his spirit and sin entered his soul and body. When we are born we inherit his fallen nature and are born sinners with a spirit that is dead to God with sin in our soul and body. Sin and its practice is in this world. To save us God had to become a man because all things done on the earth are done through a man with a soul and a body and because sin is in the realm of the earth so salvation had to be achieved on earth by a man with a soul and a body. When Jesus was born He was not born with a spirit that was dead to God like us with earthly fathers. His spirit was very much alive to God because it was God Himself. Jesus left heaven as the second person of the trinity and entered Mary’s womb so He could become a man with a soul and body. When that baby was born He had no inherited sin nature from Adam through Joseph because He had no earthly father. He could be tempted in all ways as we are because He was living as a human being with a soul and body like us Luke 4:1 – 11. His Holiness of Spirit always assured Him of the victory. Jesus used His free will to always choose to live in fellowship with His Father and do His Father’s will so His body and soul was always under the control of His Holy Spirit. Jesus had taken this decision to be faithful to His Father, no matter what happened to Him, before creation while He was part of the trinity before time began. God has always known good and evil, as He says in Gen 3:24So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. by declaring that after the fall man had become like Himself now that he had a knowledge of good and evil. He never chooses evil because He has made an eternal decision out of His love and Holiness to be faithful to His word. God has never been innocent of evil like Adam which is why it says in 1 Cor 15:44 The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

When he left the cross it was after He said it is finished so salvation was purchased before He left earth so when He left the cross and descended into Hades ‘the place of the dead’ to confront Satan and take back the keys of death and hades He did so as the glorious uncontaminated Holy Son of the living God. The first sin took place here on earth and we are living on the same earth that Adam and Eve lived on. It is a bit different and a lot more degenerated but it is the same earth, not even Noah’s flood made it different, it just removed people. Because Noah had Adam’s fallen nature it didn’t change the human race either. Sin pertains to this natural life, it is in the body and soul down here on earth, so salvation had to be purchased down here on earth and that is why you must decide to follow Jesus in this life and why you can’t be saved in the next if you have not been saved before you die.

When salvation had been purchased it enabled those who received it to gain a far better place than Adam before the fall because we have been born into the spirit realm of God. Adam was not a joint heir with Jesus Christ, we are. Adam was not a brother to Jesus, we are. Adam was not made to sit in heavenly places, we are and this is the source of our ability to experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Such unity is not possible from any other source except by living out of the sinless realm our new spirits have put us into.

The Sinless World of The Spiritual Realm

There is no sin in the spiritual realm that we have been born into so the life giving unity we are capable of and which will cause the world to know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me can only come from our spirit man. We are one, all we have to do is believe it and maintain it Eph 4:1 – 6 and Phil 2:1 – 4. This last passage shows us what life is like when we choose to permit our sinless spirit to rule over our body and soul.

Our Real Problem

Satan can’t touch us because we have been born to new life and been given a spirit that is holy, created after the image of the God who gave it to us. We are out of his reach so all he can do is to try to make us ineffective and his strategy is simple. He cons us out of our ability to live out of our new life by getting us focused on this world and its values. These values are made to get you to live for your soul and body and not your new spirit. This is what keeps us from manifesting a dynamic living oneness and unity.

What is worldliness? The world outside of God was created by self-interest. Gen 3:6So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. shows us that sin entered in when first Eve, then Adam, used their free will to make their own decision about the information the serpent had given them. Sin begins with self interest which causes us to choose a pathway based on nothing else but whether we have decided the pathway we are considering will be for our benefit. Rom 14:23But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin. says that whatever is not of faith is sin. It was Adam and Eve’s failure to act out of faith in the word God had given them that was their downfall. The world system that mankind has lived in ever since that fateful day in the Garden has been created by people following their self-interest. They believe that the goal of life is to satisfy their body and soul. That means using any method, fair and foul to grab what they can because you have only got one life. Do we realise just how much time and money we spend on the consequences of sin. How many hours I spend weeding my allotment? How much money I have to spend on insurance and security. How much money is spent by the government on the NHS etc. We are in the world but not of the world. Our value system comes from an altogether different place. We are supposed to spend our time here on earth because we are in the world, involved in all the legitimate things that make up life on earth. However we are to do it with the value system of heaven because we are not of the world. Our real enemy is this world and its values which pander to our body and soul but we don’t belong to this bunch anymore. There is no spiritual life available from the world system with its self centered values. At best it can only give you religion which is a system of trying to please God by living out of our body and soul which is impossible. The truth is that those who want to do anything in relation to God must do it in spirit and truth. That is why the Bible constantly encourages us to leave the world alone Rom 12:2And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God., 2 Cor 6:14 – 18 and Col 3:1 – 2If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth..

The message is obvious. If you want to live in all the benefits of your salvation and live in the Divine harmony of the Spirit, get your snout out of the world’s trough and live in the sinless world you have been born into. In other words stop acting like you are not saved. The fruit of the flesh mentioned so often in the New Testament letters are in the body/soul realm of your life and it is the manifesting of these things which destroys our harmony. Paul is an example of this and it shows us the source of his victorious living and his ability to see his calling through to the end without periods of backsliding which so many Christians seem to think they have to go through. He could endure all the hardship that he suffered because he didn’t try to serve God with his soul/body. He lived out of his spirit. His new spirit made in the image of God gave him the victory, he didn’t try to get God to help him overcome the weakness of his body/soul. He felt all the pain of that realm but he didn’t live in it. He lived above it, so he didn’t respond to his hardships out of his flesh.

There is no division in the body of Christ in the spiritual realm. It only exist in our body/soul realm in this world and our natural life in it. Now in the body/soul realm this division is very damaging to us and real. We really are divided by our wrong attitudes and behaviour patterns towards each other. The hurt and pain inflicted by this damage is also real but to be released from its power we need to manifest the freedom we have in our spiritual realm. This is done by believing that our new sinless spirit is the source of our life, so we need to use our sovereignty to obey the word and live as we should 2 Pet 1:2 – 4Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.. Lust is the satisfaction of self; all the bad attitudes we manifest come from lust, the lust of self-interest and self-protection when the desires of our self-interest are crossed. Our freedom comes when we choose to die to self and make Jesus our Lord and are born again and our Christian life is continued in that way by daily living in the death and resurrection experience of our conversion. We have been made life giving spirits and all we have to do is believe that this is who we are. You can only manifest the promises of God in your life by believing them because they are His not yours to perform.