Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 29 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; Rom 5:12- 6:13.

Title: Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 29 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; ROM 5:12- 6:13.

 

Announcements / opening prayer:  

 

 

Certain Christians attempt to approach God as a means to something else. They attempt a worship of God for a better life, for a mate, for some blessing, for something else. God cannot be used as a road.

 

If you're approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you're not really approaching Him at all. [CS Lewis, A Grief Observed]

 

ROM 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin [sin nature] entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned — 

 

ROM 5:13 for until the Law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed [ellogao = charged to their account] when there is no law.

 

ROM 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses [still under the penalty of Adam's sin], even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

 

ROM 5:15 But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

 

ROM 5:16 And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.

 

ROM 5:17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

 

The reigning victory in life is shown to be much more than the reigning of death in Adam that all unbelievers once had. In other words, they are unequal in magnitude, or to use God's phrase, they are not worthy to be compared. The life of victory is through the Lord of all eternity while the death in Adam is through the finite head of the human race.

 

Death ascended the throne of the human race. It is not just an ender of life but a real power over the whole of mankind.

 

It is not only the deeds that man does against his Creator but it is his ruler and sovereign. Because of it came God's wrath and the Law. Wrath is God's destructive power and the Law is a written letter of condemnation. Yet, the wrath came upon Christ and Christ satisfied the righteous demands of the Law. Through Christ the rulership of sin and death are dethroned and life, resurrection life, eternal life ascends the throne of the believer. Does not the Christian see that such a life is not to be lived in continued subjection to the disposed rulers? The Spirit is given so that we can live this life in time, as conquerors and overcomers through Him. The Lord is our Lord as well as Savior. There are some Christians who do not know Him as Lord and still continue to know the old nature as Lord, as were the Corinthians in Paul's first epistle.

 

Some of the Reformers had a difficult time with the existence of carnal Christians. So they taught that there was faith and there was true faith that resulted in a life of works. This is known as the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. If no works were present these people would just say that the person was never saved. They proclaimed that the gospel truly believed would result in a life of holiness, and all this was simply due to the fact that they were apparently embarrassed at the lives of some who proclaimed they were Christians. This false teaching further led to the attacks on eternal security in the teaching that a believer can fall away from God and lose his salvation. It also led to the teaching that salvation was by works as well as faith. This has been taught in two ways. The more up-front way is the teaching that there must be evident works before one is saved and the more subtle way is that works will come after faith and through them the believer will secure salvation. Also added to this is another branch of teaching, but resulting from the same original so-called problem of carnal Christianity, which is lordship salvation. This is the teaching that a person must not only have faith in Jesus as his Savior but that he also must make Jesus the Lord of his life or he cannot be saved. From this the catchy phrase, "If Christ is not Lord of all He is not Lord at all." This is another terrible distortion of scripture.

 

The means of salvation is faith and faith alone. It has nothing to do with the works of man, hence the reality that the total depravity of man precludes any work from mankind that has any merit.

 

All who have taught these false doctrines, from the Reformers to today, were afraid of freedom in grace. To them, grace was good but it could be taken too far into license. Like the Jews in the wilderness they feared true freedom.

 

A great problem with these false doctrines is that it creates a constant introspection in the life of the believer and the recurring doubt that he is actually unconditionally loved and accepted by God. By making his relationship with God based upon him, he has greatly weakened it. Then paradoxically their teachers admonish them that such a life is lived from gratitude, but how can they be grateful to God if there is the chance that He will cast them away?

 

The only real gratitude to God comes from an understanding of eternal security through faith alone in Christ.

 

One may ask if all of this pressure for works in the life of Christians made for better Christians? I think church history bears witness that it has only had the effect of weakening Christians as any false doctrine would. A life filled with the Spirit and walking in a manner pleasing to God comes only from choosing it from true motivation. It will be the norm in a believer's life when enough understanding of scripture has transformed his own desires into conformity with God's desires, and so, as will all good things in life, it is achieved by the grace of God only.

 

What is in danger for the carnal Christian, if he perseveres in carnality, is not loss of salvation, but spiritual impoverishment, severe discipline in time, and forfeiture of reward.

 

Do we see anywhere in this letter or in any of the others in the NT that the rulership of Christ in the life of the believer is to be taken lightly or apathetically or that it just isn't that very important? Can we take it seriously without condemnation or guilt because there are times that we resist it? The NT answers with a resounding yes.

 

God desires all of His children to see the real issue and to see just how important it is. Through Christ, by means of His Spirit and by means of the plan from the Father, we are to reign in life.

 

God has transformed us from slaves to kings; kings that are subject to the King of kings and overcomers over the flesh and the world and the kingdom of darkness.

 

This can be seen by the fact that Christianity gives a person true personality and individuality in freedom and yet in the gracious love and service of others.

 

Paganism robs a man of freedom. In paganism man is always seen to be at the whim of the imperfect gods that rule over him. Unless he sacrifices properly he will find no good in life and even if he does the gods may still mess with him. In tyranny and socialism and communism there are no individuals. There is just the collective and their contribution to the state. It seems that man always trends to this in his societies since he abandons God and looks to the state for security and value and providence. I do not have to list examples of how this has crippled the culture, freedom, and power of the USA. Our founding fathers worked toward a society where men's rights under God were protected. Through Christianity and Christian principles they saw the real personality of man, which could be shaped by his own choosing under the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that were his, not given by man, but by God. Progressives today state that these rights only worked in that day of rugged individualism and that today we have advanced into collectivism which requires different rights. This is the opposite of advance.

 

God has given us the life that is of Christ and it cannot be lived from the flesh. It can only be lived through the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. We must be spiritual men and women in order to rule in life through Him as well as to be spiritual leaders. Carnal Christians fall far short.

 

COL 1:13

For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son

 

The unbeliever is in slavery to sin and death and so there are things that he cannot do. He cannot even choose for God.

 

He cannot walk in righteousness. He cannot love divinely. He cannot have hope fixed and fulfilled. He cannot have anything that is from God except judgment. So then, the will of the unbeliever is less than free. He chooses what he wills but his choices are limited to the darkness of the world of sin and death.

 

The unbeliever cannot even choose God.

 

ROM 3:10 "There is none righteous, not even one;

 

ROM 3:11 There is none who understands,

There is none who seeks for God;

 

The reason for the failure to understand and so move toward God is stated it our passage. The unsaved man is master of nothing that counts - he is a slave of sin and death. God must search for Him and He does.

 

God must call to him and He does so through common grace.

 

Common grace is a part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the world in bringing the gospel to every man and so acting to make the gospel understandable.

 

However, the believer has had the opportunity for spiritual things opened wide unto him. We could say that free-will is restored at salvation.

 

The believer can now choose the upward call of election and predestination. He can choose to know the deep things of God. He can choose to be fully influenced by the Spirit of God and to walk in newness of life. His will has been set free by the grace of God! So the great and life transforming question is put to him:

 

ROM 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?

 

ROM 6:2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?