Thursday October 13 Teaching & Review

 Thursday October 13 Teaching

Review of October 6

In our first session we covered 2 Timothy 2:14, 15 that focused on not fighting over words, useless arguments that will not help anyone grow spiritually, or not provide anything good, but will only “subvert” the hearers, destroy and overthrow their faith. We learned about showing or presenting ourselves to God in our obedience and that, whoever we are consistently obeying, to them we are presenting ourselves as “living sacrifices”, “servants”, and as “weapons”. We saw that the Levite’s devotion to God’s honor was demonstrated by their obedience to put to death their fellow Israelites for their flagrant rebellion in idolatry and refusal to repent. Knowing that God had previously not only proved His power and faithfulness toward them, but designated the death penalty to those who were guilty of such idolatry. 

We learned that we are called “workman”, not to work our way to heaven which we can’t, but because we are co-laborers with God, we are to labor in the kingdom, we yield and grow within our covenant relationship with him, by prayer, studying the Bible, by laboring, yielding and cooperating with the Holy Spirit and the  word of God on a daily basis as we pursue Him by prayer and obedience and  “work out our own salvation”. We learned that as workers in the kingdom we can “rightly divide the word of truth” and not be ashamed if we sincerely depend upon the Holy Spirit as our teacher (John 14:25, 26).  

When we were born again, at the new birth, we became a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” it goes on to say that “all things are of God”. But the last verse in that passage, 2 Corinthians 5:21 says,  “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. The phrase “I am just a sinner saved by grace”, is found nowhere in the Bible. No where in the New Testament are born again believers referred to as sinners.  

They are called saints [Strong: 40 hagios hag'-ee-os from hagos (an awful thing) (compare 53, 2282); sacred (physically, pure, morally blameless or religious, ceremonially, consecrated):--(most) holy (one, thing), saint.] [Vine: fundamentally signifies "separated"…and hence, in Scripture in its moral and spiritual significance, separated from sin and therefore consecrated to God, sacred. It is used of men and things (see below) in so far as they are devoted to God. Indeed the quality, as attributed to God, is often presented in a way which involves Divine demands upon the conduct of believers. These are called hagioi, "saints," i.e., "sanctified" or "holy" ones. This sainthood is not an attainment, it is a state into which God in grace calls men; yet believers are called to sanctify themselves (consistently with their calling,), cleansing themselves from all defilement, forsaking sin, living a "holy" manner of life; set apart for God, to be, as it were, exclusively his.] 

Believers, because they have put their faith in what God did in Christ through his death and resurrection have been “justified”, declared “righteous”. Acts 13:38, 39  “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: 13:39  And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.” The Greek word for our English word justified means made righteous. justified [Strong: 1344. dikaioo dik-ah-yo'-o from 1342; to render (i.e. show or regard as) just or innocent:--free, justify(-ier), be righteous.] [Zodhiates: it is used with the preposition ‘apo’-from, referring to all those things from which the Mosaic Law could not liberate us. In this instance as well as in Romans 6:7 where ‘apo’ is used with the word sin, it refers to our liberation from something, i.e., sin which holds a man a prisoner, a slave…thus dikaioo does not mean the mere declaration of innocence, but the liberation from sin which holds a man a prisoner.]

 

a). Romans 1:7 To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

b). 1 Corinthians 1:2 Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their's and our's:

 

c). 2 Corinthians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia:

 

d). Ephesians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:

 

e). Philippians 1:1 Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:

 

f). Colossians 1:2 To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Do we sin Yes, we all do. But when we sin we repent. 

a). 2 Corinthians 7:9-11 Yet I am glad now, not because you were pained, but because you were pained into repentance [and so turned back to God]; for you felt a grief such as God meant you to feel, so that in nothing you might suffer loss through us or harm for what we did.

7:10 For godly grief and the pain God is permitted to direct, produce a repentance that leads and contributes to salvation and deliverance from evil, and it never brings regret; but worldly grief (the hopeless sorrow that is characteristic of the pagan world) is deadly [breeding and ending in death].

7:11 For [you can look back now and] observe what this same godly sorrow has done for you and has produced in you: what eagerness and earnest care to explain and clear yourselves [of all complicity in the condoning of incest], what indignation [at the sin], what alarm, what yearning, what zeal [to do justice to all concerned], what readiness to mete out punishment [to the offender]! At every point you have proved yourselves cleared and guiltless in the matter.

The law of sin and death abides in our body 

a. Romans 7:14-25 [Classic Amplified] We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am a creature of the flesh [carnal, unspiritual], having been sold into slavery under [the control of] sin.

7:15 For I do not understand my own actions [I am baffled, bewildered]. I do not practice or accomplish what I wish, but I do the very thing that I loathe [which my moral instinct condemns].

7:16 Now if I do [habitually] what is contrary to my desire, [that means that] I acknowledge and agree that the Law is good (morally excellent) and that I take sides with it.

7:17 However, it is no longer I who do the deed, but the sin [principle] which is at home in me and has possession of me.

7:18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot perform it. [I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out.]

7:19 For I fail to practice the good deeds I desire to do, but the evil deeds that I do not desire to do are what I am [ever] doing.

7:20 Now if I do what I do not desire to do, it is no longer I doing it [it is not myself that acts], but the sin [principle] which dwells within me [fixed and operating in my soul].

7:21 So I find it to be a law (rule of action of my being) that when I want to do what is right and good, evil is ever present with me and I am subject to its insistent demands.

7:22 For I endorse and delight in the Law of God in my inmost self [with my new nature].

7:23 But I discern in my bodily members [in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh] a different law (rule of action) at war against the law of my mind (my reason) and making me a prisoner to the law of sin that dwells in my bodily organs [in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh].

7:24 O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from [the shackles of] this body of death?

7:25 O thank God! [He will!] through Jesus Christ (the Anointed One) our Lord! So then indeed I, of myself with the mind and heart, serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

1). In verse 23 he mentions “a different law” “at war against the law of my mind (my reason) and making me a prisoner to the law of sin that dwells in my body”. Then in verse 24, he refers to it as “this body of death”. The Greeks and Romans had a form of punishment that was meted out to a convicted murderer, a practice evidently familiar to the apostle Paul. The Greek or Roman judge would order the corpse of the murdered person to be attached permanently, face-to-face with the murderer, allowing the body to decompose until the murderer, overcome by the vile stench, was consumed by infection and would lose his life. Paul likened our old man, our sin-drenched carnal human nature, to that stinking corpse attached to the murderer. Sadly, the longer we are immersed in stench, the more we become deadened to its lethal effects, similar to how the smoker becomes immune to the smell of smoke. If we stay connected to sin, we will succumb to its lethal effects. God hates sin; it is a putrid stench in His nostrils, as it should be in ours. We will always be at war with the carnal man, but we cannot give up, as we reach out for Christ's sacrifice to deliver us from a gruesome death sentence. https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Audio.details/ID/3891/This-Body-Death.htm 

2). We inherited the law of sin and death from Adam and Eve from their fall in Genesis 3. 

b. The answer to Paul’s question at the end of this is found in the next chapter 

1). Romans 8:1-12 [NASB2000] Therefore there is now no condemnation at all for those who are in Christ Jesus. 

8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 

8:3 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, 

8:4 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. 

8:5 For those who are in accord with the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are in accord with the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 

8:6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 

8:7 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, 

8:8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

8:9 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. 

8:10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 

8:11 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.

8:12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—