Friday Morning Manna May 31, 2019
Nathaniel Fajardo email: [email protected]
Does Being ‘Born Again’ Change Sinful Flesh to Sinless Flesh?
JESUS CHRIST, whom Bible-based Christians (many hold tradition and Church teaching superior to the Bible) love, worship, obey and follow as the Shepherd of their souls, trusting in Him as their only Savior and Mediator, is nowhere mentioned per se in the Old Testament.
Does that mean He did not yet exist then, or if He did, who and in what form, where and what was He doing during the 4,000-year long patriarchal and Jewish dispensation, reckoned from creation? Did He arrive and make His appearance on earth only when He was born of Mary two thousand years ago, beginning the New Testament dispensation or Christian Era?
But just a couple of verses from the New Testament clearly and unmistakably tell us that He t was, or more accurately is “from everlasting to everlasting.” The beloved disciple reveals Him thus: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God; and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God. . . . and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory as of only the only-begotten, full of grace truth.” John 1: 1-2, 24. In the last book of the Bible the same apostle identifies Him as “the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, who is and was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev. 1: 8).
Apostle Paul was the only one of the first apostles ever “caught up in vision to the third heaven, Paradise itself, and heard inexpressible words, which is not lawful for men to utter.” (2 Cor. 12: 1-10). Thus, singularly enlightened Paul is uniquely qualified to provide even more profound and specific details of who Jesus, mankind’s Savior, the holy and innocent One whom His very own people had crucified by the Roman powers [as prophesied, not predestined), is. He said, the Father “has appointed Him heir of all things, through whom He also made theworlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power.” Heb. 1: 2, 3. And only here do we read that God Himself addresses Jesus as God and Lord! Note:
“But to the Son He [the Father] says: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness [iniquity/sin]. . . . You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands; they will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like garment; like a cloak You will fold them up, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not fail.” Verses 10-12. Furthermore, Paul wrote: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by Him and forHim. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And it pleased the Father that in Him all the fulness should dwell. . Forin Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” Col. 1: 15-17, 19; 2: 9.
Yes, this is He alone who condescended by physically and literally descending from His throne of glory in Paradise, adored by the innumerable angels and all the unfallen worlds elsewhere in His universe to our sin-darkened fallen world below, the distance in between not measurable by any human metrics. He did not have to; He could have as easily created another the way He created ours. Yet He did. Because of love.
Yes, this is He alone who condescended to eternally partake of, in the mystery of the incarnation, “the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: and condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh [the carnal desires of the carnal mind in sinful flesh[ but according [in one accord] with the Spirit.” Rom. 8: 3, 4. There was, is, and ever will be only one incarnation which pertains to Jesus alone by design and origin from the Godhead, exposing the deception of reincarnation.
Yes, this is He alone who never ceased to be the Creator who made “all things by Him and for Him” when He became a Man. How? “In all things made of flesh and blood like unto His brethren,” and in that adopted human nature “was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.” Heb. 2: 14 17, 18; 4: 15. This, in fact why He was not only tempted in all points as we are tempted but His temptations wereinfinitely greater in that He alone, human flesh and blood nature, was tempted to summon, even temporarily at the peak of His suffering, His infinitely superior divine powers when tempted, tried, vexed, annoyed by Satan and his hosts, both of demons and wicked men leagued in confederacy against Him from the day He was born to the moment He expired by crucifixion at the cross in Calvary.
He could have effortlessly done so, with all the wisdom and knowledge He possessed to justify or rationalize doing so but He “resisted unto death” that He might not sin the sin of presumption against the Father, as our Example. Indeed, “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the Author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.” Heb. 5: 8, 9, N.K.J.V.
In His adopted human flesh and blood nature, and confined in that nature, God Creator had to learn the obedience of man to God through the one and only, first and last suffering of its kind ever—not merely of the humiliation, insult, accusation, rejection, condemnation and yes, the physical pain (often over-emphasized and dramatized as “the passion of Christ,” obscuring His greater sufferings as a Savior from sin) but the immeasurable, thus humanly insupportable suffering of resisting the temptation to use His divinity or to temporarily, somehow “let the cup of suffering” of bearing the guilt of the sins of the whole world to pass from Him”—that begun in Gethsemane on the night before His crucifixion.
The guilt of the sins of the whole world were laid on Him at Gethsemane, completely hiding the face of the Father from Him. This alone would have killed Him weren’t it for the angel sent to strengthen Him to bear it, not relieve of or save from. The very next day He was nailed to the cross at Calvary, where His death paid the penalty of sin, which is eternal death, the “second death” (Rev.__), thus satisfying the demands of His own law.
Only thus was He perfected as the Savior of mankind, the promised Messiah and Deliverer from sin, the personal and personalized Savior of all and every sinner who obeys Him and follows the example He set for them as the perfect Man and perfected Savior who walked and still walks among men through His Holy Spirit, overcoming “even as He overcame” (Rev. 3:___) by overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil intheir sphere even as He overcame in His sphere in this same fallen world that we live in.
Yes, He alone is mankind’s Creator, Redeemer, Savior, High Priest, all-powerful Mediator, Intercessor, Advocate and righteous Judge of all the earth—all rolled into One. As Paul says, “we are complete in Him.” So who needs any “other gods”— lifeless images of gold, silver, brass, iron, stone, wood, plastic; or living self-proclaimed demigods–avatars, holy men, messiahs; priestly mediators or confessors; mediatrix such as Mary; or dead ancestors and canonized saints, etc.? Only those who do not yet know who Jesus is from the beginning, and who do not yet understand what took place in the incarnation. Only then will they truly appreciate His self-sacrificing, self-denying life of ministry, atoning death, victorious resurrection and ascension. Only then will they better understand what and how it means to preparefor His advent while still in the sinful human nature with its corruptible flesh!
A. T. Jones, in the 1888 Righteousness by Faith Message Series, Review & Herald, April 18, 1899 issue, helps to clearly explain these in the following article, “Sinful Flesh”:
“THERE is a serious and very bothersome mistake, which is made by many persons.
That mistake is made in thinking that when they are converted, their old sinful flesh is blotted out. In other words, they make the mistake of thinking that they are to be delivered from the flesh by having it taken away from them altogether. Then, when they find out that this is not so, when they find that the same old flesh, with its inclinations, its besetments, and its enticements, is still there, they are not prepared for it, and so become discouraged, and are ready to think that they were never converted at all.
And yet if they would think a little, they ought to be able to see that that is all a mistake. Did you not have exactly the same body after you were converted that you had before? Was not that body composed of exactly the same material—the same flesh and bones and blood—after you were converted as that of which it was composed before? To these questions everybody will promptly say Yes! And plainly that is the truth.
And now there are further questions: Was not that flesh also exactly the same quality as before? Was it not still human flesh, natural flesh, as certainly as it was before?—To this question also everybody will say Yes!
Then also a still further question: it being the same flesh, and of the same quality,–it still being human flesh, natural flesh, –is it not also still just as certainly sinful flesh as it was before? Just here is where creeps in the mistake of these many persons. To this last question they are inclined to think that the answer should be NO, when it must be only a decided Yes. And indeed Yes must be maintained so long as we continue in this natural body.
And when it is decided and constantly maintained that the flesh of the converted person is still sinful flesh, and only sinful flesh, he is so thoroughly convinced that in his flesh dwells no good thing that he will never allow a shadow of confidence in the flesh.
And this being so his sole dependence is upon something other than the flesh, even upon the Holy Spirit of God; his source of strength and hope is altogether exclusive of the flesh, even in Christ Jesus only. And being everlastingly watchful, suspicious, and thoroughly distrustful of the flesh, he can never expect any good thing from that source, and so is prepared by the power of God to beat back and crush down without mercy every impulse or suggestion that may arise from it; and so does not fail, does not become discouraged, but goes on from victory to victory and from strength to strength.
The Meaning of True Conversion
“Conversion, then, you see, does not put new flesh upon the old spirit; but a new Spirit within the old flesh. It does not propose to bring new flesh to the old mind; but a new mind to the old flesh. Deliverance and victory are not gained by having the human nature taken away; but by receiving the divine nature to subdue and have dominion over the human,— not by taking away of the sinful flesh, but by the sending in of the sinless Spirit to conquer and condemn sin in the flesh!
The Scripture does not say, Let this flesh be upon you which was also in Christ; but it does say, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 2:5. The Scripture does not say, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your flesh; but it does say, “be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Rom. 12:2. We shall be translated by the renewing of our flesh but we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds. The Lord Jesus took the same flesh and blood, the same human nature, that we have,— flesh just like our sinful flesh,– and because of sin, and by the power of the Spirit of God through the divine mind that was in Him, “condemned sin in the flesh.” Rom. 8:3. And therein is our deliverance (Rom 7:25), therein is our victory. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” “A new heart will I give you, and a new Spirit will I put within you.” [Eze. 36:26; Jer. 32:39; Heb. 8:10; 10:12].
A sure test of whether one has more of the Holy Spirit. – “Do not be discouraged at sight of sinfulness in the flesh. [and how many are!] It is only in the light of the Spirit of God, and by the discernment of the mind of Christ, that you can see so much sinfulness in yourflesh; and the more sinfulness you see in your flesh, the more of the Spirit of God you certainly have. This is a sure test.
The reign of grace over sin. – “Then when you see sinfulness abundant in you, thank the Lord that you have so much of the Spirit of God that you can see so much of the sinfulness; and know of a surety that when sinfulness abounds, grace much more abounds in order that “as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.’ Rom. 5: 20, 21.” (end of quote from A.T.Jones)
(To be continued next week)