Old Things have passed Away

The question arises, if old things are passed away and behold all things are become new, why do we yet manifest the old? If through the death of the cross, the body of death is destroyed, over which he (the devil), who had the power of death had dominion, why do we yet fall under his power at times? In other words, If we are dead to sin, how can we live any longer in it?

I believe the answer to this dilemma lies in Romans 8:2, where the Apostle Paul tells us we are no longer under the law of sin and death, but have been made free by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. The letter of the law is what keeps the old nature alive where grace crucifies it.

Paul spends much time in his letter to the Galatians, warning against having begun in the Spirit and attempting to be made perfect by the flesh. Anytime we look to a system of works to perfect us we are walking after the flesh and sowing to the flesh. Satin continues to deceive us and brings us back under law, thinking that through the works of the flesh we might please God.

The enemy uses the same manner of deception used with Eve, when causing her to doubt what God had said. Only with us he asks, has God said you are free from the law of sin and death? And has God said you are righteous without the works of the law? Can you really rest in the promises of God? He uses doubt to bring us back under bondage to fear of death. When the truth is, “we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

Once brought back under bondage to the fear of death, we become carnally minded and believe in our performance, over the power and promise of God. As it is written, to be Spiritually minded is life and peace and we have not been given the spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind. If I know myself after the flesh, I will identify myself with it and try to please God through it. This gives life and credence to the old nature, who receives honor and glory through self-righteousness. He is happy to display his ability to be religious but will continue to manifest failure when put to the test of true Godliness.

It is the difference between self-righteousness and imputed righteousness. It is the difference between law and grace. It is the difference between a life lived in the power of the Spirit and religion. It is the difference between, being justified by faith in the promises of God, or justified by the works of the law. And it is the difference between receiving the wages of sin or the gift of God.

If the enemy of our soul can keep us from entering into God’s rest, by keeping us under form and ritual, the works of religion, the old man will be a reality. We may not recognize such as our old nature, because it manifests a form of godliness. However, it is he who sits in the temple of God showing that he is god, who must be destroyed by the brightness of His coming.

To deny ourselves and take up our cross daily, is not a matter of whether we can keep from smoking, drinking, swearing or chasing women. It is not a matter of whether we keep up church attendance and do all the form and ritual required of it, it is a matter of being lead of the Spirit of God and knowing the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering. It is a matter of worshipping God in Spirit and in truth and not in this mountain or in that mountain. The old nature dwells among the carcasses of dead works and sustains himself on the traditions of men that make the word of God of none effect. He must be reckoned as dead as the works he would try to resurrect.

The Apostle Paul warned Peter, if we establish again the things that Christ came to destroy, we make ourselves a transgressor and he asked the following question. Is Christ the minister of sin? God forbid! But, if while seeking to be justified by Christ, we teach others that they must keep the works of the law to be justified we make ourselves the ministers of sin.

One can subscribe to a laundry list of “good” works, that they might appear clean before men and feel good about themselves and it be no more than a vain attempt at self righteousness. Many are defiled through deception, in a well meaning attempt at being pleasing unto God, to whom the Apostle Paul would say today, the same thing he also said to the church at Galatia. “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you”. These were a people, who had begun in the Spirit and thought they could be made perfect by the very nature Christ came to deliver them from, the flesh.

It is no different today. As long as we continue to feed on the fleshly concepts of men and not His flesh and His blood, we won’t show forth the Lord’s death till He comes, that His life might be manifested in the earth. Up until the time that spiritual Babylon falls, the old nature remains alive and the motions of sin, which are by the law will continue to operate. The Apostle Paul made the statement, “sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are not under the law”.

The old nature desires law because law is an outward thing that requires performance. The old nature secretly wants to be rewarded based on performance and seeks exaltation in this manner. It may even seek to be exalted in a display of humility. This is all part of the mystery of iniquity. Even though the flesh is capable of doing good, it still dwells in the earthly realm of good and evil and is subject to ordinances, touch not taste not etc.

The Apostle Paul said that bodily exercise profits little. He was not talking here about doing pushups. He was talking about abstaining from meats, forbidding to marry and the like. The flesh is always seeking out ways to get credit for it’s accomplishments. Nothing causes the flesh to suffer like not allowing it to be exalted, by seeking it’s own glory. Many well meaning people today, who name the name of Christ, are seeking to overcome the flesh by the power of the flesh and in so doing they deny the power of God.

All of the failure we experience in our “Christian” walk, is the result of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Rather than reckoning ourselves dead, we set out to make ourselves a reputation, with God and with man. We seek to be glorified through our accomplishments in God, rather than what God has accomplished in us. We are deceived into thinking that it is up to us to achieve salvation, through our “good” works rather than working out what God has worked in us. True good works are “God” works.

“The day is coming when He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness”. The day of His appearing shall be as a refiners fire and the hay wood and stubble of the old man will be burned up, to leave only that which God has wrought. “The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day” (Isa. 2:11).

False Doctrine

The doctrine of the freewill of man has most of God’s children in deception. It does not teach that one is saved by grace through faith, and that not of our self. It teaches that man, being dead in trespasses and sin, is the determining factor in his salvation, which Scripture does not teach. Even as the great red dragon, in chapter 12 of the book of Revelation, stood before the woman (the church), which was ready to be delivered, to devour her child as soon as it was born, yet today God’s newborns are brought into the throws of deception in their infancy. This doctrine is not the sincere milk of the word that we might grow thereby. It is a lie, a flood if you will, cast out of the mouth of the serpent, that he might cause the woman to be carried away by the flood and her children to be devoured.

Teaching that Salvation is a result of the old man’s response to God’s provision, opens the door to the way of Cain and “sin lies at that door”. It assumes that the natural man apart from the quickening of the Holy Spirit, does receive the things of the Spirit of God and they are not, as Paul said, “foolishness unto him”! Was the Apostle wrong in his statement in 1 Cor. Chapter two?

The doctrine of man’s freewill, allows that man has a part in his conception and new birth and it is not a work of the Holy Spirit. If man has a part in it then it is not a virgin birth and it should not be surprising that we find the old man alive and well and offering the fruit of the earth, even as Cain. The truth is, “God” has begun a good work in us and is able to keep us unto the day of Christ. Never forget God began the work and is well able to complete what He began. It is not by (our) power or by (our) might, but by His Spirit!!!!

We are to have no confidence in the flesh. Our confidence in the flesh only results in the manifestation of the presence of sin in our life. Our confidence in the flesh, crucifies the Son of God afresh and puts Him to an open shame. It tramples under foot the Son of God and counts the blood of the covenant as insufficient, and as an unholy thing and does despite to the Spirit of grace.

Scripture does not teach this doctrine, which is so widely held. Scripture teaches that we were slaves to sin but Christ led captivity captive and has made us slaves to righteousness. Where is boasting then? There is nothing for the flesh to boast in when it is by faith and the law of the Spirit of life in Christ. The doctrine of man’s freewill assumes that the earth (nature), which was cursed for our sake can produce an acceptable offering to God. Self exaltation through the works of the flesh, is and always will be, at enmity with God. It will never be an acceptable offering. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is the work of God through the Spirit and it makes us free from the law of sin and death. It requires the our death, that the life and power of God might bring glory unto Him through our resurrection. This resounds to the glory of His grace and the sacrifice of praise giving thanks unto God the Father, through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our salvation began with a new birth and it was a virgin birth. Even as with Mary, the Holy Spirit overshadowed us and God said let there be light. It could not be the result of knowing a man. “Who knows the things of a man but the spirit of man and who knows the things of God but the Spirit of God”. “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”.

It is only through revelation knowledge, which is above our natural understanding, that we know the things of God. God must say “let there be light” that overcomes the kingdom of darkness we dwell in, for us to see the Son and believe on Him. This light of God is the result of conception and the beginning of the new birth, which the Holy Spirit has initiated. “They shall be all taught of God”. It is not the result of the will of man nor the will of the flesh, but of God (John 1:13).

It is never the will of the flesh to be crucified, but rather to climb up some other way. The carnal mind is full of good ideas and ways by which it thinks it can please God. Just as Abram listen to his wife and produced Ishmael from an Egyptian handmaid (the realm of the flesh), the carnal mind will only produce that which corrupts.

If we believe our salvation begins by the exercise of our “freewill”, we believe we (man) had a part in our new birth. This very belief, keeps the old man alive and keeps us under the law of our first husband, which means we were never free to marry another and are living, or rather dying, in spiritual adultery. The church at Galatia had begun in the Spirit but they had fallen from grace, being deceived, thinking they could be made perfect by the flesh. Those who teach the doctrine of freewill believe that they actually began in the flesh, by the old man’s decision to accept Christ and by works of flesh and Spirit are now being made perfect, which is even more hideous. The work of God is pure and Holy not spotted by the flesh.

I must warn all who read these lines, If you are under the delusion that your new birth into the Kingdom of God was a result of your “freewill’ decision, the cross of Christ has not been effective and the old man is alive and well. The cross is a type of your death and the only life you have is resurrection life. The cross of Christ signals the end of all flesh as a means of seeking acceptance through the deeds of the law. The law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, who opened the way to the law of the Spirit of life, to all that believe. The letter, written on stone kills, but the intent of the law, written on the fleshly tables of our heart, by the Spirit, makes alive. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. “I am crucified with Him, “Never-the-less I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God”.

Whenever we see the old sin nature manifest itself, it is a temptation to doubt the promise of God through grace. That nature’s inclination to the works of our hands gives the old man life and brings us back under bondage to the many doctrines of the flesh, which will only result in more of the same. These teachings will have us believe that our failure to perform that good thing is because we have not obeyed the many rules and regulations they have put forth. Just as Peter said, The enemy goes to and fro in the earth seeking whom he may devour, “Whom resist, steadfast in the faith”. Faith in the promise of God in Christ who has delivered us from sin, is delivering us from sin and shall completely take us up into Himself. The new man rests in the truth contrary to what he sees. Even as on the seventh day, God rested.

Not that we should come into agreement with our apparent failures, when we see the old nature manifest itself. We should groan in this body of death, even as Paul said, waiting for our full redemption and our change like onto His glorious body. However we live in hope of the promises of God, for which we patiently wait. Determining to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Having no confidence in the flesh (not by power, nor by might), but looking to Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. If we truly walk in this humility, the pride and arrogance of the old nature remains crucified along with it’s judgementalism, condemnation, sarcasm, covetousness and a host of other unsavory characteristics.

Grace does not allow for the old nature to live out it’s desire to be as god.
Under the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus the old nature, which seeks to be exalted through a form of godliness is crucified and God alone is exalted through grace.

Art Groesbeck