*[[Heb 6:1]] KJV* Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
*[[Zec 4:6]] KJV* Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.
*[[Joh 6:14-15/KJV]]*
14 Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.
15 When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.
*[[Gen 3:4-5/KJV]]*
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
*[[Gen 1:12]] KJV* And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
*[[Gen 1:25]] KJV* And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
*[[Gen 2:7]] KJV* And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
*[[Gen 3:19]] KJV* In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
*[[Gal 5:17-26/KJV]]*
17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
26 Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
*[[Exo 5:4]] KJV* And the king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works? get you unto your burdens.
*[[Exo 5:13]] KJV* And the taskmasters hasted them, saying, Fulfil your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw.
The first ingredient of the Christian life is repentance
from dead works. This is far more than being sorry for our works; for being
sorry is more often than not only caused by suffering or fear of the results of
sin not the sinfulness itself. This is because sin in any form cost us something
but true repentance is about understanding that our own actions cannot produce
the life of God in us.
The instruction of the scripture is about who we are not the
things we do. To try to do what is right is to only imitate life; we are not taught to imitate life but instead
to possess life. To imitate what we believe is right but not possess those
things as our nature is to be an actor. The word for actor in Jesus day was
hypocrite.
In the book of John we are told of a time when those who had
seen Jesus multiply a few loaves and fish into a meal for five thousand people,
had seen the healings worked through Him, and had even heard as He opened the
meaning of the scriptures to them; recognized that He was the promised prophet
(Messiah) determined to take Him and make Him king. However Jesus knowing their
intentions escaped away. Why?
He was the Messiah, He was the son of David and therefore
their King, but these men as we are later told are willing to do this for the benefit
it will bring to them. If we seek to make Him our Lord for the purpose of receiving
His blessings instead of who He is then we too will find that when we search for
Him He will have gone away from us.
Jesus told us in Luke that the kingdom of God is within you.
This does not mean as false religion teaches that God is in all of us we simply
have to take away the wrong thinking and fear to find God at our core. Such a
statement is stupid and completely ignores the facts of the human condition
that any unsaved teenager can recognize. What Jesus was saying is that Gods
manifested reign and sovereignty in your land can never be had until He completely
reigns and is sovereign in our hearts and minds.
The sin and death that Adam took into him is all that He
could produce from himself. It is because of this that all men are born with
this same sin and death as their nature. We see that in genesis every plant and
every animal produced in its kind. Adam though formed of the earth was breathed
into by God becoming a living soul. So we see that in His original state His
life was Gods life and would have produced children of God. However after his
fall He that was taken from the dust returned to dust thereby His kind was born
of an earthly condition of being after His fallen kind.
So the flesh of Adam produced flesh because He thought to be
life from himself he became a self and passed to all future generations the
same lifeless self of flesh. To repent of dead works is to repent of trying to
produce life by the self; this being the case the very act of trying to do what
is right to attain to life is to continue in the sin of the Father of all flesh
Adam. In Galatians five Paul warns us what the flesh manifest when we try to
live by it with the conclusion that those who try to use this source can never
have the place of reign and sovereignty of God.
To repent of dead works is to place our trust and dependence
in Gods redemption of us by His Son for through that redemption He has afforded
us His own Spirit which Adam lost and made us one with His Son and Himself. So
it is that His life has become our life. When we see sin in our life we are to
know that somewhere in us we are leaning on the flesh of our old nature. It is
to drive us to trust Him to tear down every stronghold of self-dependence in us.
We trust His power and life in us to renew our mind giving us the mind of His
Messiah to the end that all that we are is Him through us.
I wrote earlier that the teaching of scripture is about our
life in Him and how it is attained to. We see an example of the battle between
the flesh and the Spirit in the story of Moses confrontation with pharaoh. I
have heard some compare Pharaoh to Satan and while I am not arguing against
such it is easier to understand if you see him as your Adamic nature. This
lesson is about the working within us not without. Pharaoh is our flesh, with
YHWH, Moses and Aaron being the Father, Son, and Spirit in type. It is of note
that Pharaoh who considers himself a god (source of generation) has one answer
to prove he is sovereign to increase work. In genesis 5: 4 pharaoh denies that
Moses and Aaron can cause you to cease from your working. The flesh ask you to
work to make what is earthly into what is heavenly and when you cannot it beats
you and says you are just unwilling and lazy.
The flesh will condemn you but condemnation is the opposite
of faith; John tells us if our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart.
Trust and rely on Gods life to be in you and will and do through you and God
will give you the desires of your heart. This means He will make it your nature
to act from His nature. This repentance from our dead works must be a
foundation or we will gain the blessings of living Gods life through us and be
lifted in pride believing we have gained this life by our hand leading us to idolatry
of our flesh once more.
