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AN INTERACTIVE SUMMARY OF FOR YOU DIED!
The following paragraphs are presented as a summary of For You Died! The review questions are designed to facilitate a clear comprehension of the thesis statements contained in that document. Click on the answer of your choice to determine the level of progress you are making in understanding the major points presented in this summary. For your convenience a link to the entire document is provided at the end of this lesson.
For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)
But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. (Romans 8:10)
Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (Romans 6:3)
When did we die, or become aware that we are dead? We became aware that we are dead when we were baptized in water into Christ.
True death is the absence of the Life of God. The Life of God is what God Is. The Lord Jesus Christ lives in the fullness of the Life of God. He wants us to be with Him where He is, not just in Heaven or on the earth, but in the fullness of the Life of God.
The original problem arose when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. They became conscious of their nakedness because they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that is, from the eternal moral law of God. Thus they felt condemned. Also, God cursed them and the ground because of their disobedience.
God had warned them that in the day they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would die. Yet they lived for many hundreds of years after that. But they were dead while they lived. How could this be? Because the life of God had withdrawn from them and their environment.
Review Question#1. Please click on the answer you think is correct.
True death is:
a. the absence of the life of God.
b. the cessation of breathing and a beating heart.
After being baptized we now are to count ourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Is our body alive? No, it still is dead—cut off from God because of the sin that dwells in it. This is why the Apostle refers to our "sinful nature."
But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. (Romans 8:10)
"Your body is dead"! There is no Life of God in our body. It remains a dead adamic creation.
But our spiritual nature is alive. The Life of God has entered our spiritual nature. Why? Because the Life of God always follows righteousness, and the righteousness of Him who kept the Law perfectly has been ascribed to us as we follow the Holy Spirit each day. There is no Life of God where there is unrighteousness.
Where can we find Divine Life for our inward nature? Only in the Lord Jesus Christ, as we keep turning away from the death of the world and coming to Him in faith.
Review Question #2. Please click on the answer you think is correct.
How can we find Divine Life?
a. by remaining faithful in our religious duties.
b. in the Lord Jesus, as we keep turning away from the death of the world.
Discipleship is denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following the Lord Jesus.
As we deny ourselves, being led by the Spirit of God, we keep confessing our sins and turning away from them. As we do this we are fed in the spirit realm with the body and blood of Christ. Eternal life is in the body and blood of Christ. Day by day we keep adding life to our inward nature providing we are walking in the Spirit of God. Christ is being formed in us. The Resurrection and the Life is being formed in us.
But if we do not walk in the Spirit, do not deny ourselves, choosing instead to follow the desires of our sinful nature, then we slay the eternal life that was given to us when we received Christ and were baptized in water.
For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, (Romans 8;13)
One of the greatest of the lies that have entered Christian thinking is that once we have eternal life we never can lose it. There are numerous dire warnings in the New Testament that deny this doctrine.
For example, there is the parable of the sower. There was seed that fell among thorns and germinated. But the cares of life choked it out and it bore no lasting fruit. Branches that do not bear fruit are removed from Christ.
Then there is the parable of the virgins. They had their Bible, their lamp, and the oil of the Spirit of God, which is eternal life. However, some of them, because of their carelessness, ran out of oil. The door was closed to them.
The servant of the Lord who buried his talent was thrown into the outer darkness and his gifts given to another.
Review Question #3. Please click on the answer you think is correct.
What happens if we do not walk in the Spirit but choose instead to follow the desires of our sinful nature?
a. we slay the eternal life that was given us when we received Christ and were baptized in water.
b. God’s grace makes up for our poor choices and lazy behavior.
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. (Colossians 3:5)
"Put to death, therefore." Why "therefore"? Because Christ is our life! For this reason we put to death our earthly nature.
What if we do not put to death our earthly nature?
In this case Christ is not our life. We are sowing to our sinful nature, and from that nature we will reap corruption, not eternal life.
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. (Galatians 6:7,8)
The above passage was written to the Christian people in Galatia. It was not written to the unsaved.
This is what it says to the Christian: "If you live according to your sinful nature, from that nature you will reap destruction.
"If you live according to the Spirit of God, you will reap eternal life."
Now exactly what does this mean? It means that if a Christian person does not deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Jesus, choosing instead to live the ordinary physical life, he or she will reap corruption and not eternal life.
If a Christian person chooses to follow Christ at every moment, denying the appetites of his flesh, he or she will reap eternal life.
We see, therefore, that eternal life is not a ticket we buy by accepting Christ. It is a state of being that we reap by denying our fleshly nature and following the Spirit of God at all times.
Review Question #4. Please click on the answer you think is correct.
Eternal life is:
a. is a ticket we buy by accepting Christ.
b. a state of being we reap by denying our fleshly nature and following the Spirit of God at all times.
Our adamic nature is assigned to the cross with Christ, when we are baptized in water. Our new life is in Christ at the right hand of God.
Therefore, the wise believer, understanding this, will cease living in his or her old nature. He will pray continually, looking to Christ for wisdom and strength in every detail of daily living.
He will recognize that the New Testament lists many commandments that must be obeyed if we are not to lose our new Divine life. He will pray continually for grace to do what Christ and His Apostles have commanded.
He understands clearly, however, that his old nature is doomed. He will clutch nothing, permitting God to remove from him any relationship, any possession, any circumstance that God calls for. He has died with Christ and he knows this.
He continually is setting his heart on things above. His treasures are in Heaven. He is a pilgrim and stranger in the present world. He regards all his gain in this present world as garbage if it was not wrought in Christ.
He knows that all that is in the new world of righteousness has died and been resurrected in Christ. He realizes God is making all things new in Christ; that only what has been made new in Christ will endure.
He will stand throughout the coming age of physical and moral horrors because he is living in indestructible resurrection life. Satan could not resist the power that raised Christ from the dead. Satan cannot resist the power that sustains the believer whose life is hidden with Christ in God.
We have died, and Christ now is our life. Here is all love, joy, and peace. This is the Kingdom of God. This is eternal life.
Review Question#5. Please click on the answer you think is correct.
After water baptism, the wise believer will:
a. ask God for help to make this life on earth as comfortable as possible before going to Heaven.
b. will pray continually, looking to Christ for wisdom and strength in every detail of daily living.
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Source Document:
Copyright © 2002 Trumpet Ministries, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
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