![[The Good Seed]](../images/thegoodseed.gif)
Penalty of Separation
By Lloyd Ellefson
God reigns in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! Those who teach, share the gospel or give a testimony in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, should also communicate the life, nature, understanding and spiritual realization of Christ. Otherwise they will only be teaching according to their natural understanding of the Bible. As the Spirit of life communicates an understanding of spiritual things, life will be brought to us. I believe that is happening in us.
We know there is a God. We believe in God, in Jesus Christ the Son of God and the Holy Spirit. We believe they constitute the Godhead. We may wonder how we fit into God's plan. How do we see ourselves? What is our relationship to Him? Are we separated and estranged from the Godhead even though we have received forgiveness, or are we united with Him? Do we still think of ourselves as the old Adamic man, sold under sin, just barely holding on to some of God's promises, or are we new creatures in Christ? Do we think of God as being in heaven while we are on earth, or are we living in the heavenlies with Him? Do we believe in Jesus just in order to get forgiveness so we can make it to heaven, or do we know we are new creatures, that old things have passed away and all things have become new? Do we think we are still estranged from God after we have been born again?
The good news of the gospel is that we are no longer estranged from God! Estrangement from God is separation and death. Any realm in which we are not conscious that God is our being, our life and truth, is a death realm. Life is not given to human nature, neither can man give it to someone else. We must realize that we are taken into the life of God and participate in His life as our life. This takes us out of the realm of death and separation from Him and gives us His life.
"Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence." (2 Peter 1:3) He has given us everything pertaining to life and godliness! It can only be received through the TRUE KNOWLEDGE of Him who has called us! True knowledge of Christ (who has given all things) does not come by merely reading the Bible and examining it with the natural mind; it has to be revealed to us by the Holy Spirit! The more true knowledge we have of Him, the more we know the meaning of life and godliness that has been given to us.
"For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust." (v.4) These magnificent promises give us more than the pardon necessary for entry into heaven. By faith the power of these promises comes into effect in us and we understand that we have become partakers of the divine nature of God. This is an incredible statement, but this is exactly what it says! If we have become partakers, we are participating in His nature! This is not a gift to be proudly displayed, but a joint union in which an ongoing sense of relationship has been established.
"And that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." (2 Tim. 3:15-16) The holy scriptures are able to make us wise to the salvation which is in Christ Jesus. Salvation is in Christ. But the question is, "How can we get into Christ to receive salvation?" As long as we regard Him as a physical being, we cannot get into Him. The Bible says, "Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer." (2 Cor. 5:16) Christ Jesus is a spiritual man - not a physical one! This salvation is IN Christ Jesus - not BY Him. Christ Jesus has become our wisdom from God and the righteousness of God. (1 Cor. 1:30) Through the work of God, Christ Jesus HAS BECOME all these things to us! That is much more than giving them to us!
Salvation is in Christ Jesus - not in the scriptures. The scriptures testify to this fact! God's gift to us is the Holy Spirit. Christ is the Anointing, and it makes us partakers of the divine nature of the Messiah or Anointing. Hearing the voice of the Son of God causes us to live! The scriptures are a witness to the truth, but they are not the word of God. Reading the scriptures without the life of the Holy Spirit does not bring life; but when the Holy Spirit breathes His life into them and we hear His voice, we will live! Many suppose they have eternal life in the scriptures but they are wrong; the scriptures testify of Jesus Christ! There is no life in the dead letter of the scriptures; the life is in Christ Jesus!
Although Christ is here today, people still say He is coming. He has promised never to leave us! So how can they say that when He is here? There is only one Jesus! If you have received Him, you have received HIM. "As many as received Him to them He gave the power to become the sons of God." The idea that Jesus is here in Spirit, but His body is up in the sky or heaven is a delusion. To learn more, our eyes have to be opened to receive revelation knowledge of Christ.
The Jews received their ideas about God from the Old Testament. In the New Testament Jesus refuted many of these ideas. He told them that they did not know God, nor did they know Him! If they had known the Father, they would know Him. They did not have the word of God dwelling in them; none of them had ever seen God or perceived who He was; they had never seen His form. They didn't know anything about God, nor did they believe Moses. Had they believed Moses, they would have believed Jesus, because Moses wrote of Jesus.
Israel's idea of God was very different from that of Jesus. Will we believe Jesus Christ's testimony of who God is and what He is doing, or will we believe Israel's? The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. (John 1:17) Moses and Jesus Christ were both mediators. Moses was a mediator of the law covenant, and Jesus Christ was the mediator of a better covenant! The old covenant could never make people perfect; it was inadequate and kept dealing with sin - even as people do today. It was growing old and passing away because the new covenant, given by Jesus Christ, had come. The old covenant can only come to an end in us when the new one is accepted.
Moses was an Adamic man. He was not the Christ man, nor did He come down from heaven. Although he brought Israel out of the bondage of Egypt, he was not a redeemer; he was known as the law-giver. The people living under the law-covenant only had a righteousness of their own. They did not understand who God was, nor did they understand who Jesus was. Neither had they grasped the real meaning of the law, for they understood the law to be a revelation of God for righteousness, instead of allowing it to minister death to them. Since Jesus represented the true image of the invisible God, a conflict arose between Jesus and the Jews. Israel thought it was worshiping God when it was actually worshiping an imagination of its own heart. The people did not know that they were worshiping an idol - worshiping their own concept of God was actually idolatry.
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life...My words are spirit and are life." His testimony of Himself was also a testimony of who God really is, for He and the Father are one. In the Holy Spirit we can now become partakers of these wonderful promises and participate in the divine nature through the knowledge of God. People in the Old Testament had not received the Holy Spirit so they could not have this relationship with God. Their many wrong ideas of God kept them away from God. They believed that He did good and evil. They thought God would not forgive them when they sinned; He would only punish them. Furthermore, they saw diseases and poverty as a curse, and health and wealth as a reward. Since God sent them to war, they hated their fellow-man and thought they were better than other people. Israel's concepts of self and God were not true because they were resident in their natural mind. The natural mind is death and separates us from God. Since they thought God was a God of wrath, their sin-consciousness did not allow them to feel comfortable and to have a relationship with Him.
Let's look at some of the teachings in the New Testament. Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, `An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil...let him have your cloak too...whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two...love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you...I did not come to judge the world but to save the world...he who does not believe is condemned already." We also read, "There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus...God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them."
God brought this reconciliation through Christ! Now He is not counting our trespasses against us! When we see God in Christ, we see that God is not imputing sins. Therefore we are not to fight our enemies, for they are not really enemies because God does not count their trespasses against them either - but they look and feel like enemies to us. God does not live in time, and spiritually He has already overcome them. Those who want to be friends with the world make themselves enemies of God; they do not agree with God nor do they submit to Him. Those who will be partakers of His divine nature must understand God through Jesus Christ. People always think they will be punished by God when they do something wrong; but I would like to say that the punishment is inherent in the deed, because what you sow you will reap. If you sow to the natural (to the flesh), you will reap the things of the flesh. This doesn't always take place immediately; the crop isn't harvested right away. The real reaping of sin is separation from God - and that's what death is.
As soon as we are removed from life (for whatever reason) we are in death. We must be participants in life. God's life in us is not ours independently; it is not ours to do with as we please. If it were, it would be separated from God and would no longer be God's life. Therefore we cannot say, "I have life on my own. I can do with it whatever I please. I am an entity in myself." Only God is immortal, eternal; there is no death in Him. The way to come to a full realization of Him is to truly repent of all our natural conceptions of God, and to believe what we find in the New Testament about the new covenant - the new revelation of God in Christ Jesus. Then we will not be in the same delusion as the people who opposed Jesus. They killed Him in their zealousness for the god of their own making and their false idea of themselves.
John 1:1 throws light on this subject. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." We understand that God and His Word are one. Nobody has ever seen God. Even the Jews - those who were the called-out ones - had never heard nor seen God. This is interesting because the Word (that God is) actually comes out of Himself. It is a seed, and a seed has the energy in itself to produce; God's seed produces everything that is in the intention of the mind of God. God's offspring is His Son. When this is rightly understood, we see who God truly is. Misunderstanding it produces all kinds of perversions and imaginations which are idolatry. This is the sophisticated idolatry of today!
The reams and reams of teachings about the Holy Spirit and man's assumption of God, miss the point, for they do not teach that we have overcome death through Jesus Christ. So do the thousands of books that have been written about the Bible, especially about the book of John and the book of Romans. When Jesus joined us in our humanity He first experienced a separation from God; then He brought us back into a union with God. In Him we have received life and have overcome death!
"In the begining was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him; and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being." (Jn. 1:1-3) Notice that WORD is replaced by HIM. The Word, which is the Son of God, is brought into manifestation in the Christ.
"In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness; and the darkness did not comprehend it." (vv. 4-5) God's life is the life in the Word (Jesus), and His life is our light. Two types of enlightenment can be received from reading the scriptures. Only a natural enlightenment can be received in the natural mind, and this results in a natural realization. However, if we recognize that God is omnipresent and His Word is His Son, we will know that His Word is spiritual. A spiritual word brings a spiritual realization through the Holy Spirit! The enlightenment it brings cannot function in human nature, because the latter cannot see the things of the Spirit. Spiritual realities don't have any meaning for the natural man.
Eph. 5:14 reads, "Awake, sleeper (from darkness, from separation), and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Luke 1:78 helps to clarify this subject. "Because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high shall visit us." The springing forth of the day, or as Peter calls it, "the day dawns...in your hearts," is not a historical day. God's day is light. The day of the Lord dawns in our hearts with the appearing of the Daystar (Christ). This is the light of God's day coming into our spiritual being to awaken us from the darkness of human nature!
"To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." (Luke 1:79 from Is. 9:2) God says that all men were sitting in darkness - for in Adam all die, and death is separation from God. Furthermore, it says that they sat in the shadow of death. A shadow is cast by something opaque - something that does not allow light to pass through. So death (separation from God) casts a shadow. Those who are in the shadow of death cannot see clearly. If that which casts a shadow is removed, light will bring spiritual enlightenment and understanding, and reveal the things that are in darkness. When a veil is lifted, that which was hidden is also revealed.
I believe that the carnal mind is the object hindering us from receiving light. Its realization is in the death realm. It is the veil that does not allow God's realization to come to us. The book of Hebrews explains that the Old Testament sacrifices, utensils, priesthood, tabernacle, and the law of commandments were only shadows. People could only see the shadow and not the reality. The shadows were in the death realm - the realm of natural creation!
This was the environment into which Jesus came. He was the Son of God, yet God sent Him to us in the likeness of sinful flesh. So the Son of God was hidden by this veil of flesh. Mankind could not see beyond the physical Jesus, so it could not see that the Godhead was operating within this veil of flesh. Therefore people were living in the shadow instead of in the light. As long as man could not see beyond that veil, he walked in the darkness of the shadow of death because he was separated from the enlightenment of God.
Jesus manifested God, for He was the exact image of the invisible God. In Him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for they are one. The physical body of Jesus participated in His work because the fulness of the Godhead resided within Him. By His own volition He humbled Himself and did not avail Himself of the power within Him to free Himself from experiencing death. He became obedient to God unto death. This was the death that reigned from Adam to Moses. Since it ruled man, it became a god to him. The death in Adam brought separation from God, for in Adam all die! All were being ruled by this Adamic consciousness or sense of being.
In Genesis 2 God told Adam not to eat of a certain tree. Hearing a voice that took priority over the voice of God in Adam and Eve's thinking, was the cause of their disobedience; the result was that they ate of the forbidden fruit! Hearing a wrong voice caused their separation from God! Here is a lesson we can learn. Adam was in a state of sleep when he was tempted. A separation had taken place when Eve was formed out of him. He had also been subjected to the vanity of his mind. This made him vulnerable to another voice - one that focused attention upon his well-being, and honored him by telling him he had the ability to become like God by his own efforts. Then it drew attention to the beauty and health-giving power of the fruit! Hearing that was more pleasant to him than obeying God's command! This was the cause of his separation from God! This is where it was enacted! The eating of the fruit of the tree was the result of the disobedience that worked in him - the darkness that caused him not to hear the voice of God.
Had Adam really heard the voice of God when he was forbidden to eat of that tree, the energy of God's creative word would have kept him. God would have created obedience in Adam if he had heard God, and he would not have eaten of it. Christ heard God, and obedience was created in Him. God's word is a creative word! When God said, "Let there be light", light came into being. Jesus spoke to the wind and waves and they obeyed Him! Even the dead - the dead man in the coffin, Jairus's daughter, and Lazarus - obeyed His command to rise up. His words contained the creative power to establish the thing that was in the mind of God. When Jesus Christ (the express image of God) spoke, a creative force or energy produced what He spoke. God's word will not return void. The purpose for which it was sent will be accomplished. Since we do not have complete understanding, some of these things still contain an element of mystery.
Nevertheless, we must believe that the whole realm of Adamic soulish realization does not hear the word of God - and it cannot! That is why a separation from the death realm has to take place. You and I have to be separated from the supremacy of the carnal mind before we can receive the spiritual thoughts that come from God in Christ Jesus! In 2 Cor. 4:4 we read that the god of this world has blinded the minds of men so they might not see the light of the gospel. The blindness, the veil, the darkness and the shadow all signify that there is a lack of light. It is a realm in which the light or spiritual realization of God's word does not penetrate. The gospel is veiled to those who are perishing. (v.3) There were veils in the temple; the body of Jesus was also called a veil. (Heb. 10:20) The fact that people crucified Jesus, the exact image of God, revealed the veil of human darkness that hung over the minds of the people.
The mind does not initiate action; it is always obedient or subservient to something. We are generated or birthed into minding the flesh; the mind of the flesh obeys what the flesh says. However, Jesus demonstrated His obedience to the Spirit. IF YOU HAVE THE MIND OF THE SPIRIT, YOU MIND WHAT THE SPIRIT IS SAYING! Human nature regenerates itself in its progeny - in human beings. Every baby is born with a dependency on this creation. The flesh has to be sustained by breathing, eating and drinking. If any of these are denied him, his body will cease to function. When his body dies, his consciousness of living departs.
Our feelings and knowledge come to us through our natural senses because our bodies have come from the same material that is in creation; they are one with creation. God said to Adam, "Of dust you are made, to dust you will return." That was not said to Christ! Just as we draw sustenance for our human body from natural creation, so the body of Christ must draw its sustenance from the spiritual dimension from which it was born; it must receive its spiritual realization and life from Christ! He came down from heaven and went back to the Father.
The mind set on the flesh is death. (Rom. 8:6) Therefore it is separated from God. It only minds that which comes out of creation. The reception, calculations, understanding, and intellect of man are all from the natural man, for he minds the things of the flesh. Man's earthy image of God is formed from that; it is an idol conceived by man and is not to be with us permanently. If we retain that image and try to preserve our old self-image, rather than allowing ourselves to be taken into the death that Jesus experienced, we're in deep trouble. Only through that death can we be resurrected into spiritual understanding.
Our former mentality concluded that the penalty for sinning was going to hell; we did not see that it was death. The word HELL means UNPERCEIVED - and the Adamic man lives in unperception of who God is. If he doesn't repent of the old government and of all the evil actions, the deeds and lustings of the flesh, he will reap what he has sown - and this is hell! But the penalty of sin is not hell - it's death. The Adamic nature is separated from God and therefore is in death. If we don't take on the likeness of Christ we will die in our sins.
We don't want to live in the death consciousness that resides in this body. We need a consciousness that is not derived from this body - one that is beyond it. Since our senses and mind can only receive from creation, we need to receive revelation in our spirit. Once we recognize this, it will be easier for us to lay down everything - for this is what death is. The new birth separates us from the old so that we can be joined to the Spirit and hear what the Spirit is saying! Even as there is physical growth, there is spiritual growth. We grow in the realization and knowledge of Christ - we learn that we have become partakers of the divine nature and live and move and have our being in Him; God is our Father and we are one with Him; the Holy Spirit brings us the knowledge of sonship and we understand that we are in the family of God. We actually experience this in the Spirit!
"...an hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear shall live." (Jn. 5:25) This does not refer to the physically dead, but to those who are dead in their trespasses and sins. Those who hear the voice of the Son of God shall live! In Rev. 3:20 it says that Jesus stands at the door and knocks, and "if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in..." How important it is to hear the voice of the Son of God! Hearing implies obeying! Hearing Him brings us into life; we pass from death to life. In Rom. 6:5 it says, "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." This is resurrection!
"Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?" (v.3) Christ's death was a death TO sin - not because of sin. (Rom. 6:10) Let's see how death came into this world. God said to Adam that if he would eat of a certain tree he would surely die. Satan disagreed and said, "You surely shall not die." Adam ate and he died. His death was a separation from God. In that separation he was JOINED TO SATAN'S LIE AND THE DELUSION THAT IS IN THE LIE. He was united to creation instead of to the creator. Adam's consciousness of himself was now birthed in a lie, because he was separated from God in his thinking. He was separated from truth, for he did not know that "In Him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28)
Adam is the high priest of the lie. He ministers through the corporate Adamic man. Sin came into the world, and death through sin, and so living in the realm of death in Adam means living in a delusion; living in a lie! Man lives in the lie that causes him to be separated from God. He is ignorant of the fact that he lives and moves and has his being in God. It is God who gives us life and breath and all things! So everything man is - except his delusion - is of God. The delusion and lies came from the father of lies. This is what death in Adam is, for in Adam all die.
But now we have been baptized into the death of Christ; we have been planted into the likeness of His death. (Rom. 6:5) Adam's separation from God was his death. Christ's death was a death to sin - the lie had no part in Him. The humanity to which He was joined contained the lie (or death). This separated Him from God. To be freed and separated from the lie, He had to die to that lie. This is His death. The death we have been put into, separates us from Adam and the lie, from carnality and the earthiness of creation. We have become a new creation in Christ Jesus because His word in us creates a new creature in us. IT CREATES A NEW SENSE OF BEING AND A PARTICIPATION IN THE DIVINE NATURE!
Jesus had to come into our death, so that He could experience what we were in, and then He could take us out. Jesus partook of death. (Heb. 2:14) Since He didn't sin, He didn't die because He sinned, but He died TO sin. Men put His physical body to death. God did not put Him to death. God sent Him into the world to save the world - not to condemn it. However, man did not understand the blessing God gave him in Jesus Christ, so man killed Him. They thought they were killing the idea of God which Christ expressed. This is exactly what human nature or the Adamic man does all the time. He constantly puts truth to death, and lives in separation from the truth of God in Christ Jesus. This is also true of the religious systems of the world, in Israel and in most churches.
We have been planted with the seed of life that brings us out of death. Being planted gives us a picture of life coming out of death. Life brings a termination to the death that was present - a termination of the delusion that caused death. By His resurrection, Jesus proved that death was caused by a delusion. Jesus is the truth; as He expressed Himself as the truth, He overcame the death into which He had entered. In expressing the truth and the true nature of His divine being, He overthrew death and exposed the delusion. Generally the death of Adam is associated with the death of his physicial body. This is not the truth -it's a deception! The death of the physical body is simply a separation from our former identification - we can no longer identify with our physical body and draw our knowledge and realization from it.
Since Christ is the truth and Adam is an adversary to Christ, Adam is the vessel through which the lie operates. In Adam all die, but in Christ all are made alive. They are opposites. Death is in Adam but life is in Christ. Christ operates in truth and Adam in the lie. Jesus Christ came to take away the fear of death from man. That is why Christians do not have to be afraid of death. They do not have to spend all their money trying to escape physical death, nor do they have to be filled with self-pity, for death is not a separation from everything. Yet often they do not understand this. Within them they should have a new sense of dwelling - a dwelling in Jesus Christ, so that they do not fear the departure of the physical body.
Our redemption comes in Jesus Christ. Everything that dwells in Christ Jesus - His life, His sense of being, His going through death - has to come to us in the spirit. When this becomes real to us in our consciousness, the truth will draw us away from the concept of death that is in Adam. The transference from the old man to the new man, from our deluded image of God to the true image, from our natural realization to a spiritual realization, from our deluded consciousness to a true consciousness, cannot take place without repentance. That is the only way we can change.
God is omnipresent! Therefore we can never get away from Him regardless of how hard we try! Wherever we go He is! If we go down to the sea, He is there; if we make our bed in hell, He is there. Actually we live and move and have our being in Him. After Adam sinned, he tried to hide from God but he couldn't! God found him! He had been fooled into thinking that God no longer loved him, but there was no truth in that. Jesus Christ, in His humanity, went through all these things and broke the bondage of that realization. He now ministers His life to us!
Living in the Adamic nature is the penalty of separation. Adam died to the truth so his soul died; his realization of God, of himself, etc., became embedded in the lie. Unless we truly understand that we have passed from death to life, we can still operate in the Adamic soulish realization of God and of ourselves. Even full-time evangelistic preachers who are filled with the Spirit, can still be operating in the law and in the Adamic nature, not understanding the grace of God. We need to understand that we are new creatures and have passed from death to life! We have passed from Adam to Christ; we have been resurrected out of the earthy concept and have been put into the spiritual concept; we know we are sons of God! Our prayers are directed to the Father! Jesus said, "If you shall ask the Father for anything, He will give it to you in My name...in that day you will ask in My name." (John 16:23,26) We can speak to the Father directly! The Spirit causes us to cry "Abba! Father!" He does not cause us to cry "Jesus".
Separation from God causes us to sin; union with God keeps us from sinning. Since death is the realm of separation from God, death came first, then sin. Some think that sin came first, but that is not the case. Sin constantly produces death. Seeing death as separation from God, and life as union with God, is reality. We must remember that separation from God was birthed in a lie; it is a lie and therefore produces delusion. The truth MAKES us free of the lie! The truth frees us from our earthy concepts; it frees us from our false image of ourselves; it also frees us from our mistaken identity of who God is. Our false idea of God is our greatest mistake! Israel was living in that delusion - in their mistaken identity of God; that is why they killed Jesus.
What is this saying to us? It tells us that all the wars, greed, abusive sex, sin, aids, thievery and conniving that are going on in this world right now, are the penalty of separation from God. No one, whether young or old, man or woman, educated or uneducated, has the spiritual energy to prevent himself from lusting after the things of this world - from greed, murder, hate, divorce, etc. Freedom from natural desires and control of the flesh can only be obtained in Christ Jesus. Unless we understand we are new creatures in Christ Jesus, we will not have the spiritual energy to overcome! This is what the gospel is all about.
The true meaning of the gospel has never before been brought to light as it is today. The gospel includes more than the forgiveness of sins. If God pardons our sins, but does not change our nature, He has to pardon our sins every day, every week, all the time. (Unfortunately, this is what most church systems teach.) That is why there is almost as much evil and as many divorces in the church as in the world. There are still some within the church walls who take the law seriously and try to obey the law. But a big problem still exists because of the self-righteous attempts to keep the law; these are anchored in self-preservation. However, if God changes our nature to the nature of Jesus Christ, so that sin no longer works in us in that way, we can be overcomers.
God has not promised redemption to the Adamic man, for he resides in death and is subject to the flesh and to sin. Those who want to preserve their Adamic nature, have it changed, blessed, and raised up into heaven, will be disappointed. This will not happen because God has not promised redemption for the carnal mind. Redemption is in Christ Jesus. He is our Redeemer! Our redemption is FROM that Adamic man! It is from our wrong idea of God, from our desire to preserve our old self, from our wrong concept of life and of who we are. This is what we are redeemed from! This happens when the Spirit of Christ comes into us, and we learn to hear the voice of the Son of God. This brings life. We have to hear Him individually even though we are members of a corporate body.
All the suffering that is taking place in the human body today is due to the penalty of separation. I think all things will improve as we grow spiritually. We are not expecting everything to change automatically, as if by magic, but we have the foundation upon which we can begin to grow. With our spiritual growth, the old ideas will drop off like dead leaves. That is happening today. A transition from the old man to the new man, from death to life, is taking place. There is a resurrection, a new creation in us! It's all happening through the same testimony, the same Christ, the same Jesus who has been around for some 2000 years.
We need to lay down those things that have been operating in our own mind, nature and conception, and hear what the Spirit is saying to the church! We have to hear with the ear of the Spirit - even while reading the Bible! We must receive the Spirit. That is the way it was, is, and ever shall be, because that is the way God has laid it out. Jesus is the way!
The Bible is wonderful! In a sense it's just as essential to us as our body is, because the workings of God that are by faith in us now, come first to the natural. It's great to read the testimonies of the various people in the Bible and contemplate them in the natural. But that is not what we are talking about. We are speaking about the realm beyond the natural so that all things work together for good to them that love God. I love the Bible and I think it is a wonderful testimony to make us wise unto salvation. However, it is CHRIST who IS our salvation! It is not only about Him - it's Him as a reality in our life and as a reality of our life!
God bless you and may the Spirit give you a complete understanding of the things that have been testified to in this writing! Amen.