The Daily Word of Righteousness

The Sabbath, #5

What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. (Romans 6:21,22—NIV)

We understand therefore that adultery under the Law of Moses was punishable by physical death. Adultery under the new covenant results in spiritual death.

Under the Law of Moses physical death was the punishment for adultery.

It is quite different under the new covenant. Under the new covenant spiritual death is the consequence of adultery, not the punishment for adultery but the consequence of adultery.

The Words of Jesus Christ are Divine Seed. They are planted in us. Then Christ, the Kingdom of God, begins to be formed in us.

Now we are in a battle. Will we each day give the victory to our death-doomed natural man, or will we each day give the victory to our new born-again nature in Jesus Christ?

Paul says if we continue in the lusts of the flesh we shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. This is because the Kingdom of God is Christ in us. If we continue in the works of the flesh we shall, as in the parable of the sower, choke out the Life of Christ in us. We then shall bear no lasting fruit. As a result we will be cut out of the Vine, out of Christ, not as a punishment but because we have made ourselves of no use in the Kingdom. We do not fit.

When we die each of us brings into the spirit realm a cloud of evil or a cloud of righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God. If we have served the Lord we will bring goodness with us when we die. But if we have continued in the sins of the flesh we will bring evil with us when we die.

We leave our body, including our brain, at the place of our death. But our mind, that which either has been or has not been renewed in Christ, enters the spirit realm upon our death. Our mind will not be renewed in Christ until we present our body a living sacrifice on the altar of God, doing His will from the heart.

Whereas physical death was the penalty for committing adultery under the Law of Moses, spiritual death is the consequence of committing adultery under the new covenant.

One is a penalty. The other is a consequence.

And because spiritual death is the consequence of remaining in slavery to unrighteousness, grace and mercy do not operate to alter our destiny. We are going to reap precisely what we have sown.

Of all the horrid misunderstandings of the new covenant prevailing in today's Evangelical teaching, none is more destructive than the concept that mercy and grace interfere or somehow do away with the eternal Kingdom principle of sowing and reaping. Those who teach that the Christian can sow sin and reap Divine Glory are false prophets. They are false prophets! And those who are following them, trusting them, are blind following the blind.

To be continued.