The Daily Word of Righteousness

The Word of Their Testimony, continued

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (I John 1:7—NIV)

We overcome the accuser by:

The blood of the Lamb.

The word of our testimony.

Loving not our life to the death.

In order to prevail against the accuser, to remain without condemnation, we must always be under the cleansing of the blood of the Lamb.

Contrary to much popular teaching, continuing under the cleansing of the blood of the Lamb requires a response on our part. If we walk in the Light of God's perfect will, if we steadfastly maintain our confidence in Christ to the end of our discipleship, if we do not shrink back, if we obey the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, then and only then do we remain without condemnation; then and only then is the righteousness of the Law of Moses ascribed to us; then and only then do we remain under the cleansing of the blood of the Lamb.

Satan cannot prevail against the perfect righteousness of the blood of the Lamb. In order to overcome us he must deceive us so we are not obeying the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, so we are living according to our sinful nature. In this manner Satan brings us out from under the blood of the cross. Then he can prevail against us.

If there is one major error in today's Evangelical teaching it is that the blood continues to cleanse us even though we are not following the Spirit of God. Evidently we do not realize God will not permit any creature to live without law. Either we choose to walk each day in the Spirit of God or else we default to the Law of Moses. There is no middle ground.

The second way by which we overcome the accuser is with the word of our testimony. We will be discussing the word of our testimony in a moment since it is the major topic of the present essay.

The third way of overcoming the accuser is by loving not our life to the death. This means we have chosen to enter the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and to rise with Him to walk in newness of life. We are living no longer but Christ is living in us.

The Christian churches have always believed we are to be living no longer but Christ is to be living in us. However, many of us are not practicing this today.

In past time there were excellent expositors of the Word of God and the believers learned to live by reading the Word and obeying it.

Then came the Pentecostal experience of being filled with the Spirit. The gifts of Pentecost opened up avenues of worship in the saints, making praise and worship much more enjoyable.

In our day a great danger has arisen because of the increased activity of the Spirit of God among us. We are leaving the strict obedience to the Word and are relying on our spiritual experiences to guide us and to validate what takes place in the assemblings. We are not speaking as much as we used to of dying in Christ. We have lost our moorings.

To be continued.