The Daily Word of Righteousness

Rivers of Life, #3

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)

All we desire is found in the eternal Life of God.

The energy of sin corrupts every human being. When we receive the Lord Jesus He gives us of the Holy Spirit, not in the abundance we shall possess in the Day of the Lord but as a pledge on the future filling of our body with Divine Life.

The unregenerate individual is unable to resist the energies of sin and death unless he is exceptionally strong-willed. Even then, sin eventually will trick him and bring him into slavery.

The Christian, if he chooses to do so, can keep coming to the Lord for energy and wisdom to thrust aside the energies and wisdom of sin and death. If the Christian walks in the Life of Jesus he can overcome the world, Satan, and his own sins and self-will.

It is only by the Life, the Spirit, the Presence and energy of God that we can resist sin and do the Lord's will.

We understand, therefore, that the goal of redemption is to be filled with eternal life in our spirit, soul, and body.

But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken [make alive] your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. (Romans 8:11)

And not only they [the material creation], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:23)

As we have stated, the task was to give eternal life to the believers in Corinth. But how is the task to be performed? How is eternal life, the incorruptible Presence and energy of God, to be communicated to the believer in Corinth.?

Two ways of giving Divine Life. There are at least two ways in which Divine Life could have been given to the believers in Corinth.

One way would have been for Paul, a successful minister enjoying the fruit of many years of study and experience, to preach Jesus to the Corinthians and then to pray that the Life of Jesus would come to them from Heaven above.

This is what happened when Peter preached to the household of Cornelius. The Holy Spirit fell upon those who heard the Word of God.

Another method of communicating eternal resurrection life to the believers in Corinth, the method actually used by the Lord, was to crucify Paul through many afflictions, putting down Paul's personality and then lifting Paul by Divine Life to such an extent that the Life spilled over to the Corinthians.

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. (II Corinthians 4:10)

To be continued.