The Daily Word of Righteousness

Our Christian Pilgrimage, #7

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (II Corinthians 5:17)

My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, (Galatians 4:19)

Our new personality begins to be formed the moment we receive Christ. Every place that the sole of our foot treads on (under the direction of the Holy Spirit) is our possession for eternity. New horizons of spiritual life open before us continually as we press forward in the Lord Jesus.

We keep laying hold on what is being set before us. We are changed from glory to glory as we behold the Lord in the written Word and in the experiences that the Holy Spirit brings to us. As we come to maturity in Christ some of our beholding of the Lord has to do with the inner vision of the Kingdom, with the inner Presence and rule of Christ that are developing in us.

The end result of the new covenant is a new creation that is of the Life Substance of the Lord Jesus. Our redemption is brought to perfection when, at His appearing, the Lord Jesus clothes us with a body fashioned from the substance of eternal life.

Our goal, that which is typified by the entrance of Israel into Canaan, is to arrive at the resurrection from the dead. When we arrive at our goal we can die no more. Spiritual resurrection has been formed in us. Should we then die physically before the Lord returns we will discover that no actual death has taken place but only the laying down of the one remaining part of our death-filled personality—our mortal body. But spiritually we are alive eternally in the Presence of the Lord.

It often is true for the person who has passed from death to life in Christ that physical death is a release from prison.

Egypt typifies our bondage in spirit, in soul, and in body. We are dead because of the absence of the Life of Christ and the presence of the life of Satan.

When we receive Christ, eternal life enters our spiritual nature. But our physical body still is dead because of the presence of sin in it.

And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Romans 8:10)

We notice in the above verse that sin results in death, and righteousness results in life. Our body is sinful and under the sentence of death because the Holy Spirit of life, of righteousness, does not dwell in it.

The righteousness of Christ has been imputed (ascribed) to us because of our faith in His atonement. Therefore God has caused the Holy Spirit of life to enter our inner man.

Now the battle is joined. Our inner nature has been renewed in Christ. Our inner man is alive with God's Life and rejoices in righteous behavior.

Our body, which is part of the physical world, is as Canaan. It is filled with the enemies of the Lord. Our very mind is an enemy of God.

To be continued.