Life on the Highest Plane
It is a Life Conformed to God's Perfect Pattern
In the eternity of the past the eternal Son rested in the bosom of the eternal Father - that was communion. And when the triune God initiated the wondrous plan of redemption the eternal Son offered Himself as the Lamb to be slain - that was cooperation. In the garden of Eden the Lover-Creator and His first man must have walked often in the garden in the cool of the day - that was communion. And the sovereign Lord God gave to His subject the dominion over everything on earth - that was cooperation. The night before His crucifixion the God-man sat at supper with the twelve - that was communion. And before He ascended into Heaven He said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" - that is cooperation.
The spiritual man apprehends this truth and appreciates the significance of it. He sees that it means such a yielding of himself to Jesus Christ as Lord, as will make possible the perfect possession, the complete control and the unhindered use o his entire being. He clearly perceives that salvation includes sanctification and that life on the highest plane demands not only a separation from sin but a separation unto God and he rejoices in being thus wholly set apart unto communion and cooperation with the Lord of Glory.
It is A Life Fashioned on God' Original Plan
In God's original plan, the human personality was a unity. The human spirit, dominated and directed by the Holy Spirit, was supreme in authority over the soul and the body so that the Holy Spirit through the channel of the human spirit made and kept the whole being spiritual.
As we have seen in chapter four sin began its deadly work in Adam's spirit by severing it from the divine Spirit thus alienating it from the life of God and making it a death chamber. Sin also dethroned it as sovereign over the human personality and made it a slave to the soul and body. Thus sin left the human spirit darkened and dethroned. Salvation must begin where sin began; the human spirit must be quickened. The sovereignty of the Holy Spirit over it must be restored, and its supremacy over soul and body must be revived.
The human spirit was made the receptacle of the eternal life of God. Salvation always outruns sin for where sin abounded grace did much more abound." In the quickening of the human spirit God not only made it cease being a death chamber but He made it the receptacle of the eternal life of the triune God. Through the new birth He implanted within it something which had never been there before, the divine, spiritual, eternal life of the triune God in the person of Christ the Son "in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9).
1 John 5:11-12, "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life."
Into this quickened spirit the Holy Spirit comes to dwell, feeding and fostering this new life within that it may grow up "into a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13). A renewal of this divine life within is made daily by the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 36:26-27, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them."
2 Corinthians 4:16, "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day."
The spiritual man is one in whom the human spirit is supernaturally recreated through the implantation of the uncreated life of God at the new birth. Into this quickened spirit the Holy Spirit has come to abide, to control, to renew and to energize. Between them "a perpetual partnership" is established. Through this supernatural reunion of the divine Spirit and the human spirit Christ and the believer are joined into one spirit.
2 Corinthians 6:17, "But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit."
Through this act of God in regeneration the maladjustment within the believer's human personality is remedied. True balance between the constituent parts is restored; the sovereignty of the spirit over soul and body is revived, and the human spirit is again the premier in the governmental affairs of the human being, and the soul and body are its loyal and faithful underlings.
The human soul becomes the illumined vessel of the divine Spirit.
(1) The mind is renewed. The spiritual man is spiritually-minded. He thinks the thoughts of God. He craves divine wisdom (1 Cor. 2:7); he sits at the feet of a divine Teachers (John 16:13); he loves God with all his mind (Matthew 22:37); he minds the things of the Spirit (Romans 8:5); he thinks on the things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report (Phil. 4:8); he is of one mind with his brethren (Phil. 2:2); he has the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16) so he is of sound mind, (2 Tim. 1:7) and every thought is brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). Intellect, reason and every faculty of his mind are renewed and illumined by Him who knows the mind of God.
Ephesians 4:23, "And be renewed in the spirit of your mind."
Romans 8:6, "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."
Phil. 2:5, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 3)
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