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What do we mean when we say...... Part 5

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Jim Parker

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Words we throw around just like we knew what they meant

(Eph 2:8-10)
For by grace
you have been saved
through
faith and that not of yourselves; it is the gift from God,
not of works, lest anyone should boast.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
FOR good works,
which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.


Four items: 1. Grace
2. Saved
3. Faith
4. Works

And one more 5. Everlasting Life.

John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Eternal Life

A. This “old man”, in this body of flesh and blood, sinned so he has to die.

1. We all will die a physical death if the Lord doesn’t come first.

2. We can SACRAMENTALLY put the old man, the body of flesh to death before either
our physical death or Jesus return.
a. Jesus told Nicodemus that no one would enter the kingdom of Heaven unless
he was born again of water and of spirit.
b. Nicodemus asked how that could possibly happen.
c. We don’t get a clear answer until Paul’s letter to the Romans.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death,
so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life.
(Ro 6:3-4)

i. Baptism in water sacramentally unites the believer to Jesus in His
death on the cross and His burial in the grave.
> The words “Sacramental” or “Spiritual” do not mean or in any
way suggest or infer the notion that what happens is only
“symbolic” and not actual “reality.”
> The words “spiritual” and “sacramental” do not have the same
meaning as “fairy tale.” We have to be careful not to let the idea that
the word "spiritual" means "less than real" sneak into our minds.

Ex: If you substitute the words “fairy tale” for any reference to spirit as in the following statement by Jesus:
John 4:24: "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.", you get junk.

ii. When a believer is raised from the waters of baptism he is raised to
new life.
> Baptism is the death of the old man of the flesh and the birth of
the new man of the spirit.

as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life
(Ro 6:4)

> The waters of baptism are the tomb in which the old man of flesh is buried and the womb from which the new man of the spirit is born.

For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. (col 3:3)

d. Peter completes the answer:
And Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you

in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins;
and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit
. (Acts 2:38)

B. Resurrected man.
1. Two possible destinies
a. Eternal life
b. Eternal condemnation

2. Eternal Life is described as being “in Christ.”
a. Ro 6:23b the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

3. Parallel verses include:

Gal 2:20a I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me;

Ro 8:10 if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness.

Eph 5:30-32 we are members of his body. "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church;

2 Cor 5:17 if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.

Eph 1:22-23 …he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body,…

b. Eternal life is the condition of being “in Christ.”
i. Of being “one flesh” with Christ in a manner suggested by how
a husband and wife are “one flesh.”
ii. We are intimately united to Christ
> He in us
> We in him
c. Eternal life is being in eternal intimate communion with love and light

4. The eternal life that a believer has is CHRIST’s life.

C. The second death
1. The second death is very simply being eternally separated from God by not
being “in Christ”.
2. It is being eternally separated from all that is good and love, in total darkness
3. The condemned experience the second death because they chose to go their
own way rather than God’s way.
4. The 2nd death is the consequence of man’s choice to separate himself from
God to reject the love of God and to ignore the good will of God

There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. (Ps 14:12; 16:25)

what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. (Ro 6:21)

A quotation from the Address, “The River of Fire” by ALEXANDRE KALOMIROS gives this view:

(Hypothetically) God speaking to the condemned at the judgment: “…you are free to go where your wicked desire wishes, away from Me, in the torturing hatred of your hearts which is foreign to My loving heart which knows no hatred for anyone. Depart freely from love to the everlasting torture of hate, unknown and foreign to Me and to those who are with Me, but prepared by freedom for the devil, from the days I created My free, rational creatures. But wherever you go in the darkness of your hating hearts, My love will follow you like a river of fire, because no matter what your heart has chosen, you are and you will eternally continue to be, My children.


In closing, I quote Moses from Deut 30:19-20; “ I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him; for that means life to you..
 
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