SIN CONSCIOUSNESS
SIN consciousness is Satan's chief hindrance to faith. It is his
oldest device. Today it springs from an ignorance of the Substitutionary work
of Christ. The ministers, in attempting to separate the congregation from the
worldly influences and build them up in a "Holy Life," have
industriously preached sin rather than Righteousness, Redemption and Sonship.
There are almost no sermons preached on Righteousness as defined in the Pauline
Revelation, or on Fellowship. The fact is, that only a few recognize the distinction
between Fellowship and Relationship.
Our relationship is horn of God. He is the Author of it. Man
cannot sever his relationship with the Father, but he may do that which will
cause the Father to sever it. Our relationship is like a legal marriage. The
law married the couple, they cannot unmarry themselves. They may do that which
will compel the law to separate them. Let it be fully understood that God is
the author of our union with Himself. Jesus said, "I am the vine and ye
are the branches." The branch possesses no ability to separate itself from
the vine. That ability is in the hands of the Husbandman.
It is easy for us to break fellowship with the Father. The epistle of John was
written to show us the secret of maintaining fellowship with the Father and
with one another.
The word "back-slide" does not occur in the New
Testament. Why? It describes Israel. The first Covenant people who were the
servants of Jehovah would "back-slide" or leave Jehovah for another
God. They did not have Eternal Life. They were not sons, only servants. They
had never been recreated. They were servants of the Abrahamic Covenant, and of
the Law of that Covenant.
We should never use the word "back-slide" in referring
to a Christian who has broken fellowship. We should teach him clearly what
fellowship means. 1 john 13-4 "That which ewe have seen and heard declare
we unto you also, that ye may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship
is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ: and these things we write,
that your joy may be made full." You see, joy is one of the riches of the
New Creation. Very few of us have ever made a study of it. There is a vital
contrast between joy and happiness. Happiness comes from our surroundings,
environment, health and money. Joy is something that only children of God
possess. It is the fruitage of a rich fellowship with the Father, the Word, and
with one another.
1 John 1:5 "And this is the message which we have heard
from him and announce unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at
all." Notice the next verse, "If we say that we have fellowship with
him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth."
Remember Col. 1:13-14 "Who delivered us out of the authority of darkness
and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love." Darkness is
Satan's dominion.
The Law of the New Covenant is given to us in John 13:34-35.
"A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another even as I
have loved you." The word love there is "Agapa," the new kind of
Love.
That commandment is to govern the walk of the believer. If we step out of love
by criticizing one of the brethren or saving something we ought not to say, or
doing something we ought not to do, we mar our fellowship and go into darkness.
It is amazing how many people are attending Church regularly every Sunday, who
know they have been Born Again, but who have had no fellowship with the Father
for years.
They are living in spiritual darkness as far as the Word is
concerned. They have no feeling for lost souls. They give as a duty, and attend
church as a habit. The joy they once knew in their spiritual life is gone. They
are living in spiritual darkness.
Notice I John 1:7, "But it We walk in the light, as he is in the light, we
have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us
from all sin." God is Light. When I am walking in fellowship. I am walking
in the light of the Word, the light of the Spirit. I am in fellowship with my
own spirit. I am in fellowship with the brethren. The blood of Jesus Christ,
God's Son, keeps me clean from sins of ignorance which I may have committed. (I
have not yet grown up to know that they are sins.) The next verse says "If
we say we have not sinned we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us."
We have lost our fellowship and are walking in darkness.
The next verse clears it up, "If we confess our sins he is
faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness." This is not for the unsaved man, but for the believer.
That means He will restore our fellowship. Righteousness means the ability to
stand in the Father's presence without the sense of guilt, inferiority or
condemnation. You remember Romans 8: 1. "There is therefore now no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." There is no sense of guilt
for we are enjoying the fulness of His fellowship. Note this: if we confess our
sins, he at once forgives us and restores to us our standing and privileges in
Christ. It is wrong for you to condemn Yourself after He has forgiven you. You
are never to think of it again.
I John 2:1 "My little children these things write I unto you that ye may
not sin. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous." He is the family Lawyer. He is the Attorney General of the
Family of God. When we break fellowship and ask the Father's forgiveness, our
Advocate immediately takes up our case and restores our lost fellowship. It is
vital that we know this. There is only one basic sin that the believer commits.
When that sin is committed, it may throw the door open for a thousand others.
That sin is breaking the love law. We are to walk in love.
I John 4:16 gives us a remarkable exposition of love. "And
we know and have believed the love which God hath in our case. God is love; he
that lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him. I like this translation,
it has that intimate touch, it brims us into such vital consciousness of our
union with Him. The word "perfect" occurs several tunes in this
Epistle. In 1 John 4:12, "No man hath beheld God at any time: if we love
one another, God abideth in us (we can see God in each other.) and His love is
perfected in us." 1 John 2:5 "But whoso keepeth his word, in him
verily hath the love of God been perfected."
1 John 4:17 "Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have
boldness in the clay of judgment." 1 John 4:18 "He that feareth is
not made perfect in love." You may never he perfect in faith or wisdom,
but you may be perfect in love. Why? Because His nature has made us what we
are. We are New Creations by nature, and that nature is love.
Now we can understand that sin consciousness comes from stepping
out of the Love Realm into the realm of darkness, or selfishness . . . out of
the Light of Love, into the darkness of Sense Knowledge.
The reason Sin Consciousness has dominion over the believer is because there
has been no clear teaching in regard to the New Creation. "Wherefore if
any man is in Christ there is a New Creation, the old things are passed away;
behold they have become new. But all things are of God who reconciled us unto
himself through Christ." One of our graphic translators gives it like
this, "Wherefore if any man is in Christ, there is a new self." Man
is a spirit, he has a soul or reasoning faculties, and he lives in a body.
Ezek. 36:26 tells us this, "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 a heart of flesh."
If He puts a new spirit within you, He puts a new self within
you. There is going to be a new kind of love and a new self dominated by this
new kind of love. He is going to take the stony heart out. The stony heart is
that natural human spirit that is full of hatred, born of selfishness. Not only
that, but He says, "I will put my spirit within you." He is not only
going to make a new self out of me, but He is going to come and make His home
in my body. My body will be His temple, His sanctuary. Col. 3:10 "And have
put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him
that created him."
Our spirits are called "the hidden man of the heart."
In 2 Cor. 4:16 we are called " the inward man." In Romans 7:22 we are
called the "inward man." This "new man" has been created in
Christ Jesus. He is created in Righteousness, holiness and truth.
This New Man is a New Creation; he is born of God. The Word has never had its
place in our lives. We approach it with mental assent. We lack that steady
assurance in this living message from the Father. I believe that the basic
reason for unbelief is the fact that Satan, our former master (whose nature we
once had), is a liar. Because of this Satanic nature unregenerate man is a liar
by nature. Go anywhere among people who have never had Eternal Life and you
will find that they are liars.
The hardest problem that faces our Government is to deal with
Nations that have worshipped a lie. They have no truth in them. When they lie,
they reflect a part of themselves, for they are liars. When we came out of
Satan's family into God's family, the most difficult habit to give up was that
of lying. We have lied in a thousand ways when truth would have been a great
deal easier. Because the natural man is a liar by nature, if after he becomes a
child of God he breaks fellowship, this old sin sometimes takes the reins and
rules him. Ding is so prevalent that it is difficult for us to put confidence
in the Word. We have never been able to depend on the words of individuals. We
are not in the habit of relying on what others say, therefore it is difficult
to rely on what God says.
You see, we have been dominated by Sense Knowledge, and the thing we have
called faith has been Sense Knowledge faith. Faith in the unseen and unknown is
a difficult problem, but if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, and
our fellowship grows rich and strong, our confidence in the lather becomes as
natural and normal as breathing.
We have never been told the difference between the two kinds of
truth: Sense Knowledge truth and Revelation truth. One said to me last night,
"If I should confess that I was healed, I would be lying, because the pain
is still there in my body."
We must remember the difference between the two kinds of truth. Sense evidence
is Sense Knowledge truth. The pain is still there, hut what does the Word say?
"By His stripes I am healed." That is Revelation truth, God's truth.
I have learned that no Word from God is void of fulfillment. He watches over
His Word to make it good. Jesus and His Word are one; the Father and His Word
are one. Then I dare say, "In the Name of Jesus I am perfectly healed. The
Father laid my diseases and my pains upon Jesus when He was upon the cross. He
became sick with my sickness and He put my diseases and sins away, for He was
wounded for my transgressions, bruised for my iniquities, the chastisement of
my peace was upon Him, and with His stripes I am healed."
In the mind of the Father disease and sin are one. They are
spiritual infirmities. Sin manifests itself in my conduct, disease manifests
itself in my body. Before I can be healed of my sickness, I must be convinced
in my spirit that God laid that disease on Jesus. If He laid it on Jesus, and I
accept that Substitute as mine, then my sins are remitted and I stand before God
as though sin had never been. The same laws holds true in regard to diseases.
Disease is spiritual, but it has manifested itself in my physical body.
I have accepted the Substitutionary work of Christ on my behalf, so I boldly
say (while pain wracks my body), "I am healed," just as the sinner
says, "I am saved" when his breath is tinged with his last debauch.
He has accepted Christ and God has accepted him. Now his conduct will come into
harmony with his recreated spirit. I have been made a New Creation. I have been
made physically a perfectly well and healthy man. That is a spiritual fact,
manifested in my physical body. The Word is a spiritual fact and is manifested
in my conduct and my confession. Understand this thoroughly: that confession
precedes possession. You make your confession before the Father acts in your
personal case.
You confess that you are perfectly healed while the disease is
making full headway in your body. Your confession starts God's machine in your
body. We have never given confession its place. You become a slave to your
confession. You never grow beyond it. Your faith is held in bondage by your
confession. You grow in grace and power as you confess it. If you confess
weakness, you sink to the level of it. You should confess that the
Substitutionary Sacrifice of Jesus has met every need of your spirit, soul and
body.
Sin consciousness loses its dominion over you the moment your confession
glorifies the Father.
There is no room for sin consciousness when we know that we are New Creations
created in Christ Jesus, and when we know that we are seated together with Him
in the heavenly places, and know the reality of our oneness with the Father and
Christ.
john 15:7 illustrates it, "if ye abide in me, and my words
abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you." He
caused you to abide in Christ. We cause the Word to abide in us. It is living
and doing the Word. We rely upon the integrity of this Word. We know that no
Word from God can be broken. We know that Jesus is the Word. We knew that the
Word is backed up by the Throne, the Father and the Master.
We know that the great mighty Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is dwelling
in us, unveiling the Word to our hearts. He is unveiling the reality of the
Living Word, and the reality of our relationship and His Indwelling. He is
showing us the reality of our perfect deliverance from disease and weakness.
There should be no sin consciousness in the heart of the believer, for
"the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleansed us from all sin." We
stand complete in His completeness. "Of His fulness have we all received
and grace upon grace."
THE HIDDEN MAN
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