The Cross and the Spirit

What the Lord Jesus went through literally, we received from it literally. When we “first believed,” our spirit underwent the reality of Christ’s crucifixion (Gal 2:20), and His death and resurrection (Rom 6:5); our “old man” (Adamic sinful nature) also encountered His crucifixion (Rom 6:6) but instead of dying and raising as we did with our spirit, it remains crucified, for nowhere is it said to be dead, nor that it had died.

This is crucial in understanding the plan of God in His work with us concerning the Cross (restraint applied to the sin nature and the other is the judgment of sin by “condemnation”—Rom 8:3), by which power the Spirit of God continually applies to our sinful nature (old man); so that sin will not “reign in your mortal body” (Rom 6:12, 14), and “so that ye cannot do the things that ye would (Gal 5:17).

Regardless of a believer’s conformity level in “the image of Christ” (Rom 8:29), there is always evidence from within and without which inevitably manifests the work of the Father (Phl 2:13), and that by the “life” of Christ (Col 3:4).

As the Lord Jesus awaited “forty days” (Acts 1:3) until His ascension, so do we await, while we are “about” our “Fathers business” (Luke 2:29).

--NC

The Cross and the Spirit –MJS
http://www.abideabove.com/hungry-heart/