The Lord told me a story. A man was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho and was attacked by armed robbers. They stripped him of his belongings and beat him black and blue. They beat him until he slumped and died. Then the Lord asked me a question. He said, “Femi, what happened after the man died?”
I did not know the answer, so I asked the Holy Spirit. He said: “They stopped beating him.” Then He said to me: “Femi, if they are still beating you, it is because you are not dead yet. Once you are dead, the beating will stop.”
What does a dead man do if he is abused? Nothing! What does he do if he is provoked? Nothing! What does he do if he is flattered? Nothing! What does he do if he is tempted? Nothing! What does he do if a seductive woman undresses in front of him? Nothing! What does he do if he is offered a bribe? Nothing!
Whatever you do, a dead man does not react. He is dead to this world but hopefully alive to God. That is what it means to be born again. Therefore, Paul says to born-again believers: “Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:11).
Are Christians Born-again?
The word of God says: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Many Christians claim to be born again, however, old things have not passed away in us. We claim to be born again but we remain the same. We then try to put the new wine of Christ in an old bottle. But this cannot work. We come to Jesus by faith. But faith without works is dead. (James 2:20).
The man who is born again is that man who was crucified with Christ. That means when Christ died, we also died. Our body of sin was nailed to the cross. We then came back to life when Jesus rose from the dead.
However, we do not come back to life as our old selves. We come back to life as new men and women. We come back to life in the likeness of Christ. Jesus becomes our life. (Colossians 3:4).
Baptism into Christ’s Death
We are baptised into Christ’s death when we are truly born again. The old carnal man of the flesh, which is congenitally unrighteous, is crucified with Christ. That sinful nature is responsible for our alienation from God. It ensures that sin is natural to the man in the flesh. And righteousness is unnatural.
David says: “The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.” (Psalm 58:3).
You do not have to teach a child to tell lies. Telling lies comes naturally to him. But you have to teach him to stop telling lies. However, no matter how much you teach him, he cannot stop. He cannot help himself. As long as he is in the flesh, he will be a slave of sin.
But when a man receives Christ, he comes alive spiritually and the Holy Spirit comes to live in him as his Helper. The Bible says: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (2 Corinthians 3:17). The Holy Spirit breaks down the gates of brass, and the bars of iron that have tied him to the life of sin in the kingdom of death.
Prophecy of New Birth
When a man is born again, he discovers that an Old Testament prophecy is fulfilled in him. He finds that there are two competing natures in him. This is how God describes this to Rebecca:
“Two nations are in your womb, two peoples shall be separated from your body; one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.” (Genesis 25:23).
This is where Christians miss the road. We are not determined to realise this prophecy that the older shall serve the younger. We fail to insist as Jesus did: “Everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled.” (Luke 24:44)
The older man is the man of the flesh, that comes with natural birth. The younger man is the man of the Spirit, that comes alive when we are born again. The word of God says the older shall serve the younger. But in most Christians, including those of us who claim to be born again, the younger (the spirit) still serves the older (the flesh).
Crucified Flesh
The reason is that we do not allow our flesh to be crucified. When the flesh is crucified, our body of sin dies an agonising death. Death by crucifixion is slow. But the inevitable end is death.
This is presented symbolically by the war between the house of Saul and the house of David: “Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David. But David grew stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker.” (2 Samuel 3:1).
When the flesh finally dies, we are freed from sin: “For he who has died has been freed from sin.” (Romans 6:7).
Jesus came to earth in the likeness of sinful flesh to break the power of sin in the flesh. He used spiritual powers to prevail over the flesh. He refused to accede to the demands of the flesh.
He allowed malefactors to arrest Him. He did not resist when they beat Him. They clothed Him in purple and put a crown of thorns on His head. They slapped Him and spat on Him. They mocked Him, saluting Him as “the King of the Jews.” They then led Him out naked and crucified Him.
In all this, Jesus put up no resistance: “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7).
We can only emulate Jesus’ example if we walk in the spirit. We cannot if we walk in the flesh. If we do not crucify the flesh, the old man of the flesh will make us respond to abuses with abuses, insults with insults, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
Crucified Life
Many Christians are not aware that we are supposed to be baptised into Christ’s death. Even when we undergo water baptism, we only see this as a religious ritual, without realising its practical implication.
Thus, Paul asks the Romans:
“Don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” (Romans 6:3-6).
Jesus died for us so we can live for Him. But we Christians do not see the crucified life he exemplified as “the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6). We give an eye for an eye. We give a tooth for a tooth. We fight, we cheat, and we steal. We abuse others, curse, and betray our friends.
We don’t walk in the spirit. We walk “in the internet.” We do not spend time in prayer but on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
We fornicate and commit adultery. We pledge: for better, for worse; for richer, and for poorer, but then divorce our wives and choose younger models. We walk in lies and hypocrisy. We tell lies all the time. We waste our lives trying to make money. We love the world and the things in the world. We are lovers of pleasure not lovers of God.
But then we go to church on Sunday. Go to midweek services. Speak in tongues. Fall under the anointing. Sing praise songs and quote choice scriptures.
Jesus warns: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:21-23). CONTINUED.
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