Romans 6:11 - We need to be focusing on our new identity. Where do you reckon? In your mind. Take an inventory of the facts, to count it up and consider all of the facts and then to come to an appropriate conclusion based upon those facts. Paul is going to great lengths here in Romans Chapter 6 to make his case, that people who fail to conduct themselves properly, fail to understand properly.
That is Paul’s point here in Verse 11, he places the emphasis when it comes to grace behavior on helping us to perceive ourselves in the new identity that is our right now, being IN Jesus Christ. Paul wants us to see ourselves as God already sees us. We need to be focusing on our new identity.
You have to know something, to count up the facts before you can come to an appropriate conclusion based upon what you know to be true. That is why knowledge is absolutely essential. If you have drawn an improper conclusion, Paul would say it is because you have failed to properly consider all of the facts.
Anyone who teaches that God accepts you or blesses you on the basis of how well you dress up the old man up in Christian clothing, or on how well you make the old man perform, that person fails to properly understand that the old man no longer exists in the eyes of God. They spend all of their time trying to perfect the old man.
Reckon ourselves to be now and forevermore alive unto God, we cannot lose it. Behavior did not put us there, behavior cannot take us out of there. Christ will never again have to die for our sins and likewise, we can count on the fact that we will never die for our sins. When Paul tells us to put on the new man, he is not asking us to dress up the old man, he is simply asking us to recognize that the old man no longer exists in the eyes of God. See yourselves as God sees you.
Romans 12:10 - A synonym for the word “preferring” is the word “deference.” Showing deference means putting another person’s interests above your own interest. If preferring others above self is the measure of our love for God, how many of us can truly say we love God with ALL our heart, ALL our soul, ALL our mind? How many of us love others more than we love ourselves?
We do not show deference, we show preference, and the problem is that the one most often preferred in the life of everyone with a sin nature, is self. Whose love was it that restrained our apostle? Was it his love for God, or was it God’s love for Paul? Isn’t serving one another love?
Love is serving others, but notice here in Galatians 5:13, “by love serve one another.” In other wards, by love we are to love, does that make sense? Isn’t that an interesting construction? Through the instrumentality of love, we are to love others. Through the instrumentality of who’s love, is it our love for God that helps us love others or is it God’s love for us that helps us to love others?
Our reasonable service is a reflection of our appreciation for the fact that the sin question was forever settled. The root cause of our sin is that we love our self and we will not allow anyone to taint that self view. We interpret everything through the sieve of self. We relate what others do, we relate what others say in accordance with their actions and their words substantiate the way we desire to see our self. This is the idolatry mind-set.
Maturity is all about the degree to which you participate in the increase of the Body of Christ unto the deifying of its self in love. The degree to which you participate in that which brings unity to the Body of Christ and edifies the believer to that degree you can consider yourself to be mature. It is much more than taking in knowledge, it is a renewed mind.
1 Corinthians 6:11 - And such were some of you, Paul is going back to this list in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. “Were” some of you, not that you did these things, you WERE these things. No doubt the carnal saints of Corinth would of found themselves there on this list. Paul is not bringing this list to their attention in order to frighten them with The Second Death.
Paul is bringing to their attention the fact that God is now no longer viewing them apart from righteousness that belongs to his son. If Paul had ceased writing after going through this list of deplorable practices, then we could safely assume that continuing to do these things after believing the good news message would result in a reversal of the offenders salvation or as some teach, perhaps even a lost with a connect with God that must somehow be restored.
But that is not what Paul is saying here at all. Paul is telling these carnal saints at Corinth that the reason these detestable deeds had not and could not result in a lost of their salvation or their fellowship with God for that matter, is because as Carnal as these Corinthians happen to be, they have a holy standing with God through their identity with his son.
And the gift decree of righteousness belonging to the son had been totally and permanently credited to the account of these carnal believers to their account in heaven at the point of their belief. Little wonder that right after listing all these deplorable sins, the apostle Paul follows up immediately with 1 Corinthians 6:12. None of these things can send a believer to The Second Death, they are definitely things all believers should avoid.
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