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Foundations

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2)

Let any of our old man, whether of our old temper, our old way of judging, our old disposition, any of it come up at all, if we are children of God, we know quite well that at that point a barrier is set up and we cannot get past, we are held up in our spiritual life and we have to go back and have that thing cleared up. It is as real as any other thing in the universe to us. At that moment we stand still spiritually, and the flaming sword is across our path. There is no way for that here. Bring that here and you will be judged. You will meet the judgment of God. You will be broken. It is coming up against the fact that God finished with all that long ago and we have to accept God standpoint. When we have accepted it then the thing works out, it continually works out. We take that position, we accept the truth.

We cannot bring an actual endto the old creation ourselves, but we say in a positive way: "Ireckon as God reckons." Well then we shall find as we go on thatGod, having put all that under death, death rests upon it and ifever it shows its head again, the sentence of death is met. If webegin to work for the Lord with our own natural strength we meetdeath and before long our natural strength will come under death.If we begin to use our natural judgment in the things of God weshall meet an arrest and before long we shall come to a deadlock,unable to get through. Anything which we bring of nature into thethings of God will bring us up against not some new issue, but the old issue death which was made to rest upon the oldcreation. In so far as we move in the newness of Life, work bythe Spirit of God, and walk after the Spirit, death is done away andwe are in Life and we can go on and can get through, no matterhow much there may be of handicap and weakness in nature, we canget through as we go on in the Spirit. "The law of theSpirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sinand death." We are free!

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

In the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. § We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. § My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.

Matt. 4:1;  Heb. 5:7,9;   Heb. 4:15;  1 Cor. 10:13;  2 Cor. 12:9

The Son of Man did not come to be served,but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

If the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. § I lay down My life for the sheep … No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.

The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. § Without shedding of blood there is no remission.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.

Matt. 20:28;  Heb. 9:13,14;  Isa. 53:7;  John 10:15,18;  Lev. 17:11;  Heb. 9:22;  Rom. 5:8,9

Peace On Earth

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts" (Col. 3:15).

Peace does not, and cannot, exist in the fallen Adam life; and as long as the old man reigns within, there is going to be turmoil both within and without. The path of the Cross is alone the path of peace. "The moment came when the Lord Jesus could say, Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you' (John 14:27). This could only be on the ground of His death, for the man in Adam could never give up his will: to do so would be to give up his very existence. But the death of the Lord Jesus is - judicially, and for faith - the end of that man, and the Christian walking in the Spirit owns him no more. "The believer can thus, and only thus, have freedom from the tyranny of sin as he reckons himself to have died unto sin, and to be alive unto God as one alive from the dead.' He presents his body a living sacrifice unto God, and proves what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Thus walking, the peace of the Lord Jesus becomes an experiential reality in the heart of the believer. Thank God! we are no longer linked with the fallen Adam, and the Holy Spirit has placed us in union with Christ risen and glorified." -C.A.C. "The more clearly we enter, by faith, into objective truth, or what is true of us in the Lord Jesus, the deeper, more experiential and practical will be the Spirit's subjective work in us, and the more complete will be the manifestation of the moral effect in our life and character." -C.H.M.

"Both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one" (Heb. 2:11).

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