Finishing the Race – Strong! (16)

 

Continuing from our last post:

The second foundational principle with respect to passages such as Colossians 2:10, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 10:10, and Hebrews 10:14, which speak of our completeness in Jesus Christ and our complete forgiveness of sin, is that we are transformed into the image of Jesus Christ not as we look at ourselves and our needs and incompleteness, but as we behold Him and the perfect and complete salvation and new life which He has given us. 

The Scriptures have a lot to say about this, and we usually deny what we read. For example, in Romans 6:11 Paul writes that we are to “Consider ourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Yet what do we really teach? We teach that we must sin, that we can’t help but sin, and that we are arrogant or prideful if we think differently, and that thinking of ourselves as sinners, rather than as saints, is just realistic. We read what the Bible teaches and then we say, “Yeah but…” 

There is an irony in this in that many of my brethren who criticize folks who can be emotional in worship, such as Pentecostals, say of them that they rely on their “experience” too much. Yet, they don’t see that they also rely on their experience of struggling with sin when glossing over clear Biblical statements and teachings such as Romans 6:11 or 7:6 or Colossians 2:10, not to mention the teaching that we are saints in Christ. We simply ought not to bend the Bible to conform to our experience, our experience is not to mold the Bible, the Bible is to mold us into the image of Jesus.

When we see ourselves as complete in Christ, when we see Christ completing us, then we are transformed from glory to glory, 2 Cor. 3:17 – 18.

While much of our preaching and teaching focuses on our needs, highlighting our problems, the Bible focuses on Jesus Christ and His wonderful work within us. The Bible teaches that we are new creations and that old things have passed away and that all things have become new in Christ. Why the Bible even teaches that we have a new way of viewing people, not according to what they appear to be, but according to the Spirit. (See 2 Corinthians 5:16–21; 4:18).

The structure of Ephesians nicely illustrates this. In Ephesians 4:1 Paul begins teaching how we are to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.” From that point until 6:9 he teaches on how we are to live, dealing with such things as telling the truth, marriage, employment, the language we use, anger, and forgiveness. Why does Paul wait until the fourth chapter to teach these things? Because he first wants to teach us about who we are in Christ. 

Therefore, from 1:1 – 2:9 Paul primarily teaches us about who we are as individuals in Christ; from before the foundation of the world (1:4) to being raised from spiritual death (2:5) to being raised to the heavenlies to sit with Christ (2:6). Then from 2:11 – 3:21 Paul teaches about who we are as God’s One People in Christ (contrary to much teaching today). As has been observed, Paul first teaches us to sit with Christ before he teaches us to walk in Christ. First the work of Christ and our identity in Christ is established, then Paul moves on to teach us to “live as who you are in Christ.” 

Paul first has us focus on our fulness in Christ and Christ’s fulness in us. Paul says that Christ’s Body, the Church, “is the fulness of Him who fills all in all” (1:23). Do we see the connection between Ephesians 1:23 and Colossians 2:10?

We see this same principle in 1 Corinthians. While Paul has much corrective teaching to convey to the Christians in Corinth, he begins with an affirmation of who they are in Christ and who Christ is in them. 

“I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge…so that you are not lacking in any gift…who [Christ] will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:3 – 9).

We might think that such an approach would fail to motivate people to change their ways, and there was much in the life of the Corinthian church that needed to change. However, Paul knew that change does not come about by focusing on our deficiencies, but rather on the all sufficiency of Jesus Christ and of Him within us and us within Him. We must be secure to receive correction, and since Paul had plenty of correction to administer, it was vital that he affirm their security in Christ – otherwise they might view what he had to say as rejection rather than correction. (See Hebrews 12:4–13).

Galatians is a notable exception to this pattern, which ought to warn us of the extreme danger of legalism and works righteousness, we are called to freedom in Christ and we ought not become entangled in a yoke of bondage (Galatians 5:1). The teachers of legalism should be accursed for their witchcraft (Gal. 1:8–9, 3:1). (Why do we have a problem with teaching Wiccan but not with teaching legalism? Especially when Wiccan is typically taught outside the professing church, while legalism in entrenched within the church.)

If we live according to appearances, then when things get challenging, when we have opposition, when peer pressure presses on us, we will be tempted to assume that what the natural eye sees is real, we will lose our ability to look beyond what is “seen” into the unseen, we will be tempted to give up and give in, to drop out of the race. 

When we see who we are in Christ, when our security is in Him, when we realize we have not been given a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind; when we confess that there is not fear in love, but that God’s perfect love casts out all fear, when we realize and confess that we are complete in Christ – then we can withstand peer pressure, then we can finish the race strong.

There are two other considerations with dealing with peer pressure, we will continue with this in our next post in this series.