In this episode we seek to uncover what has been covered up; to dig up what has been buried; to expose the devil's strategy - that of taking what is of God for himself. Are we truly standing naked before God? Is the Lord truly our covering, or have we sought refuge in an ideology that we seek to justify ourselves with in our natural and unbroken condition?
Rom 3:19-28
Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no FLESH be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just,
and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
The apostle here is telling us how it is the FLESH of man, the fallen flesh nature, that is not justified before God……ie, it is the old man living which is not justified. However those in Christ are justified because through faith in Christ, the old man is put to death, and through receiving Christ, His Spirit, we have become new creatures….our new man is created perfect, ie, after the image of Christ….it is spiritual. And now it is BECAUSE we have been justified and received Christ, the new man, we are admonished to learn to walk in it/him…to walk worthy of what has been done within us…..that is how the scriptures talk and teach. He, the new man, is in us like a seed in a manner of speaking, that needs to grow and mature until it becomes a fruit-bearing tree……like Jesus Himself was born of God as a babe and grew and learned obedience through the things He suffered….being the example and forerunner for us. Corn of wheat (seed) hidden in the ground of our earthen vessel must “die” in order to produce a crop.
The flesh and fallen nature (self) is the problem we all have (through inheriting it from Adam)……..because the devil allures through the flesh, and that is the thing we are called to overcome by the new spiritual man within. We are on a journey of learning to overcome the flesh/self…..a journey of apprehending that for which Christ apprehended us. Paul was ahead of most of us because of the measure of grace he received, as an apostle in the newly born church and “great grace was upon them all” in the beginning (and because of the truth that who is forgiven much loves much…Paul had been forgiven of much, having cruelly persecuted the church). And yet even he said that he didn’t consider he had yet apprehended. It seems as though whatever level of growth and grace one attains, there is still more that can be attained. I suspect that even those who have apprehended the “second blessing” and are walking in it still continue to keep growing both in understanding and spiritual maturity. (Of the increase of His government there is no end, perhaps because the Lord Himself is eternal and infinite. Even the angels are depicted as still learning in heaven, wondering and marvelling at things that were being revealed that they hitherto had not known.)
You touch on quite a few things that I can agree with, things the Lord has shown me too……..eg, false covering that we all took refuge in, and the need to be naked before the Lord as it were….His strength is only made perfect in our utter weakness, not when we are relying on self and its false coverings. But I just beg of you to reconsider and not take away the foundation without which it would be impossible for the rest of the building to be built to completion. Perfection without has to come from the perfection within….it is even like a revealing of it as the veil of self/flesh nature is torn/broken.