Rebellion, and the New Jerusalem
To have free will, is to have a will that is not constrained. This will is free to side with good, or to side with evil. If a Human will is constrained by an ontological change within the human, which changes his makeup, to ensure that it can only side with good, then it is not free. And if the human will is constrained by promises of blessings, and threats of punishment, free will is corrupted and an insincere relationship is produced. Remember, how the Jewish leaders kept the law without faith, merely to obtain blessings and avoid curses, and Jesus called them the children of the devil? A human, who could only side with good, and act righteously could not bring pleasure to God. This means that in the New Jerusalem, God is not going to make an ontological change in us that will make it impossible for us to once again rebel against Him. No, God is changing us right here, right now, in this fallen world, and equipping us to fulfill His calling to freely side with good, and forever live righteously with Him in the New Jerusalem.
To sincerely Love God, is to love Him for Who He is, and not for what He can give us, or because we are terrified of His punishment. God derives no pleasure from a human, who loves Him insincerely. In fact, God hates dry mechanical love (obedience) that is merely for the purpose of obtaining His blessings and avoiding punishment. (John 14:15; Isaiah 29:13; Hosea 6:6; Amos 5:21-27) God isn’t going to make some radical ontological change in us that makes it impossible for us to insincerely love Him. No, God is changing us right here, right now, in this fallen world, so we can live up to His calling to sincerely love Him in the New Jerusalem.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve’s wills were unconstrained, that is, they were free to obey God, or to disobey Him. Moreover, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve loved God for Who He was, and not because they wanted something from Him, or because they were terrified of Him and the punishment that He could inflict on them. This is evident from the fact that God had already given Adam and Eve everything they needed, and they were not terrified of Him, or the punishment that He could inflict on them, because they fellowshipped with Him, in the cool of the day, and sadly, they ultimately chose to defy Him.
Although Adam and Eve were free to either obey God, or disobey Him, and they sincerely loved Him, when Satan offered Eve a choice that appealed to her, she took it. And tragically, Adam chose to follow Eve. Since Adam and Eve sincerely loved God and they had free wills, the “free” and “sincere” part of the equation was not the problem, it was the “always” part.
The Serpent offered Eve the opportunity to become like God, to know good and evil, i.e, he offered her the power to evaluate good and evil and base her decisions on her evaluations, rather than on God’s evaluation of what was good and what was evil. As Eve ate the forbidden fruit, she was, in effect, declaring her autonomy and sovereign rule over her own life. Sadly, Eve threw off God’s “shackles”, so she could rule her own life. Adam was now faced with a choice to remain “in bondage” to God, or to follow his wife in her new found “freedom”. The prospect of freedom combined with his desire for his wife and he rebelled, and declared his autonomy and his sovereign rule over his life. This proved to be a tragedy for them, and for their offspring. In the New Jerusalem, however, we will always obey, and never rebel again.
The Fallen Human Being
God designed human beings to be like Him, so that humans could have meaningful relationships with Him that brings both, Him and them pleasure. (Genesis 1:26; Revelation 4:11; Psalm 16:11) This is why God is not going to make some radical ontological change to us that would make us less like Him. A human is a tripartite being, who is made up of a spirit, a soul, and a body. (1Thessalonians 5:23) At the junction of the body, soul and spirit is what the Bible calls, “the heart“, and the heart controls the will. (Proverbs 4:23, 15:7; Luke 6:45)
The fall corrupted our body’s desires, which is why the Bible tells us to war against the desires of our body. (1 Peter 2:11; 1 Corinthians 9:27; Romans 8:13) The fall also corrupted our soul, which is why we seek to elevate ourselves above others, and labor to fulfill the cravings of the body. (Philippians 2:3) Our spirit, which gives life to our body and soul, supplying them with the energy and information they need, died, i.e, it separated itself from God. (James 2:26) In sum: The human system fell into corruption, which is why the Bible says that the human heart is above all things, deceitful, desperately wicked, and we can not know it. (Jeremiah 17-9-10)
The fallen human spirit is separated from the life of God, and is autonomous. The fallen human spirit has sovereign rule over the un-renewed soul and the corrupt body. The fallen human spirit loves the darkness, and resists the Light. The fallen human spirit loves its autonomy and sovereign rule, and fights anyone, who tries usurp its authority and dethrone him. The motives of the fallen human are selfish and self-serving. Although a fallen human may seek God, the God that he seeks serves his purpose and bows to his sovereign rule. And, when the fallen human does something good, he does it with impure motives that reinforce his sovereign rule. This is why the Bible makes the somewhat counterintuitive claim that the fallen human being doesn’t seek God, or do good, and cannot please Him. (Romans 3:11-12)
Everything that a fallen human being is compels him to act autonomously, and exercise his sovereign rule. Everything that the fallen human being does, whether he is “seeking God” or “doing good“, springs from the well of his own autonomy, and reinforces his sovereign rule. It should be painfully obvious to each of us that, if we are going to live with God in the New Jerusalem, and always and forever sincerely love Him and freely choose to obey Him and never again stand up for our own autonomy or sovereign rule and rebel against Him, that we must be changed, and we must be changed very radically. So the sixty-four thousand dollar question is simply this: What will make such a radical change in fallen human beings?
Radical Change
Our radical transformation begins, when we hear the gospel, and the Holy Spirit enables us to bow our knee to Jesus, and trust in His finished work on the execution stake. When we hear the Gospel, we are dead in our trespasses and sins. Moreover, our will is in bondage to our sinful flesh and we are incapable of surrendering our autonomy and our sovereign rule over our life. The Holy Spirit intervenes and gives us a temporary reprieve from the bondage of self, and frees us to choose. (This is called prevenient grace) If we choose to surrender our autonomy and sovereign rule over our life, and submit to the Lord’s commands and sovereign rule, and place our trust in His finished work, the Holy Spirit unites Himself with our spirit. The Holy Spirit then restores the union with God that Adam forfeited in the Garden of Eden, and thereby grants us eternal life. We have then passed from eternal death unto eternal life!
The Spirit unites Himself with our spirit, and this union puts our fallen human spirit to death on Christ’s execution stake. (Galatians 2:20) As the Spirit unites Himself with our spirit, we are raised with Christ and reborn as a brand new creature! (2 Corinthians 5:17) Our old fallen spirit dies, on the execution stake, and our new spirit is hidden in God with Christ. (1 Corinthians 6:17; Colossians 3:2) After this, no one can snatch us from our Father’s hand, and nothing can possibly separate us from the love of God. (John 10:28-30; Romans 8: 38-39) And, the Holy Spirit’s presence in us is our ironclad guarantee that He will finish the work of redemption by resurrecting our physical body, and never leave or forsake us. (Ephesians 1:14; Hebrews 13:5)
As the Holy Spirit unites Himself with our human spirit, we become a child of God, and a joint heir with Jesus, who is now our older brother. (Hebrews 2:11; Romans 8:17, 29) We (our spirit) is now “in Christ” and seated with Him, on the right hand of the Father, in the heavenly realm. (Galatians 3:26-28; Ephesians 2:6) The Holy Spirit now walks beside us, and leads us and guides us, and it is our job to follow Him, i.e. it is our job to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. (John 16:13; Romans 8:14; Galatians 5:16) The Holy Spirit gives us the desire to please God, and submit to Him and obey Him. (Philippians 2:13) The Holy Spirit places us in the Body of Christ and enables us to function in it and gives us a desire to love our siblings in Christ and fellowship with them. (1 Corinthians 12:13, 27; Philippians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:22)
When the Holy Spirit unites Himself with our human spirit, our human spirit is completely transformed. Our soul, however, is not. Our soul, our mind and emotions, finds itself standing in the middle, in between our reborn human spirit, which has Godly desires, and our old un-redeemed flesh that has selfish and worldly desires, and is at war with our reborn spirit. Our task is to study the Scriptures and change how we think, so that the transformation that has occurred in our spirit can be actualized in this world for all to see. And thankfully, God’s Spirit gives us a desire to continue in His Word, so that we can perform the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God, here on the earth, as we walk with Him. (John 8:31-32; Romans 12:2)
So, when the Holy Spirit unites Himself with our human spirit, our human spirit is totally transformed. Then, we can transform our soul to varying degrees by studying God’s Word, and thinking like He thinks, which will change some of the emotions that drive us. The flesh, however, is another story. The flesh is totally corrupt, and absolutely irredeemable. What exactly is the flesh? The flesh is our body with its immoral desires that insist on being fulfilled, which is in cahoots with the dark recesses of our untransformed soul that is sympathetic with these corrupt desires and seeks to fulfill them. The flesh sides with the world, and all that is within it, namely, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. (1 John 2:16)
The devil rules over the world system and he uses the things of the world to energize our flesh, in an effort to get us to do his will. (2 Corinthians 4:4; 1 John 2:16) On the other hand, the Holy Spirit energizes our human spirit, in an effort to get us to do His will. Our soul is the referee, who sides with God or Satan. Here’s the bottom line: Our reborn spirit is in a war with the Devil, the world, and the flesh. And this deeply disturbing war is not a cosmic accident. God designed this war especially for us, for our good. (Romans 8:28) Why would God make us fight in this war? We must fight this war, because as we fight, it transforms our soul, and equips us to sincerely and steadfastly love God, in the New Jerusalem, and never rebel.
The War
In Galatians 5:16-25, God tells us a little about this war. God says that if we live in the Spirit, that is, if the Holy Spirit has really united Himself with our human spirit, and our life is now hidden in Christ and in God, then we should walk in the Spirit. And if we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. God goes on to tell us exactly what the works of the flesh are, and what fruit the Holy Spirit produces in us. God also tells us that if we are “In Christ“, we will crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts. This is important. So what does God mean when He says to walk in the Spirit, and to crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts?
To walk in the Spirit, is to yield to the promptings and leadings of the Holy Spirit. How do we recognize the promptings and leadings of the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit will prompt and lead us to live in accordance with God’s Word (to live righteously) and be holy, as we manifest the fruit He produces in our heart. This means we must study God’s Word, so that we will know how to live righteously, and recognize the Holy Spirit’s fruit. In other words, we must renew our mind, so that we can manifest the good, acceptable and perfect will of God, in our life.
To crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts, is to resist and refuse to satisfy the passions and lusts of the flesh, so the flesh dies a slow painful death. As the body’s passions and lusts are activated, they trigger old synaptic pathways (old thought patterns) that generate chemical energy that moves through our brain and body (emotions) in an effort to get us to act on these thoughts. The more often the soul has given these old energized thought patterns priority and yielded to them, the harder it is to resist and deny them. We must, however, resist and deny these passions and lusts, and it is painful to do so, because crucifixion is painful. The crucifixion of our flesh produces a lot of pain and suffering.
The more we resist and deny the passions and lusts of the flesh, and embrace and manifest the fruit of the Spirit, the easier it becomes to do so. It gets easier because the old synaptic patterns that manifested the works of the flesh get weaker and less pronounced, and the synaptic patterns associated with manifesting the Holy Spirit’s fruit gets stronger and more pronounced. This is how the flesh is crucified. Never forget, however, that the nature of the flesh is not changed by our efforts to crucify it. The flesh with its passions and lusts will never change, and it will never give up, it will continue to war against the efforts of the Spirit to lead us unto righteousness, and holiness. That’s why the flesh has to eventually physically die.
Our spirit and soul will never die, but our body will, because it is an irredeemable adversary.
When we believe the Gospel, the Holy Spirit seals us, and His presence in us is our guarantee that He will finish His work of redemption and resurrect our body and glorify it (transform it). We now have a small measure of the Holy Spirit living in us, the first fruits of the Spirit. When God fulfills the contract that He entered into with us and resurrects our physical body, He deposits a greater measure of His Spirit in it. This greater measure of the Spirit in our body glorifies it. Our physical body is changed from an immoral body that has been sentenced to death, to a moral body that is alive for evermore! (Romans 8:23; 1 Corinthians 15: 35-55) Our physical body will no longer be under a death sentence for its immoral passions and lusts!
Until then, however, we will have to war against the immoral passions and lusts of the flesh. As we war against the immoral passions and lusts of the flesh, it changes our soul, and makes obedience easier (We learn obedience). Our spirit and soul will never forget this painful war and they will do everything they can do to ensure that they never have to fight in it again. And when God glorifies our physical body and places us in a sinless environment, our spirit and soul will stand steadfast in obedience and never again succumb to the temptation to rebel!
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