Chapter 13
I AM PERSUADED….
101
BECAUSE NOTHING IN THE BORN
AGAIN BELIEVERS LIFE NOR ANYTHING IN THEIR DEATH, REGARDLESS OF HOW IT COMES,
SHALL BE ABLE TO SEPARATE THEM FROM THE LOVE OF GOD IN THE BODY OF CHRIST. Rom. 8:38
“I am persuaded, that neither DEATH, nor LIFE, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us form the love
of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
If you are persuaded
that the born again can lose their salvation “this persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.” (Gal. 5:8)
Paul was “persuaded by the Lord Jesus Christ” to the contrary, and there
is no higher persuasion! (Rom. 14:14)
God gave Paul such “an abundance of revelation” the Lord knew Paul would
become puffed up with pride as a result.” (Gal. 2:6, 2 Cor. 12:7) Paul’s treasury of knowledge persuaded him
that:
“neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creation can separate”
believers from God’s love in Christ.
So, let’s probe deeper into these ten items, because Jesus became
irritated with his disciples when they did not add one and one together for
themselves. (Mark 12:26-27)
Since “death” cannot
separate the born again from Christ, what is death? “Know ye not” that death is the wages of sin?
(Rom. 6:23) Paul is informing you, the redeemed, that the wages of your sins
can no longer separate you from God, who is love. Alarmed? You shouldn’t be. Because your sins have been washed away, and
no new sins can be imputed i.e., charged against you, since you are not under
the Law. For:
“Sin
is not imputed (charged against you) when there is
no
law.” (Rom. 5:13)
Since, sin is the breaking of the Law, those who are not under the law
cannot break it, to have one new sin imputed (charged) to their record. (Rom.
4:8)
Many seminary trained
pastors are reluctant to dispense such knowledge for fear their congregations
would run amuck and turn the grace of our God into a license to sin instead of
in service to God. (2 Pet. 2:6, Gal. 5:13)
Consequently, many Christians are ignorant that sin is not being charged
against them. According to Romans 4:8,
Christians are the ones “whom the Lord will not impute sin,” because they are
not under the law. For “where there is
no law there is no transgression,” i.e. sin. (Rom. 4:15) For “sin is not imputed (charged against you)
when there is no law.” (Rom. 5:13)
Next Paul wrote that
death cannot separate the born again from God’s love, and the ramifications of
his bold statement are startling, for isn’t suicide death? Well, isn’t it? Many people after having accepted Jesus
Christ as their savior have been duped into believing that God no longer loved
them because they could not keep his commandments. Through their lack of knowledge, “Satan got
the advantage” over them by stealing their confidence toward God, killing their
faith in Christ’s redemptive work. His
theft caused them to destroy their own lives by killing themselves believing
that “there was no help for them in God.” Now, “of a truth,” there would be no
better reason for someone to discontinue living, for if you knew for a
certainty that God did not love you, for then you “would be of all men most
miserable.”
Though Satan has
deceived many babes in Christ into taking their natural lives, not one of them
destroyed the eternal life of Christ in them, in the process, which “lives and
abides forever.” (1 Pet. 1:23) When a
believer take their natural life in the flesh, the Father still keeps their
eternal life in the Spirit where he has always kept it, “hid with Christ in
God.” (Col. 3:3-4) Hallelujah! The
father keeps our souls preserved “perfected forever,” until our manifestation
as his sons. (Job 15:15, Jude 1:1)
Today, discouragement
and depression plague many Christians.
If you are a believer who struggles with suicidal tendencies, the Word
of God screams to you the same as it screamed at a suicidal man in the New
Testament, “Do thyself no harm!” (Acts 16:27-28) God loves you, and Christ needs you! Find a church-home of believers who love you
and the Lord too. Then, “forsake not the
assembling of yourselves together,” so you may be able to comprehend with other
saints “the love of Christ which passeth knowledge,”
and envelopes your soul. (Heb. 10:25)
You must do as David did when he was alone, dismayed, misunderstood, and
struggling against despair. David
“encouraged himself in the Lord his God,” and so must you! (1 Sam. 30:6) Satan wants you out of this world, so your
testimony of the God’s salvation will be silenced. Satan even tried to talk Jesus into courting
suicide, but Jesus drove him away with the sword of the Spirit, and so must
you! (Matt. 4:6) Resist the Devil with
the Word of God in faith, and he will flee from you! God loved you when you were his enemy, how
much more does he love you now since he gave birth to the treasure in your
“earthen vessel” his precious son called “Christ in you” your hope of
Glory. You have been adopted into the
family of God. Now hear this! According
to the Scriptures of truth, God loves you as much as he love his first begotten
Son, Jesus Christ! Read it for yourself
in John 17:23. Nevertheless, Paul’s
claim let us know that a believer’s death, no matter how it comes, cannot
separate him or her from the love of God which in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom.
8:38)
Not only is there not
anything in our death which can separate you from God’s great love. This Scripture goes as far as to courageously
state that there is nothing in your “life” which can separate you either. This is mind blowing because there are many
things in your life which you are to “put off,” renounce, correct, abolish and
abstain from. Yet, there is “nothing” in
any born again believer’s life which can separate them from God’s love in
Christ. However, be not deceived God is
not mocked. Whatsoever your old man soweth that’s what your natural man can reap, up to and
including death, though your soul is saved to the uttermost! (The thief on the
cross again should come to mind.) If you
are buffeted for your own faults, you wreak havoc on your natural life which
will result in unhappiness and/or death.
Exercise yourself unto godliness, and watch the blessing of the Lord
overtake you. Nevertheless, the Word
declares there is nothing in your life or death which can separate your soul
from the God of our salvation’s love.
Because, as far as God is concerned, since the new birth, “Christ is our
life.” (Col. 3:4) Hence, our life is
sinless because “Christ who is our life,” our sinless life, before God,
faultless, unblamable, and unreprovable
in his sight. (Col. 1:22, Jude 1:24)
102
BECAUSE THERE IS NO ANGEL,
PRINCIPALITY, OR ANY POWER THAT IS ABLE TO SEPARATE THE BORN AGAIN FROM THE
BODY OF CHRIST. Rom.
8:38
“I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor ANGELS, nor
PRINCIPALITIES, nor POWERS, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us form the love
of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Paul published that
none of Satan’s legions of “ANGELS” can loose one saved soul from the body of
Christ. Not even the “anointed cherub,”
himself, who once hovered over the mercy seat of God in heaven, as Lucifer,
cannot rob God of one blood-washed saint.
Neither can his presiding “PRINCIPALITIES” of darkness seize the weakest
saint, because God has structured his plan of salvation “to the intent that the
PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS may know by the church [the saved] that “the manifold
wisdom of God” in salvation cannot be overthrown. (Eph. 3:10-11) As it is written, there is no wisdom or
counsel against the Lord. (Prov.
21:30) None of the fallen angelic
principalities can prevail against us.
Prevailing principalities cannot separate us from salvation:
Not
the prince of devils: Beelzebub,
Neither
the prince of the power of the air
Nor
the prince of darkness, Satan himself
Nor
the Prince of Persia (
that
resisted Daniel
cannot separate the born again from the love of God in Christ.
Next Paul was
persuaded that there are “no powers” that can separate believers from
Christ. Think about the enormity of this
claim that no “POWER” can separate a believer from Christ. This includes:
the
prince of the power of the air: Satan
the
power of darkness,
the
power of the tongue,
the
power of sin.
Paul let the born again know that not even the power of their tongue
can make them a candidate for hell again.
The Scripture states that there is no power that can separate the
redeemed from the God of their salvation’s love in Christ. Many Christians believe “the power of sin”
can separate the born again from their salvation, but the Scriptures makes
liars out of them. (Prov. 30:26) As
pertaining to “the power of sin,” i.e. sins strenght,
Jesus Christ “abolished” it by “taking it out of the way, nailing it to his
cross.” (Col. 2:14) Remember, the
strength (power) of sin is the law. (1 Cor. 15:56) Recall that “without the law (sin’s strength)
sin is dead,” rendered powerless against you, by the cross to which it was
nailed. So much for “the power of sin”
voiding your salvation. (1 Cor. 15:56)
The Bible states that:
“The
powers that be are ordained of God,”
and God has not ordained a power yet which can disannul “the power of
an endless life” in the born again believer!
Yet, many believers foolishly think that the power of the flesh has the
ability and power to disannul their salvation, when Jesus, by his own
admission, told us “the flesh is weak,” not powerful. (Mark 14:38) Again, “the powers which be are ordained of
God, and God has not ordained (commissioned) a power yet which can abolish “the
power of an endless life” of Christ in the redeemed! Read it for yourself, Paul wrote, there is no
power which can separate the born again from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. “Believest thou this?”
103
BECAUSE THERE IS NO THING
PRESENT OR ANYTHING IN THE FUTURE OF A BORN AGAIN BELIEVER THAT IS ABLE TO
SEPARATE THE BORN AGAIN FROM CHRIST. Rom.
8:38
“I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, NOR THINGS PRESENT, NOR THINGS TO COME,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This may alarm some
and offend others, but Paul wrote “no things present” can separate a believer’s
soul from God’s salvation. You can see,
the ramifications of this Scripture is startling, because this includes:
1) our will which is present.
(Rom. 7:18)
2) our old man is also present.
(Eph. 4:22)
3) evil is present with us.
(Rom. 7:21)
4) this present evil world.
(Gal. 1:4)
5) your present enemy the
devil. (James 4:7)
6) sin is present with you.
(Rom. 7:17)
7) your present carnal mind in
the natural. (
In spite of all these things present, the Word of God shouts that “no
things present” can separate your soul from the God of your salvation’s grasp
and fling you under his wrath!
Ironically, none of
the category’s that Paul featured are particularly comfortable subjects, least of all the category of “of things to
come.” Here Paul is essentially telling
you, the born again, that there is nothing in your future that can separate you
from God, who is love. There is not a
sin, fault, transgression, error, iniquity, offense, or shortcoming in your
future “which shall be able” to separate you from God’s love bestowed on you as
his child at your salvation. Neither is there anything in the heights of
heaven, including the spiritual wickedness in high places, nor in the depths
of earth, including the bowells of hell itself, NOR
ANY OTHER CREATION, this blankets anything that God has or will bring into
existence, regardless of what it is it, shall not be able to separate the
redeemed from the love of God in Christ. (Prov. 25:3)
I hope you are
persuaded with Paul that nothing shall be able to separate the born again from
the love of God, which is inside Christ Jesus our Lord. Nevertheless, be fully persuaded in your own
mind. The mind of Christ!
Though sin falls under
the category of:
Death
i.e. (sin wages)
Things
present
Things
to come,
And
any other creation
Why didn’t
Paul come right out and list sin? Can it
be that sin can separate the born again from the God of their salvation’s
love? Beloved, Paul, did not list sin
for the simple fact that he couldn’t.
Jesus Christ took sin out of the way of the born again, that’s why Paul
didn’t list it, because by the death, blood, and resurrection of Jesus Christ
it is no longer there to list. For not
only did Christ “take away the sin of the world, he also pulled its teeth. For
the Bible states that:
“without
the law (sin’s strength) sin is dead.” (Rom. 7:8)
When Jesus nailed, the law of Commandments to his cross the power of
sin was “slain,” “abolished,” and “taken out of the way” being crucified with
Christ. (Col. 2:14, Eph. 2:15-16) Born again believers cannot be separated by
something that is void. Is it not
written that Jesus “was made manifest to take away our sins? At his crucifixion, Jesus Christ took the
power of sin (the law) “out of our way” because it “was against us and contrary to us nailing it to
his cross.” Therefore, according to
Scripture “sin is dead” being without the law which is why Paul did not list it
because sin no longer exist for the born again believer, because Jesus took the
power of sin out of our way when he “abolished the law of commandments” on his
cross, as it is written:
“Where
there is no law sin, there is no sin.” (Rom. 4:15)
How much
sin? “No sin.” And, believers the believer’s life is where
there is no law (sin’s strength) and that place is “in Christ in God” being
saved by grace. (Col. 3:3-3,
FYI: Legalists will point an accusatory finger at you and say, “The
Bible states:
“If
we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and
the
truth not in us.” (1 John 1:8)
Nevertheless, I submit to you that if you have sin, you are lost and
the truth, Christ Jesus, is not in you! Plain and simple either
Jesus has taken away your sin, and you have none, or you have sin and are
counted guilty of every sin in the book.
Now, what’s it going to be?