The Mystery Is Great
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August 21, 2016 |
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 Senior Pastor Dr. Jaerock Lee
"For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:31-32).
The verses above refer to the relationship of Christians and the Lord their groom. How great and marvelous a mystery is that we are to leave the world behind and become one with Jesus Christ just as a man and a woman leave their parents and form one flesh? Now, how can we actually become one with the Lord?
1. Receiving the Holy Spirit by Accepting Jesus Christ
People who accept Jesus Christ become God's children and when they become one with Jesus Christ by faith, they receive the Holy Spirit. John 3:6 reminds us, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." When the Holy Spirit comes into our heart, our previously dead spirit is revived, He gives birth to spirit in us, and we take after of the Lord. Then we can become the children of God who Himself is spirit and call Him, "Father" (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6).
First, the heart of man can be divided into the obviously truthful heart and the obviously untruthful heart; we will call the former "a white heart" and the latter "a black heart." As God breathed into the nostrils of the first man His breath of life, the man became a living being. God taught him only truth and planted truth in his heart. After the passing of time, Adam sinned by disobeying since he failed to keep the Word of God who had told him not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. His communication with God was severed and sin and untruth came into him.
Then another kind of heart, conscience, was formed. Conscience is created when the nature that was inherited from parents is mixed with a wide variety of information acquired through what he saw and heard. And he creates and possesses his own standards of values and judgments that are mixed with both truths and untruths, and this is conscience. Among the three types of heart discussed—the truthful heart, the untruthful heart, and conscience—the truthful heart which God had planted in man has become nearly depleted and people's conscience is growing increasingly evil in our own time.
2. The Holy Spirit Lets the Seed of Life Sprout and Revives the Dead Spirit
As God breathed into the nostrils of the first man Adam created His breath of life, the man became a living being. But when he became a sinner by disobeying, almost all the breath of life was taken away and only its trace remained; the trace is the seed of life. The seed of life could operate as the man communicated with God and was supplied with the truth by God. On account of Adam's sin, however, mankind's communication with God was severed, and the untruths entered man's heart and gradually covered the seed of life. The seed of life became inactive, the scope of its activity increasingly shrank, and became as though it had died.
The state in which the communication with God who is spirit became severed and the seed of life became defunct and inactive since it is covered with untruth is referred to as "the death of the spirit of man." But it doesn't mean the spirit is completely dead, but it means it stopped operating and waits for coming to life. This is the same as how a plant, even if it seemingly appears to be dead, can bud and grow eventually as long as there is life remaining in it.
When does the dead spirit of man revive? When an individual is preached the gospel, the light of God and the light of truth will shine upon his heart. At that time, the truthful and good heart still remaining in him accepts the light and receives Jesus Christ as his Savior. Then God sends to his heart the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit lets the seed of life sprout in the person's heart and now it becomes active.
The communication with God commences and he is again supplied with the knowledge of the truth. His heart that has been filled with such untruths as hatred and arrogance becomes filled with such truths as love.
3. The Holy Spirit Gives Birth to Spirit in Us
The most essential element in having the Holy Spirit give birth to spirit in us is prayer. As much as we pray in earnest, we will receive from above grace and strength to discard the untruths. No matter how fervently we may pray, however, our prayer will be in vain unless we destroy our own thoughts and frameworks.
The Holy Spirit will govern the truthful heart and cause us to live in pursuit of the desires of the Holy Spirit. Satan, by working through our thoughts will govern our untruthful heart. When there is much untruth, we will be influenced in our thoughts by Satan, and this will cause us to live in accordance with the desires of the flesh and place us on the path to destruction.
No matter how much truth the individual may hear and how fervently he may pray, without discarding of fleshly thoughts and speculations, he will not be able to live by the desires of the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 10:5). His heart will feel empty and be in conflict, and the person will not be able to have clear and obvious experiences of God's works.
Even if he has discarded the untruthful heart from within, that will not be the end of his trials; he will have to work to discover and remove the evil—the sinful attributes hidden deep in his nature—from in his conscience. Conscience (which had been elaborated earlier) will now form the person's nature and this is the heart of great depths of which the person himself is not aware. Untruths in a person's nature are not in agreement with God's righteousness but appear correct and proper in his sight, and for this reason it is not easy to discover and discard them on his own.
By allowing each person to discover untruths in his nature through trials, God molds him into His holy vessels. When you discover yourself through His Word in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, you will be able to discard untruths from your nature all the more quickly.
If you think God's Word applies only to others and fail to discover yourself with the Word, the growth of your faith will be slow. However, if you discover the untruths in your nature and discard them, you will be transformed into a man of spirit who has become sanctified.
4. When Becoming One with the Lord
When the Holy Spirit gives birth to spirit in us, and we discard all untruths that are in conflict with the truth, shatter our own righteousness, and accomplish the truthful heart, we will be one with the Lord.
1 John 2:12 onward likens the levels of the maturity of faith—the process in which an individual becomes one with the Lord—to the growth of a human being. The level of faith at which the person has accepted Jesus Christ, received the Holy Spirit, and gained salvation is referred to as "the faith of little children." The level of faith at which one strives to walk by the truth is referred to as "the faith of children" while the level of faith at which he lives by God's Word is referred to as "the faith of young men." When the faith grows even further and attains the full measure of faith, it will be "the faith of fathers."
When we enter the level of faith of fathers and wholly become one with the Lord, we will receive anything we ask Him in prayer as "our heart does not condemn us" and thus "have confidence before God" (1 John 3:21-22).
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I pray in the name of the Lord that you will diligently have the Holy Spirit give birth to spirit in you and wholly become one with the Lord so that you will lead a blessed life in this world as well as in New Jerusalem, the most glorious dwelling place in all of Heaven.
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