Surrendering to Jesus/God is Not Biblical

According to my experience, the phrase "surrendering to Jesus" doesn't bother me. And in many of the hymns of people who experience the resurrected Christ I do recall hearing the word "surrender". I found nothing offensive or wrong about it.Nor did I find such hymns to be jargon. Rather they appear to have been written out of the personal experiences of believers in Christ.For example this classic: (It is HYMN # 441 of the Living Stream Ministry book HYMNS ). As long as one does not mean by "surrender" that one becomes passive. No, we disciples of Jesus are not called to passivity. But surrendering to Christ that He may control my life matches my experience. And these things are not learned by reading the Bible alone. They require personal experience.We are sometimes called to wait on God. That is to stop one's doing and trustfully wait in prayer and praise. I don't consider that passivity. But I would say that that is a form of surrender to God. You surrender up your anxious striving and wait on God in faith. That sometimes does happen.I have not read through every post of this discussion. I read enough to note that Purpledawn does rightly point out that "self control" is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And that matches my experience. The more one turns his life over to Jesus Christ the greater becomes one's self control.It is really a life of communion and union with Jesus. "Abide in Me and I in you" (John 15:4). This is a mutual abiding. This is remaining and living on one Person while spontaneously that Person remains and lives in you.Of course anyone who doesn't believe that Jesus is living knows nothing about the Christian life regardless of how much they read the New Testament. One who does not believe that Jesus rose from the dead and is alive has no idea whether "surrender" is involved in the Christian life or not.It is important to remember that it is God Who operates in the Christian both the willing and the working for His good pleasure. So surrender to Christ would include allowing the Person of Jesus to empower one's will to act:"For it is God who operates in you both the willing and the working for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13) Man receives the resurrected Christ Who is today "life giving Spirit". And man cooperates as He operates. He operates in the believer. And the believer cooperates with the living and indwelling Spirit of Christ.Since the natural man is not use to living by the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ, one certainly does have to "surrender" up his or her former manner of independent "godless" living. But it is a sheer liberation to do so. And it is a sheer unrivaled joy to abide in Christ and have Him abide in us.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I agree. Thanks for your assistance.But I think your summary of the song is superficial at best. Rather than being simply a song about a career change it is really a song about consecration of his life to serve Christ.I think your little summary might be akin to me saying that the Star Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key is simply a little song about how exploding fireworks lit up the night sky one evening so Key could see a flag.Or it might be similar to saying Old Man River is a song about a fellow's regret that he got drunk after work one day.You summary is superficial. I would say that the song I Surrender All is about the author's experience of being constrained by the love of Christ to want to return that love in the form of service to Christ.If he just wanted to talk about a career switch he could have done so in terms of salary expectation, fringe benefits expected, improvement of retirement plans perhaps.I think your little review of "I Surrender All" is cynical. No that is not what I said. We stop doing what we do have control of, namely our activity. That such activity may be ineffective and vain is another matter. Sounds to me like a humanist spin on Christian discipleship.Did this come from some Twelve Step program slogan? Okay. That doesn't sound too bad. But the key in the Christian life is you are abiding in Christ. You are in fellowship and communion with Christ. The source of your actions is this union of lives.You are grafted into another life Who moves in to saturate your actions. It is a union like the union of Jesus with His Father so that His doing was the doing of the Father within Him. That could be because you have not experienced such a thing. And then as an outsider, it sounds foreign to anything you have known.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

The word "surrender" as related to giving in one's will to the will of God is not unrealistic. I fear that by saying that what Purpledawn may really be trying to say is that Christ is not alive. I am suspicious that Purpledawn is really teaching that Christ being a living Person is not biblical.At any rate here are passages which prove surrendering one's will to the will of God in Christ is biblical: The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9). And the Spirit of Christ is Christ Himself (Romans 8:9,10).Sonship, Paul writes, is brought about by a person being "led" by the Spirit of God. One can resist the leading of the Spirit of God. One has to surrender to the leading of the Spirit of God. So surrender of one's desire to follow only himself n exchange to follow Another, mainly the Holy Spirit, is biblical. This was said by the martyr Stephen as the religionists were about to stone him to death for preaching Jesus Christ. He said that these opposers opposed the Holy Spirit. It follows that instead of resistance and opposition a person must "surrender" to the Holy Spirit. To oppose is the opposite of surrender. Stiff-necked means stubburness in the will.The choosing organ of the human will can therefore oppose and resist the Holy Spirit. And conversly the human will can surrender to the Holy Spirit. Stephen had surrendered. His persecutors by that time had not surrendered. This passage is about the Apostle Paul informing Timothy that one of Paul's co-workers has abandoned Paul and his work of ministry. The reason for this abandonment of Demas was that he loved the present age. He loved the world, the modern age (at that time) more than he loved the Lord Jesus.This is a matter of one not surrendering up his love for the present modern age in favor of loving and serving the Lord Jesus. This is a matter of surrender or the lack thereof in the human emotion. The Holy Spirit is working in the disciple to love Christ more and more in the emotions. The one who will not surrender forsook the ministry work with the Apostles in favor of his love for the modern fashion of the world. He simply would not surrender his emotion to love Jesus to the degree that Paul and Timothy and other co-workers of Paul had done.This does not mean that Demas perished in damnation. It does mean that his usefulness to the service of Christ was damaged. Here again is a matter of surrendering up one's desire for the fleshly lust to be led by the Holy Spirit. In fact one can surrender either to the flesh or surrender to the Holy Spirit. The two forces oppose each other. The disciple is called to surrender to one or the other.The Holy Spirit is Jesus Christ in His pneumatic form - "the last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45) So Galatians 5:16-18 is about surrendering oneself to be led by Christ the life giving Spirit. This is a deeper verse. It shows that the Apostles ministry involved spiritual warfare. The proud and high thoughts in men's minds rose up against the knowledge of God. Through the Holy Spirit the Apostle sought to bring down these high strongholds of reasoning in men's minds. Their goal was that the hearer's thoughts would be taken captive to the obedience of the living Christ. This is surrender. To be taken captive is a matter of surrendering.We should let the New Testament cause us to forsake our high minded thoughts of rebellion and allow our thoughts to be captivated to the knowledge of God and the obedience of Christ. The word picture Paul uses here is that of a Roman general leading captives in battle to the capital as a display of his victory over them. Incense was spread through the air as the victorious Roman general led a procession of captives.The triumph here is the triumph of Jesus Christ over all of those who He leads including the apostles. They have surrendered to Christ and are in His procession before God as captives.When the general reached the capital some prisoners would be put to death and some would be spared. Therefore the incense was a fragrance to some of life and to others a fragrance of their coming death. Paul uses this imagery to describe the New Testament ministry. (See also verse 16).In brief captives of Christ have surrendered to Christ. This is why Paul again uses this allegory in Ephesians of a train of captive foes. All the believers were former rebels who are surrendered to Christ and are in His procession of captives: The captives of Christ have surrendered to Christ. This surrendering is a surrendering to His love and His redemption and His great salvation. Here Paul is warning the Corinthians that demon influence should not be tolerated in their participation in the Lord's table meeting. In this matter the disciples should surrender thier desire to dabble in the demonic in favor of the holiness of the Lord. "Are we stronger than He?" is a question of whose will will prevail in the matter.Therefore the obedient should surrender their desire to remain unclean and influenced by demons to the holiness and sanctification of the obedience to the Lord Jesus. They should not resist Christ in the will because His will is stronger than theirs. They should surrender in love and worship to the will of God.These few examples suffice to prove that surrender to God and to Christ is indeed a biblical concept.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Then the basis that you provide is cynical and superficial.He does not have to live in the presence of God daily. He surrenders his right to do so in favor of living daily in God's presence.He does not have forsake worldly pleasures. He surrenders his perfect right to do so in favor of a higher enjoyment of Christ HimselfHe does not have to regard the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
After surrender it is the one thing that matters most to him.He has the right to live without regard for the blessing of God.
He surrenders his right to do so in favor of being governed by God's
blessing in the future.He gives up his former motivation, whatever it was, in favor of living by "the sacred flame".These are all the author's expressions of his voluntary surrender of his life to abide in a united existence with Jesus Christ.The same thought is expressed in another song on consecration. This song is similar to the I Surrender All. Yet it brings out an important paradox of surrender to the will of God. It seems a giving up. But it is actually a great gaining. It seems a restriction. But it is actually a liberation. It seems a relinquishing. But it is actually a rich obtaining.It is a "holy bargain". The writer says "O never speak of sacrifice! A privilege untold."This author touched on the essence of Christian consecration. He loses his soul life that he can find it. But the finding of this great prize, he describes as passing over "to God's complete control".To the author God's complete control means also the obtaining of a new holy self control, passing on to liberty, obtaining rich blessing. He has tasted that it is a great privilege to surrender his life to "God's complete control" for "God's complete control" he has found, is the greatest happiness.Surrender to God is biblical yet also paradoxical. I read that. And I still furnished evidence that the idea of surrender to God is biblical. Rather than quibble over parsing of words, I think it is more profitable to hear the testimonies of people who can share with us their experience of this surrendering, from both inside and outside of the Scriptures.There is no good reason why I should ignore the personal sentiments of the author of "I Surrender All" to replace them with your cynical viewpoint.I would agree that God does not want to usurp the human will so as to make robot machines. But I know that "Surrender" is an appropriate word to describe giving over self rule to Christ's rule. But the proper yielding to His commands is yielding to Jesus Himself because He lives within you.We who seek to live a "yielded" life are not speaking of obeying the instructions of a dead and absent Christ. We are talking about abiding in Him in His present form as "a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45)Any thought of doing what Jesus said though Jesus maybe never lived or is dead and gone, is some humanist spin on the New Testament experience. Sure, in that case, you ARE very much still in control.You will probably be reluctant to indicate your personal opinion about the resurrection of Christ. I think you prefer to conceal this and parse symantics and quibble over word definitions.At the core, I think you may just be trying to teach that "surrender" to a dead person is nonsense. Jesus is not real and not present, perhaps according to your philosophy, so agreeing with His teaching objectively and ethically is not surrender to God. Hey, you are still very much in control. I think that may be the unstated essence of your argument. Do you want to be helped with more specific examples, truly?
There's an old saying "A person convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still."I recommend to anyone interested Andrew Murray's classic Waiting on God. He does a thorough discussion on the matter from the book of Psalms. I think you are speaking from your experience of your kind of religious piety.That is all well and good. But others who have met the resurrected and living Christ have expressed their experience differently. I don't intend to dismiss their testimony as it reminds me of my own too - though not to the degree it should in some cases.Another Hymn which I think expresses realistic sentiments of a Christian's experience of surrender - "I Am Not My Own". Only one verse and chorus is quoted below: When I turned to Christ I was too proud to read the Bible. The first book I tried to read to get some help from was Reinhold Niebuhr's "The Nature and Destiny of Man". Some time latter I realized that the only portions of the book that seemed to help me where his quotations from the Bible, though I hardly knew that that is what they were.I probably would get a little more out of that book today.I respect R. Niebuhr as a intellectual and thoughtful theologian. But I also highly regard the sentiments of the brother who wrote "I Surrender All". They need to be listened to also IMO. I have heard of that before. And it has helped a lot of people. If you find it helpful I am happy for you.And I receive much help from a song like "Utterly Abandoned (to the Holy Ghost)" or "I Surrender All". These are more specifically about my relationship with the resurrected and living Jesus Christ. Okay. I disagree. That is if you are claiming to know a lot about consecration to Christ yet you don't believe that Christ is either the resurrected Son of God or the Lord of all.I believe that I have met Christ. Why should I dump my experience for you Modernist spin on the Gospel. I take issue with it and point out that you don't really know what you're talking about as far as consecration to Jesus Christ is concerned.Why don't you come right out and indicate whether you believe that this Person to whom we Christians talk of surrender to - is alive or dead?If you don't believe that Jesus is the living Lord - of course you're still in control. And any talk about being surrendered to Jesus is poppycock, to your way of thinking.Sure, you can do "the golden rule" some, without acknowledging that Christ is your Lord and lives in you. In that case such "surrender" is no more surrender than it would be to Confucius or Aristotle or some other wise person who is dead.For us who know that Christ lives - surrender to Jesus is real, yet it is paradoxical. For such surrender is liberation. Human words do find it difficult to explain such a paradox. Well, to a degree. But not in absolute terms. That is why the Bible states "Taste and see that the Lord is good."A Christian eventually invites the unbeliever to taste for himself, and see that the Lord is good.Another little song we Christians enjoy: Yes we can describe and describe. Eventually we invite our friends to experience Jesus the Lord for themselves.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I didn't say he did did I (bringing down all reasoning)?Paul specifies exactly WHAT KIND of thoughts they sought to overthrow. The high thoughts that rose up against the knowledge of God, they sought to overthrow in spiritual warfare.I did NOT say the Apostles were out to overthrow all human reasoning.Though I have given up trying to converse with you Ringo, pretty much, somebody crowed that you were in "rare form." So I took a peek.Sounds like your regular form to me. Try not to put words in my mouth while you debunk me, please?Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I don't agree that someone speaking of her personal exprience is of no use. It may be of limited use. It is not of no use.Take for example the song "I Surrender All". It is of usefulness to stir the hearts of others who may be on the verge of such a surrender. That may be true is some cases. Does necessarily have to follow through in all cases.I give my testimony to people as to what it was like to meet the Lord Jesus. I often add a note that they may not have the exact same experience as I did. That is elementary. And a very stubburn person could say "Don't bother. Whatever you know has nothing to do with me." Do you think you can teach about marriage to the point that a person could know what it is without being married?I don't think so. It may still be of some value to tell a single person what it is like to be married. I have been married for 30 years. I sometimes describe things for the sake of my young adult children. My descriptions are of some limited value. In the final analysis they will have to experience marriage for themselves.I think a reaction of "You can't perfectly describe this thing to me so your talk is useless" is a little extreme. That's what parents and friends are for.I think you may be pushing it to an extreme. Coming back to surrender to God - here's a sentence which is not easy to understand:"I am crucified with Christ;" - Hmmm that not easy to grasp Paul."and it is no longer I who live" - Say what Paul ??" but it is Christ who lives in me;" - Hmmm, not you but Christ that lives in you Paul?"and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

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I do not nullify the grace of God" (See Galatians 2:20-21)Now you may say that Paul's description is useless because you cannot understand it. Well, you have that right. Some of us though are going to take it in.Even though it is not easy to get Paul's meaning we pray that as we grow in the Lord Jesus we come more and more into a realization of what Paul meant.I think I have touched some of it. When I stand in faith a proclaim that I have been crucified with Christ, I DO sense some old tendencies vanish in His indwelling presence. And I do sense that my living is in union with another Person whose love flows within me.Standing on the word of God is effectual and practical. Behind the writing is the living God. The word of God and the presence of God are like two tracks of a train track. They go together. Not true. Not a valid statement. I know hundreds of songs which also explain biblical teachings. It is also a matter of being corporate. We the believers are members one of another. We are members of the Body of Christ. This why Paul said we could all prophesy one by one that all may learn and all may be encouraged.We build up one another in love. We do not all retreat into our private closets. A Christian should have a hidden spiritual life before God. That is a root system. But she also needs a meeting life. That is a life of coming together to encourage one another and build up one another. It is a mingling with Christ in the surrender. "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17)This is a union deep within. The human spirit and the Holy Spirit are joined to become one mingled spirit.I say it is paradoxical, this matter of surrender. I don't apologize for that. It is mysterious. It is not easy to explain.Have you read Paul prayer for the Christians in Ephesus? This is the Apostle's prayer that a living Person would more and more make His home in other living persons by faith. And then that these persons, rooted and grounded in divine love, may be stronger and stronger to apprehend the vast dimensions of the experience of Christ. The dimesions of Christ he describes as the very dimensions of the universe. How broad is "the breadth?" How long is "the length?" How high is "the height?" And how deep is "the depth?"These are the dimensions of the universe. In other words Christ is so vast and so immense and so all-inclusive. He is as extensive as the universe itself.There is so much of Him to be experience by His church. And the more He is experienced the more the believers are filled up unto the fulness of God. That is quite a prayer.We should learn of such a man as the Apostle Paul. He had definitely touched something exceedingly profound. Okay. First and foremost you have to meet Jesus as a living Person.Jesus the doctrine, Jesus as ideology, Jesus as a philosophy, Jesus as a theological debate, as a concept in the mind is of no value in this. First you have to meet Jesus as a living Person.Even to admit that He is living is a matter of surrender. The first act of surrender is to touch Him and call Him "Lord".Confessing to God "Jesus - my Lord. Jesus You are my Lord" is the beginning of this surrender.By the way. Surrender is only one word to discribe the experience. You need not be hung up on that one word. There is also the matter of receiving Him:"As many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name"Whether "Surrender" or "Receiving" or "Following" is used, it matters little.Look, Jesus is stronger than you are. He can subdue you if you let Him. He will not usurp your will.The Holy Spirit is symbolized as a DOVE not a Condor or an Eagle. He is gentle, single eyed, even easily chased away. This is the Spirit of Jesus. He is gentle. But He is strong. He is ever so strong.

Here are some other instances of surrender to God in the Bible: We are all proud. The proper experience of Christ calls for us surrendering up this pride to be humbled under the mighty hand of God. Paradoxically, in being humbled under the Mighty God we are truly exalted in due time. This verse preceeds the previous one. God resists the proud. The Christian is called to surrender to God's resistance and allow herself to "be humbled". Such surrendering of pride results in younger men being subject to elders by the grace of God. We are not only proud. But we are full of anxiety. Casting our anxiety upon the caring God is also surrendering up our anxious mind to the Holy Spirit. Casting is done by relinquishing. And relinquishing is a kind of surrendering up. We surrender up our anxious thoughts to God replacing such thoughts with trustful thanksgiving and praise. The Spirit of Jesus is operating in the Christian to renew his mind. We are called to allow, to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. That is to surrender up resistance to this action of renewing by the Spirit of Christ. To cooperate with His action to renew the old mind into a new mind.I would wager that all believers in Christ who experience this renewal in the mind by the Holy Spirit have no problem confessing that surrender was involved. The Holy Spirit is moving and operating within the hearts of the believers in Jesus. They can cooperate with surrender.We are to surrender up bitterness. We surrender up anger. We surrender up wrath, clamor, evil speaking. We surrender up malignant malice. These are all unpleasant and harmful emotional dispositions which the Christian is to allow God to remove from our hearts. Since God is taking the initiative to transform the soul it is a matter of surrendering to His inward actions. That is to "Let ..." Him operate unhindered. Christ surrendered Himself up to sacrifice Himself for the church. This surrendering is held up as a model for the Christian husband. By the power of God he should love his wife and be willing by the grace of God to give himself up for her.It is important to see that this giving one's self up for his wife is done by being filled with the Holy spirit in our human spirit. For a previous exhortation is to be filled in spirit: The long section of being subject and being ready to give up oneself for the wife is preceeded with the exhortation to be filled in spirit. Such subjection can only be carried out by being filled with the Holy Spirit in the human spirit.Look at the passages again in fuller context: This does involve not only surrender to God but also subjection to one another in the Christian community. This subjection to one another is manifested in corporate praise, thanksgiving, singing together spiritual songs, and psalming in our hearts together to the Lord.If you have ever sat in a Christian meeting where praises and singing is going on to the Lord and you wish to clamp your mouth shut rather than join in, you will know that a kind of surrender is called for - "Being subject to one another in the fear of Christ".In other words for Christ's sake we subject ourselves to one another in spiritual worship.Immediately following this passage we have this: Spirit filled Christian wives realize that that does require surrender. Behind the husband, as imperfect as he may be, the Spirit filled wife is to see the Lord. Her subjection is actually indirectly to the husband but directly to the Lord.A similar thing with the Spirit filled husbands involves surrender: Christ "gave Himself up" ie. He surrendered Himself. In the grace of the Holy Spirit filled human spirit, the Christian husband is also exhorted to give up himself for the wife as Christ did Himself for the church according to the will of His Father.Don't lose track of the initial exhortation to be filled in spirit. All these kinds of Christian subjection are prefaced by understanding the will of the Lord is for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit in our human spirit. Apparently this seems as surrendering up to earthly master. Actually, it is "as to Christ". It is subjection to Christ and recognizing Christ's authority as the final authority.Does this mean that the slave master is not also subject himself to the same Christ? No indeed. For verse 9 says the master is also to do some surrendering of his own: The master and the slave in the Christian community, are to surrender up to Christ the natural tendency and natural reaction of such a social system. Instead they are to behave as if both slave and master are subject to Christ in the heavens.These are not instructions for society at large. These are the Apostles instructions to Christian disciples who find themselves within this social structure at the time they become disciples of Christ. The slave and the master are brothers in Christ. And each is to be filled in spirit and subject to Christ. Christ is behind the master. And Christ is behind the slave. And Christ to whom we are to subject ourselves, is no respector of persons.These passages are elaboragted on here to portray Christian surrender of sorts in various exhortations.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Manifestly false: Paul, does indicate when he is giving his opinion and when he speaks not according to the command of God. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Purpledawn writes: I think Purpledawn's problem is not being able to imagine that God's control of one's life is a matter of living in a harmonious coordination - a fellowship of cooperation and communion.Here we see two parallel passages showing the Holy Spirit speaking in the believer being the believer's speaking: One verse says that the Spirit of the Son of God cries in the believe Abba, Father. The other passage declares that the believer cries Abba, Father.This is a mingling of lives. This is a harmonius blending of God's life and man's life. The Spirit bears witness with the human spirit that the regenerated person is one of the children of God."He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17)The Holy Spirit, the Third of the Triune God becomes one united and mingled blending with the born again human spirit. He cries the the Father in our crying to the Father. In our crying to the Father the Spirit of the resurrected Christ cries to the Father.This is the control of God over the believer in terms of a mingling and a harmonious blending.Once again the Holy Spirit Who is indeed God Himself, is pictured as a dove in the New Testament. This should signal His gentleness rather than His coercion.Witness Lee writes on Matthew 3:16: Yielding to the filling of the Holy Spirit is surrendering to God's control. Yet this control moves man's heart to be single and simple in caring for the will of God. There is a communion of the Holy Spirit in which He regulates our tastes, attitudes, and actions.And it is also a maturity into which one must grow by turning over more and more of one's inner being over to the controling yet gentle Spirit of Christ.So God control is also a new self control. For a fruit of the Holy Spirit is self control. It is something like power steering on an automobile. In the steering mechanism is a greater power through the hydrolic device coordinating with the turn of the wheel.The former sinner is regulated and strengthened by the indwelling Spirit of Christ. "I am able to do all things in Him Who empowers me." (Philippians 4:13) Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

You brought it up by incorrectly stating that the Apostle Paul, whose letters Peter regarded as Scripture, did not speak the commands of God. Since I found it patently false, I diverged long enough to correct your error.Now back to "surrender". I really don't care how you choose to define surrender as "giving up control of one's life". I will not argue with your particular definition. My point here is that surrender to God is biblical. And here is another portion of the New Testament to further demonstrate that it is: We will see that Paul teaches the opposite of let-ing sin reign. And that is surrendering to God. There are two experiences here. One is presenting or surrendering one's members to sin. And the other is presenting or surrendering one's members to God as one who is alive from the dead.I'll let you stew over whether this is loss of self control or not. I don't care. It is surrendering. On the negative side, surrending to sin. On the positive side surrendering to God. Sin reigned over those under the law. Grace reigns over those under grace. The believer is to allow this grace to reign. In other words, the believer is to surrender himself to the reign of the grace of God. Paul's question is clear. Either a man is an obedient slave surrendered to sin or and obedient slave obedient unto righteousness. That is the righteousness which comes by grace - the enjoyment and enabling of God who dwells in the believer."The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit." (Phil. 4:23)"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen." (Gal. 6:18)"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit." (Philemon 23)In these three verses we locate the grace of God. It is with the innermost part of the believer's being, his spirit. This empowering grace to which the believer is to surrender is simply the indwelling Christ who is with the believer's spirit:"The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you." (2 Tim. 4:22)Coming back to Romans chapter 6, we are to be "slaves" surrendered up to this indwelling grace which is the indwelling Lord with the regenerated human spirit. There is a dichotomy here. The Roman believers were in the past slaves of sin. Now they are slaves of God. Now they obey from the heart the gospel of grace. Now they yield up their members as weapons of righteousness. Now they are under the reign of New Testament grace which is with their spirit. They have surrendered up to God to be slaves of God's grace resulting in righteous behavior. In the past they were surrendered up to sin. Now they are surrendered up to righteousness. Enslavement means surrender. This could hardly be clearer. Surrender is implied in the phrase "slaves to righteousness" Again Paul presses the dichotomy of SLAVES TO SIN verses SLAVES TO GOD. How can we that surrender is not involved in being enslaved to either sin or to God? The whole point of this section of Romans is to exhort disciples to surrender up to another master for His control.Turn your subjection from sin as your master to God as the indwelling grace as your Master. We are to be enslaved to God. We are to be slaves of righteousness. We are to yield our members to this new living Master. To be enslaved to sin is to be freed from God. Conversely to be enslaved to God is to be freed from sin.Surrender to Christ and to God is demonstrated as biblical.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Purpledawn writes: I think the essence of Purpledawn's theology is that to "follow the rules of Jesus," a Jesus which is absent as a living Person, is submission.This kind of belief does not call for a resurrected Christ who is with our spirit in regeneration. We just grit our teeth and think "What would Jesus do?". This is ethical behavior. It is actually law keeping.So for this kind of "Christless" ethical law keeping of an essentially dead Christ, we know who is in control. It is us the ethical law keepers.Now is this what the New Testament teaches? No. Christ teaches the beleivers to abide in Him as a living true vine. And without this abiding, all that we do, whether good or bad, amounts to nothing for God's will: The life of the true vine must flow into the abiding branches for the bearing of fruit to God. This means that the disciples must remain, linger, abide in the realm of the living Person of Jesus.No matter how much one ethically tries to follow the teachings of Jesus, he cannot bear fruit unto God unless he abides in this living Person and allows this Person's life and nature to infuse his soul.That's just the way it is. Paul, a tremendous model and example of this abiding said that he wanted to be found in Christ not in his own law keeping: The Apostle wanted to gain a living Person, Christ. He wanted to be found in Christ this living Person. He did not want to be any longer found performing his own righteousness which is derived from his old Christless law keeping.He counted his previous ethical behavior as a model Jew as dung and refuse. He was happy to lose his own righteousness which was of the law and henceforth be found in the resurrected Christ, abiding in Him: In comparison to the experience of living in Christ Paul counted his experience in Judaism's law keeping as refuse, that is garbage. His own ethical good doing he counted as garbagge in comparison to "the excellncy of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord"Paul compared his past ethical living with abiding in the resurrected and living Spirit of Christ. He decided that there was no comparison. Christ was more excellent.In previous verses to this Paul enumerated the things of which he was foremely proud. These things formed Paul's "pedigree" as a good and ethical law keeping Jew: These were things of which Paul was very proud. His proud culture was his boast. He was from a lovable tribe of Benjamin. He was a Hebrew born naturally of Hebrews and not a convert from another nation. He was so zealous that he persecuted this new "sect" of Jesus.Then he surrendered to Jesus. He tells us of his surrendering up his life to the control of Christ right here: The imagery that Christ gave Paul in a word picture was that Paul was a rebellious little donkey or horse kicking against wagon attached to him. I guess Jesus meant that God was already beginning to work in Paul's conscience and Paul was resisting. He kicked and bucked against the goads. He had to be subdued and surrender up to the direction of Jesus Christ the Lord.What an example we were furnished with as a model disciple. Thank God he wrote 13 some books of the New Testament leaving us a model of a surrendered life.He was really "found in Him", the resurrected, glorified, and ascended Christ Who became the life giving Spirit within Paul. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Tell me then Purpledawn, without evasion.Does your Holy Spirit give you wisdom that Jesus Christ is every bit alive today and can be known?Or does your Holy Spirit give you a different wisdom which says that Jesus Christ is not resurrected today to be known and followed?Please don't make an excuse so as to evade this plain question.
Please don't avoid answering because it is off topic. It is related to the topic.What do you say?
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

It is duly noted that I selected only a portion of Purpldawn's paragraph. But my question to Purpledawn still stands.If you want a more fair phrasing of it I will put it this way:Purpledawn, in your Holy Spirit giving you wisdom concerning errors and what not how does your Holy Spirit lead you about Jesus Christ's availability today as a living Person?Does your Holy Spirit direct you that it is an ERROR for you to believe that Jesus Christ is today the resurrected Lord? Or does your Holy Spirit provide you wisdom that it is an ERROR to believe that Jesus is dead and no longer available to be contacted and followed today, as a living Person?Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Assuming that Jesus told you to go out and change the world.That's not what I read. I read that He will build His church, His EKKLESIA which is "called out" of the world.I see Jesus teaching that the disciples are the salt of the earth. Salt keeps meat from corrupting. I take this to mean that the presence of the Christians is a force to hold in check the world from becomming totally corrupt.But "Go out now and change the world. Make the world a better place?"
Maybe that's your secular humanism that you're reading into the Bible.I see more like "Be the salt of the earth. Be the shining city on the hill as a testimony until I come. Build up the Called Out Assembly, the EKKLESIA, and overcome the world."That is more what I see in writing and in actual exprience too.Then again I look for the victorious church. I am not looking for Christians that discourage my faith. I am looking for Christians who encourage my faith. And I find them in the thousands on all five continents on the earth.It could be what you're looking around for. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

It is true that the Christians should have the highest ethical living on the earth. "You therefore shall be perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect."We disciples are not off the hook to be those manifesting the highest level of morality in society. True.But divine life is a matter of growth and development and maturity. When you were born you did not instantaneously become an adult right out of your mother's womb. You grew and matured.In the new birth, why should we assume that we instantaneously mature into someone of, for example, Paul's stature or John's stature.It is more the case that for those who give themselves to grow and mature, area by area, their lives are transformed into this high standard of morality. Here a little. There a little. A little more today. And a little more tomorrow.Any argument that "Christians should make no more mistakes from the second they become disciples" is not born out by the New Testament ether in the Gospels or in Acts or in the Epistles.Even Jesus talked about the four kinds of soil which needed cultivation that the seed of the kingdom might grow and bear fruit.But to my questions again:Does your Holy Spirit give you wisdom that Jesus is resurrected and availablie to be your Lord to follow today as a living Person?Or does your Holy Spirit give you wisdom that Jesus is as dead and gone as Socrates, or Julius Ceasar, or Abe Lincoln or any other famous person who is no longer alive?Which does your Holy Spirit tell you is an error in concept?Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.