Conquering by Reckoning

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Conquering by Reckoning

2 Corinthians 5:17

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NASB)

17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

Have we, like the children of Israel, permitted some of our enemies to live in our midst? Are we letting them pay tribute instead of driving them out? If we are, we shouldn’t wonder at the slavery and misery that oppress us; it couldn’t be otherwise. In the Lord’s order, only those who reckon themselves dead not only to a few sins but to every sin can gain continual victories and live the life of uniform triumph.

This is the great difference that arises in the experience of those who enter into the land of promise now. For some, self seems to be swallowed up at once by the revelation of Christ and to lift up its head no more, while for others, the death of self is accomplished only by slow degrees and through great conflicts. The triumphant experience of the Israelites under Joshua is a type of the first, and the failing experience of the time of the Judges is a type of the second. 

Through death to life is always God’s way, and there is no other. To live we must first die. We must lose our own lives to find the life that is hid with Christ in God. We must reckon ourselves to be dead before we can reckon ourselves to be alive; and the more thorough and wide-reaching the death, the more all-pervading and victorious will be the life. 

Is it not a grand proposal of the gospel, then, that we should put off at once the old man of sin and put on forever the new man of Christlikeness.