FORGET NOT WHO YOU ARE
By A. Gene Veal

In this last article of our series “THE OBEDIENCE OF FAITH”, I want to stress the importance of keeping in mind that “Christ in you” is the reality of your identity.  Keep this in mind and you will live in the truth about yourself as a Christian.  “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

In our study, we have learned that within the Greek word “obedience” is the word “to hear” (see OBEDIENCE DEFINED) and that without “hearing” there can be no obedience.  We learned that “faith comes from hearing” and “without faith it is impossible to please Him.”  And lastly we saw that by faith we know we have “escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust”.

Now I want us to hold on to that which we have learned and, as Paul, “count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage) of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly.”

We are told that we have been “predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.”  The Scripture tells us that we “are being transformed into the same image” by the Spirit as “we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord”.  We should notice that it is as we are focused on Him, NOT OURSELVES, that we are being “transformed into the same image.”  We must have faith in what the Scripture tells we are “in Christ” is so, for “THE RIGHTEOUS [man] SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”

We will consider how James tells us that reading the Word is likened to our looking into a mirror to see who we are in Christ.  Paul uses the same reference to looking into a mirror, “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”

Albert Barnes tells us, “Christians, by looking on the gospel, could see the glorious perfections and plans of God, as bright, and clear, and brilliant as they could see a light reflected from the burnished surface of the mirror. So to speak, the glorious perfections of God shone from heaven, beamed upon the gospel, and were thence reflected to the eye and the heart of the Christian, and had the effect of transforming them into the same image. This passage is one of great beauty, and is designed to set forth the gospel as being the reflection of the infinite glories of God to the minds and hearts of men.”  So “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith” so we won’t forget who we are in Him.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”

James also refers to this “liberty” when he says we are likened to “one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does.”  The doing is a natural out flow of the obedience of faith because “faith without works is dead.”  If a man believes what the Word tells him about who he is in Christ, then “this man shall be blessed in what he does.”  Otherwise, he will examine what he has done and easily see how it could have been more, or it could have been better or perhaps he shouldn’t have even tried.

Not forgetting who we are “in Christ” releases us from condemnation (Romans 8:1).  We are not doing a service to God when we grovel in the weakness of our flesh and carry on about what a worthless person we are in the flesh.  Paul said, “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh,” but he didn’t go on and on as if “in my flesh” was his true self.  When he spoke of his sinning, he said, “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me (that is, in his flesh)”.  

Of the Christian Paul tells us, “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.”  Whatever failure there is “in the flesh” is just that: failure in the flesh.  We know “those who are in the flesh cannot please God” because “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.”

But in Christ we live by a new law that has set us free from the law-of-sin that condemned us.  It is what Paul and James call the “law of liberty.“  “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”  We now live where there is “no condemnation” if, indeed, we do not “become a forgetful hearer.”  If we forget who we are told that we are in Christ, we cannot have the obedience of faith.  The obedience of faith is believing what the Scriptures tell us about who we are in Christ.

The way we will not forget is to “abide in Him.”  Jesus told us, “Abide in me, and I in you.”  “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”  John also tells us, “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.”  But if you don’t abide in him you will come under condemnation.  It is the same as Paul told the people on the ship in Acts 27, “Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.”  You cannot prosper as a Christian unless you “abide in Him.” What is abiding?  It is not forgetting who you are in Christ.  Our abiding in Him is setting your mind on Him and by faith staying focused on who you are in Him.  John warns, “Anyone who goes too far (trying to improve the flesh) and does not abide in the teaching of Christ (that is, who you are in Him), does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching (of who you are in Christ), he has both the Father and the Son.”  This is the obedience of faith.

I said we would look at the comments of James about looking into this mirror of the Word, so let’s look at it.  “Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.  But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does.” (James 1:22-25)

The “doing” is acting in faith.  Seeing who God says we are “in Christ” and then acting from that truth.  The “doing” is “working out your own salvation.”  For “it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” If anyone just hears the truth and doesn’t live from that truth (reality), they “delude themselves.” 

The Christian looks into the “perfect law of liberty” and he “looks at his natural face in a mirror.”  What is that “natural face” to the Christian?  Peter tells us that by “His precious and magnificent promises” we are “partakers of the divine nature.”  So if we are looking into the “perfect law of liberty” we will see that we are “partakers of the divine nature” and the “natural face” for the Christian has the appearance of Christ in us.  We will spend our lifetime in this discovery of the loveliness of Christ, for “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known.”  And “not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer” we live the life of Christ in us as us.  We do not become Him and He does not become us, but we live out His life in us as ourselves portraying Christ in our form.  And “this man shall be blessed in what he does.”

But if I am a “forgetful hearer”, I will do this or that and begin measuring myself to see if I measure up in the flesh.  Of course, I won’t measure up in the flesh because “the flesh cannot please God” and I then begin to condemn myself for my shortcomings and failings.  Not seeing myself “in Christ” I come under condemnation, but “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

If I am to look into this “perfect law of liberty” to see all my flaws and imperfections, how is that “liberty”?  The ONLY law that brings liberty is “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” that “sets me free from the law of sin.”  This “doing” is not doing the law of Moses for “by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”  “And by him all that believe (act in the obedience of faith) are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses.”  “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.”  “But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, ‘The just shall live by faith.’”  But, if we go to the Law of Moses to clean up our act, “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.”

So, in the OBEDIENCE OF FAITH, let us be sure that when we are “doing”, we are doing according to what we have heard we are in Christ with no effort of trying to improve the flesh and get better in ourselves apart from Christ. “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

May we NEVER FORGET who we are in Him.  Living from that knowledge, let us go on to be “doers of the word, and not merely hearers.”  Let us continue to live a life of discovery, discovering the riches that are ours in Christ Jesus and know that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.”

Click here to read THE OBEDIENCE OF FAITH

Click here to read ABIDE IN CHRIST by Andrew Murray