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The
Great Mystery
Ever since Adam ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, human beings have thought they know almost everything. This makes it very difficult to communicate anything to them especially about the Bible or the things of God. Adamic souls have a religion of their own called self-for-self religion. It is difficult to communicate with these people because they are set in their ways and are convinced they are right. These people know what is good and they know what is evil, but that knowledge never leads them to the fact that they have a sin nature. They never see Jesus in the true light, as God’s Son, and they do not see or know truth. They are created by God the Father, but they are not birthed by Him. What a great difference there is between being created by God without His nature and being rebirthed by God and having His incorruptible Seed and nature within. When Christ becomes our life, we are no longer just created beings. Jesus, our new and only life (Gal. 2:20) is the only begotten Son of God, and as He is, so are we (1 John 4:17). We have eternal life dwelling in us right now. Our new life is eternal; however, when God begins to deal with us about our new life in Christ, it is doubtful we understand it very much. Going deeper in the Lord, by understanding the things of God, is not something that comes by human knowledge or even religious doctrine. Doctrine is what you establish as a set of facts. My understanding is that doctrine never takes you any deeper with God or teaches you any more about who you are in Christ. In fact, doctrine holds you right where you are because manmade doctrines come from Adam’s knowledge of good and evil. Many people who really love God are in bondage by manmade and religious doctrines. Doctrines will not let you expand or grow. Doctrines will never give you or let you have a revelation of Jesus Christ. The expression "a revelation of Jesus Christ" comes from Paul in Ephesians 1:17 where he prayed for the Ephesians to have "...the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Revelation is a Bible term and, sad to say, when people hear the word "revelation" they think you are speaking of the book of The Revelation written by John. The fact is, that revelation is accomplished when the Holy Spirit reveals Christ in the believer. In 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 Paul says, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him, but God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit." No man can teach you Christ. This fact upsets most people. Humanity only knows the things of man. The Christ who lives in humans can only be taught to you by the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13-15). Man-made doctrines and the things we have learned and studied in religion that have to do with Jesus Christ have not brought us the greater truth about Jesus—the Jesus who lives in rebirthed human beings. Whatever man-made religion can tell you about Jesus comes from sense knowledge or the knowledge of good and evil. That knowledge can only tell you what someone saw Him do, or what someone heard Him say, but the revealed knowledge brought by the Holy Spirit tells the believer who he is in Christ. The first three chapters of 1 Corinthians are what I call Life chapters. These chapters deal almost exclusively with the mind and how the believer is being transformed from Adam’s mind to the mind of Christ. Paul establishes the transformation of the mind in those three chapters. However, only the Holy Spirit can teach us the things of the Lord. Since much of our understanding of the things of God are still based upon the unrenewed mind, which operates from the knowledge of good and evil, there will be strong erroneous voices working in you. This will cause the Holy Spirit to pull back, waiting for the time when he has your attention. The hope of those who know Christ as their only life is to wait on God until Christ begins to manifest Himself through them. He is already in you and is waiting to come out of you in your circumstances and situations of life. Outside of our rebirthing, the most essential ministry of the Spirit is the revelation of Christ in you. By searching the Scriptures, this process of revelation takes place. We know Jesus in the flesh because of the historical record and what He did, but we do not know who He is in us and how He is to be Lord of our lives. God gave you a measure of faith (Rom. 12:3) so that you could believe that the free gift of salvation is yours. However, to come to know Him as your life—the great mystery—requires a revelatory work of the Holy Spirit. Every epistle written by Paul communicates this message. In Galatians 1:15-18, Paul says that when he was ready to know Jesus he did not talk with men, but he went to the Arabian Desert. After three years (whether it took him three years or not to learn this, we do not know), he came out of the desert saying Christ was revealed in him as his hope of glory (Col. 1:26-27). From before the foundation of the world, the saving life of the human was to be the life of Jesus (Eph. 1:4). You must see that Jesus is the life you now live. I can tell you that fact, but you will not know it as fact until the Holy Spirit reveals it to you. In the meantime, the best thing you can do is to stay in the Scriptures until your mind is renewed. The committed dedicated Christ-life comes because you want God’s best and you want your true life. Jesus of Nazareth was putting the responsibility on man when he said, "if any man deny himself." On the other hand, concerning our salvation, all that is necessary to be saved is to believe. There is no work of yours to be done in being saved. Salvation is a finished work of God, finished at Calvary. It is the gift of God if you accept it. You can only understand who you were created and rebirthed to be through the Scriptures and the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Learning Christ has to do with your love affair with Jesus. If you fall in love with Him, the one who is in you and is your only life, you will want to know everything possible about that life. Paul said that this great mystery, Christ living in humans, was hidden for ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints that Christ is our life (Col. 1:26-27). Why would anyone want to live the old life controlled by the knowledge of good and evil, when the Christ-life is available to all?
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Christ-life Fellowship litzman@christ-life.org 214-391-0488
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