Faithful in All His House

Paul likens our relationship to God with a marriage. We died from our former husband, the law. Then we were resurrected to be with our true husband. The fact that our earthly marriages are a type of our heavenly union is the obvious reason why God doesn’t like infidelity particularly well. One of the things the new gentile churches thus were to abstain from was sexual immorality. God is a jealous spouse because He loves us so compassionately.

In 1 Cor 7 Paul literally says that the spouses own each other. They have authority over each other’s bodies. Have you considered the implications of this? It means that we as His spouses have access to and authority over everything He owns. We can relate this to what Jesus said about us being given the keys to the kingdom of Heaven, that we are commissioned to bind and loose. We perhaps see this more clearly when we remember that we are in God, and that He is in us. He owns us and we own Him. Moses knew this secret, because Hebrews 3:2 says that Moses was faithful in all His house.

How much more do we not have access to all His house under the new covenant?

There is a small detail, however, before we can take the necessary leap of faith and operate on this level effortlessly. The Holy Spirit must first have established us in a position where we never accept condemnation. As soon as we begin to assert our rights the Devil will come against us with all sorts of temptations and accusations.

But, we stand fast without the slightest condemnation, and we know the difference between a temptation and a sin. Jesus was tempted as we are. He is well acquainted with the Devil’s strategies, and since Christ is in us the enemy has nothing in us. We do not fall back on self effort, which is infidelity, but stand fast in Him.

As long as we are sojourners on this earth which is under the dominion of the evil one it is his right to come against us and test us. However, God uses those encounters to further His will in us and to exercise our faith. We come out even stronger, more confident and as more than conquerors when we have defeated our adversary by the blood of the lamb and our confession.

It has become more and more clear to me that if we are to be faithful in all His house we have to be safe sons. We are created as persons. Persons can choose, but they become slaves of what they have chosen. I opted to marry, and became a slave of marriage. We choose to have children, so we are slaves of our children. I became a teacher, and that choice governs my life.

To be safe sons of God means that we have tasted darkness and we have tasted light. We know the difference between sin and righteousness. We have experienced the wretchedness of self effort, and found the surpassing excellence of rest. Project man was finished at the cross, and out of it a multitude of safe sons emerge, because they are knowers. Their experiences are the foundation for their choices, and they never again have any desire to return to the former things. They can compare and contrast, and the glory of the new marriage far supersedes the things that one day will dissolve. So they reign with Him safe in His love and secure in His keeping powers. Yes, it is all of grace! Yes, we are slaves of righteousness.