The second death has no authority over those who attain the first resurrection because through the Lord Jesus Christ they have overcome all the areas of sin over which the second death maintains authority.

I think you will agree with me that we American Christians had better get busy and start walking on the pathway to glory if we hope to be raised to the priesthood when the Lord Jesus appears in the clouds.

Entering the Death of Christ on the Cross

The first step we take on the path to the glory of the priesthood is that of entering the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Until we willingly become part of His crucifixion, dying to our old nature, dying to the world, counting ourselves dead with Him, we may be a fine religious person but we are not on our way to the priesthood.

In water baptism we are portraying that we are entering the crucifixion of Christ. When we come out of the water we are portraying that we are one with Christ in His resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God.

The only way in which we can come out from under the authority of the Law of Moses is by dying on the cross with Christ. As long as we cling to our own life we are under the authority of the Law, even though we have made a profession of believing in Jesus.

Even more importantly, we cannot begin the program of judgment that leads to the first resurrection. It is appointed to people to die once, and after this they are judged. God counts our death with Jesus as being a real death—more real, in fact, than our physical death. As soon as we die and are resurrected in a spiritual sense, the process of judgment commences.

Sin originates from two areas within our personality. The first area is that of the various lusts and passions that dwell in our flesh. These are alien to us. They were inherited, or else acquired during our lifetime.

The second area is that of our self-will. The basis of all sin is self-will. It is because we are self-willed that sin can find an entrance in our flesh, soul, and spirit.

God's program of deliverance from sin focuses on our self-will. We begin by counting that we ourselves are dead with Christ on the cross. Our whole first nature is crucified. We declare it as a fact and then God brings situations into our life that accomplish the actual slaying of the old nature. Has that happened to you?

God has condemned our entire first personality, assigning it to the cross with Christ, that He may deliver us from the body of sin that is in us. God cannot successfully remove the sin that is in us until the old nature is slain. We can treat the symptoms, but the root of the problem, which is self-will, remains.

We see a division coming in the Charismatic movement. Those whom Jesus is calling to Himself will enter death with Christ, as they should have when first converted.

To be continued.