What we are as a person, that is, our life, our manner of living, continues if we are living and believing in the Lord Jesus. Beethoven continues to compose. Rembrandt continues to paint, if he is living and believing in Jesus. This is what the Lord stated.

If the whole Body of Christ is to come to perfection together in preparation for its descent with the Lord to establish the Kingdom of God, the rule of God, on the earth, then those members who are deceased are going to have to surround us in order that they might learn what God is requiring of us in the spiritual fulfillment of the Jewish Day of Atonement, the Day of Reconciliation to God.

The love of the world must be driven from us.

The lusts and passions of our body must be driven from us.

But won't the passions of our body cease to be a factor once we die?

Why should they? The sins of the flesh, such as immorality, lying, murder, drunkenness, are spiritual forces that dwell in us. We who are experienced believers understand very well the influence of Satan on our personality.

There are demons of lust, demons of alcohol and nicotine, demons of jealousy and envy, demons of gossip and slander, demons of murder, demons of child molestation. These forces exist in the spirit realm and seek to find entrance into human flesh so they can express the fires that burn in them. When we succumb to the spirit that is seeking to express itself through us the spirit is gratified but we in the flesh suffer the anguish and sometimes sickness and death that result from the unlawful behavior.

These spiritual passions reside in our flesh but they are not buried with our flesh. They do not decompose in the ground with our body. They must be dealt with at some point. There is no passage of the Scriptures of which I am aware that suggests physical death sets us free from the sins of the flesh.

Therefore, the witnesses who are surrounding us must confess these sins, renouncing and resisting them, just as we do. Such confession and resistance is an act of judgment against Satan, and the dead as well as the living always must choose to follow Jesus at every point along the path to the fullness of redemption.

The saint who dies but who has been subject to murderous rages must confess and renounce this bondage at some point. This sinful spirit may have access to his personality until he does.

In addition to the love of the world and the passions of the flesh there is the problem of self-will to deal with. Self-will is the ultimate source of all sin. Self-will originated with Satan when he was one of the two cherubim that guarded the Throne of God. Can you see from this that entering the spirit realm does not of itself free us from self-will? Self-will and all other sin began in the spirit realm. Self-will is a spiritual compulsion, not a physical force, even though it is an integral part of our personality.

To be continued.