At present, we are working with the light of truth presented by Dr. Francis Schaeffer from his book True Spirituality where we are discussing the basic considerations of the Christian life, or true Christianity.

Part 14

Continuing….Through Death to Resurrection..

We must not stop here! When through faith I am dead to all, and am face-to-face with God, then I am ready by faith to come back into this present world, as though I have already been raised from the dead. It is as though I anticipate that day when I will come back. I will be in that number, as will all who have accepted Jesus as Savior, when the heavens open and we come back, following Jesus Christ in our resurrected, glorified bodies. And so now I am ready to come back as though back from the grave, as though the resurrection had already taken place, and step back into this present historic, space-time world.  

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:11)  

Do not present (here is your faith) your members (that is, in this present world) to sin as instruments (weapons, arms, tools) for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life (right now), and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. (Romans 6:13)

So what is the Christian calling, on the basis of all this? It is a calling, moment by moment, to be dead to all things, that we might be alive to God at this moment.  

We must notice, however, that this is not a sheer passivity. Often, it seems to me, Christians have missed the whole point here by relating this merely to some sort of passivity. But that would be simply a nonbiblical mysticism, not much more than the pagan Stoic concept of Marcus Aurelius. That would be merely a resignation, the French word accepter. It is like the beast in the field that cannot move. But it is not this way in the Scriptures. I am still a man, made in the image of God. “present your members,” commands Paul—actively present, or yield (Romans 6:13). It is not a state of passivity. You cannot bring forth the fruit, as we shall see later, but nevertheless you are not a figure of stone. God deals with you in the circle in which he made you, man in his own image.  

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?  But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.  I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. (Romans 6:16-19) 

Feel the force of the “activeness” in the midst of the passivity. “Present yourselves”: every man must be a creature. He can be nothing else but a creature in this life or in the life to come. Even in hell, men will still be creatures, because that is what we are. Only one is self-sufficient in himself, and he is God. But now as Christians we are introduced to the great reality:  our calling is to be creatures in this high, tremendous, and glorious way, not because we must be, but by choice. 

Thoughts developed or used directly from the work of Schaeffer, Francis. True Spirituality . Tyndale House Publishers, Inc