No need to stay blind and dead

As my pastor often points out, neither God nor Satan blinds anyone from believing; the blindness is the consequence of a person not believing and willfully rejecting the truth. 

Paul states in II Corinthians 4:4, [4] In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Paul writes in Ephesians 4, [17] This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
[18] Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.

*****

The unsaved man’s body is called ‘the body of sin’ in Romans 6:6: [6] Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

“Your sin nature is genetically present in your makeup and its seat of residence is your body and that’s where the function of depravity exists,” explains Jordan. “So your spirit is dead, your soul is dark and your body is the source and the seat of sin.

“Romans 6:17-18 says, [17] But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
[18] Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

“Before you got saved you were the servant of sin. Your soul was connected to an enslaved body; your old sin nature. Your life was dominated, controlled and dictated to by sin that dwelt in you.

“You willingly chose to go that way. The emotions and the different functions of your soul were tantalized and led about and pleased by what your flesh did, but the sin that dwelt in your body was the master of your life.

He says in verse 16, [16] Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? Jesus said, ‘Whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin.’

“The point in I Corinthians is he can’t get the things from God because he’s got a dead spirit that’s alienated from God’s life. He’s got a soul that can’t get anything anyway (no light, just stumbling around in the dark) and he’s got a depraved body that runs to this stuff just as hard and fast as it can go.

*****

“Now, your old sin nature has two facets to it; it’s got a bent to it. One way goes toward lasciviousness, or overt evil, and the other goes toward aestheticism, or human good. One will try for culture and religion and the other will just try to be contrary to the ‘good’ side of things.

“God won’t accept human good any more than He’ll accept human evil. Isaiah 64:6 says, [6] But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. If they ever get a modern bible translation where that verse is translated literally, you won’t want me to quote it to you in the pulpit; you’d think I was being vulgar. That’s a strong passage.

“At Christmas time, why is that everybody is so nice? Because it’s an opportunity for people to do something nice and feel good about doing it. That’s true even among the wicked and what that is is there’s a part of their nature that wants to do it.

“Have you ever noticed there are two things the world honors? You take the most godless wicked reprobate in the world and he’ll still honor ignorance and innocence. Of course, there isn’t much of that in the world anymore.

“That unsaved man can’t get the things from God; he doesn’t qualify. But when he gets saved, God so radically changes him that he not only can receive the things of God and enjoy and understand them, he can literally live in and through Jesus Christ for God’s glory.

*****

“Paul says in Romans 6:11, [11] Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

“If you’re going to know God, you’re going to have to know Him through Jesus Christ. Everybody else is walking around in the dark. They’re like blind bats flying backwards in a dark cave. They can’t find anything except the wall they’ll hit one day.

“You can go to science and get all the evidence that there has to be a Creator and you’ll never find a Creator. The only place you’re going to find a Creator is in Jesus Christ. He tells you, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’

“That’s why He’s ‘the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.’ But He wasn’t a capricious Creator; He didn’t just create all this stuff. The verse says it was ‘created BY Him and FOR Him.’ He had a purpose. Paul says in Colossians 1:17, ‘And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.’

“Notice the tremendous statement Paul just keeps making about who Christ is! If He’s before all things, then all things in creation--He was there before they showed up.

"That means He’s outside of creation. He’s outside of time. How can He be outside of creation? He can’t be a creature, that’s how. He’d have to be the Creator. That’s why John 1 says ‘[3] All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.’ ”

*****

“When it says ‘by him all things consist,’ it’s not talking about how Jesus is up in heaven saying, ‘Hold it together, Lord, hold it together.’ It’s not, ‘Hold those atoms together and keep those other things from falling apart.’

“It isn’t that God’s all the time having to think, ‘Keep it together, keep it together, keep it together.’ If that was the case, you’d think, ‘What if something distracted Him?!’

“Hebrews says, ‘Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.’

“That’s saying He preserves it by the word of His power. He spoke a word. Now He spoke a word and the Word of God is so powerful that when He spoke it in the past, it has effects that last forever. It’s always true in the present because He spoke it and His Word is that powerful.

“It’s His Word that keeps everything together today. And, verse 18 says He is the head of the body, the church. That’s us. ‘[18] And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.'

*****

“The ‘all things’ Paul’s talking about in this passage has a context. What’s the context? Verse 16: [16] For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

“What things? The governmental structure that he placed in the heaven and in the earth. All of this organized structure of government that He placed in the universe, in the heavens and the earth, were created by Him and for Him. He was made the head of the body.

“Verse 20 says, [20] And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

“People use verse 20 to say that Jesus Christ through the Cross reconciled all things and that means even the devil’s going to be saved. That’s one of the verses people use for universal reconciliation to say that lost people won’t be lost forever, that eventually because of the Crosswork God’s going to reconcile all things and all things means all things. But ‘all things’ means all things in the context.

“What he’s talking about is God reconciling, not individual lost sinners to Himself, but the system of the government of the universe. Verses 21 and 22: [21] And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
[22] In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:

“There’s your reconciliation. There’s the individual reconciliation. There’s your individual participation in this reconciliation of the structure that He created in the universe. That’s important because verse 18 says that the reason He’s ‘made the head of the body’ is so that in all those things He might have preeminence.”