The Ways of the Heart
Frank Allnutt

Section 5: The Ways of Satan vs. The Ways of God

Page 3: You Were Made Alive To God

The whole point of Christianity is that the believer has been made alive to God—taken out of bondage to Satan and other spiritual masters, and brought into a personal relationship with Him through unity with Christ. “Now if [since] we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him...consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:8, 11).

Figure 5-5:

You were made positionally, relationally, and ontologically alive to God and His kingdom of light when you were resurrected with Christ. God resurrected your personhood with Christ and gave you a new spiritual heart, the indwelling of His Spirit, and His eternal life. Without your new spiritual heart you would not be a Christian, you could not have a relationship with God, and you could not enter His kingdom.

God has brought you into the closest of all relationships: a heart-to-heart relationship with Himself, in which your heart is united with His heart. He put His Spirit within the spirit of your heart (Ezekiel 36:27), which is also to place the Spirit of Christ in the spirit of your heart (Colossians 1:27). And, in bringing you into unity with Christ, God placed you in Christ (Romans 6:3; 1 Corinthians 1:30).

Because we have unity with Christ, we have unity with one another. Jesus said: “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me” (John 17:19-21).

You are a slave of God
The Bible tells us that God is our “Master” (Colossians 4:1) and that we are “enslaved to God” (Romans 6:22). And yet Jesus said He came to set us free (John 8:22). Is there a contradiction here? How can we be both enslaved and free?

The word “slave” conjures up all sorts of negative thoughts because the term refers to a person who is the actual or ostensible property of and wholly subject to someone or some thing outside of self; a bond servant. Thus an individual can be enslaved to another person, an ideology, a chemical substance, or even certain habitual behavior.

But if that were not enough, Scripture also tells us we were made servants of Christ (1 Timothy 4:6). Slave? Servant? What do those terms mean in this context? At first thought, servanthood might not seem much better than enslavement. How can we be servants and still be free? Slaves and servants must do the work of their master. We could rationalize the apparent contradiction that doing God’s work is freedom by comparison with doing the work of the Devil. But there is more truth to it than that.

I think Paul’s point is that serving God is thankfulness, an honor, a blessing, a duty, a privilege, and worship and praise of Him. But it would be a tragic misunderstanding to think that we must serve God in order to maintain good standing with Him in order to avoid “losing” salvation or to be punished.

The biblical terms “master” and “slave” refer to the authority of one over the other. As Christians we submit to our Lord.

There are other aspects of this which must not be overlooked. The first has to do with the identity we have in Christ. Masters own their slaves. And slaves are identified by who owns them. I have read that in early America it was not uncommon for African slaves to take the surname of their master. So a slave’s identity was found both in their ownership by their master as well as in the acquired surname of their master.

A contemporary analogy
Another aspect of our identity has to do with our likeness to our Master. I will use a contemporary analogy to illustrate this.

Among the variety of things I do, I produce Christian videos. The original recorded video tapes are digitized into a computer and edited. The finished version is called a “master.” It is used for duplicating copies on to video cassettes or DVDs. The master is placed into a playback deck, and blank tapes or discs are placed in recording decks called “slaves.” The machines are started simultaneously, and the contents of the master are duplicated onto the blank tapes or discs on the slaves. In the end, the slave tapes or discs are no longer blank, but are identical copies of the master.

So when the Bible says we are enslaved to God, it might be helpful to think that the Master transferred the life, nature, and glory of His Son into the spirit of your new spiritual heart. At the same time, He gave you a new soul and placed in it the Christlike faculties of mind, emotion, and will. (But He did not transfer His unique personhood to you; your personhood was resurrected with Him.) As a slave of God, then, you derive your life and spiritual nature from your Master, and your identity is in Him, just as the identity of a slave or duplicate video tape is in its master tape.

Now, let’s read Romans 6:22 in it entirety to get a direct biblical perspective of what it means to be enslaved to God: “But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.”

Conditional slavery
The Half-Hearted Christian does not fully experience his sanctification, new life, and freedom in Christ. He walks or lives in conditional enslavement, according to the flesh and old spiritual masters. By walking in their ways, he is obedient to them and not to the Lord Jesus Christ. And, as Paul writes, “when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey...” (Romans 6:15a).

Paul goes on in Romans 6 to explain that to present ourselves for obedience to someone or something other than Christ is a sin that results in death or separation from fellowship with Him (not relationship). However, if we present ourselves as slaves of obedience to God, we experience two wonderful blessings: sanctification and eternal life (Romans 6:22). We’ve already discussed eternal life in some detail, now let’s review what it means for God to sanctify us. The dictionary gives these definitions of sanctify: “1. to make holy; set apart as sacred; consecrate. 2. to purify or free from sin: sanctify your hearts. 3. to impart religious sanction to; render legitimate or binding: sanctify a vow. 4. to entitle to reverence or spiritual blessing.”

Did you notice that the dictionary echoes the Bible’s teaching that we are sanctified in our hearts? God gave you a sanctified new heart. It is absolutely and irreversibly holy, pure, and free from bondage to sin. And it made you a legitimate child of God, which entitles you to an inheritance of abundant blessings.

So, there is no contradiction between Christ’s proclamation that He came to set us free of our old humanity and old spiritual masters, and Paul’s teaching that we are enslaved to God.

While our spiritual baptism into Christ resulted in our ontological sanctification, we can continue to be sanctified conditionally and functionally when our heart is right with God—is “whole.” This opens the door of our soul to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And when our heart is right with God and we are led by His Spirit, we walk in His ways. The process of progressive sanctification will be completed or perfected in us at the instant Christ returns.

The Roman Christians, like all believers, received ontological sanctification and eternal life at the time of their salvation. But Paul, writing in Romans 6, moved beyond the salvational issues to address sanctification and eternal life from the conditional/functional/behavioral perspectives. He tells the Romans that, through loving “obedience from the heart” (Romans 6:17), they present themselves as slaves for obedience to God, and that through such loving obedience, they can experience the benefits of sanctification and eternal life in their present daily lives (Romans 6:22). And the same good news applies to all of us who are “enslaved” to God.

God is your new Father
All of us are born with Satan as our spiritual father; however, at the time a person becomes a Christian, his relationship with Satan ends and a new relationship begins with a new Father: God. John writes, “By this the children of God and the children of the Devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God...” (1 John 3:10).

Jesus indicated that Satan is the spiritual father of all natural people (John 8:44). You were crucified with Christ to that horribly dysfunctional relationship and resurrected into a blessed new relationship with God as your Father. When speaking of God we often refer to Him as “Father.” When praying to Him, we address Him as “Father.”

The Bible is full of references to God being our Father. Among those in the New Testament are: Matthew 5:16, 6:1, 4, 6, 9, 18; Philippians 2:11; Hebrews 1:5; 1 Peter 1:3; 2 Peter 1:17; and Jude 1.

Since God is our Father, we also find numerous references to Christians being the children of God, among them:

But as many as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12, 13).

All who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God...it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants (Romans 8:14-16, 9:8).

We think of an adoption as the legal process of obtaining a child through an adoption agency. However, that child is not, and will never become, a biological offspring of his new parents. But your adoption by God goes beyond that kind of adoption: it makes you a spiritual offspring of God. This is because His spiritual seed gave you spiritual rebirth in Christ (Galatians 3:16; 1 John 3:9). When you died to Satan, you died as his “child.” And when you were reborn and made alive in Christ, you became a child of God.

You are an heir of God
As a child of God, you are His heir. Paul wrote to the Romans that “we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16, 17). And to the Galatians he wrote: “Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God” (Galatians 4:7).

We are members of God’s family; we are His heirs, along with His firstborn Son. What does it mean to be an heir of the Father and a fellow heir with Christ? It means that, because we are God’s children, we inherit all that is His—“all things” (Hebrews 1:2).

I don’t know how it works in your family, but in most traditional families there is a general understanding of joint ownership of family possessions—not fatherly ownership at the exclusion of mother and children. The house is “our house.” The family car is “our car.” It’s the same in God’s family: All that is His is ours.

You are a brother of Jesus
Since God is your Father as well as the Father of Jesus, He is your brother: “For both He [Jesus] who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He [Jesus] is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying ‘I will proclaim Thy name to My brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will sing Thy praise’” (Hebrews 2:11, 12).

This sibling relationship with Christ does not take away from His being God and Lord of all, and it does not make us gods. He is our brother, but He is also our Lord—the Lord of all (Acts 10:36; Romans 10:12), even Lord of lords and King of kings (1 Timothy 6:15).

You are the bride of Christ
You are also the bride of Christ (Revelation 19:7-9). There is nothing incestuous here. We are the brethren of Christ because of our common Father. We are the bride of Christ, made one with Him, which is reflected in the institution of marriage, when a husband and wife become one in spirit. The focus here is on spiritual unity and headship. We are one in Christ, yet He has headship authority and responsibility in our relationship with Him. He is the head of His body, which is the Church (Ephesians 5:23). He is the head of every person (1 Corinthians 11:3). He is the head over all things (Ephesians 1:22).

Headship also indicates that Jesus is the source of our life and all our needs, somewhat like the head of a river is the source of the river’s water. Jesus is our source of “living water” (John 4:10)—life, love, peace, and joy. Indeed, He is love, joy, and peace. He is our very life. He is our everything!

You are a friend of Jesus
If you have been blessed with a close friend in your life, then you can appreciate more fully what it means to be called a friend of Jesus. He said, “you are my friends.... You did not choose Me, but I chose you...” (John 15:14, 16). And how prophetic it was when He said, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Your body belongs to God
You have a physical relationship as well as a spiritual relationship with God: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her? For He says, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1 Corinthians 6:15-17).

Before you were crucified and resurrected with Christ, you were in a body-and-heart relationship with Adam and Satan. But now your entire being, including your mortal body, is related to God. In fact, He owns your body, as well as your heart, having bought them for the highest price ever paid for anything: the precious life of His Son. And having bought your body, He has given it the greatest of honors: He sanctified it and made it His Temple (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19, 20), in which His Spirit dwells.

There is no relationship closer than the relationship you have with God. He is your Father and you are His child. You are the brother of Christ and a joint heir with Him. You are the bride of Christ. You are a friend of Christ. God gave His heart to you, and you share His eternal life and holy and righteous nature. Your very identity is in Him. His Spirit dwells within you; your body is His sacred Temple.

Yielding to God
In our relationship with God, we are united with Him, His Son, His Spirit, His love, His kingdom, and His grace. Those are positional, relational, and ontological absolutes in that they are irrevocable and unchangeable. But there are also the conditional, functional, and behavioral aspects of our lives which are quite changeable, and it is in this arena that most believers experience defeat rather than victory.

The Half-Hearted Christian consistently walks in some if not all of these ways:

1. as a prideful, self-centered person, or

2. as if a victim, unloved and unaccepted by God;

3. as if he were, or could become, self-sufficient;

4. as if he were an old-hearted, old man in Adam;

5. as if he were still in the darkness and the flesh;

6. as if he were still enslaved to Satan, sin, the world, and the law.

The Whole-Hearted Christian, by contrast, experiences the abundant life (Christ as life) on a more consistent basis. And it begins with a change of heart. Through brokenness, he experiences the insufficiency of self apart from God. Out of a broken and contrite heart he is motivated by his love for God to repent of his self-centered, fleshly manner of living, and to set his heart on walking in the Spirit. Through walking in the Spirit, he enjoys fellowship with the indwelling Spirit of Christ, experiences the dynamics of Christ’s Spirit in every aspect of his being and behavior, and is blessed through Christ’s sufficiency in satisfying all of his legitimate needs and desires.

Ontologically, the Whole-Hearted Christian, like all believers, is holy and righteous in the nature of his shared life with Christ, but he is not conditionally and functionally perfect, and will not attain such perfection in mortal life. Once in a while he may experience a moment of fleshliness and commit a sin, but he has repented of his old ways and is unlikely to revert to any consistent patterns of fleshly, worldly living; most of the time he walks in the Spirit.

Walking in the Spirit takes place in the heart and through behavior:

With the Whole-Hearted Christian, the inner man functions in the Spirit
This believer’s uncompromising love for God has functionally united his soul with his spirit, so that the inner man functions in harmony with the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Figure 5-6:

In this wholehearted condition, the believer’s mind, emotion, and will are totally yielded in loving submission to God, and therefore function in His Spirit. To function in the Spirit is also to function in Christ, and to abide with God, rest in God, and to wait on God.

With the Whole-Hearted Christian, the outer man functions in the Spirit
This believer’s behavior and life-style are consistent with being a new-hearted, new creature in Christ. He is wholeheartedly yielded to and centered in Christ—has consecrated his entire person and life in this world to God alone (Romans 12:1), and is totally dependent on Christ’s sufficiency.

As a result of walking in the Spirit, the Whole-Hearted Christian is “led by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:18a), his soul is “filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18) and with the “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22). His life reflects Christlikeness and the glory of God, and this magnifies the glory of the Father and the Son.

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