Tuesday | 16 July 2024
Jesus said, ‘Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.’ Mat 5:25-26.
In this statement, our adversary is the Spirit Himself. He lusts against our fleshly and self-righteous endeavours in the context of the presbytery and of the church. Gal 5:17. His resistance provokes within us the emotions of sin. Rom 7:5. These emotions reveal that we are living in a carnal manner; that is, according to our own understanding and the sight of our own eyes. The Spirit does this so that we will cease from our disobedience and, instead, embrace the obedience that Christ is priesting to us.
‘The way’ that we are walking with the Spirit, who is our adversary on account of our carnality, is the way that Jesus pioneered through His offering and suffering journey as ‘the scapegoat’ and ‘the Lord’s goat’. Heb 5:9. We experience the sufferings that are associated with both goats as we walk on the way that leads to the judgement seat of Christ. We are advised by Christ to ‘agree’ with the Spirit, as our sufferings reveal our carnal condition. To agree with this adversary, we must humble ourselves, turn from our disobedience, and embrace our participation in the body of Christ where the Father has sovereignly placed us.
If we fail to agree with our adversary, the Spirit, under the conditions of judgement and chastening that we experience because of our carnality, we will be ‘thrown into prison’. We will not be able to leave until we have paid ‘the last penny’. Jesus was saying that our ‘imprisonment’ would be eternal, for we are unable to make any payments toward our release. It is a terrifying reality that a person can be imprisoned in this manner, even before they physically die. Heb 6:4-6.
Further Study:
HEBREWS 6
References:
Mat 5:25-26
Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.
Gal 5:17
For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
Rom 7:5
For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.
Heb 5:9
And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.
Heb 6:4-6
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.