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Through the Bible with Les Feldick
LESSON 1 * PART 4 * BOOK 38
Ephesians 4:12-24
Ephesians 4:22
"That ye put off concerning the former conversation (manner of living) the old man, (old Adam) which is corrupt according to deceitful lusts;"
God has always promised that people would be judged all the way up through Scripture.
It goes without saying that when Israel, God’s covenant people, would go down the tube as we put it today, God would judge. So God would not hesitate to judge that little nation when they needed to be judged.
So you can see that God doesn’t always wink at man’s wickedness and put up with it. The first evidence of this is found in Genesis 15, where God is promising Abraham that his offspring, the nation of Israel, would one day be going down into Egypt into slavery and captivity.
Genesis 15:13a
"And he (God) said unto Abram, know of a surety (when God says it, you can bet on it) that thy seed (or offspring) shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs,..." Here God doesn’t name Egypt, but we know now from our side of the coin, that’s who he’s talking about.
Genesis 15:13b-16
Why would God say that? So God says to Caleb, "You’ve got to cleanse the land of them." Well it was God’s judgment on their wickedness. So all the way up through their history there comes points of time periodically when God says, "I’ve had enough."
The great next event before God judged the Canaanites was God’s judgment on mankind with Noah’s flood, and after the flood we find God judged Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis chapter 19. So God’s judgment fell on those people also. And God’s going to judge the world again, because the Bible is just screaming, "There is a judgment coming." Here Jesus is speaking during His earthly ministry.
Luke 21:20-22
Over a million Jews were slaughtered, unmercifully, when Titus finally overran the city of Jerusalem. Now verse 23.
Luke 21:23
What is the controversy with the city of Jerusalem and the nation of Israel at that time? Let His blood be upon our children, and our children’s children. Now here in verse 24 Jesus is still speaking.
Luke 21:24a
Luke 21:24b
The Gentiles cup of iniquity. Just like God said back in Genesis chapter 15 that the cup of iniquity for the Canaanites, was not yet full, and would need another 200 years to fill it, so also the times of the Gentiles at the end time. Over on one side you have the filling of this cup of iniquity on behalf of the Gentiles, but over on the other side you have the filling up of the Body of Christ, the True Church (that’s us). Now let’s look at Romans 11:25, and don’t forget what our Lord said in Luke chapter 21 that we just looked at.
Luke 21:24b
"...and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." In other words God will have to bring his wrath upon the Gentile world – now the other side of the coin we find here in Romans.
Romans 11:25
(the Body of Christ completed)
In Luke it’s the cup of iniquity of the Gentile world. Over here in Romans we have the filling of the Body of Christ. Of course the cup of iniquity of the Gentiles will go 7 years beyond the filling of the Body of Christ. Ephesians 4:24
"And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Romans 6:5-6
"For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 6. Knowing this, that our old man (the old Adam, that old sin nature that we’re born with) is crucified with him, that the body of sin (that influence of the old Adamic nature) might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin."
Romans 6:8
"Now if we be dead with Christ, (by our faith) we believe that we shall also live with him:"
If we identify with His death, burial, and resurrection, by faith, then God identifies us in that same set of circumstances. II Corinthians 5:14
"For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:"
So consequently Christ died for the whole human race, because the whole human race was spiritually dead, and needed salvation. Now verse 15.
II Corinthians 5:15
Paul just pops our salvation Gospel in there all the time. Now verse 16.
II Corinthians 5:16
"Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more."
Now my own idea of this verse is, that Paul is referring to Christ and His earthly ministry. Paul knew all about Jesus of Nazareth, my goodness they were about the same age, and he walked contemporary with Jesus. Our salvation is found in Paul’s writings on this side of the cross. II Corinthians 5:16
Let’s read verse 17, that’s the verse I brought you here in the first place.

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