Do You Do What You Hate?

In the April 1 issue of Korsets Seier we read as follows:

If we were as perfect as Christ in His glory or as perfect as God in eternity, it would be impossible to do things that we would later hate. But are we really that perfect? If we were, there would be perfect, harmonious unity in our fellowship. Is that the way it is? No, it is evident that even after people have received the baptism of the Spirit and the gift of tongues, they can live in separate factions. That, in turn, shows that they do not heed the Spirit, whose task is to lead us into all truth. Instead, they allow the lusts in their members to be active. Jas. 4:1. These lusts cause factions which, according to Gal. 5:19-20, are “works of the flesh,” or in other words, “sinful deeds,” which are in the same category as fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contensions, jealousies, etc. Wouldn’t it be good if a person could hate and depart from the very source of these factions? If everyone were to excel in serving each other and to outdo one another in serving, it would be impossible for factions to form; but when one person wants to dominate another, factions start to form. That is why we have the cross: in order to be able to put to death everything that would exalt itself in arrogance.

When a child has done something wrong, and everything about them shows that they hate what they have done, can the parents then with a good conscience chasten them? No, chastisement is meant to produce acknowledgement; but when the child already hates their bad behavior, it shows that chastisement is already having an effect and the child already feels convicted. If this is the case, does this hate make them cling tighter to sin, or does it cause them to separate themself from it? Praise God, it causes them to separate themself from it. Does a person cling to what he hates? Is it not true that he who bears hatred in his heart is a murderer? Without hating even our own life in this world, we cannot be His disciples. It is hatred for our own life that puts self-life to death. It is hatred for our own self-imposed works that puts them to death. Some people say: “Yes, that may be so, but according to Rom. 8:4, the requirement of the law is to be fulfilled in us, we who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. How could we then do what we hate? Wouldn’t that be bondage?”

Notice that it says: “the requirement of the law.” What does the law require? How far does it reach? If the requirement of the law could produce righteousness, faith would not be necessary. Gal. 3:11. The requirement of the law is only meant to keep us under guard, to protect us from transgressing. Gal. 3:23.

But now, in Christ, we have come into a much deeper cleansing relationship, a relationship that the “requirement of the law” never could have led us to.

The law only requires that a person not commit adultery, but “the law of the Spirit” requires that we should not even look at a woman to lust for her.

From this we conclude that there are things within us that we must hate and judge, even within that realm where the requirement of the law has been fulfilled.

Condemnation comes if I transgress the “requirement of the law.” But if I hate my life in this world, in areas where “the law” has no access, that shows that I have become a partaker with Christ in what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh. Rom. 8:3.

Vigilance and love for the truth will bring us to self-acknowledgement. In this we will find many different things in the light of the Spirit—things that are within the realm of the requirement of the law—that must be put to death by the Spirit. If we put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, we will live. Rom. 8:13.

So a person who has received the Spirit has deeds to put to death, because how could they put them to death by the Spirit if they didn’t already have the Spirit? If they are to put such deeds to death by the Spirit, is it so strange that they first hated them by the same Spirit?

Those who live this life have use for the blood of Christ, because the blood (sacrifice) cleanses and frees our conscience from dead works.

From this we conclude the following: