The false prophet teachers were teaching:

• The material world of matter is evil.
• Christ could not come to the earth in human flesh.
• He came in Spirit and only seemed touchable in human flesh.
• Jesus was not the Son of God.
• Since salvation means deliverance from the physical world, including the physical body, it does not matter how a person behaves in their body.
• Since sin is part of the material world, sin does not exist for the Christian.We (false  prophets) are sinless.
• We (false prophets) have special insight from God’s Spirit to see these deeper truths.

 
GREETING
2 JOHN
1 The elder:

• John is believed to be the author who writes all 3 letters from Ephesus.
• This could have been written to a specific church in the Roman Province since that was John’s main area of ministry.

To the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth—and not only I, but also all who know the truth--

• John is likely referring to an entire congregation.
• These children believe in Jesus within a specific local church though it is certainly applicable to all believers.
• All who believe in Jesus have an inborn love for all who love the truth of God’s grace.
• John is writing from this indwelling love for other Christians.
• Unbelievers do not have the same natural agape love for truth because they are incompatible with truth until they have received the Gospel.

2 because of the truth that remains in us and will be with us forever.

• Contrary to the message John speaks to unbelievers (1 John 1:9) John does not hesitate to remind believers that they are in the truth and that the truth, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, lives in them forever.
• They have believed the Gospel and have been perfectly forgiven and cleansed from all sin.
• Because they have believed in the Gospel, they will forever be one with the grace, mercy, and peace offered by God the Father and Jesus Christ.

3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.

• Grace is not a buzzword for popular teaching movements.
• Grace is the entire framework of God.
• Because of God’s grace, there is mercy from God.
• God decides to not condemn us even though we deserve it.
• This grace and mercy lead to a peaceful relationship with the Trinity.
• There is no longer enmity between believers and God.
• God is not ticked off.
• This is a reality regardless of our feelings and emotional experiences.

 
TRUTH AND DECEPTION
4 I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, in keeping with a command we have received from the Father.

• Some of the members of the church were having trouble maturing in God’s grace.
• This is what John means by walking in the truth.
• Notice that these people have already received the command from the Father to believe in the Son.
• This commandment is not new.
• It is God’s pleading for us to believe in His goodness and love and transmit this love to others.
• Love is the defining characteristic of Christians.

5 So now I ask you, dear lady—not as if I were writing you a new command, but one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. 6 This is love: that we walk according to his commands.

• John is not referring to the Old Covenant law but rather the command to believe in Jesus and love one another (1 John 3:23).
• These are the New Covenant laws: Believe and love.
• We receive God’s love for us in Christ and transmit it to others.

This is the command as you have heard it from the beginning: that you walk in love.
7 Many deceivers have gone out into the world; they do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

• As with 1 John and the Gospel of John, the apostle is combatting the Gnostic heresy that Christ did not come in the flesh.
• This matters because God’s love was manifested in the flesh in Christ.
• If Jesus was merely an illusion, then God’s love was not truly manifested.
• Jesus Christ died physically and truly in a human sense so that He could defeat the very death that plagues us.
• If we remove that from the Gospel, then we have no Gospel at all.

This is the deceiver and the antichrist.

• The antichrist is evidently not a singular figure according to John.
• The antichrist is a group of people who are rejecting Christ’s humanity.
• We see this also in 1 John (see 1 John 2:18).

8 Watch yourselves so that you don’t lose what we have worked for, but that you may receive a full reward.

• John is talking about the benefit of knowing God’s love in this life.
• He does not want anyone to fall short of understanding God’s love.

9 Anyone who does not remain in Christ’s teaching but goes beyond it does not have God.

• There is a difference between being confused about God’s love and being so far from understanding it that one is not truly saved.
• However, John does leave room for people to be so far from the Gospel that they are not saved.
• In the context, this is referring to Gnostics, but John did not want anyone on the fence about Jesus to be deceived into their heresy.

The one who remains in that teaching, this one has both the Father and the Son.

• True Christians will have an abiding faith in Jesus and consequently will forever be in relationship with the Father and the Son.
• Jesus died and rose again because He wanted us to forever know that He loves us and likes us.

10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your home, and do not greet him; 11 for the one who greets him shares in his evil works.

• John wanted believers to keep a large relational distance from the false teachers.
• This would ensure that they were not deceived by the false teachings.
• John is not talking about distancing ourselves from friends or family members who have rejected Christ.
• He is specifically addressing a group of people who were trying to deceive this church by coming directly to their homes.
• Apparently, there was enough temptation being faced by Christians to warrant this command.[1]
  
  

FAREWELL
12 Though I have many things to write to you, I don’t want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to come to you and talk face to face so that our joy may be complete.
13 The children of your elect sister send you greetings.[2]

GREETING
3 JOHN
1 The elder:
To my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in the truth.
2 Dear friend, I pray that you are prospering in every way and are in good health, just as your whole life is going well.

• Could imply that he had been previously ill.

3 For I was very glad when fellow believers came and testified to your fidelity to the truth—how you are walking in truth.

• It is clear that Gaius’ entire life was wrapped up in the truth.
• True living comes from the living truth.

4 I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are walking in truth.

• It is possible that John is the one who shared initial Truth with Gaius and pointed him to salvation in Jesus.
  
  

GAIUS COMMENDED
5 Dear friend, you are acting faithfully in whatever you do for the brothers and sisters, especially when they are strangers. 6 They have testified to your love before the church.

• In practical ways, he assisted those who were ministering the Word.
• We have no indication that Gaius himself was a preacher or teacher, but he opened his heart and home to those who were.[3]

You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God, 7 since they set out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from pagans. 8 Therefore, we ought to support such people so that we can be coworkers with the truth.

• Carmel House Man - Ralph Burke – Hockey game
• Ketchup Man – Kevin Andrews
• Panera Guy - William Joyner
• Scott Long – Ravenswood minister
  
  

DIOTREPHES AND DEMETRIUS
9 I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have first place among them, does not receive our authority. 10 This is why, if I come, I will remind him of the works he is doing, slandering us with malicious words.

• Accusing John of false and empty charges.

And he is not satisfied with that! He not only refuses to welcome fellow believers, but he even stops those who want to do so and expels them from the church.

• The church members who received John’s associates were dismissed from the church!
• Again, it was guilt by association.
• Diotrephes had neither the authority nor the biblical basis for throwing these people out of the church, but he did it.
• Whenever a church has a resident dictator in its membership, there are bound to be problems because people who are spiritually minded will not tolerate that kind of leadership.
• The Holy Spirit is grieved when the members of the body are not permitted to exercise their gifts because one member must have his own way.

11 Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God. 12 Everyone speaks well of Demetrius—even the truth itself. And we also speak well of him, and you know that our testimony is true.

• Demetrius was a man worth imitating because he had a “good report” (witness) from the church fellowship.
• All the members knew him, loved him, and thanked God for his consistent life and ministry.
  
  

FAREWELL
13 I have many things to write you, but I don’t want to write to you with pen and ink. 14 I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.

• John had warned that he was going to visit the church and confront Diotrephes, and no doubt both Gaius and Demetrius would stand with John in opposing the “dictator.”
• They were the kind of men who would support the truth and submit themselves to authentic spiritual authority.
• Because they followed the truth, they could safely be imitated by other believers.[4]

15 Peace to you. The friends send you greetings. Greet the friends by name.[5]

[1] Farley, Andrew. www.BibleCommentary.com. 2 John.
[2] Christian Standard Bible. 2020. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[3] Wiersbe, Warren W. 1996. The Bible Exposition Commentary. Vol. 2. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[4] Wiersbe, Warren W. 1996. The Bible Exposition Commentary. Vol. 2. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[5] Christian Standard Bible. 2020. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

Remind them:

• This is a letter to the Church warning them about the teaching of Gnostics.

 
THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND THE SPIRIT OF ERROR
1 JOHN 4
1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

• John is not talking about supernatural spirits here.
• He is talking about human spirits.
• Each human spirit is about something being in Adam or Christ.
• * DO NOT - This is a PRESENT IMPERATIVE with a NEGATIVE PARTICLE, which usually means to stop an act already in process.
• Christians tend to accept:

1) strong personalities
2) logical arguments, or
3) miraculous events as from God.

• John is writing both to combat the false teachers and to encourage the true believers.
• John is encouraging believers to test the intentions and substance of teachers that come into the church, like Gnostics.
• Gnostics denied that Jesus came in the flesh and, therefore, were not of God.
• John calls those who reject Christ’s humanity the antichrist.
• He does this by using several tests:

a. the doctrinal test (belief in Jesus, cf. I John 2:18–25; 4:1–6, 14–16; 5:1, 5)
b. lifestyle test (obedience, cf. I John 2:3–7; 3:1–10, 22–24)
c. the social test (love, cf. I John 2:7-11; 3:11–18; 4:7–12, 16–21; 5:12)[1]

• Through the incarnation, God announces that His divinity is compatible with our humanity.
• Therefore, if a teacher eliminates the humanity of Jesus, they eliminate the possibility of divine compatibility with humanity.
• This would be a distant God, not one who seeks union with His creation.

2 This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,

• The Holy Spirit always magnifies Jesus.
•   1 Corinthians 12:3 - Therefore I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. [2]

3 but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even now it is already in the world.

• This is the essential doctrinal test for the false teachers (i.e., Gnostics) whom John was combating in this book.
• Its bare assertion is that Jesus is fully human (i.e., flesh) as well as fully God (1:1–4; II John 7; John 1:14; I Tim. 3:16).
• The PERFECT TENSE affirms that Jesus’ humanity was not temporary but permanent.
• This was not a minor issue. Jesus is truly one with humanity and one with God.[3]

4 You (believers) are from God, little children, and you have conquered (overcome) them,

• John is concerned with the Christian’s victory over sin and the devil.
• He uses this term six times in I John (2:13, 14; 4:4; 5:4, 5), 11 times in the Revelation, and once in the Gospel (cf. 16:33).
• This term for victory was used only once in Luke (11:22) and twice in Paul’s writings (Rom. 3:4; 12:21).

because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

• The term “world” in I John always has negative connotations (i.e., human society organized and functioning apart from God).
• The term “world” is used here in the sense of fallen human society trying to meet all its needs apart from God.
• It refers to fallen humanity’s collective independent spirit!
• An example of this is Cain (3:12).
• John is addressing spiritual warfare in this Gnostic context.
• He affirms that believers have overcome Satan because Christ indwells them, and He is stronger than the Devil.
• Christians, therefore, can only be attacked externally through lies and false teachings like Gnosticism.
• They cannot be afflicted by Satan internally. 

5 They (false prophets) are from the world. Therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them.

• The Gnostics were not of God.
• This was seen in their rejection of Jesus’ humanity and the reality of sin (1 John 1:9).

6 We (John & disciples) are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.

• Believers can recognize true preachers/teachers by both the content of their message and who hears and responds to them.

 
KNOWING GOD THROUGH LOVE
7 Dear friends, let us love one another (lifestyle) because love is from God (not human philanthropy, pity, or emotion), and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

• The term “knows” reflects the Hebrew sense of ongoing, intimate fellowship.
• It is the recurrent theme of I John, used over 77 times.
• All who believe in Jesus have the love of God poured into their hearts (see Romans 5:5).
• Whereas lost people can be loving and have moral and ethical standards, Christians have God's eternal life poured out within them.
• We can love fellow Christians in a way that the world will never love.

8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

• Love is God’s nature.
• Everything He does comes from love.
• This love is manifested fully in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the event in human history when God’s love is revealed fully (Romans 5:8).

9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him.

• All of God’s benefits come through Jesus. What are the benefits?)
• Forgiveness is only half of the Gospel.
• The other half is life in Him.

10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

• Jesus Christ’s work completely satisfied God.
• He has removed our sins perfectly because His sacrifice is not an atonement covering as was the case with the temple sacrifices of the Old Testament, but a total removal of our sins.
• God is completely satisfied with Christ’s finished work.
• The NT is unique among the world religions.
• Typically, religion is mankind seeking God, but Christianity is God seeking fallen mankind!
• The wonderful truth is not our love for God but His love for us.
• He has sought us through our sin and self, our rebellion and pride.
• The glorious truth of Christianity is that God loves fallen mankind and has initiated and maintained a life-changing contact.[4]

11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us.

• False prophets claimed to have a vision from God or of God.
• Being with Believers is as close as we can get.

13 This is how we know that we remain (abide) in him (Jesus/Trinity – 1 of 3) and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit (Trinity – 2 of 3). 14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father (Trinity – 3 of 3) has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God.

• The inclusive term “whoever” is the great invitation of God for anyone and everyone to come to Him.
• God promised redemption to the human race in Gen. 3:15.
•  His call to Abraham was to reach the world (Gen. 12:3; Exod. 19:5).
• Jesus’ death dealt with the sin problem (John 3:16).
•  Everyone can be saved if they respond through faith.
• God’s word to all is “Come” (Isaiah 55).[5]
• Confess - This term implies specific, public,  vocal acknowledgment of one’s affirmation     of and commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ.[6]
• If we believe that Jesus came in the flesh and that He was nailed to the cross for our sins, then we are given the right to become children of God.
• This is not a feeling.
• We can feel all types of things, including losing our salvation.
• But these feelings do not reflect reality.

16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. 17 In this, love is made complete (perfected)

• This is from the Greek word telos.
• It implies fullness, maturity, and completion, not sinlessness.[7]

with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment,

• boldness before the throne.

because as he is, so also are we in this world.

• Being a child of God is a reality for all Christians.
• We are born of God and have a new nature.
• This means that we can be confident on the day of judgment because we are as righteous as Jesus is righteous.
• We are no less righteous than Christ Himself.
• If Christ is not judged, then neither are we judged.

18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love.

• What starts in fear, punishment, ends with no fear.
• The perfect love of God in Christ casts out fear because Jesus has removed all of our sins.
• If our sins are completely removed, there is no need to fear condemnation.
• God is set on maturing us into His love so that no lingering fear remains.

19 We love because he first loved us.

• God always takes the initiative.
• We must take the initiative with others… as God did for us.
• This is from the Greek word telos.
• It implies fullness, maturity, and completion, not sinlessness.
• Love indwells Christians because God, who is love, indwells Christians, and has loved us first.
• Love originates from God, and we only love God or one another because God loves us in Christ.
• God initiated a relationship with us.

20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar.

• Conflict is possible, but settled hatred is not.

For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.[8]

• THE LAST VERSE = SUMMARY
• Love is the non-counterfeitable evidence of a true believer.
• Hate is the evidence of a child of the evil one.
• The false teachers were dividing the flock and causing conflict.[9]
• God’s commands are to love Him by believing in the Son and loving fellow Christians (1 John 3:23).

He has rigged the system so that our love for Him is and receiving and transmitting of His love for us.[10]

[1] Utley, R. J. D. (1999). Vol. Volume 4: The Beloved Disciple's Memoirs and Letters: The Gospel of John, I, II, and III John. Study Guide Commentary Series (228). Marshall, Texas: Bible Lessons International.
[2] Christian Standard Bible. 2020. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[3] Utley, R. J. D. (1999). Vol. Volume 4: The Beloved Disciple's Memoirs and Letters: The Gospel of John, I, II, and III John. Study Guide Commentary Series (229). Marshall, Texas: Bible Lessons International.
[4] Utley, R. J. D. (1999). Vol. Volume 4: The Beloved Disciple's Memoirs and Letters: The Gospel of John, I, II, and III John. Study Guide Commentary Series (231). Marshall, Texas: Bible Lessons International.
[5] Utley, R. J. D. (1999). Vol. Volume 4: The Beloved Disciple's Memoirs and Letters: The Gospel of John, I, II, and III John. Study Guide Commentary Series (232). Marshall, Texas: Bible Lessons International.
[6] Utley, R. J. D. (1999). Vol. Volume 4: The Beloved Disciple's Memoirs and Letters: The Gospel of John, I, II, and III John. Study Guide Commentary Series (229). Marshall, Texas: Bible Lessons International.
[7] Utley, R. J. D. (1999). Vol. Volume 4: The Beloved Disciple's Memoirs and Letters: The Gospel of John, I, II, and III John. Study Guide Commentary Series (232). Marshall, Texas: Bible Lessons International.
[8] Christian Standard Bible. 2020. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[9] Utley, R. J. D. (1999). Vol. Volume 4: The Beloved Disciple's Memoirs and Letters: The Gospel of John, I, II, and III John. Study Guide Commentary Series (233). Marshall, Texas: Bible Lessons International.
[10] Farley, Andrew. www.BibleCommentary.com. 1 John 4.

• Living together as one body

LIVING THE NEW LIFE
EPHESIANS 4:17-24
17 Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thoughts.

• Obviously the Lord was in agreement with Paul's teaching.
• Walk = conduct your life
• Gentiles -
     1) Nation of people other than the Jews.
     2) Heathen, ungodly, unregenerate pagan
             persons.
     (1 Thessalonians 4:5‎ - not with lustful passions, like the Gentiles, who don’t know God.[1])
• Ephesus was a Gentile city famous for temple of Diana (Roman name) or Artemis (Greek).
• - Diana was a sex/fertility goddess.
• Futility = vanity, folly or emptiness
• Striving after wind... for what?
• ‎A.W. Tozer – “Israel did not reject the Lord because of philosophical reasons. Israel’s rejection was for moral reasons.…
• ’m telling you this, and it’s a statement that I need not modify. I do not believe there is anybody that ever rejects Jesus Christ on philosophical grounds.

The man who continues in his rejection of Christ has a pet sin somewhere--he’s in love with iniquity.
He rejects Jesus on moral grounds, and then hides behind false philosophy—philosophical grounds.…
I believe that every one of these who are having intellectual difficulties is hiding because he is morally reprobate. When we fall in love with our sin, we can imagine and manufacture 10,000 syllogisms to keep us away from the cross.”
18 They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts.

• Darkened = the spiritual condition before Christ.
• Excluded = alienated, stranger or separated
• Ignorance = not with the intellectual matters of the world but the things of God.
• Hardness of their heart = sin nature inherited from Adam.
• Ephesians 2:3‎ - We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.[2]
• The sin nature is eradicated when a person receives Jesus.
• Romans 6:6 - ‎For we know that our old self was crucified with him ...[3]
• Galatians 2:20 - I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.[4]
• 2 Corinthians 5:17 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come![5]

 

• A.W. Tozer – “It may shock some readers to suggest that there is a difference between being “Bible taught” and “Spirit taught.”

Nevertheless, it is so!
It is altogether possible to be instructed in the rudiments of the faith and still have no real understanding of the whole thing. And it is possible to go on to become expert in Bible doctrine and not have spiritual illumination, with the result that a veil remains over the mind, preventing it from apprehending the truth in its spiritual essence.
Most of us are acquainted with churches that teach the Bible to their children, reinforce it with catechism classes, and still never produce in them a living Christianity nor an energized godliness.
Their members show no evidence of having passed from death unto life. None of the earmarks of salvation so plainly indicated in the Scriptures are found among them. Their religious lives are correct and reasonably moral, but wholly mechanical and altogether lacking in radiance.
Many of them are pathetically serious about it all, but they are spiritually blind, getting along with the outward shell of faith while all the time their deep hearts are starving for spiritual reality.
It has been said that “The Scriptures, to be understood, must be read with the same Spirit that originally inspired them.” No one denies this, but even such a statement will go over the heads of those who hear it unless the Holy Spirit inflames the heart!”

• This has nothing to do with salvation
• It is a matter of experiencing the abundant life.

19 They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more.

• Callous = cease to care.
• Particularly about the things they do or how they are perceived by those around them.
• Openly committing sin.
• They have desensitized themselves and can no longer pursue the things of God.

20 But that is not how you came to know (learn) Christ,

• Probably in reference to salvation.
• Paul is indicating at some point you became separated from those who did not know Christ.

21 assuming you heard about him and were taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus,

• “Assuming” = makes reference to the fulfilled condition.
• 03/25/19 - In a live appearance at UCLA’s Royce Hall, Oprah explains why it’s important for all of us to find our own truth.
• “What is the truth of me? Why am I here? And what do I have to offer?”
• Oprah asks. “The answer,” she says, “is yourself.”
• Oprah shares why you are enough, just as you are…
• There is no “your truth”
• There is “your opinions” and “your experiences”.
• But there is only one truth.
• John 18:37-38 - “You are a king then?” Pilate asked.

“You say that I’m a king,” Jesus replied. “I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

• 38 “What is truth?” said Pilate.[6]
• Absolute Truth - Absolute truth is true regardless of how a person thinks or feels about it.
• Relative Truth - Relative truth is the belief truth changes based on the individual’s understanding of it.
• The problem with relative truth it is a contradiction in terms.
• If truth is factual and indisputable then you cannot have different truths for different people.
• Relative truth is a rejection of absolute truth.
• The Truth comes from Jesus. (John 14:6)
• It is constant (never changes)
• It is objective (no favorites)
• It will prevail

22 to take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires,

• former way of life = before Christ.
• Paul makes reference to his former manner and days before Christ to better identify with his audience.
• But we have to be careful not to use our past mistakes as an opportunity to glorify the flesh.
• old self = sin nature inherited by Adam
• lay aside = aorist infinitive (tense is not defined).‎ laid aside, lay aside, laying aside, put, put aside, putting aside.
• If this verse is teaching that the old self remains after transformation then it contradicts Romans 6:6 & Colossians 3:9-10‎ - Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.[7]
• John Murray and HCSB say that past tense is indicated here.
• It is the only way all of these verses can be filtered together.
• There is a battle. But it is not between the Old Self and New Self.
  Romans 7:23 – but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body.[8]
• This verse explains it as the warring of the New Self and the power of sin that dwells in our flesh.
• Who is it that sins?
• It is the New Man who needs to mature in knowledge of Christ and their behavior will naturally begin to line up with what they know and believe.
• The old self is easily corrupted by deceit.
• The desires/lust are being intensified.

23 to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

• Not only does God renew the spirit of the believer's mind at salvation, but continues the process throughout the believer's lifetime.
• Spirit of your mind = attitude, thoughts, purpose or bent.
• How is this possible if you still have the Old Self attached?
•  It is impossible for the Old Self to understand spiritual truth.

24 and to put on, the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.[9]

• Past tense is indicated here.
• Paul is encouraging his readers to realize they are already the new self (new man).
• The believer is not a lowly sinner saved by grace, but a saint who sometimes sins.
• The result is that the Christian is to discern and prove the will of God [10]
• A.W. Tozer – “The answer is that we are too comfortable, too rich, too contented. We hold the faith of our fathers, but it does not hold us. We are suffering from judicial blindness visited upon us because of our sins. To us has been committed the most precious of all treasures, but we are not committed to it. We insist upon making our religion a form of amusement and will have fun whether or not. We are afflicted with religious myopia and see only things near at hand.

God has set eternity in our hearts and we have chosen time instead. He is trying to interest us in a glorious tomorrow and we are settling for an inglorious today. We are bogged down in local interests and have lost sight of eternal purposes. We improvise and muddle along, hoping for heaven at last but showing no eagerness to get there, correct in doctrine but weary of prayer and bored with God.”[11]

• Golf lesson
     - Non golfer
     - Teaching you the correct way
     - Trust – Dr. Rob Bell
     - Scared to play

[1] Christian Standard Bible (1 Th 4:5). (2020). Holman Bible Publishers.
[2] Christian Standard Bible (Eph 2:3). (2020). Holman Bible Publishers.
[3] Christian Standard Bible (Ro 6:6–7). (2020). Holman Bible Publishers
[4] Christian Standard Bible (Ga 2:20). (2020). Holman Bible Publishers.
[5] Christian Standard Bible (2 Co 5:17). (2020). Holman Bible Publishers.
[6] Christian Standard Bible (Jn 18:37–38). (2020). Holman Bible Publishers.
[7] Christian Standard Bible (Col 3:9–10). (2020). Holman Bible Publishers.
[8] Christian Standard Bible (Ro 7:23). (2020). Holman Bible Publishers.
[9] Christian Standard Bible (Eph 4:17–24). (2020). Holman Bible Publishers.
[10] Olford, S. F., & Olford, D. L. (1998). Anointed Expository Preaching (348). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
[11] Tozer, A. W., & Eggert, R. (1998). Vol. 2: The Tozer Topical Reader (273–274). Camp Hill, PA.: WingSpread.