Many people are drawn by the state, 财富, and provisions of another country and decide to leave their country. They go to a country that gives them what they long for. But although they leave their house and homeland, many don’t renounce their culture, 习惯, 宗教, and the laws they grew up with and don’t want to give up their nationality and passport. 所以, many people live with dual nationality (citizenship) and have two passports, which they use to access both countries. Many Christians think that the Kingdom of God also works that way. They desire the provisions of the Kingdom of God but want to live like the world. But the Kingdom of God has no dual nationality.
Can Christians live in the Kingdom of God with a dual nationality?
Many Christians desire the provisions of God’s Kingdom and live in the Kingdom without renouncing their nationality by birth aka their old life as the old creation.
They think that through a confession of faith and 洗礼, they can enter the Kingdom of God and 得救 and then live in the Kingdom with dual nationality and use two passports. But the Kingdom of God has no dual nationality.
在神的国度里, you can’t have dual citizenship and retain two passports to live in the Kingdom of God and the darkness (世界).
There are laws in the Kingdom of God, which are written in the Bible and through the abiding of the Holy Spirit are written on the heart of the new creation, which apply to all Kingdom citizens.
These laws apply to everyone, who has repented and is born again in Christ (baptism in water and the receiving of the Holy Spirit) 并从黑暗转移到耶稣基督的国度.
A Christian can’t be a citizen of the Kingdom of God and a citizen of the kingdom of darkness.
Every kingdom has its own king, 政府, and law. You belong to the kingdom and the king, to whom you yield yourself, whose government you obey, and whose laws (诫命) you keep.
Can you live in the Kingdom of God and walk in darkness?
And yet, there are many Christians, who retain dual citizenship and use both passports for the spirit and the flesh and live in two kingdoms.
They use the spiritual passport for the promises and provisions of God and to be saved from hell, because they don’t want to go to hell but to heaven.
They use the carnal passport to return to their old lives (and habits) and live like the world and keep doing the works of the flesh (罪). If they give up this passport, they don’t have access to the darkness and they can’t do all those things their heart and flesh longs for and which the world has to offer.
And so they claim the promises of God for the new creation while living after the flesh as the old creation (在罪中).
Through this kind of faith and behavior the gospel has been humanized and many churches, which are supposed to represent Jesus Christ and His Kingdom and law, are defiled by sin and have become powerless and made a mockery. They have rejected the truth of God’s Word and live in a lie. (另请阅读: 教会是社会机构还是上帝的力量?).
The passport for the old creation and the passport for the new creation
因此，我们确实知道我们认识他, 如果我们遵守他的诫命. 说, 我认识他, and keepeth not His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in Him (1 约翰 2:4)
The Kingdom of God has no dual nationality (citizenship). 在神的国度里, you can’t hold dual nationality and keep two passports. You can’t have a passport for the new creation and hold on to the passport for the old creation.
You can’t live like the world in darkness in the Kingdom of God. It is either the spirit or the flesh.
It is either living after the 神的旨意 和他的话语, which reigns by the Holy Spirit in the spirit, or the will of the devil, 在肉体中掌权的.
But you can’t obey, serve, and please both, since the flesh rebels against the Spirit.
这 罪与死的法则, 在肉体中掌权的, won’t submit to God, His Word, and His law of the Spirit of life.
所以, those, who are in the flesh and walk after the flesh and do 肉体的行为, can’t please God.
As a matter of fact, the Bible says that everyone, who keeps doing the works of the flesh and walks in sin has not seen God, has not known Him, has not been born of God, doesn’t belong to Him, and has no part in Him (哦. 1 约翰 1:5-7; 3:4-10; 5:18, 希伯来书 10:26-30).
The Spirit and the flesh don’t go together but are contrary to each other
那我就这么说, 顺着圣灵而行, 不可放纵肉体的情欲. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, 圣灵对抗肉体: 这些是彼此相反的: 所以你们不能做你们想做的事. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. 现在肉体的行为已经显露出来, 这是哪些; 通奸, 淫乱, 不洁, 淫荡, 偶像崇拜, 巫术, 仇恨, variance, 仿真, 愤怒, 冲突, seditions, 异端邪说, envyings, 谋杀, 醉态, revellings (carousings), 诸如此类: 我之前告诉过你的, 正如我过去也告诉过你的, that they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God (加拉太书 5:16-21)
If you are justified by the blood of Jesus Christ, and born of God, and entered the Kingdom of God through baptism (the death and resurrection in Christ) 以及圣灵的内住, then you shall do the will of the Spirit and bear the fruit of the Spirit instead of doing the will of the flesh and keep doing the works of the flesh.
Your works testify to whom you belong and whom you obey and in whose kingdom you live; Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God or the devil and his kingdom of darkness (世界).
‘成为地球之盐’
