Pastor Mark Hankins spoke on Paul’s System of Truths during his last session at WAFBEC 2015. He opened with a word of prophecy that Nigeria will be the major producer of ministers of the word of God in the next 20 years. Then he invited his wife to minister and prepare the congregation to receive the word.
“But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:17-18). These verses, Hankins noted, are a continuation of Ephesians 1:17. He stressed the importance of praying for wisdom and revelation. He pointed out that Paul’s doctrine (a doctrine is a system of truth) was founded on the following eight (8) parameters:
HE DEFINES WHAT MAN IS (1 Thessalonians 5:23): Man has a spirit (known in Greek as pneuma), a soul and lives in a body. If you want to understand Paul’s doctrine, you have to understand the spirit. The Spirit of God bears witness with our human spirit affirming our salvation and the fact that we are a new creation in Christ. Paul used the word spirit-man more than any other apostle. Christ in us makes our spirit alive. Because Christ dwells in us, we have the gifts and abilities of Christ. In biology living things are classified into plants and animals but in Christ we are neither plants nor animals, but a new creation in Christ.
IDENTIFICATION WITH ADAM: Again, Paul uses Adam’s name more than any other person. He noted that the whole Bible is about the two Adams – the first and the second Adam (the second Adam is Jesus (Romans 5:17). Everything Satan achieved through the first Adam (sin), God reversed in Christ (salvation).
MAN’S CONDITION IN ADAM: The first Adam put all men in a condition of death but the second Adam (Jesus) came to work from the inside out and brought life to us. Once your spirit is made alive, you become a champion. Man’s sinful condition cannot be cured through education or rehabilitation. The second Adam changed our lives by His death on the cross and gave us a new life.
WHAT HAPPENED FROM THE CROSS TO THE THRONE: Paul’s system of truth shows that Jesus became a substitute for us. One man – the first Adam brought death and got us into the mess. It took one man – the second Adam to undo the mess. Jesus Christ redeemed us back to God. Jesus paid the full penalty for our sins.
WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU HAVE IN CHRIST: Jesus took our place and became everything that sin could ever produce (for example sickness) so that in turn, we will become the righteousness of God. This simply means, I am what God says I am, I am who God says I am. I have what God says I have.
IDENTIFICATION WITH CHRIST: Pastor Hankins emphasized the need to study all the scriptures that point to the riches we enjoy ‘in Christ’ (1 Corinthians 5:17). Christ was the first man who came back from the dead. He became an archetype of a new kind of creation that never existed before. He ushered in a new type ‘human’ that had never existed before, this changes everything. In Christ we are saved. But much more than salvation, God sees the believer the very same way He sees Christ. God put into Christ everything He wanted us to be and in turn, made us a replica of the Jesus prototype. In Christ, you become such a special person that you need God Himself to reveal your uniqueness to you.
WHAT JESUS IS DOING FOR US AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD: Jesus is at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us. The Holy Spirit takes everything Jesus has been doing and is doing for us and converts these into personal victory for us.
HOW TO GROW SPIRITUALLY: When babies are born, they come out of the womb complete human beings. Nevertheless, there is still need for growth into adulthood and maturity, so although complete at salvation we still need to grow in Him. Through reading and meditating on the scriptures we grow. Rom. 12:1-2
In his closing statement, Pastor Hankins observed that the Holy Spirit takes a regular person, plugs him/her to a system wired to produce champions, and turns him/her into a champion.
