We are presently doing a brief study of the doctrines of the ascension and session and what that means for believers in the Church Age.

When we stopped last time we were discussing the unique provisions that are made available to Church Age believers as a result of the resurrection, ascension and session of our Lord to the right hand of the Father in heaven.

These unique features include the following doctrines that were unknown to the Old Testament writers of Scripture:

The baptism of the Holy Spirit with its eight results.

The new spiritual species of the royal family of God.

The unique protocol plan of God with its precisely correct procedure.

The equal privilege and equal opportunity of every Church Age believer to execute the protocol plan of God.

The believer's portfolio of invisible assets.

The unique royal commissions of the royal priesthood and the royal ambassadorship.

The indwelling of each member of the Trinity in the body of every Church Age believer.

The 100% availability of divine power (the omnipotence of the Father, Son, and Spirit).

And the dispensation of invisible heroes where there is the opportunity for personal, national, international, and angelic impact.

Believers who advance in God's plan glorify God in at least two ways:

Believers become mature believers by passing two categories of suffering for blessing in the form of providential preventative suffering and momentum testing. The mature believer has the first three categories of invisible impact: personal, national, and international.

The invisible hero is a mature believer who goes on to pass evidence testing. Besides having the three categories of invisible impact as a mature believer the invisible hero also has angelic impact in the invisible war and becomes a witness for the prosecution in the rebuttal phase of Satan's appeal trial.

Rom 16:25-26; "Now to Him who is able to stabilize you on the basis of my gospel and the preaching about Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret from long ages past (Old Testament), but now revealed even by the Scriptures of the (New Testament) prophets according to the commandment of the eternal God. It has now been made known to all nations resulting in obedience to doctrine."

Col 1:25-27; "Concerning which (Church Age) I became a minister according to the standard of the dispensation of God (the unique dispensation or spiritual economy (oikonomia) of the Church Age) which was given to me for the purpose of filling up your deficiency of the Word of God;

v26 that is, the mystery which has been hidden from past dispensations and generations but now has been revealed to His saints

v27 to whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of the mystery among the Gentiles, which is, Christ indwelling you, the confidence of glory."

Church Age doctrine was completely blacked out and therefore unknown in the Old Testament. There are many Old Testament passages that could have mentioned the Church Age but passed over it.

Between the following passages the Church Age occurred and could have been revealed, but was not. Dan 2:40-41; Dan 7:23-24, Dan 8:22-23; Dan 11:35-36; Hosea 5:15;-Hosea 6:1;

The Reformation never settled the question regarding what the Christian way of life is. Nothing was ever discovered regarding what the mystery doctrine said about God's game plan for the Church Age, or what is the will of God for the Church Age believer after salvation.

None of the reformers ever answered the question "After salvation...what?"

While the New Testament epistles are very clear about the will, purpose, and plan of God for each Church Age believer, the tendency of reformed and covenant theology is to extrapolate the Christian way of life from the Mosaic Law.

However, the Mosaic Law emphasizes morality. The greater portion of the Mosaic Law teaches the laws of divine establishment that reveal God's plan for the five successive Jewish client nations.

The Mosaic Law emphasized morality for both believers and unbelievers. Morality is absolutely necessary for the life and function of any nation. But morality is not the Christian way of life.

Anything the unbeliever can do is not the Christian way of life.

The Christian way of life is a supernatural way of life demanding a supernatural means of execution. It requires the omnipotence of God the Father and the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit.

The problem with morality is that it is vulnerable to arrogance and legalism. Arrogance combined with morality results in a series of sins, beginning with self- righteous arrogance, continuing to crusader arrogance, then mental attitude arrogance, achievement arrogance, the arrogance of Christian service, legalistic arrogance, conspiracy arrogance, emotional arrogance, and eventually moral degeneracy.

Anything that promotes arrogance cannot be included in the Christian way of life.

Morality is only effective in believers or unbelievers when accompanied by humility. But moral people have a tendency to become extremely arrogant people who become morally degenerate.

Moral degeneration in many ways is much worse than immoral degeneration because it is much closer to Satan's original sin. Isa 14:13-14;

Church Age believers in the Christian way of life have virtue that is much higher than morality because it includes grace principles. Because of this, virtue is never destroyed or corrupted by arrogance.

The writer of the Proverbs describes how morality is corrupted by arrogance.

Prov 11:2; "When arrogance comes, then comes dishonor; but with the humble is wisdom."

Prov 16:18; "Arrogance precedes destruction, and a lifestyle of arrogance precedes a fall (failure)

When the Christian way of life is described, it is not described in terms of arrogance, but in the language of grace and humility, as in James 4:6; "He gives greater grace, and this is why the Scripture says, `God makes war against the arrogant (believer), but He gives grace to the humble.'"

There is no substitute for humility. True humility is very hard to find and is often much too subtle for many to understand.

Self-effacement is not humility it is a subtle form of passive arrogance. Some confuse humility with humiliation. Most people will never reach humility because they have an innate desire to reject, resist, or put down any kind of authority that they have to deal with.