“So those who live according to the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His (not Christ’s, not a Christian! – V. A.). And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors – not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die (“let the dead bury their own dead” – V. A.), but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God (Christians, who in the Only Begotten Son – the sons of the Father – V. A.). For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8: 8-16).
“Not all are Israelites who are of Israel; nor are they all children of Abraham because they are his descendants (not all those who are baptized in the church are Christians, that is, members of the Church, children of the Heavenly Father, who are in Marital bonds with the Only Begotten Son; Christians – children of God the Father: because they went behind the Husband for Christ, the Son of the Father. On earth (from where we take analogies-images for preaching the Gospel): a son-in-law becomes a son for the father-in-law and mother-in-law, and a daughter-in-law – a daughter for the father-in-law and mother-in-law – V. A.)” (Rom. 9: 6b-7a).
“Though the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved.” “Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah” (all that was said about the children of Israel, prophetically concerns the baptized in water – V. A.)” (see Rom. 9: 27-29).
“I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them, God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.’ Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10: 1-12).
“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you are disqualified (that is, not Christ’s, not Christians, not Spirit-bearers – V. A.)” (2 Cor. 13: 5).
“In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ; buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (Col. 2: 11-13).
“Christ, – as a Son over His own house (of God the Father – V. A.); whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years.
Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God… For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end… Let us therefore fear, lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any of you should seem to have come short of it” (Heb. 3: 6-12, 14; 4: 1).
“For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God; but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned” (Heb. 6: 4-8).