God means for us to see that the pot (vessel) indwelled by Satan is the “old man” that Paul describes. This old man cannot be reformed but must die, meaning be crucified with Christ. The holdup on humanity’s end is the deception related to the law. Lost people think they can keep it, and carnal Christians think they should be like Jesus, which is the same thing. Mired up in deception at first, we think that God gives the Law so we will keep it, or at least get a passing grade, or perhaps God will grade on the curve.
However, only a perfect score passes. That’s shattering. It conditions us, however. God never EVER thought we could keep the Law. He’s laughing His head off and has been continually over what non-Christians and Christians alike think about the Law. He’s laughing, thinking, “They think they can keep it! Let’s pour it on, commandment after commandment, even though they never seem to wear down.
God must convince us of our need so that He can save us. Non-Christians and Christians battle the law, and God means us to because the law awakens us from our self-satisfied view of ourselves. Now even Paul’s testimony says, “I was alive without the Law once” (Rom. 7:9). But was he really alive? No, of course not. He felt good because things were going his way in his deceived state of thinking that he was keeping the law.
Dan Stone often told about the spontaneity of lost people—a spontaneity he enjoyed in his carefree days before the law. He then became a Christian but spent years trying to be like Christ, all the while secretly jealous of the non-Christians who still lived life spontaneously. After years of wearing down under the Law, Dan discovered that a Christian can live spontaneously by trusting Christ within to keep His own law. Dan saw that God uses the law to condition us away from self-effort and into Christ’s life in us as our supply. So there is a spontaneous version of the spontaneous life for a Christian.
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