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Have you ever understood one thing, only to have that understanding lead to a wrong conclusion on a related thing? Since the book of Galatians says salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, some people think that they therefore can traffic in any kind of sin as they live out their lives.
Paul deals with that error by the implications of his statement in Galatians, “through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave Himself up for me.”
The Law, which we violated, according to the Jewish Scriptures in fact killed us. A law no longer has a hold on a dead man. Killed by the Law, we were crucified at the cross with Christ and rose with Him to share in His resurrection, no longer to live for ourselves but to live for God. No longer to live out of our own human powerlessness, but in fact Christ lives powerfully in and through us. We now follow His bidding, which is the definition of faith.
His bidding involves an inner transformation, which is detailed by Paul in his letter: “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.”
A person who has Christ living in him by the Holy Spirit has stronger impulses to obey God than one who is trying to obey using only his human effort. That’s because the Holy Spirit has united with our inner spirit to oppose the desires of the flesh from inside us. (We might try to “reform” by living according to the Old Testament Law or some other standard we regard as “good,” but we’re talking about something quite different from reform. We are not reforming ourselves, but rather are being transformed by the Spirit of God within us. That transforming impulse is much stronger than mere reformation, if for no other reason than God is relentless and not subject to our rationalizing away our sins.)
In our fellowship last week, we showed a video by former Congressman Bob McEwen who schematically illustrated this transformation. The schematic had three columns representing the tripartite human being: The left column represented our sin nature or the desires of the flesh; the middle column represented the soul consisting of our mind, will, and emotions; the right column represented our human spirit. He went back to the account of Adam and Eve’s fall in the first chapters of Genesis to point out that, as a result, all of their offspring – us – are born with a dead spirit. That means our flesh (the left column) is alive, and our soul (the middle column) is alive, but that part of us that was designed to interact with God, our spirit, is dead. (If you don’t buy the idea that your spirit is dead because of an action on the part of your first parents, then check your own life out and see if you have perfectly obeyed the Old Testament Law. I can promise you that you haven’t, and therefore the result is the same – your spirit is dead until it is brought alive or “born again.”)
Whichever way you arrive at it, our mind, will, and emotions are left with a sin nature, or “flesh,” raging inside us with no counter-acting spirit to oppose it. Some of us have been more effective at moderating that flesh than others, but we all have it attempting to dominate us. Paul details that nature: “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these….” Paul’s reference to “things like these” is an interesting statement because it implies there is no end to the list. These are the things that occupy the left column in McEwen’s schematic.
As we have been seeing, salvation is by grace alone by faith alone. God comes “knocking on our door,” not because of any good thing that we have done, but simply because He wanted to. He gets our attention through various means. He had to knock Paul, the writer of Galatians, off a horse to get his attention. He let me destroy my marriage with Donna to get mine. But whatever the means, whether traumatic or not, once He gets our attention, we respond by agreeing with what He’s telling us, and that’s called faith. At that point of conversion, the Spirit of God brings our spirit alive (the right column.) We become “born again.” Paul says, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…” With our spirit now alive, the Holy Spirit does battle through our spirit (the right column) with the works of our flesh (the left column.) Our mind, will, and emotions (the middle column) now cooperates with the spirit to subdue and eventually put to death the deeds of the flesh.
“Eventually” is a key concept here. When a person’s spirit becomes born again, there are old habit-patterns, some of which are quite imbedded, that take time and effort for the Spirit to overcome. There are other things about which the newly born-again believer may not be familiar as being “wrong,” and an educational process is in order. And there may be a priority list that God has whereby one thing needs to be taken care of before another. That’s why we are not to judge others, because we might not know exactly how God wants the process to play out. We as observers are to be there to help, encourage, instruct, model, and above all pray for him or her. Lovingly confront, maybe, if the Lord seems to be asking us to do that, but not to judge.
As for the newly born-again, his responsibility is to learn how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. (That’s another aspect of faith.} Every one of us who has been with the Lord for a long period of time knows that those things that once seemed so dominating in our flesh eventually lose to the spirit as we cooperate with the Holy Spirit. That’s what it means to live no longer for ourselves, but for God in the power of a resurrected life.
A word of caution: things from the sinful nature can be fanned into flame again, so once the Holy Spirit conquers those things, don’t step even your big toe back into indulging in what has been conquered. It’s like an alcoholic having “just one drink.” There’s no such thing. Put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit of God and continue living for God, never again going back (Scripture likens going back to a dog returning to its vomit.)
Scripture References
Galatians 2:19-21
Ezekiel 18:1-4
Genesis 2:15-3:24
Galatians 5:16-25
2nd Peter 2:18-22
Paul deals with that error by the implications of his statement in Galatians, “through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave Himself up for me.”
The Law, which we violated, according to the Jewish Scriptures in fact killed us. A law no longer has a hold on a dead man. Killed by the Law, we were crucified at the cross with Christ and rose with Him to share in His resurrection, no longer to live for ourselves but to live for God. No longer to live out of our own human powerlessness, but in fact Christ lives powerfully in and through us. We now follow His bidding, which is the definition of faith.
His bidding involves an inner transformation, which is detailed by Paul in his letter: “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.”
A person who has Christ living in him by the Holy Spirit has stronger impulses to obey God than one who is trying to obey using only his human effort. That’s because the Holy Spirit has united with our inner spirit to oppose the desires of the flesh from inside us. (We might try to “reform” by living according to the Old Testament Law or some other standard we regard as “good,” but we’re talking about something quite different from reform. We are not reforming ourselves, but rather are being transformed by the Spirit of God within us. That transforming impulse is much stronger than mere reformation, if for no other reason than God is relentless and not subject to our rationalizing away our sins.)
In our fellowship last week, we showed a video by former Congressman Bob McEwen who schematically illustrated this transformation. The schematic had three columns representing the tripartite human being: The left column represented our sin nature or the desires of the flesh; the middle column represented the soul consisting of our mind, will, and emotions; the right column represented our human spirit. He went back to the account of Adam and Eve’s fall in the first chapters of Genesis to point out that, as a result, all of their offspring – us – are born with a dead spirit. That means our flesh (the left column) is alive, and our soul (the middle column) is alive, but that part of us that was designed to interact with God, our spirit, is dead. (If you don’t buy the idea that your spirit is dead because of an action on the part of your first parents, then check your own life out and see if you have perfectly obeyed the Old Testament Law. I can promise you that you haven’t, and therefore the result is the same – your spirit is dead until it is brought alive or “born again.”)
Whichever way you arrive at it, our mind, will, and emotions are left with a sin nature, or “flesh,” raging inside us with no counter-acting spirit to oppose it. Some of us have been more effective at moderating that flesh than others, but we all have it attempting to dominate us. Paul details that nature: “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these….” Paul’s reference to “things like these” is an interesting statement because it implies there is no end to the list. These are the things that occupy the left column in McEwen’s schematic.
As we have been seeing, salvation is by grace alone by faith alone. God comes “knocking on our door,” not because of any good thing that we have done, but simply because He wanted to. He gets our attention through various means. He had to knock Paul, the writer of Galatians, off a horse to get his attention. He let me destroy my marriage with Donna to get mine. But whatever the means, whether traumatic or not, once He gets our attention, we respond by agreeing with what He’s telling us, and that’s called faith. At that point of conversion, the Spirit of God brings our spirit alive (the right column.) We become “born again.” Paul says, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…” With our spirit now alive, the Holy Spirit does battle through our spirit (the right column) with the works of our flesh (the left column.) Our mind, will, and emotions (the middle column) now cooperates with the spirit to subdue and eventually put to death the deeds of the flesh.
“Eventually” is a key concept here. When a person’s spirit becomes born again, there are old habit-patterns, some of which are quite imbedded, that take time and effort for the Spirit to overcome. There are other things about which the newly born-again believer may not be familiar as being “wrong,” and an educational process is in order. And there may be a priority list that God has whereby one thing needs to be taken care of before another. That’s why we are not to judge others, because we might not know exactly how God wants the process to play out. We as observers are to be there to help, encourage, instruct, model, and above all pray for him or her. Lovingly confront, maybe, if the Lord seems to be asking us to do that, but not to judge.
As for the newly born-again, his responsibility is to learn how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. (That’s another aspect of faith.} Every one of us who has been with the Lord for a long period of time knows that those things that once seemed so dominating in our flesh eventually lose to the spirit as we cooperate with the Holy Spirit. That’s what it means to live no longer for ourselves, but for God in the power of a resurrected life.
A word of caution: things from the sinful nature can be fanned into flame again, so once the Holy Spirit conquers those things, don’t step even your big toe back into indulging in what has been conquered. It’s like an alcoholic having “just one drink.” There’s no such thing. Put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit of God and continue living for God, never again going back (Scripture likens going back to a dog returning to its vomit.)
Scripture References
Galatians 2:19-21
Ezekiel 18:1-4
Genesis 2:15-3:24
Galatians 5:16-25
2nd Peter 2:18-22
