A Letter to the Perfectionists in the Flesh, or Holiness People.
1890 78 Dear Friends,
Scripture says of the believer in Gal. 5:17, "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other." There is then the Spirit of power, but also the old fleshly nature. The apostle Paul personates the previous struggle in one born again. "In me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing" (Rom. 7:18). Even after the deliverance, a few verses farther on in the same chapter, he shows that his old nature is in no way gone. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord;" yet he adds in the same verse, "So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." Notwithstanding this, he proceeds to say in Rom. 8 what is the summing up of the matter. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus" (the rest of the verse being spurious).
Thus the christian is in Christ Jesus, and Christ is in him (Rom. 8:1, 10). "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom. 8:2-3). The first reason why there is no condemnation for the christian is because he is delivered in the power of Christ's risen life, which life in the new man God cannot condemn; the next is, because God has already condemned the old man in Christ an offering for sin. But the old man, though crucified with Him, is still in us, for us, walking in the Spirit, to condemn and spare not.
The believer is thus judicially dead to sin and to the law with Christ (Rom. 6. Rom. 7), that we may walk in newness of life. So we reckon ourselves dead to sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. For God, I repeat, has condemned sin in the flesh by the cross of Christ: and has annulled its power for the believer, so that we should no longer be in bondage to sin. It would seem that Rom. 6:6 is better given in the R.V. "done away;" for sin is there: and we are exhorted, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof" (Rom. 6:12). It is there, but must not "reign." By the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, we have power to walk in newness of life; even though the flesh is still in us, its power and authority are broken and set aside by Christ's death. "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20).
"If we live in the Spirit, let us therefore walk in the Spirit." "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16, 25). The power of the Holy Spirit in us detects by the word and hinders, through Christ's grace, the flesh from acting, even though still there. "Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under law, but under grace." Were we under law, sin would be provoked into action. It is there, but grace gives us the victory through the death and resurrection of Christ. The last clause in Gal. 5:17 as to this is ill rendered in our A.V., "So that ye cannot." This accredits the flesh and strips the Spirit of His power, representing it as an impossibility to overcome the flesh and walk in the power of the Spirit. But this is erroneous. The correct thought is given us in the R.V., "That ye may not." Doubtless the flesh strives to hinder; but as we lie in the Spirit, let us therefore walk in the Spirit (even though the flesh would ever so hinder), and we shall not fulfil fleshly lusts. We are called to "mortify the deeds of the body," as having already died with Christ. The Holy Spirit in us is of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Devotedness according to Rom. 12:1 is our calling, living, and walking thus in the Spirit, presenting our bodies (not "the flesh") a living sacrifice to God. It is similar practical devotedness which is set before us in 1 Thess. 5:23, The God of peace Himself sanctify (or set apart) you wholly: spirit, and soul, and body be preserved entire, blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Scripture nowhere teaches that the old nature is exterminated, or burnt out, or ameliorated. It has had God's sentence executed on it in Christ's cross. But the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us acts on and in the new nature given us in Christ; and we are able thus to walk in newness of life, bringing forth fruit unto God. From our start as Christians we walk in the light, as we have life eternal in fellowship with the Father and the Son (1 John 1). Devotedness to God is not the cause of salvation, but its effect by grace. Christ dead and risen is the ground upon which salvation rests; but a holy walk is the fruit, brought forth to the glory of God. It is a great privilege indeed, and what we are saved for, and called to walk in down here, through a series of temptations and evil, to the praise of the Saviour, as also to our own present joy and everlasting reward, when the Lord shall examine our lives, and manifest all; not before we get to heaven, but when we are there.
Salvation is of grace, through faith in Christ (Eph. 2:5-9). Rewards are for faithfulness (Matt. 19:29; 1 Cor. 3:14). I repeat that entire devotedness by the power of the Holy Spirit in us does not extinguish the carnal mind, or the flesh; which is still there, and will still hinder if allowed. The power of the Spirit, answering to Christ's work on the cross, lifts above it; and the new nature thus led says No to its every motion, and thus prevents its breaking forth into activity.
The flesh in us is neither forgiven, nor cleansed, nor renewed, nor improved. It is incurably evil and therefore "condemned" by the death of Christ; and so the believer in Him is delivered from it, and, being in Him "a new creation," he is not in the flesh, though it is in him. Faith, prayer, watchfulness, self-judgment, as well as all public means, and holy discipline, are needed; or the flesh will act. And herein learn your mistake, in blaming the devil for much which comes from the flesh, though no doubt he acts on it, when we slip out of dependence on God.
Yours truly, G. R.