NO PLACE FOR FLESH IN THE GOSPEL
NO PLACE FOR FLESH IN THE GOSPEL
There must be something radically wrong in the way souls have received Christ, to allow of a course, apparently devoted, which is so contrary to His mind; and [p. 103] I believe that a great deal of such a course can be traced to some defect in their first apprehensions of Christ - I mean as to their acceptance, and the nature of it. The one who knows that the light which, through grace, has shone in on his soul, is from the glory, and the ministration of righteousness from that sphere now, as there was under the law a ministration of death from the same sphere, must stand before God, and in the world, with very distinct impressions. He has to do with Christ - his life, in a scene which engrosses and satisfies his heart; and according as he is engaged with it (as he values it, he will be engaged with it), he is transformed “into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3: 18). Now as this transformation takes place, it is evident, because it is of the Spirit, that flesh is more and more distanced and refused - and not only this, but one is made independent of the things which minister to the flesh; and so much so, that it is the dying of Jesus that one now carries about, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in the body. There cannot be this independence of the flesh and what pleases it otherwise.
Habakkuk is independent of the comforts of the flesh - what ministers to it. Stephen is able to go a step farther and to endure the greatest sufferings, as if indifferent to them; but Paul does not know whether he is in the body, or out of the body. Now everything which sanctions or in any way enlists the flesh, always feeds and promotes it; and in religious things, when there is ministering to it through the senses or the feelings, one often imagines that there has been spiritual joy or gain; but it will be found that it is not so, from the fact that one is not more independent of the things which minister to the flesh. The attempt to enlist the senses and move the feelings is, I believe, fraught with real hindrance and grief to the Spirit of God; and while it gratifies for the time, it imparts no real power, and souls are as dependent as ever on the things which [p. 104] minister to their old and avowedly renounced nature. Besides, it is a desperate snare of the adversary, for they are deceived by the counterfeit, and thereby miss the real thing. The real thing could not countenance the flesh in any form, for it is of the Spirit, and the flesh and the Spirit “are contrary the one to the other”. Souls cannot get power over the flesh, unless they realise their new and wondrous position in Christ, entirely out of the reach of the flesh, of death, and of judgment; and in the Spirit, through faith, in a new order of existence, even association with Christ, the eternal Son of God, in a new sphere, and with new interests according to His mind.