the flesh

Inner Change Versus Outward Compliance

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16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. – Colossians 2:16-23 ESV

Far too often, well-meaning but misguided individuals attempt to turn faith in Christ into a lengthy list of dos and don’ts intended to regulate behavior. They take James’ simple premise that faith without works is a dead faith (James 2:17) and twist it into a legalistic and guilt-inducing set of rules and regulations designed to determine righteousness. Unable or unwilling to accept that a believer’s right standing with God is based on grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, these purveyors of self-righteousness attempt to earn favor with God through rituals, rites, and fervent religious rule-keeping.

Entire denominations have been formed based on a doctrine that teaches that righteousness must be achieved the old-fashioned way: through hard work and merit. Essentially, their teaching is based on the old maxim. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Some seem to have founded their works-based concept of salvation on the oft-quoted but non-biblical statement, “God helps those who help themselves.”

Humanity’s pervasive pride problem lies at the core of this brand of false teaching and has been around since the fall. Ever since Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, mankind has been attempting to assuage its guilt and amend its broken relationship with God through human effort. Over the centuries, countless religions have sprung up, each promoting its own unique set of rules and rituals for keeping its particular deity pleased and in a generous mood. While diverse in their doctrines and dogma, each of these religions shares one thing in common: a works-based form of righteousness. The adherents to these religions live under the repressive pressure of a performance-based system that demands constant and unwavering compliance to a set of rigid and unrelenting standards.

Paul and his fellow apostles had to constantly deal with the problem of legalism infiltrating the churches they had helped found. It was only natural for those who had converted to Christianity from pagan religions to carry the baggage of their former faith system into their relationship with Christ. They were used to practicing a religion based on rule-keeping and rife with prohibitions of all kinds. So, they were attracted to any form of teaching that gave them a list of rules to follow and activities to avoid. This made them particularly susceptible to the teachings of a group that later became known as the Judaizers.

The word, Judaizer, first appeared in Paul’s letter to the believers in Galatia. Paul describes an encounter with his fellow apostle, Peter, who had been freely associating with Gentile believers in Antioch until a group of Jewish believers from Jerusalem showed up. Paul states that “when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party” (Galatians 2:12 ESV). The presence of these Jewish Christians from Jerusalem caused Peter to avoid the Gentile converts because they were uncircumcised and, therefore, ceremonially unclean. The Jewish Christians were demanding that all converts to Christianity submit to the requirements of the Mosaic Law, including circumcision. Essentially, they were teaching that the Gentiles were not truly saved because they were living in violation of the law. But Paul, a Jew and a former Pharisee, would have none of it.

…when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” – Galatians 2:14 ESV

The Greek word translated as “to live like Jews” is ioudaikōs, meaning “after the manner of the Jews.” Paul was appalled that Peter was demanding that Gentile Christians be required to “Judaize” or live according to Jewish commands and customs. The doctrine of the Judaizers was a mixture of grace (through Christ) and works (through the keeping of the Law). The Jews who had shown up in Antioch were teaching, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1 ESV). This forced Paul and Barnabas to return to Jerusalem to appear before the apostles and the elders, where the topic of discussion was the teaching of the Judaizers. Paul pulled no punches in confronting this dangerous heresy.

“Brothers, you all know that God chose me from among you some time ago to preach to the Gentiles so that they could hear the Good News and believe. God knows people’s hearts, and he confirmed that he accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he cleansed their hearts through faith. So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear? We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus.” – Acts 15:7-11 NLT

According to verse 16 of Colossians 2, this was the same teaching that had infiltrated the church in Colossae. Paul lists a variety of different topics that have a decidedly Jewish feel to them: Teachings about the consumption of food and drink, rules concerning feasts and new moon celebrations, and the keeping of the Sabbath. Someone had obviously been teaching the Gentile members of the local congregation that there was more to their newfound faith in Christ than just belief. They would have to alter their behavior to accommodate a litany of prescribed religious rules and rituals.

But Paul strongly refuted the idea of adding anything to their faith in Christ alone.

…these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. – Colossians 2:17 NLT

As a Jew, Paul knew that God had designed these things to serve a vital but temporary purpose. Paul assured the believers in Galatia that the law had been given by God but that it had fulfilled its primary purpose. Now that Jesus had come, adherence to the law was no longer required to attain a right standing with God.

Before the way of faith in Christ was available to us, we were placed under guard by the law. We were kept in protective custody, so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed.

Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian. – Galatians 3:23-25 NLT

Paul wanted the believers in Colossae to understand that they were not subject to anyone’s teaching regarding additional requirements or rules concerning salvation.

Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. – Colossians 2:18 NLT

Their right standing with God was not based on what they did or didn’t do. It was based on the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. Upon placing their faith in Christ, they had been imputed His righteousness. What was true for Paul was also true for them.

I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. – Philippians 3:9 NLT

Paul was a staunch defender of the faith who was willing to hold all those who taught a different gospel or a different Jesus accountable for their actions. He declared that those who attempted to mislead the believers in Colossae were “puffed up without reason” (Colossians 2:18 ESV). He accused them of allowing their “sensuous” minds to determine their theology. These men were obsessed with the physical rather than the spiritual, which led Paul to assert, “They are not connected to Christ, the head of the body” (Colossians 2:19 NLT).

Their errant teaching separated them from Christ and His church. Their false doctrines concerning salvation actually made them enemies of the gospel, doing more harm than good and diminishing the unity of the body that Christ’s death had made possible.

Paul reminded his brothers and sisters in Christ, “You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world?” (Colossians 2:20 NLT). They were becoming distracted by rules that declared, “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!” (Colossians 2:21 NLT). But these kinds of prohibitions were man-made and destined to fail. Laws can regulate human behavior but are incapable of changing the heart.

These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires. – Colossians 2:23 NLT

For Paul, the law was never about behavior modification. He revealed its true purpose to the believers in Galatia.

Why, then, was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised. – Galatians 3:19 NLT

Paul also pointed out that the law was never meant to provide salvation. It declared the kind of righteousness God required and revealed mankind’s incapacity to live up to God’s holy standards. Paul makes it painfully clear that rule-keeping was never intended to bring salvation.

If the law could give us new life, we could be made right with God by obeying it. But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God’s promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ. – Galatians 3:21-22 NLT

Self-denial and forced compliance with a list of moral codes may promote a semblance of sanctification, but they can never change the heart. Jesus addressed this issue with His disciples. When answering a question about which foods defile the body, He responded, “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you” (Matthew 15:17-20 NLT).

Jesus came to bring about heart transformation, not behavior modification. Yes, Jesus expects our behavior to change, but that change must come from the inside out. Only a transformed heart can produce a changed life. Paul warned the Galatians that a law-based and flesh-focused religion would produce the wrong kind of fruit. Only a heart submissive to the leading of the Holy Spirit could produce life-altering, behavior-modifying fruit that made the law unnecessary.

The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. – Galatians 5:17-18 NLT

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Mind of the Spirit

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16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. – Galatians 5:16-18 ESV

5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. – Romans 8:5-10 ESV

Living water. That’s how Jesus described the ministry of the Spirit in the life of the believer. He told His disciples that whoever believed in Him would have “rivers of living water” flow from his heart. And John makes it clear that this rather obscure reference was to the coming Holy Spirit. 

Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. – John 7:39 ESV

Prior to His death and resurrection, Jesus spent a great deal of time attempting to prepare His disciples for His eventual departure. On numerous ocassions He warned them that He was going to Jerusalem where He would be put to death. His disciples had a difficult time accepting these dire predictions because they didn’t fit their understanding of the Messiah’s role. At one point, Peter even rebuked Jesus for saying such things, telling Him, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (Matthew 16:23 ESV). 

Peter didn’t understand the significance of Jesus’ death. The idea of Jesus being the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world had escaped Peter and his companions. And, while Jesus had repeatedly spoken of His death and His resurrection, the disciples remained fixated on the idea of Jesus setting up His earthly kingdom in their lifetimes. They were eagerly waiting for Him to enter Jerusalem and present Himself as the long-awaited Messiah and King of the Jews. But Jesus continually pointed them to the necessity of His death, resurrection, and ascension. He even told them that they would be better off without Him.

“I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” – John 16:7 ESV

Whether they understood it or not, and regardless of whether they liked it or not, Jesus was going to leave them. But He assured then that He would not abandon them. He would send them a helper or advocate. The Greek word is paraklētos, and it refers to one who comes alongside to provide aid. And Jesus assured His disciples that this helper, intercessor, or advocate would not only come alongside them, but dwell within them.

“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” – John 14:16-17 ESV

And Jesus wanted His followers to know that the Spirit was going to be a gift from the Father. His role would be to give testify through their lives as to the veracity of who Jesus was and what He had done on their behalf. In other words, the Spirit was going to be a witness to the reality of the gospel message.

“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” – John 15:26 ESV

His presence within the life of the believer would provide tangible proof that the salvation message offered by Jesus was reliable. When Jesus had said that He came to provide abundant life, He had meant it, and the Spirit would prove it. The disciples would discover that the key to them living in Christ’s absence would be the reality of the Spirit’s presence. The Spirit would be a game-changer, providing them with power beyond anything they had ever seen or experienced before. And while the disciples had already experienced the thrill of performing miracles and casting out demons, they had something even greater in store for them. Jesus had even told the disciples, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:12-14 ESV).

Think about that. Consider carefully what Jesus said to the disciples. He told them that they would do greater works than He had done. That had to have blown them away. But it probably left them a little bit excited as they thought about the prospects of all that it might mean. But it’s important to keep these words within their context, because immediately after making this promise, Jesus told them: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever” (John 14:16 ESV). 

The Spirit was going to be the key to their success. He would be the source of those “greater works.” And just so we don’t overlook the obvious, one of the greatest works the Holy Spirit makes possible is the miraculous transformation of a sinner into a saint. He provides the power for those who were once slaves to sin to live in freedom, fully capable of living in obedience to the will of God. That is Paul’s primary point in Galatians 5 and Romans 8. The believer can walk or live his life by the Spirit, and by doing so, no longer live in captivity to his old sin nature. And the reason the believer can live differently is because the Spirit equips him to think differently.

Paul describes two options. The first is to set the mind on the flesh. The other is to set the mind on the Spirit. One leads to death, while the other leads to life and peace. But what does he mean by “to set the mind on”? He used the Greek word, phronēma, which refers to one’s thoughts and purposes. It has to do with a person’s mindset or way of thinking about things. So, Paul is saying we can be flesh-minded or Spirit-minded. We can view life through our own natural, sin-contaminated disposition or we can have a godly perspective made possible through the presence of God’s Spirit.

To live according to our flesh is to live as we used to – in open hostility toward God. When we set our minds on ourselves, thinking we can somehow live righteous lives in our own strength, we end up living in opposition to God, not in reliance upon Him. We live with the mistaken impression that we can somehow earn a right standing with God through our own efforts. And when we do so, we devalue the sacrifice of Christ. We make the sufficiency of His death null and void, an unnecessary expenditure of life. If we can make ourselves righteous, Jesus didn’t need to die.

But Paul would have us remember that “no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are” (Romans 3:20 NLT). Law keeping is not wrong or sinful, but it can become so if we think it can lead to a right standing with God. Paul emphasized that point to the believers in Galatia.

…we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law. – Galatians 2:16 NLT

We have been made right with God through the efforts of Jesus Christ. His work on the cross made possible God’s declaration that we are righteous in His eyes. And it is His Spirit within us that makes possible our ability to live righteously in this life. The Spirit’s presence within us makes Christ’s righteousness available to us. We can think as Christ did. We can live as He did. All because the Spirit of God lives within us.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

 

All You Need.

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1 Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:

2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. – 2 Peter 1:1-4 ESV

In verse one of chapter three, Peter refers to a previous letter he had written: “This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved.” It is assumed that this second letter was written to the very same group he addressed in 1 Peter. This was a mixed congregation of both Gentiles and Jews who were spread throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. And Peter states his reason for having written both letters: “I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles” (2 Peter 3:1-2 NLT). We’ll unpack that passage when we come to it, but suffice it to say, that Peter was trying to foster a deeper understanding of who Jesus was and how He had fulfilled all that the prophets had written concerning Him. He really was the Son of God, the long-awaited Messiah and the Savior of the world. And, once again, Peter refers to himself as one of His apostles. He had personally called and commissioned by the resurrected Christ, and given the task of taking the good news concerning Jesus to the Gentiles. 

Peter addresses his letter to “those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours” (2 Peter 1:1 ESV). Paul is setting himself up as the standard of faith, but simply stating that faith is the common bond we all share. His faith, as an apostle, is no better or greater than that of anyone else. His audience shared a common faith, the same as himself and all the other apostles. And Peter makes it clear that this faith was made possible “by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:1 ESV). The apostle Paul provides us with insight into what Peter is saying.

I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. – Philippians 3:9 NLT

For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. – Romans 10:3-4 ESV

Peter wants his readers to know that their faith is in the righteousness of Christ, not their own poor attempt at living righteous lives. They must continue to believe that their right standing with God is not based on their own human effort, but on what Christ accomplished for them on the cross.

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption… – 1 Corinthians 1:30 ESV

Our faith is in the righteousness of Christ. And Peter, Paul, the rest of the apostles, the recipients of Peter’s letter, and every other individual who has placed their faith in Christ has no reason to think they earned their right standing with God. Paul went on to write, “so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’” (1 Corinthians 1:31 ESV). And it is our growing understanding of the incredible gift we have received that will result in increased grace and peace. And that was Peter’s prayer.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. – 2 Peter 1:2 ESV

That grace and peace grows as our comprehension of God and the gift of His Son, increases in our lives. Rather than worrying and wondering about all that we must do for God, we are to be focused on what He has done for us through Christ. Our salvation was by faith, so is our sanctification – our growth in Christ-likeness. We don’t become more like Christ through human effort, but by faith in the transforming power of God made possible by His indwelling Holy Spirit. And Peter speaks of this power.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. – 2 Peter 1:3 ESV

Let that sink in. God has done it all. In his first letter, Peter pointed out that God had chosen them. Their salvation had been His doing, not theirs. God had sent His Son to die for them and God is the one who had chosen them to receive eternal life through His Son. And now, Peter reminds them that all that they will need for living godly lives on this planet comes from God. It comes “through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (2 Peter 1:3 ESV). Godly living is directly tied to our knowledge of Christ. Paul writes, “For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ” (Colossians 2:9-10 NLT). In Christ, we have all we need for living godly lives. We don’t have to manufacture anything. We don’t have to muster up the strength to follow Christ’s example. All that we need comes from and through Christ, which is why Paul could say, “For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13 NLT). Paul fully believed that reality. He lived by it. And he would not allow himself to fall back into the trap of trying to live out the Christian life through human effort.

20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die. – Galatians 2:20-21 NLT

And Peter says virtually the same thing, reminding his readers that God  “has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2 Peter 1:4 ESV). But what are those “precious and very great promises”? What has God communicated through His prophets and apostles that we can count on and place our hope in when it comes to experiencing an ever-increasing divine nature? One of those promises can be found in Peter’s earlier letter:

3 …because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, 4 and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. – 1 Peter 1:3-4 NLT

We have the promise of an eternal inheritance. It is based on the righteousness of Christ, not our own feeble attempts at living godly lives on our own. Not only that, God has promised to protect us by His power until that inheritance is fully realized.

God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see. – 1 Peter 1:5 NLT

God has promised to give us the “divine nature” of His Son. But it is a gift to be received, not to be earned. The only way we can become more like Christ is because we have “escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire”. In other words, we have been freed from captivity to sin. We are free not to sin, for the first time in our lives, because of what Christ has done for us. We can live godly lives. We are capable of living like Christ. “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life” (2 Peter 1:3 NLT). The point that Peter is trying to make is that our dependency upon God increases over time. He didn’t send His Son to die for us, so that we might then try to live for Him according to our own human effort. His power has been and always will be the key to our spiritual transformation. The apostle Paul points out the non-negotiable nature of this Christ-dependent life:

10 And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. 11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.

12 Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. 13 For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. – Romans 8:10-13 NLT

The Spirit of God lives in you. The same incredible power that raised Jesus back to life is available to us each and every day of our lives. But we must live according to that power, not the feeble, sin-marred power of our flesh. Peter wants his readers to look for God for everything they need. It has already been given to them in the form of the Holy Spirit. And it is theirs because of the righteousness imputed to them by Christ that led to their full acceptance by God. The Christian life is not about sinful man attempting to live up to some moral standard on his own in an ill-fated attempt to achieve divine status. It is the work of God. He called us. He saved us. And He is the one who will transform us. All by His divine power. As Paul put it, “I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 NLT).

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Sin In The Camp.

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It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.– 1 Corinthians 5:1-8 ESV

Paul has threatened to come to Corinth, wielding a rod of discipline like a father to his disobedient children. And there is more going on within the congregation there than simply their prideful bickering over who is following which leader. While they were busy arguing over whether Paul was better than Apollos or Cephas was a better leader than Paul, a other sins had crept into the congregation. They had been so busy boasting over their spiritual superiority, that they had failed to recognize what happening right under their noses. In fact, according to Paul, it didn’t even bother them.

Paul had received word that there was a man in the church who was having sexual relations with his father’s wife. It seems that this involved the man’s stepmother, not his biological birth mother. And their is some indication that the man’s father was no longer alive. But Paul still referred to what was going on as “sexual immorality.” The Greek word he used is πορνεία (porneia). The Greeks primarily used the word to refer to prostitution or the act of going to a prostitute and paying for sexual pleasure. But the Jews had adapted the word and given it a much more robust meaning. For them, it covered “adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals etc.” (“G4202 – porneia – Strong’s Greek Lexicon (KJV).” Blue Letter Bible). Paul seems to be using the word with its Hebrew meaning in mind. He describes what is going on as a form of porneia “that is not tolerated even among pagans” (1 Corinthians 5:1 ESV). The unbelieving Corinthians would never have condoned a man sleeping with his father’s wife, even if she was a widow. And yet the church was not only tolerating it, they were evidently proud about it.

“It is this lack of a sense of sin, and therefore of any ethical consequences to their life in the Spirit, that marks the Corinthian brand of spirituality as radically different from that which flows out of the gospel of Christ crucified. And it is precisely this failure to recognize the depth of their corporate sinfulness due to their arrogance that causes Paul to take such strong action as is described in the next sentence.” – Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, p. 203

They displayed no remorse, regret or repentance as a fellowship. Their understanding of Christianity was missing any ethical or moral dimension. It seems that they had allowed their faith in Christ to become nothing more than a pursuit of knowledge, but without any ramifications on their behavior. Paul calls them proud and arrogant. It is as if they believed that their moral tolerance was somehow a badge of honor. They were distorting the concept of grace by turning a blind eye to sin in their midst. They had become accepting and tolerant of anything and everyone. They had somehow rationalized the man’s behavior, deeming it not only acceptable, but normal. But Paul had a radically different view. He demanded that they “throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed” (1 Corinthians 5:5 NLT). Paul practiced a zero-tolerance policy when it came to sexual sin. It seems clear that this man showed no repentance or even remorse. He had not divulged his sin to the congregation asking for forgiveness and pledging a change in his behavior. He was arrogantly practicing his immorality right in front of them and they were readily accepting of it.

Paul’s recommendation that they turn this man over to Satan simply means that they were to cast him out of their fellowship and allow him to suffer the consequences of his immoral decision. Paul firmly believed in the truth that you reap what you sow. He told the Galatian believers: “Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit” (Galatians 6:8 NLT). He also told the believers in Rome: “But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death” (Romans 6:21 ESV). Just two verses later, he wrote, “the wages of sin is death.” While sin ultimately leads to physical death, it can also bring about a death to our life here on earth, even while we still draw breath. Paul was suggesting that they remove this man from their midst and allow him to reap the full consequences of his immoral choices. The English Standard Version translates verse 5 as “you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.” There are certain commentators who believe Paul is referring to the man’s physical death. The Greek word Paul uses is σάρξ (sarx) and while it can refer to the physical body, it was also commonly used to refer to “the sensuous nature of man, ‘the animal nature’” or “the animal nature with cravings which incite to sin” (“G4561 – sarx – Strong’s Greek Lexicon (KJV).” Blue Letter Bible). It would seem that Paul was interested in seeing this man suffer the consequences of his immoral lifestyle. In a sense, it recalls the words of Paul in his letter to the Romans, when he spoke about the sinfulness of mankind: “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves” (Romans 1:24 ESV).

For Paul, the issue was the moral state of the church. This man’s sin was like yeast that, if tolerated, was going to spread through the entire congregation. Undisciplined sin in the body of Christ is like a cancer that will eventually permeate its way, leaving a path of destruction. The prideful permissiveness of sin in the body of Christ is dangerous. Our willingness to tolerate unacceptable behavior among fellow believers usually has little to do with the practice of grace. But it has everything to do with complacency and a lack of understanding about the corporate culpability of sin. The church is an organism and, like the human body, every part has an influence on every other part. There really is no such thing as individual sin. And Christ’s call for us to love one another includes the kind of love that cares about the spiritual well-being of one another. To think that the sin of a brother or sister in Christ will not eventually impact the body is naive at best. The overall health of the body of Christ is completely dependent upon the health of its members. When we tolerate sin, we allow the enemy to have a foothold in our midst. Which is why Paul so boldly demanded, “Get rid of the old ‘yeast’ by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are” (1 Corinthians 5:7 NLT).

 



Free To NOT Sin.

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For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.– Galatians 5:13-21 ESV

Freedom from the law results in license. That was one of the accusations the party of the circumcision leveled against Paul and his message of grace and freedom from the law. They most likely used Paul’s own teaching as evidence against him. In his letter to the Romans, Paul wrote, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20 ESV). And yet, Paul went on to say, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:1-2 ESV). Grace was not a license to sin. The freedom it provided from the Mosaic law was not a ticket to live as one pleased. It freed people from having to keep the law in order to earn favor with God. The law held men captive to their sin, in bondage to their own weakness and incapable of doing anything about it. But the salvation offered in Christ set men free. It was William Barclay who wrote, “the Christian is not the man who has become free to sin, but the man, who, by the grace of God, has become free not to sin.”

That is why Paul warned his readers to not use their new-found freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. They were free from having to keep the law, but not free from having to live in keeping with God’s expectation of holiness. At one point in His ministry, Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment of God was. He responded:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. – Matthew 22:37-40 ESV

Paul used these very words of Jesus to admonish his readers. Loving God meant living according to His holy will. Loving others required loving them selflessly and sacrificially, which is why Paul said, “through love serve one another.”

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul provided an entire chapter on the subject of love. In it he wrote:

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, ‘Jump,’ and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. – 1 Corinthians 13:1-7 MSG

But this kind of love is only possible through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Without His help and our complete reliance upon His power, we will tend to live in the weakness of our own sinful flesh. We will become selfish and self-centered. We will tend to gratify the desires of our old nature, which Paul describes with painful accuracy. These fleshly desires are the exact opposite of what the Spirit wants to produce in us. They are counter to the will of God and reflect a love for self more than a love for Him. They most certainly don’t model a love for others. Look at Paul’s list: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, and wild parties. Each of these “works of the flesh” reveal a disdain for God and a disdain for those around us.

The moral, ceremonial and civil sections of the Mosaic law were designed to regulate the lives of the people of Israel regarding their relationships with God and with one another. But as Jesus said, all of the commandments could be summed up by two simple commands: Love God and love others. Loving God meant not loving other gods. Loving others meant not becoming jealous of them, getting angry with them, lusting after them, or taking advantage of them. Notice that his list has more to do with our relationships with one another than our relationship with God. There is a reason for this. The apostle John wrote, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20 ESV). The greatest expression of our love for God is to be found in our love for those whom He has made. When we love one another, we are loving God. When we live selflessly and sacrificially, we are exemplifying the very character of God. When our lives are marked by self-control and a focus on the needs of others, we reflect the nature of God. But all of these things are only possible when we live according to the power of God’s indwelling Spirit.

A life continually characterized by the works of the flesh is a life devoid of the Spirit of God. Those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ have received the Spirit of God. They are no longer slaves to sin, incapable of living righteous lives. They have been given the Holy Spirit and have the power to love God and love others. That’s why Paul told the Romans, “But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all)” (Romans 8:9 NLT). The presence of the Spirit within us does not guarantee that we will live sin-free lives, but it does mean that we don’t have to live sin-dominated lives. Living according to our own sinful flesh will always produce bad fruit. But living according to the Spirit of God produces good fruit that pleases God and blesses others. We have been freed from the penalty of sin and from the power of sin. Because of Christ’s death on the cross and His Spirit’s presence within us, we are free to not sin.

Think Before You Act.

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Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. – Ephesians 5:15-21 ESV

Once again, Paul brings up the issue of our walk. He has already told his readers “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (Ephesians 4:1 ESV). He has warned them “you must longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds” (Ephesians 4:17 ESV). Back in verse one of this chapter, he wrote, “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Ephesians 5:1 ESV). And then he gave his readers yet one more admonition: “Walk as children of the light (for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true)” (Ephesians 5:8-9 ESV). Now, in verse 15, he provides yet one more more word about the walk of the believer. “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time” (Ephesians 5:15 ESV).

For Paul, belief and behavior in the life of the Christian were inseparable. Faith in Christ was to have a direct impact on every area of life, including the believer’s attitudes and actions. The Christian’s walk and words were to reflect his new nature. But the verses above are all imperatives. Walk in a manner worthy of the calling. Walk not as the Gentiles do. Walk in love. Walk as children of the light. Walk not as the unwise. They are commands, not suggestions. They require forethought and proper consideration. You have to think about them and plan for them to be a part of your life. And like all commands in Scripture, while they are non-optional, they are not always obeyed. We can choose to ignore each and every one of these commands. That is why Paul was so emphatic. He begged his readers to not act thoughtlessly, and he put it in very blunt terms: “do not be foolish” (Ephesians 5:17 ESV). To “be foolish” was to act without reason or reflection. It was to act rashly, without forethought or proper consideration. Living the Christian life requires a bit of brainpower and intellectual capacity. We have to think about what we are doing. It requires planning and deliberation. Back in verse 10, Paul wrote, “Carefully determine what pleases the Lord” (Ephesians 5:10 NLT). That requires thinking before acting. It means you have to stop and consider the deed before you commit to doing it. In his letter to the believers in Rome, Paul provided them with a key to making this happen.

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. – Romans 12:2 NLT

God wants to redeem our thinking. He wants us to think like He thinks. But that required knowing His will, what He would have us do. Which is why Paul said, “Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do” (Ephesians 5:17 NLT). And just in case his readers couldn’t follow his train of thought, Paul gave them a real-life example. “Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life” (Ephesians 5:18a NLT). Think about it. What good ever comes from getting drunk? Who has ever been proud of their behavior after a night of heavy drinking? A better decision, Paul suggests, would to choose to, “be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18b NLT). It should be obvious that when Paul compares being drunk with wine with being filled with the Spirit, he is talking about control. When you’re drunk, you are under the control of the alcohol. It dictates your behavior. You do things you wouldn’t normally do. You say things you wouldn’t normally say. So to be filled with the Spirit is to choose to let Him dictate and determine your behavior. There is a big difference between being indwelt by the Spirit and filled by the Spirit. Every believer receives the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation. And while we have all of the Spirit all of the time, we are not always “filled” or controlled by the Spirit. We can choose to ignore Him. We can determine to disobey Him. But when we are filled by the Holy Spirit and are under His control, our behavior will reflect it. Paul provides a glimpse of what that should look like:

…singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. – Ephesians 5:19-20 NLT

Earlier, Paul had warned, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians 4:30 ESV). We grieve the Spirit when we choose to live our lives apart from His power and without His guidance. We rob Him of His primary role in our lives. He exists to assist and help us as we navigate this fallen world, but when we refuse to live under His control, we deny Him the joy of producing His fruit through us. We end up producing “bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander” (Ephesians 4:31 ESV), when He longs to make us kind, tenderhearted, forgiving, thankful, and submissive to one another.

That is the will of God. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Thessalonians, “For this is God’s will: that you become holy” (1 Thessalonians 4:4 NET). Forgiveness of sins is great. But even an absence of sin does not make someone righteous or holy. God’s intention is to transform us from unrighteous to righteous. From unholy to holy. His ultimate goal is our glorification, when we will be free from all sin and entirely righteous. But we must stop and consider what it is that God is doing in our lives. We must constantly question why we would do anything that is contrary to His will for our lives. He desires for us to be holy, so why would we do anything that prevents that from happening? That is why Paul tells us, “Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do” (Ephesians 5:17 NLT). Think before you act.

Losing Our Grip On Grace.

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For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. – Galatians 5:1-6 ESV

In these verses, Paul makes it clear that the rite of circumcision was one of the big issues facing the Gentile believers to whom he wrote. They were being pressured by the Judaizers into believing that their salvation was incomplete unless they agreed to be circumcised. In essence, they were being told that they needed to become Jews before they could become believers. But Paul warns them that there is not end to this slippery slope down which they are about to slide. If they give in to the demand of circumcision, then they will be required to keep the whole law. By accepting the idea that obedience to the law is necessary for their salvation, they are placing themselves back under the full weight of the law. As we saw in an earlier blog post, the apostle James made this point painfully clear: “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it” (James 2:10 ESV).

The issue for Paul is that of freedom in Christ. He says that it is “for freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1 ESV). Most of us, when we think of our freedom in Christ, focus on our freedom from sin and death. And yet, Paul speaks of another freedom we enjoy because of our relationship with Christ. “For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code” (Romans 7:5-6 ESV). Does our release from the law mean that the law was somehow evil? Paul answers that question rather emphatically. “By no means! …the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:7, 12 ESV). What Paul is telling his readers is that the law is no longer to be viewed as a mandatory code of conduct or as a set of rules that must be obeyed to gain a right standing with God. We have been freed from that pointless pursuit. Paul spent his lifetime preaching the believer’s newfound freedom in Christ. That freedom includes our release from having to pursue justification through adherence to the law.

Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law. – Galatians 2:16 NLT

Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are. – Romans 3:19-20 NLT

So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” This way of faith is very different from the way of law, which says, “It is through obeying the law that a person has life.” – Galatians 3:11-12 NLT

Paul did not want the Galatians to fall back into slavery. At one time they were slaves to sin and under the control of Satan himself. They had no other choice. But when they had accepted Christ as their Savior, they had been released from their captivity. But now they were risking falling back into slavery – slavery to the law. If they turned their backs on the grace offered through Christ and the justification that He alone could provide, they would be willingly allowing themselves to live according to their own self-reliance and their ability to keep God happy through rule-keeping. To do so would be to fall away from grace, and Paul was not willing to sit back and watch them do that. It is not that Paul believed they would run the risk of losing their salvation. That is not what falling away from grace means. He is simply saying that they will be walking away from God’s sole method of salvation and justification: His undeserved and unearned grace as offered through His Son by means of faith. In Paul’s theology, faith in God’s grace gift of His Son would result in good works and a willing adherence to His commands. In the minds of the legalists, it was the exact opposite. Man’s adherence to God’s law would earn him a right standing before God and was, if anything, as important as faith in Christ.

Paul gives us the key difference between a life that is grace-focused and one that is law-based. “For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness” (Galatians 5:5 ESV. It is by the Spirit’s power that we are to live, not our own. And it is He who provides us with the faith necessary to eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. We don’t manufacture faith. It is a gift provided to us by God. It is with the Spirit’s help that we have “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV). That was the author of Hebrews description of faith. God’s indwelling Spirit provides us with the supernatural ability to believe in things that have not yet happened and to trust in those things we can’t even see. It is by faith that we believe we will be sanctified by God. We can’t see the end result. We can’t even see our sanctification taking place in real time. But we believe that God is doing what He has promised to do. Paul wanted believers to have a certainty and an abiding assurance that God had not only saved them by faith, but He was busy perfecting them by faith. And one day He was going to finish what He began by glorifying them by faith. “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns” (Philippians 1:6 NLT).

God doesn’t need our help to make us holy. He simply asks for our complete reliance upon Him and our willing obedience to what He calls us to do, even when it doesn’t make sense.

 

Born to Love.

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Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers,and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you. – 1 Peter 1:22-25 ESV

Peter wanted his readers to understand that they had already been purified by the blood of Christ because of their “obedience to the truth.” The author of Hebrews told his Jewish audience something very similar. “For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:13-14 ESV). It is the purifying nature of the blood of Christ that enables us to live obediently. Because of Christ’s sacrificial and substitutionary death on the cross, we have received new natures. We have been set apart by God for His use and equipped to live in willing submission to His will. And as the author of Hebrews says, “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10 ESV).

As a result of our new standing with God, we are to love one another from a pure heart. That is the key. Those who have placed their faith in Christ have had their hearts purified. We have a capacity to love like we never did before. We have been born again. We have experienced what Jesus described as a second birth. He told Nicodemus, the Pharisee, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3 ESV). When Nicodemus revealed his confusion and consternation over this statement, Jesus replied, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6 ESV). It is our new birth, our second birth, that makes new life possible. The work of God in our lives, through His Spirit and His Word, is imperishable. It is eternal, not temporal. It is spiritual, not fleshly. It is of heaven, not of this earth. The Word of the Lord, which reveals the good news concerning Jesus Christ, is powerful and eternal. It’s transformative influence on our lives is not dependent upon our flesh. Which is great news, because Peter reminds us that our human flesh is transitory and temporal. It will fade away. It is destined to decay and die with time. But the Word of God lasts forever. It is eternal and its impact on our lives is everlasting.

We have been born again. And Paul reminds us, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11 ESV). In the very next chapter of his letter, Peter writes, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24 ESV). Our new standing before God as His sons and daughters should prompt us to live our lives in such a way that they bring glory and honor to Him. And we are not left to depend upon our own human strength to pull it off. We have been given the Spirit of God and the Word of God to make our obedience possible. We can and should live differently because we are different.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. – 2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. – Romans 6:4 ESV

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. – Galatians 5:24-25 ESV

Living for Christ is possible only because we died with Christ. We are now dead to sin and alive to Christ. So our lives should reflect our new identity and expose our new capacity to live and love like Jesus did. We now are able to “love one another earnestly from a pure heart.”

The Spirit of Adoption.

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So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. – Romans 8:12-17 ESV

If you are a child of God, you owe Him. Not that you could ever pay Him back for what He has done for you, but you should live with a deep and lasting awareness of your indebtedness to Him. He sacrificed His Son on the cross so that you might have life. “For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God” (1 Peter 1:18-19 NLT). Those of us who are in Christ, owe God our lives, literally. Our debt to sin has been paid. God’s righteous judgment has been satisfied by the death of His own sinless Son. So we are free to reject the demands of our sinful flesh. We don’t have to give in to our sin natures anymore. We can say no to the passions and sinful desires of our flesh – but only with the help of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Paul makes it clear that it is “by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body” (Romans 8:13 ESV). He is the one who gives us the strength to live right lives even though our sin natures are alive and well within us. We are now sons and daughters of God who have the Spirit of God living inside of us. Hard to comprehend? You bet. But essential for us to believe by faith, because it is the key to our victory over sin in this life. Jesus died to pay for our sins. The Spirit lives within us to give us power over sin. Sin can no longer condemn me, but it can distract and defeat me. Which is why Paul goes out of his way to drive home the point that we are no longer on our own when it comes to dealing with sin.

We are sons and daughters of God, and we are led by the Spirit of God. And the very fact that we have the Spirit within us, convicting, encouraging and guiding us, is proof of our new relationship with God. Paul puts it this way: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16 ESV). When we feel conviction over sin, that is the Spirit at work within us. When we read the Word of God and hear Him speak to us, that is the result of the indwelling Spirit of God. Any time we find ourselves exhibiting love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, that is the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. And that fruit reveals that we belong to God. We are His children, adopted into His family and rightful heirs to all that belongs to Him. And as hard as that may be for us to grasp, it is vitally important if we are ever going to experience the kind of abundant life that Jesus promised us. What Paul is attempting to do is to get us to think about our future inheritance, rather than dwell on the temporary pleasures that our sinful flesh tends to obsess over. We are heirs of God and He has something incredible in store for us that is not of this world. The apostle Peter found the very thought of it worthy of praise to God. “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay” (1 Peter 1:3-4 NLT).

But there is another aspect to our inheritance. Because we are fellow heirs with Christ, we share in the reality of our future glorification. Just as He received a new glorified body and a reunion with His Father in heaven, so will we. But during this life, we also share in His suffering. As the Son of God, He suffered on this earth. He was ridiculed and rejected by men. He was misunderstood and falsely accused. His message of salvation was dismissed and His claims of deity were denied. And, ultimately, He suffered a humiliating and excruciating death on the cross. So as children of God, we are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17 ESV). In this life, we suffer, because we are not of this world. We no longer belong here. And our new identity and status as sons and daughters of God puts us at odds with this world and the prince of this world. Jesus warned us that the world would hate us because it hated Him. And it does. This world is not our friend. And the more we live as who we are, children of God, the more animosity we will experience from this world. Just prior to His death, Jesus told His disciples, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 NLT). And Paul will close out this chapter with the encouraging words, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:37-39 ESV).

The Law of the Spirit of Life.

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There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. – Romans 8:1-7 ESV

Back in chapter three, Paul told us the sobering news that “by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20 ESV). No one can be made right with God through adherence to the law. Why? Because the law makes us aware of God’s holy requirements, then our sin natures cause us to break those very requirements. In chapter seven, Paul even shared his personal experience with attempting to keep the law. “I would not have known what is is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting” (Romans 7:7-8 ESV). And while it is impossible for anyone to be justified in God’s eyes through their efforts to keep His law, Paul gave us the good news: “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (Romans 3:21-22 ESV). From chapter three all the way to chapter seven, Paul gives his defense of justification by faith, not by works. And then in chapter eight he starts off by saying, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Those who have placed their faith in Christ are justified because of their faith in Christ. They are made right with God and seen as righteous by God because of what Jesus has done on their behalf. By placing their faith in what Jesus has done for them, they are no longer placing their faith in what they can do for themselves. Faith has replaced works. 

There is a new law at work in their lives. Paul describes it as “the law of the Spirit of life.” When we hear the word, “law” we tend to think in terms of restrictions and binding requirements that keep us from doing what we want to do. But the Greek word Paul uses is nómos and it has a much broader and more pleasant meaning behind it. According to Strong’s Concordance, it is derived from the Greek word “νέμω némō (to parcel out, especially food or grazing to animals); law (through the idea of prescriptive usage).” In other words, it is more prescriptive than restrictive. The Mosaic law had benefits. It gave directions for life and provided God’s prescribed way for living in unbroken fellowship with Him. In the 23rd Psalm, David describes this prescriptive nature of God’s law. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23:1-3 ESV). Through the law, God guided, directed, and protected His people. But the law was weakened by man’s flesh or sin nature. Man couldn’t follow willingly and obediently.

So when Paul speaks of “the law of the Spirit of life,” he is telling us that God has provided us with a new way to live in fellowship with Him. “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:3-4 ESV). The key is the last phrase in these verses. We are to walk according to the Spirit, not the flesh. We are to live our lives in obedience to and dependence upon the Spirit of God. He is the nómos or prescribed way God has provided for us so that we might live in fellowship with and obedience to Him. And Paul provides us with a vivid contrast of the choice that lies before us each and every day as God’s children. “Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God” (Romans 8:5-8 NLT). 

Our sinful nature is alive and active. But we are no longer slaves to it. We have been set free from its control. We now have the Spirit of God also living within us, providing us with direction for living a God-honoring life and the power to accomplish it. But we must choose to live under His control and not our own. We must submit to His leadership. We must desire what He desires and long for those things that He has determined as best for us. But in his letter to the Galatian believers, Paul reminds us of the constant battle going on within us. “The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other…” (Galatians 5:17 NLT). If we try to please God through our flesh, we will fail. But if we live our lives in dependence upon the Spirit of God, His prescribed means of living a godly life, we will experience life, peace, joy, contentment, and the transformation of our lives into the likeness of Christ.