Continuing the burden from the last Straightway on the power of the flesh, this issue will address our human flesh and its need of the work of Christ in sanctification for continual living in this human flesh. Our human flesh should be seen distinct from the sin-nature flesh or the flesh principle which can reign with power and dominion in the human heart.
The Creation of the Human Flesh
When God made man, He first made his body and the nature of that body from the ground, the earth. This specific ground that God used was called adamah, meaning a “moist, red ground” or a rich, cultivated ground. It is a ground ideal for a potter to use in the making of clay vessels.
God created man distinct from the angels who were created with no concept of physical or material identity. God created angels an immaterial creature with personality; He created man a flesh creature with personality. The term flesh identifies man with both having a body and being a moral agent with a will, emotions, and a mind. His emotions influence his will, and his mind grants him an ability to think and reason. His body or a physical identification houses his soul, an invisible spirit concept of being, created without sin.
Although we have observed that man at the beginning was without a sin nature controlling his flesh, in the right situation and temptation his thoughts and emotions potentially could draw his will into a direction that could lead man away from his God to disobey his Creator. Thus, from the moist ground of the earth, God created man with vulnerabilities and weaknesses—without sin yet with weaknesses that if not guarded could lead man into the realm of sin.
Crucifixion: Death to the Sin Principle
In the previous issue of Straightway, we noted the crisis of sanctification which dealt with putting to death the principle of “the flesh” (Rom. 6). It was also noted that another word is used in the New Testament along with sanctification: spiritual circumcision (Deut. 30:6; Rom. 2:28, 29). This attack of the flesh is called crucifixion in other passages of the New Testament.
Crucifixion, in the natural, is a very bold and aggressive attack upon the body causing excruciating pain and suffering. The purpose of the cross was to nail the fullness of the body of flesh to a pole, a tree, or a beam of wood with a crossbeam near the top to bring about a cruel and painful death of that body. The New Testament carefully notes that Christ’s mode of death was on a cross. While His body was on that cross, our sins were in that body: “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree…” (1 Pet. 2:24). God’s Word also declares that Christ became my sanctification or crucifixion on the cross at Calvary: “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Rom. 6:6).
The use of the term crucifixion automatically means to be bound to the cross for death, or to take its victim down into death. It was not used simply for punishment; it was a mode of inflicting suffering that led to death. Christ was crucified! He died on the cross!
According to the Scriptures, individuals who have been crucified with Him are dead with Him to sin. On the cross Christ took the judgment of our sins, and thus, He was crucified for us; but we must also be crucified with Him: this is sanctification. We see in this crucifixion a death that means separation; a death to sin means a separation from sin.
Christ in His life, character, and entire being was pure, holy and spotless, and absolutely without sin in Himself. Therefore, Christ needed not to die for Himself, for He had no sin of his own from which to be separated by death. However, in His immaculate purity He was made sin (“… made him to be sin for us” 2 Cor. 5:21), or made to be the sin principle for us. He took our sins upon Himself; therefore, He had to die for sin. He had to expiate the sin of the world that He had made as if it were His own. He died by the shedding of His own blood. He had to die both for sin and unto sin (Rom. 6:10; Gr. “died unto the sin”) to be separated from sin by death and raised up in the resurrection life freed from sin, or sanctified.
Christ having taken our sin upon Himself also had to put it away from Himself, that we through Him might put away sin and live by Him. We must keep in mind when the term sin is used in Romans 5 through 7, the original Greek uses the definite article expressing the sin. We are justified from our sins (plural), but through His sanctifying Himself for us, He put Himself to death, or separated Himself from the sin principle, or “the sin.” In John 17:19 Christ declares, “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” His sanctification referred to the cross upon which He would take sin upon Himself, be made sin, answer for it, become dead to sin, all in order for us to become the righteousness of God in Him. Thus, we die with Him in His death to sin, are separated with Him from sin, are raised with Him in His resurrection life, and are presented with Him unto God as alive from the dead. In all of this work of Christ on the cross, we are sanctified with Him in His sanctification.
When Christ prayed to His Father in John 17 to sanctify His disciples through the truth, He was viewing His own cross. He sanctified Himself that His disciples might be sanctified through His suffering and death. His prayer was that His Father would bring His disciples to His cross that they might be able to apprehend the meaning of His death, that they might see in it their own crucifixion. He wanted them to realize fully their union with Him in His death to sin and in His resurrection from the grave, thus becoming partakers of His sanctification. He sanctified Himself that they might be sanctified in Him. He was going ahead of them to the cross. He was going to work it all out for them, and He wanted His Father to bring His disciples right on after Him, that they might come into the full apprehension of all that He was to purchase for them by His own sanctification.
That They Might Be Sanctified
How were the disciples to apprehend this sanctification? How are we to do it? By beholding the cross. We once again call attention to John 17:19: “For their sakes [the disciples] I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” His sanctification meant the cross upon which He would take sin upon Himself, be made sin, answer for it, become dead to it, separate from it, and become alive unto God, that through Him we might become dead to sin and become the righteousness of God in Him. The apostle Paul declares in Romans 6:11, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” As we assume by faith the attitude of death to sin and devotion to God, the Holy Spirit will work in us our own reckoning of ourselves. We must in deed and in truth come to the end of the selfish, worldly, fleshly life: “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16) must go down before we can have the victory of the sanctified life.
The crucifixion of the flesh with the affections and lusts, the death of the Old Man, and the destruction of the body of sin all refer to the same thing and are a part of sanctification. We are to reckon this done as a matter of fact by faith in the operation of God.
Paul says in Romans 6:22, “But now being made free from sin [the sin], and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness [sanctification], and the end everlasting life.” Now these words in the beginning of this verse show a very definite crisis had taken place. Paul’s hearers were Christians but carnal ones; their flesh nature controlled them. However, they could be emancipated from the dominion and power of the flesh—“now being made free from sin.”
They could become servants to God, no longer servants to sin from that moment of yielding obedience unto righteousness to God. They could reckon it done at the time that they appropriated Him as their sanctification. We must not only be separated from sin and dedicated to God but also abide in that separation in order to abide in the sense of our sanctification.
The Flesh Versus Flesh
What are we to do once the flesh principle is crucified “with Christ” and we are separated from this flesh principle controlling our life? Crucifixion must become the life of the Christian. Although this work of Christ put to death the flesh principle controlling my life, I still have the flesh that I live in. Although free from the flesh power, I continue with flesh weaknesses and proclivities. The answer for the flesh is Christ and His cross. Romans 8:12, 13: “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify [continue to make dead] the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”
Note 1 Peter 4:1, 2:
Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered [crucifixion, the crisis of sanctification] in the flesh hath ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of his time [from that crisis hour, do not live the rest of your life] in the flesh [that human flesh] to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.
Paul, in dealing with the Galatians who were born again in and through the power of Christ in the new birth, now warns them of looking to the power of the human flesh to perfect the Christian life. There is no spiritual power in the human flesh. Romans 7:18 declares, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform [in my human flesh life] that which is good I find not.”
So, what do we do? Galatians 2:20 responds:
I am crucified with Christ [He sanctifying Himself that day at the cross now is the One to sanctify me]: nevertheless I live [I live in a human body; I still live in human flesh]; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh [the human flesh, not the flesh principle] I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me [not only for my sins but also for the principle of sin, the flesh].
Christ lived in the flesh, the body, but He was not of the flesh; the flesh was not the controlling power. His body, His flesh, was not to do the will of the flesh. His body, His fleshly body was given to do the will of the Father.
In 1 Corinthians 9 as Paul writes to the Corinthians concerning the race, the good fight of faith, he describes his own conduct as a runner in the race. Paul kept his eye on Christ in running the race; he did not fight the air or shadow box. A real race and real fight necessitated disciplining the body, the human flesh. He did not want his body to be his master—laziness or weakness that would lead to the loss of the race and the loss of the fight. He must bring the flesh and the body into bondage or subjection, “lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (9:27b).
We see in Paul this wholesome fear, rather than smugness and complacency in his life for Christ. Paul consummates his burden of living to the carnal, fleshly life in Romans 13:13, 14:
Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering [a word that means given to the bed consumed in the pleasures of making love] and wantonness [no restraint of your living, indecency, that of shameless conduct, given to loose living, to every sin that enters the mind], not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.
The Lord Jesus becomes the garment to cover the flesh and its desires. Do not give any forethought for the flesh. Do not let your thoughts as a Christian be consumed with the flesh and the desires of the flesh. We must even be careful of how we want Jesus. In what way do we want Him to be experienced?
Conclusion
When Jesus was here on earth the disciples wanted to be with Him, in His physical presence. They wanted to see and be with Him, His body, His flesh. Even Joseph of Arimathaea craved for the soma, the “precious body” of Jesus. Yes, Jesus’ body was precious to the disciples!
On the resurrection day when Mary heard Jesus’ voice speaking her name (John 20:16, 17), she responded, “Rabboni”! She wanted the bodily presence of Christ. But Jesus told her, “Touch me not”! or, “Do not lean on me. Do not become obsessed with my bodily presence.”
There were forty days between the resurrection of Christ and His ascension. One of the reasons for those days was to wean His disciples from His physical presence. Through His appearing and disappearing, He taught them that “I am with you alway” (Matt. 28:20).
The flesh is not the priority! Even in 2 Corinthians 5:14–17, after Paul speaks of the resurrection, he declares in verse 16, “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more [after the flesh].” Christ came not only to deliver us from the power of the flesh principle but also to control the human flesh. He wants to crucify the world unto us, to put to death the love for it, the devotion to it, and the love of the will and life for it. “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:5).
To mind or to set one’s mind on fleshly things is the goal of the sinner and the carnal Christian. “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you” (Rom. 8:8, 9).
What is the antidote for the human flesh? It is Romans 12:1, 2:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies [your soma, the human flesh-body, the human nature delivered from the flesh sin principle] a living sacrifice [continually], holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed [present passive imperative, the continual, ongoing work of Christ] by the renewing of your mind [in Romans mind is the term for the new man], that ye may prove [or constantly test or try] what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God [the one will of God that is good, acceptable, and perfect in your living in the human flesh body].
Additionally, Galatians 2:20 declares, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” In living in my human flesh His will for my life, I must ever be yielding my human life, flesh body, to Christ.
The flesh must know a death, a crucifixion of its power; but human or natural flesh must know the crucified life of the cross of Christ to keep it “under” Christ’s power. As Paul said, “Nevertheless I live [after the crucifixion of the I of the flesh principle of sin]; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me [the human flesh I continues to live, but actually it must be Christ Himself living through the human flesh I].”