Biblical teaching - T116

The Power of the Preaching of the Cross

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Paul himself declares : "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord ! So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin." (Romans 7:25).

If you are still walking in the flesh, you are still a slave to the law and to sin. But if you are dwelling in the Spirit and in faith, you are no longer a slave to the law of sin. You are now a slave to the law of God and you are walking in the Spirit.

In Romans 8, Paul adds : "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."(Romans 8:1) That means : "in Jesus Christ crucified and risen". That is not in the text, but it is what Paul means. "Those who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." (Romans 8:4). Those who are still walking according to their former selves with their wrong inclinations are still under condemnation. But those who walk according to the Spirit and have been regenerated in Christ are free from any such condemnation. "that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." (Romans 8:4).

So the same Paul who said, in Romans 7, that he was falling short, now declares that his understanding has been enlightened. He knows that the body of sin has been destroyed and that as long as he walks in faith he walks in permanent victory, since he also says : "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:2). That remains a fact as long as we consistently walk in faith.

In Christ, my old nature was crucified. In Christ, I am a new creature. When I come up against sin, I shall be in a position to resist and overcome it, for I am no longer a slave to sin. I fall back into slavery to sin only if I forget that revelation and resume my former way of living, overlooking the fact that I have been crucified with Christ and have become a new creature in Christ. But when I have received the wondrous revelation of the Cross, then I can walk in permanent victory. Alleluia !

Paul clearly states in Romans 8:3 : "God… condemned sin in the flesh". For that reason, Jesus had to be made flesh in a body like ours, and that flesh had to be put to death. He had to take upon Himself all our sins, all our condemnation and go through death in our stead. Because He underwent death in His flesh, we can partake of His Life. God the Father has placed us in Christ, so that our sinful flesh might die through His death. "God did so by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh…".

Christ was not born with a sinful flesh. Jesus’ flesh remained utterly undefiled. Some Christians teach that through His mother, Jesus had an adamic flesh just like ours, but the Word of God says the opposite. Jesus’ conception was utterly miraculous, pure and undefiled. Even the ovum He came from was not Mary’s, otherwise his conception would have been partly human. No, his conception was totally supernatural from the start. God His Father made His body free from the slightest trace of sin, and yet His body was just like ours in all other respects. So Jesus was able to be a perfect manifestation of divine life, of perfect life. If the Lord Jesus had inherited a nature that was even partly carnal, He would not have been the perfect Saviour we needed. He could not have redeemed us.

So Jesus remained utterly pure ever since His conception, in a flesh that was like our own in all things, except sin. He experienced weakness, thirst, hunger, and weariness, but never knew sin or sickness. Those who teach that Jesus had all the childhood diseases that other human beings catch have no understanding of Christ’s untainted nature — pardon me for saying so. Indeed, that would mean that from His conception, Jesus had inherited a carnal human nature, and that cannot be.

Paul says : "For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin : he condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." (Romans 8 : 3-4).

Let me say this again : to walk in the Spirit is to walk through faith in God’s everlasting Word. The Spirit always takes us back to the Word. To walk in the flesh is to walk according to our own human hearts and patterns of thought, according to what men tell us, or what the devil tells us.

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