FLESH AND SPIRIT
“Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being
perfected by the flesh?” Gal. 3:3
In these questions
we have the principle for which the Apostle contended, applied to the
processional aspect of Christian experience. If Christ did not die for nothing,
that is, if we indeed are admitted to the possibility of righteousness through
faith in Him, and through that alone, then is it to be supposed that we shall
be able to realize in actual experience the things of righteousness by going
back to those methods which were unable to create the possibility or to
communicate the power of righteousness? The first phase of salvation is
justification; that is, the reconciliation of our essential spirit-life to God.
There we begin our Christian life. Is it reasonable to suppose, that departing
from that central and initial way, we may now hope to make progress in the
Christian life and experience by employing the methods of the flesh? Is it so,
that any activity of the flesh whatever can strengthen the life of the Spirit?
It is inconceivable. And yet here is the place where repeatedly the children of
God have been carried away. All sorts of fleshly devices have been resorted to
in the vain and foolish hope that activity of the flesh tends to strengthening
of the spirit. It is never so. The process is exactly opposite. The spirit
controls the flesh, employs it, commands it, sanctifies it and thus makes it
the instrument of service to others. Therefore the process of the soul to
perfection is always by faith, a spiritual activity, and never by works, a
fleshly method.
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