The Cross and the Flesh

THEse two are deadly enemies. The Cross desires to condemn and put to death ‘‘the flesh.’? “‘The — flesh’’ desires to cast aside and conquer the Cross. Many, as they hear of the Cross as the indispensable preparation for the fullness of the Holy Spirit, will find out what there is in them which must yet be crucified. We must understand that our entire nature is sentenced to death, and become dead, by the Cross, so that the new life in Christ may come to rule in us. We must obtain such an insight into the fallen condition of our nature and its enmity against God, that we become willing, nay desirous, to be wholly freed from it.

We must learn to say with Paul: ‘‘In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.’’ ‘‘The mind of the flesh is enmity against God: it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.’’ It is its very essence to hate God and His holy law. This is the wonder of redemption, that Christ has borne on the Cross the judgment and curse of God on ‘‘the flesh,’’ and has for ever nailed it to the cursed tree. If a man only believes God’s Word about this ‘‘eursed mind of the flesh,’’ and then longs to be delivered from it, he learns to love the Cross as his deliverer from the power of. the enemy.

‘‘Our old man is crucified’’ with Christ, and our one hope is to receive this by faith, and to hold it fast. ‘‘They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh.’? They have willingly declared that they will daily regard ‘‘the flesh’? which is in them as the enemy of God, the enemy of Christ, the enemy of their soul’s salvation, and will treat it as having received its deserved reward in being nailed to the Cross.:

This is one part of the eternal redemption which Christ has brought to us. It is not something which Wwe can grasp with our understanding or accomplish with our strength. It is something which the Lord Jesus Himself will give us if we are willing to abide in His fellowship day by day, and to receive everything from Him. It is something which the Holy Spirit will teach us, and He will impart it to us as an experience, and will show how He ean give victory in the power of the Cross over all that is of the flesh.