The Spirit Lusteth Against the Flesh

Galatians v. 17.

PW E are not in the flesh; but the flesh is in us. This seems to be the incontrovertible testimony of Scripture and experience.

Writing to the Galatian Christians, the Apostle makes use of an expression which shows that, in his estimation, taught by the Holy Ghost, there was no eradication of the principle of the old nature, known as the flesh. He says: “The flesh lusteth against the spirit.” Evidently, therefore, it was a matter of continual experience, with Him and tl*em: he speaks of it as a 12 4 “Ube Spirit Xustetb.”

matter concerning which there can be no dispute.

Those who teach the eradication of the self-life, often beg the question by asking if God, who has done so much, could not also root out the old fleshly principle of the self-life. To this question there is but one answer: of

course He could. But to ask the question is to raise a false issue. It is not what God can do, but what He chooses to do. And so far as I can understand the Bible, it does not teach that the eradication of the flesh is God’s intention for us on this side of the gates of pearl.

But this is God’s intention, as clearly taught in Romans vi. — we who believe are accounted as one with Jesus:

“One when He died; one when He rose;

One when He triumphed o’er His foes;

One when in heaven He took His seat.

And Heaven rejoiced o’er Hell’s defeat.”

Therefore, having died in Him, we “IRecfcon ltpourselxpes 2>eaJ>/’ 125

have, by death, passed out of the realm of sin. “He that is dead is freed from sin.” In God’s thought and intention, we are where Christ is, on the other side of death; and therefore for ever delivered from the bondage arid claims of sin. And now it is our duty by faith to make God’s thought ours. We must reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God. It is not that the sin-principle (the old man) is dead in us; but we must be dead to it. Whenever it arises, we are to account ourselves as being insensible to its claims: as a corpse is to the tears of warm affection, or to the winsome embraces of a love that cannot part.

Does not this command, Reckon yourselves dead, prove that the old man has not ceased to exist? If it had, then it would have been needless to reckon ourselves dead to it. The necessity of reckoning ourselves dead proves that it is still present within us, requiring from us an attitude of constant denial and abhorrence and disregard.

But how can we take up and maintain this attitude? It is an impossibility to those who have not learnt to live in the power of the Holy Ghost.

Listen to these striking testimonies of Scripture:

“The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Rom. viii. 2.)

“If ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” (Rom. viii. 13.)

“Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” (Gal. v. 16.)

We have also the assurance of the succeeding verse, that if the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, the Spirit lusts back again, and more mightily, jflesb anfc Sptdt. against the flesh, so that we may not do the things which otherwise we should. (See Gal. v. 17, r. v.) How gladly may we dwell upon this glorious present tense! Where the Christian is living in the fullness of the Spirit, the flesh has no chance. It is within him; it may strive to entice him (James i. 14); it may even stretch out its hands in answer to the solicitation of the devil from without; but it is carefully watched by the Holy Ghost. Its every movement is resisted. It is kept down by His gracious energy. It is quelled so instantly that the spirit is hardly conscious of its strivings. And the power of the flesh, as the years go past, becomes so broken, that it is but the attenuated skeleton of its former self. Thus we are kept from doing what otherwise, and if left to ourselves, we should be certain to do. Nothing but the divine power of the Holy Ghost could keep us from being swept away before the lustings of the flesh.

Some years ago, I lived in a house, the underground kitchen of which was so damp that, when we failed to keep up a vigorous fire, the floor was encrusted with white mould, so much so that the maid could fill her dust-pan with it; but when the fire was burning bright and warm, the bricks and walls were kept perfectly dry. There was always the latent tendency to produce damp; but it was kept in abeyance by the heat, so it could not do as it otherwise would. So when the Holy Ghost, as fire, works mightily within the heart, those tendencies to sin, which are, alas! natural to us, are overcome and thwarted, and kept in the place of death.

In an infected house, the carbolic acid plentifully distributed in basins and on sheets acts as an antiseptic to the germs coming from the patient’s body, so that they are prevented doing what otherwise they would to healthy subjects. The blessed Spirit is the antiseptic to the evil of the old nature.

The Holy Ghost is in every Christian. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” But in many He is cribbed into a narrow space; confined in an attic or a cellar of their souls; and therefore He cannot do f 01 them what He would. If that has been so, and if, therefore, your life has been one of failure and disappointment, open every department and room of your being to His gracious operations.

And as mercery, when poured into a glass of water, will expel the water and take its place, so will the Holy Spirit take possession of your being, filling you, as on the day of Pentecost He filled the waiting disciples: and then He will dwell within you mightily; keeping pure and holy the body, which is His peculiar Temple.