02.19. ESSAY NO. 19

ESSAY NO. 19 The religion of the flesh and the religion of the Spirit are mutual opposites. In the Bible a group of closely interlocked words and phrases (flesh, old man, body of sin, natural man, world, law, sin, death) are descriptive of the former. Another group, similarly in­terlocked, (spirit, spiritual man, new man, grace, cross, church, righteousness, life) are descriptive of the lat­ter. There is no interlocking between the groups, how­ever ; they are as distinct as are sheep and goats.

After saying that the Judaizers, though they pre­tended to be the best Christians in Galatia, selfishly gloried in the flesh, Paul, as the antithesis, says: "But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." That is, their chief satisfaction, joy, and crown was, hypocritically, to build up in the church a legalistic party, while Paul’s chief delight and glory was in the cross. "The emblem of suffering and shame ... so despised by the world." Elsewhere, Paul says that Christians, "Worship by the Spirit of God, glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Php 3:3). The Cross The irreconcilable warfare between God and Satan came to a crisis in the decisive cross of Christ, where God is revealed at his very best and Satan at his very worst. As Christ faced the cross he said: "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth (on the cross), will draw all men unto myself" (John 12:31-32). In the invincible strategy of God, Christ’s being crucified by Satan through his world became the means of ultimately casting out usurping Satan and his doomed, corrupt system of government over the world, which at that time was represented by the Roman Empire and Caesar. As David slew the fallen Goliath with his own sword, so God by the res­urrection of Christ snatched Satan’s weapon out of his hand and turned it against him. In this long conflict, Adam sided with Satan, and Christ with God; neither could be on both sides. The struggle, as seen between Christ’s church and Satan’s world, yet divides men. "What concord hath Christ with Belial? or what portion hath a believer with an unbeliever?" (2 Corinthians 6:15). The church and the world will not amalgamate. The confusion, wicked ness and misery of the world are no more displeasing to God than are the pride and works of the world; the sin of the rebel flesh and the righteousness of the rebel flesh are both abominable to him. Christians, being identified with Christ as they are, must be rejected and hated by the world, which has never repented of mur­dering Christ. "If the world hate you, ye know it hated me before you .. . because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you" (John 15:18-19).

"Jesus suffered without the gate" of Jerusalem, and "without the camp" of Judaism. (See Hebrews 13:11-14). Although this scripture originally pleaded with Jewish Christians not to desert Christ, but to cleave to him, become strangers, pilgrims, even outcasts with him as he literally "went out, bearing the cross for him­self," it still applies to all Christians of all races. The cross no more separates Christians from their sins than it separates them from the world; it no more brings them peace with God than it brings them war with the flesh. To help Jewish Christians first, and all Christians since, not to think the narrow gate, the strait way, and the separated life too difficult, or even unreasonable, this scripture closes: "For we have not here an abiding city, but we seek after the city which is to come." Indeed, this is still timely monition for worldly Christians. And who can say it so well as Paul said to the Galatians long ago, "The world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world." A New Creation

"For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." This verse is the very heart of Galatians, even of Christianity. All along, Paul had been thundering, "If ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law"; thundering, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" to grow in con­formity to the universal principle of life and growth in all realms—the principle that growth proceeds from within to without, never the reverse. When men give themselves over to God in the Christian way, such a renewal takes place in their spirits that a covenant of law is no longer needed to curb their flesh. And, since Christians are the first and only men ever to experi­ence this constitutional, spiritual renewal, they are properly a new creation. "Wherefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (both here and Gal., ASV, have alternative readings, "a new creation"): old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. But all things are of God" (2 Corinthians 5:17-18). Most men, even some Christians are lamentably slow to learn that only the God who created them in the beginning can re-create them after discreative Satan has bruised their heads.

Lazarus and a few others have been called back from death to live again in their same, resuscitated bodies until released by death again. But the body in which Christ lived after he came back from death was a strange, new creation. It was a type of human body with which earth is unacquainted—a spiritual body— adapted to a spiritual eternity. Christ’s new body is not only the "firstfruits" of the bodies to be raised at his coming; it is also a symbol of his body, the church, another new creation. Before the church was created, mankind consisted of only two classes of men—Jews and Gentiles. Out of willing individuals from these two classes, Christ created a "new man, so making peace" (Ephesians 2:15), thus creating a third class of men, in which "neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision." "Give no occasion of stumbling, either to Jews, or to Greeks, or unto the church of God" (1 Corinthians 10:32).

What makes legalists legalists is they fail to see that the transition from legalism (elements of the world, Judaic or otherwise) to Christianity is a change of religious center from flesh to Spirit, from man to God. Christ calls this essential, constitutional change, that really makes old things new, a new birth. This spiritual birth is what makes Christianity a new crea­tion, a new covenant. Christians who fall into legalism, Galatians teaches, "are severed from Christ . . . are fallen away from grace," and have the same old, futile religion of the flesh, which men had before God in grace came to die for them, and to indwell and to strengthen them "with power through his Spirit in the inward man."