04.19. LESSON 19

LESSON 19 As a Jew, Paul thought he had to obey law in order to be saved. As a Christian, he learned he had to be saved before he could obey law. That is, he had to become a Christian by a supernatural spiritual birth, and then go on to use the enabling supernatural Christian means in order to live up to the requirements of God’s law; had to die to law as the immediate means, and be alive to the mediate Christian means, ever to attain "The sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord." In order to make this supreme truth of Romans 6:1-23, Romans 7:1-25, Romans 8:1-39 clearest and most compelling, Paul tells his own experience by way of example. The tragedy of the church has been (and is) that too many Christians, instead of following Paul’s example, have regarded Christianity largely as another legal system to be fulfilled chiefly in "the will of the flesh." As a consequence, they have continued to be almost as self-centered and legally minded after as before baptism. Legalism, because it is man centered and presupposes a human power and merit which natural men do not possess, must ever fail.

"The Flesh"

"The flesh," found in the last line of Romans 1:1-25, is found twelve times (about the same number as its opposite, "The Spirit,") in Romans 8:1-13; thus the two chapters are bound together. The better we understand this term, the better can we understand, appreciate, and appropriate Christianity. In his statement to Nicodemus, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," Christ sets the flesh and the Spirit over against each other as mutual opposites. He fixes such a gulf between them that the flesh can never evolve into spirit. According to this, men are either fleshly or spiritual, never both. Christ repeatedly makes this two-fold classification of men. He parabolically divides soil into productive and nonproductive, nations into sheep and goats, trees into good and corrupt, and ways into broad and narrow. He says to the multitudes, "He that is not with me is against me;" and to sectarian John, "Forbid him not; for he that is not against you is for you" (Luke 9:50). Thus, Christ divides humanity into two broad classes, without the possibility of a third class—the once-born and the twice-born. The disposition either to add a third class or to run these two classes together into one class is unmoral, ungodly, and anti-Christian. Of course subclasses exist. In the parable of the sower, there are three kinds of productive and three kinds of unproductive soil. The broad road to destruction has a dirty and a clean side, as is illustrated by the two brothers in Christ’s story of the Prodigal. If the elder brother is on a higher rung of the ladder of human responsibility and merit, the trouble about that is the ladder never reaches heaven. Church and world here; heaven and hell after here. Did God create "the flesh"? No. He created Adam innocent, with sinless nature, or flesh, and Adam by his ungrateful rebellion perverted himself into "sinful flesh." His treachery shifted the moral center from God to man, which upset the delicate unity and balance of his nature and personality. After this treason, he and his posterity, "begat in his own likeness," constitute "the flesh." The body is "the body of sin" because sinful flesh uses it as its agent.

God prepared a body for Christ (Hebrews 10:5), and he "became flesh and dwelt among us." However, as he never disobeyed God, he was only "in the likeness of sinful flesh." Unlike Adam, he repulsed Satan’s temptations, and therefore never lost his sinless flesh. Flesh as God made it is "very good." But of all men, only "the first man Adam," for a time, and Christ, "the last Adam," for all time, have possessed such flesh. "The flesh" and equivalent phrases such as "the old man," "the natural man," "I of myself," "sinful flesh," and "this world" denote the God-discarding, Serpent-following, man-centering (remember Eden) part of humanity that never finds deliverance from condemnation in Adam to justification in Christ—Christians and "the rest" of men (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

"The Spirit" The Holy Spirit enters the Bible in Genesis 1:1-31 as the power to perfect creation, and continues throughout the Bible as power. We read that "the Spirit of God" spoke through false men such as Balaam, king Saul and Caiaphas, and worked through judges, kings and prophets. John the Baptist was "filled with the Holy Spirit" from birth. God must have wanted readers of the Bible to get the impression that the Holy Spirit, without the violation of mental or mortal law, has access at will to human minds. At the baptism of Jesus, the three Persons of the sacred Trinity are distinguished—Jesus being baptized, God speaking from heaven, and the Spirit descending and abiding on Jesus. Mark says, "And straightway the Spirit driveth him forth into the wilderness" for Satan’s temptings. The Spirit came and "abode upon him" during his life and work. "God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power: who went about doing good" (Acts 10:38). Christ’s whole ministry is a commentary upon this verse. He cast out demons by the Spirit of God.

Throughout the Bible superhuman power is associated with the Spirit, as blood is with Christ. Inasmuch as it would be unlike God to waste power as he marches on to establish his redemptive kingdom, Christ shares the Spirit with his disciples, preparing them for their duties after his death. According to his last speech to the apostles (John 13:1-38, John 14:1-31, John 15:1-27, John 16:1-33, John 17:1-26) the Spirit was to abide with them and to be in them to comfort, refresh their memories, guide them into new truth, and convict the world. The idea of the Spirit’s abiding with and being in the whole community of God’s people, as distinguished from the world, for an age, was new. After his resurrection, Christ told his apostles to tarry in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). At his ascension, he said to them: "But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you" (Acts 1:8). The Spirit came in power on Pentecost, "And with great power gave the apostles their witness." Would not the poor, beaten Christian of Romans 7:1-25 be profoundly grateful that his religion provided power beyond his own?

Questions