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MORTIFICATION OF THE FLESH ?
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Dear brother Piet,
Thank you for your email.
Yes Christ did find us when we were carnal sold under sin, and enemies to His own beloved Son's righteousness, and death upon the cross, and He made us live through His miraculous power. This is an amazing portion of Scripture, which the modern viper of reformed churchianity, would do well to listen to, with spiritual ears.
Dear Piet, you mentioned something in several e-mails back on how the reformed are wrong in their area on the mortification of sin doctrine.
Are you able to elaborate on this area for me, especially in the light of mortify your members that are upon the earth (Rom. 8:13; Col. 3:5). My take on this is like this (I don't know whether I am right), in Romans 8:13, scripture indicates mortification of sin to be the Spirit's work, "...if ye by the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live." However, in Colossians 3:5 it indicated us to do it. I do not have a problem with that, because either way it is the Spirit's work, for there is no way humanly speaking to stop sin, even in the regenerated Christian, due to the flesh (Rom. 7:ff) and the history of redemption indicates this. I am therefore to depend upon Christ's work of sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30) reckoning my what He has performed on the cross to me, whether that be dead to the law, or the mortification of the members.
Much love in Christ Jesus,
Jack, the sinner, saved by the power of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Dear brother Jack, in our precious oldest Brother Jesus,
In dependence of the Lord I will try to give you a short explanation of the meaning of your texts verses; or with other words, what we have to understand by the mortification of our members of the body of sin.
First of all, we have to make a seperation between de mortification of the members of the body of sin and the mortification of the old man. Mortification of the old man is impossible, because Gods people doesn't have an old man anymore, they only have the body of sin, that is, the corpus of the old man.
But what about the mortification of the members of the body of sin, which is the corpus of the old man?
Romans 8:13 sounds: "For if ye live according to the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."
Col. 3:5 sounds: "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; lewdness, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry."
First of all, I ask you a question: How did the murder on the cross mortify his members of the body of sin, after his conversion?
To make it more clear, I will ask you another question: In what way must a converted man being unconscious mortify his members of the body of sin?
So, if mortification of the members of the body of sin has to do with a command to do so, it will be for ever lost with me, because all my moving are as sinful as I am (Rom. 7:14-23) and that remains 100% the same in my entire life. In Romans 7:14, Paul says he is carnal, sold under sin, and he remained carnal sold under sin until his death. So, there is no mortification of the flesh on this side of the grave. Flesh remains 100% flesh and flesh becomes never Spirit.
By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in Rom. 8:13, Paul makes a distinction between unconverted and converted people. Unconverted people live under the law according to the flesh and if they remain unconverted, they will die in their sins. However, converted people (Gods true people) live according to the Spirit and they will live, because Jesus is their Life, because He had said so to them for instance in John 14:19: "I live, ye shall live also."
Romans 8:13 is also meant as a warning to Gods people to testify our self if we really are in true faith.
It's outside any doubt though that Gods people cannot live according to the flesh anymore, because a life according to the flesh is a life under the law and that belongs to the old man, not to the new man in Christ, because we are not under the law anymore, but under free grace. Living according to the flesh is a life in sin and that is impossible for Gods true people (Rom. 6:2).
O, yes, Gods people can fall in sin, even daily, but they cannot live in sin, because it says in Rom. 6:2: "How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" Gods people died with Christ and the old man is past tense for ever.
Besides, Gods people are living members of the body of Christ and in Him we are holy, because He is our Righteousness en our Sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30).
So, now we arrive a little bit closer to your question: How to understand the mortification of the deeds of the body of sin?
You can find the answer in 2 Corinthians 4:10-11, where it sounds: "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh."
So, mortification of our members on earth has nothing to do with an human action, not with a task of faith, not even with a work by the help of the Spirit, because 2 Corinthians 4:10-11, is not a command, but a sanctifying work of the Spirit of Sanctification in us. We have it, or not; we undergo it or not. Gods people cannot create it and they cannot stop it.
You are right by saying it's a work of the Spirit.
But be aware, we cannot move the Spirit to mortify the members of the corpus of the old man, no, it's the other way around, the Holy Spirit leads us in the sacrifice of Christ, because He is the Spirit of Sanctification. Yes, we can pray for it, but we don't know how to pray, if the Holy Spirit do not pray in us. We are totally dependable of the Holy Spirit by true faith. Paul is establishing that, in the next verse: "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."
The big question here is, are we led by the Spirit or not? That is the separation here which Paul makes use of it to make the things clear. Are we led by the Spirit? Did we received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry, Abba, Father, or do we still have the spirit of bondage, by which we have a life according to the flesh? Concerning Gods people Paul makes that point more clear in Romans 8 verse 15.
It looks like that what is written in Col. 3:5: "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth...", that it is a command, but it isn't. In the Greek language it sounds: "Being mortified", so we only have to look upon Jesus and we see our self hanging on the cross in the body of Christ, as it is written in Galations 5:24: "And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts."
Do you hear it, dear brother? "THEY HAVE...!" It`s a fact, not a command. We are, because Jesus is!
Concerning of the fact that we are carnal sold under sin (Rom. 7:14), we have to understand that we remain carnal sold under sin our entire life, because the law remains spiritual. If I am spiritual, the law is carnal, but if the law is spiritual, and the law is, I am carnal, sold under sin. If we misunderstand the mortification of the members of the body, and we live in an imagination that we can do it, than Paul forgot to tell us that he reached the level to be 99% or even less carnal, because otherwise mortification as a command doesn't make any sense. However, Paul remained 100% carnal until his dead, because the body of sin cannot be converted for 1 %. Flesh remains flesh and Spirit remains Spirit. But don't worry, the flesh is completely conquered by Christ, because the Word became Flesh, He came in our flesh to be Flesh in stead of us, to be sin in stead of us, to be a curse in stead of us, so, that means that Christ glorifies His grace in our carnal being, to be righteous and holy in HIM.
In Christ I don`t care the flesh is telling me the opposite who I am, if the Word of God teaches us better things, for it is written in Romans 6:10-11: "For in that He died, He died to sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth to God. Likewise RECKON ye also yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
So, Colossians 3:5 doesn't indicate us to practise mortification of our members, because our members are being mortified, for we have died with Christ.
Does that mean that we can live in sin, because we died with Christ? "By no means: how shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" Rom. 6:2. And therefore, the Holy Spirit writes by means of Paul in Romans 6:7: "For he that is dead is freed from sin."
In the sight of God we are what we are in Christ, as it is written in 1 Cor. 1:30. That is not a work of Christ in us, no, don't look inside, but look upon Him. He is it for us: He IS our Wisdom; He IS our Righteousness, He IS our Sanctification!
Are we satisfied with the Lamb of God?
If so, than the Lord is satisfied with us, being carnal, sold under sin, because only the imputation of the righteousness of Christ counts. Therefore Paul says and we with him: "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin", Rom. 7:25.
But be sure the Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of Sanctification, well, if I may say so, let Him do the whole job, without any cooperation of our human actions, not even with the help of our faith. We are being sanctified in Christ by imputation of His Sanctification and for being in the flesh we were sanctified through sufferings by the Spirit of Sanctification, "For it became Him, for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings", Hebr. 2:10.
Dear Jack, say good bye to your flesh, and tell your rotten flesh: "I have nothing to do with you anymore, because Christ is my Flesh and He obeyed and fulfilled the law in the flesh, in my flesh, so, my flesh doesn't count anymore."
That doesn't mean that I am satisfied with the body of sin, oh no, because Paul is crying in Romans 7:24: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
However, that was actually no question for him, because he himself gives the answer in the next verse: "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
If you have more questions about this, do not hesitate to ask, but first of all, ask and thank the Lord in all.
I wish you the nearness of the Lord,
Yours in our precious Saviour,
Piet
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