“While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions … were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are … dead…” (Rom. 7:5–6). Because of this the flesh has no rule over us any further.
We believed and acknowledged that our flesh has been crucified on the cross.
Now: not before: we can turn our attention to the matter of experience.
Though we presently stress experience, we nevertheless firmly hold to the fact of our crucifixion with Christ.
What God has done for us and what we experience of Jesus’ completed work, though noticeable, are inseparable.
God has done what He had to do. The question next is, what attitude do we assume towards His finished work?
God has, not just in theory crucified our flesh on the cross. If we believe and if we exercise our will to choose what God has accomplished for us, it will become our life experience.
We are not asked to do anything because God has done it all. We are not required to crucify our flesh for God has crucified it on the cross. Do you believe this is true? Do you desire to possess it in your life?
If we believe and if we desire, then we shall cooperate with the Holy Spirit in obtaining this experience.
Colossians 3:5,6 commands us to “Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).”
This is the path towards experience. The “therefore” indicates the consequence of what precedes it in verse 3, “you have died.”
The “you have died” is the finished work of Jesus on the cross.
Because “you have died,” therefore “put to death what is earthly in you.”
The first mention of death here is our legal position in Christ; the second, our vital experience.
The failure of believers today can be found in a failure to see the relationship between these two deaths.
Some have attempted to put their flesh to death for they place the burden only upon the death experience. But their flesh grows stronger with each attempt!
Others have acknowledged the truth that their flesh in fact was crucified with Christ on the cross; yet they do not seek the vital aspect of redemption, to experience the reality of it in their daily life.
Neither of these can ever appropriate experimentally the crucifixion of the flesh.
If we desire to put our members to death, we first must have a legal standing for such action; otherwise, we merely rely upon our own human strength.
No degree of zeal can ever bring the desired experience to us. Furthermore, if we only know our flesh has been crucified with Christ but have not partnered with the Holy Spirit to have Jesus’ finish work vitally experienced in our daily life, our knowledge too will be fruitless.
A putting to death of the flesh in our daily life requires a knowing first of our identification in His death on the cross. The legal aspect of our redemption.
Knowing our legal identification, we must then exercise the putting to death of the flesh in our daily lives. These two must go together.
We are deceiving ourselves should we be satisfied with just perceiving the fact of our identification with Jesus on the cross, thinking we are now spiritual because the flesh has been crucified.
It is an equal deception if in putting to death the deeds of the flesh if we over-emphasize them and fail to consider ourselves dead, (attitude) towards the flesh.
What we focus on we attract, if you are focused on the problem, the problem will be magnified.
If we focus on the solution then it will be at the front of our conciseness, enabling us to walk in the spirit.
Should we forget that the flesh is dead in God’s sight we shall never be in rest.
The “put to death” is dependent upon the “you have died.”
This putting to death means bringing appropriating the legal aspect of our redemption, so that it becomes vital in our daily lives.
The fact that our flesh has been crucified in Christ enforces our authority to put away any manifestation of the flesh in our daily life.
Since we are united with Jesus’ in His crucifixion we can apply His death to any member of our body which is tempted to lust and immediately cast it down. We can immediately step our of any manifestation of the flesh operating in our soul, and step back into our spirit, and respond accordingly.
Our union with Christ in His death means that it is an accomplished fact in our spirits.
What a believer must do now is to bring reality in their spirit and apply it to the members of their body(flesh), should desires or manifestations arise.
Such spiritual death is not a once for all reality in our daily life, it is a daily walk with God.
Whenever the believer is not watchful and focused on their spirit, the flesh can arise. But if we learn how to walk in the spirit it is impossible to fulfill the lust of the flesh. We will resist it immediately because we are submitted to the Lord.
If we desire to be conformed completely to the Lord’s death, he must unceasingly keep our body under the Lordship of Jesus over our spirit, so that what is real in the spirit may be manifested in our body.
Where comes the power to do this?
It is “by the Spirit,” insists Paul, that “you put to death the deeds of the body.” (Rom. 8:13)
To put away these deeds of the flesh the believer must rely upon the Holy Spirit to transform “his co-crucifixion with Christ” into personal experience.
We must believe that the Holy Spirit will govern the death of the cross(in Christ) on whatever needs to die in our daily life.
Since the believer’s flesh was crucified with Christ on the cross, they do not need today to be crucified once again.
All which is required is to apply, by the Holy Spirit, the accomplished death of the Lord Jesus for us on the cross to any particular deed of the body which now tries to rise up.
It will then be put to death by the power of the Lord’s death.
The wicked works of the flesh may spring up at any time and at any place, unless the child of God abides in the spirit.
By appropriating the finished work of Christ on the cross the babe in Christ will be liberated from the power of the flesh and will be united with the Lord Jesus in resurrection life.
Hereafter the Christian should “walk by the Spirit” and should “not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16).
We always should remember that however deeply our Lord’s cross may penetrate our lives we cannot expect to avoid further agitations of the flesh without constant vigilance.
Whenever we fail to follow the Holy Spirit, we immediately return to following the flesh. We live in our soul, instead of our spirit.
So, at the end of the Romans 7 experience, the last verse says this.
25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So, then, with the mind (renewed mind) I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.