Issue 9, Jun 2008
Crucifying Your Sinful Flesh
We ended last time with the stark reminder that even after coming to faith in Christ, our sinful flesh remains with us. As I said, when you acknowledge that you are in the desperate condition of still having your sinful nature, you become the perfect candidate for Christ’s daily, sanctifying work through His powerful Word.
The answer to our problem is wrapped up in the word “crucify.” Before I get into the Scriptural references, picture what this word really means for us. We inevitably think about the crucifixion of our Savior. It was a horrible and violent form of execution. But that is exactly the point. We are not called to coax our sinful nature, counsel our flesh, or try to figure it out. We are rather called to be violent with it. We are to crucify and bury it. We are to drown it, destroy it, hammer it, crush it and smash it.
This is a round about way of saying that before you get into studying the Word, you need to deal with your flesh—single day. You are called to engage in a holy battle, a struggle. The good news is that you know who the ultimate victor will be, your Savior Christ who put your sin upon himself. You are now dealing with what remains, your sinful flesh. Your flesh can no longer condemn you. It will, however, still try to divert you from Christ.
Thus, you are called to a fight. While the Holy Spirit guarantees victory, the fight is still necessary. The flesh must be crucified, because it tries to keep us from the Word of God. We need to crucify the flesh every day, so that nothing gets in the way of our daily being in the Word.
Here is the answer:
“Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (
Galatians 5:24-25)
That is, we apply the Law of God to our flesh, that our sin would be revealed. This is called the second or theological or most important use of the Law described in
Romans 3:20. We use the Law as a mirror to see our sin, so that we may confess it to God. When we do, the Lord leads us to see what He has done with our sin, including our sin of avoiding or not wanting to be in His Word. He shows us that our sin was put on Christ who “redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us” (
Galatians 3:13).
“It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition [heart-felt sorrow over our sin] and repentance (turning away from sin and towards Christ) be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and
that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”
Luther then quotes
Romans 6:4 on the power of our baptism into Christ.
Did you notice what we are doing to the Old Adam (a reference to the flesh/sinful nature)? We are drowning it, so as to kill it! Again, that’s violent. It describes a great fight. This is what we so often leave out in our pursuit to be in the Word. We forget the fight. We forget to do some killing, some crucifying. But it must be done, because it is the flesh that stands in the way to keep us from studying God’s Word!
Interestingly, Satan has cunningly tricked people with this sort of psychology. Here is an example of the kind of lies he whispers to our hearts.
“Now you know (insert your name) that you should approach the Lord and His Word with a genuine desire and holiness, not with your poor and complaining attitude. Just look at yourself, you don’t even want to read the Word. You’re forcing yourself; you’re going through the motions. You’re wasting your time; you’re not doing it right. Why don’t you put it off until you’re in a better frame of mind?”
Hog wash!
Instead we must say, “I know that I’m in the wrong frame of mind. I know that I approach as a desperate sinner. I know that my thoughts are distracted and filled with what is inappropriate, but that is why I come! I come to take that Old Adam, to drown him violently, to crucify him, so that he gets out of the way, so that he can no longer hear the devil, so that I can instead, in the new man, hear my Lord.”
This surprises some. Could it be that a Christian must struggle so much in this venture of studying God’s Word and doing what is pleasing in the Lord?
Luther has some jewels to offer:
“. . .there is great comfort for the faithful in this teaching of Paul’s, because they know that they have partly flesh and partly Spirit, but in
such a way that the Spirit rules and the flesh is subordinate, that righteousness is supreme and sin is a servant. Otherwise someone who is not aware of this will be completely overwhelmed by a spirit of sadness and will despair. But for someone who knows this doctrine and uses it properly even evil will have to cooperate for good. For when his flesh impels him to sin, he is aroused and incited to seek forgiveness of sins through Christ and to embrace righteousness of faith, which he would otherwise not have regarded as so important or yearned for with such intensity. And so it is very beneficial if we sometimes become aware of the evil of our nature and our flesh, because in this way we are aroused and stirred up to have faith and to call upon Christ. . .In fact, the godlier one is, the more aware he is of this conflict. This is the course of the complaint of the saints in the Psalms and throughout Scripture…A believer’s sin is the same sin and sin just as great as that of the unbeliever. To the believer, however, it is forgiven and not imputed, while to the unbeliever it is retained and imputed.” (
Luther’s Works, volume 27, p. 74)
As we grow in our study of the Word, we will not become less, but more aware of the conflict! Then with our confession, our crucifixion, and our drowning of the Old Adam, after this battle and violent death, we can say with St. Paul:
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me” (
Galatians 2:19-21).
With the Holy Spirit leading you to do this to your flesh, the Lord will daily open a door, inviting you in to study His Word and you will be blessed in ways we could never describe. May the Lord bless you in your pursuit to be in His Word every, single day!
Note: All five parts of “Why Study The Word of God” will be available in a single, convenient, downloadable format next month.