The War Between the Flesh and the Spirit # 2

The War Between the Flesh and the Spirit # 2

From the very moment that this principle of spiritual life is put in us, a war commences between the spirit and the flesh. They are contrary to each other and they are continually fighting against each other. Now it is the work of sanctification to carry on that fight of the spirit against the flesh, so that, as it is expressed in another scripture, "By the Spirit ye do mortify (that is, crucify) the sins of the body and put them to death."

The other scripture is in the letter to the Romans, the seventh chapter beginning with the fourteenth verse: "For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin, for that which I do I allow not; for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good (because I say I do not wish to do that). Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not:but the evil which I would not that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

Now it is utterly impossible for that language to come from the lips of one who is sanctified, soul, body and spirit. And it is equally impossible for that language to come from the lips of one who is not a Christian at all. Why? Because it says, "I consent unto the law that it is good." No unregenerate sinner could say it. He knows he does not delight in it. I would do the Spirit's commandment, I would obey it. There is not that will in the unconverted man.

So then, these two scriptures represent a state in which sanctification has not yet been consummated, but in which regeneration has taken place, in which a war is going on of the flesh against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. As sanctification progresses the spirit triumphs more and more over the flesh. 

Now, let us look at another point. How is the process of sanctification carried on? It is carried on by the growth (mark the expression), by the growth of our spiritual graces. I will not speak of all of them, but I will take some of them to illustrate what I mean. Faith is one of the Christian graces. Now, if our faith is weak our progress in sanctification is slow, but if our faith is strong, and keeps getting stronger, then our progress in sanctification progresses as our faith develops.

In the second letter to the Thessalonians, in the first chapter and third verse, the Apostle Paul says, "I thank God that your faith groweth exceedingly." Now, compare that with the prayer once offered to Jesus: "Lord, increase our faith." Not only by the growth of faith, but by the growth of hope, which rests on faith. If our faith is weak our hope will be weak; if our faith is strong our hope will be strong.

Now, in the fifteenth chapter of the letter to the Romans, and in the thirteenth verse, the Apostle Paul says, "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit." Now, here is an expansion of our hope. It gets clearer, brighter, broader and stronger as our faith get clearer, and brighter, and broader and stronger. Not only, then, with reference to the grace of hope, but with reference to the grace of love.

Take the passage in the third chapter of First Thessalonians, and the twelfth and thirteenth verses:

"The Lord make you to increase and abound in love, one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you, to the end that He may establish your hearts, unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father (listen at this), at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints."

Now here is an unbelievable state of holiness referred to, just like in all the other passages I have read, and the apostle declares one of the principles by which you continually approximate that state of unblamableness in holiness, and he says that the principle is love. That is the process by which they were to reach it, and hence the Apostle Peter at the close of his second letter says, "Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ," showing that it is a growth, that it is a development. Then take what he says, which you have often heard me quote: "Add to or supply with you faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, Godliness, brotherly kindness, charity," and then he goes on to show that this marvelous development is consummated by an abundant entrance into the kingdom of glory. From these scriptures I think you see by what process sanctification is carried on.

Now, very plainly, I want to answer a question: Is sanctification consummated here, so that a man can say, "I am completely sanctified?" So that a man can say, "I am unblamable in my holiness, in spirit, in soul, in body?" That is the question. I am exceedingly sorry that anyone should ever have presumed to say "yes" to that question. I am sorry because it directly and flatly contradicts the most positive declarations of God's Word.

~B. H. Carroll~

(continued with # 3)