And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:24, NKJV).
Just Can't Kill the Beast
Crucifixion is one of the most cruel deaths imaginable. It is designed to maximize suffering and minimize dignity. It is ruthless and implacable and relentless. Throughout the ordeal the body struggles reflexively to escape the pain, to rise up against the nails impaling some of the most sensitive joints in the body merely to draw yet one more breath. Ancient Roman records tell of victims literally going insane before expiring, their thirst-wracked bodies struggling ferociously, with each futile movement increasing the agony exponentially. Death comes slowly in most instances. One account speaks of a man surviving for 9 days, so desperate was he to resist the inevitable. By the time he breathed his last, his bones had pierced his emaciated and dehydrated skin, his eyes had literally exploded in petechial hemorrhaging, and his face was ravaged by scavenger birds beyond human recognition.
That is the picture Paul paints with the verse above. That is the war that goes on between a Christ-regenerated heart and the old unregenerate nature. It is the expected outcome of the battle that ensues when the "flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh." The Apostle purposefully uses this analogy to emphasize the horrendous significance of the conflict, and yet I can't help but confess that this war as waged in my own being is not nearly as intense or heated. I have certainly "not yet resisted to bloodshed striving against sin." But I should be. And if I could, the death of those fleshly lusts would truly liberate me to live life as a man after God's own heart.
Of course the analogy is figurative, not literal. The Lord does not expect His children to actually undergo crucifixion, but He does expect us to combat the passions and desires of our old nature with the same ferocity with which our old nature fights back, like that body on the Roman cross struggling relentlessly against the iron bonds that restrain its freedom. Nor is this to imply that all passions and desires deserve ruthless death, but only those that are ungodly, self-destructive, animalistic and rebellious. Be assured, there is godly passion and desire, and a Christian walking in humble surrender to His Lord is overflowing with both. But it is the kind that brings life, not death. The kind that fiercely stands for what is right, that comforts, and is kind, that is gentle and is immersed in love, not lust. It is an all-consuming desire for good and the passion to know and live in fellowship with the Father and with His Son.
Just Can't Kill the Beast
Crucifixion is one of the most cruel deaths imaginable. It is designed to maximize suffering and minimize dignity. It is ruthless and implacable and relentless. Throughout the ordeal the body struggles reflexively to escape the pain, to rise up against the nails impaling some of the most sensitive joints in the body merely to draw yet one more breath. Ancient Roman records tell of victims literally going insane before expiring, their thirst-wracked bodies struggling ferociously, with each futile movement increasing the agony exponentially. Death comes slowly in most instances. One account speaks of a man surviving for 9 days, so desperate was he to resist the inevitable. By the time he breathed his last, his bones had pierced his emaciated and dehydrated skin, his eyes had literally exploded in petechial hemorrhaging, and his face was ravaged by scavenger birds beyond human recognition.
That is the picture Paul paints with the verse above. That is the war that goes on between a Christ-regenerated heart and the old unregenerate nature. It is the expected outcome of the battle that ensues when the "flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh." The Apostle purposefully uses this analogy to emphasize the horrendous significance of the conflict, and yet I can't help but confess that this war as waged in my own being is not nearly as intense or heated. I have certainly "not yet resisted to bloodshed striving against sin." But I should be. And if I could, the death of those fleshly lusts would truly liberate me to live life as a man after God's own heart.
Of course the analogy is figurative, not literal. The Lord does not expect His children to actually undergo crucifixion, but He does expect us to combat the passions and desires of our old nature with the same ferocity with which our old nature fights back, like that body on the Roman cross struggling relentlessly against the iron bonds that restrain its freedom. Nor is this to imply that all passions and desires deserve ruthless death, but only those that are ungodly, self-destructive, animalistic and rebellious. Be assured, there is godly passion and desire, and a Christian walking in humble surrender to His Lord is overflowing with both. But it is the kind that brings life, not death. The kind that fiercely stands for what is right, that comforts, and is kind, that is gentle and is immersed in love, not lust. It is an all-consuming desire for good and the passion to know and live in fellowship with the Father and with His Son.
And please note the ownership explicitly stated in the focus text: "And those who are Christ's…". We are His possession, bought at a price, destined for unimaginable glory. Heaven is no place for a dead man, and sin's inevitable outcome is death.
Note one final thing, the tense of the verb associated with crucified. It is past-perfect in the Greek, signifying a completed act or state. That is how God views us through His son; already perfected though we fall far short of the final "adoption, the redemption of our body". To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, we are all divine beings in the making, not yet fully cooked by any means, but from the Father's perspective, an already completed masterpiece of His Son's.
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. (Romans 8:29, 30, NKJV).
being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; (Philippians 1:6, NKJV).
Yes we will struggle. We are meant to struggle against our sin with all that is within us. Yes, we will fall, but He promises to pick us up again and again, until that last freeing moment when we no longer require the air of this raggedy life, and fully possess the heavenly inheritance that is ours in Christ.
Yes we will struggle. We are meant to struggle against our sin with all that is within us. Yes, we will fall, but He promises to pick us up again and again, until that last freeing moment when we no longer require the air of this raggedy life, and fully possess the heavenly inheritance that is ours in Christ.
