Walk in the Spirit

Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. They that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh, with the passions and lusts thereof. If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk (Gal. 5:16, 24–25)

“If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us walk.” These words suggest to us very clearly the difference between the sickly and the healthy Christian life. In the former the Christian is content to “live by the Spirit;” he is satisfied with knowing that he has a new life, but he does not walk by the Spirit. The true believer, on the contrary, is not content without having his whole walk and conversation in the power of the Spirit. He walks by the Spirit, and so does not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

Failure to Walk in the Spirit

As the Christian strives thus to walk worthy of God and well-pleasing to Him in all things, he is often sorely troubled at the power of sin and asks what the cause may be that he so often fails in conquering it. The answer to this question he ordinarily finds in his want of faith or faithfulness, in his natural feebleness or the mighty power of Satan.

One of the deepest secrets of the Christian life is the knowledge that the one great power that keeps the Spirit of God from the ruling, that the last enemy that must yield to Him, is the flesh. He that knows what the flesh is, how it works and how it must be dealt with, will be a conqueror.

We know how it was on account of their ignorance of this that the Galatians so sadly failed. It was this led them to attempt to perfect in the flesh what was begun in the Spirit (3:3). It was this made them a prey to those who desired “to make a fair show in the flesh” that they might “glory in the flesh” (6:12, 13).

They knew not how incorrigibly corrupt the flesh was. They knew not that, as sinful as our nature is when fulfilling its own lusts, as sinful is it when making “a fair show in the flesh;” it apparently yields itself to the service of God, and undertakes to perfect what the Spirit had begun.

Because they knew not this, they were unable to check the flesh in its passions and lusts; these obtained the victory over them so that they did what they did not wish. They knew not that, as long as the flesh, self-effort, and self-will had any influence in serving God, it would remain strong to serve sin, and that the only way to render it impotent to do evil was to render it impotent in its attempts to do good.

Paul wants to teach them how the Spirit, and the Spirit alone, is the power of the Christian life, and how this cannot be except as the flesh, with all that it means, is utterly and entirely set aside. And in answer to the question of how this can be, he gives the wonderful answer which is one of the central thoughts of God’s revelation.

The crucifixion and death of Christ is the revelation not only of an atonement for sin but of a power which frees from the actual dominion of sin, as it is rooted in the flesh.

When Paul in the midst of his teaching about the walk in the Spirit (16–26) tells us, “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts,” he tells us what the only way is in which deliverance from the flesh is to be found. To understand this word, “crucified the flesh,” and abide by it, is the secret of walking not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Let each one who longs to walk by the Spirit try to enter into its meaning.

In Scripture, this expression means the whole of our human nature in its present condition under the power of sin. It includes our whole being, spirit, soul, and body. After the fall, God said, “man is flesh” (Gen. 6:3). All his powers, intellect, emotions, will—all are under the power of the flesh. Scripture speaks of the will of the flesh, of the mind of the flesh (fleshly mind), of the passions and lusts of the flesh. It tells us that in our flesh dwelleth no good: the mind of the flesh is at enmity against God.

Crucifying the Flesh

“They that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh.” Men often speak of crucifying the flesh as a thing that has to be done. Scripture always speaks of it as a thing that has been done, an accomplished fact. “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him.” “I have been crucified with Christ.” “They that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh.” “The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
What Christ, through the eternal Spirit, did on the cross, He did not as an individual, but in the name of that human nature which, as its Head, He had taken upon Himself.

Everyone who accepts Christ receives Him as the Crucified One, receives not only the merit but the power of His crucifixion, is united and identified with Him, and is called on intelligently and voluntarily to realize and maintain that identification.

They that are of Christ Jesus” have, in virtue of their accepting the crucified Christ as their life, given up their flesh to that cross which is of the very essence of the person and character of Christ as He now lives in heaven; they “have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.

But what does this mean: “They have crucified the flesh”? Some are content with the general truth: the cross takes away the curse which there was on the flesh. Others think of causing the flesh pain and suffering, of the duty of denying and mortifying it. Others, again, of the moral influence the thought of the cross will exercise.

In each of these views, there is an element of truth. But if they are to be realized in power, we must go to the root-thought: to crucify the flesh is, to give it over to the curse. The cross and the curse are inseparable (Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13).