The Sins That Follow — The Spiritual Man

The Sins That Follow

If a believer has such self-confidence and attempts to accomplish the work of the Holy Spirit by the strength of the flesh, not only will he fail to obtain a wholly spiritual life, drifting to and fro, but before long he will find that sins which he had previously overcome now return. At first sight, such a statement may surprise us. Yet in reality, wherever the flesh serves God, there the power of sin becomes stronger. Why were the Pharisees so self-righteous and yet slaves of sin? Was it not because they were too zealous in doing righteousness and serving God? Why did the apostle rebuke the Galatians? Why did they have the works of the flesh? Was it not because they sought a righteousness of works? Was it not because they attempted to perfect, by the righteous acts of the flesh, the good work begun by the Holy Spirit?

The danger for young believers is that, once they understand the deliverance of the cross with respect to the body and to sin, they stop there, failing to go further to also consign to death all their own capacity for doing good. As a result, they later fall again into the sins of the flesh. Once the Lord has enabled a believer to overcome sin, the greatest error is to fail to preserve what he has obtained by the very means through which he obtained it, and instead—often without realizing it—to use his own works and resolutions as the means of preservation. This may have a temporary effect, but before long the believer will find himself fallen into the very sins he had once escaped. Outwardly, the form may differ slightly from before, yet the sin is the same. At such a time, he may either lose heart, thinking he cannot maintain a long-term victory over sin, or else pretend—covering his sins with various devices instead of honestly confessing them.

What is the cause of such failure? If the flesh can serve as your strength for doing righteousness, it can also serve as your strength for committing sin. Whatever belongs to the self, whether good or evil, is but the outward form of the flesh. If it lacks opportunity to sin, it is willing to do good; but once it has opportunity to do good, before long it will sin.

Here is where Satan deceives the children of God. If the believer continually maintains the attitude that the flesh has been crucified, Satan will have no opportunity, for the flesh is Satan’s workshop. If the flesh—not merely a part of it—truly remains under the power of the Lord’s death, Satan will lose his occupation. Therefore he is willing to have the sinful part of the flesh handed over to death, while deceiving the believer into leaving the “good” part untouched; for he knows that if the “good” part of the flesh remains, the life of the flesh remains, and his workshop remains open. In time, he can reclaim what he had once lost. He knows that if the flesh can overcome the Holy Spirit in serving God, it can also prevail in serving sin, and can retain the same kind of “victory.”

This explains why so many believers, after being freed from sin, fall back into its service. If in worship the spirit is not the one wholly, genuinely, and continually directing and guiding, then in daily life the spirit will likewise lack the power to guide and govern. If I have not denied myself before God, I will be unable to deny myself before others, unable to overcome hatred, temper, and selfishness. These two—self-denial toward God and self-denial toward man—are inseparably linked.

The Galatian believers did not understand this. As a result, they fell into the condition of “biting and devouring one another” (Gal. 5:15). They sought not only to perfect by the flesh what they had begun in the Spirit, but also to “make a good showing in the flesh” (6:12), and to “boast about your flesh” (6:13). Naturally, their achievements in the area of the flesh’s “good works” were considerable; but their failures in the area of the flesh’s evil works were equally great. They did not realize that if the self-importance and self-will of the flesh can serve God, they can also serve sin. If a believer cannot forbid the flesh from doing good, he cannot forbid the flesh from doing evil. The best way to avoid sinning is not to attempt to do good by oneself.

Because they did not understand how utterly corrupt the flesh is, they foolishly tried to make use of it. Little did they know that whether the flesh follows lust or performs good works and boasts, it is equally corrupt. On the one hand, they tried to accomplish in the flesh what had been initiated by the Spirit; on the other hand, they sought to destroy the evil passions and desires of the flesh. The outcome was simply that they could not do what God wanted them to do.