Unlimited: The Flesh or the Spirit?
Dec 21, 2022 582
who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:4b).
This verse points to the two realms in which we live while on this earth. We live simultaneously in the realm of the flesh and the realm of the Spirit. We do not live according to the flesh, but instead according to the Spirit.
The result for those who have been justified, though they may still be in the flesh, is that they will not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. This is the result and not the condition of the “righteous requirement of the law” being “fully met in us” (v.4a).
We do not live according to the flesh because we died to it in our spiritual union with Christ at the Cross. Also, we have been spiritually raised up with Christ, and are now “in Christ” so that we are now alive to God. Elsewhere, Paul expresses it like this:
…you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3).
We do not live according to the flesh, but instead according to the Spirit.
To the churches in Galatia, Paul writes:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Gal. 2:20.)
It is the Cross that makes all the difference.
Spiritual Application
Through the Cross, you died to your life of sin, and your life today is hidden with Christ in God. Think that through. What does that mean to you?
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