Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
"Our beloved brother [the apostle] Paul" (2 Peter 3:15) writes something that seems strange--if you take it as it reads. It's Galatians 5:16, 17 (KJV): "The flesh lusteth [strives] against the [Holy] Spirit, and the [Holy] Spirit against the flesh: and these [two] are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." There are two ways to read that--"the things that ye would" are either good things or bad things; can't be both. What Paul says doesn't seem strange if we take it the popular way--the things you "cannot do" are the good things you'd like to do but can't.
In other words, the popular idea is that it's easy to sin while it's uphill going to resist sin, to do good as we'd like to do. The allure of self and of the "flesh" and of the world is stronger than our desire to go to prayer meeting, for example. The idea long encouraged is that no matter how strongly you want to "overcome," you should settle down to reality: as long as you have a sinful nature inherited all the way from Adam, you'll have to continue sinning until Jesus comes in the clouds of heaven and zaps you with a new sinless nature. Then it will be possible and even easy to do what's right. For now, God doesn't expect you not to sin. Jesus will "cover" your sinning with His white robe; the Father won't even see your continued sinning, He'll only see Jesus covering your sinning.
But that's not what Paul actually says! In verse 16 we read, "Walk with the [Holy] Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh," in other words, you won't fall into sin! "The things that ye would" that "ye cannot do," according to what Paul says here, are the sinful things your fallen nature prompts you to do. And yes, this does sound strange! It sounds contrary to all we've learned since childhood. We've always understood it's hard to be good and easy to be bad.
The Ten Commandments read with Old Covenant eyes are stern, dark prohibitions; read with New Covenant eyes they are sunlit promises of victory in overcoming. Which are they? What is the bottom line truth that the Bible teaches? Tomorrow we'll delve a bit deeper.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 16, 2006.
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