Condemn Sin in the Flesh

Okay, let me get straight to the point here today. What point would that be? The point of the Gospel. The point of why God sent his Son from heaven to suffer, die, and raise from the dead for us. Romans 6:23 tells us why Jesus had to leave heaven and come and do these things: “For the wages of sin is death.” The apostle gives us the remedy to that greatest of all ills a couple of chapters later: “For what the law could NOT do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and FOR SIN, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3). That is correct; Jesus came to do what the law could not do, and that was to ‘condemn,’ meaning to judge or overthrow sin “in the flesh.” In other words, Jesus did NOT come to suffer, die, and raise from the dead just to leave us in the same sinful condition that the law could not cure. The apostle Paul, who wrote the scriptures quoted above, explained this glorious and literal deliverance from sin that Jesus paid the price for with his life: “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us TOGETHER with Christ” (Eph. 2:5). And he had said the same thing just a few verses earlier: “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). So we were in a spiritual condition equivalent to death because we were in the condition of having sin inside of us, but if and when we are truly joined together with Christ, we are made ALIVE spiritually because HE is alive. The same apostle explained the same thing in I Corinthians 6:17, saying, “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” Now it is evident that if we really become ONE with Jesus, either we become holy or he becomes a sinner. Obviously it has to be the former that takes place rather than the latter, because Jesus is NOT a sinner. Never has been if fact. So it is just as evident that if we have TRULY believed on Jesus, we have been delivered from the condition of sin. True faith in Christ results in being literally JOINED TO Christ in spirit, and thereby we become a partaker of his holiness; and we also receive the capacity to judge, or overthrow sin in OUR flesh, like he did. That spiritual reality takes power from heaven, and that is what the Gospel is all about. That is what Jesus suffered, died, and rose again for. And true faith in Christ always results in being baptized with his Spirit because that is the only way to GET INTO Christ, and thereby joined to him. I Corinthians 12:13 says it as plainly as it can be said: “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.”

The holy Ghost baptism is what Jesus said would avail us of the power that it takes to turn the tables on sin, condemning it where it once had condemned us - in the flesh. Jesus made it clear before he ascended back to heaven that we need and will receive that needed power by faith in him: “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you” (Acts 1:8). Again the apostle Paul made it crystal clear that this power, or spiritual strength, is exactly what we needed, and what Jesus came to provide: “For when we were yet WITHOUT STRENGTH, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). Surely you don’t believe that Jesus died for us because we were without strength against the power of sin inside of us, so that we could REMAIN without strength against sin. Yet that is exactly what the entirety of the Christian Gospel of today teaches and EXPECTS you to believe! Everyone who adheres to the erroneous teachings of Christianity has been conditioned by its man-made traditions and doctrines to think that sin is something that we cannot entirely rid our lives of. That is the biggest and most damning lie in the modern Christian Gospel. But if one believes this lie, and most do, then it is certain that sin will remain. You simply cannot and will not do what you BELIEVE you cannot do. The scriptures have been wrested to the destruction of many, even as Peter said that they were even in his day (II Pet. 3:16). This same apostle Peter made it clear that HE believed in judging, or condemning sin in the flesh: “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath CEASED from sin; That he NO LONGER should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, BUT to the will of God” (I Pet. 4:1,2). If we believe the filthy traditions of today’s Christian Gospel, then Peter is totally contradicting himself here, and really it is the will of God that we STAY in sin. But what Peter TRULY said, the apostle Paul was in total agreement with: “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do MORTIFY the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, THEY are the sons of God” (Rom. 8:12-14).

These things sound a WHOLE LOT like we are supposed to “condemn sin in the flesh” like Jesus did. That is correct my friend, the power of God’s Spirit, after we are baptized with it, gives us POWER to literally ‘mortify,’ or put sin to death in our flesh. Again, this is what Jesus left heaven to provide for us, the only thing that the law could not do (Gal. 3:21; Heb. 7:19; Heb. 10:1-4; Heb. 9:13,14). Furthermore those who are “led by the Spirit of God” are the ones who are doing just that, because the HOLY Spirit of God only leads into HOLINESS! No wonder the scriptures says, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). So what exactly does that passage mean? Well, to answer that question, let’s go to the exact scripture that precedes the passage that we have just seen from Romans 8: “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom. 8:10). Now it is integral to note that the apostle is speaking of the resurrection of the dead when the Lord Jesus returns from heaven (I Thess. 4:13-18). Then he goes on to explain, as stated above, that the thing that will qualify us to be in this “first resurrection,” is our “mortifying [putting to death] the deeds [sins] of the body.” And to these things the apostle John plainly agreed: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And EVERY man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, EVEN AS he [Christ] is pure” (I Jn. 3:2,3). So the bottom line and sum total of what we have seen clearly from the Bible is this: We must be baptized with the holy Ghost, which experience is ALWAYS accompanied by the God-given sign of speaking in other tongues; and we must through the power of God’s Spirit put sin to death on the inside of us. By this means we remain holy by remaining ONE with Christ, which oneness we have come into THROUGH the baptism of the Spirit which puts us into him, and him into us (Jn. 17:22-24; Rom. 6:3,4; I Pet. 3:18; I Cor. 12:13; I Cor. 6:17). And only by these means do we have the hope of being raised from the dead at the second coming of Jesus back to this world,