Sanctification

The following is from Paget Wilkes' book Sanctification:

"Many people have supposed and indeed taught that the 'flesh' in its ethical sense as employed by St. Paul is identical with 'the sin that dwelleth in me'--that 'infection of nature that doth still remain in the regenerate'. This has led to endless confusion of thought and misunderstanding, causing divisions where there need have been none . . . .

"The flesh in itself is not sinful; we are not told to cleanse ourselves from the flesh but from 'all filthiness of the flesh'. It is 'the mind of the flesh' that is 'enmity against God'. St. Paul, in speaking of 'the fruit of the Spirit', when he talks of 'the flesh', in the very same passage, is careful to say that adultery, fornication, etc., are 'the works of the flesh' and not its fruit. They are the 'fruit' of Indwelling Sin, though 'worked' out by the flesh; or, to use the language of Col. 3:5, they are the members of the 'old man'.

"Thayer, the great Lexicographer, describes it thus: 'The flesh in its ethical sense denotes mere human nature, the earthly nature of man apart from Divine influence.' Martin Luther says: 'Thou must not understand flesh as though that only were flesh which is connected with unchastity, but St. Paul uses "flesh" of the whole man--body, soul and spirit, reason and all his faculties included.'

"Now our 'human nature'--'our reason and all other faculties included'--are God-made and God-given, and cannot therefore in themselves be sinful. The flesh seems to include our natural appetites, our heredity, our temperament, our environment and upbringing: all God-given and God-appointed. They are the avenues of temptation, and are only sinful when and because they are indwelt and poisoned and dominated by Indwelling Sin.

"St. Paul thus described the flesh in his Philippian letter (3:3-6). 'I also might have confidence in the flesh. Circumcised the eighth day . . . of the stock of Israel . . . of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews', etc., etc. Now none of these things were sinful; they were merely part of the natural man and his upbringing, and yet St. Paul designates them as 'the flesh'.

"St. Paul tells us plainly that the crucifying of the flesh is something we have to do--our business (Gal. 5:24). The crucifying of the Old Man on the other hand and the destruction of sin in my members is the work of Chiist and Christ alone; it has been done by Christ in His sacrificial death and is wrought out in us by the Holy Ghost. In this we had no hand; we had no power to deal with these terrible foes.

"If what I have here written is true, it is possible even after we have been delivered from Indwelling Sin to walk and work for Christ in the energy of the flesh. Hence our need to 'die daily', to 'watch' and 'to keep under our body ' lest we too may fall and be a 'cast-away'."