Saturday, January 19, 2013

A Christian Ideal

Romans 6:19 KJV
I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

There is in this chapter what I am going to call a Christian ideal. It is the target for which we are all to aim; yielding our physical members to righteousness unto holiness.

But the next chapter presents what I believe is a crisis in the ideal. Even though Paul counseled the saints to do it, and it was in his heart to do the same, the good that he would he did not and the evil that he would not he did. He ends that chapter by expressing his anguish (which I believe is supposed to represent the struggling believer) over his lack of follow through. How will he ever make it?

Chapter eight then provides the answer, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit."  That brings us right back to chapter six, but with new sight on our aim, it is not through our ability we yield to righteousness. We yield by following the spirit of the Lord and not the whims of our flesh. 

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