In the Flesh by L. A. HANSEN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 11, 1910

In the Flesh

By L. A. HANSEN

L. A. HANSEN

Ask the average Bible student to quote Gal. 2:20, and almost invariably there will be omitted the three words that make the whole verse so precious. The omission may be because the weight of importance is given to other parts of the text; but much of their value for practical application is lost when we fail to note that the life spoken of is to be “in the flesh.”

The verse reads: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” The oversight of the words “in the flesh” may not be a serious thing when making a quotation, but it is most serious when it comes to a matter of practise.

There is much in the text from which to form a most beautiful theory for contemplation or discourse; but it also contains that which is intensely practical. Christianity is too much regarded as a matter of theory,—something to be enjoyed on a plane somewhere above the ordinary every-day life. Perhaps it is looked upon as a sort of mental state of ecstacy, an extraordinary elevation of the spirits, rather than an actual experience to be realized in and amid the surroundings and conditions of our common existence.

Christ found people where they were, and Christianity reaches us just where we are. Of necessity this must be so. We are in the flesh, sinful flesh, and shall be till the day of our death or translation. It is while we are in the flesh, that we need help. In the weakness of the flesh lies our great need.

Read Rom. 8:3: “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.” While the battle-ground of sin is in the flesh, it is here that the victory over sin has been won. It is here that we must claim the victory in order to realize the power of the gospel. This power is seen in its manifestation of the Christ life while the individual is still in “mortal flesh.” See 2 Cor. 4:11.

May we ask, Where else would you live the Christian life but in this very

flesh? With what members could you all serve God but these same fleshly members that before have been instruments of unrighteousness unto sin? Rom. 6:13.

This same mouth that was “full of cursing and bitterness,” this tongue that “used deceit,” and these lips that hid “the poison of asps,” must now speak the praises of God, and tell of his wonderful goodness. These feet that were “swift to shed blood” are now to be “shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” So with all the members of the body; while they at one time have served sin, now they are to be yielded “as instruments of righteousness unto God.”

“Christ is to live in his human agents, and work through their faculties, and act through their capabilities. Their will must be submitted to his will; they must act with his spirit. Then it is no more they that live, but Christ that lives in them.”—“Mount of Blessing,” page 128.

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.” Rom. 6:12.

Takoma Park, D. C.