Who Shall Change This Body of Our Humiliation
By G. W. Reaser
THE END OF SIN’S DOMINION.—NO. 3.
“Who Shall Change This Body of Our Humiliation.”
ONE of the most potent factors thru which humanity is overcome by sin, is the fact of dwelling in sinful flesh, obtained from many generations of sinning ancestry. But he who yields to sin now, is without excuse; for Christ tabernacled in flesh that had become weakened by four thousand years of degeneracy, being subjected to temptations which “were urged upon Him in as much greater degree as His character is superior to ours,” and thus having been sent “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” yet “without sin” (for He yielded not to temptation), He can consistently “condemn sin in the flesh,”—“for we have nothing to bear which He has not endured,”—and He at the same time imparts, to every true believer the power to overcome sin in sinful flesh by the same agency which empowered Him to overcome, namely, the Spirit of God and Christ. He also imparts the power to fulfil the righteousness of that law, of which sin is the transgression. For “Christ has given His Spirit as a divine power to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, and to impress His own character upon His church.” “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof,” “for sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” “Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed.” Even such heaven-approved characters as the apostle Paul, after having preached the Gospel to the salvation of many, for a period of years, had to fight—but not “uncertainly”—to keep his “body under,” lest that after he had thus preached to others, he himself should be a castaway, by relinquishing his hold upon the Spirit’s power and yielding to the demands of sinful flesh. But inasmuch as Christ’s body before His ascension, was changed, glorified, immortalized, so these bodies of our humiliation shall be changed, glorified, immortalized, and fashioned like unto His glorious body, at His coming, “according to the power whereby He is able to subdue all things, even unto Himself;” “for we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” Being thus made equal unto the angels, we shall have no more struggles to keep our bodies under, no sinful flesh to rise up and clamor for the mastery, none of the frailties, afflictions, weaknesses, degenerate tendencies obtained from sinning ancestry, and from cultivation of sinful ways, to bring us again under sin’s dominion. Under present conditions, how naturally and how forcefully does inspiration express our longings for deliverance from sinful flesh, with all of its attendant ills, as it is written: “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, . . . that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us that earnest of the Spirit.” This glorious result being accomplished, then “thru eternal ages, all are secure from apostasy.” “Hail, brother! hail, thou son of happiness!
Thou son beloved of God! welcome to heaven!
To bliss that never fades! thy day is past
Of trials, and of fear to fall. Well done,
Thou good and faithful servant; enter now
Into the joy eternal of thy Lord.”