The Flesh-man, The Spirit-man
March 2, 2020
By Dan Li
This is written to a new Brother or Sister who may have grown-up Catholic, but then came to faith in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, then back-slid, and now have returned to Jesus in repentance.
It is part of a 3-part series:
Part 1: Returning To God, and Dealing With Temptation
Part 2: Faith, Temptation, and Strength (For the prodigal who is returning to God, by His mercy)
Part 3: The Flesh-man, The Spirit-man
I pray all is well with you since coming to faith in Jesus Christ. I pray you stay steadfast in your faith in Jesus, not moved to the right nor to the left.
3) There is a flesh-man inside us, and a spirit-man inside us too. The flesh-man in the Bible is called "the flesh", "the old man", "the natural" or "the sin nature" and things like this, depending on the particular translation you are reading (All of Romans and All of Galatians talks about this). This is the sin nature that is passed down from Adam and Eve and it is always present with us (Romans 8), even as Christians. The spirit-man is the new creation inside you, when you receive Jesus into your heart, as your personal Savior, and our spirit cries out "Abba Father" (Mark 14:36, Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6) to God the Father who creates this in us, who brings us to life in the spirit. Galatians 5:17 speaks about how the spirit and the flesh are contrary, one against the other, in an eternal struggle for which one gets to be fed. And, whichever one you feed (or, yield to), that one will be the one that dominates in your life. You cannot serve two masters (Rom 6:16-18; Matt 6:24-26).
The flesh-man is allied with sin and the Devil, but the spirit-man is allied with God. Starve and crucify the old man, the flesh. Feed the spirit-man. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” (Rom 6:11-14)
The flesh-man is fed with giving in to sin, sinful desires, and even an excess of pleasant things and that are easy on the flesh- such as having money, sex, food, comforts, entertainment, the pride of life. If you give-in to things that please the flesh, you are not walking according to the Spirit, and the spirit-man will diminish, and if continued, you will die spiritually- that is a fact from Scripture. Rom 8:13 "For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you Col. 3:5 put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."
You must not allow the old life to rule your heart or desires- these must be crucified with Christ, daily and as necessary. The Apostle Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament books, said "I die daily" (1 Cor 15:31), speaking of his flesh-man and its desires.
This does not mean you don’t eat or use money, etc.. it means that it must not be allowed to be what runs your life- because your life now only belongs to Jesus, anything else is idolatry, the worship of things other than God, even if that thing is ourself, our flesh-man. If you feed the flesh-man what it desires, when or how it desires them, the flesh-man will grow and begin to dominate your life, lead you to sins, and eventually it will kill you in your sins.
But if instead, you feed the desires of the spirit-man, you grow in Jesus in your inner-man, the new creation, and allow the Holy Ghost to lead your whole life, you will live with God for eternity. (Col 3:1-4,10). God did not save us from our sins so that we would remain in them, but rather we are saved out of them (1 Pet 4:1-3, Rom 6:18-23).
The spirit-man has desires that come from the Father, such as spending time in prayer, reading your Bible, going to church or Bible studies, telling the truth, forgiving others, loving others (brotherly love), to do whatever God tells you to do, doing the things that are uncomfortable but you know are right. God does not ask you to do things that will feed your flesh desires, but rather things that go against the flesh and instead feed the spirit-man. Yield your life and desires to God and what God wants. Yielding to God is absolutely necessary to follow God. (James 5:17). Do not yield to the flesh or sin, yield to God instead. Feeding your spirit-man will cause him to grow and God’s will, will dominate in your life and actions.
– Take your faults, weaknesses (desires or inclinations to sin) and sins to Jesus, confess them to Him, knowing that He cares for you. He will become your strength (not your own), He will forgive you your sins- "If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness" 1 John 1:9. Take every wrong desire and every sinful inclination to Jesus- bring it into the light before Him, confess it to Him, crucify it on the cross with Him- in this way, you will die to your sins, instead of dying in your sins (Col 3:4-6). When you die to your sins, you will not physically die, but you will be spiritually raised from the death of your sins on the cross, to newness of life in the resurrection Jesus Christ and become a partaker of His righteousness, by the Holy Spirit.
This corresponds to baptism- dunked into the water, death to sin on the cross with Jesus; brought out of the water, newness of life through the Spirit of God (Rom 6:1-7), resurrection. The water does not make you clean (you can even use dirty river water), it is only done as an obedience to Jesus and as a testimony (of the death to the old man, now alive to Christ Jesus) to all witnessing the baptism, a representation that you have, prior to the baptism, have died to sin, by reckoning yourself to be crucified with Christ (when He died over 2000 years ago), and "it is now no longer you that live, but Christ who lives in you". "Repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins". Baptism is the action piece that follows faith. James says "faith without action is dead"- this is not salvation by works (the books of Galatians and Romans say this very clearly), but rather works that follow belief- faith. Acting on your faith means you really believe what God says, to the point of action, obedience.
This corresponds to the Lord’s Supper. The bread represents Jesus’ body sacrificed on the cross, broken bread, for us, for our sins, and eating it represents accepting by faith what Jesus did for you on that cross. The blood, (represented by wine or grape juice or similar), represents the blood of the new covenant being received by faith- the new life in Jesus Christ, having been washed whiter than snow by His blood, His blood was the only acceptable sacrifice for our sins, because, unlike us, Jesus never sinned. He was the Lamb of God without spot or wrinkle/blemish. Just like the water of baptism does not make you clean, but represents your death to your flesh-man, the old man, on the cross with Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago, the bread we eat at communion does not magically become the body of Jesus, but is only representative.. only representative of what is supposed to happen in prayer while talking with God, previous to this, not while you are eating the bread, but afterwards.
Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me”. Taking the Lord’s supper with these things in mind by faith, represents an action based on that faith. If you really believe, always act on what you believe, because faith without works is dead. Do not think that the piece of bread is going to save you, nor the wine/grape juice- no, it represents what Jesus did for you on the cross when He died for the sins of the world, that whoever would believe upon Him would not perish, but have everlasting life. Do you believe this? Taking the Lord’s supper in faith for what He did, is faith in action. But taking the Lord’s supper, thinking that it literally becomes the flesh of Jesus, is not true, plus it puts your faith in the bread and in the action of eating it or on the priest’s ability to turn it into flesh, instead of on the work Jesus did for you on the cross 2,000 years ago, and your action of receiving what He did by faith, expressed in taking the Lord’s Supper- do you understand this? Our faith must only be in Jesus Christ, God, never in any man, item, or anything else- all else is idolatry.
The very first Lord’s Supper was when Jesus had this with His disciples and was done as the Passover meal, during the time of Passover, that all Jews are required to do- else be cut off from their own people by God. It was a physical foreshadowing of what the Christ, the only Begotten Son of God, would do on the cross for the world. Jesus instructed His disciples to eat the Lord’s Supper "in remembrance of Me" (Passover meal, plus now the remembrance of Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb of God, Jesus was the real Passover Lamb). We do not crucify Jesus anew (all over again)!!! His death and resurrection done 2,000 years ago still is effective today, but is never done again!!! The Bible is very clear about this (Hebrews 7:27, Hebrews 9:24-28, 1 Peter 3:18). When we eat the Lord’s Supper together, we are proclaiming what He did on the cross- how He died for us, in remembrance of Jesus’ work there for our sins.
We should never take the Lord’s Supper lightly or in a cavalier way, but in heart-wrenching, soul-searching humility, examine yourself before the Lord and confess any sins you remember to Him, each and
every single time before taking the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:23-34). This is why in churches, they should always remind the congregation about this, and take a few minutes to allow each to pray quietly in their seats by themselves to God and confess to God in prayer for their sins and ask God for forgiveness before they eat the Lord’s Supper together.
