The document discusses the conflict between the flesh and spirit that Christians experience. It explains that the new birth deals with sins but we still need deliverance from our sinful nature. Romans 7 describes Paul's experience of this inner conflict. The components of the flesh are sin and self/the old man. No human effort can change the flesh, which is strongly inclined toward sin. God's purpose is to destroy the flesh. We died with Christ to sin through baptism, and can know, reckon, and yield to the truth that our old sinful nature was crucified, to experience victory over the flesh through faith in God's provision.

2.  In last week’s study we saw that the “new birth”
involved the cleansing of the heart and the receiving
of Divine life, thus making us partakers of the new
life and nature of God. However, as we progress in
the Christian life we become increasingly aware of a
CONFLICT of freshly thoughts and desires warring
within us, such as Paul expresses in Romans 7.

3. To experience victorious Christian life, it is essential for
every born-again believer to understand:-
1. What he has obtained through the new
2. What still lingers on of his own natural endowment
The new birth deals with our sins. i.e. What we
have done.
However we still need to go a step further in the
plan of God and understand how He deals with
“what we are” i.e. the flesh.
(It is important to diagnose the problem in order to
prescribe a sufficient remedy).

4.  The Problem –
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE
FLESH AND THE SPIRIT OF GOD
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE OLD NATURE
AND NEW NATURE

5. In Romans 7:15-23 Paul speaks of his own experience:-
“For that which I am doing, I do not understand:
for I am not practising what O would like to do,
but I am doing the very thing I hate.
But if I do the very thing I do not wish to do, I
agree with the Law, confessing that is good.
So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which
indwells me.
For I know that nothing good indwells
in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is
present in me, but the doing of the good is not.
For the good that I wish, I am no longer the one
doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

6. I find then the principle that evil is present in
me, the one who wishes to do well.
For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner
man.
But I see a different law in the members
of my body, waging war against the law of my
mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of
sin which is my members”.
Many of us can identify with Paul’s final cry of
despair in this situation, “oh wretched man that I
am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?”

7. A reading of the above verses in Romans 7 reveals
that the components of the flesh are:-
1) SIN
and 2) I (MYSELF)
The “sin” here is the “power of sin” or “law of sin”
working within our members and must not be confused
with sins, i.e. what we have done in the past.
No matter how many sins we commit, it is the “law of
sin” that leads and inclines us to sin.
I need forgiveness for my sins, but I need deliverance
from the “power of sin” or the “law of sin”.
(See scriptures Rm. 7:21, 23, 25; Rm. 8:2).

8. “I” is what we commonly acknowledge as “SELF”
and is otherwise referred to in scripture as the “old
man”. (Rm. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9).
The conflict arises when “self” (our own fallen nature)
seeks to dominate and draw into doing our “own thing”
impendent of God, instead of yielding to the Lordship
of the Holy Spirit within us. N.B. It is important not to
confuse the “flesh” with the “soul”.
The soul is made up of the mind, emotions, and will, and is to be a
vehicle for the expression of the Holy Spirit through us.
The soul is to be under the Lordship of the Holy Spirit and
is not to be destroyed. The flesh, however, is evil in
nature and seeks continually to express itself through
the body and the soul of man.
The power of flesh has been destroyed (past tense) through the
death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

9.  “That which is born of the flesh is flesh”
No amount of education, improvement, cultivation,
morality or religion can turn man from being freshly. No
human effort or power can alter him.
 God looks upon the flesh as utterly corrupt.
So closely is it linked with lust that the Bible often refers
to “the lust of the flesh”. (Jude 23).
 The flesh is exceedingly strong towards sinning and
following selfish desires and extremely weak towards
the will of God. (Rm. 8:3, 7; Rm.7:15-23).
God recognizes the impossibility of the flesh being
changed or bettered. The purpose of God is therefore
never to reform the flesh, but to DESTROY IT. (Gal.
2:20; Rm. 6:6, 7, 9-11).

10. The blood can wash away our sins, but it cannot wash away our “old nature” or the
“law of sin” working within our members. It requires the “power of the cross’ to
destroy its power. (The blood deals with the sins, and the cross deals with the
sinner).
God’s provision for the Christian to overcome the power of the flesh is the death
and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Rm. 6:3 “Or don’t you know, that so many of us as we baptized
into
Jesus Christ
Were baptized INTO HIS DEATH?”
Rm. 6:4 “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into
death; that like as
Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the
Father, even so We also should walk in newness of life.”
Rm. 6:8 “Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall
also live with Him.”

11. These references show that as definitely as
Christ died by an act and was raised by an act,
so every believer died in this act of Christ to
sin; not experientially but legally.
This once-for-all-death was not something we
could accomplish. It was for us at Calvary.
Christ not only died for our sins, but also to
DESTROY the power of the law of sin working
within our lives. We, who in Adam were dead IN
sin, are now IN CHRIST dead TO sin (the power of
sin).

12. Romans 6 lays the foundation for the
Christian’s deliverance from the power of
the
flesh. The three key words here are
KNOWING, RECKON, YIELD.

13.  “KNOWING this, that our old man is crucified
with Him, that the body of sin might be
destroyed, that henceforth we should not
serve sin.” Rm6:6.
The first step is to KNOW this truth. You may
not feel it, you may not fully understand it,
but you acknowledge it and accept it as a
truth laid down in God’s word.

14.  “RECKON you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin,
but alive unto God.” Rm. 6:11. Once you have
acknowledged it as a truth in the World, you are then to
RECKON it as true for yourself personally. Your confession
should be the same as Paul’s in the following verses:
“I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST: nevertheless I
live; yet not I but
Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in
the flesh I live by faith of the son of God, who
loved me, and gave himself for me.” Gal. 2:20.
“I AM DEAD UNTO SIN and alive unto God”.
Rm.6:11.

15. “YIELD yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the
dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness
unto God.
Rm. 6:13. Thirdly, we are to surrender ourselves to God
realising that we are not our own but have been brought
with a great price so that we may reflect Him in our lives.
Because of the simplicity of the above three steps, many
Christians fail to embrace them but rather go
through all kinds of spiritual gymnastics in trying to
attain this end.
However, this is God’s provision for the Christian, and
when we apply these principles, and then the
experience of the “crucified life” will become
experientially ours.
Watchman Nee in his book, “The Spiritual Man”, makes
the following comments:

16. “You say you still sin, but God says you have been
crucified on the cross.
You say your temper persists, but Gods answer is that
you have been crucified.
You say your lusts remain very patent, but again God
replies that your flesh has been crucified on the cross.
For the moment will you please not look at your
experience, but just hearken to what God says to you.
If you do not listen to His word and instead look daily on
your situation, you will never enter into reality of your
flesh having been crucified on the cross.
Disregard your feelings and experience.
God pronounces your flesh crucified; it therefore has
been crucified.
Simply respond to God’s Word and you shall have the
experience.”