"That
the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
-ROMANS
8:4 [KJV]
A
person may be "in the flesh," as indeed we all are, and yet
not "walk after it." To walk after it implies, a setting it
up as a pattern, and walking in accordance with it. But a person may
be dragged after another, as we see sometimes a child is dragged
unwillingly along by its mother, who does not willingly walk with
her. The child is not walking after its mother, nor hand in hand with
her, nor side by side; but is compelled against its will to go a road
which it hates, as to go to school when it fain would go to play.
So
in a sense it often is with the child of grace; he is often dragged
on by the flesh. He does not go after it willingly; he does not sin
wilfully, but is entangled by the strength of the flesh, dragged on
contrary to his best wishes, and sometimes in spite of his earnest
cries, tears, groans, and desires. He does not walk after it as in
Alpine countries tourists walk through the snow after a guide,
setting his feet deliberately in every step which the flesh has made
before him. The saint of God, therefore, though he is in the flesh,
does not walk after the flesh; for if he so walked he could not
fulfil the law of love, and therefore the righteousness of the law
could not be fulfilled in him. But, as enabled by grace, he does from
time to time walk after the Spirit, for as the Spirit leads, he
follows; as the Spirit prompts, he obeys; and as the Spirit works, he
performs. When the Spirit reveals Jesus, he loves Him with a pure
heart fervently; when the Spirit applies a promise, he believes it;
and when He makes known the truth of God to his soul, he feeds upon
and delights in it.
-Gospel
report by preacher J.C. Philpot (1802-1869 A.D.)
April
27th, EARS FROM HARVESTED SHEAVES
Comments