How To Crucify the Flesh
What does it mean to crucify the flesh? How do you crucify the flesh? Who is a Christian? This article will treat these questions in a detailed way.
Table of Contents
Scriptural Reference
And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
(Galatians 5:24 KJV)
Exposition of The Scripture
Today’s Bible verse states that those who belong to Christ have crucified their flesh with the affections and lusts. Since those who belong to Christ are Christians, the passage means that Christians have crucified their flesh. Put differently, those who haven’t crucified their flesh are not Christians. What does it mean to be a Christian, and what does it mean to crucify the flesh?
Who is a Christian?
Many people have wrongly believed that a Christian is a person who has confessed that God raised the Lord Jesus from death. That is very wrong because the Bible says that a person must believe the confession in their heart before they can be saved.
Unfortunately, many who confess that God raised Christ from the dead don’t believe the confession and, as such, don’t become Christians. When a person genuinely confesses that God raised Christ from the dead and believes the confession, the person’s old nature is crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20). After dying with Christ, the person is born of Spirit and resurrects with Christ (Colossians 3:1). So, you can say that such a person is born again.
Therefore, those who are still in their old nature haven’t been born of the Spirit and are not Christians yet. Before one can be born of the Spirit, the flesh must be crucified, as no one can have the two natures simultaneously.
What does it mean to crucify the flesh?
We’ll briefly examine the war between the Spirit and the flesh to understand better what crucifying the flesh means. The flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is contrary to the flesh. They conflict with one another. Hence, no one can be led by the Spirit and walk in the flesh simultaneously.
Those who walk in the flesh do the acts of flesh like sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like (Galatians 5:20-21). Conversely, those who the Spirit leads have crucified their flesh before becoming born of the Spirit. Such people no longer commit the acts of the flesh, as stated above.
How to Crucify the Flesh
To crucify your flesh, you must have a willingness to repent. Then, genuinely confess that Christ died and God raised Him from the dead and believe it in your heart.
The confession in your mouth and the belief in your heart will activate the process of your old nature dying with Christ and your new nature rising with Christ. The old nature comprises the flesh with the affections and lusts. Just like everything in the Kingdom, your faith is required.
Further Study
Prayer Point
Dear Father, thank you for crucifying my old nature. Thank you for making me a new creature.
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