Yet still there is the flesh, so to maintain a purity of spirit one must be enabled to control the concupiscent inclinations of the body, requiring both self-discipline and heavenly grace. Only then can one hope to become worthy to inherit the promises of Christ. Such is the mystery of holiness. It is not one-sided grace but sanctification of the spirit “by personal obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”274. Such symbiosis is affirmed in Paul’s exhortation to believers to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling275.
Thereby may a Christian be united to God whilst still in mortal flesh and prepared for Kingdom service. Such privileges are for those who have been born again by water and the Spirit; not “all people of good will” but children of the Church, walking in her light and receiving cleansing from Christ’s blood for those venial sins that beset even the most devout276. For (as ever) there are not two but three that bear an ongoing witness to Christ’s saving work on earth: the Spirit, the water and the blood277. No one can be “saved to the uttermost” apart from the Apostolic Church where alone are dispensed the mysteries of heavenly grace. Yet there is a broader, communal context to holiness, for those individuals and communities that practice it are as a witness to the world, living and behaving in the present as God would have all humanity to live in the age to come. That is what the world was meant to see in Old Testament times when they observed the nation of Israel living in accordance with God’s Law in righteousness and peace and exclaim “Surely no other people is as wise and prudent as this great nation"278. It was not to be. Now wider society is meant to look at the Church and discern such a model of loving fellowship, sanctity and charity. It is one reason Jesus prayed for her to be -
271 Mt18:3
272 Mk10:18
273 Augustine “Confessions” Book VII chap 21 http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110107.htm
274 1Pet1:2
275 Phil2:12
276 1Jn1:7
277 1Jn5:8
278 Deut4:6
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“ …perfected in unity so that the world may believe it was You who sent Me and that You have loved them as You have loved Me”279.
Truly, the world will be more inclined to believe it when they see the Body of Christ united and at peace with itself.
Paul and “original sin”
The apostle undoubtedly affirms a form of “original sin”. In Romans 5 he states that
“death reigned from Adam to Moses even upon those who did not sin in the manner of our first parents” (v14). But whilst Adam’s degenerative body we inherit, his guilt we do not; for sin is imputed to the degree that the law known to the transgressor has been transgressed and where there is no known law to defy, sin is not imputed280. So up till the time of Moses and beyond for those outside the Law (the Gentile nations), the law and standard by which people were judged can only be that known to them innately through the conscience once they are of an age to discern it, by which faculty they became a law for themselves281.
Flesh, soul, spirit and Spirit in the language of Paul
In Romans chapter seven, Paul’s references to the spirit are usually taken as referring to the Holy Spirit rather than an immaterial component within man. Yet in the opening chapter of Romans he affirms: “I serve God in my spirit in the gospel”; he writes that as Christians we experience the witness of the Spirit with our spirit that we are already the children of God282; that ideally women should remain single so that they can focus on being holy in body and spirit283, whilst in 1Cor6:20 he exhorted Christians to “glorify God in your body and in your spirit which is284 of God”. The writer to the Hebrews employs pneuma (spirit) to refer to individual purified souls in heaven - the spirits of the righteous having been perfected, and likewise Jesus on the cross gave up His spirit after which His body was lifeless. In her Magnificat, Mary magnified the Lord in her soul whilst her spirit rejoiced in God her Saviour285.
Central to Paul’s thought is the fact that through original sin, man has become a psychologically disordered union between the flesh (the sensual bodily desires) and spirit or inner man286. Aptly the apostle closes his letter with the benediction: “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit287. The Christian is to follow the dictates of his spirit (walk in the spirit) “since the disposition of the flesh is death but the disposition of the spirit is life and peace”288. When the “flesh” is crucified (denied) one can then follow the dictates of the spirit which is guided by the conscience and, in the Christian, aided by the Spirit.
279 Jn17:23
280 Rom5:13
281 Rom2:14 cf. Greek
282 Rom8:16
283 1Cor7:34
284 Greek: estin - Wrongly translated in many versions as “which are of God”, no doubt to obscure the fact that whilst the human spirit is directly supplied by God, the mortal body is not 285 Lk1:46-47
286 2Cor7:1; Gal5:17
287 Gal6:18
288 Rom8:6
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Peter writes that only those who “escape the corruption that is in the world through lust” may partake of the divine nature289. Paul likewise exhorts us to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God”, which is our reasonable service290. Those who continue to live according to the impulses of the flesh rather than the spirit cannot please God. Yet in those like Cain who have given in to evil and the Evil One291, the flesh like everyone else’s is dead (in the Pauline sense) but the spirit is also dead or non-functional292
such that material and spiritual are no longer in tension. Dead (flesh) versus dead (spirit) results in a chilling serenity in which the soul is unhindered in its response to the instincts of the flesh; it may satisfy its worldly and carnal appetite by any means. Unlike all who are to be liberated as the children of God293, these desolate ones have no Pauline “inner struggle”
for what is dead cannot struggle. They therefore may be cool, calm and at peace with themselves as they pursue evil. This is death of the soul; this is total depravity, and these are the children of hell294. They are the wicked and godless who must be despatched at the renaissance, for they were not planted by God295 but by His enemy296. This pertains to the mystery of providential evil, considered more fully in chapters six and seven.
After the few decades of human life, what the apostles describe as our tent or vessel is discarded: “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was and the spirit will return to God
who gave it”297. Later that vessel will be mysteriously located, decoded, and glorified. But in terms of mankind’s guilt and condemnation arising from their association with the sin of their federal head, it is pardoned regardless of individual cognisance or cooperation:
“As through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men”298
That “justification of life” pertains to the inclusive covenant delineated in this chapter. The doctrine of justification will now be examined in the context of both this and the exclusive Covenant of Promise299 together with the nature of “faith” required to benefit from the blessings of each.
289 2Pet1:4
290 Rom12:1
291 1Jn3:12
292 Jud1:12 – the twice dead
293 Rom8:21
294 Mt23:15
295 Mt15:13
296 Mt13:25
297 Eccles12:7
298 Rom5:18
299 Cf. Eph2:12
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Since the Fall, justification in the sense of being accepted by God as opposed to being under His condemnation has been by faith as a result of grace through the merits of Christ’s faithfulness [ ek pisteos Christou]. The meritorious cause of human salvation is not a believer’s faith but Christ’s own faithfulness even to death. Cognisant faith in Christ [ pisteos en Christo] is required to be saved from the ravages of the earthen vessel that the soul currently inhabits300 so as to be sanctified for divine service within the Covenant of Promise.