John 6:63:

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

Jesus has just given his famed “I am the bread of life…” speech to the men and women who were following him. The scripture says that after this, many of them turned away because the saying was so hard to swallow. This is part of Jesus’ response to their unbelief.

He is saying that the words they’re hearing were spiritual words. They were words for those who’d been quickened to hear them.

This follows his words earlier saying that unless they’re “drawn” (from the Greek word, Helkuo, meaning literally ‘to drag’) by the father, they cannot come and that all that the Father gives him, he will not lose (v.39 and v.44).

Jesus is teaching that He alone is the source of Life and that all there are no paths to God found in the flesh, but that without the Spirit of God the flesh is worthless in this venture.

I take great comfort in remembering this. Because the human tendency is to search for God with his flesh. But I know from experience that my flesh doesn’t lead me to God. It never has and, according to this, it never will. So, although I am a consistent failure in flesh, God is a constant victor in his Spirit in me.

Luke 21:12-15:

“…they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.”

Settle it in our minds not to meditate on how to answer. I find it compelling that Jesus felt that it was important to include this. After all, he could have easily left it out without necessarily altering the meaning. But he didn’t. Which to me, means that it could really use some reflection.

I think that there’s a number of possibilities in there. Probably something about pride. Something about reliance on God. But the idea that keeps sticking in my mind right now is not convoluting the Spirit of God in us.

You get the impression from the full passage that the Spirit, in some sense, is going to kind of take over. It’s going to replace some natural capacity of ours with a supernatural one. The term knee-jerk reaction comes to mind. Perhaps it is that Jesus doesn’t want us convoluting the Spirit’s knee-jerk reaction in us with something contrived of our own minds.

Really any way you look at it, it seems bizarre to me. And in terms of language, there aren’t many times when we’re told not to think about something. But it sure says it here and that is worth thinking about.

Spurgeon, in All of Grace, on the quickening effects of the Holy Spirit on a man’s sorrow and response to sin:

The quickened spirit is more afraid of sin itself than of the penal results of it. The cry of your heart is not, "Who shall deliver me from punishment?" but, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Who shall enable me to live above temptation, and to become holy, even as God is holy?"

What is more painful, the moral wrong or the pending consequence for that moral wrong? The way our hearts respond to sin, I think, goes a long way in revealing the true state of our souls.

I have had a great deal of trouble rectifying the reality of new birth and life, with the fact that no Christian will ever stop sinning. How can repentance be true if the sin is returned to? And, if the repentance isn’t true, then how can there be remission of sins? But this is the reality we live in. No one will stop sinning completely, even with the truest repentance—and certainly not all at once. There is a difficult tension to live with in this.

But, I think that Spurgeon has understood the balance. The regenerate heart will sin, it may “do the very thing it hates”. But, because of the cross, there is no fear of judicial punishment—only loathsome regret for the sin, which gradually teaches truer and truer repentance.

We move from the fear and hatred of punishment, into grace, which teaches us to fear and hate the sin.

Paul makes it sound so simple. Like an insensitive friend throwing the word “just” around.

Galatians 5:16:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

It almost reads like he’s saying, “So you don’t want to keep on sinning, well just walk by the Spirit!”. Easier said that done. But he goes on to explain his position.

Galatians 5:17:

For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

The desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit are against one another and we have to take sides. Paul, in a way, is saying that if you want to see yourself sanctified, we must choose sides rightly.

I got together with some friends this morning to study. Before getting started, on friend was reading from Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost For His Highest and came across something that throws interesting light on this very idea.

Chamber’s asks the question, “Do you long to be sanctified?”. The answer must be a resounding “no”. Because in this fight between flesh and Spirit, it is our failure to take sides that hinders our sanctification. Could I whole heartedly say, “yes! I long, with all that I am, to be sanctified and delivered from this body of death!”, then there would be none of me left to side with my flesh and I would be sanctified.

But, instead, there is a conflict of nature in all of us. We continue to do the things we please, simply because they are the things we please. Among our many failures, there is our failure to side rightly with the Spirit in this spiritual battle, and so we sin.

I pray that my desire to walk in the Spirit would increase and so my sanctification progress.