Only a Fool Would Keep Working When There Is Nothing Left to Do

Excerpt From Newsletter

Paul explains that the “natural man” can acquire a sufficient understanding of the Truth that is hidden in “the Law” to realize that he is guilty. And in the act of trying to stop sinning, he mentally agrees with “the Law” (The Teaching) that stands behind the “law” he is trying to obey. He has thereby made a distinction between what he believes in “the inner man” and what “the sin” that controls his flesh would have him believe. He has, therefore, come to understand the true meaning of “the Law.”

The one who honestly wants to believe the Truth he has seen in “the Law” (The Teaching) is faced with a desperate situation. Will he continue to make a distinction between the desires of “the inner man” (his “mind”) and the desires of “the flesh” (his body)? Or will he succumb to the persuasive deception of “the sin” which tells him that there is nothing at all hidden in “the Law”? That is, will he believe that “the Law” is nothing more than “another law” that he must try to obey by continually struggling against the desires of the flesh?

In Romans 8, Paul describes the circumstances which come about when one clings firmly to the Truth of The Teaching and turns away from “the sin” of the flesh—that is, the innate predilection we all have to immediately reject the Truth:

For the Law of the Spirit of the life {which is} in Christ has freed me from the Law of the sin and the death. For the inability of the Law, in which it was weak because of the flesh, the {Living} God, sending His Own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and on account of sin, condemned the sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law could be accomplished in us—those who are walking not in accordance with flesh but in accordance with spirit. For those who are in accordance with flesh think about the things of the flesh, but those {who are} in accordance with spirit {think about} the things of the Spirit. For the flesh’s way of thinking is death, but the Spirit’s way of thinking is life and peace, because the flesh’s way of thinking is a hatred toward God, for it cannot submit to the Law of the {Living} God, for it is not able. So those who are in flesh are not able to please God. Yet you are not in flesh, but in spirit, if a Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have a Spirit of Christ, he is not {a part} of Him. Yet if Christ is in you, the body is indeed dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of what is required. But if the Spirit of the One Who raised Jesus from those who are dead dwells in you, the One Who raised Jesus from those who are dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit dwelling in you. So therefore, brothers, we are not indebted to the flesh—to live in accordance with flesh. For if you live in accordance with the flesh, you are going to die, but if by spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
(Romans 8:2–13) —my interim translation

“Only a Fool Would Keep Working When There Is Nothing Left to Do,” The Voice of Elijah^®, July 2004, p. 4

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