James

In order to possess such death we must not give too large a place to discovering how or to noticing our experience; we should instead believe God’s Word. “God says my flesh has been crucified so I believe it is crucified. I acknowledge that what God says is true.” By responding in this fashion we shall soon encounter the reality of it. If we look at God’s fact first our experience will follow next....

The Cross and the Holy Spirit
The Spiritual Man, CFP, Vol. 1, Part 2 THE FLESH, Ch. 3, by Watchman Nee

MANY, IF NOT MOST, believers were not filled with the Holy Spirit at the moment they believed the Lord. What is even worse, after many years of believing they continue to be entangled by sin and remain carnal Christians. In these pages which follow, what we intend to explain regarding how a Christian may be set free from his flesh is based upon the experience of the believers at Corinth as well as that of many like believers everywhere. We moreover do not wish to imply that a Christian must first believe in the substitutionary work of the cross before he can believe in its identifying work. Is it not true, however, that many do not have a distinct revelation concerning the cross at the beginning? What they have received is but half the whole truth; and so they are compelled to receive the other half at a subsequent period. Now if the reader already has accepted the complete work of the cross, what is given here will concern him little. But if like the majority of believers he too has believed only half the whole then the remainder is indispensable for him. Yet we do want our readers to know that the two sides of the work of the cross need not be accepted separately; a second believing only becomes necessary because of incompleteness at the first.

The Deliverance of the Cross

Upon reciting many deeds of the flesh in his Galatian letter, the Apostle Paul then points out that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5.24). Here is deliverance. Is it not strange that what concerns the believer vastly differs from what concerns God? The former is concerned with “the works of the flesh” (Gal. 5.19), that is, with the varying sins of the flesh. He is occupied with today’s anger, tomorrow’s jealousy, or the day after tomorrow’s strife. The believer mourns over a particular sin and longs for victory over it. Yet all these sins are but ...