In My Flesh Dwelleth No Good Thing
by Dick York - August 2006

Imagine a man such as the apostle Paul making such a statement about himself.Paul who had had such revelation of God that he was actually caught up to the third heaven and heard marvelous things that were unlawful for him to utter ––things that no eye has seen,nor ear heard,nor have entered into the heart of man.We don ’t normally think of Paul as living in a body of sinful flesh.Flesh,yes; but sinful flesh?

Flesh is sinful.The law of sin is written in its members.That is a fact that is stated and emphasized in the scriptures. We are tempted to believe that by effort,or will,by meditation or study,we can improve ourselves and reform our flesh.Even within the church there are programs, invented by and borrowed from the world,that ostensibly are designed to reform our flesh and make us more upright.If we struggle with anger there are anger management classes;if alcohol is the problem,there is AA.(Yes,even some churches have AA programs.)Whatever thing the world produces to assuage the sorrow and consequences of its sin soon finds its way into the church.Why is that?Because somehow we have failed to understand that in flesh ––any flesh,even that of the apostle Paul ––dwells no good thing.It is irrelevant whether the flesh is behaving itself well or poorly, flesh cannot please God.

The only way God could deal with the flesh was to put it to death.Even he couldn ’t reform it,he had to destroy it.Paul said,“When we were in the flesh,the motions of sins, which were by the law,did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.”Romans 7: 5 Everything that is born of the flesh produces death and dies itself. When Paul wrote his letter to the Romans he said, “[T ]hat which I do I allow not:for what I would that do I not;but what I hate, that do I.If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is in my flesh,)dwelleth no good thing:for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil that I would not,that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law,that,when I would do good,evil is present with me.For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members .”

Sin is the issue here.It is in Paul ’s flesh. He is speaking in first person because he is just like everyone else that he is ddressing. This is the common experience of every believer who has come to Christ.This is not a mystery to most of us, because we are very familiar with the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit. Step by step Paul is instructing the Roman believers about this struggle and where the victory is in it.

In Chapter one he started from the utter depravity of the human race.In chapter two he made it quite clear that this description of sinful man extended to all,Jew or Gentile,religious or otherwise.In chapter three he made two things very clear:first,that there is none righteous, no not one.And second that we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God has set forth to be a propitiation (a satisfactory substitutionary sacrifice).And through our faith in Jesus’ blood God declares his (Jesus’)righteousness for the remission of our sins.In chapter four he explains how this salvation is appropriated by
faith in the promise of God if we believe on him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;who was delivered for our offences,and was raised again for our justification.In chapter five he makes it clear that we were made sinners,not by what we did,but by one man’s (Adam ’s) disobedience.And we are made righteous, not by what we can do, but by one man’s (Jesus’) obedience. Then in chapter six, Paul explains that Jesus,who took upon himself the likeness of sinful flesh,died and was buried, taking sin to the grave.Now we are to reckon ourselves dead with him and buried with him, and understand that sin has no more dominion over us.But all of this we must understand and appropriate by faith.

In chapter seven Paul speaks of sin as though it is an entity. He tells them (and us) where its control lies, in our flesh. Sin, like the devil, has been dealt with eternally by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ,but there is still an area in which both the devil and sin operate until God’s program is finished and Satan is cast into the lake of fire. In the meantime, sin has no more dominion over us, but we have victory over it through the Spirit. This is the key.

Every honest Christian will confess that his hearts desire is to walk perfectly before the Lord,but from time to time he is disappointed by some failure to do so. He is experiencing what Paul described in the seventh chapter of Romans. He refers to it again in his letter to the Galatians in which he states that the Spirit and the flesh oppose one another; and he makes it clear that we cannot do the will of the Spirit if we walk after the flesh. But on the other hand, we cannot fall to the will of the flesh if we walk after the Spirit. That’s what Paul meant when he said, “This I say then,walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit,and the Spirit against the flesh:and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” Galatians 5:16,17

This is the problem inherent in many modern versions of “the gospel,”which promise that if we please the Lord, he in turn will satisfy the longings of our flesh. According to some, for example, the way to get rich is to give money to the Lord. Or the road to better health is to support certain religious ministries. This aspiration to fulfill the lusts of our flesh by doing some religious exercise that seems to be spiritual is inconsistent with the word of God.

The flesh and the Spirit are two different realms.In the world of the flesh, our perception of happiness or fulfillment is circumstantial; if our circumstances are good we will be living the abundant life.But that is not what Jesus taught. He said, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness:for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth.” Luke 12:15

The abundant life is the life of the Spirit that produces joy and peace even when fleshly circumstances would dictate otherwise.The flesh, on the other hand, cannot produce an abundant life. It can never be free from the dominion of sin. In the flesh is only the prospect of death. No matter how prosperous one might become, he still faces the singular prospect of death. In fact, the scriptures, in describing the legacy of the flesh go even farther, they describe the present condition of the flesh as being already dead.

Think of it:the Bible says of the sinner, “You were dead in trespasses and sins.” Of the believer it says, “The body is dead because of sins.” That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and it must die. There is no life in the flesh. There is sin in the flesh; and the wages of sin is death. All that the flesh can do is die. No wonder, then, that the word declares, “So then,they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Romans 8:8

Lest you should think that that means that as long as you are living in your present body you cannot please God, let’s look at the context in which this statement is made. Paul wrote, “There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after but after the Spirit.” And again, “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

There is no way, of course, that we can live on this earth without our bodies. But it is in the very members of that body that the law of sin is written. Your fleshly (carnal) mind is attached to your flesh. It seeks the comfort of the flesh, the appetites of the flesh and all that relates to this material world. The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then (as we have already stated) they that are in the flesh cannot please God. By nature, there is nothing in our flesh that can cause us ––or even allow us ––to overcome the law of sin that dominates it.

But ––and here is our hope ––but ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Rom.8:9 We must make no mistake about this:until we receive the Spirit of Christ,we are totally subject to the law of sin and death.It is written right into our members.The reformation of the flesh does not resolve the problem of sin.

Listen to the very next verse.“And if Christ be in you,the body is dead because of sin;but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”Nothing but sin is in our flesh,but only righteousness is in the Spirit of Christ.Christ alone is righteous.
Christ alone is our salvation;and Christ alone can please the Father.That ’s why Paul wrote, “Christ in you is your hope of glory.

This is the reason that Christians sometimes wrestle with sin.Then they try harder to be better ––to reform their flesh.But the word of God says that that is not the answer.Sin has dominion over our flesh.But if we are in Christ, we are not our flesh.Our flesh is not us.We are alive in the Spirit.Christ is in us;and if we walk in the Spirit,we will not fulfill the lusts of our flesh.The reason?Because sin does not have dominion over Christ.Therefore,our body being dead because of sin,and the Spirit being life
because of righteousness,when we walk in the Spirit,the righteousness that the law defines is fulfilled in us.Rom.8:4 Paul wrote this,“But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you,he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” He is not speaking here of the resurrection when he will raise our bodies from the grave. Those will be immortal bodies.In this verse he is talking about the Spirit of God animating (quickening)our mortal bodies ––the ones we are living in right now.The Spirit of God is able to commandeer our mortal bodies and use
them as instruments of righteousness when we walk in the Spirit.

The saints sometimes struggle to grasp these simple truths because they don ’t seem simple.It seems to some to be a very complex and abstract theory ––kind of nebulous and impractical ––but that is not the case.It is as simple as this:there is nothing good in me, but Christ is perfect.All of my righteousness therefore is in Him.I must trust Him.To trust Him more,I must know Him better.As I fellowship with him,the simplicity of His truth will become revelation and life rather than academic theology.When it does,His life will be evident in my daily conduct.Sin will not have dominion over me.

We wait for the day when even our bodies will be free from every vestige of sin.“The creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.And not only they, but ourselves also,which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.What a hope, NO MORE SIN!!

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