A few years ago, I was reading Romans, Verse-by-Verse by William R Newell, and I came across this quote:
I affirm that the present day popular preachers DO NOT KNOW what human guilt, before God, is! DO NOT KNOW that Christ really bore wrath under God’s hand for the sin of the world! DO NOT KNOW that He was forsaken of God, as the whole race, otherwise, must have been! I affirm that they are preaching as if an unrejected, uncrucified Christ were still being offered to the world! They preach the “character” of Jesus, saying “nice things” of Him, and telling people to “follow His example”: while the truly awful fact that Christ “bare our sins in His own body on the tree,” that He was “wounded for our transgressions,” that He was “forsaken of His God”; that “God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up,”—and that “for our trespasses,” is never told to the poor, wretched people! Nor are they warned of that literal lake of fire and brimstone into which “every one not found written in the book of life” will be cast, and that forever. (Romans Verse-by-Verse, p. 37, emphasis added)
When I first read that, it was eye-opening. Whatever offers Christ made to the Jews, or to the Gentiles, He was rejected. Why would we think those offers are still open? Even supposing the offer was still open after the Resurrection, it seems like the book of Acts chronicles the final rejection of Christ and God's acceptance of that rejection.
It's striking to me that Peter effectively offers the millennial kingdom in Acts 3:19–21, but that offer is rejected. Daniel 7:13–14 describes the Son of man descending from Heaven to receive a kingdom, and it seems to me that would have been just as fulfilled at the end of Acts 3 as it would be now. Of course still we expect the Son of man to descend from Heaven to receive a kingdom, but my point is that Peter offered it right then and there, and was arrested instead (Acts 4:1–3).
But Newell's point is that Christ has been rejected (1 Corinthians 15:3–5):
For I delivered to you, in the first place, what also I had received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he was raised the third day, according to the scriptures; and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
The gospel of Jesus Christ begins with His death. It presupposes His offers were rejected.
2 Corinthians 5:13–19 pushes that conclusion further with the astonishing statement that we are to know no one – not even Christ – "according to flesh." And immediately after the comment about knowing according to flesh, we have the introduction of New Creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Someone commented to me several years ago that so many churches were trying to know Christ according to flesh. That comment seemed vague at the time, but I have come to appreciate it much more fully over time. It seems to me that Evangelicalism is characterized by trying to know Christ according to flesh.
I take Romans 7:5–6 to be a two-verse summary of Romans 7:7–8:4. And in those two verses, we see a transition that we might miss in the longer passage that follows. There is a change from "when we were in the flesh" (Romans 7:5) to "now we are clear from the law" (Romans 7:6). That transition is mirrored in Romans 7:24–25, but it's not so clear what happened in the latter verses. What happened is this change of position from "in the flesh" to "clear from the law".
If we look at 2 Corinthians 5:14–17, we see there is a New Creation, and it includes those who are in Christ.
What does it mean to be in Christ? Well, He has died, and we have died with Him (Colossians 3:3). He was buried, and we have been buried with Him (Colossians 2:12). He was raised, and we have been raised with Him (Colossians 3:1). He was seen, and we shall be seen with Him (Colossians 3:4). But perhaps the most direct and striking statement about being "in Christ" is in Philippians 3:9 – it's not having any righteousness of my own.
2 Corinthians 5:14–17 teaches us that trying to know Christ "according to flesh" is remedied by recognizing New Creation. Philippians 3:8–15 teaches us that being "in Christ" means having no righteousness of my own. Romans 7:5–6 teaches us that being "in the flesh" means being subject to law, and that the remedy is to be "clear from the law" by death with Christ. Colossians 3:1–4 teaches us that our death with Christ isn't something we must attain, but something that is already true. Romans 6:1–11 teaches us that even having died with Christ, there is the need to reckon that to be true in order to experience the blessings of it.
2 Corinthians 5:16 tells us, even if we have known Christ according to flesh, we're not to know Him that way anymore. We have no reason to believe Paul ever met Christ before His resurrection, but Peter did. Peter had known Christ according to the flesh, as a man "in the flesh," he had known Christ unrejected and uncrucified. But Peter wasn't to know Christ that way anymore: that's 2 Corinthians 5:16.
Twice in the last year I have been in churches who were preaching through Matthew 5–7. I can't recall either of those sermon series mentioning that this was an uncrucified, unrejected Christ preaching to men in the flesh.
I found it odd that one of the preachers talked about our need for the Spirit of God in order to live out the teachings of Matthew 5–7. That's a particularly subtle form of eisegesis, to try and read Acts 2 into Matthew 7. There could be no indwelling Spirit of adoption, without the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (John 7:39). It was Christ dead, buried, raised, and seated at God's right hand who could pour out that Spirit (Acts 2:32–36). Even if we understand John 20:22 as Him giving the Spirit (which seems difficult in light of Acts 2), we still have to acknowledge that John 20 comes after the resurrection.
I am not, of course, objecting to teaching Matthew 5–7. But if we are to understand the Gospels in light of the whole counsel of God, we need to understand them in relation to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. This is the most important thing that has ever happened, and those events change absolutely everything.
Closely related to that is the importance of addressing believers not as men and women "in the flesh," but as new creation "in Christ."
And I'll reiterate what I think is an important practical point: the epistles present our acceptance and acknowledgement of our place "in Christ" as the key to experiencing the blessings for us there. It's true that God sees me as dead, buried, and raised with Christ; but I won't experience freedom from sin without recognizing, reckoning, and counting on what God has said. Objectively it's true because God says it is true, but subjectively it doesn't benefit me unless I believe God.
And this, according to Darby, is the meaning of "in the flesh." It is to be responsible before God:
What is it to be in the flesh? It is to be in relationship with God on the ground of our natural responsibility as men, as children of fallen Adam. It is, as to our moral state — which in itself is true — making the disposition of God towards us to depend on what we are towards Him. Of this the law is the perfect rule. It says, if conscience is awakened, I am such and such: God will be so and so towards me. Grace is on the opposite ground: God has been, and is, through Christ such and such, and I shall be so and so, as the fruit of it. But this changes everything.
"On Sealing with the Holy Ghost", Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, Volume 31, p. 260
It seems to me the leaven of Evangelicalism is attempting to know Christ according to the flesh. We all seem so desperate to be men and women "in the flesh," and I suspect it's because we just can't quite give up on ourselves. I suspect it's because being "in Christ" means having no righteousness of my own (Philippians 3:9), and we can't quite bring ourselves to view ourselves that way.
So having started with a quote from Romans Verse-by-Verse, maybe we'll end the same way. Here's a favorite of mine: "To believe, and to consent to be loved while unworthy, is the great secret" (p 172).
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