The Cross a Reality in Our Life
Canon G. E. Jelf. Galatians 5:24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. I. WHAT IS IT TO BE "OF CHRIST JESUS"? 1. We must become His in His own way — the way which He appointed when He left the world, and commanded that all nations were to become His disciples by being baptized into the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 2. Those who name the name of Christ are His by profession. This is, as it were, subscribing with our hand unto the Lord, and naming ourselves, or having our name named, in the same breath as the Name of God. 3. It is the living faith of the baptized disciple, which proves him to be a Christian, a member of Christ, not merely by virtue of his baptismal adoption (though that is a gift unspeakably great), not merely because of his profession (though it is an honour to him beyond all words, to be allowed a place in the ranks of the glorious Church as it moves on after the Great Commander), not only this, but a member of Christ, "in word, in manner of life, in love, in faith, in purity" (1 Timothy 4:12). II. LET US NOT DECEIVE OURSELVES, even as we listen to such "exceeding great and precious promises." They are meant to brace us to action, not to lull us into security. They should not make us say, "All is well with me, for I am Christ's," but should rather set us upon earnestly considering our ways and proving our own selves. And the test is no ideal or visionary one. No, indeed, it is most practical: "have crucified the flesh." It is not merely that the soul flies high, while the body grovels in the dust, intent on earthly things and passing enjoyments. The body also is being fought with, conquered, mortified. I must be ever, says the Christian, putting to death this rebel body which is at enmity with God, ever, by His grace, keeping under my body and bringing it into subjection, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake. III. IT IS NOT THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BODY we are to aim at, but its purification for the Lord — its consecration, as it were, upon the Cross, to Him who died thereon — its being devoted to God, by means of the conquest of whatever is sinful therein, and through its union, even here, with the glorious Body. "The passions and the lusts thereof." We speak of passion as an active habit; but it is really, as the term implies, a state of suffering; and we know this well enough; for we know, e.g., that he whom we call a passionate man suffers much more himself than those with whom he is angry. Our passions and our lusts then — the lusts and passions of the body — must be crucified, because the body, from our baptism onwards, belongs to Christ crucified, and the lusts which war in our members are ever striving to alienate us from Him. But when we recollect that we are really His — His who actually, and not only in a figure, was put to death in the flesh — we make it our daily aim to imitate Him, at whatever pain and trial to ourselves. (Canon G. E. Jelf.) Parallel Verses KJV: And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. WEB: Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.