But today, I don't feel articulate at all. My head aches, my thoughts of science, as I try to meet a grant deadline, are swirling about in my head like the moldy leaves blowing about in the grey day outside. So, instead of my owns thoughts, I will give you instead a taste of one of my favorite writers, as I find his ability to articulate truth always to be of help to me. Interestingly, it deals directly with a topic that has come up within some recent emails - why do even those who profess to believe in Christ behave as badly towards each other as they do? And, doesn't this, to a watching world, invalidate our testimonies? I think Tozer's explanation is pretty amazing - as usual!
So, from A.W. Tozer's "That Incredible Christian", pages 53-54:
Spiritual Warfare and Sin: A Saint In Embryo
For I delight in the law of God according to 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. --Romans 7:22-23
The regenerate man often has a more difficult time of it than the unregenerate, for he is not one man but two. He feels within him a power that tends toward holiness and God, while at the same time he is still a child of Adam's flesh and a son of the red clay. This moral dualism is to him a source of distress and struggle wholly unknown to the once-born man. Of course the classic critique upon this is Paul's testimony in the seventh chapter of his Roman epistle.
The true Christian is a saint in embryo. The heavenly genes are in him and the Holy Spirit is working to bring him on into a spiritual development that accords with the nature of the Heavenly Father from whom he received the deposit of divine life. Yet he is here in this mortal body subject to weakness and temptation, and his warfare with the flesh sometimes leads him to do extreme things. "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" (Gal. 5:17).
3 comments:
"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death? ... Jesus Christ our Lord."
Good post here. Tozer is great. And the Christian can be encouraged with this truth.
And there is a day coming when we will no longer have this intense struggle with sin. Ican't imagine Donald Sands without sin, but one day it will be a reality. Even more real than now.
I like Tozer's words here, as well. He provides an explanation I would agree with word for word, in spite of my not reading Romans 7 in an Augustinian (or whatever is the best way to call it) way.
We're in an upward trajectory toward becoming like Christ. And even though we're not in Adam, but in Christ; not in the flesh, but in the Spirit (Romans 8); yet we can revert back to our in Adam, in the flesh, worldly way of living. Tozer puts it well. Thanks.
I just stumbled upon this blog and wanted to say hello. Wonderful posts, and very thought-provoking. I'll be checking back often.
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