That good work has not been completed in me. My flesh still wants its own way. My mind/heart wants to follow Christ.
There are quite a few fleshly things I've learned to control with the Spirit's help, by walking in the Spirit.
But my flesh is not sinning now as much as it used to. The Spirit, praise the Lord, is making progress in me!
Have you not given the Holy Spirit ANY control over your flesh? When are you going to? Do you really sin just as much today as when you first believed? Do you not believe that Jesus Christ has the power to save us from sin?
This issue is not as complicated as all are making it.
The work has been done.
It is finished.
Christ died for our sins.
And the moment one believes that; the Spirit then declares one the Righteousness of God in His Son, and comes to live in His inward man.
One's inward man is then indwelt by the Spirit.
Which is nevertheless surrounded by a body of sinful flesh; a flesh with its own will and agenda.
At the same time, the inward man is enabled to walk in the Spirit by the Spirit - but only as one chooses to walk in Him - by faith.
Only as one chooses to die to the flesh by faith - each moment it comes calling.
The entire dynamic is like that between an automobile with a full tank of fuel, and its driver.
Both are able to rely on that fuel towards helping to get someone to get where they have set out to get to, but there that fully fueled automobile sits - until one does something about that - until one gets in that automobile, turns that key and gets a move on.
As ye have therefore received Him - by faith - so walk ye in Him - by faith.
At which point the Spirit then empowers one to be able to walk in Him.
To walk in the one is to die to the other.
To die to the one is to live unto the other.
And the fact that the Apostle Paul invests a very high majority of his writings on this repeated emphasis on the need to die to the one and to living to the other, makes it obvious there is a difference between justification (having been declared the Righteousness of God in His Son by faith) and sanctification (daily, moment by moment consciously choosing to separate oneself from the one, by faith, towards walking in the other - in said Righteousness, by faith).
Ephesians 4:17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, 4:18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: 4:19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. 4:20 But ye have not so learned Christ; 4:21 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: 4:22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; 4:23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; 4:24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
This putting on of this new man is sort of like when a teacher says "okay, boys and girls, time to put on our thinking caps..."
That teacher does not mean that said ability to think was not already present, rather, that it is time to consciously walk in said ability.
The opposite being those times we are all familiar with. Those moments of "what in the world was I thinking!"
Likewise with Paul's put on the new man.
He means to consciously choose to walk in this new man we as Believers have been made in Christ.
If any man be in Christ, he is...a new creature.
Towards what intent?
Towards keeping one out of hell?
No!
That is just a side benefit.
The real issue for God as to why He is even saving anyone is towards our walking in Him to the Glory of God in His Son by the Spirit, in this New Creature of His: the Body of Christ for all Creation to behold, during this Mystery Age.
2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
Ephesians 3:10 To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, 3:11 According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: 3:12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.
Colossians 2:5 For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ. 2:6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: 2:7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
Our access of that is accessed by simply consciously choosing to look out at, and walk in all things, in memory of Rom. 5: 6-8 - in each our stead.
