What is mortification of sin / the flesh?

Gilgal, the starting point of their journey, was the place of Israel's first encampment in the land, after their passage of the Jordan. There the people were circumcised, and there the Lord could say to Joshua, "This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you" (Joshua 4:19; Joshua 5:2-9). In the light of Christianity we are privileged to enter into the spiritual meaning of circumcision. From the Epistle to the Colossians we understand that this rite sets forth the judgment of the body of the flesh in the death of Christ, and the believer's practical mortification of the flesh (Col. 2:11; Col. 3:5). Not only has God dealt with the believer's sins, but, at the cross, God has dealt with the old man that produced the sins. God's abhorrence of the flesh, His judgment upon the flesh, and His sentence of death against the flesh, have all been expressed in, and borne by, Christ on the cross. So the believer can say, "Our old man has been crucified with Christ." On the ground of what God has wrought through Christ, the believer is exhorted to "mortify" every form in which the flesh may seek to show itself. We are to treat every expression of the flesh as a member of that "old man" upon which death has been executed. If the flesh is thus judged the reproach of Egypt will be rolled away from us. It will no longer be manifest that we have ever been in the world; the manner of life we lived when in the world will no longer be allowed or seen. How deeply important that we should learn, and put in practice, this first great lesson, if we, in our day, are to be, in any sense, in the room of the glorious Man that has gone to heaven.

In the next chapter we read "Mortify, therefore, your members which are on the earth." So there is this double application. According to the book of Joshua they were first circumcised; and, let them move where they might, they come back to Gilgal. This is a call to continual mortification of the flesh, on the ground that we have been once for all circumcised. Our circumcision was God's dealing with our nature in the death of Christ; but on the ground of this we have to mortify our members. If God has already judged the flesh, what I as a Christian am called to do is to take God's side against my own evil nature. I am called to cherish direct communion with God in condemning any and everything that is unlike Him. This type, you see, is full of direct instruction to the soul, and so far from being a mere theory is eminently practical. I have no doubt this is the reason why people shrink from the types of both the Red Sea and the Jordan. Many would like to know that they shall be protected from judgment, but God would put them in association with His own objects. He gives me a heavenly title that I should have my mind set on things above; for He would have my mind formed by these new and heavenly objects that are where Christ is.

Remark further, the wilderness is not the place where circumcision is carried out, even though we may have been faithful there. The wilderness is the character the world takes when we have been redeemed, and where the flesh which is in us is actually sifted. But death, and our entrance into heavenly places, judge the whole nature in which we live in this world. But then, consequent upon our death and resurrection with Christ, it is practically applied, and circumcision is the application of the Spirit's power to the mortification of the flesh in him who has fellowship with the death and resurrection of Jesus (compare 2 Cor. 4:10-12). Therefore Paul says (Phil. 3), "We are the circumcision." As to an outwardly moral life, Paul had that before. Had he now added true piety to his religion of forms, the true fear of God to his good works? It was far more than that. Christ had taken the place of all in him — first of all as to righteousness, which is the groundwork. But further, the apostle says, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from among the dead." Therefore it is in "pressing towards the mark" that he waits for the coming of Jesus to accomplish this resurrection as to his body.

The true mortification of the flesh is accomplished through grace, in the consciousness of grace. Without this, there is only the effort of a soul under law, and in that case, a bad conscience and no strength. This is what sincere monks attempted, but their efforts were not made in the power of grace, of Christ, and His strength. If there was sincerity, there was also the deepest spiritual misery.

An exhortation follows to mortify the members which are upon the earth. And what shameful and shameless things are mentioned here! "Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry." From this exhortation addressed to those who are believers, dead and risen with Christ, we learn that the old nature is not eradicated in the child of God. The believer knows that the old man is crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6), that being in Christ he is now no longer seen by God as in the flesh; but the believer also knows that the old nature is still in him. He finds this out daily "for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit." The spiritually minded believer acknowledges freely that in his flesh there dwelleth no good thing, and that in his fallen nature are all these shameful things and that this old nature is capable of all of which the apostle writes. On account of these things the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience. "In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them." The natural man lives in these things; but not so the believer. A child of God may commit these horrible things of the flesh, but he no longer lives in them. And what is to be done to these members? The translation, "mortify your members which are on the earth," does not fully express the original meaning. It does not mean that we are to be doing it as it is so often attempted by resolutions, fasting and other exercises, ever trying to fight the flesh and conquer the evil things of the old nature. We are never told to fight the flesh, but to flee and abstain from fleshly lusts. Fighting the flesh, trying to put it to death ourselves leads to defeat. We cannot do it, but it has been done for us. The old man was put to death in the cross of Christ; we are now dead to sin--sin is not to have dominion over us. "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof" (Rom. 6:11-12). "Mortify your members" means keep them in the place Of death where they have been put by the death of Christ. "Let it be as done"--exercise the power which redemption gives by holding in the place of death the members which are upon earth. This, however, is not possible unless the believer walks in the Spirit, is occupied with Christ and seeks those things which are above. For this reason the exhortations of verses 5-11 are the result of doing what the opening verses of this chapter put before us. And there are other things besides the gross things of the flesh. "Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communications, lying one to another" are likewise the works of the flesh. They are to be put off. The same Greek tense, aorist imperative, is here also employed--"let it be as done"--have it put off, because grace in redemption has made it possible. No need, therefore, to tolerate these things any longer in your lives, "seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all, and in all." Born again, believers have received a new nature, the nature from above; and this new man is being renewed in knowledge, not after the pattern of the first man, Adam, but after the image of Him, who created him. Christ Himself is the type of the new man; Christ is the object of the faith and the ambitions of the new nature in the believer. And in this new man all differences have ceased, all human distinctions disappear forever. Greek, Jew, circumcision, uncircumcision, barbarian, and the worst type of the barbarian, the Scythian, bond and free, are completely obliterated and gone. Having believed in Christ the new man is formed in each, and Christ is all as well as in all. He Himself is everything and all things are found in Him. The new man is independent of all earthly things and conditions and blessedly dependent upon Him, who created the new man. It is a great truth that Christ is all and also "in all." The believer must look upon all fellow-believers as being indwelt by Christ, that He is in all. This brings deliverance from self; all jealousy, pride and fleshly ambitions will end among the saints of God if they look upon each other after this manner, that Christ is in all. Here is comfort and power.

We know from the Epistle to the Colossians that circumcision is typical of the "putting off the body of the flesh." We have been delivered by death from that evil thing which the Word of God calls the flesh. But that deliverance is in the death of Christ, and faith accepts that we have died with Christ. Based upon this great fact we have the exhortation, "Put to death therefore your members which are upon earth" (Col. 3:5). The Apostle at once tells us what these members are: "fornication, uncleanness, vile passions, evil lusts, and covetousness which is idolatry." Then too, we are to put off "anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communications and lying." It is important to remember that these are not the members of the body, but the members of the flesh. The members of the body we are to yield to God (Rom. 6:13); the members of the flesh we are to put to death. Again it is not the flesh that we are exhorted to mortify, but the members of the flesh. The flesh has been dealt with at the cross. This faith accepts, but in our daily walk we are to cut off every evidence of the flesh — those ugly and evil things in which we lived when we were in the world. In the measure in which these things are still seen in us, to that extent the reproach of Egypt still clings to us. For all these things proclaim, not only that we have been in the world, but the manner of life we lived in the world, and therefore become a reproach to us. But if these evidences of the flesh are cut off and no longer seen, then the reproach of Egypt is rolled away, for if these things are gone, no man can tell what manner of men we were when living in the world. This putting to death of the members of the flesh is the Christian's Gilgal, and just as Joshua, in the course of his victories, returned again and again to Gilgal, so the Christian, after every fresh victory, must beware of the manifestation of the flesh and unhesitatingly refuse it. This is the first stage of the journey and its importance cannot be overestimated. If we are to represent the Man who has gone to heaven, how necessary that very manifestation of the flesh should be absolutely judged and refused.

The full and entire deliverance of the sinner is associated, and indeed the only ground on which it can subsist, with the mortification of the flesh. The stones brought up from the bottom of Jordan were placed in Gilgal, saying, "Ye are risen, mortify therefore"; and in Colossians 2 we find the true circumcision of Christ identified with the complete deliverance by His triumph over Satan, and that in death and resurrection; see Colossians 2:11-15, and indeed to the end. Indeed without this deliverance in power, the mortification of the flesh would be impossible; it needs power - its only principle is death, for the flesh is unchanged.

This gives rest of heart and a true sense of power against sin. "Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him" (Col. 3:9-10). This is an accomplished fact for the Christian and as we realize this by faith the practical result will be "that the body of sin [indwelling sin] might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin" (Rom. 6:6). Power to overcome indwelling sin is by believing these truths of the death of the old man and the existence of the new man before God. Because God says, "ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3), the believer mortifies, that is, he puts to death practically, everything that is inconsistent with the death of Christ (Col. 3:5).

But there still remains the tendency to the active energy of sin within. This is met by the divine injunction, "Reckon ye therefore yourselves to be dead unto sin," not the attenuating dying, or death, of the nature sin, but the annulling (proper force of "destroyed," Romans 6:6) of that dominating energy by the refusal of the vessel, the mortal body, which is to be accounted dead (Romans 8:10) as far as obedience to the dictation of the evil nature goes, otherwise it must be the obedient servant of sin. Of this it is needless to say the Spirit of God is the power. "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live," i.e., live normally as a Christian. Instead of being now "servants to sin," such are "servants to righteousness unto holiness."

There is, therefore, nothing in this verse that need chill in the least the confidence of the poor weak-spirited, self-judging Christian. Nay, those who are most addicted to self-judgment are they to whom the warning here expressed has the least application. The mortification of the deeds of the body, of which the apostle here speaks, must not be confounded with what men naturally mean by such an expression — with asceticism.

The power of fleshly mortification in a believer is the enjoyed consciousness, through faith, of the abundance of life in Christ. It is the known and appreciated grace of God, as that which has brought salvation to the soul, which alone teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts (Titus 2:11-12).