Victory over the Flesh by the Power of God

(Colossians 3:5-10)

The scriptures I am reviewing today show a collection of all things evil and filthy in humanity. They are the things that can bring the wrath if God down upon people.

But if we are to live with God, these things need to be controlled and crushed. We need to have the victory over the flesh by the power of God. This is essential so as to no longer be under the power of our sinful passions and emotions.

These verses today are a call to all Christians to wage war against what is evil in ourselves. They urge us to win the victory over the flesh by the power of God. This is not by our own power, but by the power of the Holy Spirit and the cleansing power of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Victory over the flesh by the Power of God

The flesh of mankind is beset with weaknesses. Before going further, let us look at the scriptures under review.

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you once walked, when you lived in them. 8 But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices 10 and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Colossians 3:5-10)

Paul shows us that these things are earthly and of this earth. All of these and other passions belong to the ways of man under the power of sin. They are not part of the truth of Jesus Christ or the ways of God

We have been called to walk as Christ Jesus walked. So we must seek the path to gain victory over the flesh by the power of God. And that means we need to find the way to have victory over these sinful passions that lead to destruction.

It was because of human passions that God gave up on man, as is described in Romans chapter 1.

Throughout history, man has given in to his fleshly passions and committed sin, going from bad to worse. Consider the atrocities of the past and those we see every day in the news media and you will understand.

And besides these big atrocities, consider your own life. Have you ever fallen victim to the weaknesses, passions, indulgences, or lusts and desires of your flesh? Did you ever tell a lie or steal something? Have you looked lustfully at another person, or used the name of God in vain or as a profanity?

All of these actions and more are driven by human passions. It’s this passion we must defeat if we are to have victory over the flesh by the power of God.

But how? Fortunately for us, God has provided the way…and Jesus is the way.

The process of sin

The truth of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was to lay the foundation for us to have victory over the flesh by the power of God.

In His death and resurrection He obtained the victory over death, and death is the outcome for all who sin.

In order to understand the process for victory over the flesh by the power of God, we must first understand the process of sin. Then we must learn how to break the cycle of sin so that we can have victory over the flesh.

The cycle of sin is defined by James in the first chapter of his letter.

13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one; 14 but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death. (James 1:13-15)

Here is the process that leads to sin. We all have passions and desires in our flesh. It is these that are tempted so that they rise up within us to lure us to do evil. If or when we succumb to those temptations and do the thing we are led to do by our evil desires, then we sin.

To put all of this in as simple a flow as I can, it looks like this:

Desire –> Temptation –> Succumb to Temptation –> Sin

And there is one more step in this process that we should add. Paul spoke about this in his letter to the Roman church. The law fuels our desires and causes sin to flare up in us, like throwing petrol onto hot coals.

7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead. (Romans 7:7-8)

It is the law that incites our fleshly passions and desires to lure us even more to sinful ways. Think about it like this. If someone tells you or a child, “You must not do this…” the immediate reaction is the desire to want to do whatever it is to find out why. And so the desire is fuelled. If we act upon it, we do the very thing we should not do.

So the process of sin should include the element of the law that fuels desire that leads to sin. And worse, it makes the sin even more sinful because it is both a sin AND the breaking of God’s law. The process or cycle of sin then looks like this:

Law (fuelling) –> Desire –> Temptation –> Succumb to Temptation –> Sin

So the question is: how can we have the victory over the flesh by the power of God?

What the death and resurrection of Jesus achieved

Any time there is a “vicious cycle”, the only way to overcome and have victory is to break the cycle. For example, there is a cycle that enables a fire to occur. And we know the damage an uncontrollable fire can do. Houses and property may be destroyed and people’s livelihoods ruined.

For a fire to occur there are three things required: Fuel –> Oxygen –> Heat.

When these three come together in sufficient quantities, you have fire.

Now, to put OUT the fire you have to break the cycle. The way to break the cycle is to remove an element of the process so that the fire goes out.

In a house fire, you can spray water to reduce/eliminate the heat, and thus the fire goes out. With a chemical fire a bed of foam removes the oxygen and the fire goes out. In a leaking gas or petrol fire, say from a gas or oil well, they may cap the vent or close the point where the fuel is venting from to remove the fuel and so the fire goes out.

By removing one element of the fire cycle, either heat, oxygen or fuel, the fire is brought under control. Thus a fire department has “victory” over the fire.

And it is exactly the same with gaining victory over the flesh by the power of God. If we are to have the victory over the flesh we also need to break the sin cycle by removing elements of the cycle.

But because we are called to be perfect, we need to have ALL of the elements removed. Not just one or two, as the fire department does, we need all of the elements to be gone if we are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. And we MUST be perfect as we are told in Matthew 5:48.

So let’s look at the cycle of sin again to see how God has done what the fire department do.

Law (fuelling) –> Desire –> Temptation –> Succumb to Temptation –> Sin

When Jesus died and was resurrected, He set us free from sin and from the law. There are many scriptures that show us that Jesus died to set us free from sin and the law. Here are just two examples.

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6:1-5)

And;

Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. (Romans 7:4)

So by the death of Jesus, God has removed the two end pieces of the cycle of sin. He got rid of sin and He got rid of the law.

This is what we must believe. We receive these freedoms through entering the death and resurrection of Jesus by baptism. (Note the bold section in the Romans 6:1-5 verses just above). But even with those two removed we still have the weaknesses and passions of humanity waging war within us. The cycle is thus reduced to this:

Desire –> Temptation –> Succumb to Temptation

So even though our sins are forgiven and the law is removed, we still are not perfect.

But God did not stop at the removal of sin and the law. As Matthew 5:48 says, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

The work of the Holy Spirit

That is why God has given us the Holy Spirit to help us to have the victory over the flesh.

The work of the Holy Spirit is to put to death what is earthly in us. It is His job to help us to overcome the desires of our flesh. He gives us the power to resist temptations and thus no longer succumb to those temptations. Note this scripture:

12 So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh– 13 for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Romans 8:12-14)

It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we “put to death the deeds of the body.” That is, it is by the working of the Holy Spirit that we gain the full and complete victory over the flesh by the power of God.

How? Well, whenever the desires rise up within us or whenever we are tempted to do the wrong thing we use the power of the Spirit to crush them. We must learn how to walk in the Spirit and be led by the Spirit if we are to have victory over the flesh by the power of God.

We walk in the Spirit by setting our minds on the things that are good, right and true and so replace the evil thoughts that pop up to tempt us. And we do this by reading the Bible, praying, meditating on scripture, speaking in tongues, listening to uplifting gospel songs, and so on.

As we do this each time desires or temptations come upon us, the Holy Spirit steps in to help us and strengthen our resolve to overcome in our time of need and so give us victory over the flesh by the power of God. And in time those desires and temptations will cease to be an issue for us as the victory is complete.

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