What accomplishing something by the flesh means is trying to achieve a spiritual end by fleshly means. That's what trying to be saved by works of the law/obedience is. That's a person trying to achieve a spiritual goal through fleshly means. That's what the Galatians were doing wrong. They started out good by the Spirit but then felt compelled to finish in the power of fleshly effort. It's the false gospel of starting out in the Spirit through faith in Christ's forgiveness, but then thinking it is your obedience that makes you a saved person.
Romans 7:5-6
5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. 6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not
in the oldness of the letter.
Can you see that the Jews under the Old Testament law had to keep one day a week holy by the letter of the law. Now the Sabbath is kept by the Spirit, not just one day a week but everyday, all day - Jesus is honored all the time as we rest in Him. That is the Spirit of the Sabbath. The Judaizers were trying to get the Galatians to follow the Jewish law in both days and circumcision. Both of the flesh. But we are NOT in the flesh but in the Spirit.
That is true of genuine works of faith, spurred on and motivated by gratitude for the the mercy of God you have received in the forgiveness of your sin.
That is not true of works that are motivated by the false thinking that it is by the righteousness of your obedience that you become a saved person. The Spirit is no where involved in that kind of false gospel. That is the effort of the flesh trying to fulfill the promise of God. Like how Abraham went into Hagar thinking that was how God was going to fulfill his promise.
Why we are now righteous, if, indeed we have been filled with the Spirit of Christ, is because Jesus took away our sin from the source of our sinning, our sin nature, the old man. It has been crucified and we have been resurrected with Christ with a CLEAN NATURE John 15:3, that is not prone to sin as you still believe. Therefore, we should naturally love what God loves, and hate what God hates. It's easy, and not of the flesh, but love. If you love Me, keep My commandments.
No, sin is what comes 'naturally'. The things of the Spirit are what are unnatural to flesh and blood and which must be motivated and produced by the Spirit, not the flesh. Nothing good comes from the flesh.
Sin did come naturally, but not if the sin nature has been crucified and you have experienced being born again of the Spirit. What is born again is the sin nature, no longer under the power of the devil, but of Christ.
No, 'works' in the context of not being declared righteous by works of the law means it is not by the effort of your flesh in the performance of the requirements of God that you become spiritual. You do the righteous works of the law because you have become a spiritual creation. Faith upholds the law, but it is not by the upholding of that law that you become spiritual. That's the sin of finishing by the flesh what God has accomplished in you by the Spirit, through faith in his forgiveness.
I think I've already responded to this adequately above. I hope you understand now that it is not our works, but Christ living in us.
You are referring to the righteousness that is credited to a person apart from their righteous doings. Explain this to 1stCenturyLady. She challenged that truth in a post to me and I just haven't gotten to it yet.
The error that many make is they do not realize that the righteousness God credits to them when they believe his promise of a Son is more than able to qualify them to enter into the kingdom. They think you must add the righteousness of your works in order to be righteous enough to enter in.
They do not realize that it is God's forgiveness that qualifies you to enter in. That doesn't mean you don't have live holy and upright. It means it is not by the righteousness of your holy behavior that you are made righteous enough to enter into the kingdom. You would indeed have to be a perfect sinless person to get in on that basis. That means no one gets in on that basis. That's why you can only become a saved person by the grace and mercy of God's forgiveness, not your works.
I hope you are not saying the heresy that it sounds like.
1 John 3:7 "Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous."
James 2:
14 What
does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what
does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?
