25 I thank God — through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
NKJV
Flesh has to live with the law of sin or cease to be flesh.
If the above verses do not describe what a person believes then they do not understand the JOY the children of God have in Christ who has made a way for sinners to be saved by freeing us from our sinful bodies and it's condemnation for sin.
If a person is required to sanctify, justify, themselves they are refusing the work of God (the Holy Spirit) and are trying to do it for themselves.
What I see is that the religious are totally into this thing OF NOT SINNING in the flesh as a way to get into Heaven without the work of the cross which sets them free. Most do not understand what they have been set free from.
You would have us serving two masters...God AND sin. Didn't Jesus say that we can't serve two masters?
Reading Paul correctly...he is not saying that he is serving God and sin simultaneously. When a person walks according to the flesh there is no power to overcome sin and remain pure. Only when we are empowered to walk according to the Spirit can we do so.
The joy you are speaking of is sinning and not feeling condemned for it. But people in the world who have had their consciences seared through sin also feel just fine in their sins. They don't have the conviction of sin....even when they sin. What you are saying is that you have no more conscience of sin either. So that your sin consciousness has been seared.
Are you supposed to be at peace IN your sin.
People will have to make up their minds about that. It is an easy way out...but is it according to the truth? (Even to entertain that possibility should be repulsive to us...but such is the scheme being presented here)
We become free from not just the condemnation of sin as you believe...but from
the power of sin through Christ. You don't need to
dampen your sin consciousness to be at peace...instead you are given real peace from above in holiness by walking as Jesus walked...without sin. You don't believe that is possible...calling any
overcoming power from God...just works of the flesh. (of course the very opposite is true) Is raising the dead a work of the flesh? Is healing the sick a work of the flesh? But you relegate any victory over sin as a work of the flesh.
Did Jesus walk among us in a different kind of flesh? Yet He overcame so that He could give us that same grace to overcome the way He did.
Let people decide whether they want their consciences seared so as to be immune from guilt for their sins...OR... to actually be delivered from the power of sin by abiding in Christ.
A leper is one who no longer feels pain. Their nerve endings have become seared...so they hurt themselves continuously until their bodies become disfigured.
1 Tim. 4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
There is a
spiritual leprosy that causes it's victims to no longer feel the conviction of sin...just as any hardened sinner...yet still claim to love and have faith in God.
This affliction has infected many as a great delusion. All they who love iniquity...and are unwilling or unable to sacrifice themselves for the love of the truth...will believe the lie.
This is the choice set before us.