Two Minds

Two Minds

The mind of the Spirit is life and peace, but the mind of the flesh is death. These two forces oppose each other. The flesh asserts itself and wants its will carried out, whereas the Spirit makes intercession for us according to the will of God with groanings that cannot be uttered.

Now, just like our Lord and Master, we must suffer death according to the flesh and be made alive according to the Spirit. During this process, the flesh comes up with the most incredible ways to protect itself.

Instead of casting out the bondwoman and her son, people once again make themselves slaves of the law. The flesh prefers living in bondage rather than dying as an accursed thing on the cross. That is why people contrive man-made churches according to the ideals which their carnal minds believe are the Spirit’s form of godliness. However, this is just a form of godliness, not godliness itself. The Spirit does create a form, but when people who are in the flesh try to adopt this form without the Spirit, they are left with a form that is empty—it only contains death. God desires spirit and truth, not dead forms.

Why would people rather remain in bondage to the deadness of the letter than go the way as God has made it? Because they are enemies of the cross of Christ, the cross that brings death over the flesh. The word of the cross is a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Greeks, but to those who believe, it is the power of God.

The Spirit strives against the flesh and wants to put it in its rightful place—on the cross. Only then can people receive life and peace. Then bondage ceases. Suffering in the flesh replaces bondage. The Galatians had begun to go the way of the law, however, and people have always been inclined to do the same.

The flesh has yet another technique for saving its life. It allows an unrestrained liberty and promises liberty to others, even while they remain slaves of corruption. These people despise those who are “slaves of the law,” and they mock any who are not daring enough to throw themselves into the same seemingly desirable liberty. This results in death, because it is only the mind of the flesh. Enmity toward the cross is at work once again. Today these two understandings are prevalent. Some choose to be “slaves,” others choose a “lawless liberty.” Both avoid the cross.

Yet God has opened a new and living way for us through the veil, that is, His flesh. On this way we suffer death according to the flesh, but in return we are made alive according to the Spirit. Unfortunately, only a few find this long way to life.