Do You Trust in the Flesh or in the Spirit?

I've been remiss in writing during the Feast of Tabernacles, partly due to lack of internet and partly due to lack of time. Now that I'm back, I should have a fair amount of both, and I'm full of ideas from the Feast, so hang on tight! For today, a subtle point about the following scripture in Jeremiah occurred to me.

Jeremiah 17:5

Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

When I asked in the title, "Do you trust in the flesh or in the Spirit?" I can't imagine that many people would answer that they trust in the flesh - but the reality is that many people who call themselves Christians trust in the flesh rather than the Spirit!

My meaning here is deeper than you may suspect: notice that the above verse talks about depending on flesh, but it's not necessarily referring to your own flesh. The point that I'm driving at is that many people trust in Christ as a man - they look at pictures of Him and carve out figures of Him dying on the cross, as though He were flesh (see The Second Commandment - Is it Different from the First?). 


In truth, Christ died. Not just His physical body died. For 3 days and 3 nights, Christ, the Word who had come down from His glory to inhabit the flesh and limit Himself to the human condition, ceased to exist. At the end of the 3 days and 3 nights, He was brought back from the dead, but not to flesh and bone: He was restored to "the glory that [He] had with [God] since before the world was" (John 17:5), becoming the first of many who will be brought to glory in the Spirit. We do not put our faith and our trust in His flesh, but in His resurrection.

However, for the time being, we are the body of Christ, a second body of flesh:

Ephesians 5:29-30

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherished it, just as the Lord does the Church. For we are members of His body, of His own flesh and blood. 

We, the Church of God, are now the fleshly body of Christ. It is not like Christ's first body of flesh, which was composed of one perfect Member, but it is composed of many members who are being made perfect through trials and suffering. Not that God wishes for us to suffer for the sake of suffering, but that we should be made ready for the time that we, the second body, will be changed just as the first body of Christ was changed. Just as He died in the flesh and remained dead for 3 days and 3 nights, so also we as His body must each be putting to death our old selves, becoming a new creation in Christ.

Revelation 21:2-4

Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”

Trust in the Spirit of God, not the flesh, and you will be made new. While Christ's life in the flesh served an invaluable purpose in God's plan to reconcile mankind, our focus when we think of our Savior should not be on His flesh - for even when He was alive in the flesh, He was putting to death the desires of the flesh, just as we must also strive to do. And just as He was given power to accomplish this task through God's Holy Spirit, so also God gives us the Holy Spirit so that we can be a part of Christ's second body of flesh, in order that we may also take part in the resurrection by which Christ was resurrected. 

Notice the verse in Jeremiah once more:

Jeremiah 17:5

Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

Our strength does not come from Christ's flesh, much less our own. If we depend on any flesh for our strength, then our heart turns away from God and we are cursed. We, the body of Christ, must rely on the Spirit which aslo led Christ during His life as a human. Therefore, the question remains: do you trust in the flesh or in the Spirit? Do you trust in the Church of God, which is a body of flesh and blood believers, or do you trust in its Head, Jesus Christ, who is Spirit? We must be careful to discern what aspects of the Church of God are physical and which are spiritual so that we will not be led astray.