God's way is substitution.

God’s way is substitution

ROM 7:21-25

The answer to Paul’s desperate question “Who shall deliver me?” is a new revelation!

The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, ROM 1:16.

1CO 1:18

This power of God is said to be the word of the cross (1CO 1:18).

The word of the cross is power not only to save us from our sins but also to deliver us from our flesh - from sin itself.

Just as the sinner struggles in vain to find forgiveness and peace until he looks outside himself to Him who made peace by the blood of His cross…

So too does the undelivered saint, struggling to find victory over sin by self-effort, look outside himself to Christ.

We find the victory outside ourselves, in Christ. And we are in Christ forever!

1. That sin dwelt in him - though he delighted in God’s law.

2. That his will was powerless against indwelling sin.

3. That the sinful flesh was not his real self now.

4. That there was deliverance through our Lord Jesus Christ.

What an amazing difference there is between a Christian taken in himself and a Christian in Christ!

God left us as much dependent on Christ’s work for our deliverance as for our forgiveness.

He gave up - only to see himself wholly in Christ

To see that Christ now lived in him

And to no longer walk according to law
But only by the Spirit

In whose power ALONE the Christian life is to be lived.

Substitute the things of the Spirit - of Christ - for the things of the flesh.

1JO 4:18-19