DEATH TO "THE FLESH"

No, not physical death; but a death to the sin in the flesh or carnal nature in which the child of God has done with it so fully that the Spirit of God may fill him. It includes the acknowledging of the presence of this carnal nature within him, and of his utter inability to cope with it. It means that he has reached the place in his own heart and mind when he is absolutely done with these carnal dispositions he abhors them, he cries for deliverance from them. He takes the attitude of death toward: the carnal or fleshly desires, purposes or emotions, that is, he is turning from them as fully as if they did not exist, he is done with them. He has reached the place where he no longer desires the will of self, but he prays as did Christ in His prayer in the garden, "Not my will, but thine be done." He is so completely dead to sin and "the flesh" that he desires nothing but the will of God. But such an attitude is all on the part of the seeking individual. He cannot put this carnal nature to death, it is the work of the Spirit to do that. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body" (Rom. 8:2,13). But when God sees that in his heart he is so completely done with the presence of the carnal that he has died to it, then the Spirit fully possesses His temple and makes real in experience what he has desired in his heart.