Nov 11
13
HOW DOES THE BELIEVER PLUCK OUT THE OFFENDING EYE AND CUT OFF THE OFFENDING HAND?
Romans 7: 25: I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The way we pluck out the offending eye is only by God’s grace, through the Spirit of God as we are enabled to behold Christ Jesus our Lord with the eye of faith in the inner man. The way we cut off the hand of the flesh is by laying hold of Christ with the hand of faith. The just shall live by faith.
Matthew 6:22: The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
Romans 8: 13: For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
No threats of hell, no law, no mere outward acts will do what only we can do through the Spirit of God. Mortification of the flesh comes by beholding the faithfulness of Christ in honoring the righteousness of God and fulfilling the law on behalf of the believer.
Matthew 5: 30:…it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and notthat thy whole body should be cast into hell.
The Hand Cut Off
When we are made to behold once again, more clearly, in the heart, that our Substitute so delighted to magnify the law of God, that he was willingly made sin for us, cut off out of the land of the living under the fierce wrath of God in our place, because it was profitable in honoring the righteousness of God that one member of the body should perish, and not the whole body should be cast into hell then are we made to walk after the Spirit (Mt 5: 17; 2 Cor 5: 21.)
Only when a sin-plagued sinner beholds the depths of his sin, the inner workings of lust in his heart does he cry out for mercy. The mercy-begging sinner is strengthened to walk after Christ through the gospel of Christ Jesus the Righteous Representative and Substitute who lived and died and rose again so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. It is impossible for us to both behold Christ with the eye of faith seated at God’s right hand and at the same time yield to the offending eye, to lay hold of Christ with the hand of faith and yet yield to the offending hand. When our new man is renewed that is when we through the Spirit do mortify–cut off the evil eye and the evil hand. It is all of God, in Christ, all through the power of the Holy Spirit, all through the gospel which declares the wonderful works of Christ Jesus our King and Savior. Clay Curtis.