It may be asked, "Is it possible that a true child of God could ever be found in such a low moral condition?" Alas! alas! reader, it is indeed possible. There is no depth of sin and folly into which a Christian is not capable of plunging, if not kept by the grace of God. Even the blessed apostle himself, when he came down from the third heaven, needed "a thorn in the flesh" to keep him from being "exalted above measure." We might suppose that a man who had been up in that bright and blessed region could never again feel the stirrings of pride. But the plain fact is that even the third heavens cannot cure the flesh. It is utterly incorrigible and must be judged and kept under, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, else it will cut out plenty of sorrowful work for us.
Still, the believer's standing is in Christ, forever justified, accepted, perfect in Him. And, moreover, he must ever judge his state by his standing, never his standing by his state. To attempt to reach the standing by my state is _legalism_; to refuse to judge my state by the standing is _antinomianism_. Both--though so diverse one from the other--are alike false, alike opposed to the truth of God, alike offensive to the Holy Ghost, alike removed from the divine idea of "A man in Christ."
[II.] The reader will distinguish between the expression "in the flesh" as used in Gal. ii. 20, and in Rom. viii. 8, 9. In the former, it simply refers to our condition as in the body. In the latter, it sets forth the principle or ground of our standing. The believer is in the body, as to the fact of his condition; but he is not in the flesh as to the principle of his standing.
Having considered the deeply interesting questions of "a man in nature" and "a man in Christ," it remains for us now to consider, in this third and last Part, the deeply practical subject of the title of this paper, namely,
It would be a great mistake to suppose that every Christian is a man of God. Even in Paul's day--in the days of Timothy, there were many who bore the Christian name who were very far indeed from acquitting themselves as men of God, that is, as those who were really God's men, in the midst of the failure and error which, even then, had begun to creep in.