Israel continually went after idols
But, God remembered that they are but flesh.
This is what we find in Psalm78 when Israel was found wanting by their worship of idols. When God should have destroyed them for their faithlessness. Instead He had compassion on them when He remembered that they were only flesh.
A flesh man that had its beginning when God made Adam. Genesis tells us that he was a living soul. With no mention of a spirit. In fact, what we find here if we will believe what the account plainly says, is that he had no spiritual part in him at all when he was made.
This is why God told them in Psalm78 being chastened by God. For after they had been blessed over and over they continually went whoring after false gods. Provoking the Lord to anger.
In vs.32 of the chapter it says “For all this they sinned still, and believed not for his wondrous works.” This is the kind of unbelief Paul was telling them about them saying in Heb.4:2, “For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.”
The end result of this: “Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief”.
We see here that entering into the rest Jesus said He came to provide for the weary and heavy laden could only be had by those who trust in Him. Those who become born again by the Spirit of God when they believe in Jesus and His resurrection.
In this we also find that God is faithful to Israel even when they were not. Because He continued to work with her even when they chose to worship false gods. And would not utterly destroy them because of the faithfulness of their fathers. And because God remembered they were but flesh.
So the weakness of the flesh Paul refers to in Rom.8 was spoken of also in the Old Testament. And this weakness has nothing to do with the flesh being evil as the gnostics teach.
Instead it is referring to its being equipped with only the natural senses God gave to it when He made Adam. Natural senses that were never meant to make men able to relate to God. But, only to the natural world God placed Adam in.
So instead of blaming man’s bad behavior on Augustine’s scapegoat of a sin nature Augustine taught that men inherit from Adam. We must recognize our choices are either out of relying on the God given natural senses of the flesh. Or they are made using the spiritual part of us that was created in us when we trusted in Jesus.
And when you as a believer are in a conversation about salvation with an unbeliever, remember as God did that they are but flesh. And know that this is why it is not the words we say that saves them. But, the use of those words as the power only Holy Spirit has draws them to put their faith in Jesus.
Knowing that their God given free will that every man has will be the final hinge upon which their being delivered by God from death to life will depend upon. God doing the saving while men choose to trust in His saving grace as we are faithful to share it with them.
And just the same way that God told Israel to remember all that He had done for them proving His love and His being able to be trusted. So too did Jesus remind them when He asked why they wanted to kill Him when He said, “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.” John10:37,38
We are glad when we hear God didn’t give up on Israel knowing they were but flesh because all of us start from that same place of being but flesh. And it was through them God brought salvation into the world. Even though He could have brought it any way He wanted. He chose Israel because of the fathers.
And we are glad that through God’s faithfulness to Israel we have the salvation He promised through Abraham in Gen.12:3. The father of many nations. Through a deliverance from being only flesh. To having created in us a spirit that no man has who has not first trusted in Jesus and His resurrection.
Therefore we proclaim His gospel to natural men in the hope that they will see as we have. That Jesus is the Creator of all things, and the savior from natural to spiritual that all men have needed since the time the Godhead made Adam.
To be born again as Jesus told Nicodemus in John3 so that old things pass away and all things become new. To be made a spiritual being who is not subject to the natural God given limitations of the flesh. Limitations, not evil. But because they can only relate to that which God has made.
If you will trust in Jesus and His resurrection you will have this spirit created in you. A spirit that joins you to God forever. A spirit that makes you God’s child and heir to His kingdom. A spirit that makes you able to relate to God as only a spiritual being can.
This is why Jesus said “What is born of the flesh is flesh. And what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” And “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
If you will trust in Jesus and His resurrection then you will have eternal life now, and immortality at the resurrection. If you will do this then a kingdom where there is only love, joy, and peace will be your eternal home. If you will do this… then I will see you there or in the air!
