Paul's word in Galatians 5:24 indicates that within our fallen flesh, which is the body of sin, there are two categories of things. The first category is our desires, or our passions. The second category is our lusts, that is, our evil desires that issue in evil actions. First, we have our desires; then the desires usher us into lusts. Thus, lusts are worse than desires, or passions. We need to crucify these two categories of things in our fallen flesh. First, we need to crucify our fleshly desires; then we need to crucify our fleshly evils, that is, our lusts.

In the Gospels, Matthew 16:24 tells us that we must bear the cross; that is, we must keep the death of Christ on our self, on our soul, continually. Then in the Epistles we are told that we must continually crucify our fleshly desires and lusts by our exercised spirit with the Holy Spirit, the indwelling Spirit, as a great help. Galatians 5:16 and 25 tell us to walk by the Spirit and to live by the Spirit. Then we must crucify our flesh with its passions and its lusts, which means that we must put all the practices of the body to death. Because we are still fallen, we cannot do this by ourselves; we must do it by the indwelling Spirit. There is another One who is indwelling us. The consummated God lives in us as the Spirit, and we have an organ, our spirit, that was preserved and is even indwelt by God. Hence, we should not remain in our flesh. Rather, we must come back from our flesh to our spirit. We must exercise our spirit; then the indwelling Spirit will help us to put Christ's death all the time on our flesh and on our fleshly passions and fleshly lusts. In this way we will kill all the means, all the organs, of sin. Sin will be jobless, and we will be freed from sin. Thus, these two things—dealing with our soul and dealing with our fleshly body—are both by the cross. To deal with our soul, we must bear the death of Christ, not allowing our self to live. We should always remind our self that the baptistry is a tomb where it was buried and where it should remain. This is to put the cross upon us, and this is to bear the cross. Furthermore, every day we need to exercise our spirit with the help of the indwelling Spirit to put every part of our flesh to death. Then our soul and our sinful body will be terminated. This is the way to live a victorious Christian life, and this is the Christian life.

If we practice these two things, no doubt, we will be in resurrection, and in resurrection we will enjoy the very God as the consummated Spirit, who is the pneumatic Christ as the embodiment of the processed Triune God. This is the economy of God.