Sincere Christians realize that despite living a holy life, passions and desires can still arise. Is this normal? And what can be done about it? Paul wrote (allegedly): crucify (Gal. 5:24) or kill (Col. 3:5). What did he actually mean by this, and what are the deep spiritual reasons for these areas of tension?
The call to crucify or kill one's "flesh," passions, and desires gives rise to nonsensical instructions. For not even the Lord Jesus Christ could crucify himself – how could we possibly do so? In truth, we are confronted with flawed or incorrect translations of the original text. And the logical explanation for this is that the translators obviously did not know or understand the central mystery of the Word of God: the mystery or gospel of Christ.
The lecture carefully explains the correct gospel. When a person is in Christ, his passions and desires and their background, sin, are not simply eradicated. Sin as an effective principle remains active even in the holiest person until the redemption of our body. However, through the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in a believing person, it is kept in a "state of death" – it cannot break through as long as a person is and remains in Christ.
To "crucify" or "kill" the flesh, passions, and desires means, in truth, to surrender them to the Lord Jesus Christ who dwells within us, to be killed by His Spirit and His blood. Then the Lord disempowers these destructive impulses through the death-defeating power of His blood. People in Christ take God's position, according to which they have been "crucified" with Him since Calvary in relation to their old selves. In faith, they therefore consider themselves to be dead to sin, for example, or dead to it (Rom. 6:11). When the flesh, lusts, and desires stir up, they are immediately surrendered to the present Lord Jesus Christ, who puts them to death. In this way, the co-crucifixion of Golgotha has a real effect.
The instruction in Galatians 5:24 should therefore be rephrased correctly as follows: Those who belong to Christ Jesus, the flesh, passions, and desires are crucified. Our mission is to be and remain in Christ and to immediately hand over everything that is wrong to the Lord Jesus Christ to be "put to death." He is then responsible for the rest.
The entire challenging context is presented in the simplest possible terms and in a very practical manner. It contains a wonderful secret and, above all, great encouragement for people who want to lead a truly victorious and holy life in the Lord.
A brief and concise summary of this lecture can also be found under the category "Study Topics" - And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires – Gal.5:24 (html/pdf)
The lecture was filmed afterwards and is available to watch and study on Bruno Schaer Ministries' YouTube channel: 
