The Flesh

QUESTION: I am much perplexed by the different meanings of "flesh" in the N.T. Can you not give some light on this subject which will simplify matters?

ANSWER: The use of one word with several meanings is because there are more ideas than words in any language. It will help you to know that "flesh" has the signification of sinfulness only in Paul's epistles, who sometimes uses it in a good sense, as when he says "the life that I live in the flesh," meaning his body. Outside of Paul's epistles it means either the living tissue covering the bones, or the body as a whole, or all men when "all flesh" occurs. Paul does not use it as a synonym for sin, but as "proneness to sin," usually to sensuality, but sometimes it includes sins which are independent of the body; such as pride and malice. "Flesh" in the Gospels is not used in the moral sense, but in the physical, as in John 8:4, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh."

— Steele's Answers p. 252.

In What Sense Was Jesus Tempted?

QUESTION: If, as one writer puts it, there was no tinder in Christ for the devil to strike fire into, then in what sense was he tempted in all points, as we are?

ANSWER: Like us he was free to stand or to fall, otherwise his obedience was necessary, mechanical and no more praiseworthy than a good clock is for being an accurate timekeeper. None but a free agent can be an example for a free agent. Yet there was in the divine mind a perfect certainty that Jesus would resist temptation foreseen by infinite wisdom and foreknowledge. There are two kinds of sins, one of the flesh — sins finding expression through the body, and sins of the spirit, which are mental and independent of the body, such as pride, selfishness, unbelief, malice, etc. In respect to both of these classes Jesus was tempted beginning with the selfish use of his supernaturalism to satisfy his hunger, and ending with the suggestion to avoid the cross and become king immediately by a stroke of state. The fact that there was in him no hereditary bent toward sin makes a seeming difference between him and us. But it may be that the influence of the Holy Spirit more than compensates us. Jesus stood alone as a man assaulted by Satan unaided by his own personal divinity, and by the Holy Pentecostal Spirit, who was not yet given. Delitzsch insists that the words "without sin" limits the phrase, "in all points like as we are," except an innate proneness to be led astray. In so doing the writer of this epistle "brings out more clearly the unlimited similarity in all other respects." The tempter found him without sin and left him sinless. 

— Steele's Answers, pp. 226, 227.

The Biblical Proofs of Inbred Sin

QUESTION: What are the Biblical proofs of inbred sin or birth sin?

ANSWER: They are chiefly found in the Old Testament, such as Ps 51:5, "Behold I was brought forth in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me;" 58:3, "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies." Job 15:14, "What is man, that he should be clean? And he that is born of woman, that he should be righteous?" Rom. 5:12-21 contains proofs that the effect of Adam's sin was universal. Eph. 2:3, "by nature children of wrath," has been considered a strong proof of original or inbred sin, but from the context we learn that Paul is describing adult, actual, responsible sinners, whom he deems worthy of punishment, expressed in the Hebrew idiom as "children of wrath." Richard Watson thought that John 3:6, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," is the strongest proof of inbred sin to be found in the Bible. But scholars now study the meaning of words as used by different writers, and they agree that nowhere in John, and probably nowhere in the Gospels, is "flesh" used in a bad sense to denote depravity. "The flesh," says President Timothy Dwight, "is to be understood here in the physical, not in the moral, sense." "Flesh and spirit," says Westcott, "are not related to one another as evil and good; but as two spheres of being with which man is connected by the spirit of heaven, by the flesh to the earth."

— Steele's Answers pp. 132, 133.

Repression or Purification?

It is a remarkable fact that while the Greek language richly abounds in words signifying repression, a half score of which occur in the New Testament, and are translated by to bind, bruise, cast down, conquer, bring into bondage, let, repress, hold fast, hinder, restrain, subdue, put down, and take by the throat, yet not one of these, συνέχω, κατέχω, κωλύω, συγκλείω, καταπαύω, is used of inbred sin; but such verbs as signify to cleanse, to purify, to mortify or kill, to crucify, and to destroy. When St. Paul says that he keeps under his body and brings it into subjection, he makes no allusion to the σάρξ, the flesh, the carnal mind, but to his innocent bodily appetites. In Pauline usage body is different from flesh. 

We have diligently sought in both the Old Testament and the New for exhortations to seek the repression of sin. The uniform command is to put away sin, to purify the heart, to purge out the old leaven, and to seek to be sanctified throughout spirit, soul, and body. Repressive power is nowhere ascribed to the blood of Christ, but rather purifying efficacy. Now, if these verbs, which signify to cleanse, wash, crucify, mortify, or make dead, and to destroy, are all used in a tropical or metaphorical sense, it is very evident that the literal truth signified is something far stronger than repression. It is eradication, extinction of being, destruction.

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 13.

Sanctification of the Body

The candid student of the New Testament, especially of the Epistles, which unfold the uttermost extent of salvation under the dispensation of the Paraclete, will not fail to discover the prominence given to the purification of the material element of human nature through faith in Christ. In Romans xii. 1, the body, in distinction from the mind (ver. 2), its spiritual tenant, is to be holy, not after death, but while "living." In chapter vi, 6, we read that the purpose of the crucifixion of the old man is, that the body "in so far as it is a sin-body" (Meyer) might be destroyed, "annihilated" (Cremer), "done away" (R.V.). In Colossians ii. 11, we are assured that "the circumcision of Christ," that entire sanctification of the heart (Jer. iv 4) which Christ provides for in the gift of the Holy Spirit, consists in ''putting off the body of the flesh" (R.V.), not merely the outward "sins of the flesh". The significant and weighty double compound Greek noun, "putting off," found nowhere else in Greek literature, is invented by Paul to express the thoroughness of this purging of the whole body from all sinful tendencies. Hence the meaning is, "a complete 'putting off' and doing away with this body 'of the flesh,' in so far as God, by means of this ethical circumcision, has taken off and removed the sinful body from man (the two acts are expressed by the double compound), like a garment which is drawn off and laid aside" (Meyer).

St. Paul declares (I Cor. vi 13) that "the body is for the Lord" (Jesus), inasmuch as it is a member of Christ, and "the Lord is for the body;" that is, He purposes to rule and use it as His member, and an instrument for His use, and a mirror for reflecting His glory. "The body is His due, for He assumed the body, and hath therein sanctified us; and we are joined to Him by the resurrection of the body." Thus says Bengel, who adds, "Quanta dignatio!" — "How great an honour!" This honour culminates in the nineteenth verse: "What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost," His peculiar and perpetual habitation, the last place which He hath chosen for the erection of His altar (Deut. xii. 14). How impressive the injunction which follows, when cleared, as it is in the Revision, of the gloss which diverts the emphasis from the body, the subject under discussion. "Therefore, glorify God in your BODY."

The strongest proof text (1 Thess. v. 23) for the entire sanctification of the body in the present life is found in that prayer of the Apostle Paul in which he makes an exhaustive analysis of man's compound nature, and prays that each specific part may be preserved blameless, after supplicating the very God of peace to sanctify the undivided whole. In his enumeration of parts, Paul descends from the highest and distinctive part, the spirit, the dome of man's being, wherein he is receptive of the Holy Spirit, to the animal soul, containing the passions and appetites in common with the brutes, the second part in the detail which needs the purifying power: thence he goes down to the material foundations of this divine temple and prays for the keeping pure of the sanctified body.

(We have not discussed "the flesh" in the Pauline sense of that term. We have attempted to prove that the body is to be sanctified and the flesh is to be crucified.)

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1 Chapter 12.

On Galatians 5:17

QUESTION: Explain Galatians 5:17, "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit (strives) against the flesh; for these are contrary one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would."

ANSWER: Flesh is used in a bad sense for evil inclinations. Hence the Holy Spirit after regeneration resists such evil tendencies which still cling to the newborn soul. This produces an inward conflict, the Spirit trying to keep the man from doing wrong and the flesh striving to hinder those Christian acts to which the Spirit prompts. The Revision eliminates the "cannot" which has no place in the Greek, for God's grace superabounds where sin has abounded. 

— Steele's Answers p. 93. 

Is Original Sin a Biblical Doctrine?

QUESTION: Are the phrases "original sin," "birth sin," "inbred sin" found in the Bible?

ANSWER: No. But a doctrine may be in the Bible while the term invented by men to express it is not scriptural, such as Trinity, sacrament, eucharist. Atonement is not found in the Revised New Testament. Theologians, feeling the need of a term to express racial bent or inclination towards sin inherited from Adam and Eve, called it original sin, using the term "sin" in an improper sense, because "sin properly so called," says J. Wesley, "is the willful transgression of a known law of God." Hence Arminians, whenever they use any one of these three phrases, are obligated to disclaim the elements of volition and guilt, which constitute the essence of sin. Much perplexity and many theological discussions would have been avoided if a different term had been invented to denote the racial trend towards sin. Paul used the terms "flesh" and "carnal" in 1 Cor. 3:1-3, and Gal. 5:17 in describing Christians in whom there was still lingering the proclivity to sin. But this word has about a half dozen meanings, mostly good, so that its use to denote badness is very confusing. Hence many speakers and writers decline to use the term so equivocal. The phrase "sin which dwelleth in me," occurs in Rom. 7:17 as descriptive, not of a regenerated person, but of a convicted moralist, personated by Paul, a character striving to realize his ideal of righteousness without faith in Jesus Christ. If real sin dwells in a man, he is not born of God, but is a child of the devil, according to 1 John 3:9, 10.

— Steele's Answers pp. 75, 76.

Can Anyone in the Flesh Please God?

QUESTION: Paul says in Rom. 8:9, "They that are in the flesh cannot please God." Since all who live on the earth are in the flesh, is it not impossible for any living man to please God?

ANSWER: The word flesh has both a good and a bad meaning. In this text flesh means the domination of evil inclinations. No man who is thus dominated can please God. But when the evil propensities are controlled by the regenerating Holy Spirit, God is pleased. Every man in the world may please God by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. The flesh may not only be controlled but be crucified.

— from Steele's Answers p. 52.

Spiritual Warfare

[While it is true] that Christ proposes to free the believer in this world not only from acts of sin, but from the sinful disposition inherent in fallen humanity, [it is also true that there are] certain ills which are the effects of sin, and wear its appearance, but have not its moral character, and are not in the catalogue of things from which Jesus promises us deliverance in the present life.

These [include:] Spiritual warfare.

[Spiritual warfare] implies temptations. Jesus warred with temptations. "As he is, so are ye in this world." "The disciple is not above his Lord." The Christian life is a long battle, for which we are to draw arms from the arsenal of Christ's promised presence and from the power of his word, and from the endowment of his Holy Spirit.

Carnal Christians

QUESTION: Harmonize Romans 7:14, "I am carnal, sold under sin," with 1 Corinthians 3:1, "And I, brethren, could not speak to you as spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ."

ANSWER: Paul uses σάρξ (sarx), flesh, with four meanings, three of them in a good sense (1 Corinthians 15:39, Galatians 4:14, Galatians 2:16), and one in a bad sense, as in Romans 8:8, and generally in his epistles. But derivative adjective σαρκικός (sarkikos) and σάρκινος (sarkinos), carnal, is always used in a bad sense.

But Paul evidently uses it to express different degrees of evil tendency, the highest degree as in Romans 7, excluding spiritual life, "I am carnal, sold under sin," like a slave on the auction block bidden off, and completely controlled by sin. But in 1 Corinthians 3:1 the evil tendency is not controlling but controlled by divine grace, for the context proves that there is in them a low degree of spiritual life, for they are "in Christ," though "babes," and they are addressed as "Brethren." In the preceding chapter Paul describes two contrasted characters — the spiritual man and the natural of physical man. But when he attempts to classify the Corinthian believers he is puzzled. Strictly speaking, they are neither natural or unregenerate, nor spiritual or wholly sanctified; so he calls them carnal, evidently using the word not in its worst sense, excluding spiritual life. They were in the Galatian state in which "the flesh lusteth against the spirit," etc., Galatians 5:17, R.V. In Romans 7 the Holy Spirit is not named and the character delineated is an unregenerated person. The struggle is on the plane of nature. The combatants are the depraved animal nature warring against the moral reason. In the Galatian or Corinthian state they are not dead but on the way to the graveyard. "Having begun in the Spirit they are ending in the flesh."

— Steele's Answers pp. 21-23.