Lesson Three – The Flesh
“This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” (John 6:60), said His disciples, and many of them walked away as they were offended by what Jesus was telling them. Perhaps it was not that they didn’t understand, but refused to accept the truth of their condition. Our Lord went on to say “the flesh profits nothing.” What does this mean?
We learned in an earlier lesson that it was Adam’s disobedience to God’s will that caused death, not only to Adam, but to all of his descendants; all of mankind has been affected by this condition. This is the normal state of a human being, and it is referred to as “flesh,” and this is what Jesus was referring to when trying to get his followers to understand the reality of their condition. This was hard for them to understand because they were accustomed to their religious practices, their “pious” lifestyles and the teaching of the religious leadership. For them, their religious practices were pleasing to God. Jesus rejected this notion as the “flesh profits nothing.”
The apostle Paul advised “to have no confidence in the flesh” (Phil 3:3) and then expressed that he had “more so” because of his previous religious education and zealousness. Paul said that “those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Rom 8:8) In his letters to the congregations of Asia the apostle goes into a lot of detail about what it means to be fleshly, and also teaches that the behavior caused by this condition leads to a person being carnal.
In addressing the saints in Ephesus he said they used to walk “according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh (body) and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” Paul understood that the flesh affects both the body and mind “fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.” In his letter to the Galatians Paul provides a list of the manifestation of the flesh.
“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Gal 5:19-21)
Watchman Nee explains that these works of the flesh can be divided into five groups: (1) sins which defile the body, such as immorality, impurity, licentiousness; (2) sinful supernatural communications with satanic forces, such as idolatry, sorcery; (3) sinful temper and peculiarities, such as enmity, strife, jealousy, anger; (4) religious sects and parties, such as selfishness, dissention, party spirit, envy; and (5) lasciviousness, such as drunkenness and carousing. Every one of these is easily observed. Those who do them are of the flesh.
(The Spiritual Man, Volume I, page 90)
Within Paul’s list of the works of the flesh we see that some emanate from the lusts of the body while others are associated with the mind, or the works of the soul. Both have been corrupted through the seed of Adam; his fall and subsequent separation from his creator. The scriptures employ the word “flesh” to describe man’s corrupt nature or life which embraces soul and body. Recall in the creative act of God, soul is placed between spirit and body, that is, between what is spiritual and what is earthly or physical. The soul’s duty is to maintain its original and proper place that is subject to the spirit with the body taking orders from the soul. This harmony was unfortunately lost when the soul yielded to the temptation of the body thus releasing itself from the authority of the spirit. Soul and body accordingly were joined together to be flesh. Not only is the flesh devoid of the spirit, it is also directly apposed to the spirit; “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another” (Gal 5:17).
The soul is the life principle of man; it is his very self, comprising the faculties of will, mind and emotion. Unlike the body, the basic characteristic of the works of the soul is independence or self-dependence. The flesh makes self the center and elevates self-will above God’s will. It may serve God, but always according to its own idea, not according to God’s. It will do what is good in its own eyes.
In summary, it appears that Jesus and the apostle Paul are in agreement “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6). How do we overcome this condition? The Bible gives us clear instruction on this, and we will delve into that in the coming lessons.
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