THE WORD "FLESH" is basar in Hebrew and sarx in Greek. Seen often in the Bible, it is used in various ways. Its most significant usage, observed and made most clear in Pauls writings, has reference to the unregenerated person. Speaking of his old "I" he says in Romans 7: "I am fleshly" (v.14 Darby). Not merely his nature or a particular part of his being is fleshly; the "I"-Paul's whole being-is fleshly. He reiterates this thought in verse 18 by asserting "within me, that is, in my flesh." It follows clearly that "flesh" in the Bible points to all an unregenerated person is. In connection with this usage of "flesh" it must be remembered that in the very beginning man was constituted spirit, soul and body. As it is the site of man's personality and consciousness, the soul is
connected to the spiritual world through man's spirit.
The soul must decide whether it is to obey the spirit and hence be united with God and His will or is to yield to the body and all the temptations of the material world. On the occasion of man's fall the soul resisted the spirit's authority and became enslaved to the body and its passions. Thus man became a fleshly, not a spiritual, man. Man's spirit was denied its noble position and was reduced to that of a prisoner. Since the soul is now under the power of the flesh, the Bible deems man to be fleshly or carnal. Whatever is soulical has become fleshly.
Now aside from the use of "flesh" to designate all that an unregenerated person is, sometimes it is written to denote the soft part of the human body as distinct from blood and bones. It may be employed to mean additionally the human body. Or at still other times it may be used to signify the totality of mankind. These four meanings are all very closely related. We should therefore note briefly these other three ways of using "flesh" in the Bible.
First, "flesh" as applied to the soft part of the human body. We know that a human body is composed of flesh, bones and blood. Flesh is that part of the body through which we sense the world around us. Therefore a fleshly person is one who follows the world. Beyond simply having flesh, he walks after the sense of his flesh.
Second, "flesh" as applied to the human body. Broadly speaking, flesh means the human body whether living or dead. According to the latter part of Romans 7 sin of the flesh is related to the human body: "I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members- (v.23). The Apostle then continues in Chapter 8 by explaining that if we. would overcome the flesh we must "put to death the deeds of the body" by the Spirit (v.13). Hence, the Bible uses the word sarx to indicate not only psychical. flesh but physical flesh as well.
Third, "flesh" as applied to the totality of mankind. All men in this world are born of the flesh; they are all therefore fleshly. Without exception the Bible views all men to be flesh. Every man is controlled by that composite of soul and body called the flesh, following both the sins of his body and the self of his soul. Thus whenever the Bible speaks of all men its characteristic phrase is "all flesh." Basar or sarx consequently refers to human beings in toto.
HOW DOES MAN BECOME FLESH?
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh." So asserted the Lord Jesus to Nicodemus long ago (John 3.6). Three questions are answered by this succinct statement: (1) what flesh is; (2) how man becomes flesh; and (3) what its quality or nature is.
(1) What is flesh? "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." What is born of the flesh? Man; therefore man is flesh; and everything a man naturally inherits from his parents belongs to the flesh. No distinction is made as to whether the man is good, moral, clever, able and kind or whether he is bad, unholy, foolish; useless and cruel. Man is flesh. Whatever a man is born with pertains to the flesh and is within that realm. All with which we are born or which later develops is included in the flesh.
(2) How does man become flesh? "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." Man does not become fleshly by learning to be bad through gradual sinning, nor by giving himself up to licentiousness, greedy to follow the desire of his body and mind until finally the whole man is overcome and controlled by the evil passions of his body. The Lord Jesus emphatically declared that as soon as a man is born be is fleshly. He is determined neither by his conduct nor by his character. But one thing decides the issue: through whom was he born? Every man of this world has been begotten of human parents and is consequently judged by God to be of the flesh (Gen. 6.3). How can anyone who is born of the flesh not be flesh? According to our Lord's word, a man is flesh be cause he is born of blood, of the will of the flesh, and of the will of man (John 1.13) and not because of bow he lives or how his parents live.
(3) What is the nature of flesh? "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." Here is no exception, no distinction. No amount of education, improvement, cultivation, morality or religion can turn man from being fleshly. No human labor or power can alter him. Unless he is not generated of the flesh, he will remain as flesh. No human device can make him other than that of which he was born. The Lord Jesus said "is"; with that the matter was forever decided. The fleshliness of a man is determined not by himself but by his birth. If he is born of flesh, all plans for his transformation will be unavailing. No matter how he changes outwardly, whether from one form to another or through a daily change, man remains flesh as firmly as ever.
THE UNREGENERATED MAN
The Lord Jesus has stated that any unregenerated person born but once (i.e., born only of man), is flesh and is therefore living in the realm of the flesh. During the period we were unregenerated we indeed "lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind" because "it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God" (Eph. 2.3; Rom. 9.8). A man whose soul may yield to the lusts of the body and commit many unmentionable sins may be so dead to God (Eph. 2.1)-"dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of ... flesh" (Col. 2.13) -that he may have no consciousness of being sinful. On the contrary he may even be proud, considering himself better than others. Frankly speaking, "while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death" for the simple reason that we were "carnal, sold under sin." We therefore with our flesh "serve the law of sin" (Rom. 7.5, 14, 25).
Although the flesh is exceedingly strong in sinning and following selfish desire it is extremely weak towards the will of God. Unregenerated man is powerless to fulfill any of God's will, being "weakened by the flesh." And the flesh is even "hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot" (Rom. 8.3, 7). This however does not imply that the flesh totally disregards the things of God. The fleshly sometimes do exert their utmost strength to observe the law. The Bible moreover never treats the fleshly as synonymous with the lawbreakers. It merely concludes that "by works of the law shall no flesh be justified" (Gal. 2.16 ASV). For the fleshly not to keep the law is certainly nothing unusual. It simply proves they are of the flesh. But now that God has ordained that man shall not be justified by works of law but by faith in the Lord Jesus (Rom. 3.28), those who attempt to follow the law only disclose their disobedience to God, seeking to establish their own righteousness in lieu of God's righteousness (Rom. 10.3). It reveals further that they belong to the flesh. To sum up, "those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. 8.8), and this "cannot" seals the fate of the fleshly.
God looks upon the flesh as utterly corrupt. So closely is it linked with lust that the Bible often refers to "the lusts of the flesh" (2 Peter 2.18 Darby). Great though His power, God nonetheless cannot transform the nature of the flesh into something pleasing to Himself. God Himself declares: "My spirit shall not always strive in man forever, for be is flesh" (Gen. 6.3 Young's). The corruption of the flesh is such that even the Holy Spirit of God cannot by striving against the flesh render it unfleshly. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. Man unfortunately does not understand God's Word and so he tries continually to refine and reform his flesh. Yet the Word of God stands forever. Due to its exceeding corruption, God warns His saints to hate "even the garment spotted by the flesh" (Jude 23).
Because God appreciates the actual condition of the flesh He declares it is unchangeable. Any person who attempts to repair it by acts of self-abasement or severity to the body shall fail utterly. God recognizes the impossibility of the flesh to be changed, improved or bettered. In saving the world, therefore, He does not try to alter man's flesh; He instead gives man a new life in order to help put it to death. The flesh must die. This is salvation.
GOD S SALVATION
"God," asserts the Apostle, "has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh (Rom. 8.3). This uncovers the actual situation of that moral class of the fleshly who may perhaps be very much intent on keeping the law. They may indeed be observing quite a few of its points. Weakened by the flesh, however, they cannot keep the whole law.* For the law makes it quite clear that "he who does them shall live by them" (Gal. 3.12 quoting Lev. 18.5) or else he shall be condemned to perdition. How much of the law, someone may ask, shall he keep? The entire law; for "whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it" (James 2.10). "For no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law since through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3.20). The more one desires to observe the law the more he discovers how full of sin he is and how impossible for him to keep it.
God's reaction to the sinfulness of all men is to take upon Himself the task of salvation. His way is in "sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh." His Son is without sin, hence He alone is qualified to save us. "In the likeness of sinful flesh" describes His incarnation: how He takes a human body and links Himself with mankind. God's only Son is referred to elsewhere as "the Word" that "became flesh (John 1.14). His coming in the likeness of sinful flesh is the "became flesh" of that verse. Therefore our verse in Romans 8.3 tells us as well in what manner the Word became flesh. The emphasis here is that He is the Son of God, consequently sinless. Even when He comes in the flesh, Gods' Son does not become "sinful flesh." He only comes in "the likeness of sinful flesh." While in the flesh, He remains as the Son of God and is still without sin. Yet because He possesses the likeness of sinful flesh, He is most closely joined with the world's sinners who live in the flesh.
