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Scripture Reading: Rom. 7:18; 8:6-7; Gen. 6:3; Rom. 3:20; Gal. 2:16; Gen. 2:7; 12:5; 46:27; Rom. 2:9; James 5:20; Rom. 6:6; Gal. 5:24; Rom. 8:13
The Scriptures speak much concerning the flesh, perhaps even more than concerning the soul. Romans 7:18 says, “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, nothing good dwells.” Romans 8:6 says, “The mind set on the flesh is death,” and verse 7 says, “The mind set on the flesh is enmity against God.” In order to know how to experience the inner life, we need to know the things related to the flesh.
What do the Scriptures mean by the word flesh? It is not easy to give a proper, definite, and adequate definition of the flesh, because the flesh is very complicated. Genesis 6:3 says, “Jehovah said, My Spirit will not strive with man forever, for he indeed is flesh.” Here the word is may be translated “has become.” Because man became flesh, God gave him up, and the Holy Spirit of God would no longer strive with him. This indicates that before this time the Holy Spirit had been striving with man, but at this point God made the decision to give man up because man also became flesh.
We need all the Scriptures to give us the proper meaning of man becoming flesh. We have seen clearly that man was made of three parts: a spirit, a soul, and a body. At the time man was created, man had the flesh of his body, physically speaking, but he did not have the flesh as spoken of in Genesis 6. As we shall see, the flesh came into being through the transmutation of the body.
Man was made with a spirit, soul, and body, but man himself is neither a spirit nor a body. In all the Scriptures man is called not a spirit or a body but a soul. Genesis 2:7 tells us clearly that the man whom God created is a living soul. Genesis 12:5 also says, “Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son and all their possessions that they had gathered and the souls that they had acquired in Haran.” The many people Abraham acquired in Haran are referred to as souls. Genesis 46:27 says, “All the souls of the house of Jacob, who came to Egypt, were seventy” (lit.). Man is called a soul in not only the Old Testament but also the New Testament. Romans 2:9 speaks of “tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man who commits evil, both of Jew first and of Greek,” and James 5:20 says, “Let him know that he who turns a sinner back from the error of his way will save that one’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” A person is a soul, not a spirit or a body, yet this soul has a spirit to contact God, the spiritual world, and a body to contact the physical world. Man is a soul with two additional parts.
The soul is the very self, the very being of a person. God’s intention is that this soul would choose God as life and take God as life by man’s spirit through the Holy Spirit so that God will be in the spirit within the soul, that is, in the spirit of the person, to be the highest authority. Thus, the soul comes under the control of the spirit, in which God dwells. Then the soul is controlled, governed, and directed by God through the spirit, and it becomes the very person to act, express, and do things through God. In this way, God is expressed through the very person. This is God’s intention, and this is the right order of the three parts of man — spirit, soul, and body. The spirit must be first with God in it as life. The soul must stand with the spirit to take God as life and to submit to the spirit, to be controlled, directed, and governed by the spirit with God as life, so that under the direction, government, and control of the spirit, the soul expresses God Himself through the actions of the body. The body is under the direction of the soul, and the soul is under the direction of the spirit with God in it as life.
Man, however, became fallen, and the fall of man turned the proper order around and upside down. The fall damaged the spirit, the soul, and even the more, the body. By the fall man’s spirit was deadened; it became dead and out of function. Then the soul in itself became the primary part of man. If we read the history of Cain, the second generation of the human race, we can realize that man came to be led absolutely by his soul and was no longer under the control of his spirit. The soul rose to the top to live by itself, and it had nothing to do with the spirit and was not under the control of the spirit. Then gradually the soul, which had been damaged by the fall, was subdued by the body, which after the fall had become transmuted.
According to Romans 7, something very fallen and sinful, which was not a part of God’s creation of the body, came into the body and transmuted it. This fallen and sinful element is the poison of Satan. The life and the nature of Satan have come into the body of the human race by means of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of which man partook, is something of Satan that has been taken by man into his body. We can never say that we have eaten something but that it has not come into our body. We must be careful what we eat, because whatever we eat comes into our body. At the time man took the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, something of Satan, the satanic poison, which is the very sinful life and nature of Satan, came into man’s body. Something of Satan has been injected into the body so that the body has been transmuted, changed in nature. Since this time, the Scriptures tell us that this body, which changed in nature, is called the flesh.
The body, as something created by God, is pure, having nothing sinful, filthy, or bad. In the fall, however, something of Satan came into the body and was added to the body, so the body has been transmuted, changed in nature, into the flesh. Romans 7:18 says, “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, nothing good dwells.” This chapter goes on to say that sin and the law of sin dwell in the members of our body. Here sin may be considered as a proper noun. Because sin dwells in the members of our body, our body is no more pure; it has been defiled and transmuted in nature to become the flesh. Therefore, the first meaning in the Scriptures of the word flesh is the transmuted body, the fallen body, the body that has changed in nature. The body is the item created by God, and the flesh is the body transmuted in its nature.
Genesis 6:3 says that man is flesh, not merely that man has the flesh. At the very moment of the fall, man’s body became the flesh, but at that time man himself was not flesh. Strictly speaking, even by the time of the second generation of the human race, the time of Cain, man was not flesh. It was at the time of Genesis 6, shortly before the flood, that man not only had the flesh but also became flesh. That man became flesh means that man was subdued and controlled by the flesh.
As we have seen, in the original, proper order of man’s being, the soul stands with the spirit, takes the spirit as the authority, and is controlled by the spirit. But due to not one step alone but step after step of the fall, the soul gave up the spirit as the authority and came under the control of the flesh. The soul has been subdued by the flesh, so the soul, as a person, is living under the control of the flesh. Because of this, the whole person and being of man have become the flesh. Because man’s entire person, his entire being, lives according to the flesh, acts by the flesh, and does things by the flesh, and his entire life is under the influence and control of the flesh, man eventually is called flesh.
According to Genesis 2:7, the created man in the Scriptures is called a soul, and according to 6:3, the man fallen to the uttermost is called flesh. God created a soul, not a flesh, but man who was a soul was transmuted by step after step of the fall into the flesh. Man became flesh because he was subdued, controlled, and influenced by the transmuted, fallen flesh. Now man lives not according to the spirit or even according to the soul but according to the flesh. What the flesh desires, man does. As the flesh lusts, man acts. Man became the flesh, one who lives by the flesh, according to the flesh, and in the flesh.
The first meaning of the flesh in the Scriptures is the transmuted body, the body that has transmuted in nature, and the second meaning is the whole being of the fallen man. A fallen person is flesh. Romans 3:20 says, “Out of the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before Him.” In this verse flesh simply means a person. That no flesh is justified means that no person is justified. Galatians 2:16 says, “Knowing that a man is not justified out of works of law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, we also have believed into Christ Jesus that we might be justified out of faith in Christ and not out of the works of law, because out of the works of law no flesh will be justified.” The first part of this verse speaks of man rather than flesh, but the latter phrase speaks of flesh. Flesh denotes man, not the created man but the absolutely fallen man. In the first part of the verse the man mentioned is the man who believes in Jesus Christ. In the last part there is no more man but flesh, saying that no flesh can be justified by the works of law.
We have a body, but we are not a body. In the same way, we have a spirit, but we are not a spirit. Rather, we are a soul. Are we then the flesh? We may say that we were flesh, but now we are no more flesh. However, I question this. Whether or not we are flesh depends on whether or not we are living, acting, doing things, and walking under the control of the flesh. If we are not still under the control of the flesh, we are not flesh. That a person is a soul is according to God’s creation, but that a person is flesh is according to the man who has fallen absolutely, who is living, acting, doing things, and walking under the control and direction of the flesh, according to the lusts and desires of the flesh. Such a person is called flesh.
Galatians 5:24 says, “They who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its lusts,” and Romans 6:6 says that our old man has been crucified with Christ. On the one hand, the flesh is the old man, but on the other hand, they are not exactly the same. Romans 6 speaks of the old man, but Romans 7 speaks of the flesh. In the same principle, chapter 6 speaks of Christ, but chapter 8 speaks of the Spirit. If we see the difference between the Spirit and Christ, then in principle we can see the difference between the flesh and the old man. The Spirit is none other than Christ, but Christ is the Savior objectively, and the Spirit is the Savior subjectively. If we talk about the Savior in an objective way, we speak of Christ, but if we talk about the Savior in a subjective way, we speak of the Spirit. Who was crucified on the cross? It was Christ. Who is now dwelling in us? It is the Spirit. The One who was crucified on the cross objectively is called Christ, and the One who is now dwelling within us subjectively is called the Spirit, and this very Spirit is the very Christ. In the same principle, objectively speaking, it is the old man, but subjectively speaking, it is the flesh. The old man is the very person, and the flesh is this very person lived out.
If we did not have the Holy Spirit, we could never know Christ; Christ is the Spirit, and the Spirit is Christ lived out. In exactly the same principle, if we did not have the flesh, we could never know the old man. If a brother sits before us and never does or says anything, it is hard to say if he is a new man or an old man. What he is depends on his living, acting, doing, and working. If he acts according to the flesh and walks under the influence and control of the flesh, we will see that he is the old man expressed through the flesh. When we act, live, and walk in a fleshly way, the old man is one hundred percent expressed as the flesh.
Romans 6:6 says that our old man has been crucified with Christ, but Galatians 5:24 indicates that we need to crucify the flesh. Romans 6:6 is in the passive voice, but Galatians 5:24 is in the active voice. That the old man has been crucified on the cross is an accomplished fact, but now we need to apply this accomplished fact to our flesh in our daily walk. Therefore, we need to crucify this flesh. As the old man, it has been crucified already — this is an accomplished fact — but as the flesh, we need to crucify it in our experience and daily living. This means that we must apply what Christ has accomplished on the cross to our daily experience.
Now we know the proper meaning of the word flesh in the Scriptures. First, it is the transmuted body, the body that changed in nature. Second, the flesh is a person who lives, acts, walks, and does things always under the control, direction, and influence of the flesh and according to the flesh. Third, it is the old man in our daily living, in our walk.
Now we must see what it means to deal with the flesh. As we have seen, Galatians 5:24 says that they who are of Christ have crucified the flesh. In addition, Romans 8:13 says, “If you live according to the flesh, you must die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live.” The practices of the body are simply the flesh. To deal with the flesh is to put to death the practices of the body, to deal with all the sinful deeds of the body. To gamble is a practice of the body because one gambles with his hands. To be drunken is also a practice of the body. It is difficult to commit sin practically without using our body.
Romans 6:6 says, “Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be annulled.” Since the fall, our body has been called the body of sin because this body is now possessed and indwelt by personified sin. Our body has become the residence of sin, so it is a body of sin. The meaning of the Greek word for annulled is “unemployed, jobless.” A living person’s hands can be used to gamble and do many sinful things because his body is possessed and indwelt by sin and is always used by Satan. The best way to stop his body from committing sin is to put it to death. When the body is put to death, it is jobless. As far as committing sin is concerned, it is out of employment. The old man has been crucified so that the body of sin may be unemployed, jobless. All the sinful things we do are through the body, by some member of the body, so to deal with the flesh, we must first deal with the sinful deeds of the body.
Second, to deal with the flesh means to deal not only with the sinful deeds of our body but with our whole being, our whole person, because in the fall our whole being became flesh. A person as flesh can never please God or be accepted by God, no matter what he does. It is needless to say that with sinful deeds this flesh can never please God; even with good deeds, this flesh, this person as flesh, can never please God. Therefore, we must deal with our whole being.
Third, we need to deal with our fleshly living. There is a certain kind of living that is the very expression of the flesh. We need to deal with the sinful deeds, our whole being, and our fleshly living.
In order to know how to walk in the spirit and experience the inner life, we must know the dealing with the flesh. This is a great subject in the Scriptures. If the Holy Spirit would enlighten us, we will see that today many Christians are living in the flesh. Very few have experienced deliverance from the flesh. Therefore, we must know what the flesh is and how to deal with it.
