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3.5 - A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age
The Christianity of Paul
Flesh, the Source of Sin
But the fact once recognized, that the law demands more than mere external conformity, that it demands in fact the complete purification of all the thoughts and desires, a struggle was begun whose intensity, if the matter were taken seriously, as Paul took it, must grow constantly more awful, as the futility of all efforts thus to bring one’s whole nature into harmony with God’s holy will became increasingly apparent.
But this struggle had the effect of leading Paul to recognize, not as a matter of theory merely, but of the most vivid and bitter experience, a dualism within his own nature, a dualism between the will on the one hand and the passions and desires on the other. To will was present with him, but not to do that which he willed; to keep his affections centered always and only on that which he knew to be holy and right, this he found impossible. “That good which I would I do not,” he cries, “but the evil which I would not that I practice.” [Rom. 7:19]
But this conscious schism between will and deed drove Paul to the assumption that the unruly passions and desires that his will could not control were due not to him, but to sin, which was dwelling in him. “So then it is no more I that do it,” he says, “but sin which dwelleth in me” [Rom. 7:17,21]
But whence came this sin? How were its existence and its power to be explained? Paul’s answer to this question is of very greatest significance. He found the explanation of the sin within him in the fleshly nature that he possessed in common with the entire race. “For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing” [Rom. 7:18].
The word “flesh”, seems to have meant to Paul primarily the material substance of which the human body is composed, [cf. 1 Cor. 15:50; Col. 1:22; and 1 Cor. 15:39 where the flesh of beasts, birds, and fishes, as well as of men, is spoken of.], and it is accordingly frequently used by him for the body itself. [Rom. 2:28; 1 Cor. 6:16; 7:28; 2 Cor. 4:11: 10:3; 12:7; Gal. 2:20, 4:13,14; 6:13]
He also employs it in an entirely natural, though secondary and derived sense, well known among the Jews, to denote not the material body alone, but the whole man as a living person. [Cf. Rom. 3:20; 1 Cor. 1:29; Gal. 2:16].
But he even goes further than this and makes use of the term very commonly not for the individual man simply, but also for human nature as such. Whatever man’s faculties or endowments, Paul pictures him in his natural state as a fleshly being, a being to whose nature may properly be given the name “flesh”.
And so it is the word “flesh” which he commonly employs when he contrasts, as he does so continually in his epistles, the nature of man with the nature of God, man’s nature being fleshly, and God’s nature being spiritual; and it is this use of the word that is most characteristic of him. [It is a mistake, nevertheless, to see in this use of the word, as many do, an entire departure from its original significance, and to suppose that in employing it in an ethical or religious sense Paul lost sight altogether of the conception of flesh as the material substance which goes to compose the human body. It is true that as the work is commonly employed by him, it takes on a derived and distinctly ethical meaning which makes it more tan mere material substance, but it is evident from many passages that the original and literal significance always attached to it more or less distinctly, and that Paul never rid himself completely of the impression of that significance. [Cf. e.g. Rom. 7:18; 8:3, 13; 2 Cor. 10:3 sq.; Gal. 3:3, 5:13 sq.; 5:8.]
But according to Paul flesh, or human nature, in contrast with spirit, or the divine nature, is evil in its present state, whatever may have been true of it originally. God alone is holy; man is sinful always and everywhere. [Cf. Rom. 5:12 sq.]
But the evil flesh or nature expresses itself necessarily in desires or lusts, [Rom. 7:7; Gal. 5:16,25] and those desires, bring the expression of an evil nature, are evil or sinful, and that too even though a person may not yet have come to self-consciousness and may not yet have taken cognizance of them. [Rom. 7:7 sq.]
Paul thus conceives of a sinfulness or corruption of nature which may lie entirely without consciousness, and in which the personality may have no part. [This conception of sinfulness of nature, made possible by Paul’s thoroughgoing realism, underlies all his thinking, and he cannot be understood at all unless it is distinctly recognized.] But this natural sinfulness becomes active sin or willful transgression as soon as a person comes to a knowledge of law, and is thus in a position to distinguish between right and wrong. [Cf. Rom. 3:20, 4:15; 5:13; 7:7; etc.]
By law in these cases Paul means not merely the Mosaic law, although as the great objective embodiment of the law of God it is chiefly in his mind, but law in general. For it is clear from more than one passage that he thinks of the Gentiles as under law as well as the Jews, even though they have never known anything of the Mosaic legislation. [Rom. 1:19 sq., 32; 2:8 sq.; 15] Heathen, then, are actual transgressors as well as Jews, and they first became such when they acquired a consciousness of the law of God written in their hearts. [Rom. 2:15].
Moreover, according to Paul, subjective sin is universal, just as the objective sinfulness of the flesh is universal. All men that have reach years of discretion not simply possess an evil nature, but are actual and conscious transgressors; [Rom. 3:9 sq. v 12] all men are slaves of their flesh.
Their understanding perceives what is right, and perceiving it, they may wish to do it, but they cannot. Their evil nature is too strong for them, and they do evil in spite of their knowledge of the good and their desire to do the good. Hence arises the terrible struggle which Paul depicts in the light of his own experience in Rom. 7, a struggle between himself as a conscious person, knowing and approving the good, and his human nature or flesh with its inherent corruption; a struggle which results in his continual defeat, until at last realizing its hopelessness, he cries in despair, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me out of this body of death?”
Used by permission of the publisher.
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