Flesh VS Spirit

Flesh VS Spirit

Jesus says: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:” (Matthew 15:19)

Earlier Moses said: “And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” (Deuteronomy 30:6)

And later John said: “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” (1 John 3:9–10)

But then Paul comes along and says: “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” (Galatians 5:16–17)

So we see two conditions Christians face. God sends his Spirit into our hearts after which, according to John, we cannot sin. But we also have an evil side that Paul says is contrary to and fights against the Spirit within.

But Paul also says if we are in Christ, we are a new creation, old things passed away. So does this mean we now have a split personality? Or is something else taking place in us?

The two natures theory says we have the old man battling the new man, as though we are now split personalities trying to cope. Sitting Bull said: “Inside of me there are two dogs. One is mean and evil and the other is good and they fight each other all the time. When asked which one wins I answer, the one I feed the most.” But does one “dog” go to heaven at death and the other go to hell? This is not possible.

Rather we have a condition where our new eternal spirit lives through a fallen body and soul with a lifelong sin habit. In this case it is an old dog we can teach new tricks. But only up to a point since flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of God. Paul says we are treasure in earthen vessels.


Our mind has no personality of its own no more than our arms or legs, or body does. But everything we think, say or do filters through our fallen human nature called the flesh. And it resists all the good we now use to overpower it instead of the way it used to overpower us with its cravings. While through persistence we break old habits while learning new.

But instead of part of us going to hell and part of us going to heaven when we die, our flesh returns to the soil where all the bad that plagues us forever disappears. And our spirit goes to heaven where we reign with Christ as we wait for the resurrection of our bodies. Then purified and glorified like to Jesus’ own glorious body.