Is the Flesh Sinful?

Q. Is the flesh sinful?

A. What saith the Scriptures?

 

In the final analysis it looks like this.
We came from dust and we will return to dust.
Our bodies are made up of a handful of chemicals which at death can be mixed into a puddle of water. They are worth no more than $5.00 to $10.00 on the open market if that. Chemicals do not have any moral nature. They do not carry a sin nature and therefore cannot be classified as sinful or sinless. To think of them as such is quite absurd. We came from dust and we will return to dust. Dust has no moral value.

However the Lord took those chemicals and that water, and he so structured them in such an order that he made a human and breathed in him the breathe of life. He gave him a soul and a spirit also.
Paul says:

1 Thessalonians 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
--God has given every one of us a soul, spirit and body. Our body (flesh) has no sin attached to it. It has no moral value. It is not sinful or sinless. It is amoral. Paul explains this further:

2 Corinthians 5:1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 Corinthians 5:4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.

A tabernacle (our body of "flesh") is like a tent, a tent in which I go camping in. It simply houses me. It has no moral value. It is what is in that tent (that tabernacle) that is important. In fact we wait until that tabernacle is destroyed so that we may receive a new tabernacle, a better one, one that can never be destroyed.

Paul gives another picture:
Romans 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Romans 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Previous to verse 24 Paul describes a great struggle that wages on within him. It is the battle that he has with sin. He does those things that he doesn't want to do; and those things that he doesn't want to do, he does. It seems like he cannot avoid sin. In desperation he calls out: "O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death."
Note that the body itself is not sinful. It is the person inside the body that Paul is referring to. But pay attention to the glorious answer that is given.

"I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
In all things it is Christ that gives us the victory.

"Then with the mind I myself serve the law of God"
--The battle is in the mind. The mind must be submitted to God. What is the mind? The mind is the soul. It is sometimes referred to the heart in the Bible.
Jesus said:
Mark 7:21-22 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:

We think about these evil things with our mind, out of heart. The mind and heart are interchangeable here. I believe it is also speaking of the soul which is where the mind resides. The brain, per se, is just a bunch of chemicals. God gives it life. The sin nature, inherited through Adam resides in the soul of man.
The spirit of man is dead in an unsaved state. It is inoperable until the Spirit of God makes it alive. See Eph.2:1.

"with the flesh the law of sin."
This is the flesh nature." It is not referring to the cells of my body, but rather the nature that I inherited through Adam. There is nothing inherently bad about the cells that make up my body. But the nature that I have received from Adam is evil.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

 

I had to reread your posts so as not to confuse your beleifs with another. It seems that you agree with me that in the respect flesh in and of itself is not sinful or sinless. Here is a quote from post #22

It appears that you agree with CM that flesh is not sinful. It was "well stated."

Sin is transmitted by the man. The biology of it isn't that important. But the Word of God is. If God says it then I believe it. And that should settle it. If you want to go through Romans 5:12-19 again I will, for I believe the passage is very conclusive, verses 12 and 18 in particular.
However, as has been suggested the sin nature can be said to be "tied to" instead of "residing in" the sperm, if indeed the sperm is that which is involved. What the Bible makes clear to us is that the sin nature is common to all mankind and that man (the male) passes it down. God never explained the Biological processes.

 

'God never explained the Biological processes'

but its chemistry unmistably explains itself to us ...

 

Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Romans 5:18 So then as through one trespass, all men were condemned; even so through one act of righteousness, all men were justified to life.

Romans 5:19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

Psalms 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

Romans 2:14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
Romans 2:15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another

The Scriptures speak for themselves. He that hath ears let him hear.

 

Just so that it is clear where we are all coming from, I would like to assert the following (no scriptures yet - just want to state my position):

1. All human beings are born in a state which ensures that they will sin. Man is not free to "not sin"

2. This state is not a state to be conceived of as entailing moral culpability. We are born "broken", not "guilty". But if we are not "fixed", the result is death. This is not "punishment", it is simply the unavoidable end state of being "broken".

3. Men can, even in their broken state, realize that they are broken and "freely" accept the "fix".

If I recall, you (HP) have in the past rejected my assertion number 2.

 

I think this is indeed "proof" that we are born into a state that will certainly lead to death if not remedied. Again, we do not die because we are "guilty" (since we cannot be morally culpable for being born a certain way) - we die because that is the natural consequence of being broken. Indeed we do sin and the sin leads to death. But, and this is important, since we cannot resist the urge to sin, we cannot be morally culpable. Yet we still die.

Indeed. But I do think it is important to not apply the wrong concepts. If we can resist the inborn drive to "speak lies", we cannot be held morally accountable. But we still die - we are just not being punished.

I do not think this text is referring to man in his natural state. I think that Gentile Christians are the subject of this text - the natural man does not have the law written on his heart. The context demands that Paul cannot be talking about unbelievers here.

 

We do not have to sin to die naturally. We die because Adam sinned. When we sin, and we do when we come to know God and glorify Him not as God, then the second death is pronounced upon us. Sin brings death, but when it comes to the natural death, Adam already committed that sin for all mankind. It is appointed unto men to die once and that is because of the sin of Adam.

BBob,

 

I agree on the physical death but then the individual comes to the age to know God and glorifys Him not, then he completes the sin and brings spiritual death. But, if he dies before reaching that age, then the second death is never pronounced upon him, but he is still in need of a Saviour to deliver him from a corruptable body, for we begin to perish the day we are born, and the grave unto a glorious body and Heaven.

I think we are saying the same thing.

BBob,

 

I know that I am not a semi-Pelagian or a Pelagian. Thus the only reasonable position left to take on this topic is that of the Calvinist, and as you can see there is plenty of Scripture to back it up.

 

To be spiritually dead needs to be defined. I don't think we are ever spiritually dead. We are born with no innate desire to love and serve God, but I don't think that is spiritually dead. This term appears no where in scripture.

If my spirit is dead, I am no longer me. A will in bondage is no longer a will.

This is where Calvin and his followere go wrong. Being born again does not make my spirit come to life, but it is what makes me "alive unto God" as stated by Paul in Romans 6.

Before regeneration I was merely living life "after the flesh" and could not please God. My spirit, or me, was choosing to live that way. There was no "sinful nature" controlling me. It was me choosing to live after the flesh. Now, by God's grace, new life has begun and I am in fellowship with God and have "Christ in me". PTL!

Before I was born again, my spirit wanted to do right or be good. Calvin says otherwise. I know some will say the scriptures do too, but I think these verses are misunderstood and interpreted according to the doctrine of total depravity.

Paul wanted to do right as well.

Romans 7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Paul makes it clear that he was not "spiritually dead" before he was saved but the "law" or controlling force of his flesh had him by the reigns. Remember, sin reigns in an unbelievers life.

My flesh is sinful in that it is not Godly. It can't be, it only flesh. True worshippers must worship is spirit and in truth. There is only one solution to be from under the reign of the flesh: kill it.

Romans 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.

Col. 2:11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:

The circumcised flesh is no longer alive and is not reigning.