“Flesh” Or “Sinful Nature”?

Biblegems #246

Question: Some Bible translations use the term “sinful nature” instead of “flesh.” Which is more accurate?

Usually, “flesh” is the more accurate translation. Here’s why:

The phrase “sinful nature” in many of our English Bibles typically translates the Greek word sarx, which literally means “flesh,” meat,” or sometimes “body.” However, it can also be used as a metaphor (occasionally) to mean the “sinful nature” associated with the powerful passions of our physical body.  Romans 7:5 and 18 (NIV, 2011) represent good examples of sarx being accurately translated both ways:

         Rom. 7:5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh (sarx), the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death.

Here, sarx literally refers to the “flesh” as the physical home (“realm”) of sinful passions and desires. In verse 18, however, Paul uses the same word (sarx) in a somewhat broader way, where “flesh” refers to himself as a human being once controlled by physical passions:

Rom. 7:18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature (sarx). For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.

Notice how Paul says, “good…does not dwell in me,”—then explains “me” with the word sarx—meaning the physical, fleshly part of his nature that is dominated by sinful desires.  Here, sarx is used metaphorically to indicate the man he once was before he came under the control of the Holy Spirit.

As he explains a little later…

         Rom. 8:5   Those who live according to the flesh (sarx) have their minds set on what the flesh (sarx) desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

Simply put, the New Testament teaches that the “desires” that drive human beings have their source in the flesh (sarx)—our physical nature. We are slaves to those desires, unable to live as God desires for us, even when we desire His will for ourselves (Rom. 7:25; Rom. 8:8). However, when we surrender control of our lives to Jesus Christ as Lord, His Holy Spirit takes up residence in our physical bodies. Then we have a choice…

         Rom. 8:5   Those who live according to the flesh (sarx) have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

The newest edition of the NIV (2011) has actually improved upon the earlier, 1984 translation in this regard, changing the older version’s over-use of “sinful nature” back to “flesh,” where the word sarx is clearly intended in the Greek to be literally understood. “Sinful nature” is not incorrect, just less clear in terms of how powerful the body is in determining human behavior.

But the really good news is this:

         Gal. 5:24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Do The Ten Commandments Apply Today?

Biblegems #242

Question: Are Christians as well as Jews equally obligated to obey the Ten Commandments? And what about those of other religious beliefs?

God gave the Ten Commandments to the Hebrew people, specifically the descendants of Israel, during the 13^th century B.C. (Exodus 20:1-23). These statutes formed the foundation of the entire legal, judicial, military, religious and social system that God established through Moses in creating the nation of Israel. In that sense, then, the Ten Commandments were designed specifically for the Jewish people.

However, God’s purpose in creating the nation of Israel was to have a people set apart from all the other people groups on the planet who would serve as God’s representative to the nations, and as an example to all mankind of a lifestyle in keeping with God’s will and design for humanity. In fact, God’s promise to Israel was that a future day would come when that divine purpose would become a permanent reality:

         Is. 51:4   Listen to me, my people;

                  hear me, my nation:

         The law will go out from me;

         my justice will become a light to the nations.

What this reveals is that the Ten Commandments are more than ten laws; the Ten Commandments reflect God’s character and His standard for human desires and human conduct. The Ten Commandments target what we love as well as what we do. So in that sense, the Ten Commandments are universal. What God gave to Israel on tablets of stone He has also imprinted in the human conscience:

         Rom. 2:14-15 Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.

So the Law acts as a spotlight on the person who breaks it. It exposes sin in a very public way, because those who publicly identify themselves as people of the Law come under its judgment when they break it. Either way, Jew and Gentile—no matter what their religious views—all must answer to God for breaking His commandments. And by that holy standard, all mankind stands condemned:

         Rom. 3:10   As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one…

A true follower of Jesus, however, has died to the sinful nature and has been reborn by the Holy Spirit. Such a person is no longer condemned but—under the control of the Spirit of God—willingly obeys the Law.

         Rom. 8:6-9   The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.  Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

         You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

“Jesus’ Sinless Nature”

Biblegems #205

Question: I have heard it taught that Jesus, born of the virgin Mary, did not receive the sin nature because that is passed down from Adam through human fathers. 

Here’s my problem with this teaching: Don't we all have sin natures? How can the sin nature be passed on only through fathers?

Your problem with this teaching is well founded! The sin nature is passed down through both parents, not just the male.

So how did Jesus remain sinless since he was brought into the world by a sinful human mother? 

Jesus’ sinless nature is the result of God implanting and bringing to conception within Mary a “seed” uncontaminated by sin:

         Luke 1:35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

In effect, God allowed Mary to serve as a surrogate mother. She was not impregnated by a man but by the Holy Spirit. Consequently, what would be conceived in her would also be holy. There would be no sin nature.

Just as God first created Adam (the first of the human kind) in the Garden of Eden, so now God was bringing into the world a new “Adam”—a human whose nature was uncontaminated by the sin transmitted from Adam and Eve through their descendants. And just as God breathed life into the physical body of Adam and created a living “soul” (Gen 2:7), so now God "made" a physical, human body within Mary's womb and imparted His own Holy Spirit into that new life—God in human form. The fact that Mary carried Jesus in her womb does not mean she passed on her sinful nature to him. She was a vessel; God alone gave Jesus life:

         Phil. 2:6-7 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  

This new “Adam”—Jesus—would then be able to pass on His holy nature to others, not through biological means but through the working of the same Holy Spirit that had brought him into the world:

         1Cor. 15:45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.

This is the believer’s wonderful assurance, that when a person surrenders all to Jesus he or she becomes a new creature in Christ. This is not a metaphor but a transformation of our fallen, sinful nature into a new nature created in Christ Jesus:

1Pet. 1:23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

What great news! We are no longer under the control of the sinful nature passed down to us through our parents and ancestors. We have the power through Christ who lives in us “…to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:12).

Can We Do Good Apart From God?

Biblegems # 107

Question: Is it true that man can do no good apart from God? Even the humanistic worldview proclaims the importance of selflessness. On the other hand, the heart of man is wicked… So is it true that, apart from Christ’s love, even “good” actions have an underlying intention that ultimately makes them selfish acts?

The Bible text that immediately comes to mind is the apostle Paul’s quote from the OT that no one does anything good:

         Rom. 3:10, 12 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; …All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

But then you have Jesus saying:

         Luke 11:13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

So which is it—people can do good, such as giving good gifts to their children—or people are incapable of doing good, as Paul seems to say in Romans? Actually, Romans 3:12 does not say we are incapable of doing good; it simply says no one does good.

Both Jesus and Paul are completely agreed that mankind is wicked at heart, corrupted by sin from birth, and shaped in iniquity throughout life. This is a solidly biblical portrait of the human condition, one that is strikingly at odds with the contemporary worldview that sees mankind as inherently good, or at least morally neutral at birth.

         Eccl. 7:20 There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.

         A truly “righteous man,” according to Bible, is someone “who does what is right and never sins”—not someone who never does what is right. We are all unrighteous because we are all sinners; but even sinners can do the right thing.

The sinful nature is inherited at conception:

         Ps. 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

However, as sinful and totally corrupt as man is, people are still capable of acting in accordance with God’s will, showing that “the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness” (Rom. 2:15).

This is why people without Christ are quite capable of doing good things and of recognizing good that others do. That’s why, in the words of this week’s Biblegems reader, “even the humanistic worldview proclaims the importance of selflessness.” In fact, the apostle Paul was counting on the non-Christian’s appreciation for selflessness when he contrasted the high human standard of being willing to die for a good person with the even higher standard set by God:

         Rom. 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

So, is it possible for unsaved people to do good without hidden selfish motives? Certainly. But it is the very fact that we know what is good but don’t do it that condemns us.

Rom. 7:24-25 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!