Fighting the Flesh

“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”

 —Romans 7:18-20

As Christians, we have three enemies: the world, the flesh, and the powers of darkness. We have spent the past month probing the powers of darkness by examining Satan’s strategy for your life. But now we turn to the enemy within—our flesh. Our flesh is inhabited by what theologians call “original sin.” We are not born good, but born as sinners (Psalm 51:5; Romans 3:9-20, 23; 5:10). Not that we do not or cannot do good things to others; rather, we do not and cannot do anything that God would consider “good” in His sight. The so-called “good” that we do is really some aspect of self-righteousness, aimed to promote ourselves, and totally deficient of the righteousness and meritorious, undefiled moral purity required to be deemed acceptable in God's sight. Or as Isaiah put it, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away”—Isaiah 64:6.

Because we lack the moral righteousness necessary to bring forth God’s blessing, we are seen as sinners and thereby incur God’s wrath. It becomes necessary then to have God intercede on our behalf by sending His Son, born under the law that awoke sin within us, to live the morally perfect, entirely obedient, and wholeheartedly meritorious life that God required. And by our trust and faith in His substitutionary death for our sins, we are given the resurrection life that He procured by His own victorious resurrection over sin and death. Though we have received the gift of salvation, and the ability to live the life that God requires in the here and now, we still have the vestiges of the old life present within us called the flesh. The flesh, also called the “sinful nature,” represents the remains of our fallen life that we will not be rid of until we die or Christ comes again and we are glorified in His sight. Which means that we will finally be rid of this fallen body that constantly desires to sin and war against God.

So as we await the glorious day of glorification, we battle on with God’s Holy Spirit inside us, teaching us and directing us how we are to live life in the midst of a world that is entirely hostile to God and His sovereignty. We learn how to war against this world, the powers of darkness, and this fallen flesh. We seek how to subjugate our body, recognize our fallen desires, and appropriate Christ’s resurrection life to our everyday lives (cf. Galatians 2:20). But to do so takes time, a studious and meditative heart that is illuminated by His Spirit, and a continual renewing of our minds by testing our lives in order to discern what is good and proper, as well as what should be changed or avoided. And once we do, we have victory! We are able to see clearly the lines of battle and can fight effectively for the Lord our God!

May God enable us to live a victorious life over our fallen flesh and may we continually live in the resurrection life that was procured for us by the Lord of Life whom death and sin could not hold! May His life be seen in us and may we exclaim, just as Paul did, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25) who has made us “more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Amen.