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When I became a Christian during my college years, I sat down and read through most of the New Testament. I can still remember coming to Romans 7 and 8, and reading there about the battle between the “flesh” and the “Spirit.” Ignoring the initial capital letter on the word Spirit, I assumed that Paul was describing the conflict between two parts of every human being: the body, with its sinful impulses, and the soul, with its spiritual longings and aspirations. Now that I was a Christian, I assumed I had to make sure that my spiritual side would win out in the battle against my “fleshly” side.
I suspect that many people unconsciously read the contrast between flesh and Spirit in this way. After all, we in the West have inherited a long tradition, going all the way back to the Greeks, of dividing human beings into two basic parts: body and spirit. But we misunderstand Paul badly if we think he is talking about an inner-personal conflict. As virtually all English Bible versions recognize by capitalizing Spirit, the conflict in these chapters is between our flesh and God’s Spirit. But just how are we to understand this conflict?
Two passages can serve as a convenient starting point:
Romans 7:5—“For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.”
Romans 8:9—“But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.”
Non-Christians, Paul asserts, are “in the flesh”; Christians, on the other hand, are “not in the flesh but in the Spirit.” Clearly the word flesh cannot refer to our bodies: people are still “in” their bodies after they come to Christ. In fact, Paul’s use of flesh in these kinds of contexts is notoriously difficult to pin down. From texts such as those quoted above, it would seem that the word has a strongly negative connotation, that flesh is something Christians should have nothing to do with. But Paul also claims that Jesus came “in the flesh” (see, e.g., Rom. 8:3), and He, of course, was sinless. Some therefore conclude that Paul uses the word in two ways: a neutral use, referring simply to human existence, and a negative use, referring to the sinful impulse within human beings (the New International Version uses the phrase “sinful nature” to represent this meaning).
But it is better to give the word one basic theological meaning, according to which flesh denotes the weakness and frailty of human nature. Christ assumed that weakness and frailty when He became fully human. He felt the full force of temptation. But because He did not inherit a sinful nature from Adam, He was able to resist sin. We, however, born as children of Adam, inevitably sin. As Paul puts it in Romans 7:5, when we were “in the flesh,” “sinful passions” were at work in us, leading to deeds that brought spiritual death. Thus, to be “in the flesh” means to be dominated by our natural human instincts—to go our own way.
“In the Spirit,” then, by way of contrast, denotes the state in which we are dominated by the Holy Spirit. One way of conceptualizing the contrast between flesh and Spirit in these chapters is to adopt the image of “realm transfer.” All people begin life in a realm dominated by the flesh, sin, and death (Rom. 7:5). But, by God’s grace, we can be transferred from that realm into the realm that is dominated by the Spirit, righteousness, and life. Romans 8:9 makes clear that all Christians now live in this new state. Being “in the Spirit,” Paul says, is true for all people who have the Spirit of God dwelling in them.
Flesh and Spirit are not, then, two conflicting parts within us; they are two conflicting realms in which human beings live. The non-Christian, living in the realm of the flesh, is guided and motivated most basically by the values of this world. His or her decisions are based on what will maximize pleasure in this life. The Christian, on the other hand, living in the realm of the Spirit, is guided and motivated basically by the values of the world to come. We make decisions based on what will maximize God’s pleasure. The world to come, the glorified state that we will enjoy in heaven, already has entered into our existence in the form of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Of course, we must never forget that God’s common grace is working in the world, enabling non-Christians at times to think and act consistently with the law. But at root there is a deep divide between the value systems of non-Christians and Christians, for we belong to different realms with different rulers. We should not be surprised that, on so many issues, Christians simply think differently than non-Christians.
While Paul makes clear that the Christian’s transfer to the new realm is definitive and final, he also makes clear that the dominating influence of the Spirit in that realm must be appropriated continually. It is only as we are “spiritually minded” (Rom. 8:6) that we will be able to “walk . . . according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:4). Transfer to the new realm of the Spirit does not mean we can rest and let God do the rest; it means that we have the potential to take every thought captive to Christ and live for His glory rather than ours.