BP 124
As a believer in Christ, you no doubt are aware of the battle that every lover of Jesus fights on two fronts. One is the external battle against the powers of darkness in this present age. By external, I mean a conflict with an entity separate from you. The battle may very well be in your mind and heart–in the interior world–but the enemy is not you. This adversary is a being who has been around since the dark revolt in heaven against the holy God long before the human story began.
The other battle is internal (it is all inside your ‘self’) between your flesh and your spirit. Every one of you who has been born again spiritually now has a civil war, as it were, being fought daily (and nightly) in your being. This war is waged in your body, mind, relationships, nightmares, and soul.
In this DTFL post, we will be focusing only on the internal civil war raging inside the self. Let’s see what two writers have to say about this war.
The Civil War Inside
Robert Louis Stevenson (referred to in one earlier post) speaks of the internal battle (before coming to know Jesus) between the natural law God has placed in our hearts and the old man/woman who is completely sold out to darkness after the Fall in the Garden. In his novella, Stevenson refers to the ‘good self’ inside his fictional character as Dr. Jekyll and the ‘sinful self’ as Mr. Hyde. He writes:
“All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone, in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil” ~ from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
The apostle Paul in the book of Romans writes about this internal battle (after conversion) between the evil self (Mr. Hyde) and the new man/woman created within us by Jesus:
“So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 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” ~ the Apostle Paul, Romans 7:17-20.
The main point in this post is that even as a born-again Christian, even as a new creation in Christ, even as a heart that has been turned from stone to flesh—you still have a deceitful heart that remains within you, the old man/woman, the flesh. The Bible testifies to this fact when it tells us in Colossians 3 that we as believers must put to death what is “earthly” in us.
Yes, Christians still sin. We still have the old man within us. We still disobey God and do what our flesh wants. So then, what is the difference between a Christian and the unbelieving person? Besides the fact that our status with God has changed from an enemy to a child of God because of what Jesus has done, we are now a new creature who is inhabited by the Spirit of God. The flesh is no longer in charge of us.
We are no longer totally controlled by our flesh. Our primary desire now is to obey God. There is a new sheriff in town (the Holy Spirit in our hearts) who inspires and empowers us to do what is right and shun what is wrong and sinful. We now want to obey God but will still sin not so much as a practice but as an intermittent disobedience.
As a new creation who loves God and desires to abide in Him and do His will, we unfortunately still have the flesh within us. What does the Bible say about the flesh that dwells in us?
What Exactly is the Flesh?
In Romans 7, Paul says that “Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.”
Here we see that the flesh is still a part of us and that nothing good dwells in it.
Paul goes on to say, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”
Addressing the civil war in the heart, Paul informs us that his inner being delights in God’s word and wants to obey Him. However, he also acknowledges that there is an evil part of his self (Mr. Hyde, according to Stevenson) still within him who “lies close at hand” and “wages war” against the law of his mind (the new creation).
So, what else does the Bible tell us about the flesh that still lives within us as believers?
1 Corinthians 2:14 says that “The natural person [the flesh] does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”
Romans 8:7ff says that “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
Lastly, Paul writes in Galatians 5, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. . . Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do [practice] such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
These three passages tell us that the flesh in us does not accept the things of God; the flesh is hostile to God and does not submit to God’s law; and the flesh is opposed to the new self within us who desires to obey God.
I’m sure all of us have seen the flesh manifested in us and in others. At this moment, two clients I have worked with come to mind: Dawn and Martha. Both women possessed a deep faith in God and seemed deeply compassionate. Their spirits were gentle, and they radiated joy. They clearly were a regenerated Dr. Jekyll after Jesus had changed their hearts from stone to flesh.
However, these loving women changed, at times. They became Mr. Hyde whenever they felt unloved by their husbands.
When their displeasure toward their husbands was aroused, I witnessed them devolving into very angry, bitter, and critical women. It was like they changed from mature adults into hateful teenagers. Initially, I was quite shocked whenever I witnessed this transformation. Their facial expressions twisted into despising features and their tone of voice became borderline venomous.
I have now come to believe that on these occasions, these beautiful daughters of Christ were not living out of the new woman but were practicing the habits of the flesh. I was witnessing what happens to humans—both men and women—when we channel our flesh instead of our spirits. It isn’t a pretty picture. We’re not talking mere anger here. Not all anger is sin. We are referring to hate and contempt.
Application
Let’s close today’s post with a few implications concerning the flesh:
- Never trust yourself fully, especially when you are angry or hurt. On these occasions, the flesh can rise to the surface quickly and react in disrespectful, unloving, and annihilating ways.
- You have a dark side within you who is hostile to God.
- You have within you a “mole” (clandestine spy) who fraternizes with the prince of darkness and the spirit of this age and is an adversary to God and your spirit.
- Paul describes the man and woman who is living in the flesh and practicing disobedience in Romans 1: “They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” You are not all flesh now but are a new creation. However, the flesh still needs to be crucified within you daily.
- If you have chronic conflict with others, make it a practice to always look inside first before you look outside and blame or judge others. Chances are good that your flesh is being engaged on some level. The flesh wants to blame others while the spirit wants to grow.
- You have a rebel in you who hates God and a saint who loves God. Whichever one you practice will become more dominant in your personality. So, starve the rebel and feed the saint.
Let’s practice the habit that Paul challenges us to do in Ephesians 4. He tells us “to put off your old self [the flesh, Mr. Hyde], which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Final thought: From a psychological perspective, know that the flesh within you is actively working against your spirit and will even destroy your peace, joy, and relationships to get what he or she wants. If your flesh is hostile to God, it will be hostile to others as well.
Most mental illness and relationship issues can be traced back to the flesh in you that sees people as objects to be used and God as the divine Interferer who makes you feel guilty for doing what you want to do whenever you want to do it.
In summary, you were born a criminal who deserved the death sentence. But in His deep love and mercy, Jesus served your sentence and transformed you into a new creature whose sins were removed as far as the east is from the west.
Thank God that He came to rescue sinners and make them His friends!
