Romans 7:14-25 “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. (15) For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. (16) If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. (17) But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. (18) For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. (19) For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. (20) Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. (21) I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. (22) For I delight in the law of God according to 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. (24) O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (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.”
We have already seen that our bodies and our minds are not changed when we are born-again, for it is only our spirits that are made new creations in Christ. And so it is in our spirits that we are dead to sin and alive to God. Nevertheless our mortal bodies still have to be dealt with and our bodies still have sin residing in them, for we inherit our bodies from Adam. Because our mortal bodies have not changed they still have a desire to sin, for sin is pleasurable to the flesh (Hebrews 11:25). In the passage of scripture quoted above the apostle Paul teaches us what the Holy Spirit revealed to him about sin residing in the flesh of man. Because Paul as a new born believer was still carnal in his thinking he struggled with the same problem that all believers do. He knew that the law was good and he wanted to obey God’s laws but he found himself doing the exact opposite. Paul realized that in order to explain this phenomena there must be something else, other than his own will, which was influencing his actions. It was at that point that Paul understood the truth about sin residing in the bodies of men. And so Paul cried out to God to deliver him from his body of death. God answered his cry by revealing to him that it is through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord that we can walk free from sin in the flesh.
Acts 17:26 “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.”
So why does sin reside in the bodies of men? In the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit reveals to us that from the blood of Adam, God has made every person that has ever been born into the earth. And so when Adam committed sin in the Garden of Eden the sin virus entered his very blood stream, and that sin virus has contaminated every physical body born from that blood ever since. The spirit of man comes directly from God but our bodies come from Adam. One of the reasons why the doctrine of original sin is flawed is because the men who wrote it did not understand the biblical difference between the spirit of man and the flesh of man. For although man does inherit sin from Adam he does not inherit the sin virus through his spirit, he inherits it through his body. And so we see that just as the born-again spirit of man cannot sin, so the body of man cannot walk in righteousness, for it is contaminated with the sin virus. That is why the apostle Paul in the passage quoted previously stated that nothing good dwells in our flesh.
Romans 8:7 “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.”
We have seen earlier that our flesh is made up of our bodies and our carnal minds. We have also seen that nothing good dwells in our physical bodies because they have been contaminated with the sin virus inherited from Adam. So what about the second part of our flesh, i.e. our carnal minds? In the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul teaches us that the carnal mind is enmity against God and will always rebel against the laws of God. So what is the carnal mind? Simply put it is this world’s way of thinking. When children are born into the earth their minds are almost like a blank slate, and it is over the course of their lifetimes that their minds are programmed to think in line with this world, through what they are taught and through that which they experience. Because this world is completely against God (1 John 2:16) the mindsets that are produced in people follow that same pattern. The bible calls that mindset carnal thinking. And so all believers come into the kingdom of God with a carnal mindset, and are thus required to renew their minds by transitioning from carnal thinking to spiritual thinking (Romans 8:5-6). To be spiritually minded is to think in line with the word of God. This process takes time and does not happen overnight. Every believer however should begin the process of renewing their minds from the time they are born-again, and they are to continue that process until the time that they go to be with the Lord Jesus. Nevertheless in this life we will never reach the stage of having our minds fully renewed, for no matter how much we know of God’s word we will still only know in part. However the bible does teach us that in this life we can reach a stage of spiritual maturity. Nevertheless it is only when we go to be with the Lord Jesus that our minds will be fully renewed and we will have perfect knowledge (1 Corinthians 13:10-12). And so we have seen in this section that there is absolutely nothing good about the flesh, for the nature of the flesh is to sin and it is therefore impossible for the flesh to obey God’s word.
Michael E.B. Maher
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