The Flesh · The Symbolism of Scripture
The Flesh
One word for humanity in its frailty and for the self at war with the Spirit — and the flesh is not the body. The New Testament proves it twice, and the earliest readers said so plainly.
What It Stands For
two senses, and one word
John Wesley states the range in one line, and it is the cleanest summary anyone has given of it: “Flesh sometimes signifies corrupt nature; sometimes the body; sometimes, as here, the whole man.”
A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.The first sense at its plainest, a statement about how long people last, with no accusation in it.
First, then, whenever you see a grassy plant or a flower, think of human nature, remembering the comparison of the wise Isaiah, that "all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of humanity as the flower of the grass." For the short span of life and the briefly enduring pleasure and joy of human happiness have found a most apt comparison in the words of the prophet.
Basil of Caesarea· Homilies on the Hexaemeron 5:2, 379Cappadocian, fourth century
Isaiah 40:6
How great, then, is the hope of the grass since the Word has been made flesh? He who abides forever has not disdained to assume grass, that the grass might not despair of itself.
Augustine of Hippo· Explanations of the Psalms 103, 430Latin, fifth century
Isaiah 40:6
Augustine has already put the two halves of the page together: He has not disdained to assume grass, that the grass might not despair of itself. Which is where the argument has to start.
The Word Was Made Flesh
the same Greek word as Romans 8:8
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.John could have written 'was made man'. He wrote 'was made flesh', and the fathers noticed.
Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God.And here is the same word in the sentence that sounds like a condemnation of bodies.
Put those two sentences beside each other and the popular reading collapses. If flesh named something sinful in itself, John 1:14 would be the worst sentence in the Bible. Cyril of Alexandria works out what John is actually doing:
For he plainly sets forth that the Only-Begotten became and is called son of man; for this and nought else does his saying that the Word was made Flesh signify: for it is as though he said more nakedly The Word was made Man. And in thus speaking he introduces again to us nought strange or unwonted, seeing that the Divine Scripture ofttimes calls the whole creature by the name of flesh alone, as in the prophet Joel: I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh.
Cyril of Alexandria· Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book 1, 444Alexandrian, fifth century
John 1:14
If men are disturbed however by its being said that the Word was made flesh, without mention of a soul; let them know that the flesh is put for the whole man, the part for the whole, by a figure of speech; as in the Psalms, Unto thee shall all flesh come; (Ps. 65:2) and again in Romans, By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified. (Rom. 3:20) In the same sense it is said here that the Word was made flesh; meaning that the Word was made man.
Augustine of Hippo· Catena Aurea (Aquinas), on John 1:14, 430Latin, fifth century
John 1:14
The word flesh, here, is evidently used to denote human nature or man.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1851Presbyterian
John 1:14
It is worth noticing that Augustine reaches for Romans 3:20to prove the point — the same letter, the same word, used of humanity in general. And Ambrose adds the detail that keeps “all flesh” from meaning “all matter”: the promise of the Spirit is poured out “He became man even as he said in Joel: "I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh," for the future pouring out of spiritual grace is promised not for irrational flesh but for humanity.”
Being incorporeal, He was in the body; being impassible, He was in a passible body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts.
Ignatius of Antioch· Epistle to the Ephesians, 108Syrian, first century
John 1:14
Ignatius is writing within living memory of the apostles, and pressing the opposite error to the one this page corrects: not that the flesh is evil, but that Christ only appeared to have any. The word has been pulled at from both sides since the beginning.
For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man, as an offering for sin. He thus condemned sin in the flesh,Read the phrase slowly. Not 'in sinful flesh', in the likeness of it. Paul is being exact.
Count the List
Galatians 5:19-21, sorted by whether a body is needed
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.Read the whole list before deciding what 'flesh' means in it.
A body is required · 6
appetites, and what is done with them
- Adultery
- Fornication
- Uncleanness
- Lasciviousness
- Drunkenness
- Revellings
Only a will is required · 11
a being with no body at all could do every one of these
- Idolatry
- Witchcraft
- Hatred
- Variance
- Emulations
- Wrath
- Strife
- Seditions
- Heresies
- Envyings
- Murders
Let it be allowed that adultery and fornication proceed, as you assert, from the flesh; yet hatred, variance, emulations, strife, heresies, and witchcraft, these arise merely from a depraved moral choice. And so it is with the others also, for how can they belong to the flesh? you observe that he is not here speaking of the flesh, but of earthly thoughts, which trail upon the ground.
John Chrysostom· Homily on Galatians 5, 407Greek, fourth century
Galatians 5:19-21
Notice how Chrysostom argues. He concedes the easy half — let it be allowed that adultery and fornication come from the body — and then simply reads the rest of the list out. Hatred, envy, strife, heresy and witchcraft are not appetites. They are decisions. And he closes the argument with the grammar of the passage itself:
If these things belonged to nature and not to a bad moral choice, his expression, "they practice," is inappropriate, it should be, "they suffer." And why should they be cast out of the kingdom, for rewards and punishments relate not to what proceeds from nature but from choice?
John Chrysostom· Homily on Galatians 5, 407Greek, fourth century
Galatians 5:21
The verse says people practise these things, not that they suffer them, and nobody is judged for what their nature does to them without their consent. Albert Barnes, fourteen centuries later, reaches the same conclusion from the same list:
It is evident here that the word σὰρξ sarx, flesh, is used to denote corrupt human nature, and not merely the body; since many of the vices here enumerated are the passions of the mind or the soul, rather than of the body.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1851Presbyterian
Galatians 5:19
For the flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are opposed to each other, so that you do not do what you want.One verb decides the question: the flesh LUSTETH. Wanting is not something a body does.
if he did, what would be the sense of the clause immediately following, "for it lusteth," he says, "against the Spirit?" yet the body moves not, but is moved, is not an agent, but is acted upon. How then does it lust, for lust belongs to the soul not to the body
John Chrysostom· Homily on Galatians 5, 407Greek, fourth century
Galatians 5:17
Not the Substance, the Actions
four centuries of saying the same thing
This is not a modern correction of an old mistake. The men who fought the movements that did teach matter was evil said it as plainly as it can be said, and they were arguing with people in the room.
Rightly therefore does the apostle declare, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;" and, "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God:" not repudiating [by these words] the substance of flesh, but showing that into it the Spirit must be infused.
Irenaeus of Lyons· Against Heresies 5.10.2, 202Gaul, second century
Romans 8:8
In these and in similar statements it is not the substance of the flesh which is censured but its actions.
Tertullian· On the Resurrection of the Flesh 10, 220Latin, third century
Romans 8:8
For by "the flesh" in this passage, he does not mean the body, or the essence of the body, but that life which is fleshly and worldly, and uses self-indulgence and extravagance to the full, so making the entire man flesh.
John Chrysostom· Homily on Romans 13, 407Greek, fourth century
Romans 8:8
Paul is not telling us to leave the body but to be set free from the wisdom of the flesh. What this means, he tells us in the following verses.
Theodoret of Cyrus· Interpretation of the Letter to the Romans, 458Antiochene, fifth century
Romans 8:8
Theodoret’s sentence is the practical one: Paul is not telling us to leave the body, but to be set free from the wisdom of the flesh. Those are different instructions, and only one of them is possible.
Romans 7:18, the clause everyone stops at, and what Paul is conceding'in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing'
For he does not say, that the flesh worketh it, but just the contrary, "it is not I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." But if he does say that "there dwelleth no good thing in it," still this is no charge against the flesh. For the fact that "no good thing dwelleth in it," does not show that it is evil itself. Now we admit, that the flesh is not so great as the soul, and is inferior to it, yet not contrary, or opposed to it, or evil; but that it is beneath the soul, as a harp beneath a harper, and as a ship under the pilot.
John Chrysostom· Homily on Romans 13, 407Greek, fourth century
Romans 7:17-18
Paul does not say that the flesh is evil, as some think, but that what dwells in the flesh is not good, i.e., sin. How does sin dwell in the flesh when it is not a substance but the perversion of what is good?
Ambrosiaster· Commentary on Paul's Epistles, 384Latin, fourth century
Romans 7:18
Those who have a carnal mindset cannot please God, so long as they remain such; for by "flesh" he did not mean the essence of the flesh, but a coarse, carnal life that makes the whole person fleshly.
Theophylact of Ohrid· Commentary on Romans, 1107Byzantine
Romans 8:8
Ambrosiaster asks the question that ends the argument: how does sin dwell in the flesh when it is not a substance but the perversion of what is good? Sin is not a material. It has no address of its own; it lives in something that was made well.
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.Note that Paul narrows the claim as he makes it, with an explanatory clause he did not need to add.
Paul does not mean that those clad in flesh are incapable of pleasing God but rather those who put no store by virtue, whose thoughts are totally carnal and who are caught up in pleasures of that kind, paying no attention to their soul, which is incorporeal and intellectual.
John Chrysostom· Homilies on Genesis 24.6, 407Greek, fourth century
Romans 8:8
Chrysostom opens that note with the obvious question and it is worth asking out loud: is not the speaker himself clad in flesh?Paul had a body while he wrote Romans 8:8.
Where It Points
what the instruction actually asks
because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.The diagnosis, and it is about a disposition rather than a substance: enmity, not matter.
Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.And the instruction, which is about supply rather than about the body: make not provision.
Because it is a carnal mind, and relishes earthly and sinful things, and lives in opposition to the pure and holy law of God: therefore, it is enmity against God; it is irreconcilable and implacable hatred.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Romans 8:7
Romans 13:14 is where the whole distinction becomes usable. The instruction is not to attack the body; it is to stop provisioning something. A quartermaster’s word — do not lay in supplies for it. Which makes sense only if the thing being starved is a set of appetites and decisions rather than a set of limbs.
And the sentence the two senses meet in is still John’s. The Word did not come near flesh, or wear it, or borrow it. The Word was made flesh — the word that means grass, and the word that means everything at war with the Spirit, and He took the first one so completely that the second could be dealt with from inside.
What Scripture says outright
- John 1:14
The Word was made sarx — the same noun Romans 8:8 uses. The New Testament settles the question by its own vocabulary.
- Galatians 5:19-21
The works of the flesh are listed, and most of them are dispositions and choices. The text supplies the counter- example itself.
- Romans 8:3
God sent His Son in the likenessof sinful flesh. The qualifier is Paul’s, not a later softening.
- Romans 13:14
The command is to make no provision for the flesh, an instruction about supply, not about the body.
What readers have heard in it
Readings and inferences, named as such.
- Romans 7:18
That “in my flesh dwelleth no good thing” means the body is evil. Chrysostom, Ambrosiaster and Theophylact all answer this directly, and Paul’s own next clause names sin, not flesh, as what dwells there.
- Romans 8:8
That being “in the flesh” means being embodied. Paul wrote the sentence with a body, to people with bodies, and the fathers who fought the matter-is-evil movements say so at length.
- Galatians 5:17
That the war described is between the soul and the body. The verse says flesh against Spirit, and Chrysostom points out that a body cannot lust, because it is acted upon rather than acting.
Its Presentation Through Scripture
the word, in the order the Bible uses it
A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.
The first sense, and there is no moral charge in it at all, flesh here means creatures who do not last.
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The same Greek word, and the sentence that makes the second sense impossible to read backwards into the first.
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
Paul narrows the claim as he makes it, 'in me, that is, in my flesh', and the fathers spent centuries on that clause.
For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man, as an offering for sin. He thus condemned sin in the flesh,
And the careful phrase in the middle of the argument: the likeness of sinful flesh, not sinful flesh.
Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God.
The hardest sentence, and the one that has to be read with John 1:14 in view.
For the flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are opposed to each other, so that you do not do what you want.
The verb is 'lusteth', and a body does not want things. Chrysostom builds his whole case on that.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
The list, and most of it is not about bodies at all.
Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.
And the practical instruction, which is about supply lines rather than about the body itself.
The Voices
with the work named
John Chrysostom carries this page, and he earns it by arguing rather than asserting. He counts the list in Galatians 5 and asks how hatred and heresy could belong to a body. He points out that the passage says people practise these things, and that nobody is judged for what happens to them. He notices that the flesh is said to lust, and that a body is moved rather than moving. And he gives the picture that holds the whole thing together: the flesh beneath the soul as a harp beneath a harper.
Irenaeus and Tertullian say the same in one sentence each, from the second and third centuries, against people who taught the opposite. Ambrosiaster asks how sin can dwell in a thing when sin is not a thing. Cyril of Alexandria and Augustine explain why John wrote flesh rather than man. John Wesley states the whole range of the word in fifteen words, and Albert Barnes reaches the same verdict from the Greek fourteen centuries after Chrysostom did.
Where to Go Next
Where the Word took it
Where the war is fought
Nearby in the index
Its neighbours in the index
The Symbolism of Scripture gathers every picture the Bible thinks in. This one sits with: