So then, brothers and sisters, Paul continued, we are under obligation (ὀφειλέται, a form of ὀφειλέτης),^[1] not to the flesh (σαρκὶ, a form of σάρξ),^[2] to live according to the flesh (σάρκα, another form of σάρξ)…^[3]  The word translated obligation above is also found in Matthew’s version of the Lord’s prayer, and forgive us our debts (ὀφειλήματα, a form of ὀφείλημα),^[4] as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors (ὀφειλέταις, another form of ὀφειλέτης).^[5]  This is a powerful concept, but first I want to focus on what the flesh is not.

The flesh as Paul used it is not the body.  Be careful, he warned, not to allow anyone to captivate you through an empty, deceitful philosophy that is according to human traditions and the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.^[6]  If you have died with Christ to the elemental spirits of the world, why do you submit to them as though you lived in the world?  “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”  These are all destined to perish with use, founded as they are on human commands and teachings.  Even though they have the appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed worship and false humility achieved by an unsparing treatment of the body (σώματος, a form of σῶμα)^[7] – a wisdom with no true value – they in reality result in fleshly (σαρκός, another form of σάρξ) indulgence (πλησμονὴν, a form of πλησμονή).^[8]

In other words, “I self-flagellate three times a day and only eat bread and water,” is the same pride and religious thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.  It is the religious impulse of the flesh of Adam.

The flesh is not sexual desire.  A husband should give to his wife her sexual rights (ὀφειλὴν, a form of ὀφειλή),^[9] and likewise a wife to her husband.  It is not the wife who has the rights (ἐξουσιάζει, a form of ἐξουσιάζω)^[10] to her own body (σώματος, a form of σῶμα), but the husband. In the same way, it is not the husband who has the rights (ἐξουσιάζει, a form of ἐξουσιάζω) to his own body (σώματος, a form of σῶμα), but the wife.  Do not deprive each other, except by mutual agreement for a specified time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.^[11]  While the believer in Christ is not obligated (ὀφειλέται, a form of ὀφειλέτης) or a debtor to the flesh, husband and wife are indebted (ὀφειλὴν, a form of ὀφειλή) to each other sexually.

Interestingly, neither the wife nor the husband possesses the ἐξουσιάζει (a form of ἐξουσιάζω; authority, power) over her or his own body.  That belongs to the spouse.  This is the same authority that Gentile kings lorded over their subjects as Jesus told his disciples, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority (ἐξουσιάζοντες, another form of ἐξουσιάζω) over them are called ‘benefactors.’  Not so with you; instead the one who is greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the one who serves.”^[12]  It is the same control Paul would not allow anything to have over him: “All things are lawful for me” – but not everything is beneficial. “All things are lawful for me” – but I will not be controlled (ἐξουσιασθήσομαι, another form of ἐξουσιάζω) by anything.^[13]  I think I’ll go the long way around and circle back to this.

While sex (and sexual desire) in and of itself is not the flesh, if I set my sights on another’s wife (or a prostitute) that is the flesh.  (Or do you not know that anyone who is united [κολλώμενος, a form of κολλάω]^[14] with a prostitute [πόρνῃ, a form of πόρνη]^[15] is one body with her?^[16])  Here is where the power I spoke of earlier comes into play.  If I believe that I delight in the law of God in my inner being,^[17] then the desire for another’s wife or a prostitute, which is clearly contrary to God’s law, is not my desire: Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.^[18]  It is like a distant early warning system, sounding the alarm which I is asserting control.

This distinction may not be so obvious for the young, the virginal, or the single.  I should know.  I’ve spent most of my adult life single.  But I want to address that in a separate essay.

Now not everyone lumps the old man, flesh, sin personified, desire of the flesh and so on together as one thing.  But I have read a lot of Nietzsche, and out of deference, I suppose, for the help he has been to me I try to keep what he would call “imaginary causes and effects”^[19] to a minimum. I can posit all of this sin and rebellious desire in an old man born of Adam (as well as the credited righteousness of God and the fruit of his Spirit in a new creation born from above in the image of Christ) without feeling that any of this is my imagination.  And the quantum leap (there is no time or space between energy quanta) between the old and new I describes my experience with chilling accuracy, especially in outbursts of anger.^[20]

Even as I rant I wonder, “Who are you?” For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want – instead, I do what I hate.^[21]  That’s how my father used to act!  And there have been times when that brought me back from the brink.  (But there have also been times when that did not bring me back from the brink and I reveled in the sensual pleasure of rage.)

The main theological objection to lumping the old man, flesh, sin personified, desire of the flesh and so on together is that our old man was crucified with^[22] Jesus.  It is therefore dead (and presumably gone).  I take the death of Adam as my key here.  God said, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.^[23] Something died in Adam when he became knowledgeable of evil.

I heard you moving about in the orchard, Adam said to God, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid,^[24] yet Adam had been naked all along.  The man and his wife were both naked, but they were not ashamed,^[25] not with God, not with each other, and not with the animals.  In a similar sense something has died in me, too.  The old man no longer has my absolute unquestioned allegiance as me.  And that is all Paul said, We know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.^[26]  The entire lifetime of Adam was 930 years, and then he died.^[27]  And in a similar way I await that ultimate condemnation of sin in the flesh,^[28] the death of this body.

I promised I would circle back via the long way.  Why would Paul counsel Corinthian husbands and wives to treat each other sexually in ways that Jesus did not want his disciples to treat each other at all, and under a control that Paul himself would not allow anything to have over him?  So, here goes.

If the flesh got the wild idea to seek out a prostitute I wouldn’t know where to begin to look for one.  Add to that, I know me.  If I had sex with a pretty young prostitute I would fall in love with a pretty young prostitute.  About a decade after my first divorce it took several days for me to get the pretty nurse who administered a barium enema out of my mind.  I can be a silly old fool, no doubt about it.  But chasing a pretty young prostitute, saying, “I love you, I love you, let me take you away from all of this,” is a sillier old fool than I can be.  I live in the Midwest.  I am working class all the way.  I grew up in a fundamentalist church.  There is something unseemly about visiting a prostitute.

Though the Roman government had apparently put a damper on the sexual worship of goddesses (and gods) in other places, this practice still flourished in Corinth at the time Paul wrote.  Visiting a temple prostitute was good and in some cases necessary for good fortune.  Highly skilled sex slaves, both male πόρνοι (a form of πόρνος)^[29] and female πόρνης (a form of πόρνη), were readily available, and Paul counseled husbands and wives, because of this πορνείας (a form of πορνεία),^[30] to be that for each other.  He never repented of it.  He never gave it a different spin that I have found.  So I assume that even that degree of sensual and sexual commitment between husband and wife was not living according to the flesh^[31] in Paul’s understanding of the term he appropriated to describe the situation of the one born of the flesh and of the Spirit.

I want to leave the pelvic sins (as I heard a clever wag call them) to ponder the wider scope of opposition of the flesh to the Spirit of God.  Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality (πορνεία), impurity, depravity, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things.^[32]  There is a world of sin less than a hair’s breadth and a nanosecond away from me (there is no time or space between quantum states) at every moment of my life here in this body.  But I say, Paul wrote the Galatians, live by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.^[33]  So then, brothers and sisters, Paul wrote the Romans, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh…^[34]