Untangling Cliché: What is "The Flesh" In the New Testament?

This is from an old forum archive in which my friend Kim and Touchstone and I participated, and I thought it was pertinent to some things coming through the mailbag, so here we are, resurrecting it...

Thus Kim:

What is the "flesh"?
 

When the "flesh" is mentioned in the Bible, what does is mean? Is the word used differently in different places? Is it primarily a spiritual concept, a bodily concept, or both? And if both, what's the relationship?

I read this passage in a poem today and I got me thinking about what we mean when we talk about the flesh. What do you think? Not specifically about the poem, but about the Biblical concept?



<snip>...which so lately have occurred to you...,<snip>

That the body is something less
than honorable, say, in its
...appetites? That the spirit is

something pure, and--if all goes well--
potentially unencumbered
by the body's bawdy tastes.

This disposition, then, has led
to a banal and pious lack
of charity, and, worse, has led

more than a few to attempt some
soul-preserving severance--harsh
mortifications, manglings, all

manner of ritual excision
lately undertaken to prevent
the body's claim upon the heart,

or mind, or (blasphemy!) spirit--
whatever mane you fix upon
the supposed bodiless.

I fear that you presume--dissecting
the person unto something less
complex. I think that you forget

you are not Greek. I think that you
forget the very issue which 
induced the Christ to take on flesh.

All loves are bodily, require
that the lips part, and press their trace
of secrecy upon the one

beloved--the one, or many, endless
array whose aspects turn to face
the one who calls, the one whose choice
<snip>

I think somebody's been reading Scott Cairns.

And I'm envious: I've been reading reading-quizzes over the book of Exodus.

I think that the word "flesh" is used metaphorically in the New Testament at times as part of an overarching metaphysical vision. To understand the use of the word flesh we have to trace out the vision itself.

In that vision, God enters the world as this creative energy. The chasm between humanity and God which humanity feels at every turn is variously described as sin and guilt; the absence or displeasure of God; and death (often but not always metaphorically understood). 

As creatures rather than creator, humanity feels the pressure of fear and anxiety because of that chasm, real or perceived. In Jesus (among other things, but principally), God himself throws a bridge over the chasm, or else reveals that the chasm exists only because we believe it does. And we believe it does because of fear, and we fear because as creatures we perceive our own frailty and need. That is, we have appetites and needs. And these, as Paul well knew, were felt principally, or at least most strongly, through the physical reactions we have to our existence.

There isn't a sin that cannot be traced to fear; in fact fear may be said to be the root of all sin, since fear is simply the emotion we experience that suggests our desires (and therefore ourselves) will not be fulfilled in some way. In bridging the chasm, God "fills" the fear with the knowledge of an eternal love and unseen power: and as this is mysterious and unseen, we might as well call it "spiritual," a word that in all the ancient languages as well as our own is related to the words for "breath" and "wind," those unseen things that we know of but cannot say much about.

"Flesh" then becomes a useful distinguishing metaphor: "skin" is the thing we CAN see and feel; and it's what we're used to. We CAN feel at first hand the anxiety of living and all the appetites that come from that anxiety.

I think it's absolutely essential that we recognize it as a metaphor: the "body" in Jewish thought (but NOT Greek thought) was good, if problematic at times. In Greek thought, which is everywhere layered on Paul's thinking in weird ways, however, "flesh" would mean your literal physical body. And we would have to conclude with Calvin (if we follow Paul closely) that the body itself, our created nature, is somehow "wrong" or "off." It isn't, though. It's only the fear that flows through us that persuades us that God is distant that's truly troubling, and I think that's what Paul's got in mind. 

And it's easier to call that "flesh", because then we can visualize the metaphysic without the abstraction of referring to "fear" in generic terms.  Putting that more simply, we can grasp the metaphysic through the imagination.  Which makes Paul's theology poetic, not prosaic.  Flesh is a metaphor.  It gives the mind something to grasp in chaotic waters of human behavior.

********

I was of course called on the carpet because I don't believe that "sin nature" is either biblical or true.

More on that as time allows.

Comments

[Kim]

Just to clarify, Paul *doesn't* think that we have a sin nature? I've always had trouble knowing what to make of Romans 7:18. (ESV says, "my flesh. NIV says, "my sinful nature". NASB says, "my flesh.")

btw- that reference tagger thing for the bible verse is awesome.

[Jennifer in AZ]

To quote The Great Buffett "Clichés: good ways to say what you mean, and mean what you say." :)

[Otter]

Jennifer, laughing, but I think cliché (at least theological cliché) is a way of ensuring that nobody knows what you're talking about... not even you. (But for what it's worth, I have a WWJBD [What Would Jimmy Buffett Do] sticker on my mandolin case.)

Kim, No. Paul never writes of a "sin nature." He writes that people sin. That's not the same thing, unless it's equally true that because we sometimes do good that we have a good nature.

He writes of the difficulty of choosing what is good and right, also, and describes it in hyperbolic terms, but again, this is not to say that one _cannot_ do right, or has a not-right-nature.

What we have is a choosing nature.

And biologically speaking, we would perish if that did not favor self-interest. It does.

But that's not sin. That's antisocial, and must be socialized, but being social also seems to be part of our nature. So I'm not sure that the word "sin" is much use there.

I think sometimes Christians give themselves too little credit for having a nature that _can_ choose. I've heard them say, "We cannot please God."

And that always leaves me with the question, Why not? What's God asked you to do? So choose to do that. It's not THAT complicated.