“Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? I thank God
through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 7:24, 25
Someone asked, What is the flesh? What is there more in man than body, soul and spirit? As the Apostle tells Christians to whom he is writing, "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thess. 5:23. The reply given was that Adam before the fall had body, soul and spirit, but that after the fall there was in him, in addition, a will in rebellion against God—sin (that which the Word of God calls "the flesh"), a something which "lusteth [or struggles] against the Spirit" in the man in whom the Spirit of God dwells, and which "is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7. It is certain that there are few words more frequently employed in the Word of God than "the flesh", and no subject more often and carefully treated, bound up as it is with the whole doctrine of the "new man".