The Spirit and the Flesh
C. Kingsley, M. A. Galatians 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. When St. Paul talks of man's flesh, he means by it man's body, man's heart and brain, and all his bodily appetites and powers — what we call a man's constitution; in a word, the animal part of man, just what a man has in common with the beasts who perish. To understand what I mean, consider any animal — a dog, for instance — how much every animal has in it what men have, — a body, and brain, and heart; it hungers and thirsts as we do; it can feel pleasure and pain, anger and loneliness, and fear and madness: it likes freedom, company, and exercise, praise and petting, play and ease; it uses a great deal of cunning, and thought, and courage, to get itself food and shelter, just as human beings do; in short, it has a fleshly nature, just as we have, and yet, after all, it is but an animal, and so, in one sense, we are all animals, only more delicately made than the other animals; but we are something more — we have a spirit as well as a flesh, an immortal soul. If any one asks, what is a man? the true answer is, an animal with an immortal spirit in it; and this spirit can feel more than pleasure and pain, which are mere carnal, that is, fleshly things; it can feel trust, and hope, and peace, and love, and purity, and nobleness, and independence, and, above all, it can feel right and wrong. There is the infinite difference between an animal and a ,,nan, between our flesh and our spirit; aa animal has no sense of right and wrong; a dog who has done wrong is often terrified, but not because he feels it wrong and wicked, but because he knows from experience that he will be punished for doing it: just so with a man's fleshly nature; — a carnal, fleshly man, a man whose spirit is dead within him, whose spiritual sense of right and wrong, and honour and purity, is gone, when he has done a wrong thing is often enough afraid; but why? Not for any spiritual reason, not because he feels it a wicked and abominable thing, a sin, hut because he is afraid of being punished for it. Now, in every man, the flesh and the spirit, the body and the soul, are at war. We stand between heaven and earth. Above us, I say, is God's Spirit speaking to our spirits; below us is this world speaking to our flesh, as it spoke to Eve's, saying to us, "This thing is pleasant to the eyes — this thing is good for food — that thing is to be desired to make you wise, and to flatter your vanity and self-conceit." And where man's flesh gets the upper hand, and takes possession of him, 1t can do nothing but evil — not that it is evil in itself, but that it has no rule, no law to go by; it does not know right from wrong; and therefore it does simply what it likes, as a dumb beast or an idiot might; and therefore the works of the flesh are — adulteries, drunkenness, murders, fornications, envyings, backbitings, strife. When a man's body, which God intended to be the servant of his spirit, has become the tyrant of his spirit, it is like an idiot on a king's throne, doing all manner of harm and folly without knowing that it is harm and folly. This is not its fault. Whose fault is is it, then? Our fault, — the fault of our wills and our souls. (C. Kingsley, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. WEB: But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh.