By Angus Harley

Modern accounts of John’s teaching and theology say that John uses the term ‘flesh’ (Gk, sarx) to refer to the human body and human nature. He does not hold Paul’s position that thinks of sarx (‘flesh’) as sinful.

I am firmly convinced that both apostles agree with one another concerning sarx. This article is the first of two parts that argue that John’s use of sarx is very specific, going way beyond the ideas of the human body and the human nature, taking on both a sin meaning and a salvation one. The ‘flesh’ as controlled by sin pertains to fallen man; the ‘flesh’ in respect of salvation is represented in Jesus and his flesh. In this article, I look at most of John’s uses of sarx, bar two: John 1:13 and John 3:6.  The reason why I isolate them for another article is because they are tied into the major doctrine of original sin. There was a time when both verses were used as prooftexts for original sin. However, not only does much of modern Evangelical scholarship reject the traditional concept of original sin, even of those scholars who do believe in it, the vast majority do not go to John 1:13 and 3:6 as prooftexts, for both these verses are understood to refer to mere human nature, not fallen, sinful, human nature.

The modern reading of sarx in John’s theology

The modern view

The standard reading of sarx in John’s writings usually has three branches. It reads ‘flesh’ to mean: 1) the human body; 2) human nature in general; 3) human nature affected by the Fall as weak and mortal, but not as sinful. Any one of these factors, or a combo of them, are present when sarx is used in John, it is argued.

These three features are often accompanied by other factors. John’s use of sarx is said to imply the contrasts of God to man, Creator to created, immortal to mortal, divine to human, Spirit to flesh. It bears repeating that this view also typically asserts that John’s understanding of sarx is in contrast to Paul’s position that represents the flesh to be sinful. One more aspect that sometimes is stated is that John’s use of sarx is the equivalent of the OT term basar.

Examples

As an example of the modern reading, we have the exegetical comment by Don A. Carson on John 3:6:

“Like generates like. Flesh gives birth to flesh. The word flesh does not here bear the most frequent freight Paul assigns it, ‘sinful nature’ or the like. As in 1:14, ‘flesh’ refers to human nature. The point is that natural, human birth produces people who belong to the earthly family of humankind, but not to the children of God. Only the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”[1]

As to a testimony from a Johannine theology point of view, here is Andreas J. Kostenberger:

“The contrast between flesh and spirit in John is yet another set of opposites conveying John’s distinctive worldview. A representative passage is John 3:6: “What is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of spirit is spirit.” In this way Jesus contrasted physical birth with spiritual birth “from above” (3:3; cf. 1:12–13). Elsewhere, Jesus declared that “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth” (4:24). In 6:63, Jesus is represented as saying, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

Similar to the uses of kosmos as denoting the physical universe, the contrast is at the root neutral rather than negative. Unlike in Pauline usage, “flesh” does not convey the notion of sinfulness but merely of finite humanity. God is spirit, and humanity is flesh. This sets the stage for God the Word to be made flesh in the Lord Jesus Christ, uniting divinity and humanity in one person (John 1:14). He is “the man” (19:5), but he is also God (1:1, 18; 20:28), the “I am,” the Son of God and Son of Man. Humanity, by contrast, is lifted up to the realm of spirit by being spiritually reborn, both individually (1:12–13; 3:3, 5) and corporately (20:22).”[2]

Revelation’s absence

There is one final feature: it is that the modern reading does not look to John’s book of Revelation and its use of sarx.

The old boys didn’t get the memo!

Yet, if we go back further in time to older Evangelical theologians, they more often than not did not subscribe to the above limited use of sarx. Let’s take  John 3:6 again:

-“Any birth from flesh produces only flesh. A stream never rises higher than its source. The fact is axiomatic. Its statement is its own proof. There is a contrast between sarx and pneuma, and this determines that the former does not refer merely to the human body or to nature, or to this with its connotation of weakness and mortality, but to “the flesh” in its full opposition to “the spirit”: our sinful human nature. Thus sarx includes also the human soul, the human psuche, and the human pneuma, for sin has its real seat in the immaterial part of our nature which uses the gross material part as its instrument.” (R. C. H. Lenski, 1864-1936).

-“Partakes of the nature of the parent. Compare Genesis 5:3. As the parents are corrupt and sinful, so will be their descendants. See Job 14:4. And as the parents are wholly corrupt by nature, so their children will be the same. The word “flesh” here is used as meaning “corrupt, defiled, sinful.” The “flesh” in the Scriptures is often used to denote the sinful propensities and passions of our nature, as those propensities are supposed to have their seat in the animal nature. “The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,” etc., Galatians 5:19-20. See also Eph 2:3; 1 Peter 3:21; 1 Peter 2:18; 1 John 2:16; Romans 8:5.” (Albert Barnes, 1798-1870)

-“Only flesh, void of the Spirit: or is carnal and corrupt, and therefore at enmity with the Spirit.” (Joseph Benson, 1749-1821)

-“By our first birth we were corrupt, shapen in sin; therefore we must be made new creatures.” (Matthew Henry, 1662-1714)

-“But if the flesh is contrasted with the Spirit, as a corrupt thing is contrasted with what is uncorrupted, a crooked thing with what is straight, a polluted thing with what is holy, a contaminated thing with what is pure, we may readily conclude that the whole nature of man is condemned by a single word. Christ therefore declares that our understanding and reason is corrupted, because it is carnal, and that all the affections of the heart are wicked and reprobate, because they too are carnal.” (John Calvin, 1509-1564)

John did not get the memo (1 John 2:16)!

John, too, does not entirely agree with the modern model.

The flesh as covetous

1 John 2:16 says, “For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life— is not from the Father but is from the world.” (NIV)[3] The word “desires” (Gk., epithumia) could be translated ‘lust’ or ‘covet’. We are seeing an echo of the Garden, when Eve saw the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with her eyes and wanted this forbidden item (Gen.3:1-7). That is why I prefer either ‘desire’ or ‘covet’, although a metaphorical use of ‘lust’ is reasonable. The heretics were promoting a supposedly Christ-based knowledge that taught Jesus Christ did not have to come in the flesh and go to the cross. The heretics did not require the apostolic rendition of the knowledge of the Messiah.

We should observe the parallel of “the desires [epithumia] of the flesh and the desires [epithumia] of the eyes”. This underscores the echo from Genesis. Its relevance is immense for our purposes. For we are taught in very bold terms by John that the flesh of man is one that covets. The flesh, in context, is not a neutral vessel, or merely an instrument through which the internal spirit covets. The flesh itself is involved in the act of coveting or desiring. After all, Eve’s eyes were expressing her soul, and her soul took to what her eyes saw. The eyes spiritually deceive and dupe, is the message. There can be no doubt whatsoever- none at all- that sarx is used here in 1 John 2:16 in a highly negative manner that far exceeds the standard view. In fact, John sounds exactly like Paul, here.

The contrast with apostolic eyes

That is why, in contrast to fleshly eyes, John at the outset of his epistle heavily stresses the role of the ‘apostolic eyes’ and their witness:

“1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us— 3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” (1 John 1:1-3, NASB95)

Objections

Some will object to my view by saying that there are modern commentaries that patently do notice this highly negative use of sarx in 1 John 2:16.

It is true that some commentaries do teach this negative use of sarx in 1 John 2:16. However, I have yet to read any of these commentaries going on to challenge the prevailing rule that John does not use a Pauline-like version of sarx. It might not surprise the reader that some of those modern commentaries that note the highly negative nature of sarx in 1 John 2:16 go on to reassert or confirm the standard reading. Due to the ascendancy of the modern reading, it never crosses the minds of these scholars that they are holding two opposite views in tension.

Some will complain that I’ve made up this notion of ascendancy. I exhort these readers to look at the Johannine theologies out there. There is none more competent in Evangelical theology than Andreas Kostenberger’s Theology of John’s Gospel and His Letters. It is arguably the go-to text for understanding John’s theology. We already saw that, not only does he define sarx in John’s writings (Gospel and epistles only) exclusively according to the prevailing mold, but he has nothing at all to say about John’s use of sarx in 1 John 2:16. This is not a coincidence or an oversight on his part.

Jesus did not get the memo (John 6:51-58)!

Those uneasy with my comments might shove them to the side on the basis of how sarx is used in John’s Gospel. However, modern advocates have an even bigger problem than that of John’s testimony in 1 John 2:16: Jesus’ use of sarx in regard to himself in John 6:51-58:

“51 “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” “52 Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.” “

Does the standard reading work?

As far as John 6 is concerned, let us tease out the modern definition of sarx in its various expressions:

-‘eat my physical body’ (as bizarre as that sounds, please bear in mind Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and the sacramental reading of John 6). The Jews were disgusted at the thought of eating Jesus’ physical body. Cannibalism!

-‘eat my human nature’: the question then becomes of the relevance of human nature in itself to anything Jesus is saying. Even if a spiritual eating of human nature is meant, is this not tantamount to declaring merely, ‘eat me for I am a man’? In other words, what would be the point of Jesus declaring solely that he had a human nature?

-‘eat my fallen and frail human nature’: again, why? To what end? Aren’t all men fallen and frail? Why not eat their ‘flesh’? All men suffer pain and die. So, what is the relevance of the mere fact of Jesus’ mortality and frailty to the text even in the case of a spiritual eating? ‘You must believe that the Son is frail and will die’? What would be the point of such a declaration?

Objection

Some readers will object that my representation here of the common use of sarx is inaccurate, for the standard view does not woodenly separate Jesus’ body from it being offered up by him as a sacrifice in blood. My criticism is therefore artificially constructed.

My response to this objection is that it is not uncommon for theologians and exegetes to have aspects that are correct, but they can miss the bigger picture. Also, it is a common procedure in academia for a definition to be traced out and its pathways explored. Such a procedure is not, therefore, artificial. By tracing out the pathways of the standard definition, it was shown that it provides no inherent connection between its view and Jesus’ teaching that his flesh in itself is life-giving and salvific. Salvific-flesh. Nor  am I suggesting that the standard reading is wrong in recognizing that Jesus offered up his flesh sacrificially unto eternal life for others. But this does not go far enough, plainly. For Jesus’ comment in John 6 is not about offering up ‘human nature’ or ‘his body’ to bring eternal life, because it is his very flesh itself that is salvific in nature. It is not merely that his body or human nature is ‘the’ necessary means to the end of granting eternal life, as the standard view would have us believe. It is, on the contrary, that Jesus’ flesh itself is eternal life, and one must consume it by faith. His flesh is salvific-flesh, eternal-life flesh. As much as I reject the sacramental reading of John 6, the value of their position is that they do understand that Jesus’ flesh is itself life-giving. Let me now unfold my own interpretation.

Life-giving flesh

Jesus’ “flesh” and Jesus as “living bread” are identified by Jesus himself as conveying the same concept. And because “blood” is conjoined as one with “bread”, “blood”, too, is conveying the same concept as both “flesh” and “bread”.

What is the nature of this bread? It is “living bread.”

What are its virtues or blessings? It gives “life” “forever”, “eternal life”, so that the one eating of it will “live forever”. Another blessing is that the believer and Christ Jesus will abide in one another. Finally, eating the living bread results in the believer being resurrected on the Last Day. In that light, we can see that this life impacts both body and soul: it unites the Son spiritually to the believer, and vice versa, in life forever; and it gives this eternal life in the form of a resurrected body, too. Remember, these blessings are what the bread, the blood, and the flesh possess in themselves, as to their salvific nature. Bread, blood, and flesh are not, contextually, ‘the’ means to the end of eternal life. They are eternal life, and for that reason must be consumed.

Identified with Jesus the person

Of course, the only reason the bread, the blood, and the flesh are consumed by faith is because they represent the person of Jesus himself in his capacity as the Christ. The text does not say merely that Jesus has flesh, or that he gives his own life for others, for Jesus also identifies himself, in his person, as the bread of life itself. These blessings of eternal life, resurrection, and mutual indwelling are expressions of Jesus’ own person, in other words. Thus, the repeated use of “my” until he says at last, “eats ME”! This mystical union allows Jesus to say that the “living Father” sent the Son as the living one, as the one to be consumed spiritually, of course, by faith. For the Son was sent from above as the Son of Man, by the Father above, to bring eternal life to believers through consuming his flesh and blood.

We are reminded of Jesus’ teaching in John’s Gospel that he is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and that he is “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). He does not merely bring or facilitate those blessings; he ‘is’ them! They are all ‘consumed’ by faith, for he is ‘consumed’ by faith. Does not 1 John 2:2 state the same thing, in which the salvific nature of Jesus’ sacrificial life is identified with his resurrected person, “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world”?

We can summarize the difference and contrast between the standard reading and Jesus’ own understanding of flesh:

the standard reading limits the reader to Jesus’ body and/or frail human nature, a mortal nature; whereas, Jesus’ understanding of his own ‘flesh’ is that the living Father in heaven gives eternal life and it is embodied in the person of the living Son sent from heaven, who gives his life-giving flesh and blood for others. He is resurrection life, and returns to heaven for those others.

All taken together, these salvific blessings in the person and flesh of the Son of Man, and the heavenly and eternal life they represent, are the opposite of mortality and the opposite of the standard human body as it lives its life out in this very human world.

Jesus’ cross-resurrection hermeneutic

Jesus is interpreting his bodily death on the cross, the shedding of his physical blood, not as an extension of this world and its ‘flesh’, but as the embodiment of life eternal through its salvific power. He will die and then be raised from the dead; his flesh gives life eternal- his crucified flesh and his resurrected flesh (1 Cor.15). Mortality, even his mortal human body, is in the ineffable wisdom of God used to bring about the opposite: eternal life. It was John Owen who named his book, The Death of Death. Owen argues that Jesus’ death killed off death, bringing eternal life. The curse of the Law, death on the cross, becomes the road to justification by the redemption in the blood of Jesus (Rom.3:21-25; Gal.3:10-14). If we limit Jesus’ ‘flesh’ in the context of John 6 to mere humanness and its frailty, we reverse the lesson of Jesus’ teaching that his flesh is everlasting life.

‘There’s power in the flesh!’

What we have in John 6 is what we see in some old hymns. We sing, ‘There’s power in the blood.’ Does this hymn think of Jesus’ blood as mere, generic, human blood, or even this blood considered as expressing mere human frailty and mortality? Or is it saying merely that Jesus’ mortal blood unites with salvation in some way? None of these views captures the hymn’s full meaning. Perhaps, then, the hymn is saying that Jesus’ human blood was used sacrificially to bring eternal life. This is a true enough view. Yet, it does not go far enough; for, the hymn is both bold and clear: there is salvific power in the blood itself; it is life-giving and powerful blood. The blood is not considered in the hymn as ‘the’ means to the great end of obtaining spiritual power; for the blood itself is powerful. With this concept in mind, we might paraphrase Jesus’ words in John 6 to say, ‘There is power, power, wonder working power in the precious flesh of the Lamb!’ This is no ordinary ‘flesh’, nor merely mortal flesh; this is ‘flesh’ that gives eternal life. Gloria Deus!

Spiritual cannibalism?

Am I promoting some kind of weird spiritual cannibalism? Some form of spiritual-sacramental-fleshly eating?

Simply answered, no! Jesus combines literal aspects of his life with the metaphorical. He is a man; he does have a body; his flesh is human. He will die on the cross as a man, giving his human life as a sacrifice in obedience to God. All literal and true, and oh so very ‘human’. Yet, in his case, what you see is not all what you get! His flesh takes on salvific value to become salvific-flesh because only he as the Son of Man could give eternal life, and he had to do so in the flesh. His flesh therefore becomes a salvific-flesh. Not mere man, not mere humanity, not mere human nature as frail and mortal.  His ‘flesh’ and ‘blood’, as ‘bread’, are, in that light, taken on by Jesus himself in a metaphorical manner to convey the expansive concept of salvation and eternal life in, by, and through his sacrificial humanity. So, Jesus calls upon all to spiritually, by faith, ‘eat’ of him- another metaphorical reading.

John 6:63: proving the opposite?

An immediate counter-argument might be that the common use of sarx in John 6:51-58 is corroborated by the same interpretation of sarx in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Just as sarx is not salvific in v63, nor even ‘spiritual’ as such, it operates in the same fashion in vv51-58. So the argument goes.

Let’s not forget the setting

Jesus, here in v63, is not referring to his own flesh but to that of his disciples:

“60 Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? 62 What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. 65 And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” 66 As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.”

The entire context is saturated with spiritual teaching about his disciples’ lack of faith in Jesus as the Son of Man. The irony is thick: Jesus had just a minute ago proclaimed that the Jews must eat his flesh; now he is teaching that “the flesh profits nothing”. This is because he is countering the Jews as relying on ‘flesh’. Rather than eating the Son of Man’s flesh, these Jewish disciples relied on their own fleshly, unbelieving, view of the Christ, one which limited him to their level, to their Jewish understanding, and to what they received as benefits from him. His disciples’ flesh was very much so on display, revealed in its lack of faith, expressing itself in open grumbling, hostility, enmity, and even betrayal, “For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him.”

Two contrasting aspects of embodiment

In the comments on 1 John 2:16, it was argued that ‘flesh’ there indicated the human eyes and their covetousness. There was a physical and spiritual union of sin and its power. The flesh of man represented the whole of wicked and fallen man. This is what we are seeing again in John 6:63. The flesh of the Jews is antagonistic to the Christ, and it severely restricts the Jews’ knowledge of Jesus to their own puny, fallen, and mistaken opinions on the Messiah.

By contrast, the flesh of Jesus is life-giving, is eternal life. It is soteric-flesh. Remember, too, that the apostolic witness was one including the physical eyes of John and the apostles. Yet, their eyes were full of the Word whom they beheld. They had salvific-eyes. Their salvific mindset was united with their physical perception as one; both parts were entirely inseparable. The older hymns help us out again:

“Heaven above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green; Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen”.

The Jews had Christless eyes, yet, paradoxically, eyes full of their own fake Christ.

In describing flesh in this manner, we are, yet again, a million miles from the notion of sarx being the mere human body, or human nature, or human nature affected by the Fall. Nor is the contrast simply that of the Creator vs the created, or the divine over against the human.

Christologically driven

Look again at John’s writings: the negative use of sarx is always in the context of the Father and Son’s interaction with rebellious mankind. However, sarx is used in an even more pointed manner in John’s writings, because it is a Christologically-driven concept. For what is the sarx of man but that which rejects the Son of God? And what is the solution to man’s unbelief but eating the sarx of the Son of Man?

Does this not remind us of Paul’s teaching in Acts 17:30-31 that the world is now being judged according to how it reacts to Jesus?

The union of Spirit, Son, and word

Jesus implies the Son of Man will ascend to where he was before- in heaven with the Father (1:51; 3:13; 20:17). It is then he says that “the Spirit is life”. He is anticipating his own ascension to the Father, and that from heaven he will give the Spirit to his disciples (1:32-33; 3:34; 14-16; cf., 20:22). The Spirit not only ‘brings’ eternal life, he is that life within believers (7:37-39; 3:1-21). It is then Jesus comments that his words to his disciples “are spirit and are life”. Once again, his words are not merely the means to the end of spirit and life; they are spirit and life.

What we have then is a bond or union of three sources of life, in John 6: Jesus’ flesh; the Spirit; and Jesus’ words. All have in common the Christological basis that was spoken of before. This is important as it also explains why, in John 14-16, the role of the Spirit is one in which he brings to the memory of Jesus’ disciples the word that Jesus taught them. The Spirit is called “another helper” by Jesus himself, for the Spirit takes the place of Jesus (14:16). The Spirit is, we might say, the ‘word-helper’, bringing it to the minds of the apostles. For eternal life is found in the person and words of the Son. I would suggest that this is one main reason why we read in John 1 of the Word: he was not just the creative-Word of the beginning (Gen.1:1-2); he was also the salvific-Word that came in the flesh to proclaim the will of the Father unto eternal life (John 1:14; see ahead).

John 8:15: weighing things as mere humans?

Jesus stated of the Pharisees, “ “You judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone.” ” Was Jesus referring merely to the flesh as frail human nature, or the human body? Was he saying, “You judge according to the human body”? Or, as the NET states, “by human appearance”? Or, “You judge according to frail and mortal human nature”? Or was he saying in effect, “You have a limited, earthly, perspective on things when judging”?

The dangers of atomistic exegesis

None of these options fit Jesus’ words, unfortunately. All of them are based on the assumption that sarx denotes humanity, human nature, etc., and does not include sin. This leads to a form of atomistic exegesis, in which the phrase ‘flesh’ is not given its meaning in context, but is read independently as having the standard meaning, and only then does this standard meaning have conjoined to it features derived from the context itself. Let me breakdown this process into two steps.

Step 1. To the standard view, ‘flesh’ in John 8:15 is the limited judgment of the human nature; it is contrasted to God’s divine and true judgment.

Step 2. The standard view, seeing the context is all about the opposition to Jesus, even concerning sin, acknowledges that the Pharisees’ fleshly judgment is part of the obscurity that surrounds the Jewish attitude toward Christ. This fleshly judgment and its accompanying obscurity are not sinful in themselves, but, in the case of John 8, sin attaches itself to the Pharisees and to Jesus’ own disciples. That is, they bring along with this fleshly obscurity the sinister factor of sin.

Initial response

We can say in response to stage 1, that by following through on its line of thinking, all it achieves is a contrast between the divine and the human. It has no innate connection to sin or the rejection of God and Christ. How do we know? Because even the resurrected saints in their resurrected ‘flesh’ will never possess the divine judgment of God! Even if we add the aspect of mortality to ‘flesh’ here to say something like man’s judgment is affected by his mortality, this in itself would then be counterbalanced by God as producing a true judgment because he is immortal. Sin is not required in that set up either. As to stage 2, it artificially connects sin to the ‘neutral’ flesh; whereas, as we will now see, John thinks of the flesh itself as sinful.

The context

The context is concerned with Jesus’ testimony that he is the Light of the world, the Light of life (v12). The Pharisees were protesting those facts, but on what basis? Their argument was that Jesus was testifying to himself. The implication being that Jesus was violating the rule of law in the Mosaic Law, in which two or three witnesses were required to bear witness (vv13-17; see Deut.17:6; 19:15). Jesus rejects their judgment by arguing that his witness was true, for he and the Father were one and both together were witnesses (vv17-19). The Pharisees’ judgment was based on a reading of the Mosaic Law that did not account for Jesus’ oneness with the Father. That is, the Pharisees’ judgment according to the flesh was expressed in a lack of spiritual perception, an ignorance of Jesus’ oneness with the Father. This was because their judgment was poisoned by their own wicked thoughts concerning Jesus. Their judgment was, in other words, a spiritual one aimed to ensnare and bring down the Son. Therefore, when Jesus said they judged according to the flesh, he was saying that their spiritual hatred of him prevented them from seeing his oneness with the Father and their united testimony. The Jews of the flesh ironically demanded to see the Father, and yet he was there all along, for Jesus in his salvific-flesh was right there before their eyes revealing the Father to them (v19).

In vv21-30, Jesus develops the above contrast between the Pharisees’ judgment of him and his oneness with the Father. So, he states that the Pharisees were from below, yet, he was not of this world but from above. For that reason, Jesus asserted that the Pharisees would die in their sins unless they believed in the Son of Man who was going to be lifted up. Plainly, the below vs above, heaven vs earth, contrast that Jesus refers to is not one that contrasts the mere divine with the human, or the mere mortal with the everlasting. It is a salvific contrast. Below, earth, the world, and we can add “the flesh”, all were indicative of not just death but unbelief and enmity, too. Above, heaven, the Son of Man, the Father, were the place of salvation, life, peace, and light. That is why the Pharisees and Jews of the flesh could not go up there, for they did not believe in the Son who will be lifted up into there.

Vv31-47 confirm this loaded spiritual understanding of the Pharisees’ judgment “according to the flesh”. For, the scope is extended beyond the Pharisees to include those Jews who believed in Jesus (v31). He challenges his own ‘disciples’ and accuses them of being slaves to sin, and to not having his word in them (vv34-38). This is because their father was the devil (vv38, 41, 44). Let that sink in: the fleshly judgment of the Pharisees, and even of many of Jesus’ disciples, was a satanic judgment committed by the children of Satan, the expression of the will and mind of their satanic father himself.

Finally, in vv48-59, the Jewish hatred (his own disciples’!) comes spewing forth and they accuse Jesus of the ultimate sin: he had a demon! Their blindness prevented them from understanding that Jesus was no mere man, no mere son of Abraham, for he was greater than Abraham. Indeed, “ “before Abraham was born, I am” ”, Jesus pronounced (v59). The implication is that Jesus was from above, not from below.

The apparently innocent claim of Jesus’ own disciples (not just the Pharisees and the Jews) that they were sons of God because they were physical descendants of Abraham and he was their father is uncovered by Jesus himself to be a Satanic deception. Their fleshly perspective, their worldly outlook that tied them to a form of spiritual life that preceded from the world and the flesh themselves, was nothing less than a satanic lie embedded in them as sons of Satan himself. How could Abraham give life, Jacob give life (John 4), if they were dead? What was this world but the depository of death, sin, and deception and the flesh; the world and its fallen life and order could no more produce heavenly and spiritual sonship than Satan tell the truth!

We must, in all of this, appreciate that, although the Word become flesh in the world he created, Jesus was in a world whose spiritual ruler was now Satan (John 12:31; 16:11; Acts 13:10; 2 Cor.4:4; Eph.2:2; cf., 1 John 3:8). For that reason, Jesus’ kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). How could it be? He had to be lifted up from the world to draw all men to him in the heavenly kingdom.

John 17:2: just another example of generic mankind?

“Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, 2 even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”

The reader will by this time be familiar with my overall understanding of ‘flesh’ in John’s Gospel. I believe it is found in the above text, too, as ‘flesh’ there is not just a synonym for mankind thought of as having a body, or having a human nature, or frail human nature. ‘Flesh’, rather, denotes man in need of eternal life through faith in the Son, Jesus Christ. Why else would Jesus have been given authority by the Father? It was in his role as the Christ, the Man for us, that he was given this authority to give eternal life through faith in him. ‘Flesh’, therefore, cannot indicate anything less than someone who does not have eternal life. It follows, then, ‘flesh’ is not the more limited thought of a body, or a frail and mortal human nature. Moreover, ‘flesh’ must involve knowledge, for its opposite, eternal life, is defined in context as being in nature heavenly knowledge of the sent Christ, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (1 John’s emphasis on true knowledge will be ringing in the reader’s ears.) As a result, in John 17, flesh is not only that which does not have eternal life, it also does not possess true and salvific knowledge of the Christ who was sent by the Father. Thirdly, flesh has no authority to give or receive kingdom life. Only the Son has this authority to give life to those of the flesh. We can add, too, that those in the flesh need eternal life to join with the Son who was going above to the Father. That is, the flesh belongs to below; but the life of God is in the Son and is above. Thus, those who believe in the Son will join with him in heaven, with the Father (v24). In this we are seeing, as in John 6 and 8, that belief in the Son brings union with him, and this union is also with the Father (vv22-23). Yes, heaven and earth are contrasted, but in regard to salvation, faith in the Christ, and the kingdom of God.

In saying this about ‘flesh’, Jesus is using that term in a similar fashion to how he thinks of the ‘world’ (Gk., kosmos) in John 17. The world is not a neutral place, a mere stage for humanity, or the human race spoken of generically. Rather, kosmos in John 17 is thoroughly fallen and even anti-Christian (v14), for it is the world as controlled by the evil one (v15). Those who do believe in Jesus are no longer in the world, says Jesus, yet remain in it to witness to it (vv13-18). ‘Flesh’ bears the same theological load as ‘world’, in context, and that is why Jesus was given authority over all flesh, so that those given to the Son by the Father would have eternal life.

John 1:14: ‘the’ prooftext from John’s Gospel?

Unfortunately, John’s Gospel’s use of sarx is strained through the sieve of the modern reading, and in particular is supported in this by reference to John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” This verse is to some scholars the primary one in John’s Gospel that conveys the standard reading of sarx.

What we can agree on

There can be no doubt that John 1:14 expresses that Jesus came as a man, in a human body. We might even refer to his ‘human nature’. In elaboration, we are told by modern scholars that Jesus as the one and only divine Son reveals his heavenly and divine glory via his flesh as a kind of earthly tabernacle (“dwelt”, Gk. skenoo).

Became flesh

To leave matters at this, as typically happens in commentaries, passes over John’s specific statement that the Word “became” flesh. John is not limiting us to a contrast between heaven and earth, or to God coming in the form of flesh. The emphasis is not upon contrast or difference as such, but upon the unity of the Word with flesh: he “became flesh”.

Now, before I unpack what this entails in John 1, I wish to express what it does not imply. It does not teach that Jesus’ divinity morphed into mere humanity, or that the divine and the human mixed together to form a hybrid nature and person. Nor does it suggest that Jesus as the divine Word was stripped of some of his divinity in favor of his humanity. The Chalcedon doctrine is still the very best that there is, and must not be tampered with.

The divine and the human are expressed in the creation of ‘one’ here, a union. The Word, the person, is expressed in “flesh”, in the ‘becoming’ of it. John is, in principle, teaching what John 6 told us: Jesus’ flesh is no mere mortal humanity; it is, rather, grace-flesh, truth-flesh, that is, it is life-giving flesh. In John 1:14, Jesus is not merely ‘tabernacling’ in flesh in the sense of the divine being housed in the human, for the human itself becomes the ultimate expression of the divine. We see this paradox implied in John 2:19 in which Jesus declares if the Jews destroy the temple of his body, he will raise it up. The divine and the human are one, here, inseparable; it is not merely divinity ‘within’ humanity, using it as a vehicle or instrument. Rather, both together as a union are working as one.

Is this not why John writes that “we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth”? There are those apostolic eyes again that see ‘Godness’ in the flesh. Jesus’ flesh is therefore, by the nature of the case, an inevitable extension of the Son’s unique relationship to his heavenly Father, in which the Son came as the visible manifestation of the Father’s grace and truth. When John and the apostles saw Jesus Christ, they did not say to themselves, ‘Look, there’s God in a human body, who mediates eternal life via the instrumentality of mortality and death.’ Their understanding and perception of the physical person of Jesus was that they were seeing in the person, even as to his flesh, the Word of God, the divine One sent from heaven by the Father. Thus, when Jesus declared to his disciple Philip, “ “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” ” (John 14:9), he was saying to him that the Son’s life in the flesh quite literally revealed the divine glory of the Father. This union of divine and human in a ‘becoming’ entails that Jesus’ flesh was never limited to the very restrictive definitions of a human body or the frail human nature. His “flesh” was, as said already, grace-flesh, truth-flesh, life-giving flesh. Thus, on the Mount of Transfiguration, when the disciples saw Jesus’ glory, they saw it in his flesh, even as to his clothing (Matt.17:2)!

This reading puts a different spin on John 1:18 that is sometimes taken to refer to the pure divinity of the Son revealing the pure divinity of the Father. This is not so, for the entire point of the Greek term exegeomai (“explaining”) in context is that the one and only Son, he alone, as the Word becoming flesh, “explains” or “exegetes” the Father and reveals him to us.

Scholarship’s ‘every man’ hermeneutic

What is happening in scholarship is that the concept of Jesus in the flesh is dominated by the aspect of a shared humanity, however defined. This is a common-denominator approach that defines Jesus’ flesh as identical to the rest of humanity. To repeat, Jesus did/does have a human nature, and he did/does have a human body. Even so, John’s use of “flesh” in regard to Jesus breaks that limited, mundane, earthly, ‘every man’, model of ‘flesh’. That’s the whole point of his use of the term in regard to Jesus! Scholarship’s rendition makes Jesus’ flesh subservient to humanity as flesh. In radical contrast, Jesus’ flesh is patently unique, as it alone is salvific-flesh.

Exemplified in title ‘Son of Man’

Some readers will be struggling with exegeting John 1:14 to argue that Jesus’ flesh was grace-flesh, truth-flesh. Let me try to illustrate my point. What does the term ‘son of man’ mean? One can give a generic meaning that amounts to something like, ‘man born of man’. This would of course be reasonable and even biblical. Then again, if we apply the title ‘son of man’ to Jesus, is it sufficient to leave its meaning as indicating merely that Jesus was a man born of man? This would make him just ‘every man’, mundane, of this world, earthly, and, more to the point, very much so limited by those definitions of man. Yet, everyone who’s read the OT knows that ‘son of man’ means more than the ‘every man’ meaning, not only because of the way Psalm 8 uses the phrase of a Davidic and creational ‘man’, for there is also, famously, Daniel 7’s use in relation to a divine figure. The ultimate proof is the theologically loaded use of ‘son of man’ in the Gospels that naturally leads us as Christians to employ the distinct title ‘Son of Man’ of Jesus. For the phrase by this time is clearly something special, Messianic, even divine, going far, far beyond any legitimate connotations of humanity and human birth. Yes, the title ‘Son of Man’ implies a human body, human nature, frail human nature, etc., but to say ‘That’s all folks’ obliterates its special, indeed, unique, nature as applying to Jesus Christ, ‘the Son of Man’. In the same way, we must resist the temptation to define Jesus’ ‘flesh’ as mere ‘every man’ flesh.

Noting the context again

The salvific nature of the Word becoming flesh is stated by John in the setting of a world in rebellion against not merely God, but against the Word, the One who became Light in the midst of the darkness. The Word became flesh to reveal the salvation of God, salvation in his own revelation and words. This Christological and salvific interpretation of the Word becoming flesh strengthens the point of view that John does not think of sarx, whether of man or as to the Christ, as mere ‘humanity’, ‘human nature’, ‘human nature as frail and mortal’, or, ‘human body’. Nor should we reduce things to the difference between Creator and created, the divine over against the human. As already argued, to reduce Jesus’ “flesh” to these ‘every man’ aspects eviscerates his flesh as unique and salvific. Whereas in the case of man himself, to reduce ‘flesh’ to the same mundane, vanilla, non-sin, factors utterly ignores John’s colorful depiction of man of the flesh being in spiritual darkness and unbelief, and being at enmity with the Christ. Again, the anti-Christ measurement of flesh.

1 John 4:2: Docetic overload?

In response to my argument, it will be said that 1 John 4:2 and 2 John 1:7 are irrefutable examples of ‘flesh’ holding the modern definition. 1 John 4:2 states, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God”. The standard reading reduces ‘flesh’, here, to Jesus’ body and human nature. We must of course agree that the verse is arguing against the anti-Christ teaching that denied Jesus came as man; but this is not its sum total, it must be insisted.

Docetic over-influence[4]

Half of the problem, it seems to me, is that scholarship has dug too deeply into the Docetic reading of John’s epistles, even his Gospel, to the point that John’s concern about Jesus’ ‘flesh’ is reduced, in effect, to the debate over Jesus as incarnate vs non-incarnate. If his incarnate status alone is that which is being defended, why does John focus on fellowshipping with the risen Christ, with the One who is, in heaven, the propitiation for our sins? Why does John repeatedly state that Jesus came to die on the cross, if the incarnation is the main issue? If a form of Docetism was the issue, with its accompanying denial of Jesus in a human body, why do John’s epistles never refer to Jesus’ “body” and why do they only twice refer to his “flesh” (1 John 4:2; 2 John 1:7)?

Salvific model

It was already noted that 1 John 1:1-3 describes the apostolic, physical witness to the Word as flesh. This is described as the basis of spiritual fellowship of believers with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. John builds on his own apostolic witness to say that both God and his Son are Light, and to walk with them in that Light, believers must confess their sin to receive forgiveness. We are still in 1 John 1, and the entire content is about Jesus’ salvific light and life. As far as the general structure is concerned, both 1 John 2 and 3 convey, in different words, the same salvific theology as before. There is nothing to indicate in these chapters a focus on the incarnation of Jesus as such, as a standalone feature that is determining John’s content. In other words, John’s focus on fellowship with the Father and his Son is built entirely on the model that Jesus came in the flesh to bring the forgiveness of sins and cleansing from unrighteousness. He was, to that end, the propitiation, and still is that propitiation as an advocate in heaven (1 Jh.2:1-2). Or as 1 John 3:5, “He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.”

Ironically, in practice, the modern model truncates John’s testimony to be this, “He appeared and in him there is no sin”. The entire point of Jesus’ appearance in the flesh, according to John, is “to take away sins”. The incarnation in itself, of itself, is not at all John’s focus. The relevance of the incarnation, in 1 John, is that it ensured that Jesus did go to the cross and did rise from the dead to be our living propitiation. It is this entire, expansive, salvific package that the antichrists rejected concerning Jesus “in the flesh”, according to 1 John 4. The Spirit of God would never endorse a Christ who did not become flesh in order to propitiate the sins of the many; only the evil one would do such a thing. So, John reasserts the true Christ, in vv9-10:

“9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Notice how John does not delimit Jesus’ coming to the incarnation itself- “so that” and “to be”- but promotes, yet again, his salvific outlook on Jesus as “flesh”. Our minds naturally think of John 1:29, 36 that say Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Re-stating John’s intention

With these thoughts to the fore, whatever the particular heresy John was writing against, he found it necessary to dig deep into Jesus’ flesh as a salvific-flesh, a propitiatory-flesh. These heretics were struggling in the same manner as the Jews of John 6, for they could not wrap their heads around “Jesus Christ” (a salvific title, not one that describes his innate and eternal divine nature). We might paraphrase their attitude, ‘There is no Jesus Christ who comes from heaven, as flesh, to be a propitiatory sacrifice.’ But what did Jesus say to the Jews? To paraphrase, ‘My flesh is the life of the world.’

2 John 1:7: the mother of all prooftexts?

“For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.” This verse, on the face of it, seems to be a slam dunk case of Jesus coming ‘as a man’, with absolutely no salvific connotation attached whatsoever. However, once again, I draw attention to the salvific and new-creation title, “Jesus Christ”. My argument, to recite it, is not to deny that the heretics rejected Jesus as man, but that they were, more pointedly, denying him as salvific-man. That is, his flesh was salvific-flesh. John does not need to restate everything commented on in his previous epistle. Just in case I’m misinterpreted: I am  not suggesting for a moment that John is not focusing on the coming of Jesus in the flesh as the fundamental feature he was defending; I am saying in addition to that fact that Jesus’ flesh is soteric-flesh, the whole point of which was cross-oriented.

Revelation’s use of ‘flesh’: irrelevant?

I’m not aware of any commentary of John’s Gospel or epistles that refers to the use of sarx in the book of Revelation. Specifically, a typical Johannine theology does not incorporate the book of Revelation, sticking to the Gospel and the letters of John. What’s the point, then, of citing Revelation’s use of sarx? Scholarship sees none and so passes by Revelation. Sadly, they are missing out on John’s very graphic understanding of ‘flesh’ as extremely wicked, anti-Christ, and cursed.

Sarx in Revelation

“And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire.” (17:16)

“so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great.” (19:18)

“And the rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh.” (19:21)

Symbolic of cursed flesh

Although these verses refer to the physical bodies of a harlot, men, and horses, these references are symbolic, for the book of Revelation is of the apocalyptic genre and is filled to the brim with symbolism, metaphors, and figurative features.

This symbolic meaning is shown in that the flesh of the harlot is eaten by the ten horns and the beast (17:16). It is evident that sarx is not used of a literal human body, or literal human nature, for the whore is defined as the “great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth” (v18). It was described earlier in the chapter as, ” “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” ” (v5). The scene is that of ‘dog eat dog’, the beast and the horns eat the harlot. Her “flesh”, even as symbolic, is not spiritually or morally neutral, for it is that of harlot, and she is about to pay the price for being a harlot ‘in the flesh’. We might say, rather uncouthly, that her flesh is ‘cursed-flesh’, for the Lord himself has put it in their hearts to devour one another in this way, “For God has put it in their hearts to execute His purpose by having a common purpose, and by giving their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled” (17:17).

In Revelation 19:17-18, the Lord’s angel announces to the symbolic birds of the sky to come and devour the flesh of kings, commanders, mighty men, horses, and free and enslaved men. The birds are depicting God’s fierce judgment and curse on the whole range of mankind, the nations, for their rebelliousness (vv11-16; see Eze.39:4, 17-20; Deut.28:26; 1 Sam.17:44). That is, man’s “flesh” is cursed-flesh.

Revelation 19:20-21 refers to the armies of the beast and the kings of the earth, those who had the beast’s mark and had worshiped him. The birds of the air bring the Word of God’s curse down upon those armies. Once again, cursed-flesh.

Similarities

Even though John’s use of sarx is highly symbolic and figurative in the book of Revelation, it has features in common with sarx in his Gospel and epistles. Let us not forget that Jesus himself, in John 6, refers to his own flesh in a highly loaded and metaphorical manner. There is throughout John’s writings and epistles a union between the spiritual and the physical in regard to ‘flesh’. Thus, 1 John 2:16’s fleshly and covetous ‘eyes’, and Jesus’ flesh that gives life. To be pointed, it is never just about the mere human body, or the ‘every man’ human nature, even if frail human nature; for when ‘flesh’ is used of the ungodly, it is set in the context of spiritual ignorance and darkness, of those of the flesh being in the world, and making wrong, even anti-Christ, judgments of Jesus himself. The flesh of man in spiritual darkness and unbelief of John’s Gospel is described as the symbolically cursed-flesh of humanity in Revelation, a flesh that was anti-Christ. This accounts for the Johannine overlap between the anti-Christ world and anti-Christ flesh in his writings, for ‘flesh’ is not just an aspect of wicked man’s existence, it also indicates the prevailing, evil spirit of this world.

Closing remarks

Yes, Paul and John are of the same mind

Without setting foot in John 1:13 or John 3:6, we have seen sufficient proof that John’s use of sarx highlights two central features also evident in Paul’s use of sarx, namely, the soteric value of Christ’s flesh (Rom.8:3-4; Gal.4:4; Col.1:22; 1 Tim.3:16); and man in the flesh as wicked (Rom.7-8; etc.). To both apostles, these factors are Christologically driven.

Yet, differences

It is, nevertheless, reasonable to say that both apostles have distinctions as to sarx. Some major contrasts stand out to me. First, John’s use of sarx is very much so rooted in his own apostolic experience of, and witness to, the incarnate Word. His concept of flesh is thereby very much so an ‘anti-Christ’ model. Paul is, by contrast, a supreme Jewish scholar by training, and the elite apostolic mind. He did not know the incarnate Christ, nor was he his bosom friend as John was. Yet, Paul’s view is the ultimate form of theology for an assembly wrestling with the flesh in the world. Paul is more concerned with the Christ who, in the likeness of sinful flesh, broke sin on the cross. Paul develops Christ’s victory to focus on his Spirit who empowers the saints of God to also wrestle with the flesh to overcome it. By comparison, John has a very lightweight, almost personal, doctrine of sarx compared to the analytical detail of the apostolic theologian Paul. I would suggest that John is more concerned with the bigger cosmic picture and its outworking than Paul’s more investigative, analytic, Christian-life approach. This would account for John’s greater emphasis upon the division between heaven and earth, this fallen world and its darkness over against heaven and its light, etc.. Paul does teach such contrasts, but not in the same detail.

What has happened to scholarship?

Even if the reader disagrees with parts, or the whole, of my exegetical comments, it is surely apparent to anyone that scholarship has got into the bad habit of not justifying its own beliefs. For the last few decades, those who support Biblical Theology have complained at the prooftexting nature of classic Systematic Theology and its lack of exegetical support and depth for its views. Part of the reason for Systematic Theology’s failure was complacency. It believed it had summarized the appropriate arguments and marshaled the relevant verses- job done! It too often did not engage in exegetically justifying many of its assumptions, or take a closer look at those prooftexts. Biblical Theology, now ‘the king of the castle’, has rested on its theological laurels, content with its arguments and prooftexts, and feeling no need to actively justify certain beliefs, or to look in any depth at certain prooftexts. At the very, very least, those who hold to the modern rendition ought to respect that there are those who are decidedly against the prevailing view of sarx, and that there are on the face of things a number of tricky texts in John that definitely deserve that closer look. And I ask: what is to be lost in taking this closer look?

I’m very aware that I severed John 1:13 from 1:14. This is because I wish to look at 1:13 and 3:6 in their own rights, and as they pertain to the discussion on original sin. We will see that both these texts are extremely ‘tricky’, for both verses need reinvestigating outside of the prevailing interpretive mindset.

[1] D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Leicester, UK: Apollos, 1991), 42.

[2] Andreas J. Kostenberger, A Theology of John and His Letters (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), 287.

[3] All biblical verses that are quoted are taken from the NASB95 unless stated otherwise.

[4] I’m using ‘Docetic’ here in a general sense to also incorporate other heresies such as proto-gnosticism and Cerinthianism.