Theology in the modern age is in disarray. Theology in most ages has been in disarray. The reason for such confusion in theology is the confusion which human sin brings into the divine-human relationship. That confusion arose when human beings threatened to “be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). For sinful human beings, however, being like God was not enough. As Luther writes in the seventeenth of his Ninety-seven Theses Against Scholastic Theology, “Man is by nature unable to want God to be God. Indeed, he himself wants to be God, and does not want God to be God” (LW 31:10). In that light, theology has been in disarray since Adam and Eve went out on a limb and so fruitfully plunged humanity into enmity with God in order to take the place of God.

In the New Testament, St. Paul describes this confusion and rebellion as the mixing of the flesh with the spirit. As he writes in chapter five of his letter to the church in Galatia (RSV),

“[16] But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. [17] For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. [18] But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law. [19] Now the works of the flesh are plain: unchastity (porneia), impurity, licentiousness, [20] idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, [21] envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. [22] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. [24] And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. [25] If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

Looking at the lists of characteristics of the flesh and the spirit, sinful humanity not only indulges in but also glorifies the life of the flesh. Everywhere one turns in society, the intemperate exercise of the destructive nature of the flesh is hailed as freedom and individual human rights. In other words, what the world often says is “right” Scripture says is “wrong” because the practice of such wrong prevents inheritance of the kingdom of God. Thus, Luther insightfully writes, “Reason and the wisdom of our flesh condemns the wisdom of the Word of God” (LW 12:343).

At the time of the Reformation, Luther and colleagues stressed this dichotomy and called the church away from the flesh and forward to the spirit, away from self-justification by the law and forward to the salvific gospel, away from human works of the flesh and forward to justification by grace alone through faith alone. Being set free (eleutheros in Greek – Lutheran) from the powers of sin, death, and the devil (the domain of the flesh) was and always is a spiritual event effected by the pure proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Again, as Paul states, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” Unfortunately, the church in western society has not been and is still not immune from the mixing and thus the dissolution of the flesh-spirit dichotomy.

The enmity of the spirit against the flesh and the flesh against the spirit never has been a matter of personal piety or denominational identity or cultural conditioning. It represents the difference between the demonic and the divine, between the temporal life which ends in death and the certainty of faith which promises to grant eternal life. As the spirit of atheism has grown ever stronger in western society, the flesh-spirit dichotomy has been torn apart, allowing the once forbidden or illegal exercising of the flesh not only tacit tolerance but even open acceptance and celebration, paradoxically sometimes in the name of God.

Plainly, secular atheists who live in the flesh fail to understand this and thus truly view Christianity and its crucifixion of the flesh as a personal, religious, and cultural threat. Their flesh is all that they have, and when it is dead, they are dead. So, they celebrate the carnal life with gusto! As St. Paul writes, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (I Cor 15:32). Consequently, even a Christian’s sincere concern for the salvation of their carnal brothers and sisters is necessarily interpreted and resisted as a threat to their (fleshly) life and livelihood.

In western countries in recent decades, the political power of the flesh has flexed its muscle in very insidious ways. The notion of separation of church and state has merely been a ruse for the expulsion of God and thus the divinely spiritual from society. This manifests itself through the sinful misapplication of the law to discredit and demonize the gospel. Consequently, what lends the impression of legally protecting an area of societal neutrality has, in fact, been an attack on the divinely spiritual. In the war between the flesh and the spirit, there is no neutral ground, no amicable armistice. In this battle, the cross of Christ reveals the destructive reality of sinful, human flesh in all its glory.

Cristina Odone, in her Daily Telegraph blog wrote on 07 July 2013,

“The American street preacher [Mr Tony Miano] had been arrested outside Centre Court shopping centre in Wimbledon on July 1. He had been reading from St Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, which condemns homosexuality. A passer-by called the police. Three officers arrived and arrested Mr Miano, a retired deputy sheriff from California, for disorderly conduct.

The irony of being marched to the Wimbledon nick after having spent 20 years as a law enforcer was not lost on Mr Miano. He told me over the phone: ‘The booking process held no surprises.’ He had his DNA and fingerprints taken (and was relieved of his wedding ring) and was then locked up in a small cell for seven hours.

In the police station, he was granted his request for a Bible and for a lawyer from Christian Concern, a group that fights cases involving religious freedom. Then the police asked if he’d ever feed a homosexual, or do them a favour.

‘I said yes, of course: the Bible taught that I should love my neighbour as myself,’ Mr Miano told me. ‘The policeman asked if I believed homosexuality was a sin and I realised that I was not only being interrogated about what had happened but about what I believed.’”*

The flesh-spirit dichotomy resides at the heart of the Christian message where the cross and resurrection meet in Christ Jesus. This dichotomy also resides at the heart of the biblical understanding of baptism by which sinners are freed from sin and death. Societies, whether secular or religious, which fear the Bible and persecute its adherents, however, cannot tolerate the freedoms of being Christian. They also cannot countenance ideals like “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” as Abraham Lincoln stated in his Gettysburg Address. Instead, they have aligned themselves to the tyrannical slavery of unbridled gratification and glorification of the desires of their flesh. Such uncontrolled narcissism “is by nature unable to want God to be God. Indeed, [it] wants to be God, and does not want God to be God.”

In the face of such hostility, let us let the fruit of the Spirit radiate brightly into the world around us and allow God to make us into a community of Christians saved by grace – through faith alone in Jesus Christ – to spread the Holy Gospel in word, sacrament and action soli deo gloria.

*http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100225249/banning-the-term-gay-is-an-insult-to-free-speech/    [Mr Miano also preached against pornography and slushy novels, but such things apparently have little political power.]