MUCH MORE THAN SEX
Almost everyone understands that flesh is a dirty word in the Bible, but few understand its symbolic meaning. Galatians 5:19–21 provides a long list of attitudes and activities that constitute flesh:

STUDY TIP: God’s warning about engaging in sins of the flesh are also found in many other scriptures.

Taken literally, this is a convenient checklist out of which religious rules can be, and have been created. Thus we find that the most conservative religions (i.e. fundamentalists) of Judaism and Christianity emphasize and enforce rules about human sexuality and alcohol consumption while effectively ignoring other fleshly activities that are harder to identify and police.

Highly religious denominations take very seriously the warnings in verse 21 that people who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God and they do their best to impress their beliefs on adherents and society in general. In America, we see this hyper religiosity reflected in movements related to alcohol, sexual purity and homosexuality.

Religions that create and enforce religious rules/laws do so with a great sense of pride in their obedience to the literal letter of the law of the Bible. They fail to realize that the literal words of the Bible and God’s spoken words are not the same. They fail to realize that the laws that God wants them to obey are his spiritual laws written on their hearts.

STUDY TIP: See Literal or Symbolic Interpretation Part 1, Literal or Symbolic Interpretation Part 2 and Literal or Symbolic Interpretation Part 3.

God recognizes the strong tendency of humans to be religious. That is why he lets them go through a season of walking in the wilderness to train them how to listen to his voice before he sets them free in the promised land.

To be religious always requires activation of the physical body (i.e. flesh) in one way or another. Flesh, therefore, includes any activity of the mind, emotions, or body (i.e. muscles and bones). Here are a few examples:

• • • • Prayer involves the mind and sometimes voice and sometimes hands.
      • Lip service which God hates involves physical lips, mouth and tongue.
      • Going to church/synagogue involves muscles and bones.
      • Singing involves the voice.
      • Raising hands in worship involves muscles and bones.
      • Preaching involves memory and the voice.
      • Reading the Bible involves the eyes.
      • Quoting scripture involves memory and the voice.
      • Listening to teaching involves the ears.
      • Taking sacraments involves muscles.
      • Circumcision involves human flesh.
      • Baptism involves muscles and bones.
      • Paying tithes involves the mind and body to write a check.
      • Wearing religious clothing and jewelry involves muscles and bones.

These activities are all found in religion. Without these activities, religion would not exist. Because all of these activities can be seen, they are religion — not faith which cannot be seen.

God hates religion and these fleshly activities because they can all be done without engaging the heart. People with evil, impure hearts can perform these religious activities and no one would know the condition of their hearts. That is why religion is hypocrisy. That is why God looks at the condition of the heart — not at the things that religious people do with their physical bodies (i.e. their flesh).

Flesh is all about acting out religious behaviors (see list above) with the physical body. It is all about activation of the physical body in ways that can be observed by other religious people who will praise the religious actor for the religious behaviors they act out for others to see.. Religion is all about making a name for yourself by activating your physical body in some kind of religious behavior. That is why the Bible often symbolically refers to flesh as work or labor. Just as physical effort is required to work/labor at a job, work/labor is required to participate in all religious activities.

Religious people wrongly believe that their religious activity connects them to God. Religious traditions conducted according to religious rules have the appearance of righteousness and wisdom — but no spiritual value.

STUDY TIP: See links below for examples of religious traditions that God hates.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • Public Prayer
                        • Tongues
                        • Religious Rituals and Traditions: Circumcision, Baptism, Communion
                        • Sacrifices, Tithes and Offerings
                        • Tithes
                        • Music, Singing and Dancing

A religious life can be easily contrasted with a spiritual life. The religious life is external and visible for anyone to see. The spiritual life that God wants his people to experience is in the heart (i.e. internal and invisible) where only God can see.

One or more parts of the physical body are always activated in religion. Only the heart is activated in a healthy spiritual life. To please God, the flesh must be still. The flesh must be quiet. That is why God says “Be still and know that I am God.” But he does not just be physically still as when sitting or lying down. He means stop your religious activity.

Fleshly religious activity has great value to people in religious communities because it fuels their pride. But fleshly religious activity has no value to God. What matters to God is the presence of his name (i.e. his character) in clean pure hearts that listen to his voice.