Do We Have a Sinful Nature?

Better to say, we have passions and desires of the flesh

May 08, 2020

We sometimes speak about our sinful nature—and of course, we are born into sin. And that law of sin uses our flesh to further its aims (Rom 7:25). Yet one problem with the phrase “sinful nature” is what Paul Dirks recently described as a competition of opposing natures.

I would add that the phrase also implies that sin has a substantial nature. In other words, it suggests that sinful natures have a created existence, since only what God creates exists. But God did not create sin, and therefore it cannot have substantial existence. Rather, sin corrupts God’s good creation like rust on metal. It is not a thing in itself but a corrosion of things.

A better way to speak of sin’s power comes directly from Paul. He speaks of the flesh and its passions and desires. By using such language, we can describe sin accurately and also find concrete ways to resist it, since we will know what it is.

Speaking of a sinful nature, however, can obscure sin’s real power by making it sound like a dualistic force—as if we were fighting a battle like in the ancient teaching of Manichaeism.

That is not the case. And here is why.

Flesh

Paul writes, “For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death” (Rom 7:5). Here the apostle speaks of “living in the flesh” (that is, before the Spirit comes). He notes that when “sinful passions” encounter God’s standards for life, they entice us to choose evil over good.

It is worth pausing here to consider what a human person is, or else Paul’s meaning will be hard to grasp. At the most basic level, body and soul unite in a human person. We have flesh, bones, nerves, and reflexes in our body. We have a mind, consciousness, and will in our soul. Yet because body and soul unite irreducibly, our whole self shares in both.

Still, there is a hierarchy. If we hunger, we can deny ourselves by our mind and will. Resisting hunger, caused by hormones in our body, may be hard—but it is possible.

This harmony of body and soul fell into disarray when Adam and Eve sought the knowledge of good and evil, to be like God. By eating from the tree of good and evil, they gained the ability to know both. They gained a new freedom, but that freedom only led to corruption, death, and misery. God exiled them from the tree of life so that they would enter into death.

Since death never means the end of existence, but only the end of one mode of existence, death in Genesis meant corruption (cf. 1 Cor 15:42). It meant separation from the tree of life, from divine life itself. Hence, eternal life in Jesus Christ restores what Adam lost (John 17:3).

All this to say: our wills can now choose evil—we gained the so-called gnomic will. And in gaining, we lost much. Because the cause of this ability to choose good and evil lies in our corrupt flesh with its passions, we gained by loss.

In short, our flesh lives in corruption, in a state of death (Eph 2:1, 3). The ability to choose evil over good means that humans, when confronted with God’s law, have both the choice and the desire to disobey. To see this more fully, we must consider the passions and desires of the flesh.

Passions and Desires

Paul uses two words for the passions of the flesh. The first is pasxein, which signals that passions afflict us; it also means suffering. The second is epithumia, which refers to our desires. Both words can be neutral, but they often lean toward sin because the passions and desires within our flesh incline us to evil over good. We can thank Satan’s temptation of Adam and Eve for this.

In Romans 1, Paul provides a threefold description of sin by echoing Genesis 3. First, mankind turned away from God so that their hearts were darkened and their reasoning became futile (Rom 1:21). God therefore gave them over to their hearts’ epithumiais (desires; 1:24). He also handed them over to “dishonourable passions” (1:26).

In the same verse, Paul notes that such passions are contrary to nature. This is because God did not create us with a gnomic will able to choose between good and evil. We gained that as a loss through Adam’s fall.

In sum, humankind reasons futilely, lacks light in the heart, and delights in desires and passions that conflict with God’s law.

Later, echoing Genesis 3 again, Paul explains, “For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death” (Rom 7:5). In Romans 7:8, he uses epithumia to speak of “coveting”: “But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness [epithumian]. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.”

When Satan tempted Eve, promising that she would be like God, knowing good and evil, she did not know what she was entering into. We now not only know evil from good, but also have passions and desires that want evil. When we see laws like “do not eat from the tree,” we covet the tree. Goodness itself awakens our flesh’s passions and desires, creating all sorts of covetousness in us.

Our only hope is to be renewed, recreated into the image from which we came. So Christ, the Image of God, came to mend what was torn and to redeem what was fallen. Christians therefore receive illumination of mind and strength to overcome passions and desires.

War

The Spirit renews our minds (Rom 12:1–2; Eph 4:23) by giving us the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16). Through the renewed mind, we can make war with our flesh (1 Pet 1:13–14).

Thus, Paul says, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness” (Rom 6:12–13). Sin’s passions want mortal bodies to enter into deep corruption. Paul says, “Do not do that!”

He shortly thereafter clarifies the nature of the war: “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (Rom 7:22–23). Paul here associates his “inner being” with “the law of my mind (nous).” In contrast, the law of sin dwells in his members (body parts). That law of sin includes passions, desires, and so on.

Hence, while there is a war, we have adequate weapons to win. The Spirit has renewed our minds by giving us the mind of Christ (Rom 12:2; 1 Cor 2:16). Hence, “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24). The key here is to mortify the passions and desires of the flesh because “the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit” (Gal 5:17).

Elsewhere, Paul adds extra specificity for how to walk in the Spirit. In Ephesians 4, he associates learning Christ with particular actions: “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (22–24). The new self is renewed in mind (nous) by the Holy Spirit’s work of creating the “new man” in Christ Jesus.

From the Spirit’s work in the mind, we mortify the flesh. Paul explains, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honour, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God” (1 Thess 4:3–5). Elsewhere, he says, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Col 3:5).

Notice that controlling the body and killing what is earthly pictures our sanctification. That is, our mortal bodies carry within them various desires and passions. We must use our sanctified mind to restrain our bodily urges in order to grow in holiness.

Peter perhaps provides the clearest call to war, using the weapon of the mind against the passions. He tells Christians to “gird up the loins of your mind” (1 Pet 1:13). Why? So that they would not act as disobedient children by being conformed to their former “ignorance of your desires (epithumiais).” Here, ignorance means a kind of mindlessness under the control of the desires of our flesh.

Such a life under control of desires lacks a “girded mind” that can subdue what lies in the flesh. In this sense, Paul can say, “But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor 9:27).

Practice

Having described in brief the human person and its relationship to the flesh and its desires and passions, we need to ask how this makes a difference. And it does make a difference.

First, it shows that sin lies in our flesh, specifically in the promptings of passion and the seat of desires. While both passion and desire can be neutral or even good, when we encounter the choice between good and evil (our tree of good and evil), our passions elicit desires for evil. Hence, now we can see concretely how most personal sin happens.

Second, it shows us how to make war with sin. It begins in the mind. The Spirit informs us of what is good and right. Hence, when we encounter our tree moment, our passions and desires will flare up. But God has taught us the way of righteousness. So we know what is right. We can dissuade our flesh from sin through our mind.

Third, we will still sin. That is because we have yet to discipline our bodies to form habits of righteousness. In Paul’s language, if we live in the Spirit, we must also walk in the Spirit (Gal 5:25). Walking implies repetition as well as following a way of life. That means practicing the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22). Goodness does not come by fiat, but by the gradual habit of righteousness grounded in the Spirit’s indwelling in our hearts.

Fourth, we are irreducibly composed of body and soul. Hence, when our body suffers through pain, poor diet, or lack of sleep, we endanger ourselves. We give passions and desires footholds by which they can overcome our will and mind. We must therefore balance body and soul in order to combat sin. Self-discipline—training the body, in Paul’s words—truly does work.

A sort of mystical internalism cannot adequately battle the flesh. The Spirit does work in us by recreating us. But that inward change affects our outward person. They are correlated, though the inner person, or the principle of the mind, should hold the reins of passions and desires. Yet because human bodies work through habit and practice, we need both to decide by the mind to order our days and then act on it.

If so, we can have victory over our flesh. As Paul says, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Gal 5:16).

Some Bible translations render “flesh” as “sinful nature.” Here I am speaking about the biblical concept of flesh and disagreeing with that translational choice.