Studies in First Peter Part 12
“11Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul” (I Peter 2:11).
Why would chosen, royal, holy people who possess a new heart and a new nature need to be urged to “abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul”? Isn’t the war over? Didn’t the war end when we became new creations? Yes and no.
First the “Yes”. The war is over. You do not have two competing natures, a sin nature and a godly nature, waging war inside you. Your old self died with Christ and you have been set free, released, from the power of sin. “Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin” (Romans 6:6-7).
The idea that we have an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other whispering in our ears either encouraging us to godliness or enticing us to sin is just not true. Sin and evil and the devil were defeated at the cross and defeated in your life when you believed the gospel of Jesus Christ. You do not have competing good and bad natures. You have one nature; righteousness.
But there is also a “No”. Why? Because sin still dwells in us, in what the Bible calls “the flesh.” And the flesh is at war with God’s Spirit inside. “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another” (Galatians 5:16-17).
The flesh is the temptation to go back to living as the natural man, your old self prior to Christ. The flesh is the temptation to live, to act, to think like the natural man; the man without Christ. And Satan seeks to energize the flesh by using your past actions or current temptations to challenge your identity as a new creation. But Satan is lying.
You are a new creation. There are not two equal strength sides in this battle. Sin is no longer you master, having been soundly defeated at the cross. Sin has been removed from the throne in your life. You have what it takes to say “no” to the flesh by virtue of all the new in you.
The Greek word translated “abstain” in “abstain from fleshly lusts” literally means to “stand at a distance from.” This is similar to Paul’s warning to Timothy, “Flee from youthful lusts” (II Timothy 2:22). To run away from sin is not legalism. To stand as far away from sin as you can is not rule-keeping. It is just the wisdom of God to stay away from the things and situations that tempt you. We all have unique areas where the flesh seeks to tempt us to sin. And it is wise to flee, to run away, from those places.
Last time, we talked about being called out of darkness and into the light. Peter. Paul, all the New Testament writers would say to us, “Now, live as children of light.” “For you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord. Walk as children of Light for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Ephesians 5:8-9).