Part One

Fleshly Lust and Priesthood

Peter commands his readers (1 Peter 2:11):  “Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.”  It is a crucial or key verse in 1 Peter as Peter moves into the primary message of his epistle.  It’s also a mandate or instruction, or at least similar one, as in other passages and from other authors.

In the Old Testament, being a priest was a privilege.  The priest could go directly to God unlike an average Israelite.  Jesus, however, makes every believer a priest, as seen in 1 Peter 2:5:

Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

You can see in that very verse:  the New Testament priest “offer[s] up spiritual sacrifices,” ones that are “acceptable to God.”  The priesthood requires responsibility.  The sacrifices are a sacrifice.  And the sacrifices are spiritual and acceptable unto God.  The priest can’t give to God just any old thing.

If the priest must offer spiritual sacrifices, then he must abstain from fleshly lusts.  Fleshly lusts run in absolute contradiction to spiritual sacrifices.  God will reject a fleshly sacrifice.  Evangelicalism offers non-stop fleshly sacrifices to God.  He rejects those offerings.  Yet, evangelicals will count them as accepted because of their feelings.  What they feel, they feel is acceptable to Him.  They even very often think they feel the Holy Spirit in an ecstatic experience produced out of their passions.

Deprivation of the Soul and Idolatry

Posing as Worship

What does rejected worship do for someone’s soul?  It deprives the soul.  Fleshly lust hollows out a professing priest of God, leaving him spiritually famished.  In the realm of spiritual warfare, this fleshly lust wars against his soul.

Professing Christians pose as worshipers.  Like the priests of Baal with Elijah (1 Kings 18), they major on their expression of worship.  It originates from their own passion, just like sin arises from their lust (James 1:14).  True worship humbles itself before God, subjecting to the truth, which is only His truth.  That is authentic worship, not the unique expressions of ones own feelings, but that proceeding from Words of God.

Fleshly lust parallels with idolatry, as revealed by Paul in Colossians 3:5, when he writes:

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:

Mortification

Mortify your members, Paul writes.  The members are body parts.  Passions arise from body parts.  Fleshly lust abides in body parts, as does indwelling sin.   Body parts must be brought under subjection.  Then they become instruments of righteousness unto God.

The first falling domino that ends in fornication is idolatry.  Next is covetousness.  Functioning in the realm of fleshly lust betrays fruit of the Spirit.  It’s why Paul also commanded in Romans 13:14:  “make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”

“Abstain from fleshly lusts” and “make not provision for the flesh” relate to idolatry.  Both result in not offering spiritual sacrifices unto God.  God doesn’t accept worldly and fleshly worship, which also means the perpetual offering of a person as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2).

Soundtrack for a Life

Commands and Disobedience to Them

Christians walk according to the soundtracks of their lives, what they might call their playlist.  The reformed theologian and author, Douglas Wilson, who wears the mantel of father of modern classical education, wrote this:

While working on this post, to take a snippet of my playlist at random, I have listened to “Feelin’ Alright” by Joe Cocker, “Rivers of Babylon” by the Melodians, “96 Tears” by ? and the Mysterians, “Lonestar” by Norah Jones, “Almost Hear You Sigh” by the Stones, “Watching the River Flow” by Dylan, “Motherless Child” by Clapton, and you get the picture. Now here is a quick quiz. Get out your Bibles, everybody. Is that playlist worldly?

Not too classical.  Education, probably not either.  That playlist disobeys two commands:  “abstain from fleshly lusts” and “make not provision for the flesh.”  And actually many others in the New Testament.

Internal Procession of Unrighteousness

Paul writes in Galatians 5:19, “Now the works of the flesh are manifest.”  The works of the flesh are evidence.  Like faith is evidence, the works of the flesh are evidence.  One of those works is “lasciviousness,” which means “sensuality.”  The soundtrack of a genuine Christian is not sensuality.

The viewpoint of “abstain from fleshly lusts” corresponds to the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.  God’s righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees (Matt 5:20).  The examples or illustrations of Jesus (Matt 5:21-48) then deal with the internal procession of unrighteousness.  It’s not just murder, but hate.  It’s not just physical acts, but the lack of abstinence from fleshly lusts.  This clashes with the nature of God, the true identify of the believer, the light of the world and the salt of the earth.  Fleshly lusts do not retard corruption.  They speed it up.

More to Come