Sometimes, cultural shifts can help us to understand the Bible more effectively. The rise of the transgender movement may have unknowingly done that in our generation. Today, it’s common to hear people say things like, “I feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body.” The person’s feelings drive them to think about their life in ways that don’t correspond to the objective reality of their biology. They get mixed messages. They want to express themselves as a woman even though they were born as a man. And the world says, “Follow your feelings.” The Bible describes a similar dilemma facing all Christians, but it offers a different prescription.
Salvation gives a person a new heart
When a person comes to faith, they acknowledge that they are a sinner and look to Jesus for salvation. As a gift of grace, God not only forgives them but gives them a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26). The person is born again (John 3:3) as a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) and declared a saint (Ephesians 1:1). It seems like the problem of sin is over. Or is it?
Sin continues to reside in the body
Despite the new birth that accompanies a person’s turning to Jesus, sin continues to be an ongoing reality for the Christian. It’s interesting how it’s described, however.
In Romans 7:22-23, for example, Paul writes, “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.” When he says, “members,” he’s talking about the body parts. The heart has been claimed for Jesus, but there’s guerrilla warfare still taking place in the body.
The other, more common, term used to describe the place where sin resides is the “flesh.” It’s another word that’s used to refer to the body (Ephesians 2:14; Philippians 1:22, 24), but it stands for the earthly, external part of us that hasn’t yet been transformed. Jesus described the conflict in Mark 14:38, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
So, the problem of sin is consistently described as a disconnect between the inner and the outer, the spirit and the body. We get mixed messages with our body saying one thing and our spirit saying another. As it says in Galatians 5:17, “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.”
Follow the truth, not your feelings
If a believer lives with a disconnect between the new heart God has given them and the old body that they live in, what’s the solution? The Bible teaches us to live in line with the objective reality of God’s truth: in this case, that means resisting what your body is telling you and living out the new creation God has worked in your life. As Galatians 5:16, says, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
That’s also why commands to holiness are often given with clothing terms. For example, Paul tells Christians to “put on the new self” (Ephesians 4:24), “put on the whole armor of God” (Ephesians 6:11), and “put on … compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12). Each time, he’s using a verb that’s usually associated with getting dressed (Matthew 27:31). The takeaway is that we’re going to get mixed messages and be tempted to doubt who we really are. But we can trust what God declares about us, and we should present ourselves in line with the new creation we’ve become.
When a Christian puts on kindness, it may feel unfamiliar at first. It feels like we’re wearing someone else’s clothes. A voice might be telling us, that’s not who you are! But God assures us that it is, and by acting in light of that objective truth, we’ll slowly be changed and conformed to that reality.
If you’re a saint trapped in a sinner’s body, learn to clothe yourself in holiness. Resist the voices that tell you that sin feels more familiar, and you can’t deny what feels so right. As you do, know that one day, even your body will be renewed, and the new creation will be complete. As Philippians 3:20-21 encourages us, “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.”
In awe of Him,
Paul
