The Christian life is hard. From a worldly point of view the Christian life is unnatural, and when given a choice, the right one is often the tough one. As long as we live on this earth, we struggle to please God even when we have already been saved by Jesus through faith. In 1 Peter 2:11, the apostle wrote about our difficulties:
“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.”
There are several important truths in this one verse, but the first is that we can’t ignore “the passions of the flesh” or pretend they don’t exist. The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 7:18-19, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” In the surrounding verses, Paul separates the spiritual, redeemed part of us from the flesh, or the “sin that dwells within me.”[1] The sinful flesh wants what it wants and isn’t concerned about what God thinks of it. Our passions do not have our eternal soul’s destiny in mind, only the near-term reward. Following the “passions of the flesh” is like saying this world is just fine rather than knowing it is fallen and needs redemption, yet even Christians do it anyway.
3 other parts of the verse are important, and I’ll take them in reverse order. Peter wrote that these passions “wage war against your soul.” This means that defeating them won’t be easy; and that the enemy must be taken seriously. We are soldiers in this war against the flesh and defeat is harmful to our souls. Once we are redeemed, sin can’t take away our salvation, but it can make our lives miserable, hobble our witness, and even affect our rewards in heaven.[2] We are all susceptible to different sins, and none of us are immune from any of them. We must “wage war” against what is at war against our souls. This is no picnic.
However, Peter encourages us in the other 2 parts of the verse.
First, Peter reminds us that we are “sojourners and exiles.” We live here, but don’t belong here. Our time in this world is temporary, and we are just passing through. People say about our worldly goods that “you can’t take it with you” but what we also won’t take with us are the harmful “passions of the flesh.” While they are natural to our earthly bodies, they will not be natural to our glorified bodies. If we grow weary of fighting this war, it helps us to know that the war is temporary. God will see us through it in His time and help us each step along the way.[3] We don’t need to give in.
Also, Peter says at the beginning of the verse that we are “Beloved.” God loves us, and He doesn’t stop loving us because we regularly fail against “the passions of the flesh.” We remain His “Beloved” even when we sin, because He has chosen to love us, knowing everything about us, past, present and future. Even after repeated sin, He will not turn away from us. As Jesus said in John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” He will always call us back and in the end, He will raise us up.
So, in our battles with “the flesh,” we must remember who we are. We are beloved by God, we are not of this world, and we are soldiers in a serious battle. Here, we will fight hard and experience repeated failure, but in eternity we will not fail at all. We will perfectly reflect the character of Christ.
But in the meantime:
“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.”
[1] Romans 8:20
[2] 1 Corinthians 3:15, also the “Parable of the talents” in Matthew 25:14-30.
[3] 1 Corinthians 10:13
