Articles
War Against the Soul
Warfare is a fitting analogy to the struggle of living a godly life in this world. Just as enemy combatants try to kill each other over the acquisition of territory (whatever the competing philosophies, the end game always seems to be about the extension of borders), so Christians are locked in mortal combat with forces of evil.
Satan wants to extend his kingdom as far as he can, but he is under a tactical limitation: he cannot overwhelm by brute force. He must win souls through persuasion, enticing men to abandon their loving Creator.
Peter pleads with us all: “Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul” (1 Pet 2:11). One senses Peter’s urgency – “I beg you.” He speaks of human vulnerability as one personally acquainted with it.
Peter’s readers have “purified [their] souls in obeying the truth” (1:22). But Satan does not give up easily. He inflames “fleshly lusts” and urges indulgence of them in ways contrary to God’s will. The term “flesh” does not merely mean bodily desire, though this is where temptation often begins. “Flesh” takes on a moral quality because mankind so often uses the body for sinful purposes. So then, to “abstain from fleshly lusts” is not engaging in ascetic abstinence or stoic benumbing of our physical desires. Rather, it is separating ourselves from temptations that entice us into unlawful satisfaction of desire.
Sexual craving, for example, is not counter-spiritual. It is central to enhancing intimacy in marriage and populating the world, both God-ordained objectives. But legitimate desire may be perverted or degraded into something evil and unlawful: fornication, homosexuality, pedophilia, pornography, etc. Peter’s audience had been conditioned by extreme immorality (4:3), and this makes them vulnerable to Satan’s seductions.
What is the key then to abstaining from worldly ambitions, cravings and passions? Peter explains in a simile: “I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims …”. That is, we must come to see ourselves as temporary residents in a hostile environment.
Many of the connections we have to this world are benign. They are part of making a life here: providing and preparing food; clothing our bodies; securing shelter; fruitfully laboring; making ourselves presentable to others; enjoying the wonders of God’s creation. But we need to keep such things in perspective lest we become too enamored with, attached to and distracted by them to the neglect our spiritual welfare.
The quintessential pilgrim was Abraham who “sojourned in the land of promise as in a foreign country … for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb 11:9-10). Abraham traveled, accumulated wealth, enjoyed conjugal activities and fought battles, but he maintained a separation from the world and reserved his deepest affection for God. What ultimately mattered to Abraham was not Canaan, thus he was able to live in the promised land as an outsider. May we, too, have clarity in drawing lines between the sacred and the sinful.
