Sin Does Not Originate in the Shell of Flesh
You may have spent years trying to avoid sin by managing your flesh — by disciplining your body, abstaining from alcohol, avoiding certain places, dressing modestly, fasting regularly, or following routines that seem spiritual and safe. You may have believed that if you could just control your physical actions, you would be free from sin’s grip. But despite your efforts, you still find yourself wrestling with thoughts you didn’t invite, desires you didn’t want, and reactions that seem to rise from somewhere deeper than your skin and bone. And that’s because sin does not originate in the shell of your flesh. It is not in the skin or muscle or bone. The flesh is weak, yes, and under the curse, but it cannot sin without the soul’s consent.
Your body is not the source of rebellion. It is the instrument. The flesh carries out what the soul commands. And when you try to train the flesh without renewing the soul, you are polishing the surface while the root remains untouched. The truth is that sin begins in the soul — in the mind, the will, and the heart — and it manifests through the body only after the inner man has chosen to rebel, to ignore, or to disobey the truth of God’s Word.
Scripture confirms this clearly. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19). “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). These verses do not point to the body as the source of sin. They point to the soul — the place where knowledge is either received or rejected, where obedience is either chosen or refused.
