In the Old Testament, “flesh” physically describes the musculature of the body; the skin is the boundary between the world and the flesh, and there is a distinction made between the flesh and the heart or internal organs. Both in animals and men, “flesh” denotes the “meaty” portions of a body.

This is in the background of the use of the word “flesh” in the laws of impurity in Leviticus 12-15. When the flesh breaks through the boundary of the skin, the result is defilement. Flesh/meat coming through the skin is the sign of skin disease, and outflows from the flesh defile. In the latter cases, flesh is clearly a term that describes the genitals (Leviticus 15 especially). This use of flesh is linked to the flesh of circumcision: The sign of covenant membership is a sign in the flesh, not only in the body but in the penis.

This is the starting point for Paul’s use of flesh terminology throughout his letters. A number of these uses refer specifically to the “flesh of the foreskin” (Romans 2:28). A related usage is to describe “descent” or “genealogy.” Jesus is “of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans1:3), and Abraham is “forefather according to the flesh” (Rom 4:1). Paul speaks of his kinsmen according to the flesh (Romans 9:3) and points out that Christ is of the Jews according to flesh (Romans 9:5). Some who are children of the flesh, that is, descended from Abraham or circumcised, but are not children indeed (cf. 11:14). See also the phrase “Israel after the flesh” in 1 Corinthians 10:18.

From this connotation of descent, the term expands to include all the advantages that come with birth and heritage and background.

Paul says in Philippians 3:3f that he puts no confidence in the flesh, though he had reason to. He lists all the “fleshly” advantages and achievements: circumcision in the flesh, that is descent, and from the tribe of Benjamin; Pharisaical commitment to the law; zeal; blamelessness in the law. “Flesh” here covers everything from birth to training and education to heritage to achievements as a member of a particular race and faith. Perhaps we also should hear an echo of “circumcision according to the flesh” here, since all of these advantages and achievements were made while he was identified by the mark in his “flesh.”

When we turn to the more directly “theological” senses of the term, we need to keep these uses in mind. If Paul did not want to connote the physical realities of descent and blood relation, he would have found another word to use. Whatever he is talking about in Galatians is somehow rooted in these concrete historical, sociological, and physical realities.

In Galatians, Paul uses sarx some 18 times (he uses “sin” only 3 times). Several passages at least include sense of “flesh of the foreskin.” In Galatians 3:3, he charges the Galatians with seeking perfection by flesh. The contrast of Spirit and flesh is obvious here. The Spirit initiated the Galatians into Christ, and yet they want to persists in flesh. Specifically, they want to be circumcised, so continuing in flesh means continuing in law and specifically circumcision. They are seeking assurance that they stand before God by being marked in the flesh (6:13). And others want them to be circumcised to “boast in your flesh.” There is a grim irony here: Judaizers want to boast in a pile of foreskins.

6:12 is connected with this, but goes in a slightly different direction. Those who want to “make a good showing in the flesh” compel the Gentiles to be circumcised. They want to exalt in the heritage and the advantages they have in being descended from Abraham. Again, Paul’s language drips with ironic disgust: The Greek word refers to a visible display and would normally carry the connotation of stripping to show the beauty of one’s flesh. Here the “good showing of the flesh” refers to circumcision, which was thought by many pagans to be a form of mutilation. The idea of a “good face” in 6:12 also echoes with 2:6, where Paul says that God does not lift a face, doesn’t show partiality but judges all equitably. The Galatians are seeking God’s pleasure by showing off the beauty of their flesh, that is, they are trying to win God’s favor by identifying with the heritage of Judaism.

One of the very intriguing things here is Paul’s explanation of why the troublers are pursuing the Galatians (4:17-20). He doesn’t use the term “flesh” in these verses, but this passage forms an important background to what Paul says about “flesh” at the end of chapter 4 and in chapter 5. The Judaizers are “zealously” seeking the Galatians. The verb reaches back Paul’s own zeal in chapter 1. Zeal in first-century Judaizm involved rigidly maintenance of the boundaries of purity within Israel. The Judaizers are zealous for the Galatians, but they are being Jewish zealots who want the Galatians to enter the church on Jewish terms. They exercise their “zeal” by excluding. Paul implies that the principle of exclusion is a “fleshly” one. Literally, they exclude those who do not have a mark in their flesh, or, more broadly, exclude those who are not part of the descent of Abraham or Israel. But this exclusion is an attempt to tempt the Galatians to join them. By forming an inner circle of those who are “true sons,” they hope to entice the excluded Galatians to seek to become members of the inner circle.

A community organized according to the “flesh” is necessarily an exclusive community. To be sure, all communities are exclusive in one sense or another, but a “fleshly” community excludes on the basis of descent, of physical abilities, personal achievements. Fleshly communities admit members on the basis of a fixed past - birth and descent - not on the basis of the future. Only those who are “fortunate in birth” can participate fully in a fleshly community. The rest are excluded. Judaism manifests is fleshly exclusiveness by identifying Jews by a mark in the flesh. The Judaizers are not completely exclusive, of course. There is a way to cross the boundary, by receiving a mark on the physical body.

For Paul, fleshly communities are those where the dynamics of exclusion and envy are at work. This is in the background when Paul discusses the “deeds of the flesh” in chapter 5. This list is usually interpreted as an enumeration of the deeds of the sin nature (so the NIV) or as implying that evil desires are located in the body or that flesh is somehow synonymous with selfishness. Without excluding all of those connotations, I think it’s helpful to “socialize” flesh in this passage too. Paul is clearly still talking about the Judaizers. Throughout, they have been associated with the “flesh” (cf. 4:29) and they are persecutors of the ones born of the Spirit (as Paul once was). When Paul gets to the “deeds of the flesh,” he is not generalizing. He is describing how Judaizers behave. He is analyzing what the structures that the Judaizers want to erect will do. In verses 13-15, he warns that freedom is not to be turned into opportunity to flesh and he contrasts the “opportunity of the flesh” with “serving on another.” Selfishness is part of what Paul is attacking; but there seems to be something more going on here. In verse 15, the result of giving opportunity to the flesh is that members of the fleshly community bite and devour one another. They turn into animals, consuming one another. This is the result of a system based on flesh in the sense of descent or flesh in the sense of inclusion b y marking in the flesh. It creates animosity by its very nature. Because there are some who are inside and some who are outside, outsiders resent it, while the insiders cling to their privileges and sharpen the boundaries.

Not all the deeds of the flesh in verses 19ff are easily “socialized.” It is hard to see, for example, how sexual sin is a product of flesh in this sense. But “enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying” are. These are not fleshly in the sense that they arise from the bodily desires, but fleshly in the sense that they characterized a community that makes fleshly descent the be all and end all of inclusion. Those who want to maintain fleshly status will persecute those who try to break down the barriers that ensure their privileges.

Galatians 3:27-29 describes the alternative community of the church, not a community of flesh. Those who are baptized into Christ enter a system where the flesh does not operate, does not structure the community. Fleshly distinctions of Jew/Gentile, slave/free, male/female are irrelevant here, because those baptized into Christ and clothed in Christ are sons of the Spirit.