Flesh Does Not Mean "Sinful Nature."

People talk about “flesh” as though it is a separate entity from themselves.  “I was in the flesh today,” as someone might say because they hurt someone, whether verbally or physically, because they lost their temper.  

Flesh is nothing but an inanimate conglomerate of biological tissue, it has no moral quality.  If one lost their temper today it was the person who lost their temper, and cannot blame it on “flesh.”

It is sinful to walk according to the flesh (2 Cor. 10:2), which means to be living to gratify our flesh in sinful indulgence, but it is not sinful to walk in the flesh (2 Cor. 10:3.)

Flesh is not sinful in itself. Jesus had flesh (Luke 24:39, John 1:14, 1 Tim. 3:16, 1 Jn. 4:3, 2 Jn. 1:7).

Jesus had the same type of flesh that we have (Heb. 2:14; Heb. 2:17).

Jesus was made in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3 - flesh that had sinned, not because of their nature they are supposedly born with as falsely taught by using the term "sinful nature," but by application). 

The word "flesh" at times is synonymous with men (Gen. 6:12, Matt. 16:17), but it never has to do with some “other self” that co-exists, striving for supremacy.  This is philosophy, not Bible truth.

Rom. 8:13 

“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”

Note how flesh has to do with the deeds of the body.  What manifests in the body is what proceeds from the heart of a person.   

But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.  For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.  Matt. 15-18-20 

Sarx = flesh, as in body of flesh, and nothing more. “Sinful flesh” is flesh that has been allowed to selfishly indulge. The flesh is sinful or righteous only in its application, that is, as it is used by a moral agent.