The Slavery of Death

by Richard Beck

cases, sarx creates hostility and rebellion toward God. What can account for these disparate meanings? What did sarx—flesh—mean for Paul? According to Dunn, 1 Corinthians 15:35–50 offers a theological clue. In his discussion of the resurrection Paul plainly communicates that our resurrected state will be bodily in nature (Paul’s word for body in this passage is soma). Paul is clear that the heavenly existence will have soma, embodiment. Each “natural body [soma]” will change into a “spiritual body [soma].” While soma/body will be carried forward in the resurrection, sarx will be left behind. As Paul explains in verse 50, “flesh [sarx] and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” Sarx is here linked with the notion of perishability, the fact that our flesh is corruptible and subject to decay and death. We are mortal. We don’t escape our bodies (soma) at the resurrection. Rather, our bodies shed sarx—their vulnerability to death—as the “mortal takes on immortality.” According to Dunn, the association between sarx and mortality is what gives sarx a consistent and coherent meaning in Paul’s writings. Dunn writes, [Sarx denotes] what we might describe as human mortality. It is the continuum of human mortality, the person characterized and conditioned by human frailty, which gives sarx its spectrum of meaning and which provides the link between Paul’s different uses of the term.3 Sarx is mortal, animal flesh. In some contexts th...