In our contrast between the natural bodies we have in this fallen world and the spiritual bodies we will receive when God glorifies His people, we are tapping into something that should appeal to every believer in his longing to be free from sin. It appears that in the RSV, the word natural (NIV, NASB, ESV, KJV etc) in verse 44, is translated physical. This is misleading (Grudem). The reason it is misleading is because the contrast, as we have seen, is not between the physical and non-physical, but between natural and spiritual.

The believer who has struggled long and hard under the scourge of sin will welcome this thought with great joy. Cutting through to the heart of this word natural (psychikos), it refers to the physical body as driven by the natural, fallen instinct of man. The body that is sown here in its natural state is the body that craves and longs for sin. I was just reading in Jeremiah a moment ago. In 2:31, the LORD asks the generation to whom He is speaking, "Have I been a desert to Israel or a land of great darkness? Why do my people say, ‘We are free to roam; we will come to you no more’”?

This is the very thing the natural body does. It is driven, motivated, moved by fleshly desires. It yearns for sinful pleasure. It is urged on by the illusion that there is something big and valuable out there apart from God and if you don’t pursue it right now you are going to lose out in a big way. The sinful hankerings in the natural body are surely the thing that cause you the most distress in your earthbound state. If only you were free to worship the LORD in the absence this diabolical, adulterous, lusting principle in your heart that relentlessly rips at your heart. You can’t focus, you can’t think, you can’t meditate, you can’t pray, you can’t delight in an enchanting quiet moment with your Maker without the hellish screams of sin overdriving your eardrums. Every moment you determine to utilise in the memorisation of the soul-feeding Word of God, the flesh immediately throws a tantrum on the floor like an unruly child, demanding attention.

You close your eyes to pray and your mind wanders almost immediately. You set your hand to serve in the body of Christ and immediately the flesh demands prominence and applause. You hear a criticism levelled at you and immediately, without questioning whether that criticism may be true or not, the flesh shrieks your own innocence and the folly of the critic. The flesh makes your damning folly an impenetrable tower around you, shielding your soul from every sanctifying influence, while swinging wide the back-gate for every foul and detestable secret sin that fills a saint’s heart with putrid sludge.