Welcome to the fifth and final installment of our series on biblical theology. In this module we’ve been defining biblical theology as the study of God's plans and purposes as they are revealed progressively in his dealings with humanity.
So far we’ve introduced some tools for doing biblical theology, and done two extensive worked examples. First, Matt took us through a biblical theology of the temple, which was an example of a snapshot biblical theology. Then last week we did a biblical theology of sanctification, which was an example of a cyclic biblical theology. This week we’re going to a biblical theology of God’s Spirit among God’s people, which is an example of a convergent biblical theology.
The goal of a convergent biblical theology is to trace the development of two or more ideas throughout the bible. They start out as separate and loosely connected, and over the course of the story become intertwined with one another. In the convergent biblical theology we’re looking at tonight, we’ll trace this development through four stages.
Introductions
We are introduced to God’s Spirit and God’s people separately in the Bible. The Spirit shows up first on the first page Bible, when God is creating the world:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Gen 1:1–2)
This is how God’s Spirit is introduced to us in the Bible. Throughout the rest of the Bible this idea gets developed, and we see that God’s Spirit is how he makes his presence known in his creation, bringing about his will on earth. At the most basic level, God holds everything in being and gives life to everything through his Spirit: “When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.” (Ps 104:30)
A few chapters later we are introduced to God’s special people, when he calls Abraham and promises to fix the problem of sin through him and his descendants:
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen 12:1–3)
You’ll recall in the first session, when we went through the Bible timeline, that the line split when it got to Abraham, because by making these promises to him God was distinguishing his family from the nations around him.
That’s how we’re introduced to these two ideas: God’s people are the descendants of Abraham through whom God will bless the world, and God’s Spirit is who he establishes his will on earth, fundamentally through sustaining creation.
Stage 1: Moses’s dream for God’s people
Abraham’s descendants eventually become the nation of Israel, and within this nation we see God’s Spirit establishing God’s will in more special ways. Through Moses, God redeems them from Egypt and brings them to himself, where they have a meet-and-greet on Mount Sinai and then wander through the wilderness together.
While in the wilderness, the people start complaining and demanding that they be given meat to eat—because the miraculous bread from the sky was not enough for them. Both God and Moses got fed up with them, and Moses himself started complaining to God about the burden of leading these people. In response, God said he would establish special leaders under Moses who could spread the load of leading these ungrateful people. Notice what this means for God’s Spirit:
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you.
And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone. (Nu 11:16–17)
At this point in the story we haven’t been explicitly told that God’s Spirit was on Moses, but we can see from this that the Spirit was already working in Moses to help him lead Israel. In other words, the Spirit was establishing God’s will for his people, through the leadership of Moses. So, in order to make some more leaders for Israel God would need to spread the Spirit among them. And a few verses later this is precisely what he does:
So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. And he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them round the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it. (Nu 11:24–25)
Presumably the elders were called to the tent so that they would not freak out the people of Israel when they spontaneously broke out in prophecy as the Spirit came upon them. And actually, that’s exactly what happened when because two of the selected elders didn’t come to the tent with the rest of them. Thus, immediately after this verse we read this story:
Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp.
And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” (Nu 11:26–29)
When the two elders who stayed back started prophesying, the people thought it was a problem and tried to get Moses to do something about it. In his response to them, Moses states what I refer to as “Moses’s dream for God’s people”, that God would give his Spirit to all his people, rather than just a select few.
So, within God’s people, God’s Spirit is given to the leaders to help them lead Israel in accordance with God’s will. The purpose of the Spirit in general is to be God’s active presence in the world, and his special purpose among God’s people is to guide them to live with him properly.
It may come as a surprise to some of us that when the Spirit is given to help people lead Israel, that he also causes them to prophecy. These days we tend to think of prophecy as being primarily about telling the future. But while biblical prophets do sometimes tell the future, that’s not their primary job—their job is to communicate God’s will to his people. Moses was the first prophet of Israel, who defined what it meant to be a prophet among God’s people, and he did very little talking about the future. When we look at the books of the prophets that we have in the Old Testament, we see that their job was to call Israel back to God, or to encourage them to rebuild the temple, or to remind them to be obedient as they wait for God to return. They speak about the future mostly as part of this job, to warn Israel about the consequences of their actions, or to inspire hope. God actually gives us a definition of prophecy when speaking to Moses, and we can see that it’s not first and foremost about predicting the future:
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. (Deut 18:18–19)
Here we see that a prophet is primarily a representative of God, speaking on his behalf. It is because of this that whoever rejects the prophet thereby also rejects God.
Given that prophecy is about communicating God’s will rather than telling the future, we can understand why some prophets weren’t messengers in the traditional sense, but were singers and musicians. When Samuel was preparing Saul for receiving God’s Spirit as Israel’s first king, he spoke of some of these “musician-prophets” who he would meet:
And there, as soon as you come to the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre before them, prophesying.
Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you. (1 Sam 10:6–7, cf. 1 Chr 25:1)
These people probably weren’t singing about the future, but singing praises to God and declaring his wondrous works, encouraging those around them to love him.
So, coming back to our earlier passage, it shouldn’t surprise us that the prophecy and leadership were so closely linked here. The leaders were to establish God’s will within the people, and prophets were to communicate God’s will to his people. Other people were also given God’s Spirit in Israel, and it was always related to leadership or bringing about God’s will in some special way:
The judges were given his Spirit to save Israel from foreign rule and lead them
The kings were given his Spirit to lead Israel in obedience to his law
The prophets were given his Spirit to call Israel back to him
And the people who constructed the tabernacle were given his Spirit, so that they might construct it in accordance with his instructions
In summary, then, with Israel God worked through his Spirit to lead them and communicate his will to them. But he only worked through select groups within his people, and Moses dreamed of the day when the gift of God’s Spirit would be given to everyone.
Stage 2: The day of the Lord
We know by now that Israel rejected God. God sent prophets to warn them about the consequences of what would happen if they continued to sin, and called them to repentance so that he could forgive them. But they continued in their sin, and were eventually taken into exile as judgement.
The prophets who warned about the exile also spoke about what life would be after the exile. In that day, God would return and judge the evil in the world. He would judge the nations that had oppressed Israel, and he would also make a distinction within his people between those who were faithful to him and those who were not:
For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. (Ezk 34:11)
As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and male goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture; and to drink of clear water, that you must muddy the rest of the water with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have muddied with your feet? (Ezk 34:18–19)
Notice how he starts by saying he will judge his flock, and make a distinction between those sheep who practice injustice and those sheep who suffer because of it. But by the end, he only refers to one set of them as his sheep. This marks a development in the understanding of who God’s people are: God had always desired his people to be faithful to him, but now it’s causing him to make a distinction within his people, between the descendants of Abraham who are faithful, and those who are not.
This future day of judgement eventually came to be called the “day of the Lord”. What was interesting about this day is that it wasn’t just a return to how things were before the exile, but a renewal of things to a better state than they were. God’s people would prosper, the nations would be blessed, and the entire world would flourish in a way that had not been seen before.
From the various prophets we can piece together a more complete picture of the day of the Lord: God would judge all the evil of the world, he would renew things better than they were, he would resurrect his people from the dead, and his would pour out his Spirit on all of his people, just as Moses had dreamed:
And it shall come to pass afterwards, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. (Joel 2:28–29)
In the context of the book of Joel, the phrase “all flesh” should not be understood as referring to all people, but all of God’s people. Joel’s point was that it won’t just be the leaders, or the prophets, or the tabernacle builders who will have God’s Spirit, but all of his people, including the slaves of Israel.
Ezekiel also spoke of the Spirit coming upon all of God’s people. Notice what he emphasizes in the following passage:
I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land.
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. (Ezk 36:24–28)
In this passage, the people of Israel are being brought back from exile and being filled with God’s Spirit, again in fulfillment of Moses’s dream. This time God’s Spirit establishes his will on earth by making all his people follow his law, in contrast to the disobedience that led them into exile in the first place (cf. Ezk 37:23).
With the prophets, then, Israel were looking forward to a future day of the Lord. On this day, we see the ideas of God’s people and God’s Spirit developing and converging on one another: whereas before it was a select group of people who received God’s Spirit, on this day all of God’s people will have his Spirit, and through him they will all follow his will.
Stage 3: The beginning of the end
Israel eventually returned from exile, but God didn’t return with them. They rebuilt the temple, but God only returned hundreds of years later in the person of Jesus. During his time on earth, Jesus occasionally ministered to the Gentiles and eventually commanded his disciples to make disciples of the nations. At the time this would’ve been a slightly confusing thing for the Jewish Messiah to do—we’ve been seeing so far that God’s people were the faithful descendants of Abraham, not just anyone from any nation.
After Jesus ascended and the Holy Spirit came upon the first disciples, they began speaking in all different languages, and Peter understood this as the beginning of the fulfillment of what Joel had promised back in the day. In Peter’s first sermon he quotes the passage of Joel that we looked at earlier (Acts 2:14ff).
Initially the gospel was preached to the Jews, the announcement that their Messiah had come and had defeated death itself. As these Jews believed they were saved and the Spirit immediately came upon them (Acts 2:38). Over time, the message spread out to the Samaritans, who also received the Spirit (8:14–17). And after an interesting dream from God (10:9ff), Peter preached the gospel to the Gentiles, and the Holy Spirit came on them as well:
While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. (Acts 10:44–45)
Now, it’s easy for us to forget how strange this situation was: since there had been a people of God, they had been the descendants of Abraham living under the law of Israel given at Mount Sinai. Up until this point the way Gentiles could participate as God’s people was to become Israelites, by being circumcised and following the law of Moses. And so, when these first Gentiles started following the Jewish Messiah, we would expect them to do just this—to make themselves Jews. That’s exactly what some of the Jews thought as well:
But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. (Acts 15:1–2)
The requirement that they “circumcised according to the custom of Moses” was a way of saying that these Gentiles should become Jews. A few verses later the same requirement is repeated in different words, and they say, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” The passage continues:
The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.
And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.
Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” (Acts 15:6–11)
This is some earth-shattering stuff. Peter argued that because the Holy Spirit had come upon the Gentiles simply because of their faith, they should not be required to become Jews in order to be part of God’s people. But, since the beginning it was the Jews who were God’s people, and they had been given laws to distinguish themselves from the Gentiles who were not God’s people.
When the prophets spoke about the day when all of God’s people would receive God’s Spirit, they had in mind the faithful descendants of Abraham. But here we see things get more complicated: the Spirit isn’t just coming upon God’s people, the Spirit is defining who God’s people are. So, because of Jesus, God’s Spirit and God’s people became intertwined in a way that they had never been before.
But this raises the question: if the people of God can be those who are not descended from Abraham, then what does that mean for the promises to Abraham? In his letters to the Romans and the Galatians, Paul argues that the Spirit’s coming upon the Gentiles implies we need to rethink what it means to be a descendant of Abraham. Rather than reckoning the descendants of Abraham according to human descent, we need to reckon them according to those who share in his faith:
Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith – just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. (Gal 3:5–9)
(This is why, in the Bible timeline from the first week, the lower line representing God’s people and the upper line representing the nations became merged after Jesus.)
As he had promised through the prophet Joel, God gave his Spirit to all of his people. But he did so in such a way that forces us to rethink what it means to be the people of God. Now the people of God are no longer the physical descendants of Abraham, but those of us who are counted as descendants of Abraham because of the faith we share with him.
God also fulfilled the promise he made through Ezekiel, that by his Spirit he would produce obedience in his people. The outward evidence of the indwelling of the Spirit are the gifts like tongues and prophecy, but the fundamental work of the Spirit in believers is twofold. First, he convicts us of our adoption as children of God:
… you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Rom 8:15–17)
And second, he convicts that one day we will be made fully righteous, when Jesus returns:
For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. (Gal 5:5)
We’ll have more to say about this future glory and righteousness in a minute, but right now I want us to see that this work of the Spirit produces in us produces the fruit of love, which is the fulfillment of what God promised through Ezekiel. Recall that God said through Ezekiel: “I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezk 36:27) Now, in Galatians 5, a few verses after saying that through the Spirit we have the hope of righteousness, Paul explains that the fruit of this is the fulfillment of God’s law:
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
But the fruit of the Spirit is love: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Gal 5:14, 22–23)
In summary, then, the ideas of God’s Spirit and God’s people were originally introduced to us as separate, and have gradually converged onto one another in the course of the biblical story. First the Spirit worked through select members of God’s people, then the prophets looked forward to the day when all of Israel would have the Spirit. But because of Jesus, the Spirit came to define who God’s people were, including the Gentiles. And so our understanding of God’s people has transitioned from being the faithful descendants of Abraham, to those who are descendants of Abraham by their faith in Jesus, both Jew and Gentile.
At this point we may wonder how there could be another stage of convergence between God’s people and God’s Spirit. But there is, and it has to do with the strange way in God’s Spirit exists in us today.
Stage 4: The end of the end
The Spirit can live in us now because our sins have been forgiven through Jesus. But we’re still frail human beings: we’re weak, mortal, corruptible, and prone to sin. If we want to live with God perfectly then this flaw in us needs to be fixed, and this will happen on the last day when we are resurrected, when the Spirit rebuilds us into perfect human beings. This is what Paul has in mind when he talks about the “hope of righteousness”, or when he talks about us being glorified with Jesus. But Paul also describes it as the “redemption of our bodies”, and it’s important for us to properly understand what he means by this:
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God
And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Rom 8:18–19, 23)
Now, a fairly common way for Christians to think about heaven these days is that when we die we will be freed from our bodies, and go to this immaterial place called heaven. But, this is not how the biblical authors think about things. In this passage were just quoted, Paul doesn’t speak about the redemption from our bodies as if they were the things we had to escape, but the redemption of our bodies because we need to be cleansed of our mortality and susceptibility to sin. As humans we are embodied creatures, and our bodies are the means by which we do everything: we think through our bodies, we interact with others, and we relate to everything through them. So when Paul speaks about the redemption of our bodies, he’s talking about the redemption of our inner being, the fundamental way we engage in life as human beings.
When the Old Testament prophets spoke about the day of the Lord, they pictured it as a single moment when God would end the old order of things and establish a new order that would surpass it. The old order is mortal and corruptible, which is why it fell into sin and hostility to God in the first place, but the new order will be different.
But what actually happened was a bit more complicated: when Jesus came he brought in the new order ahead of time, while the old order was still around, causing an overlap (or “twilight age”) between the orders. It is this overlap that we now find ourselves in until Jesus comes back again.
Because of this, all the elements of the end times already exist today in this already-but-not-yet state. We have a foretaste of the new order, and are waiting for it to come in full when the old order ends:
The nations are already blessed because Gentiles now have access to God through faith, but one day it will mean no pain, weakness, or crying.
God has already judged the evil of the world by defeating the power of sin, but one day he will judge those who continue to reject him and will defeat death itself.
The resurrection has already begun with Jesus, but one day we will also be raised.
And God’s Spirit already lives in our mortal bodies ahead of time, but one day our bodies will be redeemed and we will be able to serve him perfectly.
Paul describes this already-but-not-yet situation in the same chapter of Romans:
If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Rom 8:10–11)
Again, notice that Paul is not saying that the Spirit will give us life by removing our bodies, but that he will give life to our bodies on the future day when we are resurrected like Jesus was. NT Wright describes it well when he says that “Jesus had as it were gone through death and out the other side into a new form of physicality for which there was no previous example and of which there remains no subsequent example.” It’s important that we understand this, because it helps us to understand what the New Testament authors have to say about our resurrected bodies, and the close connection we will have with the Spirit in the new order. The clearest example of this is in 1 Corinthians:
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. (1 Cor 15:35–37)
Paul is addressing a potential question someone might raise to his teaching about the resurrection from the dead. Using the analogy of a seed, he explains that we will have a body in the resurrection, but it will be different to our current bodies, and in order to get there our current bodies need to die first. As he continues:
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1 Cor 15:42–45)
So here we see the analogy being worked out: our current bodies are perishable, dishonored, weak, and natural; and they will be raised imperishable, glorious, powerful, and spiritual.
Now, on the face of it, this description of our resurrected bodies as “spiritual” is problematic for two reasons. First, the word “spiritual” for us tends to refer to immaterial things, and word “body” tends to refer to something material. The phrase “spiritual body” therefore sounds like a contradiction. And second, he says our resurrection will be like Jesus, and we know that Jesus’s resurrected body was physical, so why does he refer to our future body as spiritual? These problems dissolve once we appreciate what Paul is actually trying to say. While it’s a bit ambiguous in English, in the original language it is clear that he’s not talking about what our bodies will be made of, but rather how they will operate. It’s similar to how we describe a boat as being a steam boat—we don’t mean that the boat is made out of steam, but that it operates by steam power. Likewise, Paul is not saying that we will have non-physical bodies (whatever that would mean), but rather that our bodies will operate by the power of God’s Spirit rather than how they do now, by their own natural principles. Essentially, we will follow Jesus through death out the other side, where the Spirit will remake us in such a way that we will never decay, sin, or die again, and we will have a life with God that can never be taken from us.
So, when Jesus returns the convergence between God’s people and God’s Spirit will be complete. God’s Spirit will not only define who God’s people are, but he will remake us with redeemed bodies. In doing so, he will weave God’s will into our very being, in complete fulfillment of what he promised through Ezekiel. In closing, listen to how Paul continues with his description of the last day:
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Cor 15:50–58)
That last sentence explains how we are to think of life here in the twilight age between the two orders: the Spirit living in us now is a guarantee that one day the Spirit will remake us in glory with Jesus. So, keep going until the end, and take hold of the glorious future that God has prepared, knowing that your efforts will not be wasted. Amen.
Short answers for anticipated questions
Why did you translate the fruit of the Spirit in Gal 5 with a colon?
The Greek can be translated either with a colon or as a list. The colon indicates that the fruit is love with all the others are what make that up, whereas the list puts love alongside the other fruit. From the context of Galatians 5, it seems that the colon is the better way to punctuate it. In fact, I think the best way to translate it would be if we had something between a comma and a colon, where love is taken to be the highest rank fruit of the Spirit. As one commentator puts it nicely:
At the head of the list is “love,” which Christianity takes as its moving principle—not being, perhaps, alone in this, but alone in the systematic consistency with which it is carried out.
Doesn’t Paul say that the flesh will be destroyed?
Yes, for instance:
When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. (1 Cor 5:5)
There are basically two senses of flesh. First, it distinguishes human frailty and creatureliness from God the creator. And second, it refers to fallen humanity. It’s in this second sense that Paul primarily uses it. On the other hand, Paul uses the term “body” in a mostly neutral sense, and so will qualify it when needed: a “body of death” (Rom 7:24) or “body as a living sacrifice” (Rom 12:1). So, fallen humanity (flesh) will end, but our bodies will be transformed.