How to Live

by Jeff Treder


“We live by faith, not by sight.” (2Cor.5:7)  This is the NIV version of one of the most succinct and profound statements in the Bible—one bare-bones clause modified by two bare-bones phrases.  As it is both succinct and profound, we need to examine and unpack it pretty thoroughly in order to gain a good understanding of it.

The “we,” in context, is a distinct group of people. This second of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians is addressed “to the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia.” (1:1)  His first letter to them spelled it out more fully: “To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours.” (1Cor.1:2)  So the statement in 2Cor.5:7 is addressed to Christian believers, people who have committed themselves to following Jesus and trusted in him for their salvation.

The predicate “live” is, more literally from the Greek, “walk.”  But Paul here is clearly using “walk” in its most general sense:  how we organize, plan and conduct our life in this world.  If the Greek peripateo is translated “live,” then we should understand it to mean, in this case, not simply “to be alive” but, again, to organize, plan and conduct our life in this world.

The two modifiers, “by faith” and “by sight,” are contrasted and opposed to each other.  Their meaning in this sentence depends on what Paul wrote a few sentences before: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2Cor.4:16-18)

These sentences establish a supremely important duality, which Paul expresses in three interconnected pairings: outward vs. inward, seen vs. unseen, and temporal vs. eternal. Arranging them differently, we have what is outward, seen and temporal contrasted with what is inward, unseen and eternal.  At this point we may add in the closely related pairings which Paul develops in 1Cor.15:35-49, where the contrast is natural vs. spiritual and earthly vs. heavenly.  With this many terms to juggle, it may help to list them in a chart:

Outward . . . . . . Inward
Seen . . . . . . . . . Unseen
Temporal . . . . . Eternal
Natural  . . . . . .  Spiritual
Earthly  . . . . . .  Heavenly

Our first birth is our natural birth, which is birth into an earthly, temporal and outwardly seen life.  All human beings share this natural life.  But Jesus said that unless we are “born again” (which may also be translated “born from above”), we can neither see nor enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3-8).  Our regeneration—new or spiritual birth—involves both God’s actions and our own.  God chooses and calls us to salvation (see, for instance, Rom.8:28-39, 9:6-24, 1Cor.1:20-31, Eph.1:3-14), and we receive this salvation by believing the gospel message, trusting in Jesus’ sacrificial death on our behalf, and receiving him as our Lord and Savior (see, for instance, John 1:12-13, 3:16, Acts 16:29-34, Rom.10:8-10).

Our spiritual birth in Christ follows the analogy of our natural birth in that both are followed by a process of gradual growth and development.  We are “born again” as a spiritual infant, but this infant lives in the same old, natural body, including the same old brain and nervous system, with all the same old memories, desires, opinions, passions and prejudices (and even teenage converts have established habits, thought patterns, passions and prejudices).  This “old man” (Rom.6:6, Eph.4:22)—or as the NIV renders it, “old self”—is riddled and addled with sin, suffused with sin.  At this point, however, the teaching of the New Testament presents us with a conceptual difficulty.  On the one hand, our old self is said to have been crucified with Christ and done away with (Rom.6:6, 2Cor.5:17, Gal.2:20), while on the other hand we are exhorted to keep on “putting off” or discarding our old self and all its corruption (Eph.4:22-24, Col.3:5-10).  How can our old self be dead and gone and also be something we have to wrestle off like a sort of poisoned shirt?

To answer this, we need to understand that the term “old man” or “old self” can, in different contexts, refer to two quite distinct things.  My old self which is dead and gone forever is my independent self, the life I lived independent of God before my conversion.  Now that, by the grace of God and through faith in Christ (Eph.2:8), I am alive in Christ, my life—my new self—is completely dependent on him.  (My old, merely natural life was also completely dependent on him, but I didn’t realize or acknowledge it; I thought of myself as independent and gloried in it.)  Now I no longer have any life that is independent of Christ.  He has become my life (Col.3:1-4), and I have become a participant in the great truth that there is no genuine or complete life apart from him.  When I sin—that is, when in thought or action I disobey him—I am simply behaving as though I still had an independent life of my own.  I am being untrue to my truest self.

The “old man” or “old self,” however, can also refer to all the sinful remnants still very much present in my physical body.  This is the old self which Paul also calls “the flesh” in Romans 7 and 8 as well as in other passages.  The NIV translates this less literally and more interpretively as “the sinful nature.”  The literal term “flesh” emphasizes that the moral struggle we undergo as believers is located in our body—our mind, emotions, and physical parts—a struggle which Paul expresses most dramatically in Romans 7:7-25.  The translation “sinful nature” brings out that our body is not sinful in itself, it is simply the vehicle for our old self in the sense of all those old memories, desires, opinions, passions and prejudices—the old self which we are exhorted to “put off.” It’s important to understand in particular that our mind, our conscious thinking process, depends physically on our brain, and our brain needs to be converted as much as any other part of our body.  Indeed, our brain is the most critical battleground in the struggle between the spirit and the flesh, as Paul indicated when he told us, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Rom.12:2)

This struggle between “the flesh” and “the spirit”—or “the mind controlled by the Spirit” (Rom.8:6)—begins when we are born again as a spiritual infant.  Being born spiritually in the same old body means that we have to grow up spiritually in a rough neighborhood.  Just as natural children need good caregivers, so do spiritual children.  We need good spiritual caregivers who will befriend us, pray with us, help us to understand and follow the Scriptures, and lead us into spiritual maturity.  More generally, we need the fellowship of other believers in worship, conversation, and serving together (see 1Cor.12 and 1John 1:3-7).  It is essential to realize that my “new self” is the real me.  The remnants of my old self—bad habits, wrong ideas, sinful passions—are false and outdated versions of who I really am in Christ.  As Paul put it, when he sinned, “it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.” (Rom.7:17)  We are, of course, still responsible when we sin, and we need to confess it and repent of it (1John 1:8-10).  But the sins of our “flesh” are false to our real self and opposed to it, and therefore we need to subdue our sinful flesh and, as it were, colonize it and ultimately convert it into a mind and body gladly obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ.

We can win this struggle—indeed, the New Testament constantly exhorts and urges us to get on with it.  Our spiritual growth in Christ is a process; growth is always a process.  It is enabled and empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit, in fulfillment of the promises that God gave through the prophets:  “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (Ezek.36:26-27)  The indwelling Holy Spirit gives us the desire and motivation and power to obey God, and our responsibility is to actually do it.  Paul scolded the Corinthians for their sluggish spiritual growth:  “Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?” (1Cor.3:1-3; see also Heb.5:11-6:3)

Writing to the Philippians, Paul gave precise expression to God’s role and our role in the process of spiritual growth:  “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Php.2:12-13)  God works in us and we work out our salvation; both of these actions happen simultaneously every time I obey God.  If even Jesus “learned obedience from what he suffered” (Heb.5:8) during his earthly life, all the more will learning obedience involve, for us, strenuous effort and suffering.  “For this very reason,” Peter wrote, “make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.  For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2Peter 1:5-8)  Our struggle to overcome and “colonize” our sinful flesh (mind, emotions, physical passions) brings us into and through the same kinds of suffering that Jesus endured during his temptation in the wilderness; but as Paul said, “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (Rom.5:3-5)

This process of spiritual growth—this struggle, this effort, this suffering—takes time. It takes a lifetime, but it’s a lifetime that gets better and better, and it’s the starting point of our eternal life with Jesus.  “We rejoice”!

It may seem that all this has taken us far away from the simple statement, “We live by faith, not by sight,” but it’s all part of the package.  To recap, the “we” are born-again believers, and how we “live” is how we organize, plan and conduct our life in this world.  “By faith” means by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we are in a covenant relationship with the triune God.  Jesus is the living Word, the fullest revelation to us of who God is; and the Bible is his written word, giving us information and directions on how to live.  Through God’s self-revelation and our faith, we become aware of that spiritual world which is (recalling the chart of dualities) inward, unseen, eternal, and heavenly.  The problem is that our “flesh”—consisting of all those natural capacities that are still with us as we grow in Christ—evaluates things according to what is outward, seen, temporal, and earthly. To our fleshly, worldly, natural mind—the as yet unconverted parts of our mind—only those things that can be apprehended by our physical senses and comprehended by our natural intelligence can be regarded as having real, solid, certain existence.  The whole spiritual realm—God, heaven, sin, salvation—seems to our natural mind to be a vast work of human imagination, generated from time immemorial by psychological fears and hopes.  As Paul stated of the natural, unconverted man, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1Cor.2:14)  Insofar as we who are in Christ still process our life experience through this fleshly, worldly grid, we will be confused and conflicted.  As the apostle James put it, we will be “double-minded”: “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” (James 1:5-8)  Our natural intelligence is fine for things like making a lasagne or changing a tire, but if we try to figure out the meaning and purpose of our life on that basis, we will get it wrong every time.  The Bible warned us about this a long time ago:  “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Prov.3:5-6)  Making our paths straight has to do with how we understand the big picture, and the choices we need to make to align ourselves with God’s purpose for our life.

All of this stands behind the statement that “we live by faith, not by sight.”  To the extent that we organize, plan and conduct our life according to our natural capacities alone—“by sight”—we are missing out on the main source of information and direction for our real life.  Note carefully:  the created world, the natural universe, is fully real, but it is not the primary reality.  It is finite and temporal, limited in many ways and temporary in duration.  It will eventually be destroyed and be replaced by an entire new creation (see 2Peter 3:10-13, Rev.21:1). When we are born again in Christ, our reborn spirit, residing still in our mortal “tent” (see 2Cor.5:1-5), becomes part of that new creation ahead of time, so to speak.  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2Cor.5:17)  That is to say, the old, independent self has gone; the new me has come, but has been born into the same old body.  The new me is the real me, and I (real me) am attuned to the primary reality, which is the kingdom of God.  As Jesus told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36)  No, it’s not of this world, it’s far greater than this world, incomparably greater.  This world is seen outwardly by our natural senses; Christ’s kingdom is perceived and known inwardly, in our spiritual heart, through the indwelling Holy Spirit—the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ.  This world is passing away (1Cor.7:29-31, 1John 2:17), but the kingdom of God cannot be shaken and will last forever.  In our present state, heaven is unseen, but it is more real than what can be seen because it is eternal.  God himself is the higher, greater, everlasting reality, immeasurably greater than this world which he has created and which he will destroy.  Therefore to live by faith—to organize, plan and conduct our life by trusting in Christ and obeying his word—makes good sense.  It’s much, much better to be in touch with reality than to be out of touch.  Especially when that reality is Jesus Christ.