Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
How the apostle's saying, which the heretics abuse, ought rightly to be taken: 'Flesh and blood cannot lay claim to God's kingdom.'
This is likewise what the Apostle states in another place: 'a body of flesh and blood has no share in inheriting God's reign' (1 Cor. 15:50). This is the passage that every heretic drags forward as tinder for their raving, and by it they likewise attempt to restrain us and to argue that saving God's handiwork lies beyond possibility — failing to notice that man, as we have already demonstrated, is composed of three parts: flesh, soul, and spirit. Of these, one, namely the Spirit, gives shape and salvation; a second, joined to it and thereby shaped, is the flesh; and standing between the pair is the soul, which at times, following the spirit's lead, is drawn upward by it, and at other times, siding with the flesh, slides down into earthbound cravings. All those, then, who lack the shaping, saving element unto life will thus be, and will be named, flesh and blood, seeing they hold none of God's Spirit within. For that reason such people are termed 'dead' by the Lord as well: 'Leave the dead,' he says, 'to bury their own dead,' inasmuch as they lack the Spirit who confers life on man. Yet those who revere God and trust in his coming, and who fix God's Spirit in their hearts by faith, will rightly be termed men — pure, spiritual, and alive unto God — because they possess the Father's Spirit, who purifies man and raises him into God's own life.
For just as the Lord testified, 'the flesh is feeble, though the spirit stands eager.' This eagerness of the Spirit is what has the power to bring about whatever lies within its readiness. If, then, this eagerness of the Spirit is joined as a kind of goad to the feebleness of the flesh, it follows of necessity that the stronger thing must overpower the weaker, so that the flesh's feebleness gets absorbed into the Spirit's might; and thus does the man, carnal no longer but now spiritual, come to be through fellowship with the Spirit. In just this way the martyrs give their testimony and scorn death — not on the strength of fleshly feebleness, but through the Spirit's eagerness. For once absorbed, the flesh's feebleness reveals how mighty the Spirit is; and the Spirit, absorbing that weakness in turn, claims the flesh as its own possession; and from the union of both a living man results — living through sharing in the Spirit, man through the substance of the flesh. Flesh, then, apart from God's Spirit, is a corpse, devoid of life, and it cannot lay claim to God's kingdom: its blood runs senseless, like water spilled upon the ground. Hence his words, 'such as the earthly one, so likewise those who are earthly' (1 Cor. 15:48). But wherever the Father's Spirit dwells, there stands a living man, blood kept sensible for God's approval, flesh taken over by the Spirit — unmindful, granted, of its own nature, yet assuming the Spirit's character, brought into conformity with God's Word. Hence, too, his statement: 'just as we carried the likeness of the man made of earth, so let us also carry the likeness of the one from heaven' (1 Cor. 15:49).
What, then, belongs to earth? The handiwork. And what belongs to heaven? The Spirit. Just as, then, he states, apart from the heavenly Spirit we once dwelt in flesh grown stale, disobedient to God, so now, having taken the Spirit, let us walk in a renewed life, obedient to God. Since, then, salvation apart from God's Spirit is impossible for us, the Apostle urges us to guard God's Spirit through faith and a pure course of life, so that, having failed to share in the Holy Spirit, we might not forfeit heaven's reign; and he pronounced that flesh and blood by themselves cannot lay claim to God's kingdom. For, in truth, the flesh does not claim possession but is itself claimed as a possession; just as the Lord likewise stated: 'Happy are the gentle, for the earth shall come to them as their portion' — as though the earth were held as a portion inside the kingdom, from which the very stuff of our flesh is taken. And so he intends the world to serve as a temple, so that in it God's Spirit might find delight, as a groom delights in his bride. Just as, then, the bride cannot seize the groom on her own initiative, but is instead taken hold of once the groom arrives and receives her, so too can this flesh never, by itself alone, lay claim to God's kingdom as a portion; yet it can be held as a portion within the kingdom by the Spirit. For it is the living one who claims as a portion the things that are dead; and there is a difference between holding something as a portion and being held as a portion oneself. The one who holds rules, presides, and disposes of his portion as he chooses; those held are subordinate, obedient, governed by him, and under the sway of their possessor. What, then, is the living thing here? Plainly, God's Spirit. And what are the dead things? Plainly, the parts of man, which likewise decay back into the earth. These are claimed by the Spirit and carried over into heaven's reign. For this cause Christ also died, so that the Gospel's testament, unsealed and proclaimed before all the world, might first set his servants free, and afterward install them as heirs of what belongs to him — the Spirit claiming them as its portion, as we have already shown. For the living one claims a portion, whereas the flesh is what gets acquired as a portion. So that we might not, by losing the Spirit who claims us, forfeit life — the Apostle, urging us toward fellowship with the Spirit, following the argument already laid out, said: 'flesh and blood cannot lay claim to God's kingdom.' It is as though he said: Do not wander astray; for unless God's Word makes its home in you, and the Father's Spirit resides in you, and instead you drift along emptily however chance carries you, being nothing but flesh and blood, God's kingdom cannot become yours...