Romans 8:5

Romans 8:5

Romans 8:5 says, "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit." The flesh speaks of that which is carnal. It is the human life without God. No one can serve or worship God through a purely physical or material means. That which is flesh is flesh, and that which is spiritual is spiritual. God is a spirit, and we can only know and be in contact with God through the Spirit. Anyone who knows God has come to know Him through the Spirit. There is a contrast between the flesh and the spirit. The flesh signifies human selfishness. When a human makes his decision and goes his own way, he is living according to the flesh. On the other hand, to be sensitive to the leading of the Spirit requires a certain denial of one’s self and one’s own will. You will either go the way of the flesh or the way of the Spirit.

Each person will choose to either go the way of the flesh or to go the way of the Spirit. Each person will choose either to go their own way or to go God’s way. Whoever chooses to go the way of the flesh will find a very definite result of having chosen that way, and whoever chooses to go the way of the Spirit will also find a definite result from going that way. There is a difference between the flesh and the Spirit and there is a difference in the consequences. Rom. 8:6 mentions the consequences of living according to the flesh and living according to the Spirit. It talks about the consequences of going your own way or going God’s way. It says, "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

The scripture says that to be carnally minded is death. It’s the worst kind of death because it is spiritual death. The greatest problems of the world are spiritual problems. The pride and the prejudice, the greed and the crime, and the immorality are all a result of spiritual problems. They are the deeds that proceed from those who are carnally minded. The ultimate result of all of these deeds and of going one’s own way is death. Death has many sorrows to it. When we think of death, perhaps we think of suffering or the vanity of life or the brevity of life. Death is also a loss and the end of the opportunity to experience the privileges and opportunities of this life. To be carnally minded is death because it’s the loss of being guided by the spirit, and the loss of the chance to live by the spirit.

We humans are very strange creatures at times, are we not? How proud and vain we sometimes are. Can it be that a mere mortal would think it possible to benefit from going his own way instead of God’s way? And yet it happens so often. If the great and infinite and all-powerful God has chosen a way for me, and I be so stubborn or so foolish to not go that way; how can I expect any result apart from that which is listed here: to be carnally minded is death. No matter how much money they make, or how much fame or popularity that they have grabbed for, one last fate awaits them. As their appointed death draws the last few breaths from their being, they may have one last chance to go with God, and if they do not, their spiritual death will be finally and forever determined: because to be carnally minded is death.

There is a result to being carnally minded, and there is a result to being spiritually minded. "To be spiritually minded is life and peace." To be spiritually minded is life, because you do not have life unless you have spiritual life. If all that you have is physical life, then you don’t have much, because it will end in a few short years. But if you have spiritual life, you will live forever.

To be spiritually minded is life. That’s also true because you will never know what life was meant to be unless you walk with God. God is the giver of life. He designed humans, and He designed us to know and walk with Him. You will never be a complete person, and you will never be all that you can be, and you will never know all that that you could know unless you walk with God, unless you become spiritually minded and go His way. It is said of Enoch that he walked with God. It is said of Abraham that he was the friend of God. And it is said of Moses that he spoke with God face to face as a man speaks with his friend. That’s the kind of life that God would guide you into by His Spirit. To be spiritually minded is life: it’s eternal life, and it’s life on this earth the way the it was meant to be: human life in tune with God and led by the Spirit of God.

There is one definite and unavoidable result from being carnally minded: death. But there are two results mentioned in Rom. 8:6 from being spiritually minded: life and peace. There is no peace, saith the Lord, to the wicked. There is no peace unless a person makes peace with God. The anxiety and guilt of the human mind will make it impossible for anyone to find peace from the physical and material alone. It’s one of the major reasons that so many people turn to substance abuse: they seek an escape from the turmoil and stress and insecurity of their own mind. There is no peace for those who are carnally minded, because humans are not capable of surviving the pressures and insecurities of life without relying on God.

To be spiritually minded is peace because the Spirit of God will introduce you to the prince of peace, who is Jesus Christ. To be spiritually minded is peace because when you go with God, you come into a growing realization that everything will work out all right in the end because God is in control. You will know by His Spirit that because you went His way, He will take care of you, He has a future planned for you, and there is a purpose in all things.

To be spiritually minded is peace. If you do not have peace, then obviously you are not spiritually minded. If you do not have peace, then you will have a certain level of turmoil and anxiety. The opposite of peace is war. If you are not at peace with God, you may very well be at war with God. That’s the emphasis of Rom. 8:7 that says, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

There is a state of mind that is enmity against God. There is a spiritual condition that is in opposition to God. Instead of being connected to God, it’s disconnected. Instead of being surrendered to God, it’s in resistance to Him. That’s the condition of the human mind without the Spirit. Once someone becomes resistant to God in the way that they think, they will also resist the law of God. Immoral and unethical behavior will eventually be readily accepted by them. Someone who resists God and resists the Spirit of God is capable of any form of wrongdoing.

The problems of the world are spiritual problems. If more people surrendered to the influence of the Spirit of God, the world would be a better place. We already have plenty of laws. We have the law of God, which is universal, and we have the laws of man that cover almost every facet of society. What we lack is the ability of more people to keep the laws. The problem is the problem of attitude: it’s a spiritual problem, a total inability to keep the law. God has established one law that can solve the problem: it’s the law of the Spirit. "To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

Rom. 8:8 says, "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." This difference between the human without the Spirit, and the human life with the Spirit of God is critical to understand. It’s the essence of the message of the New Testament. It’s the driving force by which Jesus Himself lived on the earth. It was the symbolism of the Spirit descending as a dove upon Jesus when He began His public ministry. When Jesus came into the world, He temporarily gave up some of the prerogatives of divinity. One of the reasons for doing this was to show to us how a human ought to live, led by the Spirit of God; and to prove to us that it could be done.

"They that are in the flesh cannot please God." In other words, one cannot please God unless one is led by the Spirit of God. If you are not led by the Spirit of God, then you are initiating your goals and your actions. That kind of expression of the human will does not please God, because it is not a life of faith, and it’s not a life of surrender, and it’s not a life of following the Lord. Jesus said, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." You are only following God if He initiates the direction that you take. If it’s your will, then it’s the carnal mind that is leading you. But if through the Spirit, you go God’s way, then you are spiritually minded.

In order to even have the capacity to lead such a spiritual life, you must have the Spirit of God within you. Rom. 8:9 says, "But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." Notice that the phrase "the Spirit of God" and the phrase "the Spirit of Christ" are used interchangeably. That’s because Jesus is the divine Son of God, and it’s because Jesus gives the Spirit of God to those who come to Him with a spiritual thirst. When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit. When Jesus talked to Nicodemus, Jesus told him about the importance of a spiritual birth. And when Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, He said to her, "God is a spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."

When someone comes to Jesus by faith, they are not only given forgiveness of sins and eternal life, they are also given an intimate connection with the Spirit of God. Just before the death of Jesus, He told His disciples that He would not leave them comfortless, but that He would send them another comforter. The songwriter understood it when he penned, "The Comforter Has Come, The Comforter has come, The Holy Ghost sent down from heaven up above." Not only is He a comforter, He is also a guide and an enabler. This new and intimate connection with the Spirit of God is called in the Bible the baptism of the Spirit, and it’s also called the indwelling Spirit. When we come to Christ, God does not give us money or a new home or a new car. He gives us something much more important and more valuable than those things: He gives us His Spirit.

Rom. 8:10 says, "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness." It was the Spirit of God who brought us to Jesus in the first place, and now it is the Spirit of God who must be the guiding and driving force for the rest of our lives. Sin brings death, but righteousness brings life. The fruit of our physical life and our physical body was sin and death. We got nothing from it, and we owe nothing to it. But the Spirit of God brought us to Jesus and gave us life and righteousness. That’s the present reality of those who have been given spiritual life by the Spirit.

The Spirit is also going to do something for us in the future. Rom. 8:11 says, "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also make alive your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you." When Jesus was on the earth, by the power of the Spirit, He healed every sick or disabled person with whom He came into contact, and by the power of the Spirit He raised every dead person with whom He came into contact. By the same Spirit Jesus also was raised from the dead. And now all who believe have that same Spirit of God and the same victory over death awaits them. Paul said in I Cor. 15:54, "This mortal shall put on immortality." John Donne said it very well in his great poem when he penned, "Death, Thou shalt die." By all means be generous and do what you can to relieve the suffering of the sick and the dying, but remember that the greatest thing that can happen to anyone in that regard is to have the Spirit of God within them, because they will be raised from the dead after they die.

Because we have inherited such great and precious promises about life after death and about victory over the grave, Paul wrote in Rom. 8:12-13, "Therefore, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die: but if you through the Spirit do put to death the deeds of the body, you shall live."

Sin is associated with death. This principle was true in the Garden of Eden, and it’s still true. It’s also true for Christians. If you go the way of the Spirit, then you go the way of life; but if you resist and go your own way, you go the way of death. We know that in the lives of believers, some are sick because of sin and some die because of sin. When God saves a person, He not only saves them so that they will go to heaven, but He also saves them because He has a plan and a purpose for their lives on this earth. If you have been saved by faith in Christ, and then get to the point where you are no longer yielded and surrendered to His leading, you may very well be on a course that will lead to your premature death. If God has you here for a purpose and you do not fulfill that purpose, then why should He keep you here longer?

The Apostle John seemed to be talking about this same principle of premature death for a believer because of sin when he said in I John 5:16, "...there is a sin unto death." When the apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in the Greek city of Corinth, he was talking to them about the danger of not being thoughtful and appreciative of the death of Christ for them. He said in I Cor. 11:31, "For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." (Many sleep; means many are dead.).

Once we come to Jesus, we are no longer our own. We are bought with a price. The same Spirit that brought us to Jesus, now desires to lead us for the rest of our lives to fulfill the will of God. Rom. 8:14 says, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." The same attitude of surrender that we had when we first came to Jesus, we must be careful to maintain on a daily basis in order to go God’s way; and not our own way. Eph. 4:30 says, "Grieve not the spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption." I Thes. 5:19 says, "Quench not the spirit."

Just as we could not be saved without the Spirit of God leading us to Christ, neither can we serve God unless it’s the Spirit of God who is leading us. If you are a believer you should always be careful to consider the leading of the Spirit of God. In the decisions that you make, the essential question is: which way is God leading you? He has promised to lead you, but have you found his leading, and have you followed it? How sad and unfortunate is the condition of the person who went his own way instead of God’s way. "There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death."

The reason that God sometimes waits a while to show us His way is so that we can make sure that we are waiting upon His leading and not going our own way. It’s a major mistake for a Christian to make decisions without seeking and waiting upon the leading of the Holy Spirit. May God give you the patience to wait for His leading, the wisdom to recognize it, and the heart to surrender to it. Then and only then will you do the will of God. That’s the law of the Spirit.

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