Romans 8:5-11 (NIV)
Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
Paul is drawing together the threads of his arguments about the two spheres of life, as well as their practical implications. He had lived under both life spheres and was very familiar with them.
The first sphere is life in accordance with the flesh, the life we are all born into, and the life that Paul lived as a Pharisee, a slave to the law, striving to master himself by force of will and discipline. But he was completely unable to pull it off because of the limitations of the flesh and the gravitational effects of the sinful nature. This is his Romans 7 life and was dominated by self and selfish motives behind even his most noble goals. That way led inexorably to death.
The second sphere is life in accordance with the Spirit. This is Paul’s Romans 8 life and is dominated by love for God and His agenda, a love that springs directly from a transformed and spiritually awakened heart. This path leads to life and peace.
Paul paints the contrast between these two lifestyles in stark black and white. Life under the flesh is death and hostility toward God and His commands. Life under the Spirit is life and peace between God and the individual. He goes so far in verses 7 and 8 to clearly say that those governed by the flesh do not submit to God’s law, and are in fact completely unable to do so, as their will is disabled by the sinful nature.
The insidious thing is that people who are bound up in the flesh exist even in the Church, but they cannot see their own inability to please God. They believe that they are just fine, when they are in fact, “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked”. (Revelation 3:17)
But Paul is more optimistic about the state of the Roman Christians. Like all Christians they are in the world and must live in a mortal body that bears the death sentence brought on them by both Adam’s sin and their own. But if the Spirit lives in them, if they truly belong to Jesus, they get to live every day in the reality of eternal life, starting here and now, and even surviving the unavoidable death of the physical body.
And this “life to the full” (John 10:10) extends even to the ability to live in true righteousness, and to have enduring victory over the sinful nature. The indwelling Spirit transitions that person out of the kingdom of the world with its failures, compromises and capitulations to temptation, and transplants him or her into the kingdom of God, in which they receive the blessings of steadfastness, faithfulness, victory and true righteousness and a true holiness that manifests itself in every thought, word and deed. This is their birthright in Christ Jesus, for all who will claim it by faith and receive it by grace.
Father, it is a sad fact that far too many Christians live far below what has been made available to them. The door to their prison has been flung open, torn off its hinges, and the beautiful world of freedom, righteousness and true holiness beckons to them outside. But they have been taught that that world is for “someday”, that until they die, they must live in the cell as a prisoner of sin and wait for the day when they can live free. But Paul clearly shows us that that “someday” world is ours now through faith in Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit living in us, if we will just receive it and walk in it by faith. Help us all, Lord, to live in that life of victory that Jesus died and rose again to make available to us. Amen.