Romans 8:1-13
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
5 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.
6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But ye 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.
10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 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 quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
The Grace New Testament Commentary - Romans 8:1-13
8:1 The statement of this verse succinctly expresses the core of Christian victory. In referring to the issue of servitude to sin (katakrima), Paul has reference to the problem discussed in the previous chapter and in Romans 5:12-21. As Paul's exposition in 5:12-21 has shown, "through one offense [that is, Adam's sin] judgment" has come "to all men to produce servitude [katakrma] to sin" (Romans 5:18; cf. Romans 5:16).
Contrary to the widely held opinion that in 8:1 Paul is discussing the truth of justification as the removal of all condemnation, Paul is referring to the reign of sin and death that was initiated by the fall of Adam. This servitude to sin, Paul declares, does not exist for those (1) [who] are in Christ Jesus, and (2) [who] do not walk in relation to the flesh but in relation to the Spirit. Regrettably the words in point 2 are omitted by most modern translations, due to their reliance on a few older Greek manuscripts that differ from the reading found in most manuscripts.
Being in Christ Jesus is essential to experience this freedom from sin's bondage (cf. Romans 6:1-11). But, as Paul's previous discussion has shown, by itself it is not enough. The second step to victory therefore is walking in relation to the Spirit. Here we pick up the word walk that Paul has used in Romans 6:4.
The statement of this option (repeated in vv 4, 13) introduces a component that was not present in Paul's struggles as described in Romans 7:15-25 - the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was not a factor at all in those struggles. His introduction into the process of Christian living is, for Paul, the key to spiritual victory. The role of the Spirit will be immediately expounded in the following section (vv 2-13). A paraphrase might be: "those who walk flesh-wise," and "those who walk Spirit-wise," that is, with a fleshly or with a spiritual orientation.
8:2 The reason that servitude to sin does not exist for those described in v 1 is that the Spirit of life liberates them from the law of sin and death. But the liberation being described is experiential and cannot be automatically predicated of all believers (cf. Romans 7:15-25). Paul personalizes the statement - [He] has freed me from the law of sin and death. The fact that he does not say "us" is not an accident. Each believer must claim this victory in his own experience.
8:3 The incapacity of the law was due to the impediment that the flesh posed to Paul's fulfillment of its holy demands. The law, therefore, was weak because of the flesh and could not aid Paul in the resolution of this problem. The reason Paul has been freed from "the law of sin and death" (v 2) is due to God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh [the incarnation] and as a sacrifice for sin [the cross].
As Paul has been at pains to show (see Romans 3:21-26; 4:23-25), by His death Christ has made it possible for God to "be righteous and [to] justify the person who has faith in Jesus" (Romans 3:26). Such a person now becomes righteous in Christ. Thus the death of Christ is also a sentence of doom upon sin in the flesh, destroying its present power and presaging its final removal from the experience of the one who is "righteous by faith" (Romans 1:17). Therefore, "the law of sin and death" (v 2) has no right any longer to rule the experience of the justified person. He has died in Christ and sin has no legal claim on him, "for he who has died is justified [freed] from sin" (Romans 6:7). He or she can now live to God (Romans 6:11).
8:4 The very thing Paul found himself unable to do as he strove to obey the law (Romans 7:15-25) has now become possible for him by means of the Spirit. The righteous action of the law can be fulfilled by him as he walks in relation to the Spirit. Paul uses here the Greek word dikaiōma (righteous action) which he has used previously in Romans only at Romans 1:32; 2:26; 5:16, 18. In fact, 5:16 specifically contrasts katakrima and dikaiōma, the very words used in 8:1 (katakrima) and here (dikaiōma).
Many English translations misconstrue Paul's point, translating dikaiōma as righteous requirement (NKJV, NASB, NET, ESV), not righteous action. No one fulfills the law (1 John 1:8). But believers can manifest righteous action. The righteous action which the law stipulated, but failed to produce (see Romans 7:15-25), can be achieved under grace. Understood this way, the singular of dikaiōma is important. The singular occurs because Paul's statement is a statement of principle. What Paul is affirming is that the thing that couldn't be done by living under the law can in fact be achieved by walking in relation to the Spirit. But, as already indicated in Romans 8:1, freedom from "servitude to sin" (cf. Romans 5:16, 18) depends not only on being "in Christ Jesus" but also, as repeated here, on not walking in relation to the flesh but in relation to the Spirit. Paul will now proceed to discuss this Spirit-led walk (Romans 8:5-13).
8:5 Paul clarifies the basis on which he can affirm the "righteous action of the law" is carried out only by those who "walk... in relation to the Spirit." This is true because the phrases he uses to describe a person's walk suggest an individual's orientation. Those who are in relation to the flesh describes people who are oriented to the things of the flesh. But in contrast, those who are in relation to the Spirit are people oriented to the things of the Spirit. It is this latter orientation that is crucial to spiritual victory. The key word in this concept is the Greek verb phroneō, translated here as "have their minds set on".
This verb occurs for the first time in Romans in this verse. The cognate noun phronēma also occurs in Romans 8:6, 7, 27 and nowhere else in the NT. The concept involved in these two words is crucial to Paul's thought in this section (Romans 8:1-13). The orientation of the individual Christian - that is, their focus, or mind-set - is seen by Paul as a pivotal element in the Christian "walk." While striving for holiness under the law, Paul had focused on the commands (e.g., "lust") so that his mind-set was fleshly: "I must steer clear of all lust." This fleshly orientation doomed him to commit the very sin he sought to avoid. Simply put, if one lives with a fleshly orientation - even if it is the result of a vigorous effort to keep the law - he is going to fail because he has the wrong mind-set.
8:6 These two mind-sets, the mind-set of the flesh and the mind-set of the Spirit, Paul affirms, are poles apart. One belongs to the sphere of, and results in, death. The other belongs to a contrasting sphere with contrasting results, life and peace. The trap into which a Christian falls when he is principally concerned with the law itself is that he cannot escape a preoccupation with the spiritual deadness within and around him. The mind-set of the Spirit, however, lifts his preoccupations to the level of supernatural life and peace. Paul's discussion (to the end of chap. 8) proceeds to explore this concept.
8:7 Since the mind-set of the flesh is inescapably preoccupied with the sphere of sin and death (v 6), it cannot be rescued from this preoccupation and from all the evil inclinations that manifest themselves in that sphere. Thus, Paul's experience of spiritual defeat could not be changed if this mind-set remained unchanged. The flesh's mind-set not only does not submit to the law of God, it is incapable of doing so. For a Christian to be trapped in the wrong mind-set is to be trapped in a life of continuous defeat, precisely as Paul has described in Romans 7:7-25.
8:8-9 Unregenerate persons (that is, the unjustified) are people who are in the flesh. Since the mind-set of the flesh is the only one possible for them, they are completely unable to please God. The Christian life can be lived only by Christians. It is important to keep in mind that walking in relation to the flesh (see vv 1, 4) is not, in Paul's thought, the exclusive experience of those who are in the flesh. The Christian still has the sinful flesh in his physical body (e.g., Romans 7:22-25; cf. Romans 8:13) and can therefore walk in relation to the flesh.
But he also has another option. At the level of his innermost man (see Romans 7:22, 25), he is not in the flesh but in the Spirit. This means that he can also walk in relation to the Spirit. This is the first time in Romans that Paul has used the terminology in the flesh and in the Spirit, but it is clear that they are the functional equivalents for him of the "unjustified" and the "justified." The distinguishing feature in the contrast here is whether the person has the Spirit of Christ. If someone does not have the Spirit of Christ, that person does not belong to Him at all.
8:10 On the one hand, the physical bodies of believers remain morally dead. On the other hand, the inner presence of the Spirit gives them life within those very same dead bodies. Paul makes clear that the Christian's body is incapable of producing the life of God on its own. This is precisely what Paul had discovered in the fruitless struggles recorded in Romans 7:15-25. Apart from intervention by the Spirit, the resulting spiritual defeat cannot be reversed.
8:11 The Spirit can impart to these mortal bodies (v 10) an experience of life. This statement does not refer to our future resurrection. Instead, it refers to the life and peace produced by the mind-set of the Spirit (v 6b). Thus, the Spirit can overcome the death that characterizes the fallen state of our present mortal bodies (v 10) and can make them vehicles for expressing the divine life within us. The resurrecting power of God the Father (the One who raised Christ from the dead), exercised through His Spirit, can bring us into experiential union with the risen life of Christ so that we actually walk in that "newness of life" (Romans 6:4) that He Himself possesses. In every respect the "resurrection" of the believer's mortal body that Paul describes here is accomplished on account of His Spirit who indwells us.
8:12-13 Paul now brings this unit of his discussion (Romans 8:1-13) to a close. We Christians (brothers) are in no way obligated to the flesh to live in relation to the flesh. But Paul is far from denying the possibility of this. In fact, he bluntly warns his Christian readers that if you live in relation to the flesh you will die.
In fact, Paul had already tasted a "death experience" in the days when he struggled unsuccessfully against his sinful impulses (see discussion Romans 7:9, 11). Thus, a kind of fellowship death had occurred, cutting him off from the experience of God's life. By contrast, if by the ministry of the Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body - that is, if we cease to obey the body's desires - then we can enjoy the eternal life that God has given to us as a free gift (cf. Romans 6:22-23).
The word translated "you will live" (zēsesthe) recalls the word zēsetai in Romans 1:17 ("Now the one who is righteous by faith shall live"). Precisely in the manner outlined in Romans 8:1-13, the justified person can, by the power of the Spirit, live righteously in his experience.
Charles Bing - Grace, Salvation, and Discipleship - Die by the Flesh or Live by the Spirit, Romans 8:13
(Salvation) Interpretation: Those who live in the flesh will go to hell because they lose their salvation or were never saved, but if the Spirit is in them, they will be saved.
(Discipleship) Interpretation: Believers who live by the flesh experience deadness in their fellowship with God, but if they live by the power of the Spirit, they will experience the fullness of God's life.
Romans 8 continues Paul's discussion of sanctification and how the believer can have victory over sin. Verse 1 states, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." Though commonly understood as a reference to eternal hell, "condemnation" in this context of sanctification (as it is also used in Rom. 5:16, 18) speaks of the tragic effects of sin on the believer's life in Christ. The second clause of verse 1 is not in many modern translations, but it has strong manuscript evidence and says the same thing as verse 4. The emphasis of this section is living according to the Spirit as opposed to living according to the flesh and the consequences of each.
In Romans 8 Paul is speaking to Christians (he calls them "brothers" in v. 12 and says they had received the Holy Spirit in v. 15) about their sanctification experience that delivers them from sin and its consequences, so we can easily see which interpretation fits best here. Living in the flesh is the choice (expressed by "if") a Christian makes when he sides with his old sinful flesh. "You will die" expresses a consequence of God's anger at sin. The significance of death here is the same as in Romans 6:23 (see the previous discussion). There will be a deadness in that Christian's experience and a separation from the vitality of divine life. On the other hand, if the believer submits to the indwelling Holy Spirit, he will "live" or experience God's invigorating and enriching life.
According to Romans 8:9, the test of salvation is not whether one lives in the Spirit but whether the Spirit lives in him: "Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him." Verses 9-11 are stated as assurances that the readers do indeed have the Holy Spirit, therefore they have the power to have victory over sin. Verses 12-13 give the readers two possibilities. To live according to the flesh is to have a fleshly mindset and to live according to the Spirit is to have a spiritual mindset. A fleshly mind-set leads to spiritual deadness, but a spiritual mindset leads to a victorious life of righteousness.
The strong assumption and designation of these readers as believers is contrary to the interpretation that they could lose their salvation or prove to have never been saved. We have shown earlier that death does not automatically refer to eternal death, but in its essence speaks of separation. In this case, the context shows that death refers to the believer's separation from God's life-giving power, thus it is (Discipleship), not (Salvation).
As believers, we can choose to live fleshly or sinful lives, but that only brings a deadening of the experience God wants for us. Better to choose to let Jesus Christ live out His life through us and experience the power of His resurrected life.