The Spirit Is Life

(Romans 8:5-11; Preaching: Associate Pastor Nathan Snyder; Sunday, August 11)

In the beginning of Romans 8 Paul proclaimed the glorious gospel truth that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  The Spirit of life has set us free from sin and death.  Through the Spirit then we have power to fight sin and grow in obedience to God.  Now Paul describes further the life we have through God’s Spirit, contrasting it with what we have been rescued from, namely the living death of being in the flesh.

In verses 5-8 Paul focuses on the contrasting mindsets of the flesh and the Spirit.  His point here is not to tell Christians to have the mindset of the Spirit.  His point is that we have power to obey God precisely because we have already been given the mindset of the Spirit, if we are in Christ.  Now does this mean that if you ever have sinful thoughts you are not in Christ and don’t have his Spirit in you?  No.  In other passages Paul commands Christian to have the mind of Christ or to set our minds on things above.  Those commands would be unnecessary if our mind was always going in the right direction.  We are running into what is often called “the already and the not yet” of our salvation.  In one place Paul will tell us that we have put on Christ.  In another place he will command us to put on Christ.  In one place Paul will tell us that we have died to sin.  In other place he will command us to die to sin.  In our text, he is focusing on the fact that we already have the Spirit in us who has given us a new mindset that wants to live for God.  The implication for Christians is that we have power to live for God through the Spirit.  And we could add that we should cultivate the mindset of the Spirit and choose throughout the day to operate in that mindset rather than in the old mindset of the flesh.

Paul exposes here the very heart of the sinful flesh.  Even if we are in Christ and no longer in the flesh, the flesh is still clinging to us and so what Paul says here is insightful for all of us in our war on sin.  Paul coined the term “flesh” to refer to our sinful nature which we inherited from Adam.  He doesn’t mean that the body is bad and the spirit good.  Paul was not a Gnostic.  When he lists sins of the flesh in Galatians 5, he includes things like sexual immorality, but also things like envy.  The “flesh” infects every part of us: body, thoughts, affections, will, etc.  The mindset of the flesh, Paul says in verse 7, is hostility toward God.  This is at the heart of sin.  Sin is enmity with God.  The flesh is anti-God.  This is because the flesh is selfish, self-centered, self-reliant, and self-glorifying, and God gets in the way.  If God has any place for the flesh, it is to serve its purposes.  The flesh will even use religion as a means of self-glorification rather than truly worshiping of God.  Christian, the flesh that is living in you still, know that it hates God.  This is why the flesh will do everything it can to keep you from communing with God.  When you are about to spend time in prayer and meditation on the Scriptures, every distraction will call your mind away.  If you are disciplined enough to spend time in prayer and meditation each day, the flesh will try to turn this into a dull routine rather than real communion with God.  The flesh will also give you every reason to stay away from public worship.  The flesh is hostile to God and cringes at the thought of gathering with God’s people to sing his praise, hear his Word, and commune with him.  If you are persistent, the flesh will distract your mind by all kinds of cares so you might as well have stayed home.  Or it will fill you with pride in your piety.  The flesh also hates real relationships.  Superficial acquaintances are fine.  But real relationships where you actually care for one another, and get into the mess of each other’s lives, oh boy, the flesh hates that.  It will cause you to focus on everything irritating about a person.  The flesh hates love because love is a reflection of God.  And after all, the flesh wants to be at the center.  It doesn’t want you to lay yourself down for someone else.

The mind set on the flesh is death.  Paul is referring, I think, to the state of spiritual death into which we are all born, and out of which Christ saves us.  In Ephesians 2:1 Paul writes that we were all once dead in our sin.  Life is only found in God, so to live with a mindset hostile to him is to be spiritually dead.  Those who are in this state cannot please God (verse 8).  This doesn’t mean that those who do not know Christ do nothing valuable whatsoever.  I have non-Christian friends who are very kind and pleasant people and do a lot of good.  But in verse 7 Paul refers to not submitting to God’s law.  If someone is doing some good things but with no love for God or interest in submitting to him, this is not pleasing to God.  Those who are in the flesh cannot please God, not because they are somehow physically incapable of it, but because they do not delight in God and do not want him at the center of their life.  You cannot do what you absolutely do not want to do.  The only hope for any of us to escape this state of spiritual death is for the Spirit of Christ to set us free and give us a new mindset.

The mindset of the Spirit is the exact opposite of the mindset of the flesh.  While the flesh is hostile toward God, the Spirit leads us into willing submission to God.  We see our sin and God’s provision in Christ.  We realize that true life is only found in surrendering to God and having his Spirit take up residence in us.  The mindset of the Spirit recognizes that God is great.  He in fact alone is sovereign over our lives.  It is foolish to try to sit in his throne.  The mindset of the Spirit sees Christ dying for us and realizes that God’s heart toward us unworthy rebels is love.  Furthermore, his commands to us are all wise and good, and he is worthy of our obedience and praise.  God spoke of giving his people a heart and mind to love and obey him:  Deuteronomy 30:6,  “And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”  Ezekiel 36:27, “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

Submission to God is peace.  In our sin we became God’s enemies.  Our hostility toward him brought on his hostility toward us.  At the cross, Jesus bore that hostility of God on himself.  God is no longer at odds with us, and he moves in us by his Spirit so that we likewise no longer fight against him but willingly surrender to him.  And this is life for us.  To push God away is death.  To surrender to God is life.  The mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.  Paul says that everyone who belongs to Christ has his Spirit living in them (verse 9).  If we don’t have his Spirit, we don’t belong to him.  If Christ is in us by his Spirit, although our body will still die, the Spirit who is in us is life.  Our bodies, hosts as they are of the sinful flesh, must die.  Yet we have the life of the Spirit in us, and that life is indestructible.  This is because of righteousness, not our flawed righteousness, but Christ’s flawless righteousness that is ours by faith in him.  In the end, this will mean resurrection for us and eternal glory.  The Spirit who is in us is the Spirit of him who raised Jesus to immortal life.  He will also give life to our mortal bodies.  We will live forever free from sin, decay, or death.  This hope is breathtaking and I know I think of it far too little.

There is connection here between a life of obedience now and resurrection later.  Paul is showing us here that having the Spirit of Christ means both.   Life in the Spirit now means we have a mind that loves and trusts God and seeks to live for him rather than for our flesh.  The culmination of that will be the resurrection and the glorious, sinless, immortal life to come.  This is again the already and the not yet.  We already have life in the Spirit, but we await its fullness.  Until then, we must fight our flesh and cultivate the mindset of the Spirit.  If you have until now been unwilling to surrender to Jesus, now is the time to do so.  Ask him for his Spirit and join the war on the flesh.  All who have the Spirit have power to do so.  One last thing: Do not be content with a vague desire to go out there and live in the Spirit.  Where the rubber meets the road is when you drive home today and somebody is driving way to slow in front of you.  Will you give in to the flesh and get angry and tailgate them?  That’s fleshly hatred toward God who loves that person and put them in the way of your car.  When the opportunity comes to help your child with their homework, will you listen to the Spirit or will you put them off and cuddle up with the flesh in front of the TV?  And will you cultivate regular communion with God to feed your mind on the things of the Spirit, or will you listen to every distraction of the flesh?  The flesh hates God.  But if you belong to Christ, you have his Spirit in you.  His Spirit is life and peace.