Latest / Reformed Thinking / Life and Peace Through the Indwelling Spirit (Romans 8:5-9)

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Life and Peace Through the Indwelling Spirit (Romans 8:5-9) · Reformed Thinking

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You know, when a medical professional evaluates a
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patient, there is usually like a baseline assumption that the
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patient is actually alive. Right.
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Yeah. I mean, they might be struggling
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or fighting off a severe illness, but they are
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fundamentally a living Organism. Exactly.
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Well, wait, I should say precisely.
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Their vital signs might be incredibly weak, but the doctor
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prescribes medication or suggests physical therapy,
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right? Yeah.
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Or maps out a dietary regimen, and they do that assuming the
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body has the inherent capacity to respond to the treatment.
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Because that is the standard clinical model for almost
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everything we do. You treat the symptoms because
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the Organism itself is functioning, albeit poorly.
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Sure. You are working with a
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biological system that has the potential for recovery.
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The cells can regenerate. The immune system can fight
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back. Right there is a spark of life
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to work with. But what if?
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What if the doctor walks into the examination room, looks at
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the chart, looks at the body on the table, and realizes
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something horrifying? That they're not dealing with a
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patient in need of medicine. Yeah, they are looking at a
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corpse in need of resurrection. Suddenly all those diet plans
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and all those exercise routines, they become entirely irrelevant.
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Because you cannot prescribe vitamins to a dead body.
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No, you cannot. You cannot ask a corpse to run a
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mile on the treadmill. It shifts the entire diagnostic
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landscape. Yeah, you are.
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No talking about rehabilitation. You are no longer talking about
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behavior modification or, you know, forming better habits.
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You were talking about the absolute necessity of a
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supernatural intervention. You are dealing with two
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distinct states of existence, right?
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Life and death. Yeah.
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And the difference between those two states is not a matter of
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degree, it is a matter of kind. Welcome to Reformed thinking.
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I am thrilled you were joining us for this deep dive into our
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source material. Today we are taking a massive
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varnished look at the Apostle Pauls letter to the Romans.
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Specifically, chapter 8, verses 5 through 9.
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Right. OK, let's unpack this.
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We are going to strip away the grand illusion of human
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spiritual neutrality. We really are.
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We are going to confront a widespread, almost universally
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accepted belief that unregenerate humans have the
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capacity to please God through their own moral effort.
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And we're going to establish from the text that humanity is
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not divided into varying Shades of Grey.
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It is divided into two stark distinct categories.
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Those in the flesh and those in the spirit.
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The text we are analyzing permits no middle ground
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whatsoever. It forces a very searching
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question upon the soul. It really does.
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The author of this letter is not interested in flattering
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religious sentiments, nor does he content to leave us with
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vague therapeutic language. Right.
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He presses beneath the outward profession of faith and drives a
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scalpel right into the inward bent of the person.
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He's looking at the root, not just the fruit.
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So I want to speak directly to you, the listener, right from
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the jump. As we walk through this
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material. I'm asking you to lay aside any
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flattering religious sentiment you might be holding onto.
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Yeah, prepare to evaluate the actual operating system of your
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own soul. Because we are not looking at
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your public behavior today, we are looking at the invisible
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machinery running beneath the surface.
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And that is the core burden of the passage.
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It is piercingly diagnostic. We are analyzing the native
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condition of fallen humanity to magnify the absolute necessity
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of the Holy Spirit. Because without understanding
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the severity of the disease, the cure seems unnecessary.
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Precisely. So let's jump straight into a
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massive modern misconception that our source material tackles
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head on. The text identifies this as the
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carnal Christian myth. Oh yeah, this is a huge one.
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It really is. There is an idea out there, very
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popular in 20th and 21st century evangelical circles, that
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someone can be saved, secure their ticket to heaven, but live
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their entire life governed completely by the flesh.
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I remember hearing this growing up.
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The idea was that you know as long as you prayed a specific
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prayer at an altar call, you were good to go, even if your
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daily life look no different from the secular world around
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you. The suggestion there is that a
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person can receive Christ as Savior, securing eternal
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security, but continually and perpetually reject Him as Lord.
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Yeah, which sounds crazy when you say it out loud.
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It does. In this model, the person lives
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indistinguishably from the world, yet possesses full
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assurance of salvation, and the source material exposes this as
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an antinomian heresy. Antinomian meaning anti law
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right? It is the idea that grace
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eliminates any requirement for moral obedience or a change
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disposition. I have to pause on that word
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heresy because that is a heavy label.
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Are we just being overly theological here, or does this
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carnal Christian idea actually do damage?
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Oh, it does massive damage. Because to a lot of people, it
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just sounds like, you know, giving folks grace when they
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stumble. Well, there's a massive
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distinction between a struggling believer and a carnal Christian
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as defined by this erroneous theology.
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Right. A struggling believer hates
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their sin, fights it's against it, and sometimes loses battles.
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We see that all over the New Testament.
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But the carnal Christian theory posits a category of people who
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have no desire for holiness, no internal war against sin.
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And total comfort in their rebellion.
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Yeah, yet they are told they're entirely safe from God's
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judgement simply because of a past intellectual decision.
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Which the text establishes is just not true.
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There are No 3 categories of people in the world.
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You are not an unbeliever, a spiritual Christian, or a carnal
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Christian. There are only two.
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You are either spiritually dead, which Paul calls being in the
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flesh, or you are spiritually alive, which is being in the
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spirit. Think of it like a smartphone
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operating system. You cannot run an exclusive iOS
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application on an Android phone. Right, it is impossible.
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It does not matter how hard the Android phone tries, or how many
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times you tap the screen, or how much you Polish the outer casing
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of the phone. The underlying code dictates
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what is possible. The fundamental architecture of
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the device determines its capabilities.
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Yeah, if the code is not there, the app will never open.
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That analogy captures the essence of the theological
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divide perfectly. The Apostle Paul is describing a
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system that lacks the code for spiritual life.
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Because we are talking about disposition, not simply
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behavior. Behavior is the outward
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manifestation, but disposition is the root cause.
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If the operating system is flesh, it can only produce
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fleshly results. I see the logic there, but it
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raises the question, are we saying that people in the flesh
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can never do anything that looks good?
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Well, that is where we have to be careful.
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Because I know plenty of people who do not profess any faith who
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are arguably not in the spirit, yet they are incredibly
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philanthropic. They build hospitals, they adopt
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children, right? Are those isolated good actions
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just a glitch in the software? To borrow an insight from
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Charles Spurgeon mentioned in our sources, the heart is
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deceitful above all things. Spurgeon argued that if you
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think you have any natural goodness dwelling within you, by
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nature you know neither yourself nor God.
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Wow, that is quite a statement. It is the natural inclination of
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the human heart is entirely enslaved to whichever realm it
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belongs to. When unregenerate individuals do
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things that society deems good, they're acting according to
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common grace. And the remnants of the moral
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law written on their conscience. Yeah.
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However, because the disposition of their heart is not aimed at
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the glory of God, even those outward virtues are fatally
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flawed at the root. So the operating system is still
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entirely centered on self, even if the outward behavior is
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socially beneficial. Exactly precisely.
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The root is still corrupt. This brings the challenge right
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to our doorstep. For you, the listener, consider
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this. Do you view your own minor moral
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improvements? Maybe you stop cursing.
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Maybe you give to charity now. Maybe you volunteer on weekends
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as true spiritual life. Or do you recognize the need for
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a total system overhaul? Are you trying to install
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righteous applications onto an unregenerate operating system?
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Because the text is arguing that the fleshly operating system
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will inevitably crash. It will crash because the flesh
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is not simply weak, it is entirely opposed to the things
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of God. But to really grasp why Paul
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drew such a severe, uncompromising line in the sand,
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we need to look at the historical and cultural forces
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putting pressure on the church he was writing to.
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Yeah, you cannot understand why Paul is taking such an
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aggressive 0 tolerance stance on this unless you look at who was
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sitting in the pews in Rome at that exact moment.
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Let's look at the culture clash happening in the mid 50s AD we.
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Have to talk about Emperor Claudius.
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Right. Paul is writing this letter from
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Corinth around 8057 to a Roman church experiencing massive
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demographic shifts. In 8049, Emperor Claudius issued
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an edict that expelled all the Jews from Rome.
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The Roman historian Suetonius records that this expulsion was
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over continuous riots and disputes concerning Crestus.
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Which is almost certainly a Latinized reference to Christ.
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Right, Yes. So the Jewish believers,
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including prominent figures like Priscilla and Aquila, were
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forced to leave the city for five long years.
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The Church in Rome was entirely in the hands of Gentile
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believers. Imagine what that actually
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looked like on the ground. You have a church that was
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birthed out of Jewish synagogues, steeped in the Old
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Testament, eating kosher, observing the Sabbath.
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And suddenly the government forces every single Jewish
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person out of the city limits. The Gentiles are left holding
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the keys. During those five years, those
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Gentile believers developed their own leadership structures.
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They developed their own cultural norms within the
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church, completely free from the heavy influence of Jewish
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ceremonial traditions. They were probably eating pork
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at church potlucks, yeah. Exactly.
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Then Claudius dies in 8054, the edict lapses, and the Jewish
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believers return. And they returned to a church
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that had become distinctly gentile in flavor.
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You can imagine the social and theological friction.
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It was a powder cake. The Jewish believers, feeling a
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loss of control and identity, were tempted to fall back into
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rigorous legalism. They were tempted to cling to
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the Mosaic Law, dietary restrictions and circumcision as
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badges of covenantal identity. Judging the Gentiles for their
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lack of discipline, right? Yes, and the Gentile believers,
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coming from a background saturated in Pagan idolatry and
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Greco Roman philosophy, were tempted toward antinomianism.
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They viewed grace as a license to live however they pleased.
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Right looking down on the Jewish believers as rigid and archaic.
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To add more fuel to the fire, the whole Roman world was
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saturated with two major philosophical systems at the
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time. You had Stoicism which focused
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on strict physical self mastery, rigid discipline, denying the
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emotions. They're a very harsh way to
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live. Think of it as the ancient
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equivalent of modern hustle culture, or the guy waking up at
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4:00 AM to take an ice path to prove he has total control over
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his mind. And on the other end of the
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spectrum, you had Epicureanism, which focused on physical
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indulgence, pleasure, avoiding pain, and the idea that the
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material world is all there is. A very you know you only live
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once, so maximize pleasure mindset.
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Both philosophies, despite seeming like complete opposites,
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were human attempts to manage existence apart from the
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sovereign grace of God. They were two different paths
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leading to the exact same destination of human autonomy.
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Wait, let me make sure I'm tracking with this.
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Are you saying that trying incredibly hard to be good
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through strict rule keeping like stoicism or Jewish legalism is
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classified by Paul as the exact same flesh as wild Pagan
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partying and epicurean indulgence?
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Yes. How does that make sense?
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1 looks highly moral and the other looks completely immoral.
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I mean society rewards the stoic and usually rests the Epicurean.
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It makes complete sense when we define the Greek word sarx,
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which is translated in our English Bibles as flesh.
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OK, unpack sarks for us. In Paul's theological vocabulary
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here, sarks does not just mean the physical body, the skin and
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bones. The physical body itself is not
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inherently evil. Right.
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Jesus Christ took on a human physical body, yet He was
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completely without sin. Precisely.
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Sarks means fallen human nature organized in rebellion against
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God. It is humanity operating an atom
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under the power of corruption, relying on its own resources.
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So the flesh can wear a suit and tie and go to church every
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Sunday? Absolutely.
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It can lead a corporate board meeting.
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It can write a best selling book on moral virtues.
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The flesh can be highly religious and incredibly
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disciplined. Whether that rebellion looks
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like secular indulgence in the red light district or rigorous
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religious legalism in a Pew, it remains entirely flesh.
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Because it relies on human autonomy.
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Yes, it is the creature attempting to justify itself or
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satisfy itself without bowing to the creator.
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Both the Stoic ascetic and the Epicurean hedonist share the
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same root, which is self exaltation.
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The legalist uses rules to avoid relying on God's grace.
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And the hedonist uses pleasure to avoid submitting to God's
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rule. Both are fundamentally anti God.
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That is a staggering reality check for the listener
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navigating their daily life. Ask yourself, do you lean
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towards strict moral checklists, judging everyone who fails to
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meet your standards? Are you secretly proud of your
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discipline, your theology, your ability to keep the rules better
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than your neighbor? Or do you lean toward discarding
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rules entirely, chasing whatever feels authentic in the moment,
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assuming grace will just cover it all?
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Both extremes stem from the exact same root issue.
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Both are the flesh trying to steer the ship.
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Paul dismantles both extremes by insisting that the decisive mark
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of belonging to God is not ethnic privilege, external
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conformity, or philosophical sophistication.
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The decisive mark is the indwelling Spirit of God.
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The spirit shatters both the pride of the legalist and the
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presumption of the antinomian. But this severe diagnosis
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doesn't just drop out of nowhere.
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Paul didn't just wake up 1 morning and decide to write a
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harsh chapter. No, he did not.
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Chapter 8 is the logical climax of a meticulous, airtight
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theological argument built over the previous seven chapters of
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the letter. If we are going to understand
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verses 5 through 9, we have to look at the architecture of the
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entire book. If we connect this to the bigger
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picture, the book of Romans is arguably the most systematic
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articulation of the gospel in the biblical Canon.
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You cannot just parachute in chapter 8 without understanding
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the foundation laid in chapters one through 7.
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Yeah, that makes sense. Walk us through those early
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chapters. Well, Paul begins in chapters
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one through 3. By leveling the pride of all
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humanity, he systematically proves that both the Pagan
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Gentile who worships idols and the religious Jew who has the
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law are completely under sin. He establishes universal human
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guilt. He concludes that there is none
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righteous, No, not one. He strips every one of their
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excuses. He puts the entire world on
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trial and the verdict is guilty. Then in chapters 3 through 5, he
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details justification by faith alone.
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He introduces the concept of federal headship.
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Let's explain that for a second, because federal headship sounds
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like a term from a high school government class.
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What it means is that one person acts as the representative for
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an entire group, right? Think of an ambassador signing a
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treaty. When the ambassador signs it,
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the whole country is bound by it.
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Paul argues that Adam was our first federal head.
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He rebelled and his guilt and corrupt nature were imputed to
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all of us. We are all born in Adam.
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But Christ is the second Adam, the new federal head.
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Through faith, his perfect righteousness is imputed to us.
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We are now in Christ. That imputation of righteousness
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is the bedrock of justification. From there, chapter 6 refutes
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the Antinomian argument. Because the natural question
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someone asks when they hear about free grace is, well, if
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grace covers all my sins, shall we continue in sin that grace
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may abound? Let's just keep sinning so God
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can keep forgiving. Yeah, and Paul answers that by
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declaring that union with Christ fundamentally breaks the
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dominion of sin. You have died to sin.
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How can you live in it any longer?
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But then comes Chapter 7, and Chapter 7 is a brutally honest
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look at the ongoing going struggle.
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It expresses the agonizing cry of the believers struggling with
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indwelling sin. Paul writes for I do not do the
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good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on
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doing. It culminates in that desperate
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shout, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this
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body of death. Chapter 7 demonstrates that the
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Law is holy, just, and good, but the Law possesses 0 capacity to
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sanctify a human heart. The law is like a mirror, right?
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Yes, a mirror can show you that your face is dirty, but you
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cannot use the mirror to wash your face.
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The law can expose your sin, it can condemn your sin, but it
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cannot conquer your sin. That desperate plunge into human
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weakness in Chapter 7 is what makes the ascent into Chapter 8
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so magnificent. Chapter 8 is the sunlit summit
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of the epistle. The contrast is massive.
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I was looking at the source notes and the Holy Spirit is
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mentioned 21 times in chapter 8. If you look at the preceding
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chapters, the Spirit is barely mentioned.
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That is true. It is like Paul has been holding
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holding his breath underwater for seven chapters and he
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finally breaches the surface and takes a massive gasp of air.
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Verses 5 through 9 provide the theological explanation for why
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the righteous requirement of the law is actually fulfilled in
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believers. It unpacks the mechanics of the
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two natures. It explains how the victory long
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for in Chapter 7 is actually achieved exactly.
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I have an observation about this.
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If you take Romans 8.5 to 9 and isolate it from chapters one
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through 5, it sounds like a modern self help manual.
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Oh, completely. It sounds like just set your
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mind on spiritual things, think positive thoughts, choose joy,
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manifest your destiny. But if you isolate it from the
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agonizing struggle of Chapter 7, it sounds like an impossible
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demand for sinless perfection, which would just crush people in
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despair. That is a brilliant observation.
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Context dictates meaning. If you detach these verses from
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the doctrine of justification by faith, you invite sheer
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moralism. You assume the text is telling
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people to pull themselves up by their psychological bootstraps.
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Right, you turn Christianity into a cognitive behavioral
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therapy session. But within the logical flow of
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Romans, Paul is clarifying that setting the mind on the Spirit
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is the evidence and the fruit of regeneration.
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It it is never the cause of justification.
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No, it is the proof of life, not the cause of life.
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A beating heart proves you are alive.
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It doesn't make you alive. The life comes first, then the
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heartbeat. The structure safeguards the
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doctrine of sovereign grace. The passage moves
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systematically. It goes from the evidence of our
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state in verses 5 and 6 to the theological reason for the
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unregenerate person's hopeless condition in verses 7 and 8.
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And finally to the pastoral assurance of the believers true
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identity in verse 9. Let's zoom in on that evidence
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of our state. Moving from the broad structure
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into the specific wording of verses 5 and 6, we see how an
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individual's inner orientation dictates their eternal reality.
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Verse 5 says those who live according to the flesh set their
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minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live
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according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
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What's fascinating here is the Greek word Paul uses for setting
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the mind. It is fronio.
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And this is not merely cognitive or intellectual activity.
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It is not just having a fleeting thought about a car or sandwich
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or a theological concept. In ancient Greek usage, fronio
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refers to the visceral, gut level orientation of the whole
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person. It involves the mind, the
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affections, the will, and the desires.
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It is the fundamental bent of your entire being.
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So it is not just a passing thought, it is the gravitational
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pull of your soul. I like to think of it as a
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compass needle. No matter how violently you
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shake a tumpus, no matter how much you spin it around or drop
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it on the ground, eventually the needle is going to settle,
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pointing north. That is what it is designed to
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do. For the unregenerate person, the
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person in the flesh, the needle of their heart always settles,
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pointing towards self. Even when they do nice things,
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the needle always swings back to self preservation, self glory,
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or self gratification. That is an excellent way to
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visualize it. Behavior is the inevitable
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overflow of nature. A person's daily habits, their
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financial priorities, the way they spend their free time,
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their secret thoughts when they're alone, what they set
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their for NEMA on, are directly dictated by their fundamental
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spiritual state. There is no neutral human heart.
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No, you are not a blank slate. The disposition is completely
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enslaved to whichever realm it belongs to.
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And the outcomes of these two realms are absolute.
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Verse 6 says for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to
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set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.
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The syntax here is incredibly telling.
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The text states that the carnal mind is death.
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Is death present tense? Right.
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It does not say it leads to death eventually, like a bad
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diet leading to heart disease decades down the road.
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It denotes spiritual necropsy in the present moment.
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The flesh produces nothing but corruption right now, which
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results in eternal conscious separation later.
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To be in the flesh is to be a walking corpse, spiritually
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speaking. It is a present reality with
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eternal consequences. In contrast, the mindset on the
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Spirit is life and peace, and we have to clarify what peace means
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here. Yeah, it is not just a
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subjective feeling of calm after a long vacation or a yoga class.
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It is objective peace with God. The war is over.
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The hostility has ceased, resulting in vital, pulsating
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spiritual life in the soul. The destiny is inexorably tied
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to the disposition. You cannot possess the mindset
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of the flesh and somehow arrive at the destiny of the Spirit.
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God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, that he
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will also reap. The trajectory is fixed by the
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nature of the seed planted. Listener.
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This requires intense self examination.
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Examine your own frenema, your own mindset.
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Look at your browser history. Look at your bank statement.
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Look at the daydreams you entertained when you were stuck
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in traffic. Left to its ordinary emotion,
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when no one is watching, what do you truly prize?
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What do you excuse? What do you habitually desire?
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Does your compass needle point toward the glory of Christ or
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does it point towards self? That level of examination
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naturally leads us to the most devastating theological truth in
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the entire text. If the flesh equals death, the
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logical question is why doesn't a person just choose to change
22:05
their mindset? That is the $1,000,000 question.
22:08
If the diagnosis is this bad, if the doctor says you are a
22:11
corpse, just make a different choice.
22:13
Choose life, turn over a new leaf.
22:16
But verses 7 and 8 drop an absolute hammer on that idea.
22:19
It shatters the myth of free will.
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Verse 7 reveals that the carnal mind is active hostility against
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God. The Greek word is ekthra.
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It is not neutral, It is not just indifferent or slightly
22:29
bored by religion. It is at war with the Creator.
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The clauses here are relentless. It says the carnal mind does not
22:36
submit to God's law. The problem lies in the
22:39
rebellious heart. But then Paul adds the sharpened
22:41
phrase. Indeed it cannot.
22:43
The Greek phrase udegard dynati is explosive.
22:47
Dynati denotes power or ability, modifying it with the absolute
22:51
negative. Uday denotes an absolute state
22:54
of impotence, literally, for not even is it able.
22:58
This sounds incredibly bleak. I have to push back here on
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behalf of the skeptic. Sure, if a person literally
23:04
cannot submit to God, how can God justly hold them
23:07
responsible? It sounds like tying someone to
23:09
a chair with thick ropes, demanding they stand up, and
23:13
then punishing them when they remain seated.
23:15
Yeah. How is that fair?
23:16
Right. How can God judge someone for
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not doing something they lack the ability to do?
23:20
That is the classic objection, and it is a necessary 1 to
23:23
wrestle with. The inability Paul describes is
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not a mechanical or physical inability, like being tied to
23:29
the chair. OK.
23:29
So what kind of inability is it? It is a moral guilty inability.
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The great theologian Jonathan Edwards articulated this
23:36
brilliantly when he distinguished between natural
23:38
inability and moral inability. So natural inability is being
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tied to the chair. Yes, moral inability is having
23:45
the physical capacity to stand up, but possessing a will so
23:49
violently opposed to the person asking you to stand that you
23:52
refuse to do it. Edwards explained that the will
23:55
always chooses according to its strongest inclination at the
23:58
moment of choice. Let me make sure I grasp this.
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You are saying they're choosing what they want to choose.
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Yes, the natural person cannot submit to God because they will
24:07
not submit to God. They lack the moral capacity
24:10
because their heart actively loves darkness and hates the
24:12
light. So they are not victims trapped
24:15
against their will in a state of rebellion.
24:17
No, they are rebels acting entirely in accordance with
24:20
their corrupt nature. They love their chains.
24:22
They cannot because they will not, and they will not because
24:25
their nature is hostile. It is like asking a lion to eat
24:28
a salad. Exactly.
24:29
The lion physically has a mouth. It has teeth.
24:32
It has a digestive tract. It is not tied down, but its
24:35
nature dictates that it craves meat.
24:37
Right, it cannot choose the salad because it has absolutely
24:40
zero desire for it. Its nature prevents the choice.
24:43
You could put the freshest, most organic salad in front of the
24:46
lion and it will ignore it and try to eat you.
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Not because it lacks the physical mechanism to eat
24:52
vegetables, but because it's nature abhors them.
24:54
That captures the essence of total depravity.
24:57
Total depravity does not mean every person is as evil as they
25:00
could possibly be. It means every faculty of man,
25:03
the mind, the will, the emotions, the body is corrupted
25:06
by sin. There is no pristine, unfallen
25:10
island of free will left inside the human soul that can reach
25:13
out to God. Verse 8 concludes this
25:16
progression with absolute finality.
25:18
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
25:21
That single sentence dismantle so much church history it
25:25
destroys any theological system that elevates human autonomy.
25:28
It really does. Let's talk about Pelagianism.
25:30
Back in the early 5th century, there was British monk named
25:32
Pelagius. He travels to Rome.
25:35
He looks around at all the Christians living compromise
25:37
lives and he gets frustrated. He essentially says you guys are
25:41
just lazy, you have the total free will to be perfect.
25:44
Sin is just a bad habit you imitate, not a nature you
25:47
inherit, and Augustine hears this and vehemently opposes it.
25:52
Augustine recognized that Pelagianism destroys the gospel.
25:55
If man is basically good and just needs to try harder, then
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the cross of Christ is just a good example, not a necessary
26:02
substitute. The Church rightly condemned
26:05
Pelagianism as a heresy. But the desire to elevate human
26:08
ability never fully dies. Later on you see variations like
26:12
semi pelagianism or Armenianism. Which suggests man is sick, but
26:17
retains enough uncorrupted free will to cooperate with God's
26:20
grace and make the decisive choice for salvation on his own.
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But Romans 8.8 leaves there's no room for human contribution.
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Cannot please God, period. You cannot pull yourself out of
26:30
the grave. You cannot meet God halfway.
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A corks cannot grab a lifesaver thrown into the water.
26:35
If we look at the broader theology of the New Testament,
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we compare Romans 8.8, which says those in the flesh cannot
26:40
please God, with Hebrews 11.6, which declares without faith it
26:44
is impossible to please Him. Oh wow, let me put those two
26:46
equations together. Go for it.
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If the unregenerate human cannot please God, and faith is what
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pleases God, then the unregenerate human cannot
26:54
generate saving faith on their own.
26:57
It is a watertight logical deduction.
26:59
It is impossible for the natural unregenerate man to produce
27:03
saving faith of his own free will.
27:06
Therefore, regeneration must precede faith.
27:09
The Holy Spirit must grant spiritual life before the
27:11
individual can exercise belief. The breath of life must enter
27:15
the lungs before the body can cry out.
27:17
God must give the gift of faith. Which means salvation is from
27:20
first to last a sovereign work of God.
27:23
It kills our pride. We contributed nothing but the
27:26
sin that made salvation necessary.
27:28
After stripping away all human pride, after bankrupting the
27:31
natural person completely and leaving us with 0 grounds for
27:34
boasting the text pivots. It offers the only source of
27:38
hope. Verse 9 shifts the tone
27:39
entirely, Paul writes. You, however, are not in the
27:42
flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells
27:45
in you. Here's.
27:46
Where it gets really interesting, look at the
27:48
brilliant pastoral shift. Here Paul spends verses 5
27:51
through 8 completely wounding the readers.
27:53
Tried. He crushes any lingering
27:55
self-confidence. He takes away every crutch.
27:58
But he wounds in order to heal. He acts like a surgeon removing
28:03
a tumor. It hurts, but it is necessary to
28:06
save the patient. He destroys self-confidence to
28:08
build Christ confidence. He does not leave the Roman
28:12
congregation under the abstract, terrifying description of the
28:15
unregenerate. He applies the truth directly to
28:18
the believing audience to provide massive, unshakable
28:21
assurance. The sole distinguishing mark of
28:24
a true Christian is the indwelling Holy Spirit.
28:26
It is not church attendance, it is not an intellectual
28:29
profession of faith, it is not being baptized, and it is not
28:33
external moral conformity. It is the presence of the third
28:36
Person of the Trinity taking up residence in the human soul.
28:39
Paul has a parallel clause right after that anyone who does not
28:42
have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
28:44
That draws A definitive boundary line.
28:46
There are no exceptions to this rule.
28:48
We must also recognize the immense Trinitarian revelation
28:51
happening in this single verse. Paul uses the phrases Spirit of
28:54
God and Spirit of Christ interchangeably.
28:56
The Spirit is the Spirit of the Father, and He's the Spirit of
28:59
the Son. Historically, this establishes
29:02
the orthodox doctrine known as the filioc.
29:04
Let's unpack the filioc for a second, because a lot of people
29:06
hear that and think of obscure church history that doesn't
29:09
matter today. Filioc is Latin for and the son.
29:13
Right in the year 1054, the Church split in half the Great
29:16
Schism between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Western
29:19
Catholic Church. A major part of that split was
29:22
over whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone
29:25
or from the Father and the Son. And here in Romans 8, Paul
29:28
casually links them together. Why does this ancient debate
29:31
actually matter for someone listening today?
29:34
It matters because it shows the intimate, unbreakable unity of
29:37
the Trinity in the work of redemption.
29:40
The Father purposes salvation, the Son accomplishes salvation,
29:44
and the Spirit applies salvation.
29:45
The Spirit does not go rogue, He only applies what Christ has
29:48
purchased. How did the Holy Spirit come to
29:51
dwell within a depraved human being who was previously at
29:54
enmity with God? The holy God cannot dwell in a
29:57
defiled temple. The Spirit is given exclusively
30:00
because of the meritorious work of Jesus Christ.
30:03
Christ lived the perfect life of active obedience to the law that
30:06
we could not live. He perfectly loved God and
30:09
neighbor every second of His life.
30:11
Then He suffered the passive obedience on the cross, and
30:14
during the wrath our flesh deserved, He absorbed the
30:18
penalty. The Spirit's presence in your
30:20
life is the purchased possession of the Atonement.
30:24
Christ acts as our prophet revealing the truth, our priest
30:28
dealing with our guilt, and our King sending his Spirit to
30:31
subdue our rebellion. I want to offer a word of
30:33
comfort to the genuine listener who might hear all this talk
30:37
about total inability, hostility and the flesh and feel
30:40
terrified. That is a very natural response
30:42
to hearing this text taught properly.
30:44
Maybe you are listening to this and you grieve over your sin.
30:47
You look at your life and you see failure.
30:50
You feel an agonizing internal conflict.
30:52
You hate the remnants of the flesh in your life.
30:54
And you wonder, am I actually in the flesh?
30:56
Am IA fraud? The presence of that very grief,
30:59
that internal warfare, is itself evidence of the indwelling
31:03
spirit. Yes, because the flesh, left
31:06
entirely to itself never laments its hostility toward God.
31:10
A dead body does not fight back against decay.
31:13
A corpse does not cry out for medicine.
31:16
If you are fighting, if you are mourning your sin, If you are
31:19
grieved by your lack of holiness, it is because there is
31:22
spiritual life within you. The flesh loves the flesh, only
31:26
the Spirit hates the flesh. The fact that you are engaged in
31:30
a war proves you are alive. That is the pastoral comfort of
31:33
verse 9. The mark of the Christian is not
31:35
the absence of struggle. It is the presence of the Spirit
31:38
which guarantees the ultimate victory over the struggle.
31:41
The war is proof of life. This severe diagnosis from the
31:44
1st century demands we look at how we Live Today.
31:47
We cannot just leave this in the theological realm.
31:50
The source material takes this 1st century framework and
31:52
applies it heavily to the landscape of the 21st century
31:55
church and culture. If the mindset of the flesh is
31:58
active enmity against God, what does that mean for how churches
32:01
operate today? The application is urgent and
32:04
convicting. If the flesh is actively hostile
32:07
to God, then this text demands a complete rejection of modern
32:11
pragmatic, seeker sensitive church models.
32:14
You mean the models that use worldly entertainment, concert
32:17
lighting, psychological manipulation, or secular
32:20
business tactics to attract massive crowds?
32:23
Yes, the idea that we need to make church cool or relevant to
32:27
get unregenerate people in the door.
32:29
Attempting to appeal to the flesh to build a church is
32:32
antithetical to Romans 8. To appeal the appeal to the
32:35
flesh is to appeal to that which is actively hostile to the
32:37
Creator. You cannot use methods that
32:39
belong to the realm of death to bring people into the realm of
32:42
life. When you use carnal means to
32:44
attract carnal people, you have to continually use carnal means
32:47
to keep them. It builds A congregation based
32:50
on consumerism, not regeneration.
32:53
The source material shifts focus here, taking this 1st century
32:56
theological framework and mapping it onto modern secular
32:59
ideologies. The author specifically names
33:01
frameworks like critical race theory, radical feminism,
33:04
Marxist social theories, and broad religious pluralism,
33:07
classifying them as modern manifestations of the flesh.
33:11
And I want to be clear with you, the listener, we are not here to
33:14
take a political side, endorse a specific cultural viewpoint, or
33:18
jump into a partisan debate. Right.
33:20
Our goal is strictly to report how the author connects these
33:23
dots. So, looking at the text we have,
33:26
how does the author draw a line from Paul's critique of the
33:29
flesh in Romans 8 to the specific modern secular
33:33
philosophies? The author's argument hinges on
33:36
the premise of human autonomy. The text observes that secular
33:40
ideologies, whether Marxist frameworks focusing on class
33:43
struggle or modern theories focusing on identity politics,
33:47
attempt to diagnose human suffering and prescribe
33:49
solutions entirely apart from God's revelation.
33:52
They rely on human lived experience, secular philosophy,
33:55
and human power structures rather than the biblical
33:57
categories of sin, redemption, and the cross.
34:00
The author argues that because these systems do not submit to
34:02
God's law, they are, by Paul's definition, the mindset of the
34:06
flesh. The world tells us to follow our
34:08
inner desires, to find truth within ourselves, to dismantle
34:12
external authorities. The author points out that Paul
34:15
says this mindset is spiritual death.
34:17
This raises an important question.
34:19
Based on the source text, does this mean Christians should just
34:21
ignore societal issues? Should we retreat to a
34:25
monastery, ignore injustice and let the culture rot?
34:29
Or does it mean the framework for addressing these issues must
34:32
be completely different? The source material indicates
34:35
the framework for engagement must rely solely on objective
34:39
biblical truth, not on synthesizing the gospel with
34:43
secular philosophy. Attempting to wed the Spirit
34:46
with the flesh to solve societal problems will fail.
34:49
The believer engages the culture by proclaiming the soul remedy
34:52
for the human condition, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
34:55
We have to operate from the operating system of the spirit,
34:58
not the operating system of the flesh.
35:00
We cannot fix spiritual death with sociological band aids.
35:03
And for the individual believer listening, this text outlines
35:06
how we wage war on the remnants of the flesh in our own lives.
35:09
It is not through morbid introspection, constantly
35:12
staring at our own failures. It is through active
35:14
mortification, putting to death the deeds of the body by the
35:17
Spirit, the Puritan John Owen famously wrote.
35:20
Be killing sin or it will be killing you.
35:22
Practically speaking, how does someone actually do that on a
35:25
Tuesday afternoon when they are tempted?
35:27
By utilizing the ordinary means of grace, you immerse your mind
35:32
in Scripture to renew your phrenema.
35:34
You seek God fervently in prayer, acknowledging your
35:37
weakness. You sit gladly under faithful
35:39
biblical preaching that proclaims Christ.
35:42
You cultivate fellowship with other believers who will hold
35:44
you accountable. You deliberately starve the
35:47
patterns that feed the flesh, curtailing media consumption,
35:50
avoiding compromising situations, and consciously
35:54
pursue the things of the Spirit. You fill the mind with truth, so
35:58
there is no room left for the lies.
36:00
You don't just say no to the flesh, you say yes to a greater
36:03
affection. You look at the beauty of Christ
36:05
until the things of earth grow strangely dim.
36:08
Sanctification is the daily outworking of the realm change
36:11
brought about by the Spirit. You are no longer in the flesh,
36:14
therefore do not walk according to the flesh.
36:16
Act like who you are. And as we bring this deep dive
36:19
to a close, let's summarize the great divide we have uncovered
36:22
today. There are only two ways to live.
36:24
There were only two dispositions, setting the mind
36:27
on the flesh or setting the mind on the spirit.
36:30
And there are only two eternal destinies, death or life and
36:34
peace. The myth of human free will to
36:36
save oneself is shattered upon the anvil of God's Word.
36:40
The natural man is hostile, unable and unwilling to please
36:44
God. Salvation must be and is
36:47
entirely a work of sovereign grace.
36:49
It magnifies the glory of the Triune God.
36:52
It destroys our pride and secures our hope simultaneously.
36:55
I want to leave you, the listener, with a final
36:57
provocative thought to Mull over as you go about your week.
37:00
We've talked extensively about the totality of the flesh and
37:03
the illusion of neutrality. I want you to consider the
37:05
absolute best, most socially acceptable, most righteous
37:09
action you performed today. Maybe you helped a neighbor
37:11
carry their groceries, or gave money to a charity or spoke
37:14
kindly to a a Co worker who is being rude to you.
37:17
A completely commendable action in the eyes of society.
37:20
Yes, an action that everyone would applaud.
37:24
But ask yourself this, if that action was done apart from the
37:28
indwelling Holy Spirit and apart from saving faith in Christ.
37:32
Wait, excuse me. If that action was done, apart
37:33
from saving faith in Christ, was it truly pleasing to God?
37:37
Or, based on Romans 8.8, was it simply a highly polished,
37:42
socially acceptable form of rebellion?
37:44
Was it just the flesh trying to validate itself, trying to prove
37:47
its own goodness without submitting to the king of the?
37:49
Universe. That is the terrifying reality
37:52
of the unregenerate state. Even the virtues of the flesh
37:55
are tainted by the desire for autonomy.
37:57
But for those in Christ, here is the grace.
38:00
Even our weakest, most stumbling obedience, when offered in the
38:03
Spirit and washed in the blood of Jesus, is accepted and
38:06
pleasing to the Father. That is the staggering
38:08
difference between death and life.
38:10
Thank you so much for joining us on Reformed Thinking.
38:12
For this deep dive into Romans chapter 8, we ask you to take
38:15
these truths, evaluate your own soul, put no confidence in the
38:18
flesh, and rest entirely on the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
38:22
Until next time.