Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 8:6
For to be carnally minded [is] death; but to be spiritually minded [is] life and peace.
6. For ] The reference of this “for” is not clear at first sight. Probably the sequence of thought is that the difference of carnal and spiritual preferences is profoundly real; for the former involves death, the latter, life and peace. And it is implied that the respective persons cannot possibly therefore interchange their preferences.
to be carnally minded ] Lit. the mind of the flesh. The noun rendered “mind” is cognate to the verb rendered “do mind” in Rom 8:5. See note there. The idea includes choice, engrossment, affection towards a congenial object. See Art. IX. of the Church of England, where “the wisdom of the flesh” is the only phrase not admissible in a strict explanation. The E. V. here gives the sense as well as is possible, perhaps, in a brief form.
death ] Is this legal or moral death? On the whole, we explain it of legal death, i.e. of doom. This idea implies the other, for the soul which is incurring the Divine Sentence cannot be morally “alive to God” in the sense of peace, love, and purity. But the connexion makes the idea of doom more prominent: see Rom 8:7, where antagonism to the Law is specified as the inevitable state of the “carnal mind.” Thus the words here mean that to have the choices and affections of unregenerate humanity is to lie under God’s sentence, and to be on the way to its infliction.
to be spiritually minded ] Lit. the mind of the Spirit. See last note but one.
life and peace ] This (by analogy with the view of “death” just above) means a state of acceptance, in its aspect ( a) of pardon and consequent glory; (see last note on ch. Rom 5:18😉 and ( b) of secure and loving intercourse with God, with all its attendant blessings. See on ch. Rom 5:1. Here of course, in view of the argument of cch. 3 and 4 especially, we must note how the being spiritually minded “is” life and peace; viz. not as the procuring cause of these blessings, which cause is the Propitiation (accepted by faith) alone; but as the state of mind in which only they can be realized and enjoyed.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For to be carnally minded – Margin, The minding of the flesh. The sense is, that to follow the inclinations of the flesh, or the corrupt propensities of our nature, leads us to condemnation and death. The expression is one of great energy, and shows that it not only leads to death, or leads to misery, but that it is death itself; there is woe and condemnation in the very act and purpose of being supremely devoted to the corrupt passions, Its only tendency is condemnation and despair.
Is death – The penalty of transgression; condemnation and eternal ruin; Note, Rom 5:12.
But to be spiritually minded – Margin, The minding of the Spirit. That is, making it the object of the mind, the end and aim of the actions, to cultivate the graces of the Spirit, and to submit to his influence. To be spiritually minded is to seek those feelings and views which the Holy Spirit produces, and to follow his leadings.
Is life – This is opposed to death in Rom 8:5. It tends to life, and is in fact real life. For to possess and cultivate the graces of the spirit, to be led where he would guide us, is the design of our existence, and is the only path of happiness.
And peace – Note, Rom. 6.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Rom 8:6
For to be carnally minded is death.
The carnal and the spiritual mind
I. The carnal mind.
1. The disposition.
(1) The expression is an abstract one. The apostle touches a principle which he finds at work, and laying hold of it says, I wish you to look at it so that you may see its nature and tendency, just as a physician might describe the symptoms of a disease.
(2) This disease is named the mind of the flesh. This minding is like other verbs in which the organ gives the name to the act. When we put our hand to a thing we handle it, the eye, to eye it, the affections, to affect it. Minding the flesh is not gross vice, but simply worldly mindedness.
2. The consequence. To be carnally minded is–
(1) Death.
(a) It is the forerunner of eternal death. For such a disposition could never find a home in heaven.
(b) A sign of present spiritual death–a deadness to spiritual things,
(2) Enmity against God–a condition which men do not realise. Only conscious of indifference or ignorance, they resent the charge of enmity. But the apostle describes a tendency, ready at any moment, at any pressure of Gods demands, to break out in hostility.
(3) Is not subject to the law of God. Law here is equivalent to will. The law which worldly mindedness follows is what it and not what God likes. It must be taken away.
(4) Cannot please God.
II. The spiritual mind.
1. How it is produced. If so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. No man is spiritually minded by nature. Respecting this Holy Spirit, note–
(1) His importance. The dispensation under which we live is called the dispensation of the Spirit. While Christ is our only hope, upon the Holy Spirit depends our entire success.
(2) His mystery (Joh 3:8).
(3) His position. It is safer to honour Him too much than too little when we know that the sin of neglecting Him will never be forgiven either in this world or in the world to come.
(4) The privileges He introduces–regeneration, help, comfort, sanctification.
2. Its characteristics.
(1) Life. Material life is union of body and soul. True life in the mind is contact with the objects which draw out all its susceptibilities, On becoming spiritually minded we cater on a new world of spiritual realities. As experienced here, it is spiritual life; as experienced hereafter, it will be eternal life. All other life is death because it is in union with perishing things and all its elements are dying.
(2) Peace. Life in sunshine. In proportion as we become spiritually minded is our peace secured. And that peace rests not upon a foundation which may be disturbed by conscience, poverty, or bereavement. Nothing can separate us, etc.
3. The privilege of which this mind is the seal–Christs Spirit. A man may have much that bears the semblance of piety–a head stored with knowledge, a mouth full of argument, a life full of work. But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. As a matter, then, of fact, every man may test his condition and state by this proof. (P. Strutt.)
Carnal and spiritual mindedness and their effects
I. The death here spoken of is something more than penal death.
1. It is not future, but present, and arises from the obtuseness or the extinction of certain feelings and faculties which, if awake to their corresponding objects, would uphold a life of thoughts and sensations and regards, altogether different from the life of unregenerate men. Just figure an affectionate father to have all the domestic feelings paralysed. Then would you say of him that he had become dead to the joys and the interests of home. And the death of the carnally minded is a death to all that is spiritual–a hopeless apathy in all that regards our love to God and righteousness.
2. And such a death is not merely a thing of negation, but of positive wretchedness. For with the want of all that is spiritual about him, there is still a remainder of feeling which makes him sensible of his want, and a remorse and a terror about invisible things, even amid the busy appliance of this worlds opiates. And there are other miseries which spring up from the pride that is met with incessant mortification–from the selfishness that comes into collision with selfishness–from the moral agonies which essentially adhere to malice and hatred, and from the shame that is annexed to the pursuits of licentiousness. All these give to the sinner his foretaste of hell on this side of death.
II. From what we have said of the death of those who are carnally, you will be at no loss to understand what is meant by the life of those who are spiritually minded. We read of those who are alienated from the life of God, and to this it is that they find readmittance. The blood of Christ hath consecrated for them a way of access; and the fruit of that access is delight in God–the charm of confidence, of a new moral gladness in the contemplation of Gods character, an assimilation of their own character to His, and so a taste for charity and truth and holiness; and a joy, both in the cultivation of all these virtues and in the possession of a heart at growing unison with the mind and will of God. These are the ingredients of a present life, which is the token and the foretaste of life everlasting.
III. The peace of those who are spiritually minded. There are two great causes of disturbance to which the heart is exposed.
1. A brooding anxiety lest we shall be bereft or disappointed of some object on which our desires are set. The man who is spiritually minded rises above this, for there is an object paramount to all which engrosses the care of a worldly man; and so what to others are overwhelming mortifications, to him are but the passing annoyances of a journey. To him there is an open vista through which he may descry a harbour and a home, on the other side of the stormy passage that leads to it; and this he finds enough to bear him up under all that vexes and dispirits other men.
2. There is nought in the character of the spiritually minded that exempts them from the hostility of other men; but there is the sense of a present God in the feeling of whose love there is a sunshine which the world knoweth not; and there is the prospect of a future heaven in whose sheltering bosom it is known that the turbulence of this weary pilgrimage will soon be over; and there is even a charity that mellows our present sensation of painfulness, and makes the revolt that is awakened by the coarse and vulgar exhibition of human asperity to be somewhat more tolerable. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
To be spiritually minded is life and peace.—
Spiritual mindedness
I. Its nature. Note–
1. The objects which a spiritually minded man regards. There is a spiritual as well as a material, an intellectual, and a moral world–a world the existence and contents of which are not ascertained by the exercise of the senses, nor by the mere exercise of intellectual energy; for eye hath not seen, etc. They are, however, graciously revealed to us by the Spirit in the Scriptures; they comprehend the existence, character, and government of God; the responsibility, guilt, and depravity of man; the person, character, and mediatorial work of the Redeemer; the instructions and influences of the Holy Spirit; the graces which adorn the Christian character; and the glory to which the believer is graciously destined.
2. The manner in which a spiritually-minded man regards these objects. He has a spiritual discernment, in the exercise of which he regards spiritual things in a totally different way than he did before. The things themselves remain the same, but he is changed. He regards them now–
(1) Devoutly. He meditates on them not as matters of mere speculation, but as the means of holiness and of eternal life. You may think of religion in all its aspects and yet he as far from all spiritual contact with religion itself as the astronomer is from the star he contemplates. But if you think of them devoutly, your thoughts will be accompanied with such feelings as correspond with their character and importance.
(2) Supremely. Not that he disregards those which are secular and temporal, but to him their importance is secondary; he seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
(3) Habitually. It is no uncommon thing for a worldly-minded man, under the influence of strong excitement, to direct his attention to spiritual things, and with some degree of anxiety. But his regard is as transitory as the excitement by which it was occasioned. But spirituality is the law of the mind of a spiritually-minded man, and it displays itself both by its resistance to evil and by its pursuit of good.
(4) Practically. Its internal influence on the heart is indeed invisible, but this is always connected with visible effects, like the sap which secretly circulates through the tree, and then exhibits its existence by the fruit. By their fruits ye shall know them.
3. The general principles by which a spiritually-minded mans regard to these objects is regulated.
(1) A firm belief in the existence of spiritual things.
(2) A solemn conviction of the Divine presence.
(3) An obedient regard to Divine authority.
(4) A holy love to the Divine character.
(5) A penitential conviction of guilt.
(6) The prospect of standing before the judgment seat of Christ.
II. The life and peace with which spiritual mindedness is connected.
1. To be spiritually minded is life. This life is–
(1) Real. A speculative knowledge of the gospel is not life; nor is a performance of the ceremonies of religion; nor a visible union with the Church. These things may adorn the worldly-minded professor, as fragrant flowers adorn the lifeless corpse. There is no life, unless you live by the faith of the Son of God.
(2) Is of the highest and noblest character. The lowest degree of life is vegetable life; the next is animal; the next is intellectual. But beyond all these is spiritual life, which assimilates its possessor to its Divine source.
2. To be spiritually minded is peace. This peace arises from–
(1) Pardon, for, being justified by faith we have peace with God.
(2) Confidence in God; Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.
(3) The smile of God, when we walk in the light of His countenance.
(4) Peace in affliction; for in the world ye shall have tribulation, but in Me ye shall have peace.
(5) Peace in death; for mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.
III. The means by which spiritual mindedness may be produced and promoted.
1. Carefully avoid everything which is opposed to spirituality of mind.
2. Contemplate the Word of God in the exercise of faith.
3. Pray without ceasing. (J. Alexander.)
Spiritual mindedness
I. Wherein this state of mind consists. In–
1. Renewal of the mind by the Spirit (Joh 3:6-7).
2. Abstraction of the mind from the world.
3. Exercise of the mind on spiritual objects.
II. With what this state of mind is identified. To be spiritually minded, according to the wise men after the flesh, is to be mad; according to the votaries of sensual pleasure, is to be melancholy; according to the Word of God, life and peace. Spirituality of mind is–
1. The evidence of spiritual life. It is not natural to nor acquired by man. No cause is adequate to the production of it but the Holy Ghost. He, therefore, who is spiritually minded has the witness of the Spirit that he is born of God. In the feelings of life experienced, and the functions of life performed, there is the evidence of life.
2. The element of a happy life. To be spiritually minded is life and peace. It yields pure and permanent enjoyment when all other sources fail, and in every variety and change of circumstance, and is productive of perfect felicity in heaven.
3. The earnest of eternal life–both as a pledge that it shall be given, and as a part already given (Rom 8:29-30; Joh 4:14).
III. How this state of mind may be originated and promoted. By–
1. Dependence on the Spirit of God.
2. Attendance on the means of grace. The Spirit ordinarily works by means, the chief of which are the study of the Scriptures, private devotion, and public worship.
3. Seclusion from the world. Not that lawful occupation is incompatible, but there is in the world much that has tendency to sensualise the mind; and the further we remove from the sphere of its attraction, the better for the cultivation of this grace.
4. Christian converse. When Christ talked with two of His disciples by the way, their hearts burned within them.
5. Meditation on death and the world to come.
The subject may be viewed and improved–
1. As a test of character.
2. As an excitement to joy. (G. Corney.)
The spiritual mind
I. What it is. The mind which the Holy Spirit infuses into the regenerate, and which desires and pursues after spiritual things. In its more advanced and perfect form, it is the enthronement of the Divine will over the human; the voluntary subjection of the whole man to a Divine influence, whereby Christ is formed in us.
II. Whence have we it?
1. Its efficient cause is the Holy Spirit. To awaken conscience from its sleep, to turn the will from its waywardness, to eradicate the seeds of evil, and to fill the heart with love for whatever is holy, is the province of the Holy Spirit, and of Him only: That which is born of the flesh is flesh, etc.
2. The instrumental means is the Word of God, which by the Spirit, is made effectual in them that believe. Sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth, go together. The Spirit uses the truth to obtain influential access to mans soul, in all its parts–to the understanding, that it may be opened; to the judgment, that it may be convinced; to the will, that it may be subdued; to the conscience, that it may be restored to its rightful supremacy; to the affections, that they may be set on God and heaven.
III. In what forms does it manifest itself?
1. In the quickened condition of the religious sensibilities; the transformation of the heart of stone into the heart of flesh. To be carnally-minded is death. While a man is in this state, he is dead to all the objects and interests of the spiritual world. Of the beauty of holiness he has no knowledge. The favour of God has no part in his aspirations, and the eternal and unseen never occasion a serious thought. Hence, awakened sensibility is the first sign of an inner life. We feel spiritually. There is a keen sensitiveness to the presence of evil. The favour of God is life to us. True, it may be life without peace. But life it is, and must be. Spiritual emotions, be they painful or be they joyous, can come only from a spiritual mind. A tear is as good a sign of life as a smile. But remember that this awakened sensibility is a thing of degrees. The mind of the Spirit belongs as truly to the babe in Christ as to the perfect man; to the awakened sinner, in his first convictions, as to the triumphant saint just entering on his rest. There must be life in us, while we are manifesting any of the functions of life.
2. In the increasing prevalence of religious thoughts and affections. They that are after the Spirit do mind the things of the Spirit. The thoughts make the man, and the thoughts are the man. He is carnal, if he gives the first and largest place in his heart to the things of the world; he is spiritual, if he gives that preeminence to the exercises of faith.
3. In the centering of its best affections in a personal Saviour, as the medium through which the soul orders all its intercourse with the heavenly world.
IV. Its fruits and experiences. Life and peace. There is the life and peace of–
1. The resting and settled heart. The life of carnal-minded men is one of miserable unrest, which comes of their doing violence to a law of their being. They have taken up with something below that which their souls were made and fitted for. But the spiritual man in the midst of a conflicting, shifting, uncertain, and unstable world, rests in the Lord.
2. The resigned and submissive will, walking confidently after Divine guidance. In the embarrassments of moral choice, in the oppositions of conflicting duties, we look to have the mind of the Spirit.
3. Spiritual liberty. There is a service which may be laborious, exact, and costly, but it is the service of a bondsman–of one who is labouring to obey, before he has been fully brought to believe. But the spiritual mind changes constraint into cheerfulness, and duty into happiness, and the restless activity of a self-devised and legal worship into the calm repose of a commanded and accepted sacrifice.
4. Devotion. For, having the Spirit, we have in ourselves an agency for helping our infirmities. He moulds us into the praying form, suggests to us praying thoughts, forms in us the praying habit.
V. The best means of attaining it.
1. Prayer for the influences of that Spirit through whom this great gift comes to us. The most eminent effusions of the Spirit were not only afforded to prayer, but appear to have taken place at the very time these sacred exercises were being performed (Eze 36:37; Act 2:1).
2. The cultivation of such tempers as are most congruous with His revealed character, and calculated to invite His gracious presence in our souls. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. A Spirit of love, He is grieved at the indulgence of envious and malignant passions. A Spirit of supplication, He is grieved when we grow remiss in the exercises of devotion. He cannot, as a Spirit of holiness, remain in a heart to be the companion of unforsaken sin. And as we retest not grieve the Author of the spiritual mind, so we must be careful not to quench His sacred influences. The gifts of the Spirit are not bestowed upon us to lie idle. Their fruitfulness depends upon their being kept in constant exercise.
3. All those tendencies which the apostle includes under the name of the carnal mind, must be brought into subjection. The flesh and the Spirit cannot reign together. Hence we are required to mortify the deeds of the body. And this we do by denying them indulgence.
4. The observance of stated seasons of religious retirement.
5. Making subservient thereto things which are not spiritual–pressing into a sanctified service every turn in the lot of life. It is a great art, as Bishop Hall says, to learn the heavenly use of earthly things. As the raging fire turns everything which is cast into it into its own nature; or as the flower makes common use of the rain and the snow drift, the sunbeam, and the dew, to minister to the nourishment and support of its own vitality; so, by the power of a Divine affinity, does the spiritual mind assimilate all things to itself.
6. The study of those practical models of Christian character which are given to us in the Holy Scripture.
7. Above all looking to Christ, the great Exemplar, as in all things, so in this. (D. Moore, M. A.)
The spiritual mind
We often hear it said of one or another individual, He is a very spiritual person, or He is very unspiritual. What is meant by these expressions? In the first place, the passage informs us that to be spiritually-minded is opposed to being carnally-minded. The sensual thought, the eyes that rove after, the imagination that shapes, the soul that hankers for, forbidden pleasures, are anti-spiritual. Again, while the spiritual is opposed to the carnal mind, we learn from other passages of Scripture it is more than what we commonly signify by morality. A man may be honest in his worldly affairs, blameless in every earthly relation, without being truly spiritual; for, besides the earthly and human relations in which we stand, we sustain relations heavenly and Divine. A supreme, uncreated excellence must sanctify and draw us on to another citizenship than that we hold amid these clay-built abodes, before the spiritual mind, with its life and peace, can be unfolded within us. Once more, to be spiritually-minded, while standing in opposition to what is carnal, and completing what is moral, is also the significance of what is formal. The outward observances and institutions of our religion have no sense but to express and awaken the exercises of our spiritual nature. According as we go through these punctual rites of prayer and praise, communion and consecration, with a worldly or a spiritual mind, they will be a mechanical and unmeaning mockery to us, or the very reflections of the gates of heaven. But the spiritual mind, while opposed to what is carnal, completing what is moral, has of course a position and intrinsic quality of its own, which we must go beyond all terms of negation and comparison to set forth. To be spiritually-minded, then, is to have a sense, a conviction, and inward knowledge of the reality, solidity, and permanent security of spiritual things. It is to believe and see that there is something more in Gods universe than outwardly appears; something more than this richly compounded order of material elements, with all its beauty; something beyond the sharply defined glittering objects that crowd the landscape. It is to understand that day and night, seed time and harvest, summer and winter, are not the only facts possibly subject to the notice of the undying soul. It is to be aware that even the broad streets and mighty pathways which the astronomer descries, laid out from globe to globe, do not embrace the whole or highest survey of Gods creation. But beyond, within, or above all, there verily is a scene, a society of lofty, intelligent existence, where are brighter displays of Gods nearness and love. The spiritual mind not only sees, as in cold vision, the inner or upper world gloriously triumphing in its stability over the passing kingdom of earth and sense, but enters into relation with it, feels surrounded by it, bows to it, and realises an inspection from the living firmament of its power. Mortal creature, spirit of Almighty inspiration, clothed in flesh! believest thou only in what comes to thee through these five windows of the senses, so advantageously placed to let in the notices of material things; or wilt thou credit that thy Maker also fashioned thy heart to yield for the entrance of Himself and retinue of attending spirits? Breather of earthly air, yet partaker of a heavenly privilege; birth of yesterday, yet heir of immortality; mystery to thyself, definite figure, illimitable being! thy feet do not more surely gravitate to the earth than thy inward nature holds of a loftier sphere. Awake to thy spiritual relations; live up to their solemn dignity. (C. A. Barrel.)
True piety peacefully pleasant
To be thus minded is life and peace; or the life of true piety is a life of peaceful pleasure.
1. A life of holiness is calculated to fill the mind with the richest enjoyment, and raise it to its highest state of improvement. The objects of contemplation that lie before the believing mind are dignified and worthy its occupancy.
2. A life of piety furnishes the heart with those affections which give it the highest pleasure, and best promote its improvement. There is no small object in Gods kingdom. If He is not the immediate object of the affections of His people, still they have a noble object. If they love His law, His gospel, His government, His Church, or even the humblest individual in His household, there is no one of these affections of which angels would be ashamed.
3. Piety cultivates a better conscience than can be found in the carnally-minded. Other things being equal, he is far the happiest man who has the purest conscience, who most promptly applies for its decision, and most cheerfully obeys its dictates. Still, in every good man, conscience is more or less honoured and cultivated, while in the opposite character it is hated and neglected as Heavens unwelcome sentinel.
4. A life of piety promotes happiness. To be spiritually-minded is life and peace. This is a point that will generally be conceded. It is said, however, that there are some whom religion has made unhappy. They are cut off from the pleasures of sense, while their hopes of glory and their enjoyment of God are too inoperative to render them happy. That in many cases this appears to be true there is no doubt; but there can be as little doubt that the failure is chargeable, not to religion, but to its absence.
5. There is opened before the believer a vast resource of comfort. He has joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, whom having not seen we love, and in whom though now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. He has fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. He enjoys the ministry of angels. He is conscious of penitence, and has ordinarily a hope of forgiveness. He is permitted through rich grace to cast an eye forward toward heaven as his everlasting home.
6. The covenant that binds him to his Lord is an everlasting covenant, well ordered in all things and sure. Hence, while he is assured that to live is Christ, he is equally confident that to die would be gain. What he shall be it does not yet appear. (D. A. Clark.)
Death and life
1. Two of the sublimest words in the language, expressing two of the sublimest facts of our experience; but What is life? What is death? The answers take us far out of our depth. Life presents itself to us in a series of activities, governed by purpose; and, in the case of conscious life, it exhibits the delightful forms of intelligence and feeling. Life, then, as we generally see it, is bright, beautiful, and attractive. But of the inner springs which regulate these activities, of the essential nature of life we are ignorant. So with death. The aspect in which it presents itself to us is dark and repellent. We know it as the cessation of the cheerful activities of life, the dissolution and decay of the fair material form. It appears to us, therefore, as a great enemy.
2. But the way we look at both death and life is partial and illusive. This verse gives us the views of one occupying a point of view different to the one we are accustomed to take.
I. Death consider as the minding of the flesh.
1. That death is the cessation of activities which befalls the living body, is a natural, but cannot even we see it is a partial way of viewing it? For what we deplore when our friends die is not chiefly the disappearance and decay of their bodies, but the withdrawal of that mind and heart from our society of which the body was but the instrument.
2. The answer which these words give to the question, What is death? speak of what it means to the conscious soul. A soul which finds its aims and expends its energies in catering for the needs and pleasures of its bodily instrument, is virtually dead. And why? First, if the aims of the soul be confined to its perishing tenement, it follows that the souls occupation and pleasures will be gone when the body dies. And, besides, there is the ignoble procedure of making it the chief employment of the higher powers of our nature to cater for the lower. Now, the Scriptures are very far from countenancing neglect of the body; they exalt it as the instrument of Christian service, the temple of God. And a body in cheerful health is no small aid to the attainment of health of soul. What is called death of the soul here, is not such minding of the body as promotes its efficiency for worthy work, but such minding of it as makes the soul the slave of the body, its chief object to minister to its indulgences and pleasures.
3. That, I need not say, is a very different thing from death as we understand it. Is there any reason why things so different should be called by the same name? What is the death of the body? When the constant changes which go forward in the body nourish and preserve its life, it lives; but when they cease to do that, then it dies. But, observe, a dead body does not cease to be the subject of changes; on the contrary, they go forward; they consist of the repulsive changes of lingering decay and corruption. Now does not that justify the parallel of the apostle? The death of the soul is not its ceasing to think, to feel, to will, but its thinking, feeling, willing in base unworthy ways, as unlike its proper ways of acting as the odious processes of bodily corruption are unlike the fair processes of life.
II. Life considered as the minding of the spirit. The souls occupying itself mainly with aims and efforts belonging to its higher nature. It recognises its duties to others and to God, and its endeavours are made to discharge these though at cost of self-denial to the body. To follow Christ is its life task. To be approved of Christ its reward; to see Christ, and to resemble Him, its eternal happiness. These are the things it minds, and the body is the servant which aids it in doing so. The ideal, indeed, is not reached here, but the ceaseless and earnest effort after the ideal is the conflict of the Christian life. He who engages in it minds the things of the Spirit. And in proportion as it is attained, and the soul, rising superior to the claims of the flesh, feasts its powers on the things unseen and eternal, and labours at its task here with reference to them, and to Him who dwells there, in that proportion the soul lives; occupies itself in a way which trains it for immortality, and prepares it to see God. (T. M. Herbert, M. A.)
To be carnally minded is death
First, the subject, the carnal mind. This we may see made good in the several branches of it. As, first of all, take it in the mind and understanding, which is the higher part of the soul, that which should rule all the rest. This is corrupted, and so tending to death (thus Rom 1:22, and Eph 4:8). And we may see it in these several distempers, as–First, there is ignorance of the things of God and which concern our own eternal salvation (Jer 4:22; 1Co 15:54). Secondly, as there is ignorance in the mind, so there is also a curiosity and an affectation of the knowledge of such things as belong not to us. Again, darkness of apprehension when we are taught, as the disciples, slow of heart (Luk 24:2; Luk 24:5; Mar 16:14). Thus we see the carnality of our reason and higher part. This may serve to humble us, and lay us low in our own thoughts. That which is best of us, it is by nature tainted in us. This shows us what ill judges of the things of God and the matters of religion such persons are as are merely carnal, and have no more but the light of reason in them, which is so much dimmed and obscured by sin, is as if blind men were to judge of colours, which is very improper and impertinent. Secondly, as there is corruption in the understanding, so likewise in the will and affections. The flesh lusts against the Spirit (Gal 5:17). And (Rom 8:24) the affections and lusts they are both joined together, as who should say lustful affections. This first of all teaches us how impotent and unable anyone is by nature to his own conversion, while we are depraved in every part of us. Secondly, we see here also Gods goodness in His powerful and victorious grace, in that He suffers corruption to break out no further sometimes than it does, if not by wholly removing it, yet at least by restraining it. Now further, secondly, here is considerable of us the predicate, what is declared concerning it as to the evil and mischievousness of it, and that is, that it hath the name of death fastened upon it. The Spirit of God makes choice of such an expression as might most of all terrify us, and move all such persons as are yet remaining in their natural condition to labour to come out of it. First, it is in sort and in a certain sense temporal or natural death. This is not always presently, or actually, or in effect, as experience does many times show. First, it is so originally, and as the first occasion of this death. Secondly, it is death also demeritoriously. It is that which does deserve death. Thirdly, this carnal mind is oftentimes also temporal death actually and in the consequence of it. There is many a man who by his sin and wickedness does hasten and procure his own end. Be not over much wicked; why shouldst thou die before thy time? says the preacher in Ecc 7:17. Secondly, it is death also spiritually, which is somewhat further here intended. It is enmity against God, as it follows in the next verse to the text, and it is a deprivation of the life of God which should be in us. Thirdly, it is also death eternal. And this is that which is principally intended here in this place, as the worst and greatest of all. The wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23). There are divers persons who have great need to this purpose to be awakened out of this dead condition. First, all worldlings, who savour of nothing but of the earth and of the things of the earth. Secondly, here may likewise be warned and admonished occasionally from this present truth, all such persons as content themselves in a mere abstaining from grosser sins and the outward acts of the flesh. Thirdly, hereby also are admonished all vain glorious and Pharisaical persons, who have nothing in them but a form of godliness. To set home this further upon us, let us take in these considerations with us. First, that this carnal mind perverts the greatest human excellences and perfections which are considerable in any; the wits, and parts, and understandings, and such things as these. A man that has these without grace, he is but a dead man for all that. Secondly, this carnal mind corrupts even the best duties; it makes those performances which being considered in their own nature are good, yet coming from such a person that performs them to be turned to sin unto him, because the principle from which he performs them is not right in him (Pro 21:27). This carnal mind envenoms the greatest comforts, and takes away the profitable use of all the creatures that are for us. Hence it is that it is expressed indefinitely, to be carnally-minded is death; namely, whatever condition a man be in, in regard of the world, whether rich, or noble, or powerful, or whatever we can think of. The second is the end of the spiritual, which is expressed in two terms to us, in life and in peace. Each of these is such as is consequent to spiritual-mindedness in those who are the subjects of it. First, spiritual-mindedness is life. That is one thing which is attributed to it as a privilege attending upon it. Secondly, for spiritual life. This spiritual-mindedness is life in sundry regards. First, originally, as proceeding and springing from this life. Those that are spiritually-minded, they are so from the Spirit of life which is in Christ Himself, and communicated to them who are members of Him. Secondly, objectively. Spiritual-mindedness is spiritual life so also. Forasmuch as the matter of it, it is conversant about things of that nature, as grace, and conversion, and regeneration, and such things as these. Thirdly, operatively. Spiritual-mindedness is spiritual life likewise so. Forasmuch as it does very much tend to the preserving, and strengthening, and nourishing, and increasing of this spiritual life in us. The third and last notion of life which is here signified, and that indeed which is mainly intended, is that it is life eternal. The second is peace, which may be taken either in the generical notion or in the specifical. If we take it generically and comprehensively, so it does imply in it all kind of happiness at large, it being usual with the Hebrews to express all kinds of good whatsoever under this name, so as when they wished to any persons peace, they did under that expression pray for their absolute welfare and success. If we take it specifically and restrictively, so it does point out that blessing which is properly and peculiarly so-called, and that in all the several kinds and distributions of it. And thus, indeed, do I rather take it here in this place, the blessing of peace, as it is called, and which God hath promised to bestow on His people (Psa 29:11; Psa 119:165; Pro 3:17; Rom 2:10; Gal 6:16), etc. And peace, as I said, in the full extent. First, with God Himself (Rom 5:1), etc. Secondly, with mans own self. Peace of conscience, tranquility of spirit, quietness of mind. Grace it is of a calming and composing nature, it puts all things into a state of quietness. Thirdly, with others (Pro 16:7). The ground of all this is, first, the gift and legacy of Christ. Secondly, the nature of grace itself, and the manner of the working of it; for it composes the passions of the mind, and scatters the distempers of it; and from thence occasions peace unto it. This may serve to show us the great difference betwixt the children of God and other men; betwixt those that are spiritually-minded and those that are carnal. As for this latter, they have no share in peace as belonging unto them (Isa 57:20-21). (Thomas Horton, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 6. For to be carnally minded is death] To live under the influence of the carnal mind is to live in the state of condemnation, and consequently liable to death eternal: whereas, on the contrary, he who is spiritually minded has the life and peace of God in his soul, and is in full prospect of life eternal.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
In this verse we have an account of the different end of those that are carnal and spiritual, as in the former we had a description of their different carriage and disposition.
For to be carnally minded is death; i.e. to be of that temper before described, Rom 8:5; to mind and affect the things of the flesh, doth cause death, or will end in it: the second or eternal death is chiefly intended.
But to be spiritually minded; i.e. to mind and savour the things of the Spirit, to find a sweetness and excellency therein, so as that the bent and inclination of the mind shall be thereto.
Is life and peace; it is the way to eternal life hereafter, and to a sound peace here, Psa 119:165; Pro 3:17; Gal 6:16.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
6. Fora mere particle oftransition here [THOLUCK],like “but” or “now.”
to be carnallymindedliterally, “the mind” or “minding of theflesh” (Margin); that is, the pursuit of fleshly ends.
is deathnot only “endsin” [ALFORD, c.], buteven now “is” carrying death into its bosom, so that suchare “dead while they live” (1Ti 5:6;Eph 2:1; Eph 2:5)[PHILIPPI].
but to be spirituallyminded“the mind” or “minding of the spirit”;that is, the pursuit of spiritual objects.
is life and peacenot”life” only, in contrast with the “death” that isin the other pursuit, but “peace”; it is the very elementof the soul’s deepest repose and true bliss.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For to be carnally minded is death,…. The phrase the apostle here uses, includes the best part of corrupt man; the mind, the understanding, the judgment, the will, the affections, the thoughts, the reason, and reasonings of man; and may be rendered, “the wisdom”, or “prudence of the flesh”; so called, to distinguish it from that wisdom which is from above; from that natural and civil wisdom, which is laudable; and it shows that the wisest part of man is but carnal: all sorts of persons destitute of the grace of God are concerned herein; or this is applicable to them all, as the sensualist, the worldling, the proud Pharisee, and the wise disputer of this world. This wisdom of the flesh, or carnal mindedness, “is death”; not that it is conversant about death; or that such persons are thoughtful of it, endeavour to make it familiar to them; or are desirous of it, and esteem it as a privilege; this only spiritually minded men do: but the sense is, that this issues in death; death is not the object, but the end of carnal mindedness; carnal mindedness, so far as it prevails in the saints, brings a death upon them. It is true, indeed, they cannot die a spiritual, or an eternal death; yet sometimes they are very dead and lifeless in their frames, in the exercise of grace and discharge of duty; which is frequently owing to their carnality: and the effect of this must needs be death in carnal men; since it alienates from God; it renders them transgressors of the law, and obnoxious to its curse; it sets the soul against, and diverts it from Christ the way of life; and if grace prevent not, must be the cause of, and issue in eternal death; because it is sin and sinful, it is enmity to God, it disqualifies for life, and makes persons fit companions for the heirs of wrath:
but to be spiritually minded, is life and peace; spiritually minded men are the only living persons in a spiritual sense, for all that are in and after the flesh are dead; and so far as carnal mindedness prevails in professors, there is a deadness in them as to all spiritual exercises; and oftentimes as to outward appearance, there is no difference between them and dead men: but spiritually minded men are evidently living persons; they have a spiritual discerning of spiritual things; they breathe after them, savour and relish them; they talk of spiritual things, and walk in a spiritual manner; they are not only alive, but lively in the exercise of grace and discharge of duty; and are the means of enlivening others; and their end will be everlasting life; which is certain from the declared will and promise of God, and from the grace of life and Spirit of life which are in them. “Peace” also is another effect of spiritual mindedness; such enjoy peace of conscience: this is a fruit of the Spirit; a part of the kingdom of grace the are possessed of; and the things their minds are conversant with are productive of it; which is the gift of God, passes all understanding, and is of more worth than all the world: such men are also of peaceable dispositions in commonwealths, in neighbourhoods, in families, and churches; induced thereunto by the noblest arguments; and their end will be peace, which will be perfect and eternal.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The mind ( ). The bent or will of the flesh is death as shown in 7:7-24.
Life (). In contrast with “death.”
Peace (). As seen in 5:1-5.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
In the plural, used of spiritual gifts or of those who profess to be under spiritual influence, 1Co 12:10; 1Co 14:12.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “For to be carnally minded is death,” (to gar phronema tes sarkos thanatos) “For the mind of the flesh is death;” Death is used in the sense of barren, unfruitful, or unproductive of righteousness in Christian service. The sanctified, justified brethren of the church at Corinth were chided for their carnality, 1Co 3:1-4; Rom 7:14.
2) “But to be spiritually minded is life and peace,” (to de pronema tou pneumatos zoe kai eirene) “But the mind of the Spirit is life and peace;” to yield and be led by the Spirit tends to a life of peace, avoiding the chastening of God, 1Pe 3:15; Eph 5:18-20; Gal 6:1; Gal 5:22-25.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
6. The minding of the flesh, etc. [ Erasmus ] has rendered it “affection,” ( affectum 😉 the old translator, “prudence,” ( prudentiam .) But as it is certain that the το φρονημα of Paul is the same with what Moses calls the imagination ( figmentum — devising) of the heart, (Gen 6:5😉 and that under this word are included all the faculties of the soul — reason, understanding, and affections, it seems to me that minding ( cogitatio — thinking, imagining, caring) is a more suitable word (246) And though Paul uses the particle γὰρ — for, yet I doubt not but that is only a simple confirmative, for there is here a kind of concession; for after having briefly defined what it is to be in the flesh, he now subjoins the end that awaits all who are slaves to the flesh. Thus by stating the contrary effect, he proves, that they cannot be partakers of the favor of Christ, who abide in the flesh, for through the whole course of their life they proceed and hasten unto death.
This passage deserves special notice; for we hence learn, that we, while following the course of nature, rush headlong into death; for we, of ourselves, contrive nothing but what ends in ruin. But he immediately adds another clause, to teach us, that if anything in us tends to life, it is what the Spirit produces; for no spark of life proceeds from our flesh.
The minding of the Spirit he calls life, for it is life-giving, or leads to life; and by peace he designates, after the manner of the Hebrews, every kind of happiness; for whatever the Spirit of God works in us tends to our felicity. There is, however, no reason why any one should on this account attribute salvation to works; for though God begins our salvation, and at length completes it by renewing us after his own image; yet the only cause is his good pleasure, whereby he makes us partakers of Christ.
(246) It is difficult to find a word to express the idea here intended. It is evident that τὸ φρόνημα τὢς σαρκὸς is the abstract of “minding the things of the flesh,” in the preceding verse. The mindedness, rather than the minding of the flesh, would be most correct. But the phrase is no doubt Hebraistic, the adjective is put as a noun in the genitive case, so that its right version is, “The carnal mind;” and “mind” is to be taken in the wide sense of the verb, as including the whole soul, understanding, will, and affections. The phrase is thus given in the next verse in our version; and it is the most correct rendering. The mind of the flesh is its thoughts, desires, likings, and delight. This carnal mind is death, i.e. , spiritual death now, leading to that which is eternal; or death, as being under condemnation, and producing wretchedness and misery; it is also enmity towards God, including in its very spirit hatred and antipathy to God. On the other hand, “the spiritual mind” is “life,” i.e. , a divine life, a living principle of holiness, accompanied with “peace,” which is true happiness; or life by justification, and “peace” with God as the fruit of it.
The word φρόνημα is only found in one other place, in Rom 8:27, — “the mind,” wish, or desire “of the Spirit.” — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(6) Translate, For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. To think of nothing but the gratification of the senses, is in itself deaththat dead condition of the soul which issues in eternal death; and, on the other hand, to have the thoughts and affections governed solely by the Spirit, brings with it that healthful, vital harmony of all the functions of the soul which is a sure pledge and foretaste of a blissful immortality. Death and life are here, as elsewhere, most frequently in St. Paul, neither spiritual death and life alone, nor eternal death and life alone, but both combined. The Apostle does not here draw any distinction between the two things.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
6. Death Spiritual death in itself, eternal death in its results.
Life and peace Spiritual life here, eternal life here and hereafter.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace,’
The consequence of having ‘the mind of the flesh’ is death. If we set our minds on fleshly things we will reap our reward. God is not mocked. He who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption (Gal 6:7). In contrast the one who sows to the Spirit, and sets his mind on the Spirit and is ‘after the Spirit’, will enjoy life and peace. He will enjoy peace with God (Rom 5:1). He will ‘reap eternal life’ (Gal 6:7), because thereby he will be proving that he is a true child of God, who is acceptable in God’s sight through the righteousness of Christ (Rom 8:3).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Rom 8:6. For to be carnally-minded is death For joins what follows to Rom 8:1 as the reason of what is here laid down; namely, that deliverance from condemnation is experienced only by such Christian converts, as walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit:for, &c. See Locke.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Rom 8:6 . A second . The former specified the reason (Rom 8:5 ), this second is explicative ( namely ); a similar repetition and mutual relation of being common also in Greek authors. Comp. Rom 11:24 ; see on Mat 6:32 ; Mat 18:11 ; and Ellendt, Lex. Soph . I. p. 340; Khner, II. 2, p. 856.
The striving of the flesh, namely (comp. in Col 2:18 ), tends to bring man to (eternal) death (through sin), but the striving of the Holy Spirit to conduct him to (eternal) life and blessedness (of the Messianic kingdom). The explanation: the striving has death as its consequence (Rckert, de Wette, and many others), is right as to fact (comp. Rom 6:21 ), but fails to bring out the personifying, vivid form of the representation, which, moreover, does not permit us to introduce the analytic reflection, that the enmity against God is the desire of the flesh “ of itself ,” and that it is death “ on account of God ” (Hofmann, Schriftbew . I. p. 563). That death is God’s penal decree, is true; but this thought does not belong here, where it is simply the destructive effort of the itself that is intended to be conveyed, and that indeed, in accordance with the prevailing concrete mode of description, as a conscious effort, a real , not as an impulse that makes the Ego its captive (Hofmann), since the same predicate applies to the as well as to the . On , blessedness , comp. Rom 2:10 . Understood in the narrower sense ( peace with God), it would yield a hysteronproteron, which Fritzsche actually assumes.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 1860
THE CARNAL AND SPIRITUAL MIND CONTRASTED
Rom 8:6. To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
THE world in general are much mistaken with respect to the means of solid happiness. They seek the vanities of time and sense in hopes of finding satisfaction; and they shun religion under the idea that it would make them melancholy: but the way of transgressors is hard [Note: Pro 13:15.]. On the contrary, the ways of religion afford both peace and pleasure [Note: Pro 3:17.]. The testimony of St. Paul respecting this is clear and decisive. His words naturally lead us to consider the difference between the carnal and the spiritual mind,
I.
In their operations
By the carnal mind we understand that principle of our fallen nature which affects and idolizes carnal things. The spiritual mind imports that principle which leads the soul to spiritual objects, and is implanted by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the regenerate. The difference between these two principles is discoverable in our thoughts
[The thoughts will naturally be fixed on the objects that are best suited to the reigning principle [Note: Our occupations in life indeed will give a direction to our minds: a carnal mind may from necessity be conversant about spiritual things, and a spiritual mind about carnal things. Particular occasions also may fix the attention much either on spiritual or carnal objects. But we speak of those seasons only, when the mind is free from pressing engagements, and can fix on the things which it most affects.]: to these objects they recur with frequency, fervour, and complacency. If we be under the dominion of a carnal principle, we shall be thinking of some pleasure, profit, honour, or other worldly vanity: if we be led by a spiritual principle, God, and Christ, and the concerns of the soul, will occupy the mind.]
The principles will also operate on the affections
[Whatever we most esteem, we desire it when absent, hope for if it be attainable, love the means of attaining it, and rejoice in it when secured. If there be danger of losing it, we fear; we hate the means that would deprive us of it; and if it be lost, we grieve. The carnal mind is thus exercised about carnal objects: the spiritual mind is thus exercised about spiritual objects. Hence that caution given us with respect to the affections [Note: Col 3:2.]]
The principles will yet further influence our aims and ends of action
[A carnal man can only act from carnal motives: he will have carnal aims even in spiritual employments [Note: Zec 7:5-6.]. A spiritual man, on the contrary, will act from spiritual motives: he will act with spiritual views even in his temporal concerns. The one will seek his own interest or honour, and the other Gods glory [Note: 1Co 10:31.].]
This difference in the operation of the two principles causes a corresponding difference,
II.
In their effects
The effect of the carnal principle is beyond measure awful
[This principle reigning in us proves us destitute of life; yea, rather, the reign of it is itself a state of spiritual death: it must moreover terminate in everlasting death. This is irreversibly decreed by God [Note: Gal 6:7.]; and it must be so in the very nature of things [Note: What comfort could a carnal person have in heaven? there are no objects there suited to his inclination; nor has he any delight in the employments of the celestial spirits.].]
The effect of the spiritual principle is inexpressibly glorious
[Wherever it prevails, it is a proof of spiritual life: it is also invariably the means of filling the soul with peace. Nor can it issue otherwise than in eternal life and peace. This also is according to the express constitution of God [Note: Gal 6:8.]; and it must be so in the very nature of things [Note: Spiritual-mindedness constitutes our meetness for heaven, while it is also an anticipation and foretaste of heaven.].]
Address
1.
The carnal-minded
[In what a lamentable state are they whose consciences testify that their thoughts, affections, and aims, are altogether carnal! Let it be remembered that it is God who declares this. Who would dare to continue in such a state another day? Let those who feel their misery plead that promise [Note: Eze 36:26.]There is the same grace for them as has been effectual for others.]
2.
The spiritual-minded
[Happy they who are of this description! Let such adore the grace that has caused them to differ from others. Let them endeavour to improve in spirituality of mind; let them guard against relapses, which will destroy their peace; and let their eyes be fixed upon the eternal state, where their present bliss shall be consummated in glory.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
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. (14) For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. (15) For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. (16) The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: (17) And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
The Apostle, in order to shew the blessedness of being led by the Holy Ghost, first begins to state the awfulness of a contrary condition, in being wholly under the influence of a carnal, unawakened, unregenerated mind. And what an alarming account he hath given of it? Reader! if the Lord hath brought you and me out of it, still let us look back, (and we may well look back with trembling,) and behold the precipice over which we both ran all the days of our unregeneracy, sinning with an high hand, ignorant of God, and ignorant of our own corruptions, before God. They are here said, to mind the things of the flesh, to be in a state of enmity against God, to be in a total incapacity of pleasing God, and to be carnally minded, which is death. All their pursuits are to make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof! Their enmity against God is universal. They hate his holiness, his precepts, his perfections; his justice, his decrees, his sovereignty. They are at enmity with his providences, his dispensations, his appointments. They abominate his doctrines, his word, his gospel, and especially the choice of his Church in Christ. And living and dying in this state, the Apostle states the impossibility of salvation; for, saith he, they that are in the flesh cannot please God!
Reader! pause over the awful account, for it is awful, yea, tremendously awful. And, while you and I ponder well the solemn state of the carnal mind, which is enmity against God; is it possible for either of us to forget the long state of our unregeneracy, when we were in this very condition. Oh! how suited do I at this moment feel the words of the Apostle: And such (saith he) were some of you! But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God, 1Co 6:11 .
To this alarming account of an unrenewed state, the Apostle gives the outlines of the contrary, in a state of grace. But ye, (saith lie,) are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. By which we are not to apprehend, that a state of grace is wholly unconnected with that which is of a state of nature. Not so: For Paul, in the account he gives of himself, plainly shews, that he felt but too sensibly the workings of corrupt nature still in him. But, by the expression of being not in the flesh but in the spirit; the Apostle meant to say, that God’s people were not, as in the days of their unregeneracy, wholly carnal, but were made sensible of their renewed state by the sweet influences of the Spirit, which marked them as children of God; and that the very opposition the remains of in-dwelling sin daily made to the life of God in the soul, became additional testimony to their adoption-character; in the flesh Justing against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: so that they could not do the things which they would, Gal 5:17 .
The Apostle hath marked down a few of the love-tokens of God the Holy Ghost in these verses, and very sweet they are in testimony of the regenerate state of the Lord’s people, distinguished from the unrenewed; and as distinguished also from themselves, in what they were before that the Lord called them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands asunder.
As, first. Though the child of God still groans under a body of sin and death, which he carries about with him, and will carry about with him as long as he continues in the present time-state of the Church; yet the Holy Ghost daily gives him to see his adoption-character in renewing, comforting, refreshing grace and favor. The Person, work, glory, blood-shedding, and righteousness of the Lord Jesus is dear to him. He feels his heart at times directed unto the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ, All which testify, that he differs, not only from the unawakened and ungodly world; but from what he himself once was, in the days of his unregeneracy. He was once darkness, but now light in the Lord, And, although all his enjoyments in Christ falls far short of what his soul longs for; yet the sweet seasons (for very sweet they are) the Lord gives him, blessedly testify the change wrought by grace in the heart; and that he who was once afar off, is brought nigh by the blood of Christ.
Secondly. By the in-dwelling residence of the Spirit, the child of God is led to discover, that the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. These are blessed discoveries, when under divine teachings we arrive to the apprehension of them. For, when this knowledge is attained, the soul no longer looks to the body, and the deeds of the flesh in part for justification before God. It is dead because of sin. It is virtually all sin. The body is never renewed, until at the resurrection. And therefore to look to that which is dead, to bring forth anything of life, cannot be the effect of divine teaching. The child of God no longer expects fruit of righteousness from that stock. It is his consolation, under all that he daily feels, and with which he groans, in the workings of sin in the flesh, that the old man, though not dead, is yet crucified; and though not wholly destroyed, is dying daily. Sin shall not have dominion, though it too often appears. It shall not condemn, though it accuseth. Jesus hath taken away the guilt, and destroyed the power by his blood. And, in the mean time, though the body be thus dead because of sin; the spirit is life because of righteousness. Though, saith Paul, our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day, 2Co 4:16 ,
Thirdly. Amidst all the workings of this sinful body, which distress and afflict the soul, by their daily opposition to a life of grace; it is the blessedness and privilege of the child of God, when renewed by the Spirit, that they are no longer debtors to the flesh to live after the flesh. Christ hath freed them from all the debts of sin. And God the Holy Ghost preserves them by his sanctifying grace from the baleful influences of it. By the Lord the Spirit, they are enabled to mortify the deeds of the body. Not in their own strength, for they have none. Neither by their own exertions, for all would be found weakness in the day of temptation. But, it is God the Holy Ghost which by his grace bears up the child of God, and carries him through all the paths of trial. Without him, the heart would be wholly laid open to the incursions of sin and Satan, as the ungodly, and unregenerate are. But with them who are under the influences of grace, when at any time the enemy cometh in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifteth up a standard against him, Isa 59:19 .
And fourthly, to mention no more. The leadings of the Spirit, and the witnessings of the Spirit, all manifest in their daily tokens of grace, the sonship and privileges of the regenerate in Christ. It is they, and they only, which have freeness of access to the throne, and to the pardon-office of Christ; and can, and do say, Abba, Father! No servants, no bonds-men, no unregenerate; none but of the family of God in Christ, who are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; can so approach, or claim such a relationship. An union with Christ is the only foundation for enjoying communion with the heirship of Christ. It is because ye are sons, (saith the Apostle elsewhere,) God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father, Gal 4:6 .
Reader! pause, and contemplate the blessedness of such a state! By virtue of their adoption-character, they are brought into the present enjoyment by faith, of their vast inheritance; and have a full right in Christ to the sanctified use of all temporal blessings, the privilege of all spiritual blessings, and ere long to the complete enjoyment of all eternal blessings; for they are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. And I beg the Reader to observe with me, how the Apostle hath drawn the line of distinction in these grand concerns between the Lord’s people, and the ungodly world: the regenerate, and the carnal! Yea, let the Reader not fail to notice, the difference between what the child of God once was in the darkness of his mind, when in a state of unawakened nature: and what he now is when called by sovereign grace. And I request him also, not to overlook what the Apostle hath said, from his own experience, in relation to the body of death still with the believer. It is a grand point never to be lost sight of by the child of God, that the carnal mind is still enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. All that is carnal in the child of God, is still of the same carnal nature as ever, and will remain so until it drops into the grave, and is changed at the resurrection, Phi 3:21 . David, ages before Paul, taught the same truth, being taught it himself of God; and confessed it to the Lord and to the Church. The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart that there is no fear of God before his eyes, Psa 36:1 . David did not read this solemn truth in another man’s heart, but in his own: yea, from his heart it spake it, and without reserve. Reader! have you a heartfelt acquaintance with these things? Do you know, that a child of God, though when regenerate in his spirit, he is made a partaker of the divine nature, 2Pe 1:4 . and consequently in this renewed part, can never be holier even in heaven, than he is upon earth, being holy in Christ, and of the mystical body of Christ: yet, in his flesh, he is still the same body of sin unrenewed? Doth the Reader know these things? It will be to his comfort, to get more and more acquainted with them, that through grace, he may learn to walk more and more humbly with God. Depend upon it, nothing will tend to endear to Christ with equal affection to the heart, as when made sensible, from the workings of the body of sin in our nature we daily need him. Nothing will tend more effectually to hide pride from our eyes as when convinced, that in us, that is, in our flesh, dwelleth no good thing. And, nothing will tend under God the Spirit to keep open a constant source of true godly sorrow and repentance, equal to the conviction, that the body is dead because of sin, though the spirit is life because of righteousness in Christ. Reader! do not dismiss the subject before that you have consulted the following Scriptures: Gen 6:5 ; Job 42:5-6 ; Isa 6:5 ; Dan 10:8 ; Rom 7:14 , (to the end); Eze 46:24 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Ver. 6. To be carnally ] The quintessence of the flesh’s wittiness, or rather wickedness, .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
6. ] For (the spiritual man cannot seek the things of the flesh, because) the mind ( thoughts, cares , and aims as above) of the flesh is (ends in the copula (=), as when it joins the two signs of an algebraic operation; ‘ amounts to, being worked out ’) death (not merely physical , nor mere unhappiness , as sometimes in ch. 7, but as in Rom 8:2 , in the largest sense, extending to eternity); but the mind ( thoughts, cares, and aims ) of the Spirit, is (see above) life and peace (in the largest sense, as above). In this argument there is a suppressed premiss, to be supplied from Rom 8:2 ; viz. ‘The Spirit is the Spirit of life .’ Hence it follows that the spiritual man cannot mind the things of the flesh, because such mind is death . The addition seems to be made to enhance the unlikelihood of such a minding, the peace of the Spirit being a blessed contrast to the tumult of the fleshly lusts, even in this life.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
to be, &c. = the minding (Greek. phronema. Only here and Rom 8:7, Rom 8:27) of the flesh.
is: i.e. results in.
to be spiritually, &c. = the minding of the spirit (App-101. as in Rom 8:2). Compare Php 1:4, Php 1:8, Php 1:9. Col 3:2.
peace. Compare Rom 5:1.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
6.] For (the spiritual man cannot seek the things of the flesh, because) the mind (thoughts, cares, and aims as above) of the flesh is (ends in-the copula (=), as when it joins the two signs of an algebraic operation;-amounts to, being worked out) death (not merely physical, nor mere unhappiness, as sometimes in ch. 7, but as in Rom 8:2, in the largest sense, extending to eternity); but the mind (thoughts, cares, and aims) of the Spirit, is (see above) life and peace (in the largest sense, as above). In this argument there is a suppressed premiss, to be supplied from Rom 8:2; viz. The Spirit is the Spirit of life. Hence it follows that the spiritual man cannot mind the things of the flesh, because such mind is death. The addition seems to be made to enhance the unlikelihood of such a minding,-the peace of the Spirit being a blessed contrast to the tumult of the fleshly lusts, even in this life.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Rom 8:6. , [minding] feeling for, or of) Fr. sentiment. Corresponds to the verb, have a feeling for [mind] (, Rom 8:5).–, death,-life) in this present life with its continuation in another, comp. ch. Rom 6:23.- , life and peace) By the addition of the word peace, he prepares the way for himself for the transition to the following verse, where enmity is described.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Rom 8:6
Rom 8:6
For the mind of the flesh is death;-To follow the law of the flesh is to bring the mind and spirit into subjection to the law of sin that dwells in the flesh and brings death. [This state of mind, this desire and pursuit of carnal things, is, in its own nature, destructive. It leads to all the Scriptures mean by death, alienation from God, unholiness, and misery.]
but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace:-To follow the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is to foster the spirit that brings us to life with God. This is the only way to fit the soul for companionship with God and the spirits of the heavenly land. We can gain the heavenly home only by being fitted to breathe its atmosphere, to find fellowship with the spirits that dwell there, and to add joy and happiness to its peaceful realms. The church is a training school to fit man for that eternal home; and the teachings of Christ is a discipline, a schooling, to prepare us for that blessed companionship.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The Carnal and the Spiritual
To be carnally minded (R.V. the mind of the flesh) is death; but to be spiritually minded (R.V. the mind of the spirit) is life and peace.Rom 8:6.
This is one of St. Pauls keen contrasts. It is expressed in language that is difficult to translate. The most literal translation possible is actually given in the Revised VersionThe mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the spirit is life and peace. (This is the translation also of the American Revised Version, except that Spirit is spelt with a capital.) But such a phrase as the mind of the flesh, or the mind of the spirit is scarcely English. The translation of the Authorized Version (though it is rather a paraphrase than a translation) is perhaps as intelligible as any that can be madeTo be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
I
Carnal Mindedness
To be carnally minded is death. The literal words are the mind of the flesh is death. Let us consider (1) what is meant by the flesh; (2) by the mind of the flesh; and (3) by death.
i. The Flesh
Here, as elsewhere in these chapters of Romans, the flesh is that side of human nature on which it is morally weak, the side on which mans physical organism leads him into sin.
The word flesh occurs twenty-eight times in Romans, and frequently in St. Pauls other Epistles, especially Galatians: it has various meanings which must be carefully distinguished, if we wish to have a clear understanding of the Apostles teaching in many important passages.
1. In its original and proper meaning flesh denotes the material of the living body, whether of man or of other animals, as in Lev 17:11. In this sense it occurs in Rom 2:28, circumcision which is outward in the flesh.
2. In the common Hebrew phrase all flesh (Gen 6:12-13; Gen 6:19; Gen 7:21), all earthly living things are included with man, except where the context limits the meaning to mankind (Job 12:10; Psa 65:2; Joe 2:28).
3. Flesh is applied by St. Paul to human kindred, as in Rom 9:3, My brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh; Rom 11:14, My flesh. This usage, like the preceding, is derived from the Old Testament: see Gen 37:27, He is our brother and our flesh. In Rom 9:8, on the other hand, there is an express contrast made between the children of the flesh, and the children of the promise, equivalent to the contrast in Gal 4:29 between him that was born after the flesh and him that was born after the Spirit. In this usage flesh represents mans purely natural, earthly condition, a condition in which he is subject to infirmity, suffering, and death, subject also to the temptations which work through the senses and their appetites, but not originally or essentially sinful. It is in this sense that Christ is said in Rom 1:3 to have been made of the seed of David as to the flesh, and in Rom 9:5 to have sprung as concerning the flesh from Israel. In both passages flesh denotes what was simply and solely natural in His earthly life.
4. Though the flesh is not essentially sinful, it is essentially weak, and hence the word is used to describe man in his weakness, physical, intellectual, or moral.
(1) As connoting mere physical weakness the flesh is found in several passages of St. Pauls Epistles (2Co 4:11; 2Co 7:5; 2Co 12:7; Gal 2:20; Gal 4:13) but not in Romans. We may remark that such a passage as Gal 2:20, The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, is decisive against the notion that flesh is something essentially sinful. Yet mere physical weakness of the flesh may be a hindrance to mans spirit, as in Mat 26:41, the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak; and the human spirit thus hampered by the weakness of the flesh is so far unfitted to be the organ of the Spirit of God.
(2) This opposition of the flesh to all that is spiritual is more clearly marked when the flesh is regarded as the cause of intellectual weakness. This is the case in Rom 6:19, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh, a passage which should be compared with 1Co 2:14; 1Co 3:1.
(3) But the flesh is regarded by St. Paul as a dwelling-place and seat (not necessarily the only seat) of sin. This judgment is the result of practical experience, not of any speculative analysis of the ideas of flesh and sin. He found as a fact sin dwelling in his flesh; and he regarded this as a fact of universal experience (Rom 3:9-20); but we have no reason to suppose that he regarded sin as inseparable from the very essence of the flesh. The flesh thus ruled by sin becomes a chief source of opposition, not only to the better impulses of the mind, but also to the law of God and to the influence of His Spirit.
ii. The Mind of the Flesh
The word used by St. Paul is not the ordinary word for mind. It is a word that expresses rather the contents of the mindits thought, purpose, inclination or attitude, as in Rom 8:27, God knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit.
1. That life is carnal in which our spirit, meant for God, is dragged at the chariot-wheels of our lower life; and that is spiritual which is ruled and mastered by the Spirit. We must not suppose that we shall make our religion spiritual by disparaging external acts or bodily exercises of worship. No; that is spiritual which is ruled by the Spirit. The worship in spirit and in truth, for us men who belong to the religion of the Incarnation, must be a worship in body. But it will be spiritual if it is full of spiritual intention. Secular business, again, is spiritual if it is ruled by the Divine Spirit according to the law of righteousness. Politics are spiritual, commercial and municipal life are spiritual, art and science are spiritual, and everything that develops our faculties is spiritual, if we will allow the Divine Spirit to rule in all according to the law of righteousness, truth, and beauty. For the whole of our being, with all its sum of faculties, is made by God, and meant for God.
2. We see from the context of the passage before us, how the carnal mind manifests itself.
(1) It minds the things of the flesh. They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh (Rom 8:5). To mind them is to be intent upon them, to be engrossed by them. They stand first in the affections; and the things of Jesus Christ are nowhere. Thoughts, views, likings, desires, aims, and pursuits are all carnal.
(2) It is enmity against God. The carnal mind is enmity against God (Rom 8:7). It will accept an ideal God, a God of its own invention, a God who will wink at sin, and clear the guilty. But it hates the holy God revealed in the Bible. It has no liking for His people, His day, His word, or His salvation.
(3) It is in open rebellion against God. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Rom 8:7). Moral indisposition and moral incapacity are here conjoined. The carnal mind is not only disinclined to render to God any such obedience as He can accept, but is incapable of doing so.
Give us the earths whole heart but once to know
But once to pierce the secret of the Spring,
Give us our fill,so we at end may go
Into the starless night unmurmuring.
Gold lights that beckon down the dusky way,
Where loud wheels roll, impetuous, through the night:
The lamp-lit leaves, the maddening airs of May,
The heady wine of living, dark and bright.
Give us of these, and we are blest in truth;
The wandering foot, the keen, unflagging zest,
One with the glorious worlds eternal youth,
Of all that is, and is not, first and best.
Ah, vain desire, our straitened years to mar!
Troubled we turn and listen unreleased,
To music of a revel held afar,
Evasive echoes of a distant feast.1 [Note: Rosamund M. Watson.]
iii. Death
What is death? We may define death in its first aspect as ceasing to be, the cessation of existence; but if in physical death we ask what is the cause of the cessation of existence, we plainly perceive that it is not the cessation of the existence of the body, or even the decomposition of its material substances, but the absence in them of the principle of life. That principle keeps decay and decomposition at bay in the material form in which it resides, and death, or the absence of the principle of life, must take place before decay can commence. The spirit which gives beauty, expression, and activity to the body, and manifests itself through the body, must be separated from the body, and this separation is death. Consequently, on account of the strict analogy between physical and moral things, the word death is used throughout the New Testament as a term for moral separationas dead unto the law, dead unto sin, etc.meaning thereby that persons thus dead are separated from the power and principle of these things. But it is especially in connexion with the death which is the consequence of sin that the expression is used. Thus the Apostle, writing to the Ephesians, says, You hath he quickened, i.e. given life to, who were dead in trespasses and sins; and the meaning of this is clearly defined by a parallel passage, as in Eph 2:11-12, Ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, without Christ, alien (i.e. dead to, or separated) from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God (or separated from, or dead to, God) in the world. Again, speaking of the Gentiles generally, the Apostle describes them as having the understanding darkened, being alienated (or separated) from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. And, again, writing to the Colossians, he says, And you who were sometime alienated and enemies (i.e. separated or dead) in your mind through wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. Sin thus produces alienation and enmity towards God, or, in other words, a moral separation between the sinner and God, which is spiritual death; and the contrary to this is to be quickened, or given life, i.e. to be reconciled to God.
All the peoples and nations around Paul had borne witness that to follow the flesh was to make life hasten toward the end, and to an end inglorious. The glutton and drunkard and libertine, the man of violence, the man of wicked ambition, the brutalized criminal, all these marched along then even more shamelessly than they do in our age, and had made him realize that the passions of the flesh lead to death. In his time many a Herod was dying before his day; many an Antony and Cleopatra were hurrying through their careers; many a prodigal was spending his substance in riotous living; many thousands of young men were dying violent deaths; and as he viewed this spectacle, the philosophy of the hour came back with force to Pauls bosom that the passions of the flesh lead to death, the passions of the spirit lead toward life. In the opening chapter of this letter to the Romans, there is a picture of Roman morals, and in that condition of society you will find the cause of that great generalization that the flesh brings ruin, the spirit brings triumph. What were the battles of Alexander and of the Csars but a fleshly vanity, gratifying itself in the tumult and blood of carnage, and in the applause which rewarded the conqueror?1 [Note: D. Swing.]
II
Spiritual Mindedness
To be spiritually minded is life and peace.
i. The Spirit
When St. Paul speaks of the mind of the Spirit in a man, he speaks of the entrance of a new factor, the Divine energy, into his inner life. He gives various descriptions of the experience. These are all involved ideally in the first genuine contact of the soul with God in Christ through faith. When the soul recognizes the love of God in Christ as the Saviour, and appropriates that forgiving love by faith, it is brought into touch with God as living, and dealing with it. There is now a new moral centre of the personal life. Yet we must not conceive the Divine Spirit as becoming identified with the subjective, regenerated life of the believer. For the Apostle always regards the Divine energy as continuing to act on the life of the believer as a distinct objective power.
ii. The Mind of the Spirit
What, then, is this mind of the Spirit or spiritual-mindedness?
1. It is not the same thing as being religious. A man may be exceedingly religious, exceedingly orthodox in his creed and punctilious in observing the forms of piety, and still have anything but a spiritual mind. Too sadly true it is that the priests and ecclesiastics and religious teachers of the world are not always the prophets of God. Men may deal in holy things and miss the holy vision. They may say, Lord, Lord, and know nothing of the mind of Christ. It was so in Israel; it has been so again and again in the Christian Church. Ages of ecclesiastical revival and of great religious activity are not necessarily ages of deep spiritual insight. Gods prophets and seers are quite as apt to come clad in goats hair and leathern girdles as in the more conventional millinery. How easy it is, in the Christian life as everywhere else, to mistake the form for the substance, the chaff for the wheat.
2. And, whatever it is, it is not the same thing as moral goodnessnot quite the same. One may be very good, very kind, honourable, benevolent, and tender-hearted without being spiritual in ones mind. Spirituality is moral excellence with something added. That additional something is what heat is to light. Has spirituality anything to do with ones occupation in life? Is it a thing of temperament, or circumstances, or will? Is it something that men achieve, as they would win a fortune or acquire an education? Or is it a Divine gift, a supernatural bestowment, which only those have, or can have, who have had certain religious experiences?
3. The first feeling about spirituality, before it can come to any good and healthy growth, must be that it penetrates everywhere. There are not certain objects only for the spiritual mind to exercise itself upon, but every subject has its spiritual side; and each man carries for himself the responsibility as to whether he will deal spiritually or unspiritually with everything which the Lord puts in his way. For the truth is for ever true, and yet for ever forgotten, that spirituality is a quality of the human soul, and not of the things that the soul deals with. And so there is nothing high or low which the soul may not deal with spiritually or unspiritually, as it will.
(1) To begin with our worship. Worship is sanctified and intensified by this inward vision of God. God is the king of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding (Psa 47:7). I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also (1Co 14:15). Neither the vain conceits of human philosophy, nor the outward show of ceremony, must come between our souls and God; or hinder the knitting together and concentration of all our hearts affections and powers upon the exaltation of His holy Name.
(2) In the use and application of the Scriptures we do not adapt them to our theories, or wrest words from their contexts to prove our pointmistaking for Gods guidance the tenacious grasp of our own will upon some isolated phrase out of Gods Word, as if it held the whole truth unbalanced by the teaching of other passages. But we yield sensitively to the Spirits leading as He orders our steps in the Word, reproving or correcting us, instructing us in righteousness or in doctrine, as He may see fit; bringing us through the Scriptures into living contact with God Himself, and forming in us the mind of Christ. Nevermore can we rest satisfied with the mere form of knowledge and of the truth, even though our familiarity with the letter of Scripture may have grown to that of the Scribes and Pharisees, and we may have become the teachers of others. From henceforth our hearts cry out for the living God in His Word, to hear His voice, to seek His face, to understand the secret of the Lord which is with them that fear Him.
(3) We learn to find God in everything. We perceive His power and purpose in the very things which before appalled or perplexed us; we trace His wisdom and His hand at work in nature, in providence, and in grace; being ever drawn closer to His heart in love, and more deeply convinced of the reasonableness and simplicity of faith. Visible and material things do not absorb or terrify us as before; or blind our minds to the light. The consciousness of God, and of the unseen forces at work for our provision and protection, are more real to our spiritual sense than are the things which are seen and passing, to our natural sight.
(4) A new inspiration enters into our prayer life, if this illumination of heart is ours through the Spirit and the Word. Our ignorance of how and what we should pray for as we ought is exchanged for the pleading of the Holy Ghost in and through us according to the will of God, the mind of the Spirit which is the mind of Christ, stirring within us such prayer as God has pledged Himself to answer.
(5) Surely, also, as we learn to know and understand our God more, we shall not rest satisfied with knowledge only. It must become experimental, fruitful; translated into a living factor and force in character and life. Every fresh view of Christ will become a new motive power within us for practical daily progress. Any opening of our understanding to apprehend the exceeding greatness of the Spirits power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, will mean a quickened faith to believe in the mighty power of the same Spirit of holiness to work in us and to energize us to more abundant life and hallowed Service. Yet in that service how careful shall we be to run only when and where we are sent by our Lord; and to wait on God for clear instructions that we may understand His pattern for the work, as well as His appointed time and method and means for its execution, by the writing of His Spirit upon us.
You say there is another kind of intelligence that men lawfully respect, which is called shrewdness, or practical acquaintance with affairs. But is not that, too, provided for in the New Testament? Do you suppose it was irrespective of their practical experience among men, that Christ chose His first disciples, the foremost representatives of His truth, from among tax-gatherers, fishermen, tent-makers, and physicians? Or will you look through literature or biography, or the marts of commerce, or the boards of the exchange, for a shrewder insight into all the ways and windings of human nature than lurked in the sharp eye and wakeful perception of that leading Apostle, who turned the world upside down with his calm hand, carried his points with the dignitaries of provinces, foiled Felix and Agrippa, foresaw and forearmed himself against all that men could do to him, and in his Epistles tears open even the most cunning wrappages of self-deception with his holy satire,conquering Greek sophists and Roman disciplinarians with weapons out of their own quiver?
You instance courage; and is there not enough of that in that pioneering rank of the noble army of martyrs, whom there was no dungeon dark enough to terrify from Jerusalem to Rome, and who would not blench, or even revile or murmur, under all the scourges of Jewry, the whips of dainty Philippi, or the lions teeth in the Roman amphitheatre?
Generosity, you say, is manly; but who will so disown his own reason as to confess he finds no generosity in that faith whose primal lesson is self-sacrifice, whose chosen badge and emblem is a cross, and which was taught and sealed by Him who gave His very life for the life of His followers?
You mention hospitality; and is not hospitality enjoined, with repetition and emphasis, by both Paul and Peter, as the attribute of saints, the grace of bishops, and the duty of all believers?
Of patriotism; and who was He that cried, weeping, O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! if thou hadst known how often I would have gathered thy children?
Of the taste and love for the beautiful; but whose finger was that which pointed most admiringly, as He discoursed, to the summer glories, the waving wheat and nodding lilies, the trees and lakes and gorgeous skies of Palestine?whose eye, that rested with sweetest satisfaction on the affluent and varied scenery?whose word, that blended the mystic openings of the sunrise with the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, and so taught us how the relish of all that is sublime or lovely should rise at last and culminate in the worship of the Father, even as every manly and heroic quality is perfected only in the soul that is united to the ?Song of Solomon 1 [Note: F. D. Huntington.]
In one of the bright books of the day, I find a courageous and impulsive young English fox-hunter saying to a clerical Oxford cousin: I feel that the exercise of freedom, activity, foresight, daring, independent self-determination, even in a few minutes burst across country, strengthens me in mind as well as in body. It sweeps away the web of self-consciousness. As for bad company, when those that have renounced the world give up speculating in the stocks, you may quote pious peoples opinions. We fox-hunters see that the religious world is much like the great world, and the sporting world, and the literary world; and that, because this happens to be a money-making country, and money-making is an effeminate pursuit, therefore all sedentary sins, like covetousness, slander, bigotry, and self-conceit, are to be plastered over, while the more masculine vices are hunted down by your cold-blooded religionists. Be sure that, as long as you make piety a synonym for this weak morality, you will never convert me or any other good sportsman.1 [Note: F. D. Huntington.]
4. One of the strangest things about this character of spiritual-mindedness is the way in which so many people think of it negatively instead of positively. To them, to be a spiritual man simply means to be incapable of the occupations and pleasures which make up most of their own life. There are many of the boldest struggles of ambition and the most applauded victories of popularity of which a man becomes incapable when he takes to himself the new life of spiritual-mindedness; as the artist, who learns to do sweet and subtle things with his fingers, finds those fingers incapable of wielding sledge-hammers, or lifting blocks of granite. And it is often hard, because of the worship we have for mere capacity independently of the value of the task which it can do, for one to own that his struggle after spirituality makes him incapable of many things which the world thinks it most fine and glorious to do. But think of the Divine incapacity of Christ! We dwell with wonder upon all that He could do, but it seems scarcely less wonderful to think of all that He could not do. He could not turn aside for ease and comfort; He could not covet the world the devil showed him; He could not be tempted into bigotry or tortured into rage. When we succeed in making Him our Standard, we shall know that there are inabilities as glorious and honourable as any ability can be. It is better always to be incapable of cheating and lying than to be capable of chivalrously laying down ones life in some great stress of duty. But there is no less a positive power of spirituality; and that is most clearly seen in the way in which it brings out the best colours of the best experiences and thoughts of men; and the growth of a man from unspiritual to spiritual existence is largely witnessed by the way in which his virtues graduate from the partial to the perfect life.
You have struggled for personal purity against all the temptations of the flesh; you have fortified the castle of your will with every worldly bulwarkrespectability, shame, ambition, health; you have struggled and you have conquered. But has not something better often hovered before you as a possibility, when, in a new spiritual-mindedness, purity should not be the poor, half-vital, fluttering thing that you have brought out of your conflict, but strong and luxuriant, full of life and peace? As that picture has come out before you, you have dreamed of heaven, where purity shall not be a struggle of the will, but a delight and passion of the soul. Ah, yes, it must come in heaven. It cannot come till heaven come. Only remember that spiritual-mindedness is heaven, come when it will; and if it come here and now, then here and now purity may catch this holier light, and be the perfect thing that it will be in the heaven that is to come.1 [Note: Phillips Brooks.]
For what is freedom but the unfettered use
Of all the powers that God for use has given?
But chiefly this,Him first, Him last, to view
Through meaner powers and secondary things
Effulgent, as through clouds that veil His blaze.
iii. Life
Life and peace are two words which certainly express the best desires of the best men. To be alive, to have all ones powers in full activity; and to be at peace, to be free from distress and tumult and uncertaintygive a man both of these, and what is there left for him to desire? St. Paul tells us that the door to this perfect existence is spiritual-mindedness.
1. Israel had a full share of the natural and spontaneous life of antiquity. It lasted long, and it revived once and again after times of decline. But the life of Israel was lived in the presence of the Lord God; it was always subordinate to obedience and faith towards One above. He was always known as walking among the trees of mans garden, a joy and glory to the worshipper, a terror to the transgressor. The sense of life which Israel enjoyed was, however, best expressed in the choice of the name life as a designation of that higher communion with God which grew forth in due time as the fruit of obedience and faith. The psalmist or wise man or prophet, whose heart had sought the face of the Lord, was conscious of a second or Divine life of which the first or natural life was at once the image and the foundation; a life not imprisoned in some secret recess of his soul, but filling his whole self, and overflowing upon the earth around him. It did not estrange him from the natural life which he shared with other men or with lower creatures, and which he was taught to regard as proceeding from Gods own breath or spirit. But it withheld him from seeking satisfaction within the lower life alone: and it made itself known not as a Divinely ordained substitute for life, for the sake of which life must be forgone; but as itself a life indeed, the crown of all life.
Among the most intensely spiritual lives in England in our time I should certainly put Ruskin and Tennyson and Browning. What did these men live for? They lived to spiritualize the conception of life, to break down the power of vulgar materialist ambitions. What is the keynote of Ruskins social reform? Just this: that man is a spirit, not a mere body, nor a machine, but a spirita being with Divine life in him, and destined for high ends. By the needs of mans spiritual nature Ruskin would arrange his daily work and his wages; his political economy was a protest against the materialization of that science, and a plea for making it the science of man instead of a science of mere external wealth. You might almost sum up Ruskins teaching in the words of Jesus: A mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.1 [Note: T. R. Williams.]
2. What is St. Pauls conception of Life?
(1) In many passages he uses life in the more or less colloquial sense of existence in the world: e.g. 1Co 15:19, If in this life only we have hoped in Christ.
(2) At the other extremity, life has for him the definite sense of a future reward or boon which God will bestow. This may be designated as its eschatological usage. In this sense, life is generally qualified by the adjective eternal. The phrase invariably denotes life looked at in prospect, in its complete realization. Thus in Rom 2:7, life is the recompense of perseverance in righteous conduct and of the quest for glory and immortality; in Rom 5:21, it is the goal and aim of the reign of grace through Jesus Christ; in Rom 6:22, it expresses the end or climax of the life of freedom from sin and bondage to God, and hence it is further defined as the gift of God (in contrast with the wages of sin) in Christ Jesus.
(3) But St. Paul always regards life as a present possession of the believer. As such, it is the direct result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and may even be termed the actual presence of the Spirit in the human personality. Most typical instances are: Rom 8:2, The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death; Rom 8:6, The mind of the spirit is life and peace (the present text); and Rom 8:10, If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
3. The new life is a renewal of the old from its very foundations. It is a renewal not of one part, but of the whole. It embraces the physical as well as the ethical or religious. For St. Paul, the sum of the believers experiences is a unity. Life included the totality of his energies. It cannot be divided up into provinces, of which one may be contrasted with another. Its only contrast lies in Death. Death for the Apostle means the ruin of the whole personality. Life means its triumphant continuance in the power of the Spirit beyond the barriers of earth and time, in conformity with the nature of the glorified Christ, who is the image of the invisible God.
Spirit! whose various energies
By dew and flame denoted are,
By rain from the world-covering skies,
By rushing and by whispering air;
Be Thou to us, O gentlest one,
The brimful river of sweet peace,
Sunshine of the celestial sun
Restoring air of sacred ease.
Life of our life, since life of Him
By whom we live eternally,
Our heart is faint, our eye is dim,
Till Thou our spirit purify.
The purest airs are strongest too,
Strong to enliven and to heal:
O Spirit purer than the dew,
Thine holiness in strength reveal.
Felt art Thou, and the heavy heart
Grows cheerful and makes bright the eyes;
Up from the dust the enfeebled start,
Armed and re-nerved for victories:
Felt art Thou, and relieving tears
Fall, nourishing our young resolves:
Felt art Thou, and our icy fears
The sunny smile of love dissolves.
O Spirit, when Thy mighty wind
The entombing rocks of sin hath rent,
Lead shuddering forth the awakened mind
In still voice whispering Thine intent.
As to the sacred light of day
The stranger soul shall trembling come,
Say, These thy friends, and This thy way,
And Yonder thy celestial home.1 [Note: T. T. Lynch, The Rivulet, 1.]
iv. Peace
St. Paul never begins an epistle without a salutation containing the word peace. And in the body of his teaching peace plays a conspicuous part. God is a God of peace. The Christian has peace with God. To be spiritually minded is life and peace. It is obvious that he lays much stress on the possession of this golden treasure of in ward peace. With him it implies the removal of the guilt that separated us from God, the assurance of pardon, and the conformity of our will to His.
The peace which the Apostle has in mind consists of two elements: (1) the State of reconciliation with God; and (2) the sense of that reconciliation, which diffuses a feeling of harmony and tranquillity over the whole man.
1. Reconciliation. When the merit of Christs atoning sacrifice becomes ours, peace, sweet, satisfying, eternal peace, floods the soul. This is Christs promise. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. The worlds peace is the peace of compromise; Christs is the peace of reconciliation. It is the peace of reconciliation that is musical. It is a song that can be sung only in sight of Calvarys bloodstained cross, for without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Without an altar of atonement there can be no song of reconciliation.
I sought for Peace, but could not find;
I sought it in the city,
But they were of another mind,
The mores the pity.
I sought for Peace of country swain,
But yet I could not find;
So I, returning home again,
Left Peace behind.
Sweet Peace, where dost thou dwell? said I;
Methought a voice was given,
Peace dwelt not here, long since did fly
To God in heaven.
Thought I, this echo is but vain,
To folly tis of kin;
Anon, I heard it tell me plain,
Twas killed by sin.
Then I believed the former voice,
And rested well content;
Lay down and slept, rose, did rejoice,
And then to Heaven went.
There I enquired for Peace, and found it true:
An heavenly plant it was, and sweetly grew.
2. Tranquillity. There are certain elements in this peace of mind of which we can speak with some confidence.
(1) First we may be sure that it is the peace that comes of love, of love to God and man, free and abounding. What has peace to do with love, do you ask? Surely a great deal to do with it. For why are men so often not at rest within? Why do so many things trouble them and vex them? Why is there so much distraction of mind, so much bitterness of heart? Most certainly it is, in no small measure, because their love is so limited. There is no full stream that flows out from them towards all around them. That explains their unrest. It is the man who loves without stint that has learned the secret of the deepest peace.
(2) Again, it is the peace of perfect trust. Our want of peace is very often just want of confidence. We are not at ease in our mind, because we are not sure of those on whom some interests that are dear to us depend. We are not sure of ourselves. Great responsibilities are entrusted to our wisdom and skill; but we are not sure whether we are wise enough, or clever enough, to carry the business committed to us to a successful issue. Or we are not sure of some other persons who have under their control things that are of great value in our eyes. We are not sure of the captain of the ship in which we are sailing, or of the lawyer who is conducting our case, or of the doctor under whose charge we have placed ourselves. Or we are not sure of God, and of His wise and righteous government of the world. And the consequence is that we are nervous and restless. Everything would be different if we were more trustful. We may be dwelling in the midst of noise, and strife, and confusion, and yet we will not be disturbed or anxious if we believe in those who are at the helm any more than we would be anxious, amid all the racket and disorder incident to the building of a great house, if we had reason to trust the architect and contractor. To have peace, we must have faith.
(3) Once more, this peace is the peace of those who are fully occupied. There are other powers belonging to us besides the powers by which we love and trust; and our unrest in this world is due, in part, to the fact that these powers are not employed or only imperfectly employed. It is not our labours but our limitations which keep us in a state of disquietude. There is never such a sensation of perfect bodily contentment as when all the powers of the body are in full play, and yet not painfully fatigued or overstrained. And there is never such spiritual rest as when all the powers of the spirit have been brought fully into operation, and a man is, so to speak, carried wholly out of himself, and every part of him is engaged in the work for which it is fitted, and for which it was created. That is the rest of Heaven. There, they serve Him night and day. There, room is found, and opportunity, for every man, and not only for every man, but for every gift and power with which every man has been endowed.
The same Apostle who describes the peace of God as passing all understanding is he who laboured more abundantly than all. Let St. Paul be our type. Peacethe peace which Christ has left usis not only consistent with the manifold occupations, energies, interests, cares of life; but through and in these we must seek it.1 [Note: J. B. Lightfoot.]
We ask for Peace, O Lord!
Thy children ask Thy Peace;
Not what the world calls rest,
That toil and care should cease,
That through bright sunny hours
Calm Life should fleet away,
And tranquil night should fade
In smiling day;
It is not for such Peace that we would pray.
We ask for Peace, O Lord!
Yet not to stand secure,
Girt round with iron Pride,
Contented to endure:
Crushing the gentle strings
That human hearts should know,
Untouched by others joy
Or others woe;
Thou, O dear Lord, wilt never teach us so.
We ask Thy Peace, O Lord!
Through storm, and fear, and strife,
To light and guide us on,
Through a long, struggling life:
While no success or gain
Shall cheer the desperate fight,
Or nerve, what the world calls
Our wasted might;
Yet pressing through the darkness to the light.
It is Thine own, O Lord,
Who toil while others sleep;
Who sow with loving care
What other hands shall reap.
They lean on Thee entranced,
In calm and perfect rest:
Give us that Peace, O Lord,
Divine and blest,
Thou keepest for those hearts who love Thee best.1 [Note: Adelaide A. Procter.]
The Carnal and the Spiritual
Literature
Bright (W.), The Law of Faith, 234.
Brooks (P.), Christ the Life and Light, 41.
Campbell (A.), Spiritual Understanding, 83.
Garnier (J.), Sin and Redemption, 131.
Hopkins (E. H.), The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life, 55.
Hort (F. J. A.), The Way, the Truth, the Life, 97.
Huntington (F. D.), Sermons for the People, 362.
Hutton (W. R.), Low Spirits, 81.
Kennedy (H. A. A.), St. Pauls Conceptions of the Last Things. 154.
Pope (R. Martin), The Poetry of the Upward Way, 79.
Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, viii. 89.
Pulsford (J.), Our Deathless Hope, 62.
Swing (D.), Sermons, 269.
Thomas (H. Arnold), The Way of Life, 100.
Williams (T. Rhondda), Gods Open Doors, 116.
Christian Age, xliii. 98 (Baldwin).
Homiletic Review, lvi. 135 (Cruttwell).
Treasury (New York), xix. 477 (Hallock).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
to be carnally minded: Gr. the minding of the flesh, So, Rom 8:7, Rom 8:13, Rom 6:21, Rom 6:23, Rom 7:5, Rom 7:11, Rom 13:14, Gal 6:8, Jam 1:14, Jam 1:15
to be spiritually minded: Gr. the minding of the Spirit, Rom 5:1, Rom 5:10, Rom 14:17, Joh 14:6, Joh 14:27, Joh 17:5, Gal 5:22
Reciprocal: Psa 84:10 – For Psa 111:2 – that have Psa 112:1 – delighteth Amo 8:5 – and the Mat 22:5 – one Rom 2:10 – and peace Rom 8:5 – mind 1Co 2:12 – not 2Co 5:15 – that they Gal 5:17 – the flesh Gal 6:1 – spiritual Eph 4:23 – spirit Phi 4:7 – the peace Col 2:18 – fleshly Col 3:1 – seek 1Pe 3:11 – seek
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
8:6
Rom 8:6. Carnally minded denotes a yearning for fleshly pleasure.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Rom 8:6. For the mind of the flesh. Explanation of Rom 8:5. The word mind corresponds with the verb mind in the last verse; it is that which embodies the thinking, caring, striving; the disposition, we might call it
Is death; amounts to death. Death is here conceived of as present (comp. 1Ti 5:6; Eph 2:1; Eph 2:5), not merely as a result, but as a characteristic mark, an immanent definition of the carnal mind (Philippi).
The mind of the Spirit. Here also the Holy Spirit; the minding, striving, which comes from the Holy Spirit.
Life and peace. Life is to be taken in its full sense, in contrast with death; peace is added, probably to prepare for Rom 8:7, where enmity is introduced.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
In the former verse we had a description of those that are carnal, and them that are spiritual. In this verse we have the end of the one, and the issue of the other; the end of the one is death, the issue of the other is spritual life, joy and peace.
Observe, 1. The end and condition of all carnally-minded persons, so remaining and still continuing, it is death; always demeritoriously, that which deserves death; and sometimes actually, it procures and hastens the sinner’s death; but especially it exposeth to an endless and eternal death.
Observe, 2. The sweet fruit and joyful issue of spiritual-mindedness, it is life and peace.
1. It is life, it is eternal life initially, and it leads to eternal life ultimately. Grace is the first degree of glory, and the glory but the highest degree of grace.
2. It is peace; to be spiritually-minded, lays the foundation of peace with God, with conscience, with the world; the fruit of righteousness is peace, quietness, and assurance forever.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Vv. 6 explains (, for) the moral necessity with which this motion constantly proceeds, from the inward moral state to aspiration, and from aspiration to action. There is on both sides, as it were, a fated end to be reached, which acts at a distance on the will by an attraction like that which is exercised by a precipice on the current of a river as it approaches it. No doubt one might take the words death and life as characterizing the two tendencies themselves. But the argument does not find so natural an explanation thus, as if we take the two words to express the inevitable goal to which man is inwardly impelled in both ways. This goal is death on the one hand, life on the other. The flesh tends to the former; for to gain the complete liberty after which it aspires, it needs a more and more complete separation from God; and this is death. The Spirit, on the contrary, thirsts for life in God, which is its element, and sacrifices everything to succeed in enjoying it perfectly. Neither of these two powers leaves a man at rest till it has brought him to its goal, whether to that state of death in which not a spark of life remains, or to that perfect life from which the last vestige of death has disappeared.
Death is here, as in Rom 8:2, separation from God, which by a course of daily development at length terminates through physical death in eternal perdition (Rom 6:23). Life, in Scripture, denotes a fully satisfied existence, in which all the faculties find their full exercise and their true occupation. Man’s spirit, become the abode and organ of the Divine Spirit, realizes this life with a growing perfection to eternal life. Peace is the inward feeling of tranquillity which accompanies such an existence; it shows itself particularly in the absence of all fear in regard to death and judgment (Rom 8:1). There is no changing the nature of these two states and walks (Rom 8:5), and no arresting the latter in its onward march (Rom 8:6). The way of salvation is to pass from the first to the second, and not to relapse thereafter from the second to the first.
The two theses of Rom 8:6 are justified in the following verses, the former in Rom 8:7-8, the latter in Rom 8:9-11.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace [Those who give themselves up to carnality, so that their minds take that general view of the affairs of life, shall reap death; but those who cultivate the thoughts and ideals of the Spirit, so that His mind governs the view of life, shall find great peace in their present lives, and hereafter life everlasting]:
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Verse 6
To be carnally minded; to be in the worldly-minded and ungodly state which men usually manifest, and which is their natural condition.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
8:6 {7} For to be carnally minded [is] death; but to be spiritually minded [is] life and peace.
(7) He demonstrates what follows from his argument: because whatever the flesh savours, that brings about death: and whatever the Spirit savours, that is conducive to joy and everlasting life.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
A mind set on following the flesh concentrates on and desires the things of the flesh (cf. Php 2:5; Col 3:2). The end of that attitude is ultimately death. However a mind set on yielding to the Spirit will experience life and peace. Peace with God seems to be in view here. Still whenever there is peace with God, peace with other people normally follows.