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, 1 Corinthians 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, Galatians 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, 2 Corinthians 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, Isaiah 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, Galatians 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, Philippians 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, Psalms 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, 2 Peter 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: Genesis 6:5; Job 42:5-6; Isaiah 6:5; Daniel 10:8; Romans 7:14, (to the end); Ezekiel 46:24.