Romans 8:7 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

The carnal mind— Φρονημα της σαρκος should have been translated here to be carnally-minded, as it is in the foregoing verse; which is justified by φρονουσι τα της σαρκος, do mind the things of the flesh, Romans 8:5 which signifies the employing the bent of their minds, or subjecting their mind entirely to the fulfilling the lusts of the flesh: see 1 Corinthians 2:14. The Apostle, in the next clause, gives the reason why even those who have received the Gospel,—for to such he is here speaking,—are not saved unless they cease to walk after the flesh; because that runs directly counter to the law of God, and can never be brought into conformity and subjection to his commands. Such a settled contradiction to his precepts cannot be suffered by the supreme Lord and Governor of the world in any of his creatures, without foregoing his sovereignty, and giving up the eternal immutable rule of right, to the subverting the very foundations of all order and moral rectitude in the intellectual world. This, even in the judgment of men themselves, will be always thought a necessarypiece of justice for the keeping out of anarchy, disorder, andconfusion; that those refractory subjects, who set up their own inclinations for their rule against the law, which was made to restrain those very inclinations, should feel the severity of the law, without which the authority of the law and the law-maker cannot be preserved. See Locke.