Romans 8:6-11 is part of a larger segment that begins in verse 1, where Paul deals with the theme of the Spirit of life. In a larger context that extends to verse 27, Paul is dealing with the theme of the eschatological tension and fulfillment of the purpose of God through the Spirit. I hope to provide a detailed theological and exegetical commentary, focusing on Paul’s contrast between living “according to the flesh” and “according to the Spirit.” It explores the eschatological tension, the transformative work of the Spirit, and the implications for Christian life. I will reference key Greek terms, Pauline theology, and the practical outworking of life in the Spirit. I also engage with secondary sources and offer practical applications.
Summary
The language of Paul opens a discussion of what we might think of as our mindset or set of assumptions or methods that creates a powerful incentive to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviors, choices, or tools. We develop such paradigms because of what we have learned in life, but the problem is that in learning them they can create a form of mental inertia when faced with new possibilities or experiences that should put such assumptions into question. The mode of contrast Paul makes now concerns the result of aspirations. This inertia is rooted in human moral weakness and self-centeredness, resulting in hostility toward God and inability to submit to divine law (vv. 6-8). Conversely, the mind set on the Spirit yields life and peace, a present experience of harmony with God that anticipates eschatological fulfillment. All the strivings and orientation of the flesh focus on death. Paul brings the relation between sin and death closer than ever before. Not only does death follow sin, but also to live in the weakness of the flesh is a form of death already. To live after the flesh is to contain the seeds of death. Paul refers to the general thought and motive. Flesh is that side of human nature is morally weak, the physical organism leading people to sin. The death is present and future. The strivings and orientation of the Spirit is life and peace, which is life and friendship with God. If the Spirit dominates the strivings, orientation, and life of a person, one has more than a hope of life and peace. The person experiences life and peace in the present. In that sense, the leading of the Spirit is not a blind force of nature, but rather, is of a personal sort. The Spirit is a personal reality by not extinguishing the personal character of human action through the activity of the Spirit, but by letting personal life come to consummation through willing dedication. It is to possess those qualities now, although partially.[1] The life of which Paul writes is at the same time present and future. Thus, peace is not simply forensic here but applies to the whole person. Peace is reconciliation with God and a feeling of harmony and tranquility over the whole person. Those who receive baptism, live “in Christ Jesus” (v. 1) and are therefore open to the promptings of the Spirit, receive life and peace now. Their aspirations receive their inspiration and take the side of the Spirit. The direction of the interests of the spiritual person is toward the Spirit. This includes the affections and will as well as reason. Because Christ lives in Christians, the things of the flesh no longer dominate them, even if they must daily decide to allow the Spirit to control their aspirations and orientation. The tension between death and life is a war carried out in the believer between living a life oriented to the self and living a life oriented by the Spirit. To live by the self (the flesh), to live out of our weakness, is death. While one can “crucify” this type of life with Christ, crucifixion of it lasts a lifetime. At times, it will be painful. The center of your life is outside you and therefore in relation with others and with God. Such a life is “in the Spirit.” Such a transformation is life and friendship with God. Such a realization and transformation are not a painless process. Such leading by the Spirit has a personal character by bringing our personal lives to their fulfillment. Living by the Spirit is to possess such qualities in a partial way today.[2] Thus, the Spirit makes this moment full of possibility. True, the past moment of our justification in the cross through faith and the future moment of our redemption that we hold in hope contain their fullness. Yet the present is not empty. Rather, the present is full because of the eschatological gift of the Spirit, who provisionally imparts life and peace now. The past act and the hoped-for future have a middle term in the advance installment of the Spirit. A thoroughgoing change has taken place in the Christian’s whole existence because of faith and baptism. Sin may still try to dominate the flesh, but it does not dominate the self, thanks to the indwelling Spirit. God’s Spirit now personally directs such a person toward individual fulfillment. The Spirit is the pleasure that God has in people and goodwill people have toward God. The Spirit is existential meaning and sense. Spirit admits no other possibility. However, flesh is also a decision in time by God against people and by people against God. We cannot decide between the two. Nor are these two classes of people, those in the Spirit and those in the flesh. We are in death and in life, rejection and election, condemnation and justification. Christ in us helps us apprehend our existential freedom.[3]The Spirit comes into us and makes possible our independent and spontaneous entry into the action of God in reconciling the world and our participation in the movement of the reconciling love of God toward the world.[4] Christ dwells in Christians, as the Spirit becomes the source of the new experience, empowering them in a new way and with a new vitality. Even here, Barth concludes that “Christ in you” does not refer to a subjective status inaugurated and someday fulfilled, but an objective status already fulfilled and already established.[5] I think Barth is simply not wanting to read with clear eyes what Paul is saying here. Paul is taking up a theme in this letter of the role of the Spirit as abiding, residing, staying, inhabiting within the believer. This indwelling Spirit is thus the driving force and the source of new vitality for Christian life. The life-giving Spirit has an OT background. The believers receive the eschatological earnest of the Spirit who has Christ from the dead and will quicken our mortal bodies, for the word that leads the believer into the truth is promise of eternal life, but not yet that life itself.[6] Paul is personalizing the relationship, noting how the Spirit of God/Christ dwells progressively in believers, empowering a new vitality. This indwelling is not a static objective status, but a transformative, subjective reality tied to baptism and faith. It connects the believer's resurrection hope to Christ's own, with the Spirit as the "advance installment" bridging justification (past), present life, and future redemption.
The tension introduced by the Spirit in the life of the believer is a tension that arises because the Infinite embraces the finite, that transcendence embraces our immanent experience of the world. If we close ourselves off from transcendence, if we do not feel its pull, then we will not have the type of tension of which Paul writes. Some people can rest with an objective description of the world. They are content with that. Yet, human language itself pushes us beyond such mere description, seeking to express thoughts and feelings that are beyond words. Life is more than what a collection of atoms and cells concoct. Thus, Paul explores the tension as the Infinite embracing the finite, where transcendence pulls believers beyond immanence. This is not painless; it is a lifelong "crucifixion" of the flesh, yet full of possibility through the Spirit's guidance. The Spirit lifts believers beyond particularity, enabling participation in God's reconciling work, while prefiguring the rule of God in the church's fellowship. For Paul, Christ is the answer to that which we find so difficult to name and for which we have difficulty to hope for humanity and for our world. the Infinitude and transcendence that embraces us is the presence of the Spirit, who will dwell within us and walk with us if by faith open our lives to this power. Paul could write this way because he was one of whom God blessed with a powerful experience of the grace of forgiveness and the vision of the peace and reconciliation God intends in Christ. Most believers may have a far more ordinary account of the indwelling and guiding work of the Spirit in their lives that will suit the uniqueness of their lives.
Verse-by-verse study
In Romans 8:6-8, Paul opens a discussion of our mindset or set of assumptions or methods that creates a powerful incentive to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviors, choices, or tools. We develop such paradigms because of what we have learned in life, but the problem is that in learning them they can create a form of mental inertia when faced with new possibilities or experiences that should put such assumptions into question. 6 To set the mind (φρόνημα) on the flesh (σαρκὸς) is death. Paul continues to unpack the loaded message he presented in verse 4, where he contrasted those who walk according to the flesh and those who walk according to the Spirit, the latter fulfilling the just requirements of the Law. The mode of contrast Paul makes now concerns the result of aspirations. All the strivings and orientation of the flesh focus on death. Paul brings the relation between sin and death closer than ever before. Not only does death follow sin, but also to live in the weakness of the flesh is a form of death already. To live after the flesh is to contain the seeds of death. Paul refers to the general thought and motive. Flesh is that side of human nature is morally weak, the physical organism leading people to sin. The death is present and future. But to set the mind (φρόνημα) on the Spirit (πνεύματος), radically opposed to the flesh, is life and peace. The strivings and orientation of the Spirit is life and peace, which is life and friendship with God. If the Spirit dominates the strivings, orientation, and life of a person, one has more than a hope of life and peace. The person experiences life and peace in the present. In that sense, the leading of the Spirit is not a blind force of nature, but rather, is of a personal sort. The Spirit is a personal reality by not extinguishing the personal character of human action through the activity of the Spirit, but by letting personal life come to consummation through willing dedication. It is to possess those qualities now, although partially.[7] The life of which Paul writes is at the same time present and future. Thus, peace is not simply forensic here but applies to the whole person. Peace is reconciliation with God and a feeling of harmony and tranquility over the whole person. Those who receive baptism, live “in Christ Jesus” (v. 1) and are therefore open to the promptings of the Spirit, receive life and peace now. Their aspirations receive their inspiration and take the side of the Spirit. The direction of the interests of the spiritual person is toward the Spirit. This includes the affections and will as well as reason. Because Christ lives in Christians, the things of the flesh no longer dominate them, even if they must daily decide to allow the Spirit to control their aspirations and orientation. The tension between death and life is a war carried out in the believer between living a life oriented to the self and living a life oriented by the Spirit. To live by the self (the flesh), to live out of our weakness, is death. While one can “crucify” this type of life with Christ, crucifixion of it lasts a lifetime. At times, it will be painful. The center of your life is outside you and therefore in relation with others and with God. Such a life is “in the Spirit.” Such a transformation is life and friendship with God. Such a realization and transformation are not a painless process. Such leading by the Spirit has a personal character by bringing our personal lives to their fulfillment. Living by the Spirit is to possess such qualities in a partial way today.[8] Thus, the Spirit makes this moment full of possibility. True, the past moment of our justification in the cross through faith and the future moment of our redemption that we hold in hope contain their fullness. Yet the present is not empty. Rather, the present is full because of the eschatological gift of the Spirit, who provisionally imparts life and peace now. The past act and the hoped-for future have a middle term in the advance installment of the Spirit. A thoroughgoing change has taken place in the Christian’s whole existence because of faith and baptism. Sin may still try to dominate the flesh, but it does not dominate the self, thanks to the indwelling Spirit. God’s Spirit now personally directs such a person toward individual fulfillment. The Spirit is the pleasure that God has in people and goodwill people have toward God. The Spirit is existential meaning and sense. Spirit admits no other possibility. However, flesh is also a decision in time by God against people and by people against God. We cannot decide between the two. Nor are these two classes of people, those in the Spirit and those in the flesh. We are in death and in life, rejection and election, condemnation and justification. Christ in us helps us apprehend our existential freedom.[9] 7 For this reason the mind (φρόνημα) that is set on the flesh (σαρκὸς) is hostile to God. Those living "according to the flesh" are incapable of seeing beyond the limitations and inabilities of the flesh. Those whose motivation in life is a self-centered interest; their aspirations are all self-oriented. The person directs emotions, will, and mind on the flesh. Such a one cares not for God or for others but is self-centered. The possibility of living in a way that is hostile to God is always present.[10] It does not submit to God’s law, the concrete expression of God’s will —indeed it cannot, Paul implies that the tendency of weakened humanity is toward enmity with God. We learn why a life dominated by the orientation of weak flesh is death. Flesh, weak as it is, is hostile to God, and thus a turn away from the source of life. Paul is turning toward another mode of contrast, one that concerns one’s attitude about God. Flesh-oriented humanity, weak as it is, finds itself in the condition of hostility, enmity, and estrangement in God’s sight, hence opposed to the life that has its source in God. 8 And those who are in the weak flesh (σαρκὶ) cannot please God. Verse 8 restates verse 7 in more personal terms. The root of the problem is that weak flesh is not open to the promptings of the Spirit. Paul chooses a neutral way of expressing the goal of human life: to please God. It is a goal aspired to by both Jews and Christians, yet one whose life receives its direction and orientation by weak flesh cannot attain it.
In Romans 8: 9-11, Paul personalizes the way the Spirit and the Christian relate to each other. Early Christianity quickly came to relate baptism to the eschatological gift of the Spirit, and we see this throughout verses 9-15.[11] 9 But you are not, declarative rather than imperative referring to the status of the justified Christian is not that of the unregenerate human being. Here Paul formulates the indicative of Christian existence. On it, he will base his imperative: Live like a Christian. The imperative of the call to new obedience is a summons to demonstrate the indicative of the new being in Christ, but it also has its eschatological presupposition in the future that God has promised and that one can expect. Yes, become what you are, but even more, become what you shall be.[12] Thus, you are not in the flesh (σαρκὶ); you are in the Spirit (πνεύματι). "Spirit" may mean the human spirit. Just as a person may take their life orientation from the flesh, they may also take it from the spirit, which has an affinity to God. It may also be that Paul can pass almost unnoticed from the human spirit to the Spirit of God. There is a settled influence of God's Spirit on the human spirit. The influence from the Spirit of God is inseparable from the higher Christian life. You are in the spirit since the Spirit of God (Πνεῦμα Θεοῦ) dwells (οἰκεῖ, present and progressive tense) in you. God's Spirit needs permanent residence within the believer, must "dwell" there, and not be evicted‑‑like a seed snatched away. The Spirit must stay put, just as a seed must stay put to grow and be productive‑‑as in the life of St. Paul and others. The one “in Christ” also abides, resides, and dwells in the Spirit. The Spirit grants the immediacy of relationship to the Son and the Father, granting the believer freedom of the children of God. Such living by faith brings one into fellowship with Christ and therefore lifts one beyond the self. The Spirit also relates the one “in Christ” to their personal and common future of salvation. God's Spirit needs permanent residence within the believer, must "dwell" there, and not be evicted‑‑like a seed snatched away. The Spirit must stay put, just as a seed must stay put to grow and be productive‑‑as in the life of St. Paul and others. The Spirit who indwells believers lifts them above their own particularity, the quintessence of the ecstatic movement of the divine life. By the Spirit, creatures are capable of independence in their relation to God and at the same time integrated into the unity of the rule of God. The imparting of the Spirit as gift characterizes the distinctiveness of the soteriological phase of the work of the Spirit in the event of reconciliation. The form of the gift does not mean that the Spirit comes under the control of creatures, but that the Spirit comes into them and makes possible our independent and spontaneous entry into the action of God in reconciling the world and our participation in the movement of the reconciling love of God toward the world.[13]Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ (Πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ) does not belong to him. Augustine understood this term as justifying his notion that the Spirit proceeded from both Father and Son. It shows the fluid way in which Paul could refer to the Spirit, depending upon context: the Spirit, Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ. Christ has given his name to the new order, which is rapidly replacing the natural world, which is doomed. To have the Spirit is to belong to this new order and to allow God to bring one into the living fellowship of the church, of knowing, that is, the love of God. Attachment to Christ is not only possible through the “spiritualization” of human beings. This is no mere external identification with the cause of Christ, or even a grateful recognition of what he once did for humanity. Rather, Christians who belong to Christ are those empowered to “live for God” in 6:10 through the vitalizing influence of his Spirit. Early Christianity quickly came to relate baptism to the eschatological gift of the Spirit.[14]
The mention in verses 10-11 of Jesus Christ and the opposition between sin and righteousness that dominates the first sentence, the saying obviously has in view the dispensation of the covenant of grace, the threat of death by sin on the one side and the promise of life by righteousness on the other. Christ is between and looking forward, his back to the one and his face to the other. However, the second sentence points beyond the present into the future, and therefore just as clearly also includes the creaturely reality of humanity. For the Spirit of God, who is also creative Spirit, there is a mortal body quickened maintained in its mortality.[15] 10 But if Christ is in you, having a close relation to 6:11, in which the believer is in Christ. These are for Paul different, generic ways of expressing the basic union of Christians with Christ. Christ dwells in Christians, as the Spirit becomes the source of the new experience, empowering them in a new way and with a new vitality. Even here, Barth concludes that “Christ in you” does not refer to a subjective status inaugurated and someday fulfilled, but an objective status already fulfilled and already established.[16] I think Barth is simply not wanting to read with clear eyes what Paul is saying here. Though the body (σῶμα) is physically dead because of sin, the Spirit (πνεῦμα) is eternal life, in union with Christ that causes the human spirit to live, because of the gift of righteousness is the justifying act of God rather than human ethical achievement, thereby redeeming the body in resurrection. 11 If the Spirit (Πνεῦμα) of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells (οἰκεῖ, abode, residing, staying) in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to, the future tense expressing the role of the vivifying Spirit in the eschatological resurrection of Christians, not only now, by supplying new life to mortal bodies, but also in the eschaton. God will give life to your mortal (θνητὰ) bodies (σώματα) also through his Spirit (Πνεύματος) that dwells in (ἐνοικοῦντος, inhabits)you. Paul is taking up a theme in this letter of the role of the Spirit as abiding, residing, staying, inhabiting within the believer. This indwelling Spirit is thus the driving force and the source of new vitality for Christian life. The life-giving Spirit has an OT background. The believers receive the eschatological earnest of the Spirit who has Christ from the dead and will quicken our mortal bodies, for the word that leads the believer into the truth is promise of eternal life, but not yet that life itself.[17]
Practical application to the ongoing tension in Christian life and the transforming power of the Spirit
The discussion of life “in the Spirit/spirit” takes up much of the passage. I want to spend some time discussing its theological significance.
First, such a life “in the Spirit” seems an invisible, altered state of existence entered by the Christian believer that places the believer beyond the reach of earthy sin, death and suffering. Such a notion is far from what Paul intends. Our weakness is that we turn away from the source of our life. In other words, our temptation every moment is to do what Adam did. One who keeps living this way is not pleasing to God. The Holy Spirit is the medium of the immediacy of the individual Christian to God as the Spirit lifts them up to participation in being children of God even as Jesus is the Son and grants them the Christian freedom that enables them to call confidently on God as their Father. Paul personalizes the relation for those “in Christ” by saying that Spirit of God/Christ dwells within them. This reminds us that for Paul, the context determined how he referred to the Spirit. Such persons are no longer living in accord with the self, but outside themselves in the Spirit. Persons “in the Spirit” belong to Christ and therefore to the new order. Those “in Christ” are not just committed to the cause, as if to an external religious, political, or economic ideology. They have an internal relation to Christ and to the Spirit. Through the Spirit of Christ/God, Christ is in them, as well as them being “in Christ.” We see here his way of discussing the union between Christ and the follower. Contrary to Barth, Paul is not just referring to an objective status, but to a subjective and transforming possibility for the Christian.[18]
Second, Paul will show that the fellowship of believers in the church is a fellowship that by the Spirit they have beyond themselves in Christ, just as faith lifts each of them to fellowship with Christ and therefore is beyond the self in Christ. Conversely, by the Spirit the future of Jesus Christ is already present to believers as their personal and common future of salvation. Thus, the fellowship of the church can be a sign that prefigures the eschatological fellowship of a humanity that is renewed in the kingdom of God.
Third, I hope that as we read this passage, we sense the tension Paul sees in Christian life. The reason for the tension in Christian life between flesh and Spirit is the introduction of our future redemption into our lives through the Spirit. The pardon we have received in the cross, the righteousness that God showed in that moment, means life in the Spirit will triumph over the death of the body. Paul emphasizes the eschatological dimension of the Spirit in saying that the Spirit “will” give life to our bodies. Thus, Paul makes it clear that the union of the believer with Christ is a promise of eternal life that includes the body. Paul does not envision a non-bodily life in eternity. The resurrection of Jesus is a promise to us, who must pass through judgment and in the body. The Spirit who dwells within the believer and in whom the believer walks is the driving force and the source of new vitality for the follower of Jesus. The hope for such redemption and eternal life has its basis in fellowship with Christ. The hope for eternal life is a consequence of fellowship with Christ.[19] Yet, we know God through Jesus Christ, who is the ground of all reality about whom humanity inquires in both open and concealed ways. Thus, Paul is also not afraid to trace the life given to the Christian to the resurrection of Christ. The Spirit who gave life to the Son also gives life to the Christian.[20] The life that those “in Christ” receive now is an anticipation of the life they shall receive in eternity. The Spirit who dwells within them lifts them above their particularity and toward unity with the rule of God. The Spirit makes possible our participation in the reconciling love of God toward the world.[21]
Fourth, the Spirit who indwells believers lifts them above their own particularity, the quintessence of the ecstatic movement of the divine life. By the Spirit, creatures will be made capable of independence in their relation to God and at the same time integrated into the unity of the rule of God. The imparting of the Spirit as gift characterizes the distinctiveness of the soteriological phase of the work of the Spirit in the event of reconciliation. The form of the gift does not mean that the Spirit comes under the control of creatures, but that the Spirit comes into them and makes possible their independent and spontaneous entry into the action of God in reconciling the world and our participation in the movement of the reconciling love of God toward the world.[22] While Paul can say that Christ dwells in us, this can happen only because of the ecstatic structure of faith. By faith, believers live “outside” themselves, and therefore, one can say that Christ dwells in the believer.[23]
Fifth, at one level, Paul is indicating to us that we do not have access to the essence of God without Jesus Christ. We do not first know who God is and then something about Jesus, but only in connection with Jesus do we know the ground of all reality about whom humanity inquires in an open or concealed way, consciously or unconsciously. The event of Christ in the past, especially his death and resurrection, have supreme importance in opening the pathway for humanity to see the reality of its condition. However, as important as that event is, at another level, Paul makes a direct link between the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of the Christian. Paul traces the power vivifying the Christian to its ultimate source, for the Spirit is the manifestation of the Father’s presence and life-giving power in the world since the resurrection of Christ and through it.[24] Hearing the message of Jesus places one in the sphere of the working of the Spirit, who may open the heart and life of the hearer to embrace its life-giving message. This event in the believer in his or her historical moment connects with the historical moment of the death and resurrection of Jesus through the presence of the Spirit.
Sixth, the Spirit of God that raised Jesus from death already dwells in Christians. The significance of this is that in early Christianity the Spirit had eschatological significance. The word designated nothing else than the presence of the resurrection life in the Christians. Note that Lord and Spirit belong together. Wherever there is a reference in any way to the reality of the resurrected Lord, as established through hearing the message of the resurrection of Jesus, there one is already in the sphere of the activity of the Spirit. Whoever believes the message of the resurrection of Jesus has thereby already received the Spirit who guarantees to the believer the future resurrection from death because he has already raised Jesus. The Spirit guarantees the participation of the believers in the living Jesus Christ. The close connection that existed for Paul between the Spirit and the reality of the resurrection that appeared in Jesus and is hoped for by Christians is demonstrated by the Old Testament understanding of the Spirit as the power of life.[25] The “in Christ” listeners can infer that this resurrection life begins now within their lives, in an anticipatory manner. There is a settled influence of God's Spirit on the human spirit. The influence from the Spirit of God is inseparable from the higher Christian life. Just as a person may take their life orientation from the flesh, they may also take it from the spirit, which has an affinity to God.
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[9]
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[17]
[18] Barth, Romans, 285.
[19] Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 158.3. For Schleiermacher, the specific Christian hope of a future life with God had its basis in fellowship with Christ, which undoubtedly fixes attention on the right basis. We see here that for Paul, the hope of eternal life is a consequence of fellowship with Jesus Christ in general, but especially with his death, as in baptism.
[20] Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 130, Systematic Theology, Volume I, 266.
[21] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 12.
[22] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 12.
[23] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 200.
[24] Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 130, Systematic Theology, Volume I, 266.
[25]
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