Romans 8:6-11 (NRSV)
6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
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.
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 ot 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.[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 are 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 is not an easy 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] 7 For this reason the mind (φρόνημα) that is set on the flesh (σαρκὸς) is hostile to God. The possibility of living in a way that is hostile to God is always present.[4] 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.[5] 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. 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. "In flesh...in spirit" it may be that Paul can pass almost move 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. 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 in order 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.[6] 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.[7] 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. I am sorry, reader,[8] but I think Barth is simply not wanting to read with clear eyes what Paul is saying here. Though the body (σῶμα) is dead because of sin, the Spirit (πνεῦμα) is life because of righteousness. Death of the body is physical, just as life to the human spirit is primarily future. In union with Christ, the human spirit lives, for the Spirit resuscitates the dead human body through the gift of uprightness. “Righteousness” refers to God’s justifying act, rather than ethical achievement. It may also be real righteousness as God’s gift to us. 11 If the Spirit (Πνεῦμα) of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells (οἰκεῖ)in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal (θνητὰ) bodies (σώματα) also through his Spirit (Πνεύματος) that dwells in you. The future tense expresses 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. 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. 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.[9] The reason for the tension in Christian life 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 reasonably 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.[10] 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.[11]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.[12] Further, 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. 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.[13] 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. 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.[14] 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.[15] 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.
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 kingdom 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.[16] 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.[17]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 includes also 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.[18]
Paul is making it clear to us that the Spirit is determinative for Christian belonging and adoption into the family of God. Paul has focused on the law in Chapter 7, but the shift focuses to Spirit and flesh in Chapter 8.
God empowers us to live out our lives in Christ, through the Spirit. Since God has delivered us, we are to live out our lives with conscious attention to the things of the indwelling Spirit (God’s ways), rather than the weak things of the flesh (our ways). We are to let God transform our lives (see Romans 12:1-2). It is possible to live a Christ like life. Spiritual transformation happens as each essential dimension of the human being transforms into Christlikeness under the direction of a spiritually regenerated will interacting with constant overtures of grace from God. Such transformation is not the result of mere human effort. One cannot accomplish it by putting pressure on the will alone.[19] We rejoice that in Jesus Christ, there is no condemnation, and we go on to walk by God’s Spirit. For God is the one who has set us free to do so.
[1] Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 176-77.
[2] Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 176-77.
[3] Karl Barth, Romans.
[4] Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.3 [69.3], 210.
[5] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume III, 240.
[6] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 12.
[7] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume III, 240.
[8] Romans, 285.
[9] Barth, Romans, 285.
[10] Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 158.3.
[11] Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 130, Systematic Theology, Volume I, 266.
[12] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 12.
[13] The Christian Faith, 158.3.
[14] Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 130, Systematic Theology, Volume I, 266.
[15] Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 67, 171-72.
[16] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 12.
[17] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 200.
[18] Barth, Church Dogmatics, III.2 [46.2], 360.
[19] Dallas Willard’s Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ, 41-42:
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