Two Great Results - Life Or Death!


There are eight terms in Romans 8: 1-27. They are: As we study this great passage, notice that the first part of verse five is summarized in Romans 7: 7-24. The second part is the heart of Romans 8:1-27.

The interest in verses five through eight is not simply to contrast these opposing elements, but to show why the persons in view do not walk after the flesh but after the Spirit.

The expressions:

No one minds all things of the flesh, yet each one of us mind one or the other of these things. Even the spiritual man may often struggle with the lusts of the flesh, and be for a moment cast down by them.

Carnally-mindedness doesn't refer to the occasional impulse or feelings but to the habitual bent and disposition of the soul. The carnal man may be, at times, the subject of good desires and may form good resolutions. The carnally-minded may be a living treasury of knowledge of many impressions from religious subjects and capable of performing many external religious acts. This was said of the church at Sardis that they had a form of godliness and a name that they lived, but they were dead.

To be carnally minded is death. The state of a carnally-minded person is one of death. Life for the one who is not a Christian is a living death. They are spiritually dead.

There is no stronger term than "death." You cannot say anything beyond saying that a person is dead.

They are dead in trespasses and sins; they are ignorant of God; they do not know God. They know nothing of spiritual things. They do not want to know about them. They are not interested in spiritual matters. They find them terribly boring. They find the Bible uninteresting and boring. They do not find television or movies boring. They do not find the newspapers boring. But they do not enjoy conversations about the soul or about life or death or heaven and hell. They do not wish to talk about God or the Lord Jesus. They cannot help it. They just do not see anything in it. They are just not interested. They are interested in people and their appearances and in what they have done and in what they are doing. They are interested in the world and its affairs. All these things have tremendous appeal to them.

Their position is simple. They have no interest in the things of God. Why? Because they are spiritually dead. Not only do they not like spiritual things, the Bible says that they hate them. They have a feeling somehow that the fact that they do not like them condemns them. Of course they are prepared to have some sort of religion, but only as long as they can control it.

Such a life is utterly miserable. That is why they go on changing. They tire of everything. They must always be seeking after something new. They are always looking for new thrills. That is the measure of the misery of a life of sin. There are no resources. There are no reserves. They are outside the life of God. Those people are in sin. They are dead!

The death of the carnally-minded is not its ceasing to think, to feel, to will. Its thinking, feeling, willing, are in base, corrupt, unworthy ways. The end of those ways is death. Romans 6:21: "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death." Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." The person who is governed by the flesh is generally unaware of the death that is working in him.

The principle of death is separation. The most accentuated expression of death is separation from God. Isaiah 59:2: "But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear."