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:
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.
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."
Romans 8:6; "...but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." In the Bible life is always described and defined in terms of our relationship to God. John 17:3: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." That is life!
God is the author of life - " who alone hath life and immortality." He is the source of life. He is the sustainer of life. God is life! He gives life and apart from God there is no life.
So, we can define life like this:
He who minds the things of the Spirit shows it by making less and less of self and desiring more and more of Christ.
He takes pleasure in meditating upon spiritual things; talking about them; and in listening to spiritual things.
He has an increasing desire for God's Word, and he is in constant communion with his God.
"To be spiritually minded is life and peace."
It is life. It quickens the soul. It awakens the soul to its most noble attributes. It awakens the soul to its highest functions. It fills the soul with its purest pleasures.
Spiritual mindedness is a principle opposed to that of the flesh. It is to walk by faith, not by sight. It is to scorn the pleasures of sin animated by that ambition which seeks through undeserved mercy the recompense of an eternal life.