Danger of Living Living According to the Flesh
Romans 8:12-13 · Roger Henderson · Mar 3, 2024
Romans (2022-25), No. 064
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261934254287

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, good morning. Well, today I kind of struggled with the title, so I decided I'd This is my decision for a title. You can object to it later after I teach it. So we're going to focus at the last part. We're going to review the verses from last week. And then we're going to talk about, in closing, like 12 and 13 in Romans 8 is kind of a summary or a conclusion to the section starting in verse 5.

And it has a verse that kind of speaks about this I call it a danger. Others have called it a danger too, a danger living according to the flesh. So what does that mean? We'll try to discuss that. But first we, you know, Paul's desire is that we walk by the Spirit, right? We walk by the Spirit, by the Holy Spirit. But he realizes that we have a fleshly nature.

So I think, as I did last week, let's look at this word flesh. And it has several meanings, at least three in the New Testament. And this is from Chafer. And this is from last week. So the first term refers, it's kind of a synonym of body. You could say flesh and body are synonyms of one another, and it's a physical or material part of man. The second one has this meaning of humanity's relationships or classifications. And part of the verse in 1 Peter is, all flesh is like grass. So flesh and humanity, it's flesh describing all of humanity. But the third one is the one that is really kind of critical to your understanding of the New Testament. And this word flesh in this sense is wholly restricted to the spiritual part of man.

And we're going to talk about that again. We're going to have our, what's interesting is a picture I showed from my brother Hal last week. his son Andrew was reminding me of the origin of that picture. We'll talk about that. Actually, it was given a name. That was Charlie Brown. So we're going to look at Charlie Brown some more today. But anyway, to the point here about the flesh.

So the flesh is an element of man which is possessed by both unbelievers and believers, unregenerate and regenerate man, possess that fallen nature from Adam. There's no person that winds up on this planet without that fallen nature from Adam. It just can't happen.

And we see that in many verses, especially Romans 5.12. And it's opposed to God, this fleshly nature is opposed to God and godliness. It may be defined as a fallen nature, or Adam's nature, a disposition to sin.

So that's what the flesh, that's what is in this battle between, with the Holy Spirit. The battle in the Christian's life is between the fleshly nature from Adam and the Holy Spirit. that's the battle that's going on. But the news is that every man has a fleshly nature. So there's really interesting, there's really no battle with the unregenerate person, even though he may have other battles in his life, but there's no battle between, that battle doesn't exist in the unbeliever.

So a couple of the definitions that are important, we're going to see in this review here that that the man's mind can set its attention on something. So the verb here is freneo, set their minds on. It's a verb. It describes the action of the mind to be minded in a certain way. And then the noun form of that verb for Nehemiah is a noun which has to do with what's in your mind, thought, or purpose. So we have the verb form, set their minds on, and then mind describing, remember a noun is a person, place, or thing, it describes the mind.

Okay, so let's go on. So from last week, so these verses are gonna talk about the mind and the action of the mind in the believer. And the mind of the believer can act in two ways. So this verse starts off. So if you have your Bibles open, you can look at 8.5 in your Bibles. I didn't reproduce it again. So I'm just gonna do it in block diagram form, kind of diagram form.

So the subject is, for those who are according to the flesh, who are, they're continually existing according to the flesh, they're continually focused on the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh. Phreneo, that's our verb form there. And it's on the things of the flesh. So that's one mindset, that's one set of thoughts or thinking about, set on the flesh, okay? and it's the things of the flesh.

We'll talk about that in a second. And the other thought process is those who continually exist according to the spirit. They set their minds on the things of the spirit. So pretty simple layout. One group or one mindset is on the flesh. The contrary one to that is on the spirit. So the question comes up, what are these things that Paul's talking about here? And a real good place to go is to Galatians to see that.

If you go to Galatians you'll see in Galatians 5.19 it talks about the deeds of the flesh and then in 5.22 it talks about, it says the fruit of the spirit or the things of the spirit. So just for example, and you guys know this pretty well.

The things of the flesh are not a pretty group of things. It's immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, and so on. And the things of the spirit, or the fruit of the spirit, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and so on.

So we have this contrasting place or action your mind can be at. So Paul is saying, you know, your mind, I was kind of thinking, if you go back and look at what Paul said in the early verses in chapter 8, in verse 2 he says, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But then he launches into this long discourse of this battle that goes on right after he says there's no condemnation, he says, but there is a conflict going on. And this is a conflict that he describes, this conflict between the flesh and the spirit.

Okay, and the results, there are results of that. There's results of thinking one way, and the results of thinking another way. So the results are given in verse six. Four, the mind for Nehemiah, the noun form, set on or belonging to the flesh, is supplied, is death or separation.

And that's separation for the believer. That's a, we call it a temporal separation from God. He's out of fellowship, we would say. But on the other hand, the mindset or belonging to the spirit is life and peace. So again, the two contrasts between the mind belonging to the flesh and the mind belonging to the spirit.

And then of course we get to Charlie Brown here now. And the history of Charlie Brown, according to what Andrew told me this morning was, I guess that, and our friends here who've been here a long time, I guess it was Merriman, when his overhead would do with this grease, because he would draw out this picture. He called it Charlie Brown. and then our brother Hal kind of, it evolved over the years and so this is a version that was from 2002 or three or something like that. So anyway, it's actually what Hal did, he linked it back to 517 and so this picture of a man or a man's mind if you will, because we're trying to depict this battle in the mind. How do I depict this battle in the man's mind or a woman's mind? And so the 517a says, for the flesh sets its desires against the spirit, and the spirit sets its desires against the flesh. So this is a battleground of the flesh versus the spirit.

So here it is. I thought about trying to bring it in pieces, but it was just too hard. So here's Charlie Brown, and this is any man or woman, and they have, look at the top, under the hairdo there, you have a mind and a heart. So that's our mind and our heart.

And we're in the body, and we have a soul, and the soul is our mentality, senses, consciousness, and will. But those are being impacted. Just like we saw in the verses before, we have an impact from the flesh, the desires that impact the flesh, flesh sets its desires and desires in the spirit. So we have two impacting sources, one from the flesh, one from the spirit. And then we have the critical part of this whole thing, this abiding function, if you will. And that comes from John, and Hal would have it labeled sometimes, that would be from the Gospel of John, where it says, abide in me and I in you. Abide is a term to hang out or be at home with.

So we can be at home with, And he shows a switch, but that's probably too engineering, it's too mechanical, because this is a faith operation. I don't think of my faith as a switch. As an engineer I do, but not as a believer in the Lord. I think of his faith as trust, rest. trust and rest in our Savior. So we can have abide in by faith either the Spirit, the Holy Spirit or in our fallen nature from Adam in the flesh.

So there's a battleground. There's another picture of this battleground going on And you could relabel this slightly because we're going to see that the Spirit is called the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ. You could relabel that. You could relabel this battle as it's Christ's life, the Spirit's life, versus Adam's life or the self life. So you can, and Scripture has other things you could label it with, but that's that battle between your nature, the Holy Spirit in your spirit from God versus the flesh from Adam, if you will. That's the battle that we have. And that battle is a battle of faith. Where will my faith be? Will it be in the Lord Jesus, or will it be in my fleshly nature?

Okay, so that's a review of that. So now, quickly we'll go over the verses from last week here again. But what's amazing about this is that he presents that battle in five and six, but then almost immediately he goes and he shows you that positionally, as God sees you, he sees you in him, in the spirit. So let's look at that.

However, in contrast, and the contrast I think is all the way back to 7, chapter 7, Romans 7, it says, because while we were in the flesh as an unbeliever, that's in past time, we're now positionally in the spirit. So, subject you are, Amy, the state in which you continuously exist, not in the flesh so we're not we're not in the flesh we're not in the sin nature this is how God sees us this is even though we have a sin nature we're not there as far as God is concerned but we're in the Spirit, in the Holy Spirit, and that but is a strong contrast, it's Allah, it's a strong contrast, but we're not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. So he tells us, after describing that battleground, he says, you know, you're not in the flesh, you're in the Spirit, you're in the Holy Spirit. That's where your mind is to be, that's where your faith is to be.

And isn't it interesting that It shows you why would God even, if we didn't have a struggle, why would he have to tell us this? He wouldn't have to tell us this. We're there. I mean, if we only had one nature, back to Mike's class on Wednesdays, we wouldn't have to even tell us this. But we do have a struggle, we do have two natures, and we do have this battle.

So he has to tell us, that's who you are. That's who you are in Christ. That's your position, as we call it. You're not in your sin nature from Adam, but you are now in this living union with the Holy Spirit, or you could say with Christ. And if indeed, so now he's gonna kind of say, you know, don't ever think of yourself as a believer without the Holy Spirit. You cannot exist as a believer without the Holy Spirit. He's gonna say that in about three different ways. He's gonna say you've got to have the Holy Spirit.

So he starts off, if or since the Spirit of God dwells in you, or inhabits as a home, And then here's a verse that supports that in 1 John 4.13, by this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit. And then he says, but if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. He wants to make absolutely sure that you never that you never buy into anyone that says, well, some Christians have the Holy Spirit and some don't, and the more spiritual have the Holy Spirit, and you, maybe not so much, you gotta learn, no, it happens when you first trust Christ. So he's gonna kinda nail that down.

So he's gonna give us this information here, assumed to be true, if, it's assumed to be true here, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is true of all believers, And here, what's cool is, in this one verse here, we see that the, we call the Holy Spirit called the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God. So, you know, it's the Trinity, it comes through loud and clear. Here we have the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, all talked about kind of interchangeably. But it's all of our Savior, all of God, all of the person of God. So it says, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, then he does not belong to Him. Or literally, this one is not of Him, of God, and it is not, is this Amy again? So it's a negative of that.

So you must have the Spirit of God to be of him. That's critical to understanding the New Testament. You must see that the Holy Spirit is part of every single person that puts their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. It cannot be otherwise. If you have a theology that's different than that, you're in trouble.

Okay, so let's go on to 10. So now he comes back and says, it's almost like he interchanges again here. We're talking about the Holy Spirit, and then all of a sudden, why doesn't he say here, if the Holy Spirit is in you? That's kind of the context, right? He just says, now, if Christ is in you, oh, wait a minute, we're talking about the Holy Spirit. That interchangeability is just, it's amazing. Assume to be true again. So here's my little bubbles. Christ is in. in union with you, Christ is, basically it's just Christ in you.

Christ is in union with you, this is a fact about every believer, and we see that in Galatians 2.20, I've been crucified with Christ, it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And then we have this contrast, and it's not as easy to see in the text, in the New American Standard text, it's on the one hand, the body is dead on account of sin, So we see that the indwelling sin nature is the reason the body is called dead. For as in Adam all die, so as in Christ all are made alive.

But on the other hand, and it's better if maybe the spirit is life because of righteousness. The spirit has taken up his abode in you. The Holy Spirit is the source of spiritual life for the redeemed person who possesses Christ's righteousness. So on the one hand, our body is dead because of sin. On the other hand, we have the Holy Spirit. Okay, then verse 11. So we have some more details about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And again, all these if conditions are all assumed to be true, a true statement.

The Spirit of Him, of God, having raised, and it's aristant's factual event, Jesus from the dead, dwells in you. So now he's gonna really give us a picture. He's gonna say, you know, what's happened to our Savior will happen to you. Jesus Christ, the Spirit of Him, God, having raised Jesus from the dead, dwells in you.

And we see that the verse that supports that from Galatians 1.1, and he talks about his apostleship, and he taught the very last part, and God, the Father, who raised Him, Christ from the dead. So scripture says the Father raised the Son from the dead and we see that's what's called the Eternal Covenant. Christ said He would do that and the Father would raise Him up again. Dwells or inhabits you as home. Same thing we saw in verse 9. So that's the first statement. Then we're going to have the part that applies to us, which is pretty cool.

He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead, that's God the Father from the context, right? He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also, so here's an addition, will also give life to your mortal, mortal is the idea of subject to death, your subject to death body, through the spirit who dwells in you. Just a wonderful promise for every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. He did that for Christ, he raised him from the dead, through the Holy Spirit, He will do it for every believer.

It gives life to make alive, to cause to live, and it has a future tense. It's not a present tense, it's a future tense. There is an aspect which He gives us life right now. We have resurrection life right now, but this has a future tense. This is speaking of our future, let's call it glorification sometimes.

Future resurrection of the believer's body is in view here. as the context indicates from Wiest. A reference to the fact that the spirit will quicken or make alive the body in the resurrection from the dead. The presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit or the spirit guarantees the endurance of the believer. He will carry us through and take us home to be with him.

Okay, so now that's, we're up to date. So now for today. So this is kind of like a conclusion. We've gone through those wonderful verses that talk about this struggle between the flesh and the spirit. So now he's gonna kind of summarize and tell us, actually tell us where we should be. How should we think? How should we reckon? Might be a good, how should we think about all this?

So then, so he starts off, so then brethren, So then, or therefore, brethren, speaking of, it's a plural, so it's a fellowship of believers, men and women. And he uses this to stress Paul's closeness to the body of Christ, his desire between his brothers and sisters. We are, so brethren, we are, A.M.E., He uses they, me a whole bunch of times in these verses. We are the state in which someone or something continuously exists. So as present tense, indicative, active. So Paul, he includes himself. So we brethren are under obligation.

And under obligation is this word for debtor. We're in a debt, but it's an interesting way he's gonna use this word debt or obligation. So now he's gonna say some truths about this debt or obligation or how we should not be in a debt or obligation, if you will.

There's really no debt or obligation to our sin nature because Christ has taken care of that by his death on the cross. So we owe no obligation to our sin nature. And that's what he's gonna tell us here. not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. So the first one is we are under obligation not to the flesh, not to the sin nature. There's no obligation there. And so how do we know that?

And we know that by Romans 6.11. So we are to reckon or consider ourselves to be dead or separated from the sin nature. We're not debtors. We owe no debt. No change, no money. We're not indebted to it. And then part two of that, we're not under obligation to live according to the flesh. We're not, we don't owe it any money, we don't owe it anything, and we're not, we don't, or at any mind, if you will.

To live, to live in any way, this is kind of the same word as zoe, which can be used in a beautiful sense, but here I think it's just more a common sense. To live in any way, to pass one's life in any manner, positive or negatively. So we are according to, so we're not to live according to, to the Norman standard of the flesh, of the sin nature. And this is a quote from Wiest, which is a little bit hard to read at first, so I had to kind of rethink what he was saying here after I looked at this again.

Since the saint is not within the sphere of the evil nature, and I take that to be we're separated from it now, we're not in that sphere anymore. And since he's within the sphere of the Holy Spirit, he's under no obligation to the evil nature to live under its dominion. So we're not under the dominion, even though it's still there, we're not under its dominion, we're not connected to it, we're not tied to it, we're separated from it. We're under obligation now to the Holy Spirit.

Okay, so that's verse 12. Okay, verse 13's a little more detailed. And here's where we get the danger message. Okay, here we go. For indeed, so we kind of connect back to the previous verse, the we are part. So this is kind of more information about this believer in the flesh. Another assumed to be true if, it's assumed to be true, you're doing it, so this is something that you're doing.

If or, this is assuming you're living, you are living, to live in any way you please, present tense, continuous action, according to the Norman standard, to the flesh, so here you are, you're living, so this is something that you're doing, he's assumed that you're doing this, he's assumed that you're living according to the flesh.

You must die. Pretty, pretty strong statement. You are destined to die. Present, active, you're doing it. So if you're living that way, you must die. Well, what does he mean by that? Okay. And you'd be amazed. Look at the commentaries. A lot of... And you can think about something here. You must die. So what is he talking about? He's talking about believer. If you're living according to the flesh, you must die. You're destined to die. That's in linear, it's a Greek word for word. You are destined to die is what it says.

Okay. You are destined is this word melo, M-E-L-L-O. You're going to use the necessity. And here's a verse that uses exactly the same word And this is from John's gospel, 1151, the B part. But being high priest that year, he, Caiaphas, prophesied that Jesus was going to, mellow our word, die for the nation. Okay, so he was going to. Okay, so that's what that word means, to die.

So, You can look at this two ways, or actually, I think it's three ways. So when we were in a Bible study, I know Mike would say, is it spiritual, physical, or maybe both? Raise your hands, right? He'd have you raise your hands. Spiritual, physical, or both? Okay, I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hands. I'm gonna give you what I think. And you can talk to me later if you have problems. Anyway, I think the primary focus is spiritual, You can make a case for physical.

You can, Ananias and Sapphira, you can say, yeah, they hung out in the flesh, right? They hung out in their sin nature. They lied to the Holy Spirit, and yes, they died. They took away their bodies. But the focus here, boy, he spent, since verse five, this battle between the flesh and the spirit. So I think the spiritual, take on it is better. So I'm gonna call this, which is not my words, temporal spiritual death or separation.

Or maybe a more compact way, you're out of fellowship. You've broken fellowship. You've broken fellowship with the Savior. You've broken fellowship with the Holy Spirit. So you're destined to die, you've broken fellowship. So that's a path that I took. I got some support from other folks I like. So Merriman says here, this separation is a break in fellowship between the believer and Christ. When you're out of fellowship, you're in an area of death or darkness.

And the verse that he liked here was from 1 John 1.6. If we say we have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. So when we walk according to the flesh, There are consequences, right? You're out of fellowship with the Lord. You're walking in darkness. It's not a good situation.

And this is the same believer. Paul didn't say, oh, this is believer A and this is believer B. This is the same believer who positionally says, you're now in the Spirit, right? You're now in Christ, back in verse nine. The same guy, same woman, same man. We haven't changed believers here. So that's the same one.

So let's go on here. So now we're gonna have the contrast. We had the bad news. Now let's have the good news. Here's the good news. But in contrast to living according to the flesh, Another assumed to be true, so it's interesting, he assumed, so this is beautiful in a way, it shows you that Paul believes that you can be in both those places.

He assumed to be true that you're living in the flesh, now he's gonna assume this to be true you're living in the spirit. He said, well, Paul, how can I be in two places at the same time? Well, in my mind, that just reaffirms the battle. It reaffirms what's going on here. He assumed them both to be true in the same verse.

Assumed to be true, by the Spirit, you're putting to death And this is this word we see, I always say mortify, right? You listen to a lot of people, I'm mortified by that. It's probably waning in popularity, that word, but over time. You're putting to death, or make to die. So he says, but if by the Spirit you're putting to death, or mortifying, and the tense here is gonna help us here, present tense.

So this is a continuous action of the believer. So what's in view here, you're continually doing this. You're present tense. And this is reality in your life. This is a real, live situation. You're continually indicative of mood. Active voice, the believer is performing the action, the verb.

You're putting to death, you're mortifying. What are you mortifying? We're gonna see that in a second here. We say you're habitually putting to death. This is not something you do casually. You do this as a matter of your life. You're constantly putting to death.

So now we're told what's next. And what's next is putting to death the deeds of the body. So hopefully you're seeing a pattern here. You know what's amazing about scripture? Is that the Lord will show us through various words the same concept will come up again and again and again. And here's a case where this comes up again. We've read this before earlier.

Putting to death the deeds of the body. Deeds here are actions of which it looked upon as incomplete, or they're practices or acts. And actually this same word for deeds series use it in this verse in Colossians Do not lie to one another since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices or deeds. It's the same Greek word So it's the deeds of the body Since these deeds are considered evil practices, we see a parallel with the following verse.

So you ought to think, what have I seen before that kind of has the same flavor of putting to death the deeds of the body? What is that, what's going on here? Is this some new thing? Is this some new action a believer has to take? Or is this just another way of expressing an action that we know already? and we're back to, I believe we're back to these evil practices or deeds of the body, they're back to these deeds of the flesh, and we just talked about these earlier.

It's the same old list, it hasn't changed. It's immorality, impurity, sensuality, and so on, all that bad list. If you're putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. And to live, this is Christ's life as we're told in Galatians 2.20. So it says, you're putting to death the deeds of the body you will live.

So quite a contrast. So I think you can summarize 13b, 8.13b from Romans 6. It's saying the same thing, if you think about it. So I'll see if I can prove that to you. So here we go, Romans 6, you know this well. Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with, taken offline, taken out of business, so that you would no longer be slaves to sin. So that's something we know. We know that. What do we do with that? 611 tells us, even so, consider or reckon yourselves to be dead to the sin, to the sin nature, but alive in Christ Jesus.

So we see the same pattern. Knowing something, we reckon upon it. And I thought Schaeffer did it, kind of just tied this together. He tied this all together. He said, Schaeffer says, to mortify the deeds of the body is the idea to reckon them to be dead. It's the same picture.

We're back to Romans 6. Paul just kind of, in different words and different phraseology, this putting to death the deeds of the body, You will live is just, is Romans 6-11. Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. It's the same picture. It's the same set of actions. You know something, you count upon it, and you believe what he, but I'm alive to God in Christ Jesus.

That's what he's done. Just amazing. It's amazing how scripture comes back and repeats itself in different words to make sure you understand it. Okay. So final thoughts, and this is from Chafer. I came across this paragraph in Chafer, it's amazing. Mike and I, we have it online, we have it in our computer, so we can kind of search through and here's a section that he's gonna talk about, the verses I'm covering today. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Schaefer, thank you.

Okay, he says in Romans 8, 5 through 13, the fundamental problem, this is cool, the fundamental problem of whether the flesh or the spirit of God shall dominate the believer's life is carried to its logical end. Pretty cool stuff. That's what he, what will happen, you know, the flesh and the spirit, he's gonna wrap that whole topic up, if you will. So, specifically, to live to the flesh is to be in the way of death. Okay, I like that. To live according to the flesh is in the way of death. And to live according to the spirit is the way of life, with victory over the flesh. Okay, I think there's a typo here. I didn't notice it until this morning. It is not asserted that the Christians are in danger of, I would say, physical death. Because what he says next kind of contradicts that.

But nevertheless, true that they may live in a realm in which those who are spiritually, I'm sorry. But it is nevertheless true that they may live in the realms in which those who are spiritually dead live. So I take that to mean an unbeliever. So he's saying they can act like an unbeliever. We can act like an unbeliever. they may indulge in the deeds of the body. So he says, yes, you can be temporally, spiritually dead, but not physically dead. I think that's his point.

So hopefully I didn't confuse you there too much. Okay, well hopefully this has been good. We're gonna kind of turn the corner next week, and we're gonna go into some, starting at 14, kind of turns the corner a little bit, and we're gonna talk more about the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but he kind of wrapped up this section about the, who shall control you?

Will it be the flesh or the spirit? And hopefully I've shown you that it's the same picture he painted for us in Romans 6. Reckon yourself dead to sin, but alive to God, in Christ Jesus our Lord. So let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father. Thank you so much for your word. We thank you for the blessings that we have in our Savior. We ask it in his name. Amen.