The Contrast between Flesh and Spirit (Rom. 8:5-8)

 

The Preaching of John the Baptist (image from Wikimedia Commons)

In the early second century (about AD 130), a Christian disciple (we don’t know his name) wrote the following to a man by the name of Diognetus.  It is a striking description of the life and manners of Christians in the Roman empire and the difference that their lives exhibited in contrast with the pagans around them:

For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.[1]

There is perhaps a lot we could learn from these second-century followers of Jesus, both in the way they differed from the world as well as where they did not.  But in the passage before us in Romans 8, we too have a description of the Christian as distinguished from the world.  The Christian is one who is in the Spirit; the unbeliever is one who is in the flesh.  Paul is going to work this contrast out in the starkest terms in verses 5-8.

Last time, we considered the question: what is the evidence that a person is right with God, and that there is no condemnation for them from God?  Or, to put it another way, what is the evidence that a person is united to Christ, in whom we are justified and declared righteous?  And we considered the answer in verses 2-4: it is in a life that has been changed and renewed by the Holy Spirit.  It is the Spirit who unites us to Christ for both justification and sanctification, and if you have the one who are going to have the other.  You cannot have Christ for the forgiveness of sins and not have him for the breaking of sin’s power as well.

It is important, however, that we not only know that this change must happen, but also what kind of change it is.  And this, it seems to me, is what the apostle goes on to do in the verses before us, in verses 5-8.  Here you have the great contrast between being “in the flesh” or “according to the flesh” and being “in the Spirit” or “according to the Spirit.”  We are reminded here that there are no other options – you are either one or the other, but also what it means to be in the flesh or in the Spirit.  

It is important for us to know this as well, for the stakes are high.  For to be in the flesh is to be unsaved, and to be in the Spirit is to be saved.  So these verses stand as a warning to those who want to claim that they are okay with God but who yet live according to the flesh.  But that is not all these verses do.  They are also a powerful encouragement, because they show us that the power underneath this great change does not rest in our own weakness but in the power of God.  Finally, they provide us with instruction, because they show us how change really does happen.  So for these reasons: because of the warning, encouragement, and instruction which they give us, it is really good for us to hear what the apostle has to say in these verses.

This is what I want to focus on, as well.  Let’s look at the warning implicit in these verses, the encouragement offered in them, and the instruction given by them. 

Before we do that, though, let’s pause to look at the big picture and trace the apostle’s argument in verses 5-8.  Note the repeated connecting words like “for” (5, 6) and “because (7) and “so then” (8).  Paul is giving reasons and drawing conclusions here.  

We begin by noting that verse 5 explains verse 4.  Those who are united to Christ by the Spirit of God walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh because (for) they set their minds on the Spirit rather than the flesh.  Verse 6 then explains verse 5: those who set their minds on the flesh do so because they have the mind of the flesh which is death, and those who set their minds on the Spirit do so because the mind of the Spirit is life and peace.  In other words, behind the walk are affections and behind the affections are a mindset, and behind the mindset is a state of being in terms of death (for those in the flesh) and life and peace (for those in the Spirit).  Then verses 7-8 explain why the mind of the flesh is death and why we must have the Spirit to have life and a new walk – it is because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God and unable to obey or please him.  There is no way to get out of the flesh track that is described in verses 5 and 6 to get into a walk of obedience (verse 4) apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

Now there are a  couple of very important words that Paul uses here, both a verb and a noun, that are important for us to understand if we are to truly follow the apostle’s argument.  They are the verb “mind” (see verse 5) and the noun “mind” (see verse 7).  They are related in English, and they are related in Greek – the verb is phroneo and the noun is phronema.  In verse 5, Paul talks about minding the things of the flesh/Spriit, and in verses 6-7 he talks about the mind of the flesh (translated “carnally minded” in verse 6, and “the carnal mind” in verse 7).

What does he mean by this?  What is he referring to?  Well, he is not just talking about an intellectual apprehension of something – he is not just talking about setting your mind on something in terms of knowing something because you’re thinking about it.  That is obviously involved, but to mind something here means much more than that.  It is a much more expansive term.  Let me illustrate that for you by showing you a couple of other places where the verb is used in the NT but translated a bit differently.  One is Matthew 16:23, when our Lord rebukes Peter for telling Jesus not to go to the cross.  Do you remember what the Lord said to him?  “But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.”  Now that word “savourest” is the same word as “to mind” in Romans 8:5.  The Devil doesn’t savor, doesn’t like, doesn’t “take sides with” God.  He is opposed to God.  You see this come out in Rom. 8:7-8, don’t you?  To mind the flesh is to be hostile to God.  It’s more than just thinking about the flesh; it is to be preoccupied and taken up and to have one’s allegiance for the things of the world; it is worldly-mindedness.  It means to love the world rather than God, the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life (cf. 1 Jn. 2:15-17).  So this is a word that includes the affections and the will as well as the thoughts.  They are all bound up together.  What you love, you will choose as well as think about.

And then the verb is used in Colossians 3, when the apostle says, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.  Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (1-2).  There’s the word: set your affections upon.  That’s the same word as in Romans 8:5.  To set your mind on is to set your affections as well as your thoughts upon something.  That’s the idea.  As one authority put it, “It expresses not merely an activity of the intellect, but also a movement of the will; it is both interest and decision at the same time.”[2]  Interest and decision!  That’s right; that’s the meaning here.  They who are after the flesh are interested in and taken up with the things of the flesh and they make their decisions based on that interest.  On the other hand, those who are after the Spirit, who are in the Spirit, are those who are interested in and taken up with the things of the Spirit and who make their choices based on that interest.

And then we see that the distinction between flesh and Spirit, as it is so often in the NT, is not the distinction between material and immaterial.  Not at all!  It is, rather, the distinction between the unregenerate and the regenerate, the difference between having spiritual life and not having spiritual life, between being saved and unsaved.  Those who are in the flesh are not saved.  They are in a state of death (6), and they are hostile to God and can do nothing that is pleasing to him (7-8).  On the other hand, those who are in the Spirit as the saved, who do please God and are accepted by him.

With all that in mind, then, let’s consider the warning, the encouragement, and the instruction.

The Warning in the Text

The warning in this text is that all who are in the flesh are not saved.  By that, we mean that they are exposed to the coming wrath of God.  We know this because the text says that those who possess the mind of the flesh are in a state of death (6), and are hostile to God (7).  Those things go together, by the way.  If you are hostile to God, God is hostile to you.  If you are at enmity with God, God is at enmity with you.  Reconciliation goes both ways: God is not reconciled with you if you are not reconciled with him.  

Now some will think that “in the flesh” is just a reference to those who are enslaved to the more egregious sins: things that we would normally think of as “sins of the flesh,” like homosexuality and adultery and drunkenness.  And certainly those are included.  But they are not all there is to it.  You can be in the flesh and yet be a very upstanding citizen, a leader in the community, and an outwardly moral person.  Jesus not only called the woman at the well, who was for all intents and purposes a harlot, to find salvation in him.  He also made Nicodemus aware of his desperate need of salvation. It was to this “man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews” (Jn. 3:1), a man who Jesus himself described as “a master of Israel” (10) – or rather, the teacher of Israel – the preeminent teacher of God’s law among God’s people, that our Lord said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (5-6).  Jesus goes on: “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again” (7).  It was to Nicodemus that Jesus was saying, “You yourself and all your fellow Pharisees are still in the flesh and need to be born of the Spirit.”  

You see, to be in the flesh is not to be in the gutter, as we say.  Remember that the sins of the flesh, as Paul lists them not only include “adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft . . . murders, drunkenness, revellings” (Gal. 5:19-21), but also “hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings” (20-21).  The apostle John doesn’t just direct our attention to the lust of the flesh and eyes but also to the pride of life (1 Jn. 2:15).  Fundamentally, to be in the flesh is to be in a state of hostility to God and opposition to his authority over your life, and you can do this as a very accomplished and polished person.  You can be in the flesh with multiple degrees and a good job and steady income.  You can be in the flesh and be considered a model of the community.  Because you can be all these things and yet be an unbeliever, a person committed to self-sovereignty, who has not submitted yourself to the righteousness of God in Christ.

You can even be religious.  It’s not enough to be religious.  You must be born again.  There must be an invasion of your heart by the power of heaven, convicting you of your sins, showing you your need of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and a might compulsion to be drawn to put your trust in Jesus and to repent of all your sins.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying that if you commit any of the sins mentioned before that you are unsaved.  Even believers can act like those who are in the flesh.  It’s why we are warned in the first place to put the sins of the flesh to death!  We are all called to fight the sins in our lives, to not let it reign over us.  Why?  Because it’s a distinct possibility.  Paul warns us in Gal. 6, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted” (1).  We can be overtaken in sin.  We might need to be restored.  But that reality does not invalidate the distinctions that Paul is making here.  Those who are in the flesh are not in the Spirit, and to not have the Spirit is to be dead in sins and hostile to God.  On the other hand, if you are in the Spirit, there is going to be a change in your life because those who are in the Spirit set their minds and affections on the things of the Spirit and walk according to the Spirit.  If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17).  

One of the reasons, however, why we have passages like this in the Scripture, is to awaken those who are in the flesh to the danger of their condition, just as our Lord did with Nicodemus.  It is the goodness of God when he by his good grace does awaken us from our spiritual slumber, when we are made to see that a life lived in the service of self, devoted to self, and devoid of submission to Christ as Lord and Savior, that this life is a life that exposes us to the wrath of God.  We need to hear what John the Baptist told the religious people of his day, “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Mt. 3:7).  In other words, there is a wrath to flee from.  It is not Arminianism to say that; it’s just Biblical.  Yes, we want to affirm that all who are awakened to see their need and flee to Christ, do so because of the sovereign work of God in their hearts.  But we also need to see that God uses warnings like this to awaken us to repent of our sins and turn to Christ.  It’s why John the Baptist goes on to say, “Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance” (8).  In other words: “Repent!”  

And my friend, are you, like the Baptist’s audience, relying upon false reasons for a hope that you will be saved?  Are you in the flesh and yet think that a life devoted to godlessness is nevertheless going to be rewarded with heaven?  What are you relying on?  John said to the Pharisees, “And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire” (9-10).  They thought that because they were Israelites that they were children of God, but John says no, the rocks have a better chance at that than people who remain in the flesh.  Those who do not repent and do not bring forth good fruit will be chopped down like a barren tree and cast into the fire.  That’s the message of John, it’s implicit in what Paul is saying in this passage in Romans 8, and it may be something that some one of us needs to hear as well.

But this passage is not just a warning, but even more fundamentally it is an encouragement.  

The Encouragement of the Text

The encouragement is that the change demanded by God of us is something that God himself works in us.  That’s the implication of this language of being “in the Spirit.”  Of course, we are in the Spirit because the Spirit is in us: “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you” (Rom. 8:9).  Whereas those who are in the flesh cannot please God, the clear implication is that those who are in the Spirit can.  In fact, if you connect verses 7-8 with verse 3, Paul is basically saying that because the flesh is weak we cannot please God, but what the flesh and the law could not do, God has done in the person of his Son through the Spirit.  He works his will in us.  We are enabled to live and walk according to the Spirit of God.

We not only see the necessity of the Spirit’s work in this text, but also in some sense the inevitability of the fruits of his work in our lives.  I’m not saying it’s automatic, or that we don’t have a role to play.  But the fact of the matter is that the Spirit’s work will not be hidden.  You cannot be born again and go on as if nothing ever happened.  God’s work will out.

You see, the Law is God’s word.  But it’s God’s word to us, that apart from the new birth does not work in us.  But the Holy Spirit is God’s work in us so that we respond to God’s law and gospel in the right ways.  We respond to God’s law in obedience and to God’s gospel with faith and repentance.  We do so, not because we are smarter than the next person, or more moral, or with better character.  We do so, because God takes sinners who are dead in trespasses and sins and makes them alive.  This is the point, I think, of verse 6: “to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”  That is, those who set their minds on the things of God, on the things of the Spirit, have life and peace.  They are spiritually alive because God has raised them from a death in sins (cf. Eph. 2:1-10).  They are at peace with God, but also they have peace in the larger Biblical sense of peace in that they have all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 1:3).  They are whole in Christ.  

And one of the things that this means is that those who are in the Spirit please God.  When Paul says that those who are in the flesh cannot please God, he is implying that those in the Spirit can – otherwise, what would be the point of saying that?  I think some of you probably really need to hear this right now.  We will say that God’s loves us and so on, but we can turn the affirmation of God’s love into a cold doctrinal position without realizing the strength and comfort and peace that it is meant to convey to the people of God, to those who are in Christ.  We can almost think of God as some kind of Greek god looking down on us from Mount Olympus, waiting for us to mess up, so he can zap us with his judgment.  But if we are in Christ, we are in him of whom the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased” (Mt. 3:17).  So if you are in Christ, is not the Father well-pleased with you?  Does he not look on your obedience – faulting though it often is – and your life of faith – little though it often is – not on the basis of justice but on the basis of grace?  Do you not see that your Father is pleased with you as you live in dependence upon him, even with all your mess-ups?  Is not what God said of Israel true of his church, which Christ redeemed to himself: “as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee” (Isa. 62:5)?  Or, as the prophet Zephaniah put it, “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing” (Zeph. 3:17).  Let me put it this way: the fact that God loves you means that he likes you.  Do you believe that?  Without faith it is impossible to please God, yes, but the implication of that statement is that those who have faith do please him.  Believer, God is pleased with you; he is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which you have ministered to the saints and do minister (Heb. 6:10).  

Let the words of the prophet Malachi encourage you, as he talks about God’s attitude toward the people of God: “And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not” (Mal. 3:17-18).  Believer, you are one of God’s jewels.  You are one of God’s children.  He values you and loves you because you are united to his Son and his righteousness.

And all this is because of God’s work in us.  Notice the language of verses 7-8: “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”  Now there are folks who think that man’s free will puts him in the position that he can turn to God independently of God.  I mean, they may say that God’s grace is there to help along, but they argue that the decisive reason why we turn to God is in us, not because of God.  But that is contradicted by the apostle here.  He doesn’t say we don’t have a good chance to turn to God on our own: he says that we cannot.  The mind of the flesh – the unsaved person – is hostile to God and is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can be.  Can the mind of the flesh turn to God?  No, says the apostle, it cannot: so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.  Cannot!  That’s total depravity and total inability.  The clear implication is that we are desperately in need of grace, not just grace to give us a push, but grace that brings the dead to life and raises us from a position of total helplessness to a life of faith and repentance. 

What this means is that if you are a believer, you didn’t get there because of your own ability or power.  You are what you are by the grace of God.  He gets the glory.  And the really encouraging reality behind that is that if God is the one who explains why you are a believer in the first place, then you can depend upon it that he will keep you one.  If my salvation depends upon my will in the first place, how can I guarantee that my will is going to keep me saved?  But since God is the one who saves us at the beginning, well then we can also say with Paul: “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

And this is clearly where Paul is going with this in this eighth chapter of Romans.  No condemnation to no separation.  That’s the encouragement, and we can know it’s true of us when we see that the Holy Spirit is at work in us, uniting us to Christ, and giving us the mind of the Spirit, so that we being conformed to the image of God’s Son.  And that brings us to our final point.

The Instruction in the Text

It is true that the change that conforms us to the image of Christ depends upon God’s work in us, but that does not mean that we do not have a role to play in living out what it means to be in the Spirit.  As Paul will put it to the Galatians, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25).  And that is what Paul is saying here as well. 

Notice that there is a sort of progression that the apostle lays out here.  Paul is basically saying this: you walk in the Spirit (Rom. 8:4) because you have the mind of the Spirit (5) and you have the mind of the Spirit because you are in the Spirit (6), which is a state of spiritual life and peace.  The same thing can be said with respect to the flesh.  You walk after the flesh because you have the mind of the flesh, and you have the mind of the flesh because you are in the flesh which is a state of spiritual death.  Paul outlines for us a progression from a nature (Spirit/flesh) to an outlook (mind) to a pattern of behavior (walk).

This is how people change.  A new nature leads to a new heart which leads to a new walk.  So, if we want to have genuine, lasting change that pleases God, this is what needs to happen to us.  We must be given a new nature – that’s the new birth, or regeneration.  And out of that nature, we adopt a certain outlook, we mind certain things, and as we mind those things, our lives are affected in terms of the things we do, our walk.

So how do we respond to these realities?  How do we respond to the need of new birth?  Well, it is true that regeneration is a sovereign work of God and you can sooner harness the work of the Holy Spirit in the new birth as you can harness the wind.  As our Lord put it, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3:8).  But that does not mean that there is not an appropriate response to this truth.  And the response is that of faith.  If the Lord is the one who renews us and gives us the grace by which we are changed, then our trust needs to be in him and in his grace, rather than in ourselves and in our grit.  After all, this is exactly what our Lord goes on to emphasis in the third chapter of John, isn’t it?  “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (Jn. 3:14-18).  Change does not begin on our part with strategies but with trust.  It means we don’t depend upon ourselves but upon God.  And that is going to mean that any sanctification is going to be suffused with prayer.  How can you tell if someone is trusting in God?  Well, see how much they pray to him.  That’s the barometer of faith.  So we trust and we pray.

In particular, when I talk about faith, I’m not talking about faith in ourselves.  That’s the opposite thing people who are naturally dead in trespasses and in sins ought to be doing.  The Bible tells us to put our trust in Jesus, to commit ourselves, body and soul, to Christ as our Lord and our Savior, to believe his gospel, and to follow his way.  It commends us to faith in Christ and repentance towards God.  That’s where we begin.  Not only the Christian life as a whole, but every day as a Christian!

And then we adopt a mindset.  We’ve seen that this is more than just thinking certain things, but it does mean that.  It does matter what you set your mind upon.  So we need to be men and women who meditate upon God’s word, who can say with the Psalmist, “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day” (Ps. 119:97).  We need to adopt the mindset the apostle sets forth for the Philippians, when he says, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” (Phil. 4:8).  How are we changed?  Paul tell us: “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Rom. 12:2).  By the renewing of your mind!

And of course this means that there is a necessity to know good doctrine.  You can’t think about what you don’t know.  We’ve seen Paul repeated question throughout Romans, “Know ye not?”  He assumes it.  He assumes that there is a modicum of sound doctrinal knowledge possessed by his audience.  And that means that we first of all read the Scriptures, hear good sermons, and read good books.  Paul tells Timothy to “Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 1:13).  So should we.

But then it means that we set our affections on Biblical realities.  Our hearts need to be inclined toward obedience.  It’s the reason the Psalmist prays, “Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness” (Ps. 119:36) . Remember what Paul says: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:1-2).  

We mind the things of the Spirit.  That means that we hate sin, and love God: “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good” (Rom. 12:9).  Change will not happen if you remain in love with the sin.  Of course, for those who are born again, their nature has changed so that there is a fundamental shift in the heart towards God and away from sin.  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have a responsibility to fan the flames of godly affection into bigger and brighter flames.  Paul writes again to Timothy: “Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:6-7).  Note the logic here: God has given us the spirit of power, love, and self-control, but we are to stir up this gift of God in us.  Or, as Paul put it to the Thessalonians, “But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more” (1 Thess. 4:9-10).  God has given this thing to you, but increase in it more and more!

Now, the question is, how do we do this?  How do we cultivate right affections?  I would say that it is a combination of things.  It requires thinking of God and ourselves Biblically.  It especially requires a good grasp of the promises of God and all the good that he has given to us and will give us to in Christ.  It requires praying against the sin in our hearts and for the holiness we long for.  It requires maintaining a thankful heart, for there is nothing that will sap the affections faster than a lack of thankfulness.  

And it requires obedience, which is the last part of the puzzle.  You cannot expect to grow in your love for God, to mind the things of the Spirit, when you are consciously disobeying God.  All this goes together.  Your walk will be inevitably affected by your mindset.  And your mindset is going to be affected by your walk.  That means that we plan for obedience, we pray for obedience, and we practice obedience.  You are not going to stumble upon holiness.  You are not going to slumber your way to godliness.  It’s going to require effort, and many times hard effort.  It means that we adopt the posture of the Psalmist: “I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies. I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments” (Ps. 119:59-60).  It means that we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12).

So in this text we have warning, encouragement, and instruction.  Perhaps you are slumbering in your sin as you live in the flesh: you need to hear the warning.  For if you are in the flesh you are in a state of spiritual death.  Flee from the wrath to come by fleeing to Christ!  The promise of God's word is that none who come to him will ever be cast out.  But maybe you are in the Spirit, but very discouraged and struggling with doubt.  I hope that you will hear the encouragement.  The God who brought you to himself will never cast you away.  And may all of us take heed to the instruction and put it in practice in our lives.  May the Lord by his grace enable us to hear the warning, receive the encouragement, and follow the instruction.  

[1] The Church Fathers. The Complete Ante-Nicene & Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Collection.  Kindle Edition.  This is from the Epistle to Diognetus, Chapter 5.

[2] Colin Brown, ed., New Theological Dictionary of New Testament Theology, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), s.v. “Mind,”  2:617-618.