Trinity Evangel Church

# Introduction

There are so many things to say about these verses that one might be tempted to abandon hope of doing them justice; will you dare to breaststroke across the Pacific? But one must try! One might also be tempted to fear the possible reactions of those who want the engine of hope to work another way. But one must step on those toes with love.

Should we use theological labels as we work through the paragraphs? Don't these doctrinal nicknames often cause offense? What's more, don't they often become divisive, partisan, and like trampolines for preachers to jump up and down in front of their base, whoop them into frenzy about how ridiculous anyone who thinks something else might be? Yet, why be shy about what the inspired words say or how they've been summarized by other believers? And why not take advantage of certain categories for our own understanding of the world, for passing on the truth to our kids, as well as for giving context to our experiences, and to increase hope in our *sufferings*?

Romans 8:26-30 are follow up to the issue of suffering. We will be glorified with Christ "provided we suffer with him" (Romans 8:17). The glory is so glorious that "the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing" (Romans 8:18). That said, a Christian in long-suffering, deep suffering, dark suffering, may ask, "Really?" Even the creation groans in its current condition. We likewise "grown inwardly as we wait eagerly" (Romans 8:23). It really requires *hope*, which isn't hope unless it’s banking on something which isn't currently seen.

Two unseen, but knowable, dependable, bankable, realities fuel our hope. First, God's Spirit prays for us when we don't know what to pray. Second, God's sovereignty fulfills all His purposes whether we see it in real time or not.

Pastorally I think it's silly to not use some theological shorthand, and also, it doesn't bother me whatever you call it. But pastorally I am telling you that if you don't submit to the fullness of God's sovereignty then you can't have the comfort. These truths are not crutches, they are the bones of your hope. When I say you can't have the comfort, I don't mean that you don't deserve it, I mean that you logically lock yourself out of it. To be consistent with some emotions (the wannabe independent, self-willed sort) is to make other emotions (comfort and peace) impossible.

Pastorally I also think that these truths can be used inconsistently. Solomon said that the one who sings songs to a troubled heart is like one who takes a garment away on a cold day or who pours vinegar on soda, like a volcano (Proverbs 25:20). It is possible to ignore someone's suffering with theology and feel virtuous about it. But theology *explains*, it doesn't distance. And when we think about our approach to our own, or to a friend's suffering, we ought to be thinking about the glory God is working into them, not immediately about how wrong they are.

Also, it's valuable that Paul leaves "suffering" and "weakness" and "all things" as ambiguous and vague; they have more than one definition and not all the same extent. Is it as bad, hard, and painful for you as it was for Paul's original readers? Believers in previous generations, or in other parts of the world, or across the room? You don't have it as bad as somebody, and yet these truths are for everybody. It's okay if your trials aren't the worst, God is getting you warmed up.

# Suffering So Bad We Don't Know What to Pray (verses 26-27)

The suffering of this present age requires endurance as those who are saved in hope wait for the consummation of their salvation. But we have a hard go of it, even with hope. We're weak. God helps those who can't help themselves. The nature of His help is in prayer, and the value of that help is that His prayers are always according to God’s will.

**Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.**

**Weakness** doesn't mean sinfulness, though sin has made problems in the post-fall world, in our bodies of flesh. We are not strong to bear up under the things we can see, things which cause groaning. We are limited in capacity or even debilitated, fragile. We also cannot see everything, which means we're not even certain, sometimes, what to ask God for.

**The Spirit helps** (*coopitulatur* in Calvin’s Latin translation). Paul doesn't say that the Spirit fixes prayerlessness. The Spirit isn't a surrogate, He is a different kind of advocate. The Spirit **intercedes**, but we are faced toward God, just not sure of the words. **We do not know what to pray as we ought**.

The **too deep for words** or “groaning which cannot be uttered” (KJV) are not a new kind of language. This isn't a private prayer language; it’s not a language at all. Even if we wanted it to be the gift of tongues, the gift of tongues wasn't for *everyone*, but weakness and the Spirit's help is. Creation groans, and we **groan**, an involuntary expression of stress; maybe the modern version is “AAAAAA!” We’re searching for words, we don’t even know what we don’t know to ask.

**And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.**

The Heart-Searching One here is God, the Father, not the Son nor the Spirit. As the Son intercedes for His brothers (see Hebrews 7:25), so the Spirit intercedes for the saints. And His prayers always get through, meaning that they are never selfish (which is one reason we don’t receive what we ask for, James 4:3) or off by a click.

When your chest is tight and your mind is turning like an overfull cement truck and words escape you because it hurts, one reason not to give up hope is because the Spirit who lives in you is praying for you.

# Sovereignty So Good We Know His Purpose (verses 28-30)

We don't always know what to pray. We do know, always and for all things, that God's purpose for us - glorification - will be completed. This is better than merely drinking another six-pack of beer and dreaming everything will turn out all right.

## The Promise of His Purpose (verse 28)

**And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.**

Is there any other verse in God's Word more quoted to others when they are having a hard time? Is there another one that is harder to believe *in the moment*?

The **we** in the **we know** is only for those who in a certain category, described in two ways. It belongs only to 1) those who love God and 2) those who are called by God.

We are commanded to love God, this is the great/greatest commandment, and it is personal. Those who don't bother giving their hearts to God shouldn't concern themselves with whether God has given His attention to them.

The **called**, as becomes definitive in the next two verses, are the ones elected and drawn to God by God. It isn't just those who have heard the gospel, it is those whom the Spirit has given new life. How do you know if you're called? You love God. How did you come to love God? You were called.

There are a couple ways to understand the grammar of the main piece but the point is that *God* works together all things unto good. The **all things** is accusative, the direct object, and plural, whereas the verb is singular. The things are what receive the action, not the doing of the action. God weaves and works.

As for what are the **all things**, isn't the point to say the suffering things, the we-aren’t-sure-how-to-pray-for-them things, the *bad*, evil, depraved, sinful, unjust, malevolent, demonic, dirty, bent, traumatic, horrible, hurtful, unholy things? God causing good things to work toward good is true, and obvious. We can see that, it takes hope in God for what we can’t see.

This promise is *not* a justification to sin, any more than being justified by faith is a justification to sin. Those who love God shouldn't love Him by driving the car off the cliff and saying, "Oh, He'll fix it."

It is not simplistic, but it is simple. Joe Biden being our current president is for good, for sure, and it apparently wasn’t to make our neighbors wake up to vote better in the midterms. Your cancer may be for your good-er weeping with another, not for your recovery story on earth. The acute things, that can be named, that have a shorter duration, are worked by God for good. The undiagnosed, apparently unending or at least of uncertain ending, that ruin your plans and upend your life. The nagging and annoying and inconvenient, the systemic and global and generational, God is God of working **all things**.

Which also means I do not have to have experienced your portion of the all things in order to have some perspective on your portion of the all things. "You don't know what I'm going through." That's true, but not completely right. And I *do* know that God cares, He has ordained, He is at work. I also know the *end* of what you're going through: **good**. This is the *good* good, the ultimate good.

Of course neither you or I are at the center of God's plans. But both you and I are being taken through God's plans for you and I.

## The Progression of His Purpose (verses 29-30)

**For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.**

Whatever the exact nature of God's relationship to time is, the comfort in our sufferings does not come from the idea that God looked down through the corridors of time and saw that we would believe and then He responded by determining from that point that He would take care of us. Our hope is not in His response but in His purpose.

And **foreknew** only means pre-knowledge on the surface of the compound word. It’s not semantics to say that when God *knows* it’s more than accumulated data, it’s affection and familiarity. Foreknowledge is more than foresight. **Predestined** means He set the path toward the horizon for those He knows.

The subordinate goal is that we would be Christlike; **conformed**, συμμόρφους, made to match the mold. The goal up from that is that Christ would be glorified. The goal up from that, the end for which God created the world, is glory to God, Father, Son, and Spirit. That glory is the same one He is calling us into.

Beloved, God made the world and rules and knows how to get you to the good. That great good is in Christ, and this is for the preeminence of Christ.

**And those he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.**

It’s not the complete *ordo salutis*, but it is covers the complete picture of our experience of salvation, calling to eternal glory. That Paul wrote **glorified** in the past tense presents the God’s purpose as so determined it might as well be done.

# Conclusion

When we are weak, then we need God's sovereignty. We need *monergism*, Calvinism, the doctrines of grace.

When we talk about being blessed, about being jealousable, about living the sort of provocative lives that are a treasure of salvific riches for the world (Romans 11:11-12, 14), how we suffer, and watch God work non-linear, complex good and blessing in our pains, is part of it. Obviously blessed with success is one kind of glory, obviously blessed with and through suffering is another.

Those who love God have been foreloved by God (1 John 4:19), elected to salvation *and elected to specific sufferings* that we might learn obedience (Hebrews 5:8) and be made like the Son in His glory. In John Calvin’s words,

> “by the same celestial decree, the afflictions, which conform us to Christ, have been appointed; and he did this for the purpose of connecting, as by a kind of necessary chain, our salvation with the bearing of the cross.”

When it hurts, what can you do? You can pray. When you don’t know what to pray, remember the Spirit intercedes for you, and prays according to the purpose of God for your glory.

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## Charge

The charge is: having girded up the loins of your mind, and being fully sober, set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:13).

Hope in God! You will praise Him again, and forever.

## Benediction:

> But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

> Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. (Philippians 3:20–4:1, ESV)

I am thankful(!) for the PUD, usually and especially these last few days, and while fully understandable, the one piece of information that everyone signs in to the outage center to see hasn't been available after this last storm: Estimated Time to Restoring service. That's what we really want to know. I don't have the answer to that this morning, nor is the sermon threading a timely needle.

The next paragraph in Romans would totally be applicable (it includes 8:28!), yet I don't want many to miss it, and maybe preaching something a shorter in light of the lack of light, and the circumstances, will work for today.

So am I giving you the answer(s) you were hoping for this morning? Perhaps (not). But it's also proverbial, and fits with our ongoing Sunday evening series, so there's that. The title for this sermon is: “The Kindness Boomerang"

Being kind is a God-honoring, Christian virtue, part of the fruit of the Spirit. It can also be Thomas Kinkaided, pictured as something a little too simple and syrupy; it’s very easy to be kind when no one else is around to annoy you. Kindness can also be ignored in light of criticizing the Thomas Kindkaiders.

Since Genesis 3 image-bearers have been unkind to fellow image-bearers; our age has just multiplied the speed of ugly with caffeine and the internet.

Today I want to consider the fact that failing to be kind is foolish because it hurts you more than it hurts anyone else. You hurt and harm yourself most when you're unkind to others.

Let's start by seeing the biblical opposite of that in Provers 21:21, namely, the personal advantages that come from showing kindness. The proverb is composed of two parts that connect kindness with benefits for those who show kindness, not for those who receive it.

Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness

The first half of the proverb sets the stage and tells us about the pursuit of kindness.

Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness

We don't pursue something with a sit-around-and-wait attitude. Think of a craving or an irresistible desire that moves someone toward a goal. Informally, we talk about "dogging" someone or something (obviously not here in the sense of cutting someone down, but) in the sense of relentlessly hounding until you get what you're chasing.

Very few, if any, roll out of bed in the morning having a good grasp on kindness. The person in verse 21 is characterized by their ongoing pursuit.

There's a great example of this kind of thoughtful, initiating, committed kindness by King David. In 2 Samuel 9, David had been king for a little while, and it almost seems like out-of-nowhere he asked out loud in verse 1 (then through verse 13).

"Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?"

He must have organized a team of people to find the answer, perhaps the first Kindness Committee in history. David pursued the question with an old servant in Saul's house named Ziba (verses 2-4). Then he sent men from Jerusalem to Lo-Debar, perhaps 125-150 miles away, to get this crippled relative of Jonathan’s named Mephibosheth. He brings this unworthy, fearful young man to his palace, promises him kindness (verse 7), and then honors him by not only seating him at his table (verses 7, 10), but restoring to him all that belonged to Saul and his house (verse 9). Mephibosheth was like a son to David from that moment on (verse 11).

That was a pursuit of kindness. And even though we might not have all to offer someone that King David did, we have so many ways we can show thought and care for others. When, if ever, have you pursued kindness like that?

Obviously we've been talking about kindness, but there are two objects we're chasing: righteousness and kindness.

In context, the idea of righteousness also has to do with how we treat other people, rather than how we act before God (though the two cannot be separated totally). This righteousness is treating others with equity, justice, and fairness.

And kindness, the point of the message, is a summary of looking not only to your own interests, but also to interests of others (Philippians 2:3).

The Hebrew word for kindness here is hesed, a common term in the OT, and one of the handful of Hebrew words even preachers who don’t know Hebrew know. When used from men to men, it meant doing favors and benefits for others, especially those who were lowly or miserable or needy.

The two things go together: righteousness and kindness. Don't think you're being kind to someone by lying to them, even if you think telling them the truth will hurt. That's unrighteous. At the same time, don't think it's alright to walk all over someone because they did something wrong. That's unkindness. Pursue both righteousness and kindness.

How many among us could use a little kindness thrown their direction.

The wise person will pursue righteousness and kindness because it's right and because it has benefits. Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness,

will find life, righteousness, and honor.

This is why the title for the message is "The Kindness Boomerang." When you throw out kindness, it comes back to you even better than when it left your hand. Three results are listed in the second half of verse 21.

First, those who pursue kindness will find life. Almost always in the OT "life" refers to a quality of life; a mouthwatering joy in the process, not just more years added to your (grumpy) life. Isn’t it often visible that the happiest people are also very kind people? Thinking about your life, as opposed to thinking about others, is one of the surest ways to be miserable and prepare yourself to die alone.

Second, those who pursue kindness will find righteousness. This angle has to do with a person's integrity and conscience, before men and before God. You have nothing to be ashamed of; your character will be honorable.

And third, those who pursue kindness will find glory. This takes the previous benefit to another level. This last word, glory, means you earn a reputation and make a name for yourself by being kind. You will get more, or at least better, notice and more reward than if you're catty, complaining, resentful. If you really want to make a name for yourself, be kind.

Notice that there are two objects pursued, and three results. You get back more than you give. Of course, if you move glory out of the result list in the second part of the proverb, and into the pursuit list in the first part, you'll miss out on all the benefits. (There are other contexts where we are to pursue a certain kind of glory, as in Romans 2:6-7, but the proverbial context keeps it as an indirect object.)

I said at the beginning that failing to be kind is foolish because it hurts you more than it hurts others. We saw the opposite of that in Proverbs 21:21, that being kind is wise because it helps you. But now consider Proverbs 11:17.

A man who is kind benefits himself,

The positive and the negative are both here. You benefit yourself by being kind, and the benefits are spelled out in 21:21. But God says, the cruel man, the unkind, harsh, mean, unthoughtful, selfish person, hurts himself.

Being unkind hurts me more than it hurts you. Being unkind is self-destructive. It destroys your joy, it destroys your character, and it destroys your reputation.

The wise man is kind and benefits himself. The fool is cruel and hurts himself.

As the Lord has shown great kindness to you, pursue righteousness and kindness.

The LORD bless you and keep you;

# Introduction

I am *thankful*(!) for the PUD, usually and especially these last few days, and while fully understandable, the one piece of information that everyone signs in to the outage center to see hasn't been available after this last storm: Estimated Time to Restoring service. *That's what we really want to know.* I don't have the answer to that this morning, nor is the sermon threading a timely needle.

The next paragraph in Romans would totally be applicable (it includes 8:28!), yet I don't want many to miss it, and maybe preaching something a shorter in light of the lack of light, and the circumstances, will work for today.

So am I giving you the answer(s) you were hoping for this morning? Perhaps (not). But it's also proverbial, and fits with our ongoing Sunday evening series, so there's that. The title for this sermon is: “The Kindness Boomerang"

Being kind is a God-honoring, Christian virtue, part of the fruit of the Spirit. It can also be Thomas Kinkaided, pictured as something a little too simple and syrupy; it’s *very* easy to be kind when no one else is around to annoy you. Kindness can also be ignored in light of criticizing the Thomas Kindkaiders.

Since Genesis 3 image-bearers have been *unkind* to fellow image-bearers; our age has just multiplied the speed of ugly with caffeine and the internet.

Today I want to consider the fact that *failing to be kind is foolish because it hurts you more than it hurts anyone else*. You hurt and harm *yourself* most when you're unkind to others.

Let's start by seeing the biblical opposite of that in Provers 21:21, namely, the personal advantages that come from showing kindness. The proverb is composed of two parts that connect kindness with benefits for those who *show* kindness, not for those who receive it.

> Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness

> will find life, righteousness, and honor.

> (Proverbs 21:21, ESV)

# 1. The Pursuit (verse 21a_ 

The first half of the proverb sets the stage and tells us about the pursuit of kindness.

> Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness

## The Kind of Pursuit

We don't **pursue** something with a sit-around-and-wait attitude. Think of a craving or an irresistible desire that moves someone toward a goal. Informally, we talk about "dogging" someone or something (obviously not here in the sense of cutting someone down, but) in the sense of relentlessly hounding until you get what you're chasing.

Very few, if any, roll out of bed in the morning having a good grasp on kindness. The person in verse 21 is characterized by their ongoing pursuit.

There's a great example of this kind of thoughtful, initiating, committed kindness by King David. In 2 Samuel 9, David had been king for a little while, and it almost seems like out-of-nowhere he asked out loud in verse 1 (then through verse 13).

> "Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?"

He must have organized a team of people to find the answer, perhaps the first Kindness Committee in history. David pursued the question with an old servant in Saul's house named Ziba (verses 2-4). Then he sent men from Jerusalem to Lo-Debar, perhaps 125-150 miles away, to get this crippled relative of Jonathan’s named Mephibosheth. He brings this unworthy, fearful young man to his palace, promises him kindness (verse 7), and then honors him by not only seating him at his table (verses 7, 10), but restoring to him all that belonged to Saul and his house (verse 9). Mephibosheth was like a son to David from that moment on (verse 11).

*That* was a pursuit of kindness. And even though we might not have all to offer someone that King David did, we have so many ways we can show thought and care for others. When, if ever, have you pursued kindness like that?

## The Objects of Pursuit

Obviously we've been talking about kindness, but there are two objects we're chasing: **righteousness and kindness**.

In context, the idea of **righteousness** also has to do with how we treat other people, rather than how we act before God (though the two cannot be separated totally). This **righteousness** is treating others with equity, justice, and fairness.

And **kindness**, the point of the message, is a summary of looking not only to your own interests, but also to interests of others (Philippians 2:3).

The Hebrew word for kindness here is *hesed*, a common term in the OT, and one of the handful of Hebrew words even preachers who don’t know Hebrew know. When used from men to men, it meant doing favors and benefits for others, especially those who were lowly or miserable or needy.

The two things go together: righteousness and kindness. Don't think you're being kind to someone by lying to them, even if you think telling them the truth will hurt. That's unrighteous. At the same time, don't think it's alright to walk all over someone because they did something wrong. That's unkindness. Pursue both righteousness and kindness.

How many among us could use a little kindness thrown their direction.

# 2. The Promise (verse 21b)

The wise person will pursue righteousness and kindness because it's right *and* because it has benefits. Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness,

> will find life, righteousness, and honor.

This is why the title for the message is "The Kindness Boomerang." When you throw out kindness, it comes back to you even better than when it left your hand. Three results are listed in the second half of verse 21.

First, those who pursue kindness will find **life**. Almost always in the OT "life" refers to a quality of life; a mouthwatering joy in the process, not just more years added to your (grumpy) life. Isn’t it often visible that the happiest people are also very kind people? Thinking about *your* life, as opposed to thinking about others, is one of the surest ways to be miserable and prepare yourself to die alone.

Second, those who pursue kindness will find **righteousness**. This angle has to do with a person's integrity and conscience, before men and before God. You have nothing to be ashamed of; your character will be honorable.

And third, those who pursue kindness will find **glory**. This takes the previous benefit to another level. This last word, **glory**, means you earn a reputation and make a name for yourself by being kind. You will get more, or at least better, notice and more reward than if you're catty, complaining, resentful. If you really want to make a name for yourself, be kind.

Notice that there are *two* objects pursued, and *three* results. You get back more than you give. Of course, if you move glory out of the result list in the second part of the proverb, and into the pursuit list in the first part, you'll miss out on all the benefits. (There are other contexts where we are to pursue a certain kind of glory, as in Romans 2:6-7, but the proverbial context keeps it as an indirect object.)

# Conclusion

I said at the beginning that failing to be kind is foolish because it hurts *you* more than it hurts others. We saw the opposite of that in Proverbs 21:21, that being kind is wise because it helps you. But now consider Proverbs 11:17.

> A man who is kind benefits himself,

> but a cruel man hurts himself.

> (Proverbs 11:17, ESV)

The positive and the negative are both here. You benefit yourself by being kind, and the benefits are spelled out in 21:21. But God says, the cruel man, the unkind, harsh, mean, unthoughtful, selfish person, hurts himself.

Being unkind hurts me more than it hurts you. Being unkind is self-destructive. It destroys your joy, it destroys your character, and it destroys your reputation.

The wise man is kind and benefits himself. The fool is cruel and hurts himself.

----------

## Charge

As the Lord has shown great kindness to you, pursue righteousness and kindness.

## Benediction:

> The LORD bless you and keep you;

> The LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

> the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

> (Numbers 6:24-26, ESV)

The Lord renews our minds so that we can live according to true standards. We look around and we see things that need explaining. Those who live according to the flesh invent some explanations, though their thoughts are more like riddles and riddled with inconsistency. They have trouble putting all the pieces together, which is actually a piece that believers have an explanation for. Those who live according to the flesh can get some parts right, but they can't get it all right. Whenever they shake their magic 8-ball, the answer comes up death.

A key reality in Romans 8 is that believers live according to the Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives faith and gives leading and gives a testimony that we are God's children. The Spirit enables us to put to death the desires and deeds of the flesh, and the Spirit enables us to see and explain and endure with hope the suffering that happens before we are "with-gloried" with Christ.

Paul just said that those who are glorified with Christ are those who suffer with Christ (verse 17). This paragraph has more to say about both: groaning (as we suffer) and glory (as we wait eagerly in endurance and faith and hope).

In English when we say “there is no comparison," we actually mean that we already did a comparison and the results weren’t close. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

The consider is the same as "reckon" back in Romans 6:11. It requires thought, but maybe even more the idea of calculation; “weighing the evidence” (Morris). Two objects are as on two sides of a balance: current sufferings and coming glory. The “sufferings of the now season” belong to the present age, in which we live and groan. But the sufferings are personal; as the losses and brokenness and hurts are personal, so will the glory be. (Think also 2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

This glory is…to be bestowed upon us, so that we become the actual partakers; it is not a glory of which we are to be mere spectators. (Murray)

We’re not merely onlookers or bystanders of suffering or of glory.

The sufferings are not worthy (not "worth comparing” as the ESV). On the scale they don't match “the about to be glory.” In the doctrine of salvation we refer to justification, sanctification, and glorification. We have fallen short of the glory of God, and by His grace He is preparing us to be restored to glory. This is a glory that is to be revealed to us, but that could make it sound like glory is like a great display for us to see. But we will be with-gloried (συνδοξασθῶμεν, verse 17), our bodies will be redeemed (verse 23).

The "for" at the front of verse 19 is explanatory, but not in a causal sense. Verses 19-21 are one sentence (in Greek) that the glory to be revealed to believers is something the whole universe knows about. The cosmos is just waiting to see it.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. The waits with eager longing is one word in Greek, and it's used again in verse 23 and again in verse 25. Here creation wants something, and it wants it badly.

What it wants are for the sons of God to be revealed, that is, to be revealed in all their glory. There's a coming part of their adoption, which relates to the physical redemption (verse 23). The creation knows that that revelation is better than the present trials.

What part of creation are we talking about? That's a good question. Let's come back to that after verse 21.

for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

In futility, in a frustration of failed fulfillment of purpose, creation "was made to submit." That wasn't what creation wanted, but it was decided for creation by "the one having subjected." The Creator subjected creation. This is Pauls explanation of Genesis 3. When the Lord punished Adam He cursed the ground, and the fields wouldn't give up their fruit like before. The Lord Himself established the plan.

The creation Paul refers to doesn't seem personal, though Paul is personifying it. It's not angels and certainly not demons who would never want glory for God's sons. God’s sons are learning from creation so it's not them, and why would unbelievers wait eagerly for such revelation either? So this is the non-rational creation. This is the sun and moon, plants and planets, mountains and seas and trees and flowers, the rocks and hills, deserts and gardens. Something holds them back from their freedom; God has inflicted on nature a sort of slavery. God has also provoked creation to hope. (See also a different but related worship performed by creation in Psalm 96:11-12.)

The bondage will be broken and the corruption will be undone. Creation will be set free along with the children of God.

I would have taken verse 22 as the end of the point about creation and start a new point with verse 23. But all the Greek copies I looked at take our verses 22-23 together as one sentence. Obviously the content connects, but the "we know" and the "we groan" put the focus back on persons.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

This is Christian 101; we know, it's understood. Unlike the ESV, there are two different verbs, both that have a "with" idea. All creation "with-groans" and "with-suffers pain" (συστενάζει καὶ συνωδίνει). The commentator Moffatt puts it: “the entire creation sighs and throbs with pain.” The image of childbirth isn't in the original text, but it is probably the best picture. These aren’t death pangs but birth pangs, labor pains rather than last pains. But, it is pains, which gets us back to the "sufferings" that the paragraph opened with.

Creation cries out. We know He commands wind and rain, futility and pain.

There is a pile up of transition conjunctions at the start of verse 23: "not only but, but also." Creation feels the pain, we even more.

We have the firstfruits of the Spirit. Paul referred to the Spirit as a sort of downpayment that guarantees future inheritance to the Ephesians (1:13-14). The firstfruits image isn't only chronological but eschatological, in terms of there will be more where that comes from.

In the meantime we groan inwardly. It’s personal. There is a community of sufferers, which is different than the FOG, the Fellowship of Grievance. We can be the Fellowship of Groaners, but that's not grumbling as much as waiting eagerly. We see what's coming. We've gotten a little taste. We look forward to the redemption of our bodies. Jesus will deliver us from the corruption.

For in this hope we were saved. Salvation comes with hope; hope is part of the basic salvation package. Salvation looks back differently; our sins have been covered. Salvation looks around differently; we walk in newness of life, ready to serve righteousness. But saving faith has an end, the future of faith is when faith isn't necessary. Faith is temporary because of its telos.

There's some basics in the last part of verse 24 and verse 25. Paul gives a definition, almost a logical tautology. Hope that is seen is not hope. The nature of hope is a confidence about what's coming. It can be comprehended but it's currently concealed. For who hopes for what he sees? What square has rounded corners? A square with rounded corners isn't a square. What man can give birth? If a man gives birth we can know it wasn’t a man. So hope means the anticipation part not the accomplished part. Hope can visualize what is not visible right now.

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. The “eagerly waiting” word finishes the paragraph, and while patience is a an acceptable translation, this is the typical NT word for endurance, for perseverance. It's a remaining (ὑπομονῆς), continuing. ENDurance begins with the END of our hope.

We might have wet cheeks reading along as Caspian's crew sail sunny, placid waters through bright and still flowers right before Reepicheep gets home to Aslan’s Country. Our joy in that part of the story is because we also long for final joy; we’re eager to be done. But we see that way more clearly because usually, we are in an ongoing battle, our supplies are sufficient but rusty, those we thought to be allies are apathetic, and we're fighting to the last before we get in. But we will. It will be an end that is also a new beginning.

For now we groan and we hope. We groan in hope. We are not hopeless, we also don't act surface-level upbeat just to please people. From a pastoral perspective, it would be easier if we self-policed, if we were honest with ourselves, rather than seeing how hopeless we can appear before a brother has to say something. "Hey, bro, you're acting like your future glory just got a can of soup thrown on it."

Likewise, we're learning how to not poo-poo the present, which is also what God has given us His Holy Spirit to hope through. God likes the idea of hope. Lines are Christian; God invented waiting. But we can wait better or worse, with order and hope or not. We can waste our waiting or provoke others to ask us about the hope we have (1 Peter 3:15). We are not materialists or gnostics; we see what we see and we hope for what we do not see.

Creation cries out and my sufferings proclaim He is Lord and the Savior of hope.

Brothers, rejoice in your sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces a shameless hope, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (see Romans 5:3-5).

Let us build in hope, battle in hope, rest in hope, wait in hope. Hope in God!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13, ESV)

# Introduction

The Lord renews our minds so that we can live according to true standards. We look around and we see things that need explaining. Those who live according to the flesh invent some explanations, though their thoughts are more like riddles and riddled with inconsistency. They have trouble putting all the pieces together, which is actually a piece that believers have an explanation for. Those who live according to the flesh can get some parts right, but they can't get it all right. Whenever they shake their magic 8-ball, the answer comes up *death*.

A key reality in Romans 8 is that believers live according to the Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives faith and gives leading and gives a testimony that we are God's children. The Spirit enables us to put to death the desires and deeds of the flesh, and the Spirit enables us to see and explain and endure with hope the suffering that happens before we are "with-gloried" with Christ.

Paul just said that those who are glorified with Christ are those who suffer with Christ (verse 17). This paragraph has more to say about both: groaning (as we suffer) and glory (as we wait eagerly in endurance and *faith* and hope).


# Coming Glory | The Future of God’s Sons (verse 18)

In English when we say “there is no comparison," we actually mean that we already did a comparison and the results weren’t close. **For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.**

The **consider** is the same as "reckon" back in Romans 6:11. It requires thought, but maybe even more the idea of calculation; “weighing the evidence” (Morris). Two objects are as on two sides of a balance: current sufferings and coming glory. The “sufferings of the now season” belong to the present age, in which we live and groan. But the sufferings are personal; as the losses and brokenness and hurts are personal, so will the glory be. (Think also 2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

> This glory is…to be bestowed upon us, so that we become the actual partakers; it is not a glory of which we are to be mere spectators. (Murray)

We’re not merely onlookers or bystanders of suffering or of glory.

The sufferings are not **worthy** (not "worth comparing” as the ESV). On the scale they don't match “the about to be glory.” In the doctrine of salvation we refer to justification, sanctification, and glorification. We have fallen short of the glory of God, and by His grace He is preparing us to be restored to glory. This is a glory that is **to be revealed to us**, but that could make it sound like glory is like a great display for us to see. But *we* will be *with-gloried* (συνδοξασθῶμεν, verse 17), our bodies will be redeemed (verse 23).


# Creation Waits | The Revelation of God’s Sons (verses 19-21)

The "for" at the front of verse 19 is explanatory, but not in a causal sense. Verses 19-21 are one sentence (in Greek) that the glory to be revealed to believers is something the whole universe knows about. The cosmos is just waiting to see it.

**For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.** The **waits with eager longing** is one word in Greek, and it's used again in verse 23 and again in verse 25. Here **creation** wants something, and it wants it badly.

What it wants are for the **sons of God** to be **revealed**, that is, to be revealed in all their glory. There's a coming part of their adoption, which relates to the physical redemption (verse 23). The creation knows that *that* revelation is better than the present trials.

What part of creation are we talking about? That's a good question. Let's come back to that after verse 21.

**for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.**

In **futility**, in a frustration of failed fulfillment of purpose, creation "was made to submit." That wasn't what creation wanted, but it was decided for creation by "the one having subjected." The Creator subjected creation. This is Pauls explanation of Genesis 3. When the Lord punished Adam He cursed the ground, and the fields wouldn't give up their fruit like before. The Lord Himself established the plan.

The **creation** Paul refers to doesn't seem personal, though Paul is personifying it. It's not angels and certainly not demons who would never want glory for God's sons. God’s sons are learning from creation so it's not them, and why would unbelievers *wait eagerly* for such revelation either? So this is the non-rational creation. This is the sun and moon, plants and planets, mountains and seas and trees and flowers, the rocks and hills, deserts and gardens. Something holds them back from their freedom; God has inflicted on nature a sort of slavery. God has also provoked creation to hope. (See also a different but related worship performed by creation in Psalm 96:11-12.)

The **bondage** will be broken and the **corruption** will be undone. Creation will be set free along with the children of God.


# Christians Wait | The Groaning of God’s Sons (verses 22-23)

I would have taken verse 22 as the end of the point about creation and start a new point with verse 23. But all the Greek copies I looked at take our verses 22-23 together as one sentence. Obviously the content connects, but the "we know" and the "we groan" put the focus back on persons.

**For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.**

This is Christian 101; **we know**, it's understood. Unlike the ESV, there are two different verbs, both that have a "with" idea. All creation "with-groans" and "with-suffers pain" (συστενάζει καὶ συνωδίνει). The commentator Moffatt puts it: “the entire creation sighs and throbs with pain.” The image of childbirth isn't in the original text, but it is probably the best picture. These aren’t death pangs but birth pangs, labor pains rather than last pains. But, it is *pains*, which gets us back to the "sufferings" that the paragraph opened with.

*Creation cries out.* We know He commands wind and rain, futility and pain.

There is a pile up of transition conjunctions at the start of verse 23: "not only but, but also." Creation feels the pain, we even more.

We have the **firstfruits of the Spirit**. Paul referred to the Spirit as a sort of downpayment that guarantees future inheritance to the Ephesians (1:13-14). The firstfruits image isn't only chronological but eschatological, in terms of there will be more where that comes from.

In the meantime we **groan inwardly**. It’s personal. There is a community of sufferers, which is different than the FOG, the Fellowship of Grievance. We can be the Fellowship of Groaners, but that's not grumbling as much as **waiting eagerly**. We see what's coming. We've gotten a little taste. We look forward to **the redemption of our bodies**. Jesus will deliver us from the corruption.


# Enduring Hope | The Hope of God’s Sons (verses 24-25)

**For in this hope we were saved**. Salvation comes with hope; hope is part of the basic salvation package. Salvation looks back differently; our sins have been covered. Salvation looks around differently; we walk in newness of life, ready to serve righteousness. But saving faith has an *end*, the future of faith is when faith isn't necessary. Faith is temporary because of its telos.

There's some basics in the last part of verse 24 and verse 25. Paul gives a definition, almost a logical tautology. **Hope that is seen is not hope.** The nature of hope is a confidence about what's coming. It can be comprehended but it's currently concealed. **For who hopes for what he sees?** What square has rounded corners? A square with rounded corners isn't a square. What man can give birth? If a man gives birth we can know it wasn’t a man. So hope *means* the anticipation part not the accomplished part. Hope can visualize what is not visible right now.

**But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.** The “eagerly waiting” word finishes the paragraph, and while **patience** is a an acceptable translation, this is the typical NT word for *endurance*, for perseverance. It's a remaining (ὑπομονῆς), continuing. ENDurance begins with the END of our hope.


# Conclusion

We might have wet cheeks reading along as Caspian's crew sail sunny, placid waters through bright and still flowers right before Reepicheep gets home to Aslan’s Country. Our joy in that part of the story is because we also long for final joy; we’re eager to be done. But we see that way more clearly because usually, we are in an ongoing battle, our supplies are sufficient but rusty, those we thought to be allies are apathetic, and we're fighting to the last before we get in. But we will. It will be an end that is also a new beginning.

For now we groan and we hope. We *groan in hope*. We are not hopeless, we also don't act surface-level upbeat just to please people. From a pastoral perspective, it would be easier if we self-policed, if we were honest with ourselves, rather than seeing how hopeless we can appear before a brother has to say something. "Hey, bro, you're acting like your future glory just got a can of soup thrown on it."

Likewise, we're learning how to not poo-poo the present, which is also what God has given us His Holy Spirit to hope through. God likes the idea of hope. Lines are Christian; God invented waiting. But we can wait better or worse, with order and hope or not. We can waste our waiting or provoke others to ask us about the hope we have (1 Peter 3:15). We are not materialists or gnostics; we see what we see and we hope for what we do not see.

Creation cries out and my sufferings proclaim He is Lord and the Savior of hope.

----------

## Charge

Brothers, rejoice in your sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces a shameless *hope*, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (see Romans 5:3-5).

Let us build in hope, battle in hope, rest in hope, wait in hope. Hope in God!

## Benediction:

> May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13, ESV)

Is it hard or easy to be a Christian? It is good, but so is fighting on the right side in a just war. That is “easier” than trying to convince yourself to fight knowing you’re on the wrong side, and “easier” than dealing with the guilt of sitting out the battle on the right sideline. But no one would call the good fight easy.

In Romans 8:12-17 there are not only a buffet of doctrinal proteins, there are great comfort foods. The truth is, we have no obligations to do what the flesh tells us to do. God’s Spirit dwells in us, leads us, and communicates directly to us. We have been brought into a familial relationship with God; He is our Father and we His sons. We’ve been given the promise of life and inheritance and glory. And it may be the hardest thing in the world. The Spirit is willing and the flesh is too weak to get over itself.

We have to kill the desires of our own flesh, daily, minute-ly. We will be matured into sons ready to receive our Father’s inheritance through suffering; our Father is committed to it. It is amazing that we can cry to God as our Father. And we will need to.

Doctrines in this paragraph include: Mortification, Adoption, Internal Testimony, Inheritance, and Glorification. Belonging to the discussion are still Justification, Sanctification, and Union with Christ.

This paragraph probably doesn’t get all the love and attention it deserves because 8:1-4, 8:28, and 8:31-39 are such bright stars. But this is no lesser light.

Here’s a logical conclusion with familial affection. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. Flesh, and sin, and death aren’t giving the orders around here anymore.

The key word is debtors, “under obligation” (NASB). One who borrows money is a debtor to the lender, there is an expectation for you to pay it back. It’s a duty. The ties that bind us to the flesh have been cut. The flesh is not our business anymore.

Let’s say you have a life in the public eye, and you spend all your time, and hire consultants to help you spend your time, thinking about how the media is going to report/spin your comments. You’ve got to present a certain look. Everybody’s watching, taking photos, expecting you to keep up your image. Your life is consumed with figuring out how to please the ones who gave you the platform, your importance, your wealth. You have an obligation to your fans.

Then, let’s say, you read a book about the vanity of it all. You give up that lifestyle, buy a thousand acre ranch in Montana, and move there with your wife and start a family. Not only do you not pay New York taxes, you don’t owe that celebrity-making machine anything.

Or, for a more biblical illustration, let’s say you just crossed the Red Sea, and your old taskmaster is trying to hand you a todo list as his head bobs up and down in the water. Would you take it? No, he’s not your boss.

In a greater and even more true way, by faith in Christ we’ve been committed to a new way of thinking (per Romans 6:17), and we have no obligations at all to the flesh and the former ways. It will keep sending signals. It will talk at us like we’re not free. But we have no debt to the flesh.

The opposite isn’t stated but it’s assumed. We are obligated to the Spirit. Perhaps it’s more elegant to avoid “debt” language while in a grace context. We are not paying anything back, as if God’s grace were like a loan that we must work off through obedience payments. And yet, there are good obligations for loyalty and living in a new way, as sons.

The primary expected behavior is explained in verse 13.

The explanation of consequences is not an explanation of causes. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

The wages of sin is death. The die is physical, but also eternal. A “natural man” (1 Corinthians 2:14) only “lives” to die.

A spiritual man lives to kill. The ones who live to live, resurrected and eternal, wage battle against the flesh for now.

Put to death means to mortify (mortis is the Genitive form of the Latin word for death). Don’t feed the flesh. Starve it. Don’t even make it a sandwich. Spiritual people aren’t primarily identified as tongue-talkers but more so as tongue-bridlers (cf James 3:2-4).

Put to death requires the Spirit. It is not flesh against flesh, not even law against flesh (which only makes it worse; you can’t fight a match with fire). We can only kill the correct way if we kill supernaturally, and the aspect is one of continual vigilance. Put to death is not one and done. It is not battery powered; but like a lamp, always needing to be plugged in.

Life is on the line. You don’t “let go and let God,” you get the Spirit of God’s strength to make war.

From a temporal angle, you can develop habits, routine, and lifestyle that fits with your living mindset and worldview. We always do, it’s just that some are more consistent. As John Owen said,

"Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin, or it will be killing you."

The evidence of more righteousness—consistently killing fleshly desires—is evidence of being led, and being led is evidence of sonship. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Everything in context explaining what leading refers to is non-guilt-driven, non-self-credited, non-excuse-making members led toward righteousness. To the Galatians Paul listed elements of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). To the Corinthians Paul listed some of the Spirit’s gifting (1 Corinthians 12:4-11). But here the leading means less listening to fleshly debt collectors.

The Spirit leads sons toward righteousness, not necessarily toward the right investment deal; if anything the Spirit’s leading would be in a humble response for an investment choice gone bad (and not blaming the Spirit). The leading of the Spirit won’t be against Scripture (which the Spirit inspired), nor will it be an authoritative addition to Scripture. Such claims are not more spiritual. They are not the claims of sons.

This doctrine isn’t mentioned as many times in the New Testament, but it is more comforting. If justification by faith alone is like a pair of new waterproof boots against the trench-foot of guilt, adoption is like wool socks perfectly knit to fit. It is one thing to be freed from a life sentence in prison, it is more to be freed and picked up by a family who has prepared a place for you.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

The Spirit who caused us to be born again, the Spirit who gifted us with repentance and faith, has not brought us to new, higher, supernatural levels of anxiety over law-breaking. There are places where fear of the Lord is good, and we are slaves of a new kind. But the fear and slavery in verse 15 is the kind that goes with uncertainty before a judge. But we who believe in Christ have certainty about the verdict; the Son took our penalty on Himself, and the Judge took us in as His own children. We go home with Him.

The Spirit of adoption is the capital “S” Spirit (per the complementary passage in Galatians 4:6). Adoption wasn’t a typical thing in Israel.

The Abba! Father! can be made superficial in two ways. The “He’s my Daddy” group don’t reckon with the dignity of the Father. They could use more reverence. But the ones who are always quick to criticize the Daddy group probably have their own daddy issues. They might just need a hug. I’m serious. Paul is trying to get his readers to be awed by this warmth of intimacy. Abba is Aramaic, and is like “dada” or “papa,” something a small child would say. God is familiar to His sons. Jesus Himself used the Aramaic and Greek combination in His Garden prayer (Mark 14:36).

This is a surprisingly big deal. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Our “spirit” is not a second witness. This is God’s Spirit communicating directly to us that we belong to God. He bears witness to us. Our spirit isn’t trustworthy.

This is faith, this is receiving of promises and truth in the Word. It is personal, unmediated assurance.

Children are provided for: and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

More about suffering and glorification in the next part of the chapter.

Heirs is the privilege of receiving into possession another’s property. It’s also interesting because neither God nor Christ die or get out of the way; we don’t want them to. In the OT there are clear statements of God Himself being the inheritance (Psalm 16:5-6; see also Psalm 73:25-26). We are heirs of God, only used here in the NT; we get God Himself forever. With Him we will get all things, and there are other texts that give additional details.

We “with-suffer” and “with-gloried” (συμπάσχομεν … συνδοξασθῶμεν). More than following the same path He did, we follow the path in union with Him. When His people are persecuted, He is persecuted. When one member suffers, the Body suffers. All these things work toward our conformity to Christ. Co-heirs/joint-heirs now, and forever, in glory.

How do we observe the Spirit’s leading?

The Spirit stimulates our faith that we would kill sin, not stimulate doubt about faith because of sin. You are sons of God, you have a duty to depend on the Father and live according to the Spirit whom the Father has given to seal us as the “guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13-14).

Don’t be deceived. Being awesome doesn’t always feel awesome. Doing good doesn’t always feel energizing. Sowing to the Spirit doesn’t always feel eternal. But don’t think that you will reap what you don’t sow. Mortify your flesh by the Spirit. Live and walk and sow in the Spirit. Your flesh is weak, but the Holy Spirit is willing and working.

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:7–9, ESV)

# Introduction

Is it hard or easy to be a Christian? It is *good*, but so is fighting on the right side in a just war. That is “easier” than trying to convince yourself to fight knowing you’re on the wrong side, and “easier” than dealing with the guilt of sitting out the battle on the right sideline. But no one would call the good fight *easy*.

In Romans 8:12-17 there are not only a buffet of doctrinal proteins, there are great comfort foods. The truth is, we have no obligations to do what the flesh tells us to do. God’s Spirit dwells in us, leads us, and communicates directly to us. We have been brought into a familial relationship with God; He is our Father and we His sons. We’ve been given the promise of *life* and inheritance and glory. And it may be the hardest thing in the world. The Spirit is willing and the flesh is too weak to get over itself.

We have to kill the desires of our own flesh, daily, *minute-ly*. We will be matured into sons ready to receive our Father’s inheritance through suffering; our Father is committed to it. It is amazing that we can cry to God as our Father. And we will need to.

Doctrines in this paragraph include: Mortification, Adoption, Internal Testimony, Inheritance, and Glorification. Belonging to the discussion are still Justification, Sanctification, and Union with Christ.

This paragraph probably doesn’t get all the love and attention it deserves because 8:1-4, 8:28, and 8:31-39 are such bright stars. But this is no lesser light.


# Better Debtors (verse 12)

Here’s a logical conclusion with familial affection. **So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.** Flesh, and sin, and death aren’t giving the orders around here anymore.

The key word is **debtors**, “under obligation” (NASB). One who borrows money is a debtor to the lender, there is an expectation for you to pay it back. It’s a *duty*. The ties that bind us to the flesh have been cut. The flesh is not our business anymore.

Let’s say you have a life in the public eye, and you spend all your time, and hire consultants to help you spend your time, thinking about how the media is going to report/spin your comments. You’ve got to present a certain look. Everybody’s watching, taking photos, expecting you to keep up your image. Your life is consumed with figuring out how to please the ones who gave you the platform, your importance, your wealth. You have an obligation to your fans.

Then, let’s say, you read a book about the vanity of it all. You give up that lifestyle, buy a thousand acre ranch in Montana, and move there with your wife and start a family. Not only do you not pay New York taxes, you don’t owe that celebrity-making machine anything.

Or, for a more biblical illustration, let’s say you just crossed the Red Sea, and your old taskmaster is trying to hand you a todo list as his head bobs up and down in the water. Would you take it? No, he’s not your boss.

In a greater and even more true way, by faith in Christ we’ve been committed to a new way of thinking (per Romans 6:17), and we have no obligations at all to the flesh and the former ways. It will keep sending signals. It will talk at us like we’re not free. But we have no debt to the flesh.

The opposite isn’t stated but it’s assumed. We are obligated to the Spirit. Perhaps it’s more elegant to avoid “debt” language while in a grace context. We are not paying anything back, as if God’s grace were like a loan that we must work off through obedience payments. And yet, there are good obligations for loyalty and living in a new way, as *sons*.

The primary expected behavior is explained in verse 13.


# Mortification to Life (verse 13)

The explanation of consequences is not an explanation of causes. **For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.**

The wages of sin is death. The **die** is physical, but also eternal. A “natural man” (1 Corinthians 2:14) only “lives” to die.

A spiritual man lives to kill. The ones who live to live, resurrected and eternal, wage battle against the flesh for now.

**Put to death** means to mortify (*mortis* is the Genitive form of the Latin word for death). Don’t feed the flesh. Starve it. Don’t even make it a sandwich. Spiritual people aren’t primarily identified as tongue-talkers but more so as tongue-bridlers (cf James 3:2-4).

**Put to death** requires the Spirit. It is not flesh against flesh, not even law against flesh (which only makes it worse; you can’t fight a match with fire). We can only kill the correct way if we kill supernaturally, and the aspect is one of continual vigilance. **Put to death** is not one and done. It is not battery powered; but like a lamp, always needing to be plugged in.

Life is on the line. You don’t “let go and let God,” you get the Spirit of God’s strength to make war.

From a temporal angle, you can develop habits, routine, and lifestyle that fits with your living mindset and worldview. We always do, it’s just that some are more consistent. As John Owen said,

> "Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin, or it will be killing you."


# Obvious Leading (verse 14)

The evidence of more righteousness—consistently killing fleshly desires—is evidence of being **led**, and being led is evidence of sonship. **For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.**

Everything in context explaining what leading refers to is non-guilt-driven, non-self-credited, non-excuse-making members led toward righteousness. To the Galatians Paul listed elements of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). To the Corinthians Paul listed some of the Spirit’s gifting (1 Corinthians 12:4-11). But here the leading means less listening to fleshly debt collectors.

The Spirit leads sons toward righteousness, not necessarily toward the right investment deal; if anything the Spirit’s leading would be in a humble response for an investment choice gone bad (and not blaming the Spirit). The leading of the Spirit won’t be against Scripture (which the Spirit inspired), nor will it be an authoritative addition to Scripture. Such claims are not more spiritual. They are not the claims of *sons*.


# Adoption Freedom (verse 15)

This doctrine isn’t mentioned as many times in the New Testament, but it is more comforting. If justification by faith alone is like a pair of new waterproof boots against the trench-foot of guilt, adoption is like wool socks perfectly knit to fit. It is one thing to be freed from a life sentence in prison, it is more to be freed and picked up by a family who has prepared a place for you.

**For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”**

The Spirit who caused us to be born again, the Spirit who gifted us with repentance and faith, has *not* brought us to new, higher, supernatural levels of anxiety over law-breaking. There are places where fear of the Lord is good, and we are slaves of a new kind. But the fear and slavery in verse 15 is the kind that goes with uncertainty before a judge. But we who believe in Christ have certainty about the verdict; the Son took our penalty on Himself, and the Judge took us in as His own children. We go home with Him.

The **Spirit of adoption** is the capital “S” Spirit (per the complementary passage in Galatians 4:6). Adoption wasn’t a typical thing in Israel.

The **Abba! Father!** can be made superficial in two ways. The “He’s my Daddy” group don’t reckon with the dignity of the Father. They could use more reverence. But the ones who are always quick to criticize the Daddy group probably have their own daddy issues. They might just need a hug. I’m serious. Paul is trying to get his readers to be awed by this warmth of intimacy. **Abba** is Aramaic, and is like “dada” or “papa,” something a small child would say. God *is* familiar to His sons. Jesus Himself used the Aramaic and Greek combination in His Garden prayer (Mark 14:36).


# Internal Testimony (verse 16)

This is a surprisingly big deal. **The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.** Our “spirit” is not a second witness. This is God’s Spirit communicating directly to us that we belong to God. He bears witness *to* us. Our spirit isn’t trustworthy.

This is faith, this is receiving of promises and truth in the Word. It is personal, unmediated assurance.


# Family Inheritance (verse 17)

Children are provided for: **and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.**

More about suffering and glorification in the next part of the chapter.

**Heirs** is the privilege of receiving into possession another’s property. It’s also interesting because neither God nor Christ die or get out of the way; we don’t want them to. In the OT there are clear statements of God Himself being the inheritance (Psalm 16:5-6; see also Psalm 73:25-26). We are **heirs of God**, only used here in the NT; we get God Himself forever. With Him we will get all things, and there are other texts that give additional details.

We “with-suffer” and “with-gloried” (συμπάσχομεν … συνδοξασθῶμεν). More than following the same path He did, we follow the path in *union* with Him. When His people are persecuted, He is persecuted. When one member suffers, the Body suffers. All these things work toward our conformity to Christ. Co-heirs/joint-heirs now, and forever, in glory.


# Conclusion

How do we observe the Spirit’s leading?

The Spirit stimulates our faith that we would kill sin, not stimulate doubt about faith because of sin. You are sons of God, you have a duty to depend on the Father and live according to the Spirit whom the Father has given to seal us as the “guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13-14).

----------

## Charge

Don’t be deceived. Being awesome doesn’t always feel awesome. Doing good doesn’t always feel energizing. Sowing to the Spirit doesn’t always feel eternal. But don’t think that you will reap what you don’t sow. Mortify your flesh by the Spirit. Live and walk and sow in the Spirit. Your flesh is weak, but the Holy Spirit is willing and working.

## Benediction:

> Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:7–9, ESV)

I can’t recommend everything in the heist movie of course, but in Ocean’s 11 Danny Ocean shows up unexpectedly to his ex-wife and in their conversation she says, “You know what your problem is?” And he replies, “I only have one?”

If I only had one problem it would be anger. It developed, I wouldn’t say “matured,” in my early 20s. Not that I was never angry before that, but my dad was angry enough for the whole family and I mostly wanted to avoid the fallout of his fury. But when I started living away from home I continued the family business, and really started getting good and mad.

Mo has never been blind to it, and she has certainly born the brunt of it. I probably didn’t really reckon with it until Calvin was about 18 months old and such an angry tiny tyrant. He was mad about everything, and that made me more mad. We stopped taking him out for a while because Mo or I would end up in the van with his screaming self while everyone else finished their fun/food.

Then I read a short blog post about adversarial fathers teaching their sons how to respond. It finally hit me, by God’s grace, that I was totally showing Cal how to respond to things he didn’t like. My childish temper tantrums were the problem, and I didn’t even have the excuse of being a child. I repented, I kept repenting, and I was also up close to some other people in my life that weren’t repenting, and started to get a clearer picture of the destruction that anger, both the loud and quiet-seething kinds, causes.

Proverbs has plain teaching about anger. But there is a proverb in Ecclesiastes worth starting with:

Be not quick in your spirit to become angry,

The KJV has it, “anger resteth in the bosom of fools.” (Contrast it with wisdom resting in the heart of a man of understanding that makes itself known in the midst of fools, Proverbs 14:33).

In English the word anger means “a strong feeling of annoyance and displeasure, or hostility.” Angry men often want to plead the dictionary and claim that they are just “irritated” or “frustrated” but not angry. And maybe they can hide in some shades of meaning. But arguing about how you’re not angry is like trying to convince someone to focus on the smell of the air freshener in the porta-potty.

Anger is almost always a fool’s affection. It is a feeling with physical effect, red cheeks and loud mouth and dead eyes (see “angry looks” in Proverbs 25:33). The thing I hope to argue is that the antidote to anger is not no feelings, but getting our feelings to submit to what is true, right, and real.

To say that an angry man is a fool means he isn’t wise. And what keeps a man a stranger to wisdom? He lacks the fear of the Lord.

I’ve been thinking about the objective nature of the world for a few months. It started as I was brainstorming ideas for Rhetoric class, and how Rhetoric often hovers around the discussion of beauty but truth and goodness ride the rails of objective standards. Beauty often floats in the wind of subjectivism. Beauty may be varied, but it’s not dependent on the beholder, or listener. There are real things that make it attractive, appealing, smelling good.

The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis is a sustained screed against the skull and crossbones of subjectivism. It’s a prophetic word against the meaninglessness that follows when there is nothing external, transcendent for us to hold, measure, enjoy, or submit to. When we live outside the reality of values all that is left is want, and when wants are not met, we get angry.

A wise man fears the Lord. That includes revering His value and authority, yes. And fearing the Lord means receiving what He gives. It turns out that He is quite generous, a giver of good gifts, including wife (Proverbs 19:14), grandchildren (Proverbs 17:6), wealth (Proverbs 8:18), and more. He also gives the roll of the dice (Proverbs 16:33), the expected broken walls of laziness (Proverbs 24:30-34), and the relationship ruin of gossipy whispers (Proverbs 16:28). A wise man lives according to reality. He does not resist reality, and try to make up his own.

A goal of instruction is to give knowledge and understanding about how things work in the Lord’s world. Wisdom is skillful application of that knowledge, but it is also skillful submission.

This is why wisdom is also hating evil and pride and perverted speech (Proverbs 8:13), a strong negative affection because evil deserves to be hated. Wisdom laughs at the chronic know-it-alls who are sure the crash won’t come to them until it does (Proverbs 1:26). That’s how God made the world to work; depend on it. A wise man wants his heart to match the reality of values. Getting wisdom is the process of getting a better fit between our affections and the values, matching and ordering our loves to what is lovely. Love this not that, love this more than that.

An angry person is building sand castles on the wing of a plane at 30,000 feet going 700 mph and writing negative reviews of the pilot. An angry man thinks he knows better how things should work, and he forgets or denies or attacks reality as given by the Lord. He rages about how many cars on on the road. Get gets dyspepsia about when the food gets put on the table. The tone of voice in the kids’s “Yes, sir” makes him testy. At heart the angry man wants reality to bend to him. What a fool.

One thing I noticed while while gleaning the field of Proverbs for wisdom about anger is not just how many times anger is mentioned (12 by word count), but how many of those mentions are part of a phrase about “whoever is slow to anger.” Slow is not “quick to become angry” as in Ecclesiastes 7:9.

Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding,

This is true in terms of providence, and it is especially true in interactions with persons. When they come to complain at you or criticize you, consider:

Good sense makes one slow to anger,

When criticized, fairly or not, when mocked, in fun or not, show glory by not getting angry. You hold onto reality. If the comments are false, why get mad? They won’t stick. If they are true, then why deny it? Either way it should take more than a comment to knock your joy train off the tracks. Whether face to face, or on Facebook, getting angry shows who the fool is even if you are technically right.

This makes you a non-starter; you are an empty box of matches.

A hot-tempered man stirs up strife,

A man of wrath stirs up strife,

Neighborhoods (Democratic cities) and institutions and households and generations are set on fire. Anger leads to other sins: slander to make someone else look bad rather than yourself, and laziness to avoid taking responsibility for your problems.

When we get angry, we are not only self-referential, we are self-reverential. When we communicate that anger, we want others to fear us. We take a throne that does not belong to us. We’re demanding the glory without actually exhibiting it. Fast to adult fit throwing makes us unworthy, and makes us vulnerable.

I am indebted to a sermon by Doug Wilson on the subject of self-control, in which he targets anger rather than lust or gluttony or laziness. He compares the angry man to one who is pushed around by circumstances, his buttons are big and accessible and have a sensitive trigger. He is like a man whose walls are broken down.

A man without self-control

Wilson says “you should want walls like Babylon had, where four chariots could drive abreast around the top of them. Now that’s a wall.” Where does that self-control come from? It comes from the stability and strength of living according to reality as given by God.

The angry man is defenseless, both because his anger doesn’t have basis in reality and because it leaves him open to further attack. He has walls like Jericho after the trumpets played.

The way of the modern world deceives us in many ways. If we don’t use technology as a tool that helps us match reality, but employ tech to manipulate all our annoyances out of the way, we learn habits of impatience, habits of blame rather than responsibility. A farmer would be an obvious fool for getting angry at a seed for sprouting too slowly (though he may direct anger toward God's choice of weather). We become angry little impotents.

Which is the same thing as making us little devils. Satan wasn’t willing to submit in his God-given lane. He thought of himself too highly and lost it all. He is still a fool resisting the reality of values.

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (Jams 1:19-20). Take a step back, take a breath. Your life is bigger than the situation. Your life is bigger than creation. You are an eternal creature among other eternal creatures. This makes something serious in the situation, but you’re focused in too far. The most serious thing is for you to fear the Lord. Imagine you could look in at what’s happening from 100 windows rather than your little personal peephole.

A wise person isn’t seeking that isn’t there, a wise person is seeing better what’s there. He is better at seeing within the God-given constraints. It’s not that he doesn’t see problems, he sees them in context. The world of the Lord is a cosmos, with coherence and order, versus the algorithms of anger on timelines that are almost always out of context.

You cannot flex your bi-cep and triceps at the same time. Both of those muscle groups are useful, unlike what I’m about to compare. But anger and thanks do not engage together. You’d think some of us are reading 1 Thessalonians 5:18 as “be angry in all circumstances.” Or Ephesians 5:20, “being angry always and for everything.” Instead, give thanks to the Lord. This isn’t stoicism—suppressing feelings, or sophistry—making fallacious arguments to our feelings. It’s fearing the Lord as Lord.

What about righteous anger? I think it is an appropriate category, and also one that gets claimed more than it should. There is righteous anger that Jesus showed toward religious people who were looking to accuse Him for healing on the Sabbath (Mark 3:5). In wisdom, fearing the Lord and hating evil, and perhaps strong feelings of displeasure, even antagonism against the evil is appropriate (see also Ephesians 4:26).

Anger dwells in the bosom of fools. Your sex life will not be better with more anger. Your kids will not be more well-adjusted because they survived the gauntlet of your anger. Your neighbors won’t see your good anger and glorify God on the day of visitation. Anger is a destructive folly, and a defenseless one while resisting reality. It exposes you as the fool, opens you up to further criticism.

Angry men are defensive men not because there is something worth protecting but because of desperation to make it appear that there is something worth defending. Losing one's temper is the same thing as unveiling one’s ego. Emotional regulation is arrogance regulation.

When we are slow to anger we are ready for the right kind of fight:

Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,

I am thankful to my friends who have disobeyed the wisdom in Proverbs 22:24–25 and helped me learn new ways.

Sadly, my kids cannot say that they've never seen me get angry. But the next best thing is that I've had to preach about it while they listen. That's some accountability.

As often found in this world of binaries, we come to another one or the other. These two categories go by other names in addition to what’s found in Romans 8, but these divisions are important to bear in mind when it comes to how people relate in the world.

The line is between flesh and Spirit. There is a world of difference between the two. That is not exaggeration. It’s less like the difference between rain flowing east or west off the top of a ridge, and more like the difference between living in the desert or living in the ocean. A man lives “according to” the principles of either the flesh or the Spirit, one has his “mind set” on either flesh or Spirit. One lives in a realm where death is normal, the other has died in order to be transferred to a realm of life and peace. One is an enemy to God and His ways, the other has God’s Spirit dwelling inside of him and is being transformed into a lover of God’s ways. It’s not apples or oranges, but apples or bricks.

Before looking at these verses, keep in mind that the line dividing flesh and Spirit is a vertical line, a personal line, one that runs through every individual heart. (Read this article for more on the two lines: Straight from the Pit) This means something about the world.

The way to life and peace and pleasing God is not being on the right side of any other line. Karl Marx did a number when he tried to classify righteousness by rich and poor. He made an economic dividing line that was horizontal. Men are drawing horizontal lines all over the place these days: men oppress women, whites oppress other colors, heterosexual cisgender normies oppress homo-bi-question marks. Humans love drawing horizontally, and they want to be on the side of the oppressed, the victims, who are by default the right (until they get the downside turned up, but that’s a problem for later).

But you can be either gender, in any tax bracket, having completed any level of schooling, be any sort of professing religious person, in the center or on the fringe of society, even a minority actually worked over by an unjust system, anywhere at all in any of these demographics and be condemned or not condemned by God.

You can be a monk and have your mind set on the flesh. You can be a Fortune 500 CEO and have your mind set on the Spirit. A missionary who thinks he’s more spiritual because he gives up all his money and temporal comforts is defining himself by the things of the flesh. Fools can believe the gospel and are in a better position than life-time religious pros who like to judge others by unspiritual standards, or in unspiritual ways. Claiming to be wise, they showed themselves of the flesh.

In Romans 8:5-11 we have flesh and Spirit as dominating worldviews, and the descriptions fit unbelievers and the regenerate respectively. But in context, Paul is instructing believers about acting consistently and that means they can act inconsistently. When they look to the law (and hold the law over the heads of others) they are toying with fleshly, deadly things.

Verse 5 is the third verse in the chapter that starts with “For” (with two more “for”s in verses 6 and 7). We just saw in verse 4 that the no-longer-damned do obey but their obedience is a fruit of another’s power; they walk according to the Spirit. More explanation about that here.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. “According to” points to a standard. You prepare a meal according to the recipe, which means you keep according to the measurements. If you got a covid vaccine according to government mandates about loving your neighbor (rather than according to your own research and conclusions), it’s okay, you can be forgiven.

The key word is set their minds (φρονοῦσιν), which means giving careful consideration to those things (BAGD). It’s an attitude, an outlook, being opinionated (according to standard) that keeps looking at things in a certain way. It’s not what you think about necessarily, but how you think about all the things. So it’s less what preoccupies you and more your perspective on your occupations. It can't be limited to certain times, but what limits your view of the times.

It’s not unrelated to what Jesus told Nicodemus: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. … Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:6, 3).

Everyone gets a paycheck, how do you view it? What is the system that your paycheck acknowledges? The paper and ink, the dollar amount and the items purchased, are not by definition fleshly. Whose kingdom is it for? Your quiet time could be more fleshly than your commute time. The line is vertical, in your heart.

Verse 6 explains the outcome. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. Death and life are certainly final issues, corroborated in verse 11. But they are also current issues. They are different worlds, different cities (per Augustine), different kingdoms.

How can so many women lionize their own abortions? How can any doctor call abortion reproductive healthcare? Why do some families not seem to be able to escape the bondage of cyclical criticism, toward each other or toward outsiders, telling themselves stories about how they’ve been misunderstood and mistreated? It’s because they dwell in the Land of Thanasia. That’s their language. The “self-indulgent is dead even while she lives” (1 Timothy 5:6). It’s madness.

On the other side, for the un-damned, are life and peace. They are raised to life to walk in newness of life.

Verses 7 and 8 drill in on the current condition of the fleshly-deathly. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. This is a quad-shot of nothing good.

Hostile to God. It’s enmity of enemies, Inimicus. It’s spiritual war. There is antithesis, antagonism.

Does not submit to God. See the law, shake one’s fists at the law. Know the requirements, break them.

Cannot submit to God. This isn’t an excuse, it is the basement level of blame. The inability is a fault of sin not an alibi for it.

Cannot please God. This is the life of the damned. Whatever common graces, including restraints from evil that would be consistent with their nature, they still don’t have God’s favor, which they didn’t want, and which makes them Cain-kind of mad.

As John Calvin mocked: “Behold the power of free-will!”

While this consistently applies only to unbelievers, it should cause believers to hate their damned sin and give thanks to God and His sovereign grace for delivering them out of their depravity into a new paradigm for seeing the world. We live in and walk according the Spirit. It’s not red-pilled or blue-pilled or black-pilled, but this living mindset is larger and more local than any of those.

The person changes, from the “us” in verse 4 to the “those” in verses 5-8 back to the “you” in verses 9-11.

The application is binary. This does not equal an expectation of perfectionism, as Keswick theology and a strand of Wesleyan teaching promoted. We can live inconsistently with our identity, but that calls us to understand and live according to our nature as those united to Christ.

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. No Spirit, no salvation; those who are united to Christ are the ones living in the realm of the Spirit. When the Spirit dwells in us there is the abolition of man’s flesh. Spirit of God is the same as Spirit of Christ, because Christ is God, and because both Father and Son sent the Spirit. You are in the Spirit and the Spirit…dwells in you. This is belonging to Christ. This is a Trinitarian union and identity.

But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. The Spirit in us and Christ in us is a wonderful weapon. Why would we sin with divine presence around and within? Our body has limits, even to physical death, but the Holy Spirit renews the inner man and leads us in Spirit ways, in holy Spirit ways.

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. Regeneration, resurrection. Life to life. Spiritual life, eternal life, physical life.

The vertical line between flesh and Spirit changes everything. If you are in the Spirit it’s a whole new world, a deliverance from the futile traditions of fleshly fathers and the desires of the flesh in the world and the condemnation and mindset of death. In the Spirit there is freedom and fruit, freedom for fruit. The Spirit is supernaturally fixing our minds on peace and hope and learning to love pleasing God. You might be immature, but you’re either initiated or not; it’s anathema or blessing.

There really ought to be some experienced differences. This is the power of the gospel from faith to faith: giving us a living mindset.

Anger, division, rivalry, envy, "and things like these" are not fruit of the Spirit. You, beloved, are in the Spirit. You belong to Christ. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24). Live in the Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit. Let the Spirit fix your mind on pleasing the Lord.

May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. (Ephesians 1:17-20a, ESV)

# Introduction

As often found in this world of binaries, we come to another one or the other. These two categories go by other names in addition to what’s found in Romans 8, but these divisions are important to bear in mind when it comes to how people relate in the world.

The line is between flesh and Spirit. There is a world of difference between the two. That is not exaggeration. It’s less like the difference between rain flowing east or west off the top of a ridge, and more like the difference between living in the desert or living in the ocean. A man lives “according to” the principles of either the flesh or the Spirit, one has his “mind set” on either flesh or Spirit. One lives in a realm where death is normal, the other has died in order to be transferred to a realm of life and peace. One is an enemy to God and His ways, the other has God’s Spirit dwelling inside of him and is being transformed into a lover of God’s ways. It’s not apples or oranges, but apples or bricks.

Before looking at these verses, keep in mind that the line dividing flesh and Spirit is a vertical line, a personal line, one that runs through every individual heart. (Read this article for more on the two lines: [Straight from the Pit](https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/straight-from-the-pit.html)) This means something about the world.

The way to life and peace and pleasing God is not being on the right side of any other line. Karl Marx did a number when he tried to classify righteousness by rich and poor. He made an economic dividing line that was horizontal. Men are drawing horizontal lines all over the place these days: men oppress women, whites oppress other colors, heterosexual cisgender normies oppress homo-bi-question marks. Humans love drawing horizontally, and they want to be on the side of the oppressed, the victims, who are by default the right (until they get the downside turned up, but that’s a problem for later).

But you can be either gender, in any tax bracket, having completed any level of schooling, be any sort of professing religious person, in the center or on the fringe of society, even a minority actually worked over by an unjust system, anywhere at all in any of these demographics and be condemned or not condemned by God.

You can be a monk and have your mind set on the flesh. You can be a Fortune 500 CEO and have your mind set on the Spirit. A missionary who thinks he’s more spiritual because he gives up all his money and temporal comforts is defining himself by the things of the flesh. Fools can believe the gospel and are in a better position than life-time religious pros who like to judge others by unspiritual standards, or in unspiritual ways. Claiming to be wise, they showed themselves of the flesh.

In Romans 8:5-11 we have flesh and Spirit as dominating worldviews, and the descriptions fit unbelievers and the regenerate respectively. But in context, Paul is instructing believers about acting *consistently* and that means they can act *inconsistently*. When they look to the law (and hold the law over the heads of others) they are toying with fleshly, deadly things.


# Compare and Contrast (verses 5-8)

Verse 5 is the third verse in the chapter that starts with “For” (with two more “for”s in verses 6 and 7). We just saw in verse 4 that the no-longer-damned do obey but their obedience is a fruit of another’s power; they walk according to the Spirit. More explanation about that here.

**For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.** “According to” points to a standard. You prepare a meal according to the recipe, which means you keep according to the measurements. If you got a covid vaccine according to government mandates about loving your neighbor (rather than according to your own research and conclusions), it’s okay, you can be forgiven.

The key word is **set their minds** (φρονοῦσιν), which means giving careful consideration to those things (BAGD). It’s an attitude, an outlook, being opinionated (according to standard) that keeps looking at things in a certain way. It’s not *what* you think about necessarily, but *how* you think about all the things. So it’s less what preoccupies you and more your perspective on your occupations. It can't be limited to certain times, but what limits your view of the times.

It’s not unrelated to what Jesus told Nicodemus: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. … Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:6, 3).

Everyone gets a paycheck, how do you view it? What is the system that your paycheck acknowledges? The paper and ink, the dollar amount and the items purchased, are not by definition fleshly. Whose kingdom is it *for*? Your quiet time could be more fleshly than your commute time. The line is vertical, in your heart.

Verse 6 explains the outcome. **For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.** Death and life are certainly final issues, corroborated in verse 11. But they are also current issues. They are different worlds, different cities (per Augustine), different kingdoms.

How can so many women lionize their own abortions? How can any doctor call abortion reproductive healthcare? Why do some families not seem to be able to escape the bondage of cyclical criticism, toward each other or toward outsiders, telling themselves stories about how they’ve been misunderstood and mistreated? It’s because they dwell in the Land of Thanasia. That’s their language. The “self-indulgent is dead even while she lives” (1 Timothy 5:6). It’s madness.

On the other side, for the un-damned, are **life and peace**. They are raised to life to walk in newness of life.

Verses 7 and 8 drill in on the current condition of the fleshly-deathly. **For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.** This is a quad-shot of nothing good.

1) Hostile to God. It’s enmity of enemies, *Inimicus*. It’s spiritual war. There is antithesis, antagonism.

2) Does not submit to God. See the law, shake one’s fists at the law. Know the requirements, break them.

3) Cannot submit to God. This isn’t an excuse, it is the basement level of blame. The inability is a fault of sin not an alibi for it.

4) Cannot please God. This is the life of the damned. Whatever common graces, including restraints from evil that would be consistent with their nature, they still don’t have God’s favor, which they didn’t want, and which makes them Cain-kind of mad.

As John Calvin mocked: “Behold the power of free-will!”

While this consistently applies only to unbelievers, it should cause believers to hate their damned sin and give thanks to God and His sovereign grace for delivering them out of their depravity into a new paradigm for seeing the world. We live in and walk according the Spirit. It’s not red-pilled or blue-pilled or black-pilled, but this living mindset is larger and more local than any of those.


# Life to Life (verses 9-11)

The person changes, from the “us” in verse 4 to the “those” in verses 5-8 back to the “you” in verses 9-11.

The application is binary. This does *not* equal an expectation of perfectionism, as [Keswick theology](https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/why-let-go-and-let-god-is-a-bad-idea/) and a strand of Wesleyan teaching promoted. We can live inconsistently with our identity, but that calls us to understand and live according to our nature as those united to Christ.

**You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.** No Spirit, no salvation; those who are united to Christ are the ones living in the realm of the Spirit. When the Spirit dwells in us there is the abolition of man’s flesh. **Spirit of God** is the same as **Spirit of Christ**, because Christ is God, and because both Father and Son sent the Spirit. You are **in the Spirit** and the **Spirit…dwells in you**. This is belonging to Christ. This is a Trinitarian union and identity.

**But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.** The Spirit in us and Christ in us is a wonderful weapon. Why would we sin with divine presence around and within? Our body has limits, even to physical death, but the Holy Spirit renews the inner man and leads us in Spirit ways, in *holy* Spirit ways.

**If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.** Regeneration, resurrection. Life to life. Spiritual life, eternal life, physical life.


# Conclusion

The vertical line between flesh and Spirit changes everything. If you are in the Spirit it’s a whole new world, a deliverance from the futile traditions of fleshly fathers and the desires of the flesh in the world and the condemnation and mindset of death. In the Spirit there is freedom and fruit, freedom *for* fruit. The Spirit is supernaturally fixing our minds on peace and hope and learning to love pleasing God. You might be immature, but you’re either initiated or not; it’s anathema or blessing.

There really ought to be some experienced differences. This is the power of the gospel from faith to faith: giving us a living mindset.

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## Charge

Anger, division, rivalry, envy, "and things like these" are not fruit of the Spirit. You, beloved, are in the Spirit. You belong to Christ. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24). Live in the Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit. Let the Spirit fix your mind on pleasing the Lord.

## Benediction:

> May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. (Ephesians 1:17-20a, ESV)