"Those who are in the flesh cannot please God" - Romans 8:8
Biblical Reflections on the Spirit in Romans 8
This passage has profound implications on our whole view Scripture and should have deep practical implications for our lives. Take a few moments to ponder it with me.
The first question that should come to mind as we meditate on this verse is to ask what the inspired writer of the text means by the phrase "in the flesh"? First of all, we can obviously cancel out its opposite, that is, "in the Spirit". The next verse confirms this logic when it says,"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." So to be "in the flesh" means that a person is in his natural, unregenerate state, i.e. apart from the Spirit and out of union with Christ. Not "in Christ" or not "in the Spirit" is the same as being in the natural state [in Adam] and right here in Romans 8 it affirms that such people cannot please God. Pleasing God is, in other words, not in the realm of possibility for those in the flesh.
Lets take this down to the most basic level. it means that whatever thought those "in the flesh" create, affection they generate, or volition they originate, simply cannot please God. Why? Because it does not spring from a renewed heart, for only an act carried out "in Christ" is acceptable to God.
The verse preceding this one (vrs 7) further affirms this reading 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." Hostility to God is the posture of the person in the flesh. This expression "cannot" [submit to God] is what we call bondage to sin. It reveals man's hopeless condition unless God acts in mercy to pull them out of it. Those minds set on the flesh, cannot submit to God's law. This, we must argue, even includes God's command to believe in his Only Son Jesus Christ (1 John 3:23). Those who are in the flesh, according to this passage, cannot submit to this. They must be "in the Spirit" if they are to do so.
Paul confirms this in the same paragraph when he says "you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father!. The Spirit bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God" (Rom 8:16) If we are to call out to Christ in faith, if we are to call God "Abba, Father", it must be the Spirit quickening us and uttering this cry through us. only by the Spirit we recognize our hopelessness and so call out to God. Only he can bear witness to the reality of a work of grace in our souls. For elsewhere Paul says, "No one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit." (1 Cor 12:3). It is not our own doing. Christ is the author, even of our faith.
Faith, and the obedience that springs from our new life, is not something done or thought up
while in the flesh, for the flesh, although it may call on God, it refuses to call on Him in the way he has revealed Himself. It will remain hostile to God until a new heart is given. Man prefers his own idols and misrepresentations of God. God must teach Him and disarm his innate hostility. The apostle John says,
"It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me--" John 6:45
Notice that Paul does not say that "some" who have heard and learned from the Father come to
Christ. Rather he says, "ALL" that have heard and learned, come. That is, all who have heard and learned from the father, believe. Again, ask your self the question, according to John 6:45, how many of those who have heard and learned from the father come to Him? The passage gives the answer. All.
Lets now go back to the original text and see how it relates to other passages: "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God" Doesn't this remind us of another passage? Where else in Scripture does it speak of not being able to please God? A similar phrasing to this is found in the Book of Hebrews:
"Without faith it is impossible to please God."-Hebrews 11:6
So lets' consider these two propositions side by side:
"Those in the flesh cannot please God" and ...
"without faith it is impossible to please God."
What conclusion can we draw from this except that it is impossible for those who are "in the flesh" to exercise saving faith, and those who have true faith are in the Spirit. If NOTHING we can do in the flesh can please God then we must conclude that those in the flesh are morally unable to believe the humbling terms of the gospel unless God intervenes. God gets the glory, leaving no room for merit badges, or rewarding us because one person made a better choice than the other. His love for his own is unconditional, not based on conditions we meet. He gives us conditions but Christ meets the terms for us.
Elsewhere Paul validates this conclusion:
"...no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. (1 Cor 2:11, 12)
The things freely given by God [the gospel] cannot be understood apart from a work of grace
wrought in us by the Holy Spirit. To understand spiritual truths one must first be "in the Spirit" No one in the flesh could possibly understand the gospel. He would always consider it foolish. To this end Paul says,
"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Cor 2:14
Can a person spiritual discern the gospel apart from spiritual regeneration, according to this passage? In other words, we must be born again if we are to believe, see and enter the kingdom of God. The new birth is a work of God which he brings about on whom He will through
the preaching of the gospel.
Having heard that only God can open a person's eyes to the gospel may respond by saying,
"What can the sinner do then? It sounds like they can do nothing but despair." Ah!, but this is the very point. The law is for the proud, and when we show the Scripture which says that only God can save us in Christ is to strip them of all hope in themselves. Despair is the right response for it is only there that faith is born. An unregenerate person might hear this and be offended that he can do nothing. God commands him to believe the gospel yet Jesus says, "no one can come to me unless God grants it" (John 6:65). This may, on the surface, appear as a contradiction, but instead it shows the posture we should have as debtors. No one disagrees that debtors are obligated to repay their debts even though they may have no ability to do so. If they squandered the money they borrowed, their inability to repay does not nullify the law which requires them to repay. Likewise, god commands the unregenerate to obey the gospel, but he has no moral ability to do so. He is obligated to God just because of who He is, but by nature he harbors hatred for Him. So all men refuse to believe the gospel, unless God acts in mercy to save them. Christ does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
- J.I. Packer "Sinners cannot obey the gospel, any more than the law, without renewal of heart."
Never a truer statement was uttered. Those who believe they can "in the flesh" generate a right thought about God and act on it, withouoth acknowleding God in thanksgiving for being the author of that thought deny Jesus' own words, "apart from me you can do nothing" Those who maintain this small "island of righteousness" to themselves are still trusting in themselves and in their own self-righteousness and have not completely let God be God. With Samuel Rutherford we must say, "In a word, I am a fool, and He is God. I will hold my peace hereafter†-Samuel Rutherford (Rutherford’s Letters. Lxix.). Those taught of God say, "Lord may it be unto me according to thy will."
Christ is the author and perfector of our faith, the giver of new eyes, ears and hearts. These are not self-generated. He is not improving upon the old man, but tearing down the whole edifice to build a new one, made after his own likeness. And just in case you are tempted to pridefully claim anything for yourself, Jesus says, "Flesh and blood does not reveal this but my Father who is in heaven."
C.H. Spurgeon once remarked on this kind of self-sufficient faith. He said what some preachers want
"...to do is to arouse man's activity: what we want to do is to kill it once for all---to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion; that he must look upward. They seek to make the man stand up: we seek to bring him down, and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God, and that his business is to submit himself to God, and cry aloud, 'Lord, save, or we perish.' We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all. When he says, 'I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, and I can do the other,' marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow."
J.W. Hendryx