and they that are in flesh cannot please God.
This verse ends an argument: the flesh is hostile to God, and here is the result. The question is not whether a person can improve, but whether anyone standing where Adam stands can produce anything God accepts.
The words follow from what has gone before. One writer traces the logic step by step and explains what the phrase "in the flesh" describes — and what the verse does not say:
This must be so, since the flesh is entirely contrary to God. It is enmity to God. It loves the things that God hates, and hates the things that God loves. What is more, it rebels against the authority of God. It is not subject to the law of God, and it cannot be. So it follows that "those who are in the flesh" — who stand before God in the position of Adam — "cannot please God." The verse does not say that such people cannot please men. It does not say they cannot do a great many things that are kind and useful to the world. Besides doing evil, the flesh can do things that are morally good; but in all these things self, in some form, is the motive.
The problem is not performance but position. So the verdict covers the finest character on earth:
A man out of Christ is "in the flesh," and such a man cannot please God. He may be most religious, most moral, most likeable, most generous, an excellent employer, a generous friend, a liberal giver, good company, a helper of the poor, upright and honourable in all his dealings. He may be an eloquent preacher and a popular writer. And all the while he is not "in Christ," but "in the flesh," and so he "cannot please God."
The phrase is easily misread as a comment on having a body. Commentators are careful here:
Are believers, then, not in the flesh? Scripture emphatically says so. But does this mean they are not in the body? Certainly not. They are in the body, as to the fact of their existence; but not in the flesh, as to the ground of their standing before God.
This does not mean the flesh is gone from the Christian:
Of course nobody denies that the flesh is in us; but as Christians we are not in it.
Refusing this verdict keeps a person busy with himself. One writer shows the loop it creates, and where peace comes from instead:
Suppose a person is not clear on this point. Suppose he has not received it as a divine revelation, or grasped it as the truth of the living God. Then he will keep thinking about mending, improving, altering — doing something or other to commend himself to God. He will be, in some way or other, looking at self; sometimes puffed up with pride, at other times cast down with despair... But believe that no efforts of the flesh can please God, and you are forced to look right outside yourself for peace. You gladly find it there, presented to you by God Himself in the death and resurrection of His beloved Son.
If nothing in the flesh can please God, what can?
He may please men, and perhaps himself most of all. But nothing about men can please God except the work of His Spirit within them. Only God's own workmanship can produce what pleases God.
The verse never describes a Christian. The very next words mark the boundary, and the presence of the Spirit is what settles which side a person is on:
If a believer does not have the Spirit of God, he is in the flesh, and "those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. 8:8). That could not be said of any believer.
- Cannot, not just does not — the flesh loves what God hates and rebels against His authority. The failure lies in its nature, so the verse states a conclusion, not an insult.
- Position, not performance — "in the flesh" means standing before God where Adam stood. A believer is still in the body, but no longer in the flesh.
- Reaches the best of men — moral, generous, religious, eloquent. All of it may please men and still not please God, because self is somewhere in the motive.
- Ends self-repair — fight this verdict and you swing between pride and despair. Accept it and you look outside yourself, and find peace in the death and resurrection of Christ.
- Only God's own work — what pleases God is the work of His Spirit in a person. That is why a believer, who has the Spirit, is not in the flesh.
But *ye* are not in flesh but in Spirit, if indeed God's Spirit dwell in you; but if any one has not [the] Spirit of Christ *he* is not of him
Paul has just said that those "in the flesh cannot please God." Now he describes what a Christian is. The verse states a settled position and then gives a test. The dividing line is the Spirit living in a person.
To be "in the flesh" is the natural state of every child of Adam. One writer sets it against the Christian's place:
To be in flesh is hopeless ruin. Its mind is opposed to God, and it will not submit to His law at all. This is the sad condition of all the sons of fallen Adam. It is not, however, the standing of the Christian. The beginning of our chapter says he is in Christ, and therefore outside every possible condemnation. So here it says, "You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you." So the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the witness and proof that we are "in Spirit," and so not in flesh.
The verse's closing clause leaves no third category:
The part of the verse that says, "Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him," is an aside. You are either a Christian with the Spirit and of Christ, or a natural man without the Spirit and not of Christ.
Being "in the Spirit" is not a mood that rises and falls. It is the condition on earth that matches the believer's place in Christ:
He indwells us so that He may control us. He gives us the capacity to walk in newness of life and to serve in newness of spirit. He produces in us a state that matches our standing outside ourselves. If "in Christ Jesus" expresses our standing, "in the Spirit" expresses our state.
Notice what the condition is not. It is not "if you are sincere," nor even "if you are born again":
Here man's natural condition stands in contrast with the full Christian condition. There is no middle condition in view. The contrast is not between the natural man and a man born again. It is between the natural man and what is true of a Christian — someone in whom the Holy Spirit lives. Old Testament saints were born again by the Spirit as truly as New Testament saints. But this passage is not speaking of them.
The words "dwell in you" point to a Person: "it plainly refers to the Spirit personally... He is distinct from the person He dwells in" (J. N. Darby).
The verse names the same Spirit twice, but with different titles, and the shift carries meaning:
There is only one and the same Spirit, yet the change in the descriptive title is significant. Christ is the One from whom we derive our origin spiritually, the One to whom we belong. If we truly are His, we have His Spirit. So we should be Christlike in our spirits, clearly enough for everyone to see that Christ is in us.
The Spirit carries three titles in these verses:
Three characteristic names are given here to the Holy Spirit. First, the Spirit of God (v. 9), in contrast with the flesh. Second, the Spirit of Christ, as the forming power of the new man. Third, the Spirit of Him who raised up Christ from among the dead, because He is in us the pledge of our resurrection.
Older versions end the verse, "he is none of His." The Spirit is an owner's mark, and where the mark is missing the claim fails:
So, among those owning Christ we can say, "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." The seal of the Spirit is Christ's mark upon His own. So among those professing to be His, if the mark is not there, it is a false profession.
Commentators differ over how sharply the warning lands. Some read it as an outright exclusion. Others soften the tone: "'None of his' alarms people; it is simply that he is not yet His, any more than the prodigal son was in a son's place until he reached his father" (J. N. Darby).
If the Spirit's presence is the test, doubting His presence is serious:
Understand this as clearly as possible: this indwelling is not because of anything in us, either at the beginning or at any stage of the Christian life. From first to last, the Spirit dwells with us because of the unchanging value of the work of Christ. Stop dishonouring the value of that work by doubting the presence of this Holy Person. Your feelings and your faithfulness have nothing to do with this basic fact.
- Two places. There is no middle ground — in the flesh without the Spirit, or in the Spirit and Christ's.
- One test. The condition is not sincerity or even new birth, but "if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you."
- The mark. The Spirit is Christ's mark of ownership. Where the mark is missing, the profession is empty.
- Likeness. The mark is the Spirit of Christ. So the one who has Him should look like Christ, clearly enough for others to see.
- Certainty. He dwells in us because of the unchanging value of Christ's work. Feelings and failures never settle the question.