What does a mind governed by the flesh look like (Romans 8:6)?

They, then, that are after the Spirit walk on this principle, live by this life; mind, have their minds set on, the things of the Spirit. Those after the flesh, that live taking what the flesh wills for their object and sole motive and guide, have their mind on the things of the flesh. Now the mind of the flesh is death, the mind of the Spirit life and peace. All the workings of the desire and will of the flesh end in death - yea, have the principle of death in them, for it is a living without God. It works apart from God, turns its back on Him, and passes on into death; while the free energy of divine life before God and peace of heart is the condition of those who walk in the mind of the Spirit, that is, the thoughts fixed on what the Spirit reveals and introduces into. The mind, the union of desire and will, of tile flesh, is enmity against God. It not only goes its own way with lusts contrary to God's nature, but it would not have God to control or hinder it, and, as He must, it is enmity against Him. His law claims obedience on His authority. It is not subject and cannot be, or it ceases to be flesh - is not. So "they that are in the flesh cannot please God." In its nature - will, lusts - it is against God; it is not, if it is not this: of course, it cannot please Him, but is contrary to Him. They that stand on this ground before God cannot, of course, please Him. Such is the hopeless condition of man as in the flesh. But this is not the Christian standing at all He is not in the flesh: "Ye are not in the flesh," not standing as a child of Adam in your natural place as born after the flesh, and to answer for yourself according to law. Ye are in the Spirit if the Spirit of God dwell in you.

And as the essential character thus differs, as well as the range and objects of flesh and Spirit, so also the issues. "For the mind of the flesh [is] death, but the mind of the Spirit life and peace." (Ver. 6.) The flesh has not one pulse of life Godward, however active in its pursuits and pleasures here. On the other hand, the mind of the Spirit, its exercise of thought and feeling, is life and peace. It was so in Christ; and so it is in the Christian. How a sinner is to find either life from God or peace with God is not the subject-matter in hand, but the moral bent and result of flesh and Spirit. Flesh satisfies itself, or at least its desires are set on things seen and felt apart from God or His word; the Spirit cannot rest short of the love and the glory of Christ. And as this only is the life of the Spirit, so it is peace of heart. In every sense God has called us in peace; whereas, there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. How could it be otherwise with fallen humanity? "Because the mind of the flesh [is] enmity against God; for to the law of God it is not subject;" nor need one wonder, "for it is not possible. But they then that are in flesh cannot please God." (Ver. 7, 8.)

Verse 5. "They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit." It is "after the Spirit." the man's condition is looked at here as spiritual. Every nature has its object, which is its "mind." There are two principles here, each having its own object; the very brute creation have their desires, the flesh its more deliberate objects. The spiritual man obeys the tastes and appetites of the Spirit instead of the flesh.

85 Verse 6. "To be carnally minded is death" (or, which is better, the mind of the flesh, and the mind of the Spirit. It is what each in its nature desires, not a state). If the flesh run its course, death, the seal of condemnation, must be upon it. "As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment"; "but to be spiritually-minded is life and peace." Now we are getting the real, practical, inward thing. There are two kinds of peace - peace in the conscience, and peace in the heart. "To be spiritually-minded is life and peace." This is a far higher thing than simply peace in the conscience. It is peace in the heart and affections. The affections are at rest, and then there is the steady pursuit of things for which our consciences will not accuse us, for, delighting ourselves in the Lord, there will be peace. If you are restless and discontented in your mind, you are not at peace, you are thinking about yourselves! self has come in, so we want something for self. The Spirit turns the eye away from self towards the Lord. The things of the flesh are too small to fill the heart, and the heart likewise needs enlarging to grasp the things of the Spirit; and herein is the contrast between Ecclesiastes and Canticles on this very point.

The opposition between the two, the Spirit and the flesh, is now put before us. "The mind of the flesh," not "the carnal mind" as if it were a fleeting condition, but what the flesh is in its character at all times, "is death." "The mind of the flesh is enmity against God"; that is death truly. Death is separation from the source of life, and the flesh is willingly separate. Thus then, it "is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be," and "they that are in the flesh cannot please God." "In the flesh" we find here, therefore, to be a spiritual condition, although it is related to the old creation place out of which we have passed. One who is in Christ cannot be in the flesh. On the other hand, the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. How blessed a thing is such peace! At one with God, everything else is at one with us. All things of necessity, therefore, "work together for good to them that love" Him. "If God be for us, who can be against us?"

Flesh and Spirit. — These two are here contrasted. The fruits of a tree show of what kind it is. "Do men," asks the Lord, "gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit" (Matt. 7:16-18). What is true in the vegetable world is true in the moral, the Christian be it remembered having in him two natures, which cannot be assimilated, nor does the one ever pass into the other. "Can a fig tree," asks James, "yield olives, or a vine figs?" (James 3:12). Yet what men know is impossible to nature, they too often think can be true of man. No greater mistake than this can be made, arising probably from ignorance of the ruin caused by the fall. On the point in question Scripture is clear — and of the unchangeableness, and of the incorrigibleness of the flesh the apostle will now teach us. "They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit" (Rom. 8:5). A nature can only act in a given direction. Hence, the individual, as he is dominated by the one or the other, minds either the things of the flesh, or the things of the Spirit. Flesh and Spirit are quite distinct. They cannot be amalgamated. Opposed in character, the end connected with each is very different likewise. "The mind of the flesh (rather than, to be carnally minded) is death; but the mind of the Spirit (rather than, to be spiritually minded) is life and peace." And the reason is added, "Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (6, 7). We have then in us, each and all, a nature which is wholly opposed to God, and is radically and irredeemably bad. Fruit from it is impossible. "They that are in the flesh cannot please God" (8). The teaching of the seventh of Romans shows this, and the experience of every saint in time confirms it. Sooner or later each Christian has to learn it. One in the flesh is powerless, whatever may be his desires, to cope with the evil thing — the flesh which is in him.

Flesh. — The apostle has spoken of the flesh. A few words on the different senses in which this term is employed in the New Testament may be useful. We meet with flesh in its ordinary sense, as the flesh of men and of animals (1 Cor. 15:39). We read of "flesh and blood," describing man in his present state of corporeal existence (1 Cor. 15:50; Eph. 6:12), and of "flesh and spirit" as two parts of a man (Matt. 26:41; 2 Cor. 7:1). Then the human race is styled "all flesh" (Luke 3:6; Acts 2:17; Rom. 3:20; 1 Cor. 1:29), and one in the body on earth is in the flesh (1 Peter 4:2), and earthly relations are called kinsmen according to the flesh (Rom. 9:3), and judging of things in a natural way, one is said to judge according to the flesh (John 8:15). Besides all this we meet with the term flesh in a moral sense, descriptive of the evil nature within us (Gal. 5:17), which lusts against the Spirit, and has works of which the apostle makes mention in that same chapter (19-21). Flesh used in this sense is of course opposed to the Spirit, as Rom. 8:4-8 makes plain. So the Christian is not to live after it (Rom. 8:12-13), and is to remember that those who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts (Gal 5:24), God having crucified our old man with Christ. Besides this, it is used of the sensual part of man's nature, connected with his lusts, as distinguished from the evil of the mind (Eph. 2:3). Inattention to the different uses of this term flesh may lead to great confusion.

Two classes are considered. Those "after" or "according to" the flesh and those according to the Spirit. The former mind the things of the flesh: the latter the things of the Spirit. The mind of the flesh is death: the mind of the Spirit life and peace. The two classes are in complete contrast, whether as to nature, character or end. They move in two totally disconnected spheres. The Apostle is of course speaking abstractly. He is viewing the whole position according to the inward nature of things, and not thinking of particular individuals or their varying experiences.

Thus there are two natures, with their respective objects, and with the new one the power of the Spirit of God, instead of one, the old one, and a law which fruitlessly forbade its desires as well as its acts. They that are after the flesh are governed by its principles: mind, will, have their object in the things which that nature craves after. They that follow the leadings of the Spirit are under His power in the things the Spirit brings to us, and sets the mind upon. Now the mind of the flesh is death; the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. That is, they are characterised respectively by these things as immediately and necessarily flowing from them, or accompanying them. For the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, resists His authority, rejects His will, rises up against Him and His authority, does not like it should exist, and consequently hates Him. It is not hence subject to the law, nor can be. Its lusts will not have what it claims, nor its self-will bow to the claim itself. God comes in by law, asserts authority, and forbids lust; but the flesh knows no obedience, loves its will and its lust, and hates God. Self-will cannot like subjection because it is self-will, nor lust what forbids lust. But God must come in thus with law to flesh. What is essential to flesh, it is essential to God to contradict, and it is enmity against Him. They that are in the flesh cannot then please Him. Those whose life is in the first Adam cannot please God. There the flesh leads and governs. Their place of standing is in Adam life. But this is not so if the Spirit of God dwell in us. This characterises, leads, forms the life of him in whom it dwells. God's Spirit, in living power, forms and characterises the state of the soul.

Verse 5 gives us concisely the two opposite governing principles operating in souls. There are only two: they have no real similarity, no point of agreement in any single particular, and between them there is no possibility of making peace. Those who are according to flesh are of course unbelievers: those according to the Spirit, believers. The mind of the one is set on fleshly things, the mind of the other on the things of the Spirit. The principle is a simple one, that the object upon which the mind is set, will govern conduct — though there are inward workings which set the mind one way or the other.

“For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit life and peace” (JND). Verses 6, 7 and 8 give us the essential opposition in these two things — the end of the former being death, the end of the latter life and peace. The flesh, with all its objects is brought only to death: it has no better anticipation: its eye sees no further, because it cannot. The mind of the Spirit, which has Christ for its object, of course, is life and peace. Christ is risen from the dead, in a sphere of perfect rest and peace, and this being the assured portion of him who has the mind of the Spirit, death has become merely an incidental thing: the end is life and peace, and the present takes its character from the end.

“The mind of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” What more strong pronouncement can we think of than this? Insubjection to God is enmity against Him, and the mind of flesh cannot be subject to Him: it has a fixed character of rebellion. Solemn, dreadful truth to contemplate! We must remember that such is the natural mind of man, according to which even a believer may foolishly act, when not making use of the mind of the Spirit which is his rightful heritage.

"The flesh" is not the body; it cannot be that, for the body becomes the temple of the Holy Ghost. It is that evil principle that governs man, that makes him his own centre instead of God. It is the very nature of man until he is born again — all his motives spring from self-love: see it in the ambitious politician, the man who is making haste to get rich, the man who lives for pleasure; let us look at our own lives apart from Christ and the Spirit — that is the flesh, and the end of that is death. If we live in the flesh we shall die — corruption and death are the end of that road. But if we are walking in the Spirit and minding the things of the Spirit, we shall not be self-centred, we shall be Christ-centred, and there will be life and peace. Which road shall we take — the road that ends in death, or the road of life and peace: shall we walk after the flesh and be self-centred, or walk according to the Spirit and be Christ-centred?

They that walk according to the desires of the flesh will have their minds set on the things of this world that the flesh can alone appreciate. The Spirit has nothing to say to the things of this world apart from the interests of Christ. We may well challenge our hearts with the question, Are our minds set on the things of the flesh or the things of the Spirit?