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According to Romans 8.5-11, there are two kinds of people in the world: fleshly people and spiritual people. Which are you?

Paul draws a sharp contrast between flesh and Spirit. Hereâ..s what he says in verses 5-8:

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God.

Please do not misunderstand Paulâ..s meaning. When he contrasts the flesh and the Spirit, he is not contrasting the physical and non-physical aspects of human being. For one thing, the word Spirit has a capital S, as in, the Holy Spirit, not the human spirit. For another thing, flesh does not mean skin and bones. Rather, it means something like â..sinful nature,â. which is how the New International Version translates the word flesh in this passage.

Consider the differences (explicit and implicit) between the person whose mind is set on the flesh and whose mind is set on the Spirit: death vs. life, hostility to God vs. peace, obedience to God vs. disobedience, inability to obey or please God vs. ability to please him. What accounts for this stark contrast between the fleshly person and the spiritual person? According to verses 9-11, the reason for the contrast is whether Christ is in you:

You, however, are controlled not by the flesh but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

According to verses 9-11, if you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, â..your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.â. Righteousness, here, is the gracious gift of a right relationship with God. On the Day of Judgment, because of that right relationship, God will raise your body from the dead for eternal life with him. How? Through the power of the Holy Spirit who also â..raised Christ from the dead.â. But the Spiritâ..s work is not just future, it is present. Right now, â..the Spirit of God lives in you,â. if you put your faith in Jesus Christ.

Think of that! The very same Spirit whose power raised Jesus from the dead is presently at work in your life to change the way you live. You have a choice, then, to set your mind on the flesh or on the Spirit. When you see the stark contrast between the two, isnâ..t the choice obvious?

According to Romans 8.5-11, there are two kinds of people in the world: fleshly people and spiritual people. Which are you?

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Have you ever had an accusing finger pointed at you? If not, you havenâ..t been reading Romans closely, for Paul does nothing if not point out our sins. But while with one hand he points an accusing finger at us, with another, he points at the Savior.Â

Today, weâ..re going to look at Romans 8.1-4. To interpret these verses correctly, we need to remind ourselves of the question Paul asks and answers in Romans 7.24-25: â..Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to Godâ..through Jesus Christ our Lord!â. Remember, throughout Romans 7, Paul highlights the inability of the law to do anything but make our sin â..utterly sinful,â. as he puts it in verse 13. Since we cannot rescue ourselves by perfect moral obedience to Godâ..s law, our salvation must come from outside ourselves, from beyond our own efforts. Romans 8.1-4 points us to our Savior, Jesus:Â

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. The first few words of this passage are all-important. â..there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.â. Although at one point in our lives, the accusing finger rightly pointed at us, now it does so no longer. Why? Because through faith we are â..in Christ Jesus.â. Through faith, each of us has a B.C. and A.D. life: â..before Christâ. and â..after [his] death.â. Before Christ, when measured against the yardstick of Godâ..s law, we came up woefully short. But â..after [Christâ..s] death,â. we measure up, if we put our faith in him.Â

Christ, you see, is not merely a wonderful human teacher. He is Godâ..s â..own Son in the likeness of sinful man.â. In other words, he is God Incarnate, â..in the flesh.â. As God-in-the-flesh, Jesus willingly became a â..sin offeringâ. for us. He died for our sins and in our place. This death effected a great transfer: our sinfulness to him, his innocence to us. So, Paul can say, â..now no condemnation.â. Christ is uncondemnable, and so are we, if we are in Christ.Â

Paul also highlights Godâ..s other gift to us. Not merely his Son, but also his Spirit. Through Christ, â..the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.â. Also through Christ, we no longer live â..according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.â. Christâ..s death takes away the accusing finger pointed at us. But Godâ..s Spirit works within us to progressively eliminate the sin that still contaminates us.Â

No condemnation. No contamination. All because of Christ.

Although nearly forgotten today, John Witherspoon was a force to be reckoned with in America’s revolutionary period. He was a Presbyterian theologian, president of Princeton College, and the only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence. For a brief refresher course on the life and thought of Witherspoon, read “The Forgotten Founder” by Roger Kimball.

Here’s the closing paragraph:

For us looking back on the generation of the Founders, it is easy to deprecate the religious inheritance that, for many of them, formed the ground of their commitment to political liberty. Theological skeptics and even atheists there were aplenty in late eighteenth-century America. But for every Jefferson who re-wrote the Bible excising every mention of miracles, there was a platoon of men like Madison who wrote commentaries on the Bible. Witherspoon believed that religion was “absolutely essential to the existence and welfare of every political combination of men in society.” Madison agreed. As did even the more skeptical Washington, who in his Farewell Address observed that “of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports . . . . And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion.” For many, perhaps most, of the Founders, Morrison observes, the chain of reasoning ran thus: “no republic without liberty, no liberty without virtue, and no virtue without religion.” John Witherspoon did as much as anyone to nurture that understanding. Which is perhaps yet another reason he is less known today than other figures from the period. Whether that is a sign of our maturity and sophistication or only, as Witherspoon might put it, our pride and natural depravity is a question we might do well ponder.

This weekend, I spoke to my church about the problem of evil: Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? I looked to Jesus’ words in Luke 13.1-9 for help answering the question from a philosophical and a practical point of view.

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