8:5
The NIV omits the “for” at the beginning of this verse. As I have said before, the term “sinful nature” is unhelpful, “flesh” is far better. Paul’s argument here is about how to live for Christ. The term sinful nature makes us think of overtly sinful things such as lying, sexual lust, hatred, bitterness etc. Of course these things are wrong and are often a product of the flesh, but the flesh includes much more than that. We do not realise how fundamentally opposed to God our flesh is. Our flesh does not like being vulnerable, it does not like having to depend totally upon God, it does not like suffering. If we live our lives based on the flesh, based on our human nature, we cannot please God. The choice we have is whether to make our flesh the guiding principle, or the Spirit. Now the way of law makes our flesh the guiding principle. It acknowledges that God’s ways are right and then seeks to fulfil them by relying on human effort. But our soul is utterly corrupted by sin and this will rise to the surface and thwart our attempts to please God. It is like trying to solve the problem of a polluted water supply by installing a new pump. The pump may be very good but the source of water is still polluted, so the water will still be polluted. Our souls are polluted and the only solution is to live by the Spirit.
8:6
So the mind controlled by the flesh is death. Death is the only fruit we will get from it. If instead we allow our minds to be controlled by the Spirit we will have life and peace. If we are relying on human effort we never have peace, indeed we cannot for failure is the inevitable outcome. The way of man is that the world influences our flesh and we then decide what to do. This leads to death and the world corrupts the soul. Instead we are to let the Spirit influence our spirit, our soul, we then begin to influence the world around us. There needs to be a complete reversal in the way that we live.
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