Our unbelief was crucified in and with Jesus! And so when the Spirit works within a man to bring him out of death and into spiritual life, He works to give him a new heart, a new will, and new desires all because Jesus died to procure those things for that man. This is why we’re able to believe; Jesus secured it for us in his death. “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

“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. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” – Romans 8:7-8

We continue now in our meditation upon Romans 8, and we’ve been exploring Paul’s understanding of how there are essentially two different kinds of people in the world. According to Paul someone is either in Christ or not in Christ. If you are in Christ then you are someone who is not condemned by God (vs. 1), set free from the power of sin and death (vs. 2), forgiven of sin (vs. 3), empowered by the Holy Spirit for obedience (vs. 4), able to set your mind on the things of the Spirit (vs. 5), and in possession of life and peace (vs. 6).

Whereas if you’re not in Christ, but rather, as Paul argues in Romans chapter 5, still “in Adam”, then you are someone who is still walking according to the flesh (vs. 4), and setting your mind on the things of the flesh (vs. 5), which leads ultimately to death and death eternal (vs. 6).

And what Paul concludes in verses 7 and 8 is that the person who is set on the things of the flesh is fundamentally a person who is hostile to God. Why? Because he does not, indeed he cannot, submit to the goodness and holiness of God’s law. This kind of person, says Paul, cannot please God. Consider here, for just a moment, the absolute absurdity into which sin brings all fallen men and women, the absurdity of hating God. Octavius Winslow captures the thought well and it is necessary to quote him here in full:

“The spectacle is an awful one in the extreme, of the finite armed in dead hostility to the Infinite – of a creature measuring his power with God – opposing his will to God’s will – his way to God’s way – his end to God’s end. And yet how disproportionate are our profoundest feelings of horror and commiseration to the atrocious nature and the tremendous consequence of the crime! Enmity against God! The greatest and holiest, the best and most powerful, of beings and of friends! And why this enmity? Upon what, in the character of God, or in the nature of his government, is this sworn hostility grounded? Is it because he is essential love? Perfectly holy? Strictly Righteous? Infinitely wise and powerful? For which of these perfections does the sinner hate him? Is it because he gave his Son to die for man, laying him in a bleeding sacrifice on the altar of justice for human transgression? Is it because the sun of his goodness shines upon every being, and that he opens his hand and supplies the need of every living thing? Is it because he exercises forbearance and long-suffering, and slow to anger, and of great kindness? For which of these good works does the sinner hate him? And to what extent is this enmity displayed? It rests short of the destruction of the Divine existence. Man is at war with the very being of God.”[1]

The idea of being hostile to God is one which communicates a violent opposition toward God and all things connected with God. Which is why sin distorts and deforms all good things. Think about it: because we cannot get at God directly, we instead oppose God indirectly, sinfully taking good things and mutilating them for our own selfish (fleshly) purposes. We turn the good gift of marriage, and intimacy within marriage, into something unrecognizably new.

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