Trying To Please God In The Flesh Doesn't Work

The futility of trying to please God in the flesh.

a. “Set their minds on the things of the flesh”: Paul gives an easy way for us to determine if we walk in the Spirit or walk in the flesh – to simply see where our mind is set. The mind is the strategic battleground where the flesh and the Spirit fight.    

• We shouldn’t think those who set their minds on the things of the flesh are only notorious sinners. They may be noble people who have good intentions. Peter meant well when he told Jesus to avoid the cross, but Jesus responded to Peter with these strong words: You are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men (Matthew 16:23).

b. “For to be carnally minded is death”: When our minds are set on the things of the flesh (carnally minded) we bring death into our lives. But walking in the Spirit brings life and peace.    

• We must, however, guard against a false spirituality and see that Paul means the flesh insofar as it is an instrument in our rebellion against God. Paul is not talking about normal physical and emotional needs we may think about, only the sinful gratification of those needs.

c. “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God”: The flesh battles against God because it does not want to be crucified and surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ. It does not want to live out Galatians 5:24: Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. In this battle to tame the flesh, the law is powerless.    

• Paul didn’t say that the carnal mind was at enmity with God – he put it even stronger than that. The carnal mind is enmity against God. “It is not black, but blackness; it is not at enmity, but enmity itself; it is not corrupt, but corruption; it is not rebellious, it is rebellion; it is not wicked, it is wickedness itself. The heart, though it be deceitful, is positively deceit; it is evil in the concrete, sin in the essence, it is the distillation, the quintessence of all things that are vile; it is not envious against God, it is envy; it is not at enmity, it is actual enmity.” (Charles H. Spurgeon)

d. “It is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be”: We can try to do good in life without being subject to the law of God. We may hope to put God “in debt” to us by good works, thinking God owes us. But it doesn’t work. In the flesh, we cannot please God, even if the flesh does religious things that are admired by men.    

• William R. Newell on Romans 8:7: “Perhaps no one text of Scripture more completely sets forth the hideously lost state of man after the flesh.”

Based on the Enduring Word Bible Commentary by David Guzik