expresses this object, must mean we are justified, rather than that we are sanctified. 3. The latter part of the verse would, in the other case, be superfluous. Why should it be said that the law is obeyed by those who obey the law, that is, who walk after the Spirit? This verse, therefore, expresses nearly the same idea with the first. It is there said, ' there is no condemnation to us who walk after the Spirit,' and here, that 'the demands of the law are fulfilled in us who thus walk.' They are fulfilled by the sacrifice of Christ and the punishment of sin in him. He was made sin, or treated as a sinner, for us, that we might be made righteous- ness, or treated as righteous in him, 2 Cor. 5 : 21.
(5) For they that are after the Jlesh do mind the things of the flesh, &c. The immediate object of this and the following verse is to justify the necessity of the limitation of the blessings of Christ's death to those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. The /or, therefore, connects this verse, not with the main idea, but with the last clause of the preceding. Men must be holy, because sin is death, whereas holiness is life and peace. The necessity of spirituality, therefore, lies in the very nature of things.
They who are after the flesh, those who are in the flesh, the carnal, are expressions of like import, and describe those who are governed by the flesh, or by their nature considered as corrupt. The corresponding series, they ivho are after the Spirit, who are in the Spirit, the spiritual, describe those who are under the government of the Holy Ghost. Of the former class it is said they mind the things of the flesh, of the latter, they mind the things of the Spirit. The word rendered they mind ex- presses primarily the exercise of the intellect, they attend to, but, seconda- rily, and by implication, the exercise of the affections, of which the other is the result. Hence in Col. 3 : 2, it is correctly rendered in the passage, " Set your affection on things above." See also Phil. 3 : 19. The same may be said of the word mind as used by our translators. The idea evidently is, that the objects of attention, desire, and pursuit, to the carnal, are corrupt and worldly; while to the spiritual they are the things which the Spirit proposes and approves.
(6) For to be carnally minded is death, Sic. This is the next step in the apostle's argument. For is here a mere particle of transition, and is equivalent to but, « They who are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh ; but to mind the things of the flesh, or to be carnally minded is death.' It is clear that to be carnally minded is exactly what is meant by the corresponding phrase in the preceding verse. This state of mind, this desire and pursuit of carnal things, is, in its own nature, destructive. It leads to all the Scriptures mean by death, alienation from God, unho- Hness and misery.
To be spiritually minded. A spiritual state of mind, the desire and pursuit of spiritual things is, in its own nature, life and peace. God has so constituted the human soul that the exercise of all right feelings is