Such, and nothing less or else, was the Law's "_righteous demand_"; an obedience not only universal but also cordial. For its first requirement, "Thou shalt have no other God," meant, in the spiritual heart of it, the dethronement of self from its central place, and the session there of the Lord. But this could never be while there was a reckoning still unsettled between the man and God. Friction there must be while God's Law remained not only violated but unsatisfied, unatoned.[124] And so it necessarily remained, till the sole adequate Person, one with God, one with man, stepped into the gap; our Peace, our Righteousness, and also by the Holy Ghost our Life. At rest because of His sacrifice, at work by the power of His Spirit, we are now free to love, and divinely enabled to walk in love. Meanwhile the dream of an unsinning perfectness, such as could make a meritorious claim, is not so much negatived as precluded, put far out of the question. For the central truth of the new position is that THE LORD has fully dealt, for us, with the Law's claim that man shall _deserve_ acceptance. "Boasting" is inexorably "excluded," to the last, from this new kind of law-fulfilling life. For the "fulfilment" which means legal satisfaction is for ever taken out of our hands by Christ, and only that humble "fulfilment" is ours which means a restful, unanxious, reverent, unreserved loyalty in practice. To this now our "_mind_," our cast and gravitation of soul, is brought, in the life of acceptance, and in the power of the Spirit. [Sidenote: Ver. 5.] =For they who are flesh-wise,= the unchanged children of the self-life, =think,= "_mind_," have moral affinity and converse with, =the things of the flesh; but they who are Spirit-wise, think the things of the Spirit,= His love, joy, peace, and all that holy "fruit." Their liberated and Spirit-bearing life now goes that way, in its true bias. [Sidenote: Ver. 6.] =For the mind,= the moral affinity, =of the flesh,= of the self-life, =is death;= it involves the ruin of the soul, in condemnation, and in separation from God; =but the mind of the Spirit,= the affinity given to the believer by the indwelling Holy One, =is life and peace;= it implies union with Christ, our life and our acceptance; it is the state of soul in which He is realized. [Sidenote: Ver. 7.] =Because=--this absolute antagonism of the two "_minds_" is such _because_--=the "mind" of the flesh is personal hostility (ἔχθρα) towards God; for to God's Law it is not subject. For indeed it cannot be= subject to it; [Sidenote: Ver. 8.] =those[125] who are in flesh,= surrendered to the life of self as their law, =cannot please God,[126]= "_cannot meet the wish_" (ἀρέσαι) of Him whose loving but absolute claim is to be Lord of the whole man.
"They cannot": it is a moral impossibility. "The Law of God" is, "Thou shalt love Me with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself"; the mind of the flesh is, "I will love my self and its will first and most." Let this be disguised as it may, even from the man himself; it is always the same thing in its essence. It may mean a defiant choice of open evil. It may mean a subtle and almost evanescent preference of literature, or art, or work, or home, to God's will as such. It is in either case "_the mind of the flesh_," a thing which cannot be refined and educated into holiness, but must be surrendered at discretion, as its eternal enemy.
[Sidenote: Ver. 9.] =But you= (there is a glad emphasis on "_you_") =are not in flesh, but in Spirit,= surrendered to the indwelling Presence as your law and secret, =on the assumption that= (εἴπερ: he suggests not weary misgivings but a true examination) =God's Spirit dwells in you;= has His home in your hearts, humbly welcomed into a continuous residence. =But if any one has not Christ's Spirit,= (who is the Spirit as of the Father so of the Son, sent by the Son, to reveal and to impart Him,) =that man is not His.= He may bear his Lord's name, he may be externally a Christian, he may enjoy the divine Sacraments of union; but he has not "the Thing." The Spirit, evidenced by His holy fruit, is no Indweller there; and the Spirit is our vital Bond with Christ. [Sidenote: Ver. 10.] =But if Christ is,= thus by the Spirit, =in you,= dwelling by faith in the hearts which the Spirit has "strengthened" to receive Christ (Eph. iii. 16, 17)--=true (μὲν), the body is dead, because of sin,= the primeval sentence still holds its way _there_; the body is deathful still, it is the body of the Fall; =but the Spirit[127] is life,= He is in that body, your secret of power and peace eternal, =because of righteousness,= because of the merit of your Lord, in which you are accepted, and which has won for you this wonderful Spirit-life.