Prayer: We need You desperately. Oh, do cleanse us with Your precious blood. Lord, we trust in Your anointing. Lord, again open up Your Word to us. We like to get into the depths of Your Word. Lord, be with every helper. Lord, anoint every section of this meeting. Especially, Lord, do anoint all the testimonies. Thank You. Amen.
Romans 8:7 reads, “Because the mind set on the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.” We realize, of course, that this portion of the Word is not an ordinary, common, human talk. This is not a mere human word; no human mentality could speak or write such a word. Not many translations have rendered this verse in such a way. This kind of speaking or utterance is altogether strange to the human mentality. We may understand what the mind is, but what does it mean to set the mind on the flesh? We have to find out what is the flesh. The flesh must be something solid, because you can set something upon it. You can put your mind upon it. It is not just the air, and it is not something vain or empty. It can bear something.
Verse 7 says, “The mind set on the flesh is enmity against God.” We know a little bit about enmity because we were born in it. The verse goes on to say, “For it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.” This means it does not have the intention or the desire or the will to be subject to the law of God. Even if it did have, it could not. The hard point in this verse for us to understand is what is the flesh. We need to see that the flesh in verse 7 is the same as the practices of the body in verse 13. When your body practices, when it moves and acts, that practicing body is the flesh. This can be proved by verse 13 which shows that the flesh is a synonym to the practicing body.
When our body acts and moves without the Spirit of God, that is flesh. The entire human race today, whether gentlemen or bank robbers, whether moral or immoral, as long as they practice and act, behave and move, they are flesh. The entire human race is flesh because they act without the Spirit. They move without the Spirit. Sometimes they practice the best things, and sometimes they practice the worst things, but as long as they practice by their body, that practicing body is the flesh.
Even if I serve you a cup of tea in my home, and I serve it by myself and without the Spirit, this is flesh. Some versions of the Bible render practices of the body as evil doings of the body. Many Christians understand Romans 8:13 in this way. They think that the practices of the body means the sinful deeds and the sinful doings of the body. Because gambling and drinking and stealing and striking others are sinful things, you should put them to death. But to love others, to serve others with a cup of tea is not a sinful doing. This would be considered wonderful because this is loving others. But Paul didn’t use the term “sinful deeds.” Rather he used the term “practices.”
The following verse reads: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (v. 14). It is not a matter of being sinful or not sinful, nor a matter of being moral or immoral. God cares for one thing: Are you behaving as His son? When you serve tea to people, are you serving people as a son of God? Whether your practicing body is the flesh or not does not depend upon whether the things you practice are evil or moral. It depends upon whether you are acting by the Spirit of God as a son of God or you are just acting by yourself as an ordinary fallen human being. Whenever your body acts without the Spirit or apart from the Spirit, that is flesh. When your body dies and is put into a coffin, that surely is not flesh. That is a dead body. The flesh is just the acting body. The body that acts is the flesh. You have to realize that the light at this point is very intensive. If you don’t breathe by the Spirit, even your breathing body is the flesh. What is it to set your mind on the flesh? It is to set your thinking on your acting body. When your body is active, and you set your mind upon this acting body, that is, you put your thinking, you concentrate your thinking, upon this acting body, that is to put your mind on the flesh. And that is enmity against God.
In the last message we saw that our body must be for His Body. We could only present to the Lord a body that is free from all the practices. Once the practices of our body have been put to death, our body is free for us to present to the Lord. We could only present such a freed body, an unemployed body, to the Lord. Then we will realize His Body. Our body is for the Lord’s Body. But first our body must be freed from all practices. It can only be freed by the Spirit. The Spirit has to kill every practice of our body. If your body with all its practices has not been killed, the practices make your body the flesh. But when the practices of the body have been killed, the body remains as the body. Then it is good to present to God for the Body of Christ. But if your body practices something apart from the Spirit, it makes your body the flesh. Practically speaking, the flesh is such a practicing body. Some have said the flesh is something carnal, that it is related to carnality. Even the King James Version translates the verse: “For to be carnally minded is death” (Rom. 8:6). This kind of translation and understanding brings you into a thick forest. Hardly anyone can tell you what it means to be carnally minded. I think most of us just took for granted the meaning of the word flesh. We never investigated, we never checked, we never questioned.
Now we need to read verse 8: “And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Now we know how to interpret this verse. To be in the flesh is to remain in the active body. If we remain in our acting body, that is to be in the flesh, and that causes us to be unable to please God.
Let us also read verse 9: “But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him.” This is a very difficult verse to understand. There are four points that have to be made clear; otherwise, you cannot understand this verse. First, you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If you do not realize that you have a human spirit, this is the greatest weakness. This is a shortcoming of most Christians. Not many Christians realize that they have a spirit. So first of all you have to understand that you have a human spirit. “But you are not in the flesh” means that you are not remaining in the practicing, acting body. Rather, you are remaining in your spirit. This is not only a deep word, but also a heavy word. When you serve people a cup of tea, are you in your spirit? If not, you are in the flesh. This is serious! We may have read such words in the Bible and taken them for granted. We didn’t check into them. This word means you have to remain in your spirit all the time. If not, right away you are in the flesh. Even if you serve a cup of tea, you must do it in your spirit. You must be a person that is in the spirit. This verse does not mean that when you become a believer you are no more in the flesh but in the spirit. No! Many real believers are fully in the flesh; they are not one bit in the spirit. Even they do not know that they have a spirit. Not only while they are exchanging words in their married life, but even when they are talking about things in the Bible, they are not in the spirit. Rather they are in the flesh—in their acting body.
Second, the next part of the verse reads: “If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” The word dwells is different from the word abides and remains. To abide or to remain is a very light expression; it is not so heavy. The word dwell has as its root the word house. You may say that this is the verbal form of the noun. It may be translated as to house in you. In Ephesians 3:17 the same root word is translated into making home. Housing yourself means to make a home for yourself. Dwelling is not just to abide. If I stay in your home as a guest, I may abide there and remain there, but I’m not dwelling there. I’m not making my home there because it is not my home. This is a strong word. The words, “if indeed,” indicate that you may have the Spirit of God in you, but He is not dwelling in you. You have Him in you, but He is not making His home in you. Many times, although we have the Spirit within us, the Spirit doesn’t reside in us and doesn’t have His home in us. We make our body our home, and we make the Spirit within us a guest. There is a big difference between staying in a house and residing in a house. When you indeed have the Spirit of God residing in you, making His home in you, it is then that you are in the spirit and not in the flesh.
The last part of the verse reads, “But if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him.” To be of Christ is one thing and to have the Spirit residing in you is another thing.