9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Romans 8:9–13.From verse nine we learn what the distinction between being in the flesh versus being in the spirit is. Those that have the Spirit of God are in the spirit, this is a different way to exist in the world wholly separate from being in the flesh. There are many in Christendom who claim to be Christs but the bottom line is – anyone that does not have His Spirit is non of his. Just as being in a garage does not make one a vehicle claiming to be a Christian, “going to church”, nothing done in the flesh makes one a Christian. Having Christ in you is what makes you a Christian. In Colossians 1:27 we are told Christ in you is the hope of glory. Therefore, no Christ in you, no hope of glory.
The other category of people in these verses is those that are in the flesh. These are the unsaved, those who do not have the Spirit of Christ in them, Christ in you the hope of glory Colossians 1:27. Because they do not have the Spirit of Christ, they have no way to live by the spirit or even know the things of the Spirit, these things must be Spiritually discerned, 1 Corinthians 2:14. Those that are in the flesh have no option but to live by the flesh. Among those that live by the flesh there are those who live for the indulgence of the flesh and those who live for the restraint of the flesh.
Living for the indulgence of the flesh will look different for each person but the general idea is a life lived with disregard for God. Living as if he does not exist, not caring for what he has had to say or what it is that he wants. That is if one even acknowledges his existence. One could even just keep busy with the issues of life be a good productive member of society and never welcome any thought of God at all. Think of extremely successful wealthy people that have all they could ever think of, it is easy for riches and pursuits of this world to blind and keep one occupied and distracted from any thoughts of God. The same can be true of poverty and troubles of this world, from which this supposed god fails to deliver. Never the less, those who live according to the flesh will die. This has to do with the gospel, we are born spiritually dead and must be born again if we will have life. Gods work in this world is creating life, new life which only he can create. He does this for those who want to know him according to his new covenant, these are the ones who will believe.
Living for the restraint of the flesh has to do with all manner of religion, these are people who believe in God or a god of some kind, they may acknowledge Jesus or belong to religions that deny him but the main thing is that, they are religious. They are in a system of bondage. Living by the law is living by a system of right or wrong, a standard derived in whatever manner. The law of Moses was part of the covenant that God had with Israel. If they kept this covenant then he would bless them, in the flesh, it contained no spiritual promise. You can read about the blessings and curses promised in Deuteronomy 27 and 28, the curses did come upon Israel and they were ejected from the land and taken to exile. Some may take a portion of the law of Moses and have that as their standard but Gods promise was to Israel based on them keeping ALL the commandments, not some. He did not need to fulfill the blessings because they were not able to keep the law, neither can we, the law was given to increase sin (Romans 5:20), so that we can reach a point of recognizing our depravity and that we need God’s mercy and grace Galatians 3:24. The general idea here is conformity to Satan’s lie; all you need is to know good from evil and you will be like God. The religious will seek to know good from evil and do the good and avoid the evil. They also believe that God will bless them for keeping the law, but the law was given for different reasons. We were never meant to live by the knowledge of good and evil but by the inspiration of God, Christ in us, similar to Adam and Eve before they fell. In any case, those that live for the restraint of the flesh need other people to compare themselves. What better candidates than those that live for the indulgence of the flesh?
These two groups have each other to compare each other with. The indulgence of the flesh folks will claim that the religious folk are hypocrites – because they still see them sinning just like they do. At least they are more honest than those hypocrites. The religious in turn may come down hard on others with the law; maybe use it to condemn them. They themselves are still under the condemnation of the law because all you need to be judged as a law breaker is to break one of the laws once. There is also opportunity to build up pride if one judges themselves to have figured out a way to conform to the law or defeat some sin, perhaps one which they are not tempted by as much as someone else? This was the case with the pharisees, whom God let know that he was not impressed by them, they were white washed tombs – Matthew 23:27. The situation is the same now as it was then. Both camps have each other to beat down. Nevertheless, if you live according to the flesh you will die.
The solution to this predicament is life by the spirit. You must be born again. God will make a new creation of those who submit themselves to his gospel, the new covenant through which he forgave the sin of the world. These people then get to live by the spirit, a life of knowing their God, living by the inheritance, growing in knowledge of Him and his grace. This life carries them past physical death to eternity with God and others of the same family. Living by the flesh affords individuals some form of control, this likely gives it an appeal, those in the flesh can decide whether to indulge the flesh or restrain it, for life in the spirit one can only surrender to God according to his requirement – believe the gospel. He alone gets to asses the state of ones heart and decides whether to create this new life, one has to abandon themselves to him in a way. But this is the only way.
There was a time I lived for the indulgence of the flesh and a time I lived for the restraint of the flesh. I was taught religion, the message that I received was that I needed to stop doing certain things and start doing some other things. I was not acceptable to God unless I cleaned up. So for a time I changed my lifestyle, this was within my control. After a period of time I discovered that I still did not know God and was frustrated that I was still held in bondage by the same sins. Where was the power?It took a while before I understood that God was not requiring me to stop sinning but was calling me to himself. This was after I heard a certain preacher speaking about grace and how we can sin. I had never heard this before, it sounded wrong but it got me looking and as I read God’s word I found in Hebrews 4:16 an invitation to come with no mention of sin, it just said if you needed grace come and receive it. From this I heard Gods call with no mention to stop sinning first. This was the beginning of my pursuit. I had hopelessly failed to stop sinning, I mean this was a mess but if he’s saying come then I figured he will know how to save me despite of my sin and inability to do anything about this. I really had no idea what the gospel was at this point. Yet he still made me alive at some point. Then he made me alive and grew me in understanding of the gospel to where I know what the gospel is and can distinguish between the truth and lies. He is continuing to grow me in knowledge of him and now I serve him in newness of life, not by doing stuff like feeding the homeless, but by sharing things he has revealed to me with those who may find these thing useful. By sharing the gospel with those who are interested so that they may have opportunity to know Him.