Life in the Spirit Begins Between Your Ears: Romans 8:5-12

What “governs” your mind? 

Even those who consider themselves the most liberated of free thinkers have minds “governed” by something - a standard by which they understand reality and make choices. Some call it a worldview, others refer to it as an outlook or even an attitude. If you’re younger and cooler than me, you might call it your vibe.

Paul calls it a “mind set,” and as he writes about life in the Spirit in Romans 8, we learn that the biggest transformation for those the Spirit regenerates occurs right between our ears. 

For too many, developing a “mind set" is tricky business, involving myriads of competing perspectives. Things get dicey quickly when one set of cultural inclinations get favored over and against another while making aesthetic or even moral and ethical determinations. So it’s not at all surprising that our world has more or less given up in making any firm distinctions as to what a right or wrong mind set looks like. 

But Paul, representing the whole of Biblical insight in this magnificent chapter, makes the choice clear. After all is said and done, there are only two ways to think: you can have your “mind set on what the flesh (sarx) desires,” or “on what the Spirit desires” (v5). You can either be “governed by death,” or by “life and peace” (v6). There's no independence or middle ground. You're in one camp or the other - you live either according to the flesh or to the Spirit. You're enslaved either to sin or to righteousness (Romans 6:18).

This is one reason why the Belgic Confession says that as Biblically faithful Christians, “we reject everything taught to the contrary concerning man’s free will, since man is nothing but the slave of sin and cannot do a thing unless it is ‘given him from heaven’” (Article 14). 

We often refer to the famous first question & answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism to explain the purpose and meaning of life: "Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever." This means that a mind governed by the sinful nature (flesh/sarx) destines a person to a purposeless existence, since "those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God" (v8). And if you're unable to glorify God, you'll never be able to truly enjoy Him or anything He's made.

So why doesn't everybody make the clearly better choice and live according to the Spirit? 

Simply put, those outside of Christ cannot... on their own, at least.

The descendants of Adam - that includes all of us - are born enslaved to sin (Romans 6:17). In other words, the natural condition for a person is to have "their minds set on what the flesh desires," which results in a "hostility" towards God (v7). Consequently, such people "do not submit to God's law" because they cannot do so (v7). Since the ultimate expression of God's law is to love God with all of our heart, mind and soul, a person cannot independently choose to show love to God by living according to the Spirit's desires.

This is what makes grace so amazing. Your Father, who knew you before the dawn of time, chose you to be His own, and put His Spirit in you to give you a new heart/mind, set free from its slavery to sin and governed by life and peace (Ephesians 1:4). He changed the way you think. 

This is why you, as a redeemed child of God, see and understand the world so differently than the people around you do, and why you now have an obligation to live so differently than they do (v12).