Romans 8:6Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

That is, he did not mean the substance, but evil deeds, thoughts, or obstinacy born of sin. The wisdom of the flesh is seen first in men's disputes about the unknown, and second in their preference for the visible. This wisdom is hostile to God because it makes the Lord dependent on the elements of the world and makes the Creator of the world equal to creation. It insists that nothing can happen unless there is a rational cause for it. Therefore they do not believe that God arranged for a Virgin to give birth, or for the bodies of the dead to rise. They say it is absurd for God to create anything beyond human understanding. O wise men of the world, who suppose that God should do nothing new after creating all things, lest He Himself become like creation! They are so blind that they do not understand how they insult God. By censuring the deeds by which God deemed us worthy for His glory, they call them incredible and absurd. See 1 Cor 1:18-31; 1 Cor 2:14.

Then we shall receive from God the holy state of renewed human nature, given by God Who became man. Let us replace our will, and the will of the demons to which our will submitted and with which it merged, with the will of God.

That will has been declared to us in the Gospel. Let us replace carnal-mindedness, common to fallen spirits and men, with the mind of God, shining from the Gospel.

Let us renounce our possessions, so that we may acquire the ability to follow our Lord Jesus Christ. Renunciation of possessions is accomplished on the basis of a right understanding of them.

The Gospel gives the right understanding of material property (Lk 16:1-31). When it has been given, the human mind involuntarily recognizes how true it is.

Earthly property is not our possession, as those who have never considered the matter mistakenly think. Otherwise it would always have been ours and would remain ours forever.

It passes from hand to hand. By this it bears witness concerning itself, that it is given only for temporary holding. Property belongs to God. Man is only its temporary steward.

A faithful steward fulfills exactly the will of the one who entrusted the stewardship to him. Therefore, while managing material goods entrusted to us for a time, let us strive to manage them according to God’s will.

Let us not use them as a means of satisfying our whims and passions, and as a means of our eternal destruction. Let us use them for the benefit of mankind, which is so needy and suffers so much.

Let us use them as a means of our salvation. Those who desire Christian perfection completely abandon earthly possessions (Mt 19:16-30). Those who desire salvation must give such alms as they can (Lk 11:41), and refrain from abusing possessions.

Let us renounce love of glory and ambition. Let us not chase honors and ranks, nor use unlawful and degrading means to obtain them.

Such means are joined to trampling upon the law of God, conscience, and the good of our neighbors. Those who seek earthly greatness most often use such means to obtain it.

A man infected and carried away by vainglory, an insatiable seeker of human glory, is incapable of faith in Christ. “How can you believe,” Christ said to the ambitious men of His time, “who receive glory from one another, and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (Jn 5:44).

If the providence of God has granted us earthly power and authority, then through them let us become benefactors of mankind. Let us reject the fierce poison so dangerous to the human spirit.

This poison is foolish and contemptible egoism. It turns men infected by it into beasts and demons. It makes them scourges of mankind and evildoers against themselves.

Let us love the will of God above all things. Let us prefer it to everything. Let us hate everything contrary to it with a pious and God-pleasing hatred.

When our nature, damaged by sin, rises up against the teaching of the Gospel, let us express hatred for that nature by rejecting its desires and demands.

The more decisive this expression of hatred is, the more decisive will be the victory over sin and over the nature possessed by sin. Then our spiritual progress will be swifter and firmer.

But after the fall he no longer remained according to the spirit, though the spirit was still in him. It raised its voice, but men did not listen to it. Such are all who have not yet risen from the fall.

A man begins to be according to the spirit only after receiving grace, when he has been regenerated. Then the spirit enters its own rank, gains strength, and governs everything in man.

It determines by itself the norm of his life. Such a man has only one concern: to be unceasingly in God by the spirit, and to direct everything toward what is pleasing to Him.”

The one who exists according to the spirit and keeps spiritual-mindedness is in living union with the Source of all life. He is filled with every true life.

This life brings into harmony all manifestations of his own life, both inward and outward. It introduces into it a peace and harmony more beautiful, sweet, and delightful than man can imagine.

By contrast, carnal-mindedness is life at a distance from God and in forgetfulness of Him. It is the life of pleasure-loving self-pleasing, moved and tossed by the passions.

It makes human nature impoverished. It introduces discord into this nature, decomposing and corroding it. Both conditions make themselves felt by a languor resembling the agony of one dying.

“His soul,” says Theophan of the carnally minded man, “has no inclination toward God and divine things. This lack of inclination of the soul toward the divine is the lightest outer limit of enmity against God.

The heaviest outer limit is an active uprising with fury against the divine order. Disobedience to the law of God is, in general, the distinguishing mark of carnal-mindedness.

Carnal-mindedness, while it remains such, cannot submit to the law of God. For as soon as it submitted, it would cease to be carnal-mindedness.”

Concerning this infirmity, St. John Chrysostom says: “Do not be troubled when you hear, ‘nor indeed can be.’ This difficulty can still be easily removed.

By carnal-mindedness the Apostle here means a mind made earthly and attached to worldly and evil deeds. Of this the Apostle says that it cannot submit to God, not of man in general.

So also Christ says in the Gospel, ‘A bad tree cannot bear good fruit’ (Mt 7:18). He did not say that a bad tree cannot become good.

He says that while it remains bad, it cannot bear good fruit.”

As men of the flesh cannot serve the spirit, because the Spirit of God is not in them (cf. Gen 6:3), so, conversely, men guided by the spirit cannot live carnally, that is, live for sin.

This is because the Holy Spirit lives in them and guides them into all truth. Here, among other things, the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ.

Catholics base on this their teaching concerning the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son. Yet here there is not even a hint of the Spirit’s procession from the Son.

He is called Christ’s because He is given to us for the sake of Christ’s merits and through His intercession.

“I will pray the Father,” Jesus Christ said, “and He will send you the Spirit, the Comforter, Who proceeds from the Father. He will teach you all things” (Jn 14:26; 15:26).

St. John Chrysostom says: “The Apostle does not call the Spirit Christ. Rather, he gives us to understand that the one who has the Spirit is not only called Christ’s, but even has Christ Himself within him.

For it is impossible that Christ should not be where the Spirit is. Where one of the Persons of the Trinity is, there is the whole Trinity. Thus She is indivisible in Herself and most closely united.”

One who exists according to the Spirit and holds spiritual-mindedness lives by the spirit in God. Strengthened by His power, he directs the actions of soul and body, and all his relations, toward pleasing God. Being thus in living union with the source of all life, he is filled with true life. This life attunes all the manifestations of his own life, inward and outward, to one thing, and brings harmony and peace into it. Nothing more beautiful, sweeter, or more delightful can man imagine for himself on earth. By contrast, fleshly-mindedness is life far from God and in forgetfulness of Him. It is the life of pleasure-loving self-pleasing, moved and troubled by the passions. By keeping man far from the source of life, it makes human nature poor, exhausted, and dried up. By giving dominance to flesh and soul over spirit, contrary to the natural order of human nature, it introduces discord into that nature, decomposing and corroding it. Both are felt as anguish, like the agony of a dying man. Fearing this already experienced, death-dealing action of fleshly-mindedness, the man who has entered spiritual-mindedness clings to it with all his strength. He does so all the more zealously because he feels and tastes the life and peace that flow from it.