Romans 8

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Wesley’s text keeps the walking clause: who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. No condemnation is for those in Christ—and for those so in Him that they walk after the Spirit. Either for things present or past, he says; now Paul comes to deliverance and liberty.

Wesleyans hear a living people, not a closed ledger. Union with Christ is true, and it is walked in. The Spirit’s life is enabling presence; those who walk after the flesh are not named in this “now.” Wesley often keeps the clause because the gospel’s “no condemnation” is not a license to remain in the flesh. Remain in Christ; walk after the Spirit.

No condemnation is the status of those in Christ Jesus. Calvin: though the godly are still beset by sin, they are yet exempt from the power of death and from every curse. The trembling have an invincible fortress: while they abide in Christ they are beyond every danger of condemnation.

This is forensic peace by the Spirit’s effectual work, not a verdict that waits to see if the walk will hold. Those in Christ are those the Spirit has joined to Him. Walking after the Spirit (v. 4) describes that people; it does not reopen the court. God has already condemned sin in the flesh (v. 3). The “now” is present tense of a finished mercy.

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. Wesley: the law of the Spirit is the gospel; it has freed from the law of sin and of death. Freedom is Christ’s gift, and it is freedom into a new walk.

The Spirit’s life is enabling presence that must be walked in. Has set you free is deliverance, not a slogan over an unchanged life. Those who live according to the flesh still die (v. 13). The gospel frees; the freed still walk. Do not flatten this into a liberty that never needed the Spirit’s government.

Calvin: by the law of the Spirit he designates the Spirit of God, who sprinkles our souls with the blood of Christ, not only to cleanse us from guilt but also to sanctify us. The Spirit of Christ abolishes the law of sin in us and delivers us from the peril of death. The grace of regeneration is never disjoined from the imputation of righteousness.

This freedom is the Spirit’s effectual work in those in Christ, not an offer left to our strength. Set free means actually freed—justified and begun in newness. The same Spirit who justifies also sanctifies; no one is left in the law of sin and of death whom Christ has claimed.

God has done what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, could not do. Wesley: the law of Moses was incapable of conquering our evil nature; if it could, God need not have sent His own Son. God sending His Son in the likeness of that flesh, though pure from sin, condemned that sin which was in our flesh—gave sentence that sin should be destroyed, and the believer wholly delivered from it.

Arminians hear both pardon and power: sin sentenced, the believer delivered. The sending is for us; the deliverance is to be walked in. The law could not conquer; the Spirit can. Those who remain under the flesh’s government are not the delivered people this verse describes.

Calvin: the Lord has by His gratuitous mercy justified us in Christ, the very thing it was impossible for the law to do. Our sins were expiated by the death of Christ. God condemned sin in the very flesh of Christ; the condemnation of sin made us free and brought us righteousness, so that God counts us as just.

God condemned sin—sin did not merely meet a better example. The verdict fell in Christ’s flesh, for sin, as a sin offering. Weakness was in our flesh, not in the law’s doctrine. We flee to Christ for righteousness, for in us there can be none. This is the ground of v. 1’s “no condemnation.”

The aim: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Wesley: the righteousness of the law is the holiness it required; fulfilled in us who are guided in all our thoughts, words, and actions, not by corrupt nature, but by the Spirit of God.

“In us who don’t walk” is not a gloss. The Spirit’s life is enabling presence that must be walked in. From this place, Wesley says, Paul describes primarily the state of believers. The law’s requirement is not shelved; it is fulfilled in a people actually led by the Spirit. Those who walk after the flesh are not this “us.”

Calvin: they who understand that the renewed, by the Spirit of Christ, fulfil the law, introduce a gloss wholly alien to Paul; the faithful never make such a proficiency that the justification of the law becomes in them full or complete. This then must be applied to forgiveness: when the obedience of Christ is accepted for us, the law is satisfied, so that we are counted just. The perfection the law demands was exhibited in our flesh, that its rigor should no longer condemn us.

Christ communicates His righteousness to none but those He joins to Himself by the bond of His Spirit, so renewal is mentioned lest Christ be thought the minister of sin. Walking according to the Spirit marks those so joined. The fulfillment is Christ’s for us; the walk is the Spirit’s fruit in us—not our complete keeping of the law as the ground of no condemnation.

Two mindsets lead to two kinds of life. Wesley: they that are after the flesh remain under the guidance of corrupt nature and mind things visible and temporal—earth, pleasure, praise, riches. They who are after the Spirit, under His guidance, think of, relish, and love things invisible and eternal—the things the Spirit has revealed, works in us, moves us to, and promises to give us.

Here the reader meets a fork in the road. Living according to the flesh is not a label glued on before birth; it is remaining under corrupt nature. The Spirit’s things must be minded. Those who live according to the flesh still die. The verse calls for a walk, not a glance at a finished certificate.

Calvin introduces the difference to confirm that the grace of Christ belongs to none but those regenerated by the Spirit who strive after purity—and to relieve the faithful, lest, conscious of many infirmities, they despair. Carnal men are those who wholly devote themselves to the world; wherever the Spirit reigns, it is evidence of the saving grace of God.

Two states, not two equal options in an unrenewed heart. To be after the flesh is to be without the gift of regeneration. The spiritual mind is the Spirit’s fruit in those He indwells. Infirmity in the saints is distinct from living according to the flesh. The reigning power tells the state.

To set the mind of the flesh is death; to set the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. Wesley: carnally minded is the sure mark of spiritual death and the way to death everlasting; spiritually minded is a sure mark of spiritual life and the way to life everlasting, attended with the peace of God—the foretaste of life everlasting—and peace with God, opposite to the enmity of v. 7.

Life and peace are the Spirit’s, and they attend those who mind His things. The mark is present tense. Those who live according to the flesh still die. Do not treat “life and peace” as a status that can sit atop a fleshly mind. The enabling presence must be walked in.

Calvin: they cannot be partakers of the favor of Christ who abide in the flesh, for through the whole course of their life they hasten unto death. If anything in us tends to life, it is what the Spirit produces; no spark of life proceeds from our flesh. Peace, after the Hebrew manner, is every kind of happiness. The only cause of salvation is God’s good pleasure, whereby He makes us partakers of Christ.

Life and peace are the Spirit’s work in those He has claimed, not wages we earn by a better mindset. The carnal mind is death now, leading to death. The spiritual mind is evidence of saving grace. God begins and completes salvation by renewing us; the cause remains His good pleasure.

The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God: it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be. Wesley: enmity against God—His existence, power, and providence. The flesh under its own government cannot please Him (v. 8).

Classical Arminians do not pretend the unrenewed mind can keep the law. They hear inability of the flesh, and then the Spirit as enabling presence: what the flesh cannot do, God has done (v. 3), and the believer must walk after the Spirit. Hostility is the flesh’s; it is not a decree that a hearer can never be enabled to turn. Those who remain carnally minded still die.

Calvin: nothing proceeds from the flesh but death, because it contends as an enemy against the will of God. “Nor can be”: behold the power of free-will—Paul affirms it is impossible for us to render our powers subject to the law. The heart is full of hardness and indomitable contumacy; it is never moved naturally to undertake the yoke of God. Far from a Christian heart be this heathen philosophy respecting the liberty of the will.

Cannot is moral inability, not a mild reluctance. The flesh will not and cannot submit until the Spirit effectually renews. Let every one acknowledge himself the servant of sin, that he may be set at liberty by the grace of Christ. This inability is why no condemnation and new life are the Spirit’s work, not our self-rescue.

Those who are in the flesh can’t please God. Wesley: they who are in the flesh—under the government of it. “In the flesh” is remaining under that government, not merely having a body.

Inability here is honest. No one pleases God while the flesh rules. The Spirit’s life is the way out, and it must be walked in. Those who live according to the flesh still die. The verse is warning as well as diagnosis: do not claim Christ’s peace while remaining under the flesh’s government. Please God by walking after the Spirit who enables.

Calvin infers that those who give themselves up to be guided by the lusts of the flesh are abominable before God; all who walk not after the Spirit are alienated from Christ, for they are without any spiritual life. To be in the flesh is to be without the gift of regeneration.

“can’t please God” is the state of the unregenerate, not a temporary mood of the elect. Pleasing God begins when the Spirit dwells and rules (v. 9). The inability is not cured by trying harder in the flesh; it is cured by the Spirit’s effectual indwelling. Those in the flesh are not the people of v. 1.

You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, he is not belong to Him. Wesley: in the Spirit—under His government. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ—dwelling and governing in him—he is none of His: not a member of Christ; not a Christian; not in a state of salvation. A plain, express declaration, which admits of no exception. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Arminians catch a true “if.” Indwelling that does not govern is not the Spirit Paul means. The Spirit’s life is enabling presence that must be walked in. Without that Spirit, none of His—not a maybe-Christian, not a Christian. Belonging is not a label that survives the Spirit’s absence. Those who live according to the flesh still die.

Calvin applies the general truth to the church: they may gather that they are of the number from whom Christ has taken away the curse. At the same time, by explaining what the Spirit works in the elect, he encourages newness of life. It is the surest mark by which the children of God are distinguished from the children of the world, when by the Spirit they are renewed unto purity and holiness. Those in whom the Spirit reigns not belong not to Christ; gratuitous remission of sins can never be separated from the Spirit of regeneration.

“If it is so that” is the mark of the elect, not a maybe hanging over the justified. God rules His own by His Spirit; the Spirit dwelling has the superiority though flesh remains. Those without the Spirit never belonged to Christ. Indwelling marks the people of v. 1. It is not a possession one day on and one day off.

If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. Wesley: where the Spirit of Christ is, there is Christ. The body indeed is dead—devoted to death because of sin heretofore committed. The Spirit is life—already truly alive because of righteousness now attained.

Christ’s indwelling is the Spirit’s; righteousness now attained is the believer’s present life. The body still heads toward death; the Spirit already lives. That life is enabling presence, not a spark that cannot be neglected. Remain in Christ; the deadness of the body is not an excuse to walk after the flesh.

Calvin: what he said of the Spirit he now says of Christ, that the mode of Christ’s dwelling in us might be intimated: by the Spirit He consecrates us as temples and dwells in us. The children of God are counted spiritual not on the ground of full perfection, but on account of the newness of life begun in them. The power of quickening is in the Spirit of Christ, which will be effectual in swallowing up our mortality. Even one spark of the Spirit is the seed of life.

Body dead because of sin does not mean the verdict of v. 1 is in doubt. The spirit is alive because of righteousness—Christ’s, counted and begun. Infirmity and mortality remain; the seed will not fail. Wait until the relics of sin are abolished. The indwelling Christ is the elect’s present tense, not a maybe.

If the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. The promise is for those in whom that Spirit dwells—the same “if” as v. 9.

Arminians hear enabling presence that must be walked in, not an unconditional raise-regardless. Wesley has just said that without the Spirit dwelling and governing, a man is none of His. Those who live according to the flesh still die. Life to mortal bodies is the hope of those who remain in the Spirit who raised Jesus. Indwelling is present and living; it is not a stamp that outlasts a return to the flesh.

Calvin: since by the power of God’s Spirit Christ was raised, and since the Spirit possesses eternal power, He will also exert the same with regard to us. In the person of Christ was exhibited a specimen of the power which belongs to the whole body of the Church. God raised Christ by His Spirit and has communicated that Spirit to us; He thus makes sure the hope of resurrection.

The Spirit who raised Jesus will give life to those in whom He dwells. Indwelling marks the elect, not a maybe. The same power that emptied the tomb will not abandon the bodies He already inhabits. Whether heard as the certain resurrection of the saints or as that power already mortifying the relics of the flesh, it is effectual. The people the Spirit indwells are the people He will raise.