Commentary on Romans 8:5–11 by Augustus Bisping
Note: Augustus Bisping (1811–1883) was a German Catholic theologian and biblical scholar. This text is excerpted from his exegetical commentary on the Epistle to the Romans.
Rom 8:5-8
In a series of sentences, in which each subsequent sentence explains and grounds the preceding one, Paul now indicates the different direction of the flesh and of the spirit. First, in Verse 5, he grounds the thought previously expressed, that only when the Pneuma (Spirit) is the ruling principle in us and not the Sarx (flesh), does true fulfillment of the law come to pass in us: "For those who are according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but those who are according to the spirit (mind) the things of the spirit."
Compare Verse 3 and 5. The οἱ κατὰ σάρκα ὄντες (those who are according to the flesh) are those in whom the flesh, the lower sensible part in man, concupiscence, dominates; but the οἱ δὲ κατὰ πνεῦμα (those who are according to the spirit) are those in whom the Spirit of God is the ruling principle. Both strive after that which is homogeneous to their nature: the former after what is appropriate to the natural man, satisfying his sensible drives; the latter after the higher, the Divine. The verb φρονοῦσιν means: "to make something the object, the goal of one's striving" (cf. Phil. 3:19; Col.3:2).
Verse 6 explains the foregoing more closely: "For the striving of the flesh is death (i.e., leads to death, both bodily as well as spiritual), but the striving of the spirit is life and peace," i.e., aims at the attainment of true life and of peace with God. The Vulgate translates φρόνημα as prudentia. — Εἰρήνη (peace) stands here in contrast to the following ἔχθρα (enmity), thus designating friendship with God.
The reason why the striving of the flesh leads to death is, according to Verse 7: "Because the striving of the flesh is enmity against God," who is the source of all true higher life. The reason for this is again: "For it is not subject to the law of God (as the expression of the Divine Will)"; and the reason for this is finally: "because it cannot even do so," because it is against the nature of carnal striving to submit to the Divine law. Since the Fall, namely, the sarx in us follows its own law, its own drive, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life; but the law of God commands precisely the opposite: mortification, self-denial, poverty of spirit. This contradictoriness against God's law, this enmity with God, conditions on God's part a displeasure. Therefore, the Apostle concludes his argumentation in Verse 8 with the words: "But those who are in the flesh cannot please God"; for God can only be pleased with those who are ἐν πνεύματι, who are thus conformable to Him and fulfill His will.
In the expression οἱ κατὰ σάρκα — πνεῦμα ὄντες (Verses 5), the sarx and the pneuma are considered more as the norm of life according to which men act; but in the expression οἱ ἐν σαρκί — πνεύματι ὄντες (Verse 8), sarx and pneuma are more the element of life in which they live and move, from which they draw their vital power. — Many wish to take the δέ here in the sense of "therefore, now"; but nowhere in the N.T. is δέ = οὖν. Certainly, Paul, if he wanted to consider the οὐδὲ γὰρ δύναται as a consequence of the preceding, could have continued with οὖν; but instead, he proceeds from the φρόνημα τῆς σαρκός to the other side of the matter ὑπὸ θεῷ οὐ δύναται, which, if it had happened without an intermediate clause, would not have struck anyone (Winer, p. 401).
Rom 8:9-11.
Now the Apostle makes the corresponding application of the foregoing to Christians: "But you (δέ) are not in the flesh, but in the spirit," i.e., what has been said does not apply to you; rather, it is to be presupposed of you that you live not in the flesh, but in the spirit; that your element of life is not the flesh with its lusts and sinful desires, but the spirit. Under pneuma we have to understand here, as Verse 10 clearly shows, where pneuma stands in contrast to soma, primarily the human spirit; but this not taken abstractly for itself, but only insofar as it is animated and, as it were, inhabited by the Divine Spirit. For without the Divine pneuma, man is, according to the teaching of St. Paul, only sarx and psyche, sarkikos and psychikos; only when the Spirit of God animates him is he a pneumatikos (cf. on 1 Cor. 15:44). Therefore, he adds as a condition (εἴπερ): "if indeed (as I presuppose here) the Spirit of God dwells in you." Thus, in the true Christian, in the one truly born again from Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells; He is substantially (κατ' οὐσίαν) and not merely according to His effect (κατ' ἐνέργειαν) present there; the bodies of Christians are temples of God, i.e., of the Holy Spirit, in the proper sense of the word (cf. 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; Gal. 4:6).
This Spirit of God is now immediately thereafter called the Spirit of Christ: "But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ (read οὐκ ἔχει cf. Winer p. 423 f.), this one does not belong to Him." The Holy Fathers rightly appeal to this passage as proof that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son (cf. Gal. 4:6). Thus, a true and living member of Christ is, according to these words, only he whom His Spirit animates and inhabits; whoever does not have this stands outside communion with Him, is like a dry branch on the vine, like a dead member on the body. But whoever has the Spirit of Christ, also has Christ Himself; for Christ and His Spirit are essentially one (cf. 2 Cor. 3:17; Gal. 2:20; Col. 1:27).
Therefore, the Apostle continues in Verse 10: "But if Christ is in you, the body is indeed dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of justification." — Dead, νεκρόν, is the body because of sin, insofar as because of original sin (cf. on Verse 3) it bears the seed of death within it from the beginning (cf. on 5:12), all bodily life here below is no true life, but only a continuing dying: "Undique morimur." The actual true life of the body, as it should be from the beginning, but was lost through the Fall of the first men, begins only with the resurrection. Thus, even the one born again from Christ has to suffer death, and indeed as a consequence of sin. Those interpreters who (like Reithmayr) take νεκρὸν διὰ ἁμαρτίαν in the sense of νεκρωθέντα τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, "deadened to sin," or proleptically: "already as good as dead," do violence to the words.
Under pneuma is here, where the word stands in direct contrast to soma, undoubtedly the human spirit to be understood; but this again only insofar as the Spirit of Christ fills and animates it. The Apostle does not say ζῇ (although the Vulgate has vivit) or ζωή, but ζωή (life): The latter expression is more powerful: The justified spirit of man is life, because it carries Christ, who is life itself, and His Spirit within it. — Διὰ δικαιοσύνην, i.e., because of the justice which Christ works in us through His Spirit.
The being-dead of the body will not, however, last forever, but this true life, which through the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ in us first animates our spirit, will eventually draw our body into its circle as well, so that the whole man according to spirit and body is newly enlivened by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Paul continues in Verse 11: "But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead (thus the Spirit of God the Father) dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit dwelling in you (or: through His... Spirit)."
The presupposition: "if the Spirit of the Father dwells in you," is not different in meaning from the presupposition of the previous verse: "if Christ is in you." For if Christ is in us, His Spirit also dwells in us; but His Spirit is at the same time also the Spirit of the Father. The Holy Spirit is the mediator of the rebirth of man from Christ; He sinks as a newly enlivening principle into the heart of man, and by pouring love into the same, He ties up again the bond between God and men torn by sin. But not only spiritually, but also bodily shall we be born again from Christ; also the now still mortal body shall someday be newly enlivened; and the pledge, as it were the earnest money for this bodily resurrection, the Christian has in the Holy Spirit, who dwells within him.
This is the meaning of these words, if we read with B.D.E.F.G.L.K., Vulgate, Origen, Irenaeus, and others with Lachmann (larger edition), Tischendorf (7th ed.) the accusative διὰ τὸ ἐνοικοῦν αὐτοῦ πνεῦμα. A.C. Sinaiticus and many Greek Fathers, however, have the genitive διὰ τοῦ ἐνοικοῦντος αὐτοῦ πνεύματος. In the dispute over the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the Macedonians of the 4th century defended the accusative, whereas the Catholics defended the genitive. Both accused each other of falsification of the text.
If we read the genitive, we must translate "through His... Spirit," and then the Holy Spirit is presented as the mediating cause through which the enlivening of the bodies happens, as the inner power also transforming the body; and thus, indeed, the divinity of the Holy Spirit is more clearly indicated in these words. But if we read the accusative = "because of," then the Holy Spirit is merely the ground, the pledge of our bodily resurrection. Since now this latter thought finds its clear expression several times in the letters of the Apostle (e.g., 2 Cor. 5:5; Eph. 1:19); the former, that the re-enlivening of the body happens through the Holy Spirit, however, not, at least not so definitely (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18), the reading which has the accusative is probably to be preferred. Ultimately, however, both readings come down to the same sense.
The true life, which is wrought through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our spirit, extends also to our bodily nature; also it is already here below newly enlivened, a new seed of life is implanted in it, which comes to full maturity in the glorious resurrection. As thus Christ "the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" was bodily raised by the Father, because His human nature was hypostatically united with the Divinity, so we also shall be bodily newly enlivened, because the Holy Spirit, though not hypostatically, yet substantially dwells in us.
CONTINUE
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