Commentary on Romans 8:5–11 by Jan Cornelius Beelen
Note: Jan Cornelius Beelen (1809–1877) was a Dutch Catholic theologian and Professor of Sacred Scripture at the University of Leuven. His commentaries are known for their clarity, orthodoxy, and engagement with patristic and scholastic tradition. This text is excerpted from his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Translated by Qwen.
Rom 8:5
"For those who are according to the flesh, etc." He gives the reason (gar) why in verse 4 he said antithetically: "who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit." The reason is that one excludes the other. For, he says, those who are carnal (kata sarka ontes, sarkikoi) think upon, love, and care for those things which carnal concupiscence suggests and desires. But spiritual men, who are (kata pneuma ontes, pneumatikoi), strive for those things which the mind led by the Holy Spirit desires.
But the works of the flesh are manifest, which are: fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like. But the fruit of the Spirit is: charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity (Gal. 5:19–24).
Rom 8:6
"For the prudence of the flesh is death; but the prudence of the Spirit, life and peace." He assigns the cause (gar) why those who are (kata pneuma ontes) think upon, desire, and pursue the things of the Spirit (ta tou pneumatos). The sense is: Therefore spiritual men mind the things of the Spirit (phronousin), because the mindset (phronema) of the flesh brings eternal death (cf. Rom 8:13 and Rom. 6:23); but the mindset (phronema) of the Spirit brings eternal life and peace with God (cf. Rom 8:7, 9).
Rom 8:7
"Because the wisdom of the flesh is enemy to God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be." He gives the reason (dioti) why the mindset (phronema) of the flesh leads to eternal death (v. 6). And the reason is because the mindset (phronema) of the flesh is enmity against God (echthra eis Theon). Wherefore? Because the mindset (phronema) of the flesh does not submit itself to the Divine law, and thus rebels against God. And why does the mindset (phronema) of the flesh not submit itself to the Divine law? Because it cannot (ou dynatai), namely, to be subject (hypotassesthai). As such, it cannot submit itself to the law of God or fulfill what the law commands. Indeed, the mindset (phronema) of the flesh and the Law of God tend toward opposites.
Rom 8:8
"But those who are in the flesh cannot please God." The particle de (but) here means "I say" (as in 2 Cor. 5:8), and it resumes the discourse where he had said in verse 7: "the wisdom of the flesh is enemy to God," which discourse had been interrupted by the interposed sentence: "for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be."
Moreover, regarding the matter, "to be in the flesh" differs nothing from the preceding "to be according to the flesh" (v. 5). Compare what we have noted on Rom 7:5. But what is said "they cannot" is to be taken absolutely, just as above in verse 7 that "neither indeed can it be." And truly, "no man can serve two masters" (Matt. 6:24).
There is a litotes in the phrase "they cannot please God"; by denying the contrary, it signifies more than it says. For he wishes to say: "Those who are in the flesh are subject to condemnation (katakrimati)."
Rom 8:9
"But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed, etc." Omitting the proof of the latter part of verse 6, the Apostle now applies antithetically to the Roman Christians what he had said in verse 8. "But you," he says, "inasmuch as you are reborn in the sacrament of Baptism through the Holy Spirit, are not in the flesh but are in the spirit."
"If indeed (ei ge) the Spirit of God the Father," i.e., the Holy Spirit whom you received in baptism, "you have not driven from yourselves by any graver sin, and He thus even now remains in you." This passage of the Apostle is especially valid for confirming the doctrine of the Church: 1. That one ought not to promise oneself absolute certainty of perseverance. Compare what we have noted on this matter in the Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians, on Chapter 2, verse 12, and Chapter 3, verse 11. Ei ge is to be rendered not "since indeed" (quandoquidem) but "if indeed" (si tamen); for in what immediately follows, the Apostle posits that it is possible for someone to drive the Holy Spirit received away from himself.
"But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this one is not His." He adds this to terrify, so that they may care with greater solicitude lest they drive the Holy Spirit received away from themselves by graver sin. The Apostle could have continued: "but if you do not have the Spirit of Christ"; but since he was about to say something sad here, he preferred to change the person and say "if anyone," etc., not adding "your."
"But if anyone," he says, "does not have the Spirit of CHRIST," i.e., the Holy Spirit dwelling in him, "this one does not pertain to CHRIST," namely, as a living member of Him, nor is he in the spirit but in the flesh. St. Thomas on this place: "Just as that is not a member of the body which is not vivified by the spirit of the body, so he is not a member of Christ who does not have the Spirit of Christ."
Moreover, it is to be noted that the same Spirit is called by the Apostle here both Pneuma Theou (Spirit of God) and Pneuma Christou (Spirit of Christ), from which it is inferred both that CHRIST is God, and that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, as was defined in the Council of Florence in these words: "We define that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, as from one principle and by a unique spiration."
Rom 8:10
"But if Christ is in you, the body indeed, etc." This is an antithesis to the preceding statement: "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this one is not His." Therefore, the Apostle, regarding the matter, holds it as the same for someone to have the Spirit of Christ and for Christ to be in someone. The reason for this identity is placed in the perichoresis of the Divine Persons, which Latin theologians have called circuminsession. Moreover, that perichoresis of the Divine Persons arises from the unity and identity of the Divine nature, and consists in this: that one Person cannot be divided or separated from another, but without confusion and preserving the distinction, they exist in one another, so that wherever the Divine nature is, there also are the three Divine Persons.
Let St. Chrysostom be heard, who on the words of the Apostle "but if Christ is in you" notes these things: "He said this," he says, "not calling the Holy Spirit CHRIST—far be it!—but showing that he who has the Holy Spirit is not only said to be CHRIST'S but also to have CHRIST Himself. For CHRIST cannot be absent when the Holy Spirit is present. For where one Person of the Trinity is present, the whole Trinity is present; for It exists inseparably and is altogether united to Itself. Therefore, in whom the Holy Spirit is, who is the Spirit of CHRIST, in him CHRIST also is through His Spirit, and equally God the Father is present."
"The body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit lives because of justification." I prefer to translate "because of justice" (propter justitiam); for in Greek here the word dikaiosyne is read, not indeed dikaiosis as above in Rom 4:25, nor dikaioma as in Rom 4:18. The sense is: "But if CHRIST is in you through His Spirit, your body indeed is obnoxious to death (nekron) because of original sin (di' hamartian), but your soul is life (zoe), i.e., living, because of justice (dia dikaiosynen), imparted by the life-giving Holy Spirit." Cf. Rom 1:19.
Most interpret nekron here as "mortal," but "mortal" in Greek is said thneton, whereas nekron signifies "dead." The Apostle, however, in this place called the body obnoxious to death because of original sin "dead" (nekron) by Prolepsis, and he did this, as Maier observes, on account of the antithesis which is there between nekron and zoe. "Nekros," he says, "is not synonymous with thnetos (MORTAL), but gives this sense only indirectly; a proleptic use is to be assumed according to which the surely entering [future] is indicated as already entered, and thus the DEAD indeed changes into MORTAL or SUBJECT TO DEATH." Adalbert Maier, Commentary on this place.
By sin, as we have already hinted, original sin is understood here; for just as above Chapter 5, verse 12, the Apostle taught that through the sin of the First Parent death entered into this world and passed unto all men, because when he sinned all sinned. Nor does it stand in the way that he did not write with the Article dia ten hamartian but without the Article di' hamartian. See above on Chapter 6, verse 14. The preposition dia following the Accusative is said twice in this verse concerning the cause on account of which something is done, as above 3:25. Well says Estius: "From the fact that the Apostle says 'because of sin,' theologians rightly teach that death and the miseries of this life even in just men are punishments of original sin, inasmuch as it is indeed perfectly remitted in Baptism as to guilt and the punishment of the future age, by which namely man is retarded from the entrance of the kingdom of heaven, but not as to the penalties of this age." On which matter there is dispute in 4 Sentences, Dist. 4.
"But the spirit lives." In Greek: to de pneuma zoe ("But the spirit is life"). Pneuma there is simply the human mind, as 1 Cor. 2:11. The Apostle could have said "but the spirit is living (zon)," but for the Concrete zon he preferred the Abstract zoe, in which there is greater force, as though to say: "But the spirit is all quantified life, nothing but life." Moreover, that zoe is understood as the life of grace, which the life of glory will follow; it is understood, I say, as that life which begins from justification and is perfected in blessed immortality.
Rom 8:11
"But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead, etc." The connection of speech here is this: He had just said "Your body indeed is obnoxious to death, but the mind now lives"; he now adds: "but also your body, mortal though it be, will someday be endowed with blessed immortality."
The sense is: "But if the Spirit of God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead, dwells in you, the same Eternal Father who raised Jesus CHRIST your head from the dead, will someday quicken your mortal bodies also, and that on account of the indwelling Spirit of Him, CHRIST (autou), in you."
About to speak of the future immortality of our bodies, the Apostle calls God the Father by a Periphrasis: "Him who raised Jesus from the dead." And he did this because the resurrection of JESUS CHRIST to immortal and glorious life is the exemplar of our resurrection to immortal and glorious life; for which cause JESUS CHRIST elsewhere (1 Cor. 15:20) is called by the Apostle aparche ton kekoimenon ("the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep").
JESUS CHRIST, who as God from God by His own power rose from the dead to immortal and glorious life, as man is said in the Scriptures to have been resuscitated to that life by God the Father, and that by appropriation. For although all works ad extra, as theologians call them, are common to the three Persons, nevertheless from the manner of speaking of the sacred Scriptures, just as some things are appropriated to the Son, others to the Holy Spirit, so those works which are of power, such as the resuscitation of the dead to life, are appropriated to the Father.
"Will quicken also your mortal bodies." A twofold species of resurrection (anastasis) is distinguished in the Holy Scriptures, of which one is called (John 5:29) anastasis zoes ("resurrection of life"), the other anastasis kriseos ("resurrection of judgment"). All will rise from the dead (2 Cor. 5:10), but some to undergo eternal condemnation, and that is the anastasis kriseos; but others to enjoy eternal blessed life, which resurrection is named by JOHN anastasis zoes. And Paul looks to this resurrection here, not indeed directly mentioning it, but obliquely; for his words properly signify that it will be future that the mortal bodies (thneta) of the just will put on immortality. Cf. 1 Cor. 15:53, 54.
"Because of His Spirit dwelling in you."
He explains the cause on account of which (dia) God will quicken the mortal bodies of the just, which cause is placed in this: that they have the Spirit of CHRIST (autou) remaining in themselves.
CONTINUE.
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