So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (9) But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of Gods dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. (10) And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (11) But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you

The letter to the Romans was written by the apostle Paul. Earlier in chapter 8, Paul explains the unbelieving mind which is hostile toward God – not capable of pleasing God – spiritually incapable of even trusting in Christ for salvation. For God’s salvation, His Spirit must raise them from spiritual death to life. In our verses today, Paul now turns to those who live in faith in Christ as reborn. The bodies of the faithful will die but the indwelling Spirit gives believers life because we are righteous in Christ. So Paul divides all people into two categories; those “in the flesh” and “those in the Spirit.” Being a Christian is not a matter of going to church, or believing certain doctrines of Christian faith, or trying to live by certain moral standards but the vital thing is to be born again in faith in Christ. At that moment the Spirit imparts new life to the faithful and dwells in us. It’s a matter of spiritual life or death.

There are consequences of the unbelieving mind governed by flesh – a corrupt nature not remedied by Christ’s sacrifice. They are objects of the wrath of God. Those in Christ are subject to life and peace. He/she who has the Son has the Father also. The body is infected with the principle of decay which renders dissolution inevitable but the soul in which the Spirit dwells is possessed of a principle which secures its immortality and blessed existence. The very possession of the Spirit, which is the source of life, is the pledge and security that our bodies will rise again and the resurrection of Christ secures the resurrection of those that are His. Our bodies are to die but are not to continue under the power of death.

The standing of a believer before God is always in Christ – our failures and shortcomings can never affect our standing before God in Christ. C.S.Lewis writes “Look for yourself and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” “Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”