Romans 8:4

that the righteousness of the law, &c. Here is the (for us) Final Cause of the Atonement. Both as a satisfaction of the Law as regards God, and as the manifestation and pledge of Divine Love as regards man, it was to give man peace with God (see on ch. Romans 5:1, &c.), and so to bring his will into real working harmony with the will of God. Atonement was to result in love and holiness.

righteousness Better, legal claim; that which the Law laid down as the requisite for man, as his only possible right state. (The form of the Gr. word is different from that usually rendered "righteousness.") What this "claim" is we find in the Lord's definition of the Great Commandments; supreme love to God, and unselfish love to man.

fulfilled The context, as now interpreted, will explain this word. The saints "fulfil" the law's "claim" not in the sense of sinless perfection, (for see last chapter, and cp. 1 John 1:8-10,) but in that of a true, living, and working consent to its principles; the consent of full conviction, and of a heart whose affections are won to God. The Law could not compel them to "delight with" itself; but the gift and work of the Son of the Father do draw them "with the cords of love" to find the Law (as the expression of His now all-beloved will) "good, perfect, and acceptable." This state of things is further described in the next clause.

in us The justified.

who walk, &c. "Who live and act;" a very frequent Scripture metaphor, from Genesis 5:22 onwards. "After the flesh:" on its principles, by its rule. So "after the Spirit:" as the Spirit animates and guides.

The Flesh The Spirit

This seems to be a proper place for a few general remarks on these two important words.

A. The Flesh. In N. T. usage, on the whole, this word bears in each place (where its meaning is not merely literal) one of two meanings. It denotes either (a) human nature as conditioned by the body; (e.g. Romans 9:3; Romans 9:5; Romans 9:8; 2 Corinthians 7:5, &c. &c.;) or (b) human nature as conditioned by the Fall, or in other words by the dominion of sin, which then began, and which works so largely through the conditions of bodilylife that those conditions are almost, in language, identified with sinfulness. (See e.g. the present passage, and Romans 7:5; Romans 7:18; Romans 7:25; Romans 13:14; Galatians 5:17-24, &c., &c.) In the firstconnexion "the flesh" may bear a neutral, or a holy, meaning; (John 1:14;) in the second, it means a state which is essentially evil, and which may be described with practical correctness as (1) the state of man unregenerate, and (2), in the regenerate, the state of that element of the being which still resists grace. For manifestly (see Galatians 5:17) "the flesh" isan element still in the regenerate, not only in the sense of corporealconditions, but in that of sinfulconditions. But, in the latter sense, they are no longer characterizedby it; they are not "fleshly," because the dominantelement is now not "the flesh," but the renewed will, energized by the Divine Spirit.

B. The Spirit. In the present context this word, in our view, denotes the Holy Ghost, except in Romans 8:10; Romans 8:16, where the humanspirit is spoken of. That it means here the Holy Ghost seems plain, because it is regarded as a regulatingprinciple, and immediately below (Romans 8:13-14) the Divine Spirit is described as the regulatorof the will of the saints. We do not of course deny the reality of the humanspirit, even in the unregenerate (1 Corinthians 2:11; Ecclesiastes 12:7). But here, as in a large majority of N. T. passages, the personal Divine Spirit is depicted as in such a sense inhabiting and informing the regenerate human spirit that He, rather than it, is regarded as the dominant rule and influence in the being. Thus, Romans 8:9, the regenerate are said to be "in the Spirit," not "in the flesh," not because their human spiritsare in command of their being, but because the Divine Spirit dwells in them. He does not dispossess their spirit, but so possesses it that He in and through it is the ruler of the man.

As regards the human spirit, (Romans 8:10; Romans 8:16;) the word, in both O. T. and N. T., has now a wider, now a narrower meaning. Now it is the whole incorporeal element of the being the whole antithesis of "the body;" now it is the "nobler powers" of that element the antithesis of "the soul," in that narrower sense of "soul" which concerns instincts rather than conscience, reflection, and deliberate affections. Man is thus sometimes "body and soul;" (e.g. Matthew 10:28, and cf. Revelation 6:9;) and sometimes "body, soul, and spirit;" (e.g. 1 Thessalonians 5:23). And in 1 Corinthians 15:44, in the Gr., a remarkable contrast is drawn between the present body, "characterized by soul," and the future body, "characterized by spirit." It must be remembered, however, that, unless in passages of exceptional antithesis, the distinction of soul and spirit may easily be pressed too far, and that in no case are they to be thought of as distinct in the sense in which they both are distinct from the body. We have no hint that they are two separable elements; they are rather different aspects and exercises of the same incorporeal element.