Living a New Life- Romans 8:4-5

In our previous post, we began an examination of Paul’s instruction to the believer on how to go about living a new life, how to live out the fact that the old man is dead and to live like the new creation which we are. We have seen the first three steps in the process. The first is to know the old man is dead, the second is to count on the old man being dead, and the third is to offer ourselves to God. Before showing us how to “offer ourselves”, a thought occurs to Paul, which he then takes the time to examine in detail for the remainder of Romans 6, then give an example from his own experience in Romans 7. We will briefly examine this detour to see what Paul wants us to see in it, then proceed to chapter 8 to see how we “offer ourselves”. In Romans 6:16-18, Paul tells us something of which most people are unaware, that we all offer ourselves to someone or something, and we become slaves of the one we offer ourselves to. We find a process here also. In verse 16, Paul tells us that “when” (not if) we offer ourselves to someone, we become slaves of the one we offer ourselves to. The offering ourselves is inevitable, it is part of being human, for God made us all with an ingrained need to do so, in order that we may offer ourselves to Him. The first step here is that we offer ourselves, and the second step is that we become slaves of whatever we offer ourselves to. The third step is found in verse 20, where we find that “when we were slaves to sin we were free from the control of righteousness”. We must take note here of the fact that Paul here directly links the concepts of slavery and control, which is the final link in the process he is describing. We will be controlled by whatever we offer ourselves to, all human beings are enslaved by someone or something, and the choice Paul presents here is between offering ourselves to “sin” or “righteousness”. If we offer ourselves to sin, this will produce death of some kind, if we offer ourselves to righteousness we will produce life and peace. The key here to how our lives will proceed is in who or what we offer ourselves to, and Paul here shows us this process in order to emphasize the importance of what we offer ourselves to, for our lives will be controlled by what we offer ourselves to. We then move to Romans 8:5-6 for Paul’s description of how we offer ourselves, and we again find here a very important concept, the concept of “mindset”. Paul clearly tells us here that if we set our minds on the Spirit we will live according to the Spirit, if we set our minds on the flesh, we will live according to the flesh, that what we will be controlled by what we sets our minds on (verse 6). So what we find here is that offering ourselves is equated with what we set our minds on, we offer ourselves by setting our minds. In Paul’s view, mindset is the critical factor in how our lives will proceed. The word mindset here is phroneo in the Greek, which literally means to “diaphragm your mind”. The diaphragm is a part of human anatomy which controls our breathing, and the basic idea here is that we are to control what we think about, that what we think about and focus on is the most critical and important factor in determining how our lives will turn out. This then is how we offer ourselves, not by kneeling at some altar somewhere, but by what we choose to think about, what we focus on will end up controlling us, and we “live a new life” by “setting our minds on things above” (Colossians 3:2). According to Paul, what we set our minds on is the most crucial factor in determining how our lives will go, we are what we think about, which is why Paul begins Romans twelve by telling us to “be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Romans 12:2), which is preceded by his exhortation to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices” (Romans 12:1). So the process which Paul gives through which we go about living a new life begins with knowing that the old man is , and if we know he is dead once and for all, we will then count on the fact he is dead, we will begin to act like he is dead. This is followed the third part which is to offer ourselves to God, counting on the fact that the old man is dead will result in us offering ourselves to God not to the old man, for we know and count on the fact he is dead. We then see that we offer ourselves by setting our minds, what we set our minds on is what we offer ourselves to, and changing what we think about will result in a transformed life. Paul here gives us the theory behind “setting our minds”, and our next post will examine another of Paul’s letters to see how this process of setting our minds works, how the theory plays out in real life.