In Rom 8:1-14, Paul discusses the differences between walking, minding, and living after the flesh or after the Spirit.
Walk after the flesh or after the Spirit, Rom 8:1-4.
Rom 8:1, 4 to “walk after the flesh” concerns the way you walk. Even after you’re saved, you can come into condemnation if you walk after the flesh. You won’t be condemned in hell, but you will certainly face temporal condemnation and the loss of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. Our flesh is capable of anything after we are saved that we could do before we were saved.
If, however, you walk after the Spirit, there is no condemnation. Like Gal 5:16 says, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh”.
The righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, v.4. Religious people walk and do what they do to be seen, like the Pharisees did. They have their own sense of righteousness after the flesh. It was the Pharisees, with their own fleshly righteousness, who plotted to have Jesus executed.
The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us as we yield to Spirit and the righteousness of Christ in us, Rom 6:12-22.
Mind after the flesh or after the Spirit, Rom 8:5-7.
Rom 8:5-7 to “mind after the flesh” concerns the way you think. You cannot please God with a carnal mind.
When we mind after the Spirit, we have life and peace. This is the life of faith, where we lean not unto our own understanding, but seek and follow God’s direction. “Without faith it is impossible to please” God, Heb 11:6.
1 Cor 2:14 says, “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are spiritually discerned”. The natural man does things like yoga and meditation. These are manifestations of man’s spirit. The spiritual mind, on the other hand, is concerned with spiritual things of the Spirit.
The carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God (word of God), because it can’t be. Pharisees and religions use the Bible to build their traditions, not to please God. The spiritual mind, on the other hand, seeks the truth of God’s words and grows in obedience to it.
Live after the flesh or after the Spirit, Rom 8:8-14.
Rom 8:8-14 to “live after the flesh” concerns the way you live. The flesh is interested in self preservation, self will, self pleasure. To live after the flesh is death.
To live after the Spirit is life. The Spirit in interested in self denial. Life comes through death. Christ died that we may live. We die so that Christ may live in us.
You are living either in the flesh or in the Spirit. There is no neutral ground between these two. If you live after the flesh, you are concerned with your temporal life and earthly things. If you lice after the Spirit, you are concerned with eternal life and heavenly things.
Conclusion: Because we have the indwelling of the Spirit, v.9-11 and the leading of the Spirit, v.14, we can have a spiritual walk, a spiritual mind, and a spiritual life. Live in conformity to what the Spirit is doing in your life rather than in conformity to what your flesh wants.