Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans John Calvin (continued)
Commentary on Romans
They boast that the heart can turn to either side, provide it be aided by the influence of the Spirit, and that a free choice of good or evil is in our power, when the Spirit only brings help; but it is ours to choose or refuse. They also imagine some good emotions, by which we become of ourselves prepared. Paul, on the contrary, declares, that the heart is full of hardness and indomitable contumacy, so that it is never moved naturally to undertake the yoke of God; nor does he speak of this or of that faculty, but speaking indefinitely, he throws into one bundle all the emotions which arise within us. 248 Far, then, from a Christian heart be this heathen philosophy respecting the liberty of the will. Let every one acknowledge himself to be the servant of sin, as he is in reality, that he may be made free, being set at liberty by the grace of Christ: to glory in any other liberty is the highest folly.
8. They then who are in the flesh, etc. It is not without reason that I have rendered the adversative {δὲ} as an illative: for the Apostle infers from what had been said, that those who give themselves up to be guided by the lusts of the flesh, are all of them abominable before God; and he has thus far confirmed this truth, — that all who walk not after the Spirit are alienated from Christ, for they are without any spiritual life.
Romans 8:9-11
Romans 8:9-11
9. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
9. Vos autem non estis in carne, sed in Spiritu, siquidem Spiritus Dei habitat in vobis: si quis vero Spiritum Christi non habet, hic non est ejus.
10. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
10. Si vero Christus in vobis est, corpus quidem mortuum est propter peccatum, Spiritus autem vita est propter justitiam.
11. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
11. Si inquam Spiritus ejus qui suscitavit Iesum ex mortuis, habitat in vo-
248Stuart attempts to evade this conclusion, but rather in an odd way. The whole amount, as he seems to say, of what the Apostle declares, is that this {φρόνημα} {σαρκός} itself is not subject, and cannot be, to the law of God; but whether the sinner who cherishes it "is actuated by other principles and motives," the expression, he says, does not seem satisfactorily to determine. Hence he stigmatizes with the name of "metaphysical reasoning" the doctrine of man's moral inability, without divine grace, to turn to God — a doctrine which Luther, Calvin, and our own Reformers equally maintained. The Apostle does not only speak abstractedly, but he applies what he advances to individuals, and concludes by saying, So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Who and what can bring them out of this state? The influence of "other principles and motives," or the grace of God? This is no metaphysical question, and the answer to it determines the point. Our other American brother, Barnes, seems also to deprecate this doctrine of moral inability, and makes distinctions to no purpose, attempting to separate the carnal mind from him in whom it exists, as though man could be in a neutral state, neither in the flesh nor in the Spirit. "It is an expression," as our third American brother, Hodge, justly observes, "applied to all unrenewed persons, as those who are not in the flesh are in the Spirit." — Ed.