Romans 8:6-8

8:6 For the outlook ¹  of the flesh is death, but the outlook of the Spirit is life and peace, 8:7 because the outlook of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor is it able to do so. 8:8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Romans 8:1

The Believer’s Relationship to the Holy Spirit

8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² 

Colossians 3:3

3:3 for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Colossians 3:2

3:2 Keep thinking about things above, not things on the earth,

Colossians 1:20

1:20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross – through him, ³  whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Galatians 5:19-20

5:19 Now the works of the flesh ⁴  are obvious: ⁵  sexual immorality, impurity, depravity, 5:20 idolatry, sorcery, ⁶  hostilities, ⁷  strife, ⁸  jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, ⁹  factions,

James 3:14-16

3:14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfishness in your hearts, do not boast and tell lies against the truth. 3:15 Such ¹⁰  wisdom does not come ¹¹  from above but is earthly, natural, ¹²  demonic. 3:16 For where there is jealousy and selfishness, there is disorder and every evil practice.

James 4:1-6

Passions and Pride

4:1 Where do the conflicts and where ¹³  do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, ¹⁴  from your passions that battle inside you? ¹⁵  4:2 You desire and you do not have; you murder and envy and you cannot obtain; you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask; 4:3 you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, so you can spend it on your passions.

4:4 Adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world means hostility toward God? ¹⁶  So whoever decides to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy. 4:5 Or do you think the scripture means nothing when it says, ¹⁷  “The spirit that God ¹⁸  caused ¹⁹  to live within us has an envious yearning”? ²⁰  4:6 But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.” ²¹ 

[8:6]  ¹ tn Or “mindset,” “way of thinking” (twice in this verse and once in v. 7). The Greek term φρόνημα does not refer to one’s mind, but to one’s outlook or mindset.

[8:1]  ² tc The earliest and best witnesses of the Alexandrian and Western texts, as well as a few others (א* B D* F G 6 1506 1739 1881 pc co), have no additional words for v. 1. Later scribes (A D¹ Ψ 81 365 629 pc vg) added the words μὴ κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσιν (mh kata sarka peripatousin, “who do not walk according to the flesh”), while even later ones (א² D² 33^vid Ï) added ἀλλὰ κατὰ πνεῦμα (alla kata pneuma, “but [who do walk] according to the Spirit”). Both the external evidence and the internal evidence are compelling for the shortest reading. The scribes were evidently motivated to add such qualifications (interpolated from v. 4) to insulate Paul’s gospel from charges that it was characterized too much by grace. The KJV follows the longest reading found in Ï.

[1:20]  ³ tc The presence or absence of the second occurrence of the phrase δι᾿ αὐτοῦ (di’ autou, “through him”) is a difficult textual problem to solve. External evidence is fairly evenly divided. Many ancient and excellent witnesses lack the phrase (B D* F G I 0278 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 al latt sa), but equally important witnesses have it (Ì⁴⁶ א A C D¹ Ψ 048^vid 33 Ï). Both readings have strong Alexandrian support, which makes the problem difficult to decide on external evidence alone. Internal evidence points to the inclusion of the phrase as original. The word immediately preceding the phrase is the masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou); thus the possibility of omission through homoioteleuton in various witnesses is likely. Scribes might have deleted the phrase because of perceived redundancy or awkwardness in the sense: The shorter reading is smoother and more elegant, so scribes would be prone to correct the text in that direction. As far as style is concerned, repetition of key words and phrases for emphasis is not foreign to the corpus Paulinum (see, e.g., Rom 8:23, Eph 1:13, 2 Cor 12:7). In short, it is easier to account for the shorter reading arising from the longer reading than vice versa, so the longer reading is more likely original.

[5:19]  ⁴ tn See the note on the word “flesh” in Gal 5:13.

[5:19]  ⁵ tn Or “clear,” “evident.”

[5:20]  ⁶ tn Or “witchcraft.”

[5:20]  ⁷ tn Or “enmities,” “[acts of] hatred.”

[5:20]  ⁸ tn Or “discord” (L&N 39.22).

[5:20]  ⁹ tn Or “discord(s)” (L&N 39.13).

[3:15]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “This.”

[3:15]  ¹¹ tn Grk “come down”; “descend.”

[3:15]  ¹² tn Grk “soulish,” which describes life apart from God, characteristic of earthly human life as opposed to what is spiritual. Cf. 1 Cor 2:14; 15:44-46; Jude 19.

[4:1]  ¹³ tn The word “where” is repeated in Greek for emphasis.

[4:1]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “from here.”

[4:1]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “in your members [i.e., parts of the body].”

[4:4]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “is hostility toward God.”

[4:5]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “vainly says.”

[4:5]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:5]  ¹⁹ tc The Byzantine text and a few other mss (P 33 Ï) have the intransitive κατῴκησεν (katwkhsen) here, which turns τὸ πνεῦμα (to pneuma) into the subject of the verb: “The spirit which lives within us.” But the more reliable and older witnesses (Ì⁷⁴ א B Ψ 049 1241 1739 al) have the causative verb, κατῴκισεν (katwkisen), which implies a different subject and τὸ πνεῦμα as the object: “The spirit that he causes to live within us.” Both because of the absence of an explicit subject and the relative scarcity of the causative κατοικίζω (katoikizw, “cause to dwell”) compared to the intransitive κατοικέω (katoikew, “live, dwell”) in biblical Greek (κατοικίζω does not occur in the NT at all, and occurs one twelfth as frequently as κατοικέω in the LXX), it is easy to see why scribes would replace κατῴκισεν with κατῴκησεν. Thus, on internal and external grounds, κατῴκισεν is the preferred reading.

[4:5]  ²⁰ tn Interpreters debate the referent of the word “spirit” in this verse: (1) The translation takes “spirit” to be the lustful capacity within people that produces a divided mind (1:8, 14) and inward conflicts regarding God (4:1-4). God has allowed it to be in man since the fall, and he provides his grace (v. 6) and the new birth through the gospel message (1:18-25) to counteract its evil effects. (2) On the other hand the word “spirit” may be taken positively as the Holy Spirit and the sense would be, “God yearns jealously for the Spirit he caused to live within us.” But the word for “envious” or “jealous” is generally negative in biblical usage and the context before and after seems to favor the negative interpretation.

[4:6]  ²¹ sn A quotation from Prov 3:34.