So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
Pleasing God
Men’s happiness is to please them upon whom they depend, and upon whose favour their wellbeing hangs. It is the servant’s happiness to please his master, the courtier’s to please his prince. Now certainly all creatures depend upon the Creator, “for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” Then of all things it concerns us most how to please Him, and if we do so we shall assuredly be happy, and it will not matter whom else we displease (Psa_31:19; Psa_36:7). But, on the other hand, how incomparable is the misery of them who cannot please God, even though they did both please themselves and all others for the present! Now, if you ask who they are that are such, the words speak it: “They that are in the flesh,” not they in whom there is flesh, for there are remnants of that in the most spiritual man in this life. The ground of this is chiefly two fold.
I. Because they are not in Jesus Christ in whom his soul is well pleased (Mat_3:17; Mat_17:5). Whoever are not in Jesus Christ certainly cannot please God, do what they can, because God hath made Christ the centre, in which He would have the good pleasure of sinners meeting with His good pleasure; and therefore “without faith it is impossible to please God,” not so much for the excellency of the act itself as for the well-pleasing object of it, Christ. God’s love is well pleased with the excellency of His person, and His justice with the sufficiency and worthiness of His ransom, and without this compass there is neither satisfaction to the one nor to the other. Therefore, if you would please God, be pleased with Christ, and you cannot do Him a greater pleasure than believe in Him (Joh_5:23).
II. Such as are in the flesh cannot frame their spirits, affections, and ways to God’s good pleasure, for their very mind is enmity to God, and cannot be subject to His law (Jer_2:34).
1. It is not the business you have undertaken to please God, but to please yourselves, or to please men. The very beginning of pleasing God is when a soul falls in displeasure at itself and abhorrence of himself (Isa_66:2; Psa_51:17). God never begins to be pleasant to a soul till it begins to fall out of love with itself. Therefore you may conclude this of yourselves, that with many of you God is not well pleased, though you have all Church privileges (1Co_10:2-5), not only because these works of the flesh that are directly opposite to His own known will, such as fornication, murmuring, etc., abound among you, but even those of you that may be free from gross opposition to His holy will, your nature hath the seed of all that enmity, and you act enmity in a more covered way. Certainly, though now you please yourselves, yet the clay shall come that you shall be contrary to yourselves, and all to you (1Th_2:15), and there are some earnests of it in this life. Many wicked persons are set contrary to themselves, and all to them; they are like Esau, their hand against all, and all hands against them; yea, their own consciences continually vexing them; this is a fruit of that enmity between man and God, and if you find it now, you shall find it hereafter.
2. But as for you that are in Jesus Christ, who, being displeased with yourselves, have fled into the well-beloved, in whom the Father is well pleased, to escape God’s displeasure, I say unto such, your persons God is well pleased with in Christ, and this shall make way and place for acceptance to your weak and imperfect performances. But I would charge that upon you, that as you by believing are well pleased with Christ, so you would henceforth study to walk worthy of your Lord into all well pleasing (Col_1:10). If you love Him, you cannot but fashion yourselves so as He may be pleased. (Hugh Binning.)
Pleasing God
I.The impossibility of a carnal mind pleasing God. This springs from the necessity of the case.
1. As dwelling in a nature, every faculty of which is in hostility to His government and being, it is impossible that it can please Him.
2. There being no personal acceptance of those who are in the flesh, whatever they do cannot be accepted of God. First the person, and then the gift, is God’s order (cf. Queen Esther’s interview with Ahasuerus and Jacob’s meeting with Esau)
. How can you do that which is well pleasing to a holy God while your person is to Him an object of just abhorrence?
3. The absence of faith in the unregenerate must render all the religious doings of the sinner displeasing. “For without faith it is impossible to please Him.” How can he please God whose whole existence is a direct denial of God? “He that believeth not hath made God a liar!” Your unbelief is a practical denial of His existence. And, in your non-subjection to His law, you exclude Him from the government of His own world.
4. And what is the entire absence of love to God but another confirmation of the same truth? the great constraining motive of the sacrifice with which God is pleased is love, and “love is the fulfilling of the law.”
II. The character of those with whom God is pleased. They are--
1. A spiritual people, and God, who is a Spirit, must delight in that which harmonises with His own nature.
2. They are an accepted people, and therefore their persons are pleasing to Him. The delight of the Father in Christ reveals the secret of His delight in us. “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
3. But it is a universal pleasing of God which the Scriptures prescribe and enforce (Col_1:10; 1Th_2:2; 1Jn_3:22).
4. But what are some of the footprints of this walk?
(1) Unreserved obedience.
(2) Walking by faith. As unbelief is most dishonouring, so faith is most honouring to the Lord Jesus. (O. Winslow, D. D.)
They that are in the flesh cannot please God
The designation of the persons that is in these words--“They that are in the flesh.” The discovery of their condition in these cannot please God. We begin with the first. The designation of the persons, those that are in the flesh. Now to be in the flesh, according to the language of Scripture, is taken two manner of ways, either in a good or in an indifferent sense, or a bad and unwarrantable sense. First, to be so in a good or in an indifferent sense, and so to be in the flesh is no more than to partake of human nature. Thus, “The life which I now live in the flesh” (Gal_2:20). But, secondly, there is also being in the flesh in a bad and corrupt sense, by taking flesh metonymically for sin, as it is oftentimes taken in Scripture. The second is the predicate, in the discovery of the condition belonging to such persons, and that is, that they cannot please God, viz., whilst they so remain and continue. This may be taken by us two ways, either as denoting the state or the life, the condition or the conversation. First, take it in the first sense, “They that are in the flesh cannot please God”--that is, such persons as are yet remaining in a state of nature and unregeneracy; these are loathsome and displeasing to God. Now it remains that we should show what is here declared of such persons, that they cannot please God. First, take it for their persons. They are unpleasing to Him in reference to them (Psa_54:5; Psa_7:11; Hab_1:13). There is no leprous or contagious person that is more displeasing in the eyes of man than a carnal and unregenerate person is displeasing to the eyes of God. The ground of this unpleasingness may be thus far accounted to us: first, because they are out of Christ, who is the primarily Beloved (Eph_1:6; Mat_3:17). In Him as the termination of His well pleasing, and in Him also as the conveyance; in Him for Himself, and in all others for His sake. All men are so far well pleasing to God as they are in Christ. Now carnal persons are not incorporated into Christ, therefore they cannot be well pleasing to God in such a condition. They are in themselves and in their own nature unlovely. Secondly, unregenerate persons cannot please God, because they want faith. Thirdly, they are altogether unlike God, and so cannot be pleasing to Him in that respect likewise. We know that liking is founded in likeness, and complacency in correspondency. Fourthly, we need go no further for the proof of this point than the text itself, if we look upon it in the coherence of it, and how these carnal persons are therein described as are after the flesh, as do mind the things of the flesh, are in a state of death, in a state of enmity, in a state of impotency, and inability of subjection to the law of God. How is it then possible that such as these should be pleasing to God? The second is in reference to their actions. They cannot please Him so neither. The actions of carnal men are unpleasing to God considered in themselves, because they proceed not from a right principle in them, nor are directed to a right end by them. Sweetness of nature, and ingenuity, and moral accomplishments are very commendable in themselves, and do make men acceptable in their converse one with another, but yet they are not sufficient alone to make men acceptable in the eyes of God. Men are sensible sometimes of their actual sins, and have cause so to be--of their murders, and adulteries, and drunkenness, and thefts, and such courses as these, which now and then do a little astonish them and work some kind of horror in them. But what may they then think of the sin of their nature, which is the occasion of all these to them? For a man to be of a sickly constitution is more than to have a particular distemper or fit of sickness upon him. For this purpose, and to aggravate this so much the more unto us, consider these things further. First, that this corrupt nature, where it remains unchanged in any person, it does expose him to all kind of sin, considered at large, of what nature or kind soever. There is no sin which a man is secure of who is still remaining in his unregenerate condition, but he is not only capable of it, but inclinable to it. Secondly, where men are yet in the flesh and unchanged in their nature, they are exposed to the return of sin again, after some temporary forbearance of it and abstinence from it. There is nothing which is a principle of mortification but only sanctifying and saving grace. Thirdly, this state of nature does make men to commit sin with more delight and eagerness of prosecution. Those that are in their natural condition, they are in a sad and miserable condition. And they are so especially upon this account which is here expressed in the text, because they cannot please God, which carries a great deal more in it than we are presently sensible of, or do easily apprehend. They do not or cannot please God; their case is very terrible and dangerous. Thus it is, and will appear to be so according to sundry explications. First, as it is an obstruction to prayer and the receiving of that. “We know that God hears not sinners,” said the blind man in the gospel (Joh_9:31), and “he that regards iniquity in his heart, the Lord will not hear his prayer” (Psa_66:18). Secondly, it deprives men of blessings and the comfortable influences of God’s providence. God will curse his very blessings and turn his comforts into the greatest crosses unto him; as we see it was with the Israelites, when God was offended and displeased with them: He gave them quails and manna in wrath. Thirdly, it exposes to temptations and the assaults of the spiritual enemy. “Whoso pleaseth God shall be kept from many snares,” But he that does not so, he shall be given up to them. Lastly, it excludes from heaven and eternal happiness and salvation at last. (Thomas Horton, D. D.)
Men in the flesh cannot please God
The phrase notes a man drowned in corruption. We say of a man overcome of anger: he is in heat; of a drunkard: he is in beer or wine. So Simon Magus is said to be in the gall of bitterness. They cannot please God. Nor their persons, nor their thoughts, words, or actions, till they be renewed. Snow can never be made hot while it is snow. Fire will dissolve it into water; then it may be made hot. So the carnal man in that estate cannot please God, but change him into a sanctified estate, and then he can. A man may be prudent, learned, liberal, do many beautiful things in nature, and yet not please God. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit. Velvet is good matter to make a garment, yet it may be so marred in the cutting that it shall never obtain the name of a good garment. Pieces of timber are good matter for a house, but they must be artificially framed. An unregenerate man gives alms, and in giving sins: not because he gives, but because he gives not in the manner he should. (Elnathan Parr, B. A.)
Men in their natural state cannot please God
To please God is of infinite importance. Since He is omniscient and omnipresent, we cannot escape His observation: since He is Almighty, He has our life, and all things belonging to us, continually at His disposal, can make us happy or miserable in a thousand different ways. He is, therefore, the most dreadful enemy or the most beneficial friend we can have. Of what infinite consequence, then, to be in His favour.
I. What is meant by being “in the flesh.” This expression is often used to signify being in the body (Php_1:22; Php_1:24; 1Ti_3:16; 1Pe_4:1-2; 1Pe_4:6; 1Jn_4:2-3); but this is not its meaning here, for many in the body have pleased God. Nor is the living merely in sensuality and the sins of the flesh referred to (Gal_5:16-21), though undoubtedly such cannot please God. But what is intended is the being in our natural state (Gen_6:3 compared with 8:21; Eph_2:3). This implies--
1. The being unpardoned, or in a state of condemnation in consequence of not being “in Christ” (Rom_7:4-6; Rom_8:1).
2. Unregenerated (Joh_3:6).
3. Under the power of our animal and corrupt nature, the “law in our members” leading us captive to sir?
4. “Carnally minded”; minding the body rather than the soul; visible and temporal things rather than invisible and eternal; preferring nature to grace, and the creature to the Creator; being governed by carnal maxims; actuated by carnal views; influenced by carnal desires; engaged in carnal pursuits.
II. In what sense such “cannot please God,” and how this appears to be a fact.
1. While thus in the flesh, such persons are not in God’s favour.
(1) They are not humbled and penitent, without which none can be accepted (Isa_57:15; Isa_66:2; 1Pe_5:5-6; Jam_4:10).
(2) They are not believers; and without faith there is no justification, nor can we please God (Heb_11:4-6; Joh_3:36; Rom_4:23-25; Rom_5:1; 2Co_13:5).
(3) Their carnal mind is not subject to His law. Nay, is enmity against Him. That we should be spiritually minded is for our good; but the carnal mind opposes this good, and “to be carnally minded is death.”
2. Hence it follows that their services are not accepted of God, and that their ways do not please Him. Not being justified, they have not love to God (Rom_5:5), and without love no service is, or can be, pleasing to God.
3. But perhaps it will be objected--
(1) “Cannot they pray, hear the Word?” etc. Yes; but not “worship God in spirit and truth,” which, while destitute of the Spirit, they cannot do, and not doing, they are incapable of pleasing Him: they do not mix faith with the word that is heard, “receive the truth in love,” and obey it from the heart.
(2) But “cannot they preserve an unblamable conduct, give alms,” etc.? Certainly; but this does not please God, as not being done from a right principle, “faith working by love”: to a right end, the glory of God; in a right spirit, humility, purity, benevolence, zeal, etc.; and by a right rule, the will of God, and out of conscience toward Him (Gal_5:6; 1Co_10:31; Col_3:17).
III. The sure mark whereby we may know whether we are in this state (Rom_8:9).
1. By receiving the Spirit we pass from a carnal to a spiritual state (Joh_3:6).
2. By the Spirit dwelling in us we continue in that state (text; Gal_5:16-25). Hereby we know that we are in the Spirit (1Jn_3:24).
3. But we must receive and keep this Spirit as a Spirit of--
(1) Adoption (Rom_8:15-16; Gal_4:4);
(2) Regeneration (Tit_3:5; Joh_3:4-5); productive of its proper fruits. (J. Benson.)
Man’s well-being: its condition and obstruction
I.The condition of man’s well-being. To “please God,” which implies--
1. That God is a pleasable Being. The Eternal is neither callous nor morose.
2. It is possible for man to please Him. It is wonderful that any creature, however high, should be able to please a Being so infinitely happy in Himself; but it is more wonderful that insignificant, fallen man should have this power.
3. How can man please God? Not by singing eulogistic hymns, or offering complimentary prayers, or observing ceremonial ordinances. “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me?” How then?
(1) By loving supremely what He loves most. We are pleased with those who love the objects most dear to our hearts.
(2) By devotion to those objects which interest Him most.
4. In the pleasing of Him is man’s well-being.
(1) Is man’s happiness in a peaceful conscience? Then the conscience must have a sense of God’s approval. The fear of His displeasure terrifies it, the assurance of His approval is its heaven.
(2) Is man’s happiness in gratified love? The loving heart is in anguish until it hears the “well done” of the loved one.
(3) Is man’s happiness in full development of his active powers? Then where can these powers have such stimulus and scope as it endeavours to please the Infinite?
II. The obstruction to man’s well-being. Being “in the flesh.” What is meant by this? Not merely existing in the flesh: thus we all exist; but having the flesh for our master instead of our menial. The man who thus dwells in the flesh gets--
1. Fleshly views of the universe. All above, around, beneath him is materialism. His eyes are too gross to discern the spiritual significance of things; his ear too heavy to catch the spiritual melodies of the world.
2. Truth. “He judges after the flesh.” If he has a theology, it is a sensuous thing.
3. Greatness. He has no idea of greatness apart from splendid costumes, magnificent dwellings, and brilliant equipages.
4. Happiness. He associates happiness with whatever pleases the tastes, charms the senses, satisfies the appetites, and gratifies the lusts.
5. God. He makes God such an one as himself, and gives Him human thoughts and passions. Now the soul in such a state has lost the desire and the power to please God. But the gospel comes to enfranchise the soul from the flesh and to restore to it its absolute sovereignty over the body. This deliverance is a new birth. “He that is born of the flesh is flesh,” etc.(D. Thomas, D. D.)
