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Rom_8:13. Reason for Rom_8:12—“for so ye would attain the opposite of your destination, as specified in Rom_8:10-11.” The μέλλειν (comp. Rom_4:24) indicates the “certum et constitutum esse secundum vim (divini) fati.” Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 72.
ἀποθνήσκειν ] The opposite of the ζωή in Rom_8:10 f.; consequently used of the being transferred into the state of eternal death; and then ζήσεσθε in the sense of eternal life (see Rom_8:17). Comp. Rom_7:10; Rom_7:24, Rom_8:6; Rom_8:10. This dying does not exclude the resurrection of the body (Rückert), but points to the unblissful existence in Hades before (Luk_16:23) and after (comp. Mat_10:28) the judgment. If it were true that Paul did not believe in a resurrection for unbelievers, he would stand in direct antagonism to Joh_5:28 f.; Act_24:15; Mat_5:29 f., Mat_10:28; and even 1Co_15:24 (see on that passage). Here also Philippi combines bodily, spiritual, and eternal death; but see above, on Rom_5:12. And here it may be specially urged against this view, that the dying and living are assigned purely to the region of the future. Oecumenius aptly says: τὸν ἀθάνατον θάνατον ἐν τῇ γεέννῃ .
πνεύματι ] i.e. by means of the Holy Spirit, comp. Rom_8:4-6; Rom_8:9, and the following πνεύματι Θεοῦ ; consequently here also not subjective (Philippi and others: “pneumatic condition of mind”).
τὰς πράξεις τοῦ σώμ .] The practices (tricks, machinations, see on Col_3:9; Luk_23:51; Act_19:18; Dem. 126. 22; Polyb. ii. 7, 8, ii. 9. 2, iv. 8. 3, v. 96. 4; and Sturz, Lex. Xen. III. p. 646) which the body (in accordance with the νόμος ἐν τοῖς μέλεσι , Rom_7:23) desires to carry out. These we make dead ( θανατοῦτε ), when the Ego, following the drawing of the Holy Spirit, conquers the lusts that form their basis; so that they do not come to realization, and are reduced to nothing. Σῶμα is not used here for σάρξ (Reiche and others); Paul has not become inconsistent with his own use of language (Stirm in Tüb. Zeitschr. 1834, 3, p. 11), but has regarded the (in itself indifferent) σῶμα as the executive organ of the sin, which, dwelling in the σάρξ of the body, rules over the body, and makes it the σῶμα ἁμαρτίας (Rom_6:6), if the Spirit does not obtain the control and make it His organ. The term πράξεις , further used by Paul only in Col_3:9 (not ἔργα ), is purposely selected to express the evil conception, which Hofmann (“acts”) without any ground calls in question. It is frequently used thus by Greek authors, as also πράγματα .
The alternating antithesis is aptly chosen, so that in the two protases living and putting to death, in the apodoses death and life, stand contrasted with one another.