Romans 8:8

THE MESSAGE

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

King James Version (1611)
So then they that are in the flesh, cannot please God.

King James Version
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

English Standard Version
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

New American Standard Bible
and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

New Century Version
Those people who are ruled by their sinful selves cannot please God.

Amplified Bible
and those who are in the flesh [living a life that caters to sinful appetites and impulses] cannot please God.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Legacy Standard Bible
and those who are in the flesh are not able to please God.

Berean Standard Bible
Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God.

Contemporary English Version
If we follow our desires, we cannot please God.

Complete Jewish Bible
Thus, those who identify with their old nature cannot please God.

Darby Translation
and they that are in flesh cannot please God.

Easy-to-Read Version
Those who are ruled by their sinful selves cannot please God.

Geneva Bible (1587)
So then they that are in the flesh, can not please God.

George Lamsa Translation
So then, they who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Good News Translation
Those who obey their human nature cannot please God.

Lexham English Bible
and those who are in the flesh are not able to please God.

Literal Translation
And those being in the flesh are not able to please God.

American Standard Version
and they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

Bible in Basic English
So that those who are in the flesh are not able to give pleasure to God.

Hebrew Names Version
Those who are in the flesh can't please God.

International Standard Version
Indeed, those who are under the control of the flesh cannot please God.

Etheridge Translation
and they who are in the flesh cannot please Aloha.

Murdock Translation
And they who are in the flesh cannot Please God.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
So then, they that are in the fleshe, can not please God.

English Revised Version
and they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

World English Bible
Those who are in the flesh can't please God.

Wesley's New Testament (1755)
So then they who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Weymouth's New Testament
And those whose hearts are absorbed in earthly things cannot please God.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
And thei that ben in fleisch, moun not plese to God.

Update Bible Version
and those that are in the flesh can't please God.

Webster's Bible Translation
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

New English Translation
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

New King James Version
So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

New Living Translation
That's why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.

New Life Bible
Those who do what their sinful old selves want to do cannot please God.

New Revised Standard
and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
They, moreover, who in flesh have their being, cannot please, God.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And they who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Revised Standard Version
and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Tyndale New Testament (1525)
So then they yt are geven to the flesshe canot please God.

Young's Literal Translation
for neither is it able; and those who are in the flesh are not able to please God.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
As for the that are fleshlye, they can not please God.

Mace New Testament (1729)
so that they who are in a carnal state, cannot be acceptable to the divine being. as for you,

Simplified Cowboy Version
An enemy of God can never please him.

Contextual Overview

¹With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. ³God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us. ⁵Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored. ⁹But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

they that: Romans 8:9, Romans 7:5, John 3:3, John 3:5, John 3:6

please: Matthew 3:17, John 8:29, 1 Corinthians 7:32, Philippians 4:18, Colossians 1:10, Colossians 3:20, 1 Thessalonians 4:1, Hebrews 11:5, Hebrews 11:6, Hebrews 13:16, Hebrews 13:21, 1 John 3:22

Reciprocal: Genesis 8:21 - the imagination Deuteronomy 1:43 - but rebelled Job 14:4 - Who can bring Job 15:13 - turnest Isaiah 53:10 - when thou shalt make his soul Matthew 15:19 - out Mark 7:21 - out John 5:44 - can John 6:44 - man John 8:23 - Ye are from John 8:43 - ye cannot John 15:24 - hated Romans 1:28 - as they did Romans 1:30 - haters Ephesians 2:3 - fulfilling Ephesians 4:18 - alienated Colossians 1:21 - sometime 2 Thessalonians 2:12 - but

Cross-References

Genesis 8:10
He waited seven more days and sent out the dove again. It came back in the evening with a freshly picked olive leaf in its beak. Noah knew that the flood was about finished.

Genesis 8:12
He waited another seven days and sent the dove out a third time. This time it didn't come back.

Song of Solomon 1:15

The Man

Oh, my dear friend! You're so beautiful! And your eyes so beautiful—like doves!

Song of Solomon 2:14
class="poetry"> I'm just a wildflower picked from the plains of Sharon, a lotus blossom from the valley pools.

The Man

A lotus blossoming in a swamp of weeds— that's my dear friend among the girls in the village.

The Woman

As an apricot tree stands out in the forest, my lover stands above the young men in town. All I want is to sit in his shade, to taste and savor his delicious love. He took me home with him for a festive meal, but his eyes feasted on me! Oh! Give me something refreshing to eat—and quickly! Apricots, raisins—anything. I'm about to faint with love! His left hand cradles my head, and his right arm encircles my waist! Oh, let me warn you, sisters in Jerusalem, by the gazelles, yes, by all the wild deer: Don't excite love, don't stir it up, until the time is ripe—and you're ready. Look! Listen! There's my lover! Do you see him coming? Vaulting the mountains, leaping the hills. My lover is like a gazelle, graceful; like a young stag, virile. Look at him there, on tiptoe at the gate, all ears, all eyes—ready! My lover has arrived and he's speaking to me!

The Man

Get up, my dear friend, fair and beautiful lover—come to me! Look around you: Winter is over; the winter rains are over, gone! Spring flowers are in blossom all over. The whole world's a choir—and singing! Spring warblers are filling the forest with sweet arpeggios. Lilacs are exuberantly purple and perfumed, and cherry trees fragrant with blossoms. Oh, get up, dear friend, my fair and beautiful lover—come to me! Come, my shy and modest dove— leave your seclusion, come out in the open. Let me see your face, let me hear your voice. For your voice is soothing and your face is ravishing.

Matthew 10:16
"Stay alert. This is hazardous work I'm assigning you. You're going to be like sheep running through a wolf pack, so don't call attention to yourselves. Be as cunning as a snake, inoffensive as a dove.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

So then they that are in the flesh,.... They that are in the flesh are the same who are said to be after it, Romans 8:5, and are there described. Such

cannot please God; men, whilst unregenerate, and as such, cannot please God; for though the persons of God's elect are wellpleasing to him always, as considered in Christ, in whom they are loved with an everlasting love, and were chosen in him, and all provisions grace and glory made for them in him; yet as considered in themselves, and whilst in the flesh, do not please him; for they are straying from him, are alienated from his life, are destitute of all grace, and particularly faith, without which it is impossible to please him; are filthy and unclean, and hence, whilst such have no enjoyment of him, or communion with him; wherefore he sends his Spirit to work in them that which is wellpleasing in his sight: but this is not to be understood so much of persons, and their non-acceptableness to God, as of the inability of unregenerate men to obtain the good will of God, or make their peace with him; which they have no inclination to, being enmity against him; and were they inclined to it, know not how to go about it; nor can they draw nigh to God to treat with him about terms of peace; nor can they do that which can procure peace; Christ is the only person that can, make peace, and has done it: or rather, of the impotency of natural men to do anything which pleasing in the sight of God. There are many things which are pleasing to him, such as prayer, praise, giving of alms, keeping his commandments, and walking in his ways; but these unregenerate men cannot do in any acceptable manner to God; for they are without the Spirit, without Christ, without faith; and in all they do have no view to the glory of God: they have neither grace, nor strength, nor right principles, nor right ends.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

So then - It follows; it leads to this conclusion.

They that are in the flesh - They who are unrenewed sinners; who are following supremely the desires of the flesh; Romans 7:18. Those are meant here who follow fleshly appetites and desires, and who are not led by the Spirit of God.

Cannot please God - That is, while they are thus in the flesh; while they thus pursue the desires of their corrupt nature, they cannot please God. But this affirms nothing respecting their ability to turn from this course, and to pursue a different mode of life. That is a different question. A child may be obstinate, proud, and disobedient; and while in this state, it may be affirmed of him that he cannot please his parent. But whether he might not cease to be obstinate, and become obedient, is a very different inquiry; and the two subjects should never be be confounded. It follows from this,

1. That those who are unrenewed are totally depraved, since in this state they cannot please God.

(2)That none of their actions while in this state can be acceptable to him, since he is pleased only with those who are spiritually minded.

(3)That those who are in this state should turn from it without delay; as it is desirable that every man should please God.

(4)That if the sinner does not turn from his course, he will be ruined.

With his present character he can never please him; neither in health nor sickness; neither in life nor death; neither on earth nor in hell. He is engaged in hostility against God; and if he does not himself forsake it, it will be endless, and involve his soul in all the evils of a personal, and direct, and eternal warfare with the Lord Almighty.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Romans 8:8. So then — Because this carnal mind is enmity against God, they that are in the flesh-who are under the power of the workings of this carnal mind, (which every soul is that has not received redemption in the blood of the Lamb,)-

Cannot please God. — Because of the rebellious workings of this principle of rebellion and hatred. And, if they cannot please God, they must be displeasing to him; and consequently in the broad road to final perdition.