[Sidenote: Ver. 12.] =So then, brethren, debtors are we--not to the flesh, with a view to living flesh-wise;= but to the Spirit--who is now both our law and our power--with a view to living Spirit-wise. =For if you are living flesh-wise, you are on the way (μέλλετε) to die. But if by the Spirit you are doing to death[131] the practices,= the stratagems, the machinations, =of the body, you will live.= Ah, the body is still there, and is still a seat and vehicle of temptation. "It is for the Lord, and the Lord is for it" (1 Cor. vi. 13). It is the temple of the Spirit. Our call is (1 Cor. vi. 20) to glorify God in it. But all this, _from our point of view_, passes from realization into mere theory, wofully gainsaid by experience, when we let our acceptance in Christ, and our possession in Him of the Almighty Spirit, pass out of use into mere phrase. Say what some men will, we are never for an hour here below exempt from elements and conditions of evil residing not merely around us but within us. There is no stage of life when we can dispense with the power of the Holy Ghost as our victory and deliverance from "_the machinations of the body_." And the body is no separate and as it were minor personality. If the man's body "machinates," it is the man who is the sinner. But then, thanks be to God, this fact is not the real burthen of the words here. What St Paul has to say is that the man who has the indwelling Spirit has with him, in him, a divine and all-effectual Counter-Agent to the subtlest of his foes. Let him do what we saw him above (vii. 7-25) neglecting to do. Let him with conscious purpose, and firm recollection of his wonderful position and possession (so easily forgotten!), call up the eternal Power which is indeed not himself, though in himself. Let him do this with _habitual_ recollection and simplicity. And he shall be "more than conqueror" where he was so miserably defeated. His path shall be as of one who walks over foes who threatened, but who fell, and who die at his feet. It shall be less a struggle than a march, over a battlefield indeed, yet a field of victory so continuous that it shall be as peace.