---
title: Romans 8:8
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/romans-8-8/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/romans-8-8.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Romans 8:8
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Romans 8:8

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "those who are in harmony with the flesh cannot please God"

## JW Usage

Watchtower commentary takes Romans 8:8 as describing the impossibility of pleasing God while pursuing fleshly desires. The verse motivates Witnesses to maintain moral conduct, meeting attendance, and field-service activity — all as evidence of harmony with Jehovah's standards rather than the flesh.

## Protestant Usage

Read v8 with v9: "those who are in harmony with the flesh cannot please God. However, you are not in harmony with the flesh, but with the spirit, IF the spirit of God truly dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him." Paul gives no third category — Spirit-indwelt believers belong to Christ, non-indwelt persons do not. By the Watchtower's own theology, the great crowd does not have the indwelling Spirit. By Paul's own theology, that puts them outside belonging to Christ. The two-tier system collapses on Paul's binary: have the Spirit and belong to Christ, or do not have the Spirit and do not belong. There is no organisational middle.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders hoi en sarki ontes ("those who are in the flesh") as "those who are in harmony with the flesh" — consensus reads "in the flesh" (ESV/NASB/KJV) or "controlled by the flesh" (NIV). The expansion softens Paul's ontological category — being in the flesh — into a disposition or alignment. The shift blurs the binary v9 forces: in flesh vs in Spirit, with no middle ground for an organisational category of "spiritually aligned but not Spirit-indwelt."

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Spirit Indwelling Required](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/romans8-spirit.md) — Romans 8 [Salvation]