Romans 8:8

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

Verse 7 Read Chapter 8 Verse 9

Ambrosiaster

AD 400

The wise of this world are in the flesh because they cling to their wisdom, by which they reject God’s law. For whatever goes against the law of God is of the flesh, because it is of the world. For the whole world is flesh and every visible thing is assigned to the flesh. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

In the same way, snow cannot tolerate heat. For when snow is heated it melts; it becomes warm as water, but no one can then call it snow.

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Irenaeus of Lyons

AD 202

The apostle does not reject the substance of flesh but shows that the Spirit must be infused into it. .

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Jerome

AD 420

If all who are carnal cannot please God, how does Paul himself, the speaker, please God? How do Peter and the other apostles and saints, whom we cannot deny were carnal, please him? … It is because they—and we—do not live according to the flesh. We … walk about on the earth, it is true, but we are hastening on our way to heaven, for here we do not have a lasting place, but we are wayfarers and pilgrims, like all our fathers.

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

Are we to cut our bodies to pieces in order to please God? Should we become murderers in order to practice virtue? You see what inconsistencies result if we take these words literally! What Paul means by the flesh in this passage is not the essence of the body but a life which is carnal and worldly, serving selfindulgence and extravagance to the full.

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

Why is this? Is not the speaker himself clad in flesh? Paul does not mean that those clad in flesh are incapable of pleasing God but rather those who put no store by virtue, whose thoughts are totally carnal and who are caught up in pleasures of that kind, paying no attention to their soul, which is incorporeal and intellectual.

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Tertullian of Carthage

AD 220

In these and in similar statements it is not the substance of the flesh which is censured but its actions.

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Tertullian of Carthage

AD 220

In other passages also he is accustomed to put the natural condition instead of the works that are done therein, as when he says, that "they who are in the flesh cannot please God.". Although he affirms that "they who are in the flesh cannot please God". For when he actually declares that "they who are in the flesh cannot please God "he immediately recalls the statement from an heretical sense to a sound one, by adding, "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.". "Openly let us vindicate our disciplines. Sure we are that "they who are in the flesh cannot please God; "

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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20