Why is the warning that living after the flesh brings death still in effect?
The warning remains because it is the unchanging consequence God first gave Adam and Eve in Eden: the day they ate they would surely die, and that decree has not changed. Living after the flesh still leads to death, while mortifying the deeds of the body through the Spirit leads to life.
In Romans 8:12–13, Paul says believers are debtors not to the flesh, to live after the flesh, because living after the flesh brings death. Les points out this was the first admonition to Adam and Eve in the garden—that the day they ate they should surely die—and it hasn’t changed. The remedy is to mortify the deeds of the body through the Spirit, and then you shall live. Les also stresses that the Christian life involves discipline, but it is not merely giving up things you love; rather, your appetites change, so you begin to hate what you once loved and love what you once hated.
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
More Questions
Where was the warning that sin leads to death first given?
The warning in Romans 8:13 that living after the flesh brings death was the same admonition first given to Adam and Eve in the garden, and it has not changed.