For Paul, living through the Spirit means firstly crusading against the "deeds of the body.” Here he refers to the body (the members) that lives unchecked and thereby pollutes, harms or disappoints those around us. We thereby re-engage in the very same struggle against sin demanded by the law. Yet this time we are not left to our own devices. Our strong Hero stands by our side and enables us to attain what had not been possible under the law: putting the practices of our body to death. Paul is not calling on us to put our own will to death, but to put to death the deeds of the body.
These deeds are in any case things that believers under the law and Gentile Christians apart from the law do not want to do. Paul now calls upon those whose will has been renewed by the Spirit to take the renewal of their bodies seriously by loving their neighbours.
The practical deeds we do with our bodies, when viewed in terms of the renewed struggle against our enmity with God and our neighbour, suddenly acquires new meaning in terms of being acts of victory. Through the Spirit we once again enter the battle against evil deeds, but this time we are not alone. This time we will win and inherit life.1
13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.