Grow 14: Romans 8:12-17

Romans 8:12-17 (NASB)

¹²So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh-- ¹³for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. ¹⁵For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" ¹⁶The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

Daddy!

These verses deal with one of the most pivotal elements in understanding our Salvation.  It is the understanding of the fact of our actual relationship to God as His children.  For some people even the mention of the word “father” can be painful; wrapped up in memories and experiences of pain and hurt.  Here we see the believer has God as his or her true Father.  We find that only God will satisfy that longing, or need, of all of us to be known and deeply loved by the One who made us.  These verses continue the amazing description of what is true of the believer based wholly and entirely on God’s amazing grace.

Romans 8:12-13

¹²So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh-- ¹³for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Great!  More logic!

Paul continues with his use of logical connectives.  This argument continues to build increasingly on what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us.  This is rooted in the verses before in which the Spirit of God was seen to permanently indwell every single believer in Jesus Christ.  The indwelling Holy Spirit was seen there to be a mark of ownership and was equally attributed as being both the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God, again clearly alluding to the entire Trinity being at work in the amazing miracle of our salvation.  Building upon this Paul continues this out to say that not only are we assured of Christ’s ultimate victory in our lives, it is even more personal than that!

What do I owe ya’?

When we break off a relationship with a landlord we may yet owe them a security deposit.  When a prisoner is released from jail they may have some remaining obligation to meet with a parole officer.  In the previous verses we found that we have been released completely from the demands of the flesh.  Here we see that there is no debt that we have left to pay to the flesh.  We don’t owe the sin nature anything, and are never again going to be in a relationship where we must obey the sin nature.  Even when the only option in the world seems to walk according to the sin nature, nothing could be further from the truth.

Live according to the flesh

The way this is described is with the phrase “live according to the flesh”.  The idea going back to the reality that the believer has two life-sources from which we can operate:  the sin nature (flesh) or the Spirit.  When we are operating according to the flesh it can look like overt sinful actions, or like legalism.  When we are walking according to the Spirit we experience nothing but life, righteousness and peace.  The fact that we are never again obligated to walk in the flesh teaches us a couple of important facts:

1) When we live according to the sin nature it is because we chose to.

2)  We never need to choose to do so again (we don’t have to).

Death

Here, again we see death in the Bible as separation.  Many translations give the sense that this is a future death, but in the text here “you will die” are present tense and indicative mode.  This is to say that “when you walk in the flesh, you die.”  This is a simple statement of fact.  When we walk in the flesh we are separated in our fellowship with God.  The believer who is walking according to the flesh (and every believer will do so at some time or another) is instantly in broken fellowship with God.  The answer?  To live by the Spirit!

Experiencing Death, or Putting to Death

Here we have the two different modes of existence categorized.  Either we are separated in our fellowship from God, or we are reckoning ourselves dead to our sin nature and are in fellowship with God.  This idea of “putting to death the deeds of the body” may sound abstract, or even mystical.  But once again, a consistent understanding of the word “death” makes it far less confusing.  Very seldom are we tempted to walk in the sin nature by someone coming up and saying, “Take your eyes of Christ!  Get really angry at me instead!”  More often than not the situation that arises tempts us and takes our eyes off of Christ.  How do we respond?

Do we respond by taking ourselves out of situations where we may be tempted?  This may be wise to a point (an ex-alcoholic would do well to avoid bars).  However, even if we were to confine ourselves to a small cell with nothing but a bed and a chair we would find that we brought our flesh in with us; every instance offering us the temptation to take our eyes off of Jesus.

We find the answer is to recognize the desires and temptations for what they are and remembering that we truly are dead to our sin nature, and that we are not obliged in any way to hand control over to the sin nature, at any time.  By this we “put to death” the deeds of the body.  We agree with the Lord that His work on the cross which we were identified was effective.  We are, indeed separated from the sin nature and no longer are under any obligation to obey it.

Live

The result of this mindset is great!  LIFE!  This is the life and life to the fullest that Christ promised.  It is life in a moment by moment fellowship with the God of the Universe through His wonderful Son, Jesus Christ.  This is what we are all longing for, and the only thing that stands in our way, is our own trembling will.  We so often fall, look away, hand the reigns over to the Sin Nature.  The results never change: fear, hopelessness, pain, despair.  Yet we do it again and again.  God’s grace is sufficient for each loss and we are to respond by getting up, confessing again and getting back into fellowship with Him, each time being willing to trust Him to do what He has told us He will do.

Romans 8:15

¹⁵For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"

What you don’t got

Here Paul draws a sharp distinction.  So much of manmade religion is fear based.  “Do this or else!”, “Give this much or else!”, “Obey me, or else!”  Many Christians have wrongly assumed that fear must still be used to threaten people into obedience, or to give.  Nothing could be more disgustingly unbiblical!  We see that when we place our faith in Christ, God makes us into a new creature and this new creature is not to be motivated by fear any longer!  That is not the relationship that the Lord longs to have with us.  This is great news.  Jesus Christ said: “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”  This verse draws the circle of intimacy even closer yet!

A spirit of adoption

Roman adoption was far different from our modern idea of adoption.  People were generally not adopted as infants like we see in our culture.  Adoption was a complex legal procedure by which a person was permanently placed in a new family.  Their legal connection to their old family was done away with completely.  All of their debts were wiped out completely.  They were given full access to all of the family accounts as an adult son.  The adopted could not be supplanted, or replaced, even by a natural son.  The new adopted son was placed permanently in the new family.  When Paul used this term he could not have found a more permanent cultural symbol for our new relationship to God through Jesus Christ.  Whether we are in fellowship with our Heavenly Father or not, we are His permanently adopted children.  Placed in Him once and for all, never to be released or cast away!

Daddy!

The Jews would never have the audacity to call the God “my Father.”  They would call him “our Father” but to claim that God was “my Father” was a statement that constituted blasphemy and the Jews sought to stone Jesus for making it.  Yet, Jesus is the true Son of the Father, and it is in Him that we are placed.  Thus we can go to God with the most intimate expression – Abba! Abba was an intimate form of the word for Father.  Most like our English “Daddy” or “Papa”.  This is a position of unparalleled honor and blessing, and it is ours EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY IN CHRIST!  At any time, any moment, we can climb onto the lap of our Heavenly Father and say, “Daddy, I need you. I love you.  I am so thankful for you!”  He hears us!  How often do we get confused by our fleshly view of “religion” and not live in accordance with this wonderful relationship that we have been given in Jesus Christ?  How would our relationship with God, and our lives, look if we lived constantly in awareness of this amazing relationship that is ours?

Romans 8:16-17

¹⁶The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

A good testimony

Here we see the Holy Spirit portrayed as what He is – a personality.  As the third member of the Trinity, He indwells us and bears a constant witness to the reality that we are children of God.  In the previous verses we saw the magnificent reality of the permanent indwelling Holy Spirit and how He is the constant seal on us, telling ourselves, the world and the powers of darkness that we are the property and possession of God.  Not just property, but the very children of God.  We are now related to God not on the basis of what we do, but on the basis of who we are in Jesus Christ! 

Children

This word for “children” here means literally – “born ones” we are truly born anew of God, just as John 1:12-13 says: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”  Birth is a permanent process.  When a child is born there is no process by which it can be “un-born”.  This new life that we are born into is eternal, and therefore cannot be broken or damaged.  If it could then it could not be described as “eternal”.  It is the durable full reality of God’s new redemptive creative act in Christ!  But there is MORE GREAT NEWS!

Inheritance

In our culture we often think of an inheritance being something that happens at the time of a person’s death.  However, in the context of the cultures of the New Testament a Father would prepare an inheritance for his children when they became legally accepted as sons.  Our new inheritance is found in Christ, in whom we have been given every spiritual blessing in heavenly places.  This inheritance includes the fact that we will be united to Christ permanently into all of eternity!  This is very exciting.  One day, Christ will inherit the whole earth and we will be with Him, ruling and reigning with Him as His Bride.  This inheritance is the eternal fullness, wholeness, peace of being united to Jesus forever! 

Suffering and Glory

Here we see the impending reality of our earthly condition.  We will, indeed, suffer for our faith in Him.  Whether the persecution of the world, or from our flesh, we are promised suffering on this planet (Romans 3:5; James 1:2-3) however, along with that suffering now comes the promise that God will also glorify us with Jesus Christ.  The next section outlines the reality of our suffering and the glory that is ours in Christ, all by His grace, through His work!