One of the most important needs in each one of us is assurance of salvation. Assurance provides the steadiness and calm in the midst of the trials and adversities of life. It is an anchor that keeps the ship from being swept into oblivion by the high waves and wind. Assurance is not the salvation itself but the certainty of it, the resolute knowledge that “I am His, and He is mine.”
Yet one of the great errors of our day is that of viewing assurance as either a decision that we make or some type of static, passive awareness brought on by clever teaching. I have been in countless services where the preacher, with the best intentions, has called for people to come forward in order to receive assurance of their salvation. However, nowhere in Scripture do we find even a hint that assurance of salvation is a snap decision that we make.
I remember being confused about this quite often as a young Christian in desperate need of assurance. I would be instructed to come to the front of the church as the sermon closed to pray for assurance. “Nail it down,” “pray a prayer of assurance,” “decide to doubt no more,” I was told. In the euphoric moments that followed, I might have some feeling of assurance but within a few days, often only a few hours, that feeling of assurance vanished. I would be left praying over and over for the Lord to assure me that I was saved.
Admittedly, I knew little of the Word, which was at the root of my struggle. I did not understand what Scripture taught about assurance. Indeed, I did not realize that so much of the New Testament’s teaching focuses on assurance of salvation. First century believers were no different than me. They were religious people that understood little of the Word so they could be easily swept up in the faulty teaching of Judaizers or Gnostics or ascetics, thinking that their legalism, on one hand, and sensationalism, on the other, would eliminate the doubts forever.
That’s why this portion of Romans is so critical in helping us grasp the God-given means to assurance of salvation. We find that assurance goes hand-in-hand with our sanctification. It is progressive, active, ongoing, and experiential. At the heart of the believer’s assurance is the work of the Holy Spirit. As Paul teaches on assurance he teaches on the Spirit. Or better, as he teaches on the Spirit he teaches on assurance! He followed the lead of Jesus Christ in stressing the Spirit’s work in assurance. Our Lord emphasized that when He introduced the disciples to the ministry of the Spirit. He is “the Spirit of truth.” “He abides with you and will be in you.” He is the “Helper” or the One called alongside to help (paraclete). “He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” He will convince you of sin, righteousness, and judgment. “He will guide you into all truth” (cf. John 14-16). In other words, the Holy Spirit is never passive in the true believer. He actively works to assure us that we belong to Christ and to mature us in the image of Christ. But how does that figure in our daily lives? I want us to see that assurance is part of daily life even as the work of the Spirit is part of daily life for every Christian.
Remember that Paul is not dealing with a special category of Christian which some have termed as “spiritual Christians” as opposed to “carnal Christians.” Instead, he shows what is true of all believers, whom he refers to as those “who are according to the Spirit,” and who consequently, are indwelled by the Spirit and so set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
“So then” draws an inference from what has already been set forth. What did Paul explain in the previous paragraph?
All Christians are “in the Spirit” (v. 9)
You are in the Spirit because “the Spirit of God dwells in you” (v. 9)
Those not indwelled by the Spirit do not belong to Jesus Christ (v. 9b)
The believer’s spirit is made alive by the righteousness of Christ applied by the Spirit (v. 10)
The Spirit unites the believer to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, ultimately giving certainty to the Christian’s bodily resurrection (v. 11).
“So then,” because these things are so in every believer, “brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.” The word “obligation” implies a moral debt; something that we owe and cannot get out of or let slide. Does this mean that the Christian stacks up points with God, by paying his “obligation” or debt that he owes God? It is obvious that Paul has nothing of this sort in mind since he has spent the past chapters proving that we are justified by the grace of God and not through the works of the law. So he does not have in mind any kind of works righteousness or earning salvation. Nor does he have in mind doing a certain level of work in order to keep oneself in the faith as though, by failing at this point, one loses his salvation. If that were the case, then Jesus Christ is not enough! If that were the case, then “if it is to be it is up to me” when it comes to salvation. Yet such thought is completely contrary to Paul’s entire teaching in Romans.
So what does he mean when he tells us that we have a different sort of obligation?
He begins by stating it negatively. As a matter of fact, the positive is so obvious that Paul does not even have to state it. The negative will suffice to get the point across. “We are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.” How have we been obligated to the flesh? Keep in mind what he means by “flesh.” It is man in his natural state apart from grace; unregenerate man: “the whole of our humanness viewed as corrupt and unredeemed, ‘our fallen, ego-centric human nature,’ or more briefly ‘the sin-dominated self’” or what Luther described as “fallen human nature…’deeply curved in on itself’” [John Stott, Romans: God’s Good News for the World, 222, also quoting Cranfield and Ziesler]. It is man without Christ, man without the experience of grace through Christ. So Paul tells us, we have no more obligation to that part of our humanity. It has no more call on our lives. The flesh’s authority is over—killed at the cross of Christ and effective when we were united to Christ’s death and resurrection (6:4-6).
In one sense, this should be obvious to us as Christians. We should realize that if something has been put to death then it has no more power over us. Yet the reality is that the flesh, though killed by the cross, still bears influence upon us. How can this be? When someone has lived all their lives under the authority of an evil tyrant, even at his death it is difficult to be freed from his iron hand of tyranny. When I walked through the streets of Tirana, Albania just a couple of years after their dictator, Enver Hoxha was executed, the faces of those trudging along still looked oppressed, fearful, worrisome as though wondering if he would come to life again and haunt their steps. Though free from the dictator they did not understand what it was to be free. They lived under his shadow and with his threats ringing in their minds. They still heard his voice telling them what to believe about themselves, where they could and could not go, what they could and could not do.
The flesh does that to us. It is an evil tyrant that exercised full authority over us until we died to the flesh through Christ. Yet we still hear its demands. Memories of the flesh still etch our thoughts. The flesh even operates its tyranny in a religious way, telling us that we do not need a Savior but that we only need to try our best. It runs the gamut of extremes from libertinism—doing whatever our sinful desires want—to legalism—doing what some law or standard requires apart from dependence upon Christ. It focuses on self-satisfaction, whether for lusts (libertinism) or for pride and fear (legalism). So what are we to do? Believe the gospel! “We are under obligation,” even the flesh tells us that, but “not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.” It no longer holds the reins to your life. You died to the flesh when you died to the law as the means to righteousness. “Let the word of Christ dwell richly in you,” not the word of the flesh making sinful demands upon you (Col. 3:16).
One writer pointed out that this truth, walking in the Spirit instead of the flesh, “is elegantly left to be understood” [Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, 311, quoting J. Bengel]. Notice that Paul states it positively. “So then, brethren, we are under obligation.” We anticipate that he will say this obligation is to walk in the Spirit because of the context, but he leaves it to be understood. The present tense insists on this as an ongoing obligation. So if we are not obliged to walk in the flesh then that leaves only one other realm in which we can walk in Paul’s theology: “in the Spirit.” He amplifies this call to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh in Galatians 5:16-26. In that case, he gives detailed examples of the flesh and its work contrasted with the Spirit and His fruit. But here, in Romans 8:12, Paul suffices to just remind us that “we are under obligation.”
What is this new obligation? It is to live out the gospel. It is living out the righteousness of Christ that has been implanted in us. It is “imparted righteousness” as the Puritans called it. It is found in loving without hypocrisy, abhorring what is evil, clinging to what is good, being devoted to one another in brotherly love, giving preference to one another in honor, being diligent in our spiritual lives, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality (12:9-13). That’s how the Apostle explains the obligation of the Christian. Pay attention to walking in the Spirit.
Here Paul returns to the theme of mortification or putting to death that he first opened in chapter six but the difference is that he explains the work of the Spirit in mortification.
Some writers consider Paul’s use of body and flesh in this verse as synonymous. Yet that cannot be the case since he has made a clear distinction between “flesh” as unregenerate man, and those that are no longer living according to flesh but “according to the Spirit.” “Flesh,” as used here, clearly points to man as a fallen creature without the influence of the Spirit in his life. “For if you are living according to the flesh,” note this as the same phrase used in vv. 4-5, “you must die.” The consequence of the flesh’s rule in one’s life is death in all its destructiveness and separation from God. The context does not allow us to present this as one who may be a Christian. No, he is “according to the flesh,” and so under the tyranny and authority of the sinful nature.
Yet we still struggle with sin as long as we live in these bodies. Theologically, Paul distinguishes flesh and body in order to help us see this. Flesh represents unregenerate man. “Body” refers to your humanity without the rule of the sinful flesh. It is a body in which sin dwells as a squatter (7:17). The body is not inherently sinful, as is the flesh. It is the place where the war with sin rages. He explained the war that waged in “the members of my body…making me prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members” (7:23). So the body is the battlefield where the conflict is taking place; not the enemy that is assaulting you as is the flesh.
The present tense verb indicates that whatever this putting to death might be, it is an ongoing action. There’s no one-time act that puts to death the deeds of the body (so it does not happen with finality at conversion) but rather it is a constant, day-by-day, even moment-by-moment part of the believer’s sanctification. “But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” The old writers called this action mortification. It indicates an intentional action on the part of the believer to deal with sin in his life. John Stott had a very helpful section on mortification that I’m going to follow in explaining this.
Mortification, or putting to death the deeds of the body, is “neither masochism (taking pleasure in self-inflicted pain)” as we see in some regions of Catholicism as well as in other religions, “nor asceticism (resenting and rejecting the fact that we have bodies and natural bodily appetites)” such as practiced by mystics in Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist traditions. “It is rather a clear-sighted recognition of evil as evil, leading to such a decisive and radical repudiation of it that no imagery can do it justice except ‘putting to death’.” And what are we putting to death? It is “every use of our body (our eyes, ears, mouth, hands or feet) which serves ourselves instead of God and other people” [228].
How do we mortify the deeds of the body? The emphasis is on something that we do rather than something done to us. So there’s no passivity here in which one follows the formula of “let go, and let God.” There’s no call for reaching a certain level of “full surrender” where sin is no longer an issue in the believer’s life, as is taught by some evangelicals. It is not a one-time act or decision in which the believer finally decides to enter into a life of fullness. Rather, mortification is something that you must attend to daily because sin is something that affects you daily.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones pointed out that we must take action when we have the first stirring of sin. “Nip it in the bud, deal with it at once; never let it get even a moment’s foothold... Expose the thing and say, ‘This is evil, this is vileness, this is the thing that drove the first man out of Paradise’.” Then he adds, “Pull it out, look at it, denounce it, hate it for what it is; then you have really dealt with it. You must not merely push it back in a spirit of fear, and in a timorous manner. Bring it out, expose it, analyse it; and then denounce it for what it is until you hate it” [ML-J, Romans: An Exposition of Chapter 8:5-17, The Sons of God, 143].
Think of what Jesus told us. “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you…If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you.” Was He speaking literally? Of course not but rather metaphorically, yet He does so with the utmost gravity when it comes to dealing with sin (Matt. 5:29-30).
Why should we mortify the deeds of the body? You “are under obligation” to walk according to the Spirit rather than how you formerly walked, according to the flesh. Apart from mortification you will not know the kind of life that is ours in Christ. “But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” He is not referring to eternal life since that was secured through the justifying work of Christ and your adoption as a child of God. Instead, it is the kind of life lived as a Christian—“rich, abundant, satisfying life,” as Stott put it (229). Our Lord expressed it simply: “I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). It is a God-glorifying, Christ-centered, Spirit-filled life that cannot be compared to anything the world throws our way. It is a full life, which means there’s no room for the allurements of the world to stuff its way in when we are experiencing the wonder of this life. Stott adds,
What the world calls life (a desirable self-indulgence) leads to alienation from God which in reality is death, whereas the putting to death of all perceived evil within us, which the world sees as an undesirable self-abnegation, is in reality the way to authentic life [230].
Here is the clarifying prepositional phrase: “But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Most major religions have practices of self-denial or self-punishment that their strictest devotees observe. Shi’a Muslims participate during the annual muharram on the Day of Ashura in what is known as the Zanjeer Zani ritual, beating themselves with a whip or with blades or sharp objects until the blood flows on the ground. They do this to express mourning for the death of Imam Hussain, the grandson of Muhammad from the 7th century. Some Catholic orders practice a corporate beating that is not so bloody as the Islamic counterpart but can bruise and cut. Still other Catholics teach that mortification can take place by taking cold showers, denying oneself a meal, or by sleep deprivation. It was this practice that almost killed George Whitefield in the 18th century before he was converted. He sought to put to death the deeds of the body by starving himself, sleeping without adequate covers for warmth, denying himself sleep. Most historians agree that he had so weakened his body through his attempts at mortification that it eventually contributed to his early death.
Paul has nothing of the sort in mind for Christians! Instead, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, the believer puts to death the deeds of the body. The Spirit gives him power to do this, especially by bringing biblical truths to mind to apply to the particular sin-issue faced. He gives strength when our strength fails. He urges us on to deal with sin by exposing it, calling it what it is as treason against God, and then presses us to turn from it. The Spirit will never press the believer to do something for which he will draw attention to self; He will never lead the Christian to contradict Scripture by his actions of mortification; and He will never influence the believer to do anything that shifts the glory that belongs to Jesus Christ onto the believer. So call on the Spirit for His assistance in putting to death the deeds of the body.
Paul introduces us to a theme that pervades the rest of this chapter and most of his epistles, that of “sonship.” “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” Here is a marker, a defining point for all that are truly born of God: they are led by the Spirit of God.
He intends this to be a source of the believer’s assurance: “these are sons of God.” “These” is emphatic, indicating these and these alone are sons of God. Paul points to a subjective experience, that of the Spirit’s leading, as a definitive mark of the believer’s salvation.
Do you call yourself a Christian? Then, according to this verse, it is true, if you are being led—or continually led—by the Spirit of God. No decision to have assurance grants assurance. Nor does a passive awareness of some spiritual event result in assurance. Rather it is in the process of the Spirit at work in the believer that he or she finds assurance that they truly belong to Christ. Here is a fascinating mixture: on one hand, the Spirit works, leads, influences, prods, and directs; on the other, the believer acts, presses on, humbles himself, conforms to the image of Christ, follows after God’s commands. In the process, the Holy Spirit breathes assurance into the believer.
What does this tell you about assurance? It is best experienced in the process of living out the gospel applied by the Spirit instead of sitting in a corner and trying to think deeply on assurance. Certainly, we want to read, study, and think about assurance. But we need not relegate assurance to our studiousness. It comes in living the Christian life.
The Greek translates, “As many as are being led (and continually led) by the Spirit of God, these ones are sons of God.” The Spirit leads consistently rather than sporadically. He leads us to Christ and His sufficiency rather than depending on the law for righteousness. He leads us clearly in the path of divine revelation in Holy Scripture.
But is this idea of the Spirit’s leadership not one of the easiest ways to excuse and defend our actions? Yes, you are right, so we must provide a few caveats. The Spirit does not contradict the Word. You can pray about something and “feel led” to take an action that the Scripture opposes but that is not the Spirit’s leadership. You can follow your desires and wants, confusing them for the Spirit’s leadership. You can be excited about something and certain that you “have heard from God,” but it may not be the Spirit’s leadership. Here are the basics for recognizing the Spirit’s leadership.
(1) He always leads you to glorify Jesus Christ—not self, not an idea, not a project, not a ministry, not an ideology, not a theology, not an image. “He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you” (John 16:14).
(2) He always leads you to truth—God’s Word alone is truth. That is why He is called “the Spirit of truth,” that is the Spirit who is characterized in every way by truth (John 14:17).
(3) He always leads you in the way of understanding and applying Scripture, never contrary to the eternal Word. “He will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13; cf. 1 Cor. 2:6-10). So the Spirit’s leadership strengthens obedience, faithfulness, and conformity to the image of Jesus Christ in all things. He leads you to love and depend upon the Word.
(4) He always leads you to more and more dependence upon the Father through the sufficiency of Jesus Christ demonstrated by the Spirit as “the Spirit of adoption as sons” by which we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Rom. 8:15).
Here are definite marks of the true believer:
He has a new obligation to walk in the Spirit that spurs him on to conformity to Christ.
He knows the Spirit’s aid and impetus in putting to death the deeds of the body.
He is being led by the Spirit.
Do these things ring true in your life?
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