Spirit-Led Mortification of Sin by Assurance of Adoption – Romans 8:12–17

PRAY

Romans 8:12–17 ESV

¹² So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 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. ¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Here’s how I believe we might say this text instructs us. Christian… 

Be Spirit-led to mortify sin by assurance of adoption.

The two major emphases in this text are mortification of sin and assurance of adoption as beloved children. Both depend on being led by the Spirit, on submissive reliance upon the Spirit.  We should therefore clarify at the outset that we are not talking about the Spirit leading us as if this is a passive endeavor on our part. No, it is an active reliance, an intentional dependence. It is to deliberately lean on the work of the Spirit, to seek his leadership instead of your own will.

Returning to a metaphor I used several weeks back, our role in reliance on the Spirit is like raising the sails of our ship so that the Spirit moves us forward toward the goal of Christlikeness. So too, the Spirit acts as our compass. And he is our new lenses by which see the north star of God’s glory and to read the map of God’s word. By Him God’s law is written on our hearts. To be led by the Spirit is to actively raise the sails of dependence on his strength and to purposefully ask him to give us eyes see God clearly and aim for His will and not our own.

Another thing I hope sinks deeper into your soul today is just how essential and intensely practical these two themes are for progress in the Christian life: mortification of sin and assurance of adoption. Accordingly, I have divided our study through the text into those two simple parts, three verses each section: Reliance on the Spirit for mortification, and Assurance of adoption by the Spirit as our motivation.

The first half emphasizes that we must…

Rely on the Spirit to kill sin and live because you have been redeemed from slavery to sonship. (verses 12-14)

We who are led by the Spirit are sons, redeemed from fleshly tyranny and empowered to mortify sin and live.

The thrust of verse 12 continues from the previous section of vv. 9-11 as a foundation: Christians, we are in the Spirit and not in the flesh. This means the Spirit (who is Christ in us) enables us to have a new capacity for holiness, for pleasing God, that we did not have when under the flesh’s control that carries our minds toward fleshly aims.

So now verse 12:

Romans 8:12 ESV

¹² So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not debtors to the flesh. - One who has become indebted does not have a choice but must pay that debt. So the concept here is an iron-clad obligation, where the sinful flesh is a tyrannical master that formerly commanded our will because it held power over us. When we were in the flesh, we were also enslaved by it, to do what the flesh wanted.

But in Christ (in the Spirit), we have been redeemed by God from the tyranny of the flesh. We are no longer obligated to live according to the flesh. The flesh doesn’t exercise dominion. We are freed from the old nature’s obligation to sin by a new life in the Spirit. - Certainly we still suffer the allure of sin, but we are not obligated to sin, not dominated by it. As long as we have these bodies, we have the capacity for sin but are not captive to it.

The point of Paul’s statement in v. 12 might only be the side of freedom from obligation to the flesh, or there might also be an incomplete thought that leans into our indebtedness to God. If so, Charles Spurgeon has an appropriate direction on the concept of this indebtedness to God in Christ Jesus. We are no longer indebted to God’s justice; rather, we are indebted to God’s love. As the Apostle John exclaims in 1 John 3:1, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are.” Such a concept does fit well with the theme in verses 15-17 concerning God’s gracious adoption of us into the security of familial love and blessings. 

But whether or not a contrasting indebtedness to God is intended, the intended emphasis is clearly on the way we live because of who holds motivational influence over us. We have been redeemed from fleshly tyranny, no longer obligated to do its bidding. But that means we are set free to have a new capacity by the Spirit to live pleasing to God, which Paul emphasized in the previous verses.

So Paul continues in verse 13 with that previous theme of contrasting life by the flesh with its result, this time against the enabling of the Spirit to lead lives of killing the sin at work in us.

Romans 8:13 ESV

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.

A life lived according to the flesh that is sold under sin yields eternal death. Paul has repeatedly and emphatically established this fact.

But having been set free in Christ from the sinful flesh’s dominion, by the Spirit we must be putting to death sinful deeds of the body. To put them to death suggests an active killing, as opposed to death by natural causes (which will not happen with this sin that has a life of its own). It means to actively and deliberately execute the sinful deeds that marked our former way of life.

That’s a healthy thing for us to grasp and apply. Sin is a voracious weed, of multiple varieties, that will not die on its own simply because the gospel has been planted in you. Instead, by the Spirit you must put sin to death, again and again, by pulling it up from the roots and throwing it away, replacing it with seed of ministry that will bear the fruit of sanctification.

Now, in Paul’s contrast he says, if you live this life by the flesh, you will die eternally. But if by the Spirit’s power you killthe sinful deeds working in you, you will live eternally. You must know but this point in Romans that Paul is not teaching that this is works-based salvation, but rather salvation-based works! Being in Christ, having the Spirit, being adopted sons, is what produces attitudes and works that rightly please God.

So why do those killing sin by the Spirit live eternally? Because such is accomplished by the Spirit’s guidance and power, which is confirming evidence of our sonship.

Romans 8:14 ESV

¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

The sons of God are led by the Spirit, and these sons led by the Spirit will be killing sin in their lives. 

But how does the Spirit lead us? When we truly submit and pursue “Not my will but yours be done,” the Spirit guides us in God’s will. And his guidance is not something for us to manipulate according to our wants and whims. We can objectively seek his help to understand God’s will in the Spirit-authored Scriptures. And again, who illuminates these Scriptures to us? The Holy Spirit. So we desperately seek God’s help in prayer—confidently because of our sonship, but desperately because of our need. We seek his help for clarity of understanding, and for conviction and courage to actually do the right that he is revealing to us.

Be Spirit-led to mortify sin by assurance of adoption.

Brothers and sisters, this sin-killing is not a one-time action. We do not seek help once and kill sin once and be done with it. This is a consistent way of life by which the Spirit of God uses the word of God to make us progressively more aware of our sin in contrast to God’s will. As we sincerely seek his help, the Spirit also provides the means to mortify sin.

But you may ask: if you kill something (v. 13), doesn’t it stay dead? Well, killing sin in our lives isn’t like slaying Goliath just the one time. After knocking him out with a stone, cutting off Goliath’s head did the trick. He won’t be getting back up.

But killing sin in our lives is more like cultivating a field that was previously all thorns and weeds, but now has been transformed into a field producing a harvest for God. But this side of glory, it is also a constant battleground against re-sprouting weeds that must be killed over and over and not allowed to grow and spread. By the Spirit progress can certainly be made, but putting sin to death is an arduous, life-long battle.

There is no quick fix. By the Spirit we must continually identify sin, uproot it, and starve it (refuse everything that feeds it). And we must cultivate new, righteous desires from God’s word, and fill all the space with ministry that spiritually grows us and the kingdom.

So too, brothers and sisters, we need lasting motivation to mortify sin and ongoing assurance that the Spirit provides the means. And what will provide us the deep-seated motivation to persist in the difficulty of killing sin and pursuing holiness? In the Spirit, be motivated by your identity as God’s adopted child.

Let the Spirit’s assurance of your adoption motivate endurance in the life-long pursuit of holiness. (verses 15-17)

We who are led by the Spirit can be sure of adoption as God’s children, having a secure relationship and inheritance with God. And by the Spirit such assurance should motivate our endurance in this mortification of sin in the pursuit God’s holiness.

Romans 8:15 ESV

¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

To not have a spirit of slavery that falls back into fear means that we who are in Christ are not slaves to sin and must not fear condemnation from God (Rom 8:1). Fear of losing your relationship to God is not your motivation to kill sin and positively pursue holiness. What a miserable life and household it would be if we were enslaved to a fear of having our status undone! No, we do not have to fear that an unchanging God, who purchased us by the precious blood of Christ, whose Spirit indwells us, will turn us back over to our former way of life. Rather, assurance of being God’s child is the new motivation. “You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father!”

It’s not fear of being canceled or fired that motivates us, but a Spirit-filled desire to be pleasing to the God who has so graciously made us his children.

Adoption guarantees all the security and rights of a natural child, and in this case it is Jesus, the eternal Son of God’s own nature! We have been accepted into the family of our Lord and Savior, who is one with the Father and Spirit. We are not divine, but we have been irrevocably accepted into adoption as God’s own children. We were orphan-slaves at enmity with God, but when God by his grace gifted us with faith in Jesus, he made us his own children!

And he secures us and leads us as his children in his own Spirit, by whom we cry Abba! Abba is the Aramaic word for father, used in intimate family settings. “Father” is the Greek word. The point is undoubtedly less about calling God Dad or Daddy, but rather that in Jesus and by the Spirit believers enjoy such an intimate relationship with God that we can call him our Father, trusting in the security of our relationship to call upon him for help, knowing that he desires to do what is best for us.  We are secure in this adoption, and that privilege and security, that ability to draw-near to the God who is good, is motivation to please him.

And this address to God, as your father, should naturally make us think of prayer. In fact, Jesus addressed the father in just this way in Mark 14:36 in intimate and agonizing prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Mark 14:36 ESV

³⁶ And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

In prayer you are drawing near to God by the Spirit in gratitude, with praise, seeking his guidance and help. So there is confidence in this intimate relationship with God by adoption, and it is a relationship in which you know that your all-wise, all-knowing, and all-powerful Father has the ability and willingness to do that which he knows is best—what creates the greatest good for his glory.

Prayer in this kind of spirit of humility and dependence is a great privilege which pleases God and which he providentially uses to move forward his purposes.  And the very act of resting and trusting in God in prayer gives us present peace. It is handing over to God what you cannot handle, knowing not only that he is capable, but that he cares for you. Prayer is an active expression of trust and reliance. God listens, cares, grants us peace, and promotes his purposes through our prayers.

Now Paul also says that the Spirit’s presence in us specifically gives us assurance of an adoption as children that is so secure that our inheritance with Christ is guaranteed. But we must understand that suffering with Jesus precedes the receiving of this glorious inheritance.

Romans 8:16 ESV

¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

The Spirit testifies with our spirit: In our inner being we grow in assurance of our relationship to God by the Spirit’s confirming work in us. Practically speaking, we experience evidence of new desires and direction, evidence of submission to Christ as master, evidence of Christ’s love for his people at work in us, evidence of gifting for ministry (in acts of service or in speaking), evidence of compassion for the lost, and evidence of passion for God’s glory in all things.

Romans 8:17 ESV

¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

As God’s children we are fellow heirs with Jesus Christ, who are set to receive an inheritance of the eternal joy in the presence of a Holy God where he is reigning in all his perfection and glory forever. We will see him and we will know him. We will be like him in purity and we will enjoy his goodness and glory with unfettered exaltation.

Now the point of the last line is for Paul to remind us that, just as it was for Jesus in his earthly life, suffering precedes glory. We must suffer through the long trial of fighting sin this side of heaven, of pursuing God while we still have earthly bodies, in order that one day we may receive the glorious inheritance.

This is the reminder from Paul that those who truly belong to Jesus will be like Jesus. Suffering in this life precedes glorification in the next. There isn’t any other way. This is God’s plan and Christ’s command. Take up your cross and follow me.

Those who are in Christ and have the Spirit of God will have sold everything else for this single treasure, and will now be pursuing Jesus with all that we are and have. In so doing, we will suffer against our sin and suffer under the sin of others until the day of our glorification. Again, some of this suffering is in the battle against our own sin, even as Christ suffered temptation but did not sin. And some of this suffering is at the hands of others who are enslaved to sin and are committing sin against us, just as Christ also suffered injustice for what he had not done. But our Savior suffered willingly, trusting the Father’s plan and the Spirit’s provision, in order that the glory of God might come.

So it must be with us. Let the Spirit’s assurance of your adoption motivate endurance in the life-long pursuit of holiness. We suffer with our Savior willingly, trusting in the providential care of our good Father and by the provision of the Spirit. Because such is the chosen path of God for us to reach glory, who are his children who trust him and love him because he first loved us.

What we have learned today from the Spirit-inspired words of Paul is that by the Spirit and in the Spirit we must…

Conclusion: Rely on the Spirit to mortify sin, motivated by assurance of adoption.

I think it’s worth being intensely practical and intentional about killing sin. So here’s a list that I’ve made to help us think more carefully about mortification. You might improve upon this list, but this should get you started in thinking critically and taking this seriously. As the Puritan theologian John Owen said, “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”

To mortify sin…

We must be in Christ through faith.

- Apart from God’s work in Jesus, you do not spiritually live and will not be with God eternally. To think otherwise is like an ogre trying not to act like an ogre. An ogre dressed up in religious clothing remains an ogre. The transformational difference, for any of us, is faith in God’s promise in Christ Jesus.

We must lean on the Spirit of God in us.

- The power to live for God comes from the Holy Spirit, who is God’s presence in us. What may seem like subtle difference is not subtle at all. The Spirit does what you cannot do. So every effort on our part should be preceded by crying out for God’s help by his Spirit to kill sin in us and make us holy.

We must fill our minds with God’s word.

- What is the primary and essential tool that Spirit will use to do all of the subsequent things that we might come up with in a list for killing sin and producing holiness? Yes, the Spirit will use the revelation he has authored to both instruct and empower you.

We must identify sin and confess it.

Learn to recognize sin and reject it as evil. - Don’t call it struggling with your thought life; label it accurately as lust. Don’t call it being heated and passionate; label it accurately as lacking self-control, being angry, being argumentative, and so on. Don’t call it perfectionism; label it accurately as pride in yourself and impatience toward others. Don’t call it embellishing or leaving out details; label is as dishonesty, as lying or bearing false witness. Don’t call it having a hard time letting go of offenses, of hurtful things; label it accurately as an unwillingness to forgive and restore fellowship. (I of course am not talking about overlooking abusive behaviors.)

You’re ok with calling abortion murder… because it is. You’re ok with calling sex transitioning moral insanity… because it is. So also call your selfish manipulation what it is. Call your favoritism what it is, and heed what the Bible says about it. Know what discontentment is and why is a harmful to you and a distrust of God. Call your gossip and slander what they are. Label always airing your own opinion as foolishness, like the Bible does.

Clearly I could go on all day with this. The point is, evaluate where you tend to make excuses, and instead both mentally and verbally confess sin as sin. Agree with God about sin and seek his forgiveness.

We must be alert to how sin works.

- Sin takes natural inclinations and desires, even needs, and turns them into inordinate passions, into idols, and therefore into inordinate, unholy pursuits and actions. Enjoying food turns to gluttony. Pursuit of healthy bodies turns to self-worship. Pursuit of hobbies or rest turns to idolatry and slothfulness with our time. Working hard to let God provide turns to greed.

We must be real about where sin leads.

- Sin is always and only a destroyer. Sin is destructive to your life and the lives of others, and it is the cause of eternal damnation. Acting like sin is anything other than a malignant cancer is foolishness of cosmic and eternal proportions.

We must starve sin by eliminating its sources.

- Ruthlessly avoid situations and eliminate sources where you know you have a desire to sin. Wisely and diligently create boundaries to guard against temptation to sin. Talk to a mentor, confessing the sin where you are in consistent battle, and ask for help and accountability to starve that sin.

We must replace sin with holy endeavors.

- Have you ever noticed how idleness breeds sin in your heart and life? A lack of clear purpose and lack of active pursuit of that purpose lets the weeds of sin have their way in the field of your life. As you are uprooting sin and starving sin, fill that same space the pursuit of God. 

Here’s a suggestion for further application on mortifying sin: On your own or with others, read Colossians 3:1-17. Meditate on it in prayer, and apply specific things to your affections, actions, and words. - You might also do the same with a parallel passage in Ephesians 4:17-5:21.

We must have Christian fellowship in ministry.

… for mutual growth and accountability. - No Christian should be trying to live the Christian life alone. And Christian’s are by definition actively striving side by side in evangelism and in building one another up to maturity for the growth and purity of Christ’s church.

Now, I have not left sufficient time for further application on motivation by adoption. Let’s end with this: Yes, this mortification of sin and pursuit of holiness requires persistent endurance. But God has not left us to scrape by on our own. He has given his indwelling Spirit to lead us in mortifying sin, to assure us of our adoption, and to sustain us in suffering with Jesus until we receive of our eternal inheritance.

So Christian, be killing sin by the Spirit, not from fear of condemnation, but precisely because God has accepted you as his own child. Pursue holiness because you long to please your Father and be like Him. The more we are motivated by God’s own goodness and grandeur, the more holy we will be.

PRAY

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