01. CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 1 Romans 8:13 EXPLAINED The basis of Paul’s argument in Romans 8:13 The words of the apostle opened The connection between true mortification and salvation Mortification is the work of believers The Holy Spirit is the main cause of mortification What is meant by “the body” in the words of the apostle What is meant by “the deeds of the body”
Life, in the sense of full vigor and power, is a consequence of this duty of mortification. To provide some direction in order to make the work of mortification in believers clearer, I will lay a foundation on the words of the apostle in Romans 8:13, “If you mortify the deeds of the body by the Spirit, you will live.” I will build on this verse to reveal the great evangelical truth and mystery it contains. In verses 1-3 of Romans chapter 8, the apostle restates his doctrine of justification by faith, and the blessed condition of those who share in it by grace. He proceeds to expand on it to explain the holiness necessary to believers, and the comfort that is available to them.
Among his arguments and motivations to holiness, the verses mentioned contrast what happens when we choose to sin: “If you live after the flesh, you will die.” What it means to “live after the flesh,” or what it means to “die,” is not my present focus. Even so, I will explain them in the context of Romans 8:13. This will lay a foundation for the ensuing discourse.
First, it makes our duty, the means to perform it, and the resulting promise, conditional: “If you,”
Second, it identifies the persons to whom it is prescribed: “If you mortify. “
Third, it identifies the Spirit as the cause or means of performing this duty: “ through the Spirit.”
Fourth, there is a duty prescribed in this verse: “Mortify the deeds of the body. “
Fifth, there is a promise annexed to performing that duty: “You will live. “
1. This duty to mortify sin is conditional, “But if you...”
Conditional phrases may specify two things –
(1.) That it is uncertain that the person to whom the duty is prescribed will realize the event or receive the thing promised. This is true where the condition is absolutely necessary to the event or thing occurring, and the condition itself does not depend on anything else known to that person. So we say, “If we live, we will do such a thing.” But this uncertainty cannot be the intent of using the conditional phrase in this verse. I say that because verse 1 of the same chapter says, “There is no condemnation for them;” there is no uncertainty in that.
(2.) The condition can also specify the certainty of the connection between the things spoken of. For example, we can say to a sick man, “If you take this medicine, then you will be well.” We are expressing the certainty of the connection between the medicine and the health of the patient. This is how it is used here. The certain connection between mortifying the deeds of the body and living is what is intimated in this conditional phrase.
There are various ways to connect things conditionally. They can either be cause and effect to each other, or the means and the end achieved. This connection between mortification and life is not cause and effect, for “eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ.”1 It is means and the end achieved by it. God has appointed this means for attaining that end, which he has freely promised. Means, though necessary, are subservient to the end of the free promise of life. Providing a gift, and requiring the recipient to procure it, are inconsistent with each other. The intent of this condition, then, is to make a certain and infallible connection between true mortification and eternal life: if you use this means, you will obtain that end; if you mortify, you will live. In this prescription for life, we find the primary motive to perform the duty.
2. The persons to whom this duty is prescribed. The audience is expressed in the word “you.” In the original it is included in the verb, [NT:2289 thanatoo] “if you mortify;” that is, you believers; you for whom “there is no condemnation,” Romans 8:1; you who are “not in the flesh, but in the Spirit,” verse 9; who are “given life by the Spirit of Christ,” verses 10, 11. This duty is prescribed to you. Imposing this duty on anyone other than a Christian is characteristic of the self-righteousness that the world is full of, the great labor of devout men who are ignorant of the gospel.2 This description of the persons to whom the duty is prescribed, is the main foundation of this thesis. The best believers, who are certainly freed from the condemning Power of sin, still need to make it their business to mortify the indwelling power of sin all their life.
3. What causes us to perform this duty is the Spirit
“If… by the Spirit” [NT:4154 pneuma] - The Spirit here is mentioned in Romans 8:11. He is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, that “dwells in us,” verse 9, that “gives us life,” verse 11; “the Holy Ghost,” verse 14; the “Spirit of adoption,” verse 15; the Spirit “that makes intercession for us,” verse 26. All other ways of mortifying sin are useless; all other helps leave us helpless. It must be done by the Spirit. As the apostle implies in Romans 9:30-32, men may attempt to do this based on other principles, or by other means, just as they have always done and still do. But, he says, “This is the work of the Spirit. It is done by him alone, and it cannot be accomplished by any other power.” Mortification using our own strength, or carried on by ways that we invent, to make ourselves righteous in our own eyes, is the core of every false religion in the world. And this is the second principle of my ensuing discourse.
4. The duty that is prescribed is this: “Mortify the deeds of the body.”
Three things need to be examined:
(1.) What is meant by the body;
(2.) What is meant by the deeds of the body;
(3.) What is meant by mortifying them.
(1.) What is meant by the body. The body in the close of the verse is the same as the flesh in the beginning: “If you live after the flesh you will die; but if you ... mortify the deeds of the body, etc.” That is, the body is the same thing the apostle has been referring to as the flesh. This is evident from the contrast between the Spirit and the flesh, or the before and after. The body, then, represents the corruption and depravity of our nature. In great part, the body is the container, and the means of expressing our sinful nature. Our sinful nature makes the members of the body servants to unrighteousness.3 What is meant by the body is indwelling sin, the corrupted flesh or lust. Many reasons might be given for using this figure of speech, but I will not go into them. The “body” here is the same as we find in Romans 6:6, referring to the “old man” [NT:3820,444 palaios anthropos], and “body of sin” [NT:4983,266 soma hamartia] More comprehensively, it may express the whole person as corrupted, and the person himself as the seat of lusts and perverted affections.
(2.) What is meant by the deeds of the body. The word is “praxis” [NT:4234], which, indeed, indicates mostly the outward actions, “the works of the flesh” as they are called in Galatians 5:19, [NT:2041 ergon]. There they are said to be “manifest” or obvious; and they are enumerated. The outward deeds are only expressions of our inner self. Primarily, the intent is to have us deal with the inward cause of those deeds. The “axe is set to the root of the tree.”4 We are to mortify the causes of the deeds of the flesh. The apostle calls them deeds because they are what every lust leaves behind as evidence. When lust conceives, it seems to have no effect. But its goal is to produce a perfect sin, the perfect crime – no evidence, no suspect. In the beginning of chapter 8, and again in 8:7, Paul treats indwelling lust and sin as the source of all sinful actions. He mentions its destruction using the effects it produces. By a twist of the phrase, “Carnal minds”5 [NT:4561 sarx], are no different than the “passions and lusts of the flesh”6 [also NT:4561 sarx]. The deeds and fruits of the flesh arise from the carnal mind; and this is the sense in which the body is used in Romans 8:10 : “The body is dead because of sin.”
(3.) What is meant by mortify.
“Put to death” [NT:2289 thanatoo] - This is a metaphor, taken from putting any living thing to death. To kill a man or other living thing, means to take away all his strength, vigor, and power, so that he cannot act or exert on his own. That is just what it means in this case. Indwelling sin is compared to a person, a living person, called “the old man.” He has his way of thinking, his tendencies, his wisdom, craft, subtlety, and strength. This old man, says the apostle, must be killed, put to death, mortified. That is, the old man’s power, life, vigor, and strength, his ability to produce effects, must be taken away by the Spirit. In fact, it is to be “crucified with Christ” as a good thing.7 We, as the “old man,” are said to be “dead” with Christ.8 When we are resurrected in Christ and regenerated,9 a principle contrary to the old man, one designed to destroy him,10 is planted in our hearts. But the whole process towards perfection (Christ-like behavior) is carried on by degrees all of our life. More about this later. The intent of the apostle in prescribing the duty to mortify sin is this: it is the constant duty of believers to mortify the indwelling sin still remaining in their mortal bodies, so that it will not have the life and power needed to produce the deeds of the flesh.
5. The promise for fulfilling this duty is life: “You will live.” The life promised is opposed to the death threatened in the previous clause, “If you live for the flesh, you will die.” Paul repeats, “If you satisfy the flesh you will reap destruction.”11 Now, perhaps the word means not only eternal life, but also the spiritual life in Christ. We have that in this life, not the essence of it, but the joy, comfort, and vitality of it. As the apostle says in another case, “Now we live, if we stand fast.”12 In other words, “Now my life will do me good; I will have joy and comfort in my life. I will lead a good, vital, comfortable, spiritual life while I am here, and then obtain eternal life afterwards.” As to what was said before, about the connection between mortification and eternal life, I add a second motive to the duty prescribed: that the vitality, power, and comfort of our spiritual life depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh.