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“For 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.” (Romans 8:13)
As we look at this verse, we see that it has two parts that we must consider. First, we see a condition that the natural man has that places a dreadful threat on their life, death. “For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die.” At mankind’s fall into sin, God appointed that the sin in their life shall cause them to return to the dust they had come. All flesh must die at an appointed time because of flesh’s sinful nature. The righteous and the unrighteous both shall suffer the death of their flesh. No corrupted flesh can be in the presence of a holy God. This death that all will suffer is merely the separation of the spirit from the flesh. The question that all will face, either here in this world or most certainly in the spiritual world to come, is where the spirit of a man shall reside?
Those who trust the Lord Jesus as their Messiah will find eternal life in God the Father’s grace, holiness, and peace. But those who have rejected God’s free offer of salvation through Jesus will live in deprivation of God’s grace, holiness, and peace. For that person, there will be no spiritual comfort found. They have lived after the flesh, and they shall die. They are faced with a second death, a death eternal. The second death is the spirit and the body when it is eternally separated from God’s love and tossed into the Lake of Fire. Repentance gives a promise of life to those who live by the Spirit. “But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
We see first in this phrase we have a duty that we must do. “If by the Spirit you.” We have a responsibility that every Christian is to “put to death the deeds of the flesh.” Jesus suffered the Roman cross, and He was crucified there to separate us from the sins of the flesh. As His followers, we have to also crucify the flesh by denying the flesh’s evil desires and passions. We must take the flesh’s sinful desires and place them on the cross that Jesus suffered for us and crucify them there. “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Galatians 5:24)
Generally, the flesh fears and avoids death with every fiber of its existence. If one gathers life into advanced years or shortness of years, the body spends all its time prolonging its time. It is the same with the sinful deeds of the flesh; they do not die easily. To put sin to death by the Spirit does not mean that our opposition to sin in our life will be spontaneous. The Apostle Paul struggled with sin in his life, so the battle rages on till we are free from the body of sin. “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.” (Romans 7:19-20)
It takes obedience to God’s Word to weaken the power of sin in our lives. Sin will not ever be put to death easily, but we can overcome it through our Lord. It must be a universal commitment and not a piecemeal attempt. We cannot allow a little sin and expect a full victory. We must fight against all disobedience to the command of our Lord. If anyone’s sin is permissible in their life, then there is no actual putting sin to death. Putting deeds of the flesh to death is not a once or a once-in-a-while effort. It is a daily effort as Satan will never surrender until the Lord takes him out.
We must be fully aware of why we will put the deeds of the flesh to death. We must be aware of the nature of the sin we are to put to death. Sin is the mortal enemy of our souls. If we see sin as death to our spirit, we must first put that sin to death. As King Saul spoke to David in Samuel, “For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go away safely?” (1 Samuel 24:19)
Jesus suffered the cross for all the sin of the world that whosoever would call upon Him would be saved. If Jesus put all the worlds’ sins to death on the cross, then we should strive to put our own sins to death by His crucifixion. To put sin to death is a requisite of the obedience that we owe God in our service to Him. No one can become a good and faithful servant to God if he has not first put sin to death in himself.
Our work of putting to death the sins of the flesh is a work that must start in the inward man. It is the process of sanctification and the work of the Holy Spirit. It is a work that comes from within and becomes visible in the outward man. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2) The flesh of man is not so easily discerned by others and does not often show the discovery of itself. Some wear a mask of righteousness yet harbor deep sinful behaviors hidden beneath the surface. But God knows the heart of men, and the day will come for an accounting of these hidden perversions. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” (2 Corinthians 5:10)
We must strive to put to death these deep-seated sins of the flesh that are allowed to remain as they destroy our testimony for the glory of the Lord. We cannot hide distortions of the faith we profess and expect to be an instrument of the Lord in evangelizing the souls of men. That is a lie that will be found out, and the hurt will go beyond ourselves. “Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.” (Colossians 3:9-10)
By putting to death the sins of the flesh in the power of the Holy Spirits’ sanctification, we receive the promise of the last part of this verse, eternal life. “But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.” (Romans 6:22)
Thomas N Kirkpatrick
First Baptist Church of Durant, September 20, 2018
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