(continuation of
Meditation 113)
“You are not controlled by your sinful nature.
You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you.
(And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them
are not Christians at all.)” (Romans 8:9*)
The apostle Paul had not yet visited Rome when he wrote this letter to
the church there (see Romans 1:10-13). So, it is significant that he assumes
that Christians are people who have the Spirit of God living in them. It means
that they are reconciled with God the Father through the sin offering of God
the Son and that they are reborn by God the Spirit (John 1:12-13; Acts 2:38). I
wonder if this clear assumption of Paul is part and parcel of every church’s
biblical teaching.
“So, dear brothers and sisters, you have no
obligation whatsoever to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you
keep on following it, you will perish.” (Romans 8:12-13*)
The apostle finishes this paragraph in chapter 8 by repeating that God’s
reborn children should utterly, completely and totally abandon their former
sinful way of life. Yet, it is at this point that we come up against the very
question: how could I ever overcome my sinful nature and its passions and
desires? We find Paul’s answer in the following paragraph:
“If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the
body, you will live.” (Romans 8:13**)
This is an amazing
message. What we never could do by ourselves, because of our selfish and sinful
nature, God’s Spirit can! He has come from heaven and is sent to us by God the
Father and God the Son. He has not only come to live in us as a guarantee to
eternal life, but also to save us from the power of sin and transform us into
the likeness of Christ.
It is noteworthy that
Paul points to the fact that this liberation from the power of sin does not
simply happen to us. On the contrary, God’s Spirit includes us in this
liberation process. Yet, how can He do that if our hearts and wills are so
desperately corrupted by our sinfulness?
Before God’s Spirit is
able to include us in the liberation from the power of sin, there are two major
things that need to happen:
A change of heart
to love God
The apostle Paul shows
the Roman Christians that God’s Spirit is able give us a change of heart. That
happens to everyone who receives Jesus as Saviour and Lord and thereby enters
into God’s new and eternal covenant. Paul compares this process with the Jewish
rite of circumcision of the Jewish males: “True circumcision is not a
cutting of the body but a change of heart produced by God's Spirit.” (Romans 2:29*)
Already Moses spoke
about the promise of this new covenant that God in the future would make with
His people. The result would be a deep love for God and the wholehearted
fulfilment of His holy Law: “The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts
and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your
heart and with all your soul, and live.” (Deuteronomy 30:6**)
Later God gave the same promise to His people by the prophet Ezekiel: “I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within
them. I will take away their hearts of stone and give them tender hearts
instead, so they will obey my laws and regulations. Then they will truly be my
people, and I will be their God.” (Ezekiel 11:19-20*)
Entering into this new covenant would require a rebirth by God’s Spirit.
God explains this also through Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put
a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a
heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my
decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (Ezekiel
36:26-27**)
The apostle Paul picks up the image of ‘the circumcision of the heart’
from the Old Testament (e.g. Deuteronomy 30:6) when he writes to God’s reborn
children in the Greek town of Colosse: “In him (Jesus Christ) you were also
circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision
done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ.” (Colossians 2:11**)
About this change of heart to love God, Paul writes to the Christians in
Rome: “We know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy
Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.” (Romans 5:5*)
At the beginning of
this Meditation we saw that in Romans 8:9 the Spirit of God is also called the
‘Spirit of Christ’. That means practically that when God’s Spirit lives in us,
it is actually Jesus Christ who lives in us. That’s why the apostle Paul exclaims
in his letter to the Christians in Galatia (region in Turkey): “I myself no
longer live, but Christ lives in me. So I live my life in this earthly body by
trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20*)
Indeed, it is God’s
Spirit who wants to give us a heart that loves God the Father like Jesus did
when he lived on earth. Jesus testified the evening before His death: “I
will do what the Father requires of me, so that the world will know that I love
the Father.” (John 14:31*)
A change of will
to obey God
If you have received a
change of heart to love God, you have subsequently also received a change of
will to obey Him wholeheartedly.
Earlier we saw already
in God’s promise through the prophet Ezekiel that He would change the heart and
will of His people so that they would desire and be able to obey God’s holy Law
(Ezekiel 11:19-20*)
We read the same message in Ezekiel 36:26-27**: “I
will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to
keep my laws.” (Ezekiel 36:26-27**)
The apostle Paul
reminds God’s reborn children in the Greek town of Philippi: “It is God who
works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Philippians
2:13**)
Paul explains to the
Christians in the Greek port of Corinth that his apostolic ministry is a gift
from God: “Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for
ourselves, but our competence comes from God.” (2
Corinthians 3:5**)
The author of the
letter to the Hebrews finishes with the following blessing: “May the God of
peace... equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may
he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be
glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13:20-21**)
I think that by now we have found
the answer to the question: how can we overcome the power of sin in our lives
if our hearts and wills naturally are so desperately corrupted by our
sinfulness?
The answer is that we
only can overcome the power of our sinful nature if we have received the three
‘component parts’ needed for such a major victory:
1. The gift of God’s
Spirit as a result of our conversion. Jesus calls this ‘a new birth’. He
said to the Jewish rabbi Nicodemus: “The truth is, no one can enter the Kingdom
of God without being born of water (conversion) and the Spirit.” (John
3:5*)
2. A God-given change of heart to love Him.
3. A God-given
change of will to obey Him
Let us repeat what we said earlier on: What we could never do by
ourselves, because of our selfish and sinful nature, God’s Spirit can! He has
come from heaven and is sent to us by God the Father and God the Son. He has
not only come to live in us as a guarantee to eternal life, but also to save us
from the power of sin and transform us into the likeness of Christ.
As we have seen before, God’s Word makes it clear that our rebirth does
not mean the absence of our sinful nature during our remaining days on earth.
That’s why we need to be trained by God’s Spirit to overcome its power.
Therefore, the apostle Paul writes to the Christians in Rome: “If by
the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” (Romans
8:13**)
This is a remarkable sentence. Let us look a bit closer at it. How can I
overcome the power of sin? Paul says: by putting to death ‘the misdeeds of the
body’. The apostle thinks of my sinful behaviour.
Who is called to put to death my sinful behaviour? Paul says that is me!
Better to say: my new ‘me’, my renewed God-given heart; it is my new
‘Christlike heart’; it is given to me by God’s Spirit; it is characterised by a
pure and undivided love of God and a burning desire to do His will.
Do I have to mortify my sinful behaviour on my own? Paul says: no. I could not do that. I am
only able to do that by the power and aid of God’s Spirit.
Paul says that as a
result of this mortifying process we will live in a peaceful and Christlike
fellowship with God the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ (Romans 8:13b).
In the next meditation
we will look at the practicalities of this process.
(to be continued)
Translations: *
New Living Translation; ** New International Version
For more on Jesus’ guilt offering, see Meditations
3 to 12.
For
more on the question ‘what is sin?’ see Meditations 101 to 103.
For more on ‘salvation’, see Meditations 19
to 26.
For more on ‘rebirth by God’s Spirit’, see
Meditations 27 and 44.
For more on ‘who is the Holy Spirit’? see
Meditation 28.
For more on God’s new and eternal covenant, see
Meditations 33 to 34.
For
more on ‘Christlike transformation by God’s Spirit’, see Meditations 29 to
34, 45, 49 to 56 and 105.
For
more on ‘Christlike love for God the Father and Jesus, His Son’, see
Meditations 56 to 62.
For
more on ‘How to overcome the power of sin in my life’, see Meditations
101-113.
