Sin Killer

This week's reading schedule included Romans 8:1-13, a portion which is titled "Life in the Spirit" in my ESV translation and is a passage which immediately gives pause and brings to mind Peter's reminder:

"And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures."

(2 Peter 3:15-16 ESV)

And so, I feel like I'm in good company if, like the Apostle Peter, I find concepts and passages within Paul's writings that make me say, "Huh?"

In Romans 8, we hear a few words and phrases so much that they become part of our vocabulary, but we may not recognize what the first-century reader might have heard and understood from Paul's writings. For instance, in Romans 8:1, Paul says there is no condemnation for those who "are in Christ Jesus ." What does it mean to be in Christ Jesus? Or how about this: "You are...in the Spirit, if...the Spirit of God dwells in you" (Romans 8:9).

I think believers understand the truth that Paul is putting forward almost experientially. By this, I mean to say that we kind of "get what Paul is saying" simply because we have had this truth invade our reality. What Paul says is almost contradictory: "We are in the Spirit, and the Spirit is in us ." But Paul, in the first century, is making a rational argument. Such an argument made sense and would have strengthened the reader's understanding of how it is that we "live according to the Spirit." The word for spirit in Greek is πνευμα (pneuma), and for the modern reader, it immediately brings to mind something which is not 'material' and has no substance. But verses like these from 1 & 2 Corinthians suggest that Paul doesn't necessarily see that spirit (pneuma) refers to something which doesn't have any form or material:

"Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." (1 Corinthians 15:45; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 ESV) emphasis added

These passages make it clear that Paul understands that Jesus the Messiah is pneuma (spirit). But either Paul is contradicting Jesus' own words, or he is using pneuma differently than Luke:

"But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a pneuma (spirit) does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet." (Luke 24:37-40 ESV)

In Paul's understanding, pneuma is not necessarily without substance or material. In his book Jewish Paul, Matthew Thiessen puts it this way:

Jesus the Messiah invades the flesh-and-blood bodies of those who trust in him via his own pneuma. When gentiles receive the pneuma by faith, when this pneuma enters into their hearts, they have been infused with the stuff of the Messiah, which now permeates their bodies. Simultaneously, these gentiles are clothed in the Messiah. The Messiah, then, both envelops them and indwells them.

This may help us see verse 13 from Paul's perspective.

"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." (Romans 8:13 ESV)

The foundation of John Owen's book The Mortification of Sin is based on the back half of verse 13: "...if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." Among other profound ideas, Owen points out that it is our duty to "put to death the deeds of the body." The "body" referred to in the last part of the verse is the same as the "flesh" in the first part. The flesh and body are corrupt and subject to decay and stand in opposition to the Spirit, which is pure and incorruptible. We must put to death - kill - our "old self," which is said to have already "died with Christ" (Romans 6:6-8). Simply containing the "old man" and trying to keep him from sinning isn't enough. He's gotta die so he can't bring forth the deeds of the body any longer.

But in carrying out our duty, we must understand that the pneuma of Christ (Holy Spirit) is the only way to kill sin. All other types of help leave us helpless. They will not work. Why? Because sin brings death, the pneuma brings life. Employing any other means besides the pneuma to kill sin is an attempt to kill sin with the flesh. And we know that "the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." (Romans 8:7-8). If you were to stack the 'self-help' books which teach people how to mortify sin, it would reach the moon. But as believers, we must recognize that any technique to 'remove sin' absent of the pneuma of Christ will fail and is ultimately the foundation of every false religion.

So, like the Israelites who stood on the sea of reeds and were instructed by Moses to stand firm and "see the salvation of the Lord," we must recognize that in our duty of sin-killing, "The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent." Ex. 14.14. But we must also see that, like Paul in Romans, Exodus also shows us that our standing firm isn't standing still, and like Israel on the shores of the Sea of Reeds, we must go forward knowing that as we pursue a life of walking in the pneuma, the Lord will split the sea, bring us safely through and drown our pursuers.

This week, may you have a sharp axe and a sure aim as you swing at the root of the tree of your old self.

"Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." (Matthew 3:10 ESV)