A speaker at my local church this week chose to exposit a passage whose meaning I consider less than perfectly obvious. He started right in the middle of Romans 8. As he worked his way through it explaining what he believes Paul was telling his readers, I struggled to agree with him at several points. I’ve been thinking it through since, and I’d like to gently suggest a few other angles that might be more consistent with both human experience and, more importantly, the rest of the word of God.
As always, our worthy readers are free to disagree.
A Lengthy Quotation
Let’s start with a lengthy quotation:
“So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 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. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 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!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 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.”
Several difficulties with this passage invite consideration, most obviously the words “provided we suffer with him” in verse 17. We can skip that one for two good reasons: (1) our speaker didn’t address it at all; and (2) I’ve already written a post on it a few years back, which you can find here. It’s not as difficult as it looks, but it’s worth thinking about if you haven’t done so before. Paul is neither demanding all Christians provoke their own persecution nor arguing for a works-based salvation.
An Actual Difficulty
Our speaker’s first actual difficulty was that he began right in the middle of Paul’s argument, with verse 14. Jumping into the middle of a man’s thought flow is usually a recipe for misunderstanding, as it was in this case. We know we are in the middle of the stream because verse 14 begins with the word “For” in English or γάρ in Greek, which Strong’s concordance tells us is the equivalent of “therefore”. It points us backward to previous propositions that we need to keep in mind. We are at very least starting at Step 2 in Paul’s line of reasoning, maybe even Step 3 or 4. In such a situation, we need to back up.
Not only does a “For” begin verse 14, but we also find connecting words further back. Verse 12 begins with “So then”. Verse 9 begins with “You, however”. Verses 5, 6 and 7 all begin with the same aforementioned “For”, and verse 1 begins with a “therefore”. We must then go back at very least to the infamous Romans 7 passage in which Paul describes the struggle of the flesh against the Spirit. His entire thesis is even longer than that, but I think we can safely stop at 7:13, in which Paul begins to answer a new question, which we might paraphrase as “Did a good law bring death to me?” Paul’s answer is “Absolutely not.” The problem was not the law itself, but the sin nature or “flesh” that even good laws provoke and reveal.
Flesh and Spirit
Much debate surrounds Paul’s description of the struggle of flesh against Spirit in verses 13-24 as to whether the man involved is a believer or not. I believe Paul demonstrates he is. If you doubt that, here’s yet another post on that issue. But if you agree with me that he is, two important conclusions follow: (1) the Christian life is an ongoing struggle between flesh and Spirit in which we sometimes lose a battle or two; and (2) we never lose the war, because Christ gives us deliverance.
The second point is uncontroversial, I hope. The first should be as well if we have read 1 John 1, in which the beloved apostle agrees with Paul: believers still sin. The Christian life is no cakewalk. Nevertheless, the Spirit of Christ enables us to be characteristically victorious even if we embarrass ourselves in the occasional skirmish along the way.
With that in mind, we can work our way into Romans 8, in which Paul tells us sin is no longer our slave master. Christians may unwisely choose to sin from time to time, but we do not have to. We are free in a way unbelievers are not.
Defining ‘Live’ and ‘Die’
All this background has established that Paul is talking to believers about life as a believer. He is not discussing the pre-salvation experience, when men are “in the flesh”. He is talking about people who experience the struggle between flesh and Spirit, not people wholly in slavery to their old natures. As he says in 8:9, “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” Unlike the unregenerate, he is talking to people who have the freedom to choose, not to slaves, and he is urging us to take advantage of our freedom to choose good, not evil; Christ, not self.
So then, when we come to verse 12, Paul’s “we” means “we Christians”. This being the case, when he adds, “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”, the words “live” and “die” have nothing to do with salvation from hell. Rather, they posit the alternative between a Christian life that prospers and grows as Christ intended to the glory of God, and a Christian life cut short by God’s discipline that ends in loss of reward and being saved as if by fire. No Christian should want that, but if we play around with the flesh too much, this is the risk we are taking. Again, we do not have to take that risk. Christ has set us free to choose the good by his Spirit. Paul is urging his Roman readers to do just that.
Not a Test of Salvation
Now, finally, we come to verse 14, but we could not discuss Paul’s next statement coherently without first setting the table. We have to know whom Paul is talking to and what’s at stake for them. The answer is “believers” and the stakes “loss or reward in eternity”. Now, here is that statement: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
Unlike our speaker, I do not read this as some kind of test of salvation. He actually read it backwards, which does not follow at all. If I followed him correctly, our speaker’s argument was that everyone who is genuinely a child of God characteristically follows the Spirit’s leading. Paul did not say that.
It would be nice if it were so. I wish it were. But one can be led characteristically while following sporadically. Christians can quench the Spirit. Christians can grieve the Spirit. Scripture teaches it. Sure, the promptings of the Spirit are there. His words are in their hearts. Nevertheless, some Christians don’t obey his leading every time, or even most of the time. I know dozens who struggle just as Paul describes in Romans 7, and I do not believe they are all unsaved. I can tell because when they are thinking rightly about it, they grieve their sins, ask for forgiveness, and experience ongoing guilt. They do not defend their failures or call them a lifestyle. They never tell you, “That’s just the way I am. Live with it.” They want to be transformed into the likeness of Christ, and it distresses them to so regularly discover they are not there yet, in some cases not even close. Yet that transformation is indeed underway, and I have every confidence our Lord will complete what he started.
Sons of God
When I read the words “All those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God”, here’s how I understand them:
Starting point: the Spirit does not “lead” the unsaved. He may convict them of sin and righteousness and judgment, but what they do when under conviction is up to them. He may use them to accomplish his purposes. He may even speak through them at times, as he did through Caiaphas. But that’s not remotely the Christian experience of being led by the Spirit, which is the daily direction provided by a quickened conscience continuously informed by the word of God and a craving for the things of heaven.
With that in mind, I believe anyone who is ever “led by the Spirit”, however falteringly and irregularly, is a child of God. Some among us are more sensitive, more alert and more submissive to his leading, but all who possess the Spirit hear his voice, all acknowledge the rightness of what he teaches them, and all sometimes do what he is urging them to do or not do, as the case may be.
A Thought
May we each follow the Spirit’s leading daily, more and more so. But let us not look down on our brothers and sisters in Christ whose victories over the flesh are still small or intermittent by our lofty standards. Led is led, and if you are looking for him, you will see the signs of the Spirit’s presence in everyone he indwells.
Further, let us not underestimate their capacity for change. If even a few of those who have fallen asleep under divine discipline genuinely died “in Christ”, what shall we say about the ones still alive?
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