Romans 8:12

Verse 12. Therefore, brethren, c.] Dr. Taylor is of opinion that the apostle having spoken separately, both to Jews and Gentiles, concerning holiness and the obligations to it, now addresses himself to both conjointly, and,

I. Draws the general conclusion from all his arguments upon this subject, Ro 8:12.

II. Proves the validity of their claims to eternal life, Ro 8:14-17.

III. And as the affair of suffering persecution was a great stumbling block to the Jews, and might very much discourage the Gentiles, he introduces it to the best advantage, Ro 8:17, and advances several arguments to fortify their minds under all trials: as -

(1.) That they suffered with Christ

(2.) In order to be glorified with him in a manner which will infinitely compensate all sufferings, Ro 8:17; Ro 8:18.

(3.) All mankind are under various pressures, longing for a better state, Ro 8:19-22.

(4.) Many of the most eminent Christians are in the same distressed condition, Ro 8:23.

(5.) According to the plan of the Gospel, we are to be brought to glory after a course of patience exercised in a variety of trials, Ro 8:24; Ro 8:25.

(6.) The Spirit of God will supply patience to every upright soul under persecution and suffering, Ro 8:26; Ro 8:27.

(7.) All things, even the severest trials, shall work together for their good, Ro 8:28. And this he proves, by giving us a view of the several steps which the wisdom and goodness of God have settled, in order to our complete salvation, Ro 8:29; Ro 8:30. Thence he passes to the affair of our perseverance; concerning which he concludes, from the whole of his preceding arguments, that as we are brought into a state of pardon by the free grace of God, through the death of Christ, who is now our mediator in heaven; no possible cause, providing we continue to love and serve God, shall be able to pervert our minds, or separate us from his love in Christ Jesus, Ro 8:31-39. Therefore, αρα ουν is the grand inference from all that he has been arguing in relation to sanctity of life, both to the Gentiles, chap. 6, and to the Jews, chap. 7, and 8, to this verse, where I suppose he begins to address himself to both, in a body, to the end of the chapter.- Taylor, page 317.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Rom_8:12

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live after the flesh.

The Christian--a debtor

I. How are we to understand this. We are debtors--

1. To all times.

(1) To the past. To such who have preceded us we owe the purity of the Church. Shall we not, in some degree, repay the immense debt of our obligation by seeking to make the future also debtors to us, that our descendants may acknowledge that they owe us thanks for preserving the Scriptures, for maintaining liberty, for glorifying God?

(2) To the present. We are living in a most marvellous age. We have around us appliances for doing good, such as never before. We have a work to do, as great as our forefathers, and, perhaps, far greater.

(3) To the future. Who can tell the fearful consequences to future generations if we now betray our trust? Sow well, for others must reap. You are fountains for coming generations; oh, be careful that your streams are pure.

2. To all classes. There are some that always get well paid for what they do, whose claims, therefore, need no advocacy. I will only mention one class--the poor. Charity to them is a debt, and God requires us to remember the poor. The rich are indebted to them, for while the one hoard wealth the other make it. But in the case of the believing poor, their claim upon us is far more binding. When I think how the poor toil day after day and receive barely enough to keep their souls within their bodies, and how frequently they serve their Church, unhonoured and unrewarded, I cannot but say that we are their debtors in very large degree. We little know how many a blessing the poor mans prayer brings down upon us.

3. To our covenant God; that is the point which swallows up all. I owe nothing to the past, future, rich, poor, compared with what I owe to my God. We are all born Gods creatures, and as such we are debtors to obey Him. When we have broken His commandments we are debtors to His justice, and owe him a vast amount of punishment which we are not able to pay. But in the case of the Christian, Christ has paid the debt. I am a debtor to Gods love, to Gods power, to Gods forgiving mercy, and are we not His sons, and is there not a debt the son owes to the Father which a lifetime of obedience can never remove? Remember again, we are Christs brethren, and there is a debt in brotherhood.

II. What ought we to draw from this doctrine.

1. A lesson of humility. If we be debtors we never ought to be proud.

2. How zealous we should be for our Master! Though we cannot pay all, we can at least acknowledge the debt, and, if we cannot pay Him the principal, yet to give Him some little interest upon the talent which He has lent to us, and those stupendous mercies which He has granted to us. If we all believed this, how much easier it would be to get our Churches into good order! I go to one brother and say, There is such and such an office in the Sabbath school; will you take it? Well, sir, I really work so hard all the week that I cannot. There, you see, that man does not know that he is a debtor. I take him a bill to-morrow morning, and he says, Do you come begging? I say, No; I have brought a bill. Oh, yes, he says, I see; there is the cash. Now that is the way to act. Conclusion: Be just before you are generous, and especially before you are generous to yourselves. Take care that you pay your debts before you spend money upon your pleasures. If it is robbing man to spend the money in pleasure wherewith we ought to pay our debts, it is robbing God if we employ our time, our talents, or our money, in anything but His service, until we feel we have done our share in that service. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

We are not debtors to the flesh

The word flesh may be taken in its physical consideration. There is a debt which every man in a sense does owe unto it. We may be said to be debtors to the flesh, that is, to our bodies, in sundry regards: as to feed them, clothe, and to nourish them. No man ever yet hated his own flesh (Eph_5:29). And there are some kind of people in the world which are scandalously debtors to it: as, for example, your misers and muck-worms, which pinch and straighten themselves even where God has enlarged them; live poor, that they may die rich. And so likewise not only your covetous, but your superstitious persons, which needlessly, and out of a conceit of merit, macerate their flesh, and put a piece of religion in abstaining from such kind of meats, which God had created to be received with thanksgiving of them that believe and know the truth, as it is in 1Ti_4:3. The denial of the flesh, in this sense, is the withholding of a debt from it which is due unto it. Indeed, as to the pampering and inordinate setting out of our bodies, so we are not debtors unto them. A Christian owes his flesh no such special or extraordinary service as this is. And the reasons hereof is taken from the nature and conditions of the body, considered in itself, which, as it is styled in the verse before, is corruptible and mortal. And then, besides, the great impediments which it does cause and contract to the soul, from the inordinate serving of it, whereby it is made so much the more unfit for the duties and exercises of religion, taken in its physical consideration, so far forth as it does denote the body, or outward man. The second is by taking it in the moral. The flesh, that is sin and corruption: and so it seems principally to be understood here in this place. Christians, they are by no means debtors to the fulfilling of their lusts. First, we are not debtors to the flesh, nor have any cause to do service to that, because we have received no answerable benefit from it. A debt it is upon consideration, and does usually and for the most part imply some benefit received. We never got a farthing by sin, any of us, in all our lives. All that we get by sin is nothing but shame and loss. Therefore it is not we that are debtors to it, but it is it, indeed, rather that is a debtor to us, in all those fair promises which it hath some time made unto us, whilst it has performed none. Secondly, as we are not debtors by receipt, so neither are we debtors by promise. That is another way sometimes of coming into debt. Though a man have nothing which he hath received from another, yet if he hath promised him, and bound himself to him, he becomes a debtor to him notwithstanding. There is no man that is a true believer, and that has given up his name to Christ, who has made any promise to sin for the gratifying of it in any particular. Thirdly, there are too many of us who are, as I may say, aforehand with the flesh, in the days of vanity and un-conversion, therefore not debtors to it. If ever they owed anything to it, they have paid it over and over again, and more than enough (1Pe_4:3). Fourthly, we are not debtors to the flesh, because the flesh and we are at absolute enmity and opposition one to another. We have killed and crucified the flesh, as many of us as belong to Christ, therefore we are no longer debtors to it. They that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts (Gal_5:24). Now, therefore, we are not to conceive as if we owed anything to it. Why, thus it is now with us in regard of the flesh. It concerns us all we can to spoil it, and to divest it of that which it has, therefore we are not to think that we should owe anything to it. Fifthly, we are absolutely freed and discharged from the exactions of it. It has no part or share in us, nor anything at all to do with us, therefore we are not debtors to it (Rom_6:23). Those who are regenerate and born again they are made free from sin, and so nothing engaged to the services of it. Sixthly and lastly, we are not debtors to the flesh, because the flesh is not a warrantable creditor for any to be indebted unto. Where there is nothing due, there is no man can be said to be a debtor. Now for the flesh, it is a cheater, and an usurper, and an oppressor. The consideration of this point serves to this purpose: First, to discover to us the sad and miserable condition of all such persons as are out of Christ. There is no man so deeply engaged as that man who is in thraldom to his lusts; and he has all the properties of a sad debtor upon him. First, he is a servant to it; this is the property of a debtor; the borrower is a servant to the lender, as Solomon speaks. He that committeth sin is the servant of sin, so says our Saviour. Why, thus now is every carnal and unregenerate person to his lusts; he is a slave and servant to them, and they lead him whither they please. He that is a debtor to one lust, he shall be a slave to many more with it, which will engage him occasionally from it. Thus he who is a debtor to ambition and pride and vain glory in the world, he is a debtor occasionally to flattery and falsehood and sinful correspondences, for the promoting of such ends to himself. He that is a debtor to covetousness, he is a debtor consequently to cozenage and fraud and oppression, and such causes as these for the satisfying of that humour in him. And he that is a debtor to wantonness and lasciviousness and drunkenness and intemperance, and the like, he is a debtor also to other sins which have an affinity and agreement thereunto. Thus lust is not a single debt, but involves many others besides together with itself, which is a special misery considerable in it. Secondly, another misery in a debtor is that he labours all for another many times and not for himself. He is not only a servant but a drudge. Those that are addicted and given up to such affections as these are, they can have time and leisure for little else but the following of them, whereas in the meantime their inward man it lies waste, and those means which God has appointed for the advancing thereof are neglected accordingly. Thirdly, another inconvenience of debtors is restraint and want of freedom. Lastly, he that is a debtor to sin, he is the worst kind of debtor of all, because the more that he pays to it the more he still comes in debt to a greater Creditor, and runs in arrears with Him, who will be sure at last to call him to a most strict account about it. And so now I have done with the first general part of the text, which is the negative in that which is expressed, We are not debtors to the flesh, to live after the flesh. The second is the affirmative, as that which is implied. But we are debtors to the Spirit, to live after the Spirit. First, for the Creditor: the Spirit. Every Christian is a debtor that is bound and engaged to do this. And first of all, as it denotes the third person in the Trinity, which was spoken of in the verse immediately preceding. Every Christian is a debtor to the Holy Spirit, and that in these respects. First, as the beginner and worker of all grace in him. Secondly, we are engaged to the Spirit, not only as the first beginner, but also as the further increaser of those graces in us which are begun. Thirdly, as our Comforter in afflictions: we are debtors to the Spirit thus. Lastly, as the continual suggester of good thoughts unto us, and restrainer of us from evil. But, secondly, we may take it as denoting the regenerate part in us, in reference to a spiritual life. And thus in this sense are we debtors to the Spirit also. First, we are debtors to the spirit, that is, to the spiritual part in us, in regard of what we have not paid already. There is no man, whoever he be, but he is behind hand, as I may say, to the spirit in this respect. He has not bestowed that time, and pains and endeavour upon his heart, and soul, and spirit as he should, and as it hath become him to do. Secondly, we are debtors to the spirit, in regard of what we ought and are bound to pay unto it, It is a debt which lies upon us to lead a godly and holy life: and that in sundry respects. Thirdly, we are debtors to the Spirit, from the great benefit which does accrue and come to us herefrom, and which we have already had experience of. Let us consider how far we have discharged this debt which we are so much engaged in. Let us cast up our reckonings and see what we have expended answerable to what we have received. Set creditor on one hand and set debtor on the other, as we use to do in other matters. We are debtors to the Spirit, and He will not be put off with such payments as belong rather to the flesh. Were it not a strange thing for a debtor to mistake his true creditor--to run and carry that to one man which belonged rather to another? Why thus it is with many people in regard of their debts for their souls. They are debtors to the Spirit, of their health, of their strength, of their time, of their parts, of their estates, and of all they have. And they offer the payment hereof all to the flesh, What an incongruous thing is this? Therefore I say still, let us be careful to discharge our proper duty in that particular. And to set this so much the more upon us, let us consider these things with ourselves. First, the power of the Creditor. And if we neglect or refuse to pay Him, He knows how to help Himself. No securing or saving themselves from Him who is able to meet with them. Secondly, the strictness of the Creditor. That is another thing considerable likewise. He is one that is exact in His demands, which should make us in our returns to be so likewise. Thirdly, let us further consider to this purpose the great advantage of paying, and the special benefit which comes to us by it, while being debtors to the Spirit we are careful to be payers too. We have a threefold accommodation from it. First, a further entrusting and committing of more unto us. Such debtors as are not careful to pay, there is nobody will trust them with any more. Secondly, further enablement. The more we are careful to pay the more we shall be able to pay. Every new performance is a preparation and disposition to another. To him that thus hath shall be given. Thirdly, peace of conscience and satisfaction and tranquility of mind. Debts they are commonly troublesome, and do much disquiet the minds of those who are entangled with them. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)

A debtor to the flesh

At the time this Epistle was written, and among the people to whom it was addressed, the creditor exercised over the debtor a power which the humanity of modern times has abolished. The unfortunate man who was insolvent was at the mercy of his creditor, and might be treated as he chose. It has long been a question whether, according to the Roman law, the creditors had not the right of cutting the mans body in pieces in proportion to the amount of their claims; and there can be no doubt that the debtors person as well as his property, his family as well as himself, were liable to be apprehended and disposed of; just as we read in the parable, where the king is found ordering that the servant who owed him ten thousand talents should be sold, with his family and all that he had, that payment might be made. In this sense, therefore, the debtor of the flesh would have been a man over whom the flesh had established an absolute power; whose mind as well as body were devoted to its service, and bound to do its will--who, if he laboured, was to labour that he might make provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof; who, if he rested, was to rest that he might indulge it in all its inclinations more freely; who, if he thought, was to be thinking about things to be had in the body, or, if he spoke, was to be speaking of them, and was to show a distaste for thought and conversation of a higher, purer character. There are many who are debtors to the flesh; who acknowledge the obligations, and show no inclination to be released from it. Listen to the voice of the world. Hear how the young are told that they ought to enjoy themselves while they are able, and that no one can condemn them if they do so. Hear how those who are more advanced are told that in dress, furniture, table, amusements, they ought to do what ethers do, and that they ought not to give offence by adopting a more Christian course of life than that which their neighbours lead. And when this language of the world comes to be translated into the words of the text, is it not equivalent with saying, We are debtors to the flesh, to make provision for its indulgence; we are debtors to the flesh for everything we enjoy or desire; and therefore we are bound to do all we can, in order to fulfil its purposes and gratify its wishes? Therefore, as the apostle continues, if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die. If you have persuaded yourselves that you must owe to the flesh the happiness you wish for, and if, acting under this impression, that you are debtors to the flesh, you determine to live after the flesh, death will soon come and put an end to all these dreams you have been cherishing; but long before death comes to chill your mirth, long before those rosebuds are withered with which you have been crowning yourselves, a deadness of heart shall come over you, a deadness to all spiritual things, which shall be the pledge and token of eternal death. (H. Raikes, M.A.)

Debtors to the flesh

I. The obligation due to the body. We are in the flesh, and the flesh has claims which rest upon Divine appointment.

1. Observe the form in which the apostle puts the matter. We may be debtors to the flesh, but not to live after it. The duty we owe it is not that of servants to a master, but of a master to his servants. We are debtors in respect to food, medicine, raiment, shelter, temperance and cleanliness. And to those who belong to us after the flesh we are debtors for earthly things; and he that careth not for them is worse than an infidel.

2. Let us go further. Our bodies are the Divine workmanship, and their faculties are of Gods malting and giving. Why? Not that they should run away with us or rule us, but that they should be subject to us.

II. The limit of the obligation. Not to live after the flesh. Men live after the flesh--

1. When the flesh is made the chief object of care, and this we are not obliged to do by any Divine law.

2. When we allow carnal indulgence to interfere with Christian duty.

3. When we decline bodily suffering in the cause and at the call of God.

4. When we are guided by a carnal policy in the conduct of life.

III. The difficulty of the obligation. We shall find the flesh so tyrannical that to keep within the actual limit of obligation is no easy matter. To mortify the deeds of the body thus becomes an important duty. This mortification is evangelical in motive, spiritual in nature, gradual in consummation.

IV. This mortification is at once the test of spirituality of mind and the fruit of the effectual work of the Spirit of God. Salvation is not only a work for us, but in us.

1. The Great Helper. We are not left to ourselves.

2. But a helper implies our own activity.

3. This proclaims the energy and reality of the spiritual life. (Percy Strutt.)

Believers not debtors to the flesh

I. Not from relationship. The flesh is no part of our original nature.

II. Not from gratitude. Its effects upon us have been only evil.

III. Not from duty. It is opposed to God, who commands us to crucify it.

IV. Not from interest. Only misery and death aver to be reaped from it (Gal_6:8). We are debtors to the body, which is Gods creature (Act_27:34; Eph_5:29), but not debtors to the flesh, which is Satans production (Mat_13:38; 1Jn_3:8). We are debtors to the body to satisfy its wants, but not to the flesh to gratify its lusts (Rom_13:14). (T. Robinson, D.D.)

The Christian a debtor not to the flesh, but to the Spirit

You take a wild briar from the hedge, and plant it in your garden; upon that briar you graft the choicest rose, and the result is--what? not two distinct identities, the briar flourishing as a briar, and the rose as a rose, nor the briar being completely absorbed into the rose, but two distinct natures forming one individuality, of which one represents the original individuality of the briar, while the other the imparted nature of the rose. This original individuality is only to be allowed to express itself through the imparted nature. All self-assertion on the part of the original briar stock, as distinct from the new nature engrafted upon it, is to be rigorously repressed. Neglect this process of repression, and the briar may make shoots below the graft; and as these shoots develop themselves the rose nature begins to lose ground, and suffers in foliage and flower, until, if the process be only allowed to go far enough, the rose is extinguished, the old briar is supreme. Yet observe: the briar itself is not repressed; it is allowed to develop itself in accordance with the laws of its own nature, but only through the rose. None of its personal rights or functions are to be interfered with; it is not to be robbed of the enjoyment of full vital vigour; but all this is to go to the production of a flower worthy of your garden, instead of the scanty and quickly-fading bloom of the hedge-rose. What is it that produces the standard rose? Not the rose without the briar; not the briar without the rose, but the rose and the briar united in one. In that standard rose, Christian, behold a picture of thyself if Christ is formed in thee! Thy individuality is not to be repressed; no healthy function of thy nature is to be laid aside. Yet is it necessary that you should be prepared to mortify the deeds of the body, or the old nature may assert itself apart from all reference to the new. Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth. Do you ask how? I reply that the same Spirit which has already introduced the new nature, and united Himself, provides the pruning-knife. We are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. We are debtors, not to the old briar-stock apart from the rose, for what did that ever bear that was worth gathering? what fruit had we but those things whereof we are now ashamed? the end of those things was death. But we are debtors, not only to that God whose sovereign love has made us what we are; not only to that Saviour who has redeemed us from the slavery of sin; not only to that Spirit who has condescended to make our body His temple; but we owe it to our new selves--that self into which the new Adam has been grafted, and wherein the new Adam claims to have His way; we owe it to that sense of harmony which pervades the once distracted elements of our nature; to that calm which has taken the place of our former disquietude; to that joy which has already furnished us with a foretaste of heaven; that we should be true to the instincts of our new life, and to the laws of our renovated nature! To forget this solemn debt is to turn our backs on all that makes life profitable, is to give ourselves over to spiritual bankruptcy; to recognise it and pay it with loyal and grateful devotion, is to secure boundless resources of infinite wealth. If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; and he who dies is stripped of all: If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live; and he who thus lives, lives in the enjoyment of all. (W. Hay Aitken, M.A.)

The believers obligation

I. The solemn obligation of the children of God. We are debtors; but the flesh is not our creditor. Do we owe anything to sin, the parent of all woe? To Satan--who plotted our temptation and accomplished our downfall? To the world--ensnaring, deceitful, and ruinous? No; to these, the allies of the flesh, we owe nothing but hatred and opposition. And yet the saints of God are debtors.

1. To the Father, for His electing love, His unspeakable gift, His spiritual blessings in Christ.

2. To the Son. He was the active agent in our redemption. He left no path untrodden, no portion of the curse unborne, no sin unatoned, no part of the law uncancelled, nothing for us in the matter of our salvation to do, but simply believe and be saved.

3. To the Holy Spirit, for leading us to Christ; for dwelling in our hearts; for His healing, sanctifying, comforting, and restoring grace; for His influence which no ingratitude has quenched; for His patience which no backsliding has exhausted; for His love which no sin has annihilated. We owe Him the intellect He has renewed, the heart He has sanctified, the body He inhabits, every breath of life He has inspired, and every pulse of love He has awakened.

II. The duty to which that obligation binds them. Holiness, or the mortification of sin, the opposite of living after the flesh, a subject strangely misunderstood to mean a mere maceration or mortification of the body, the mere excision of outward sins, or the destruction of sin altogether. True mortification is--

1. An annulling of the covenant with sin: Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, no union, but rather reprove them. What have I to do any more with idols? The resources of sin must be cut off: Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. Whatever tends to, and terminates in, the sinful gratification of the flesh, is to be relinquished.

2. A crucifixion: They that are Christs have crucified the flesh. Death by the cross is certain, yet lingering.

III. The twofold agency by which the work is accomplished.

1. If ye. The believer is not a cipher in this work. His usefulness, his happiness, his hope of heaven, are all included in it. The work of the Spirit is not, and never was designed to be, a substitute for the personal work of the believer. Work out your own salvation. Let us, then, be cautious of merging human responsibility in Divine influence; of exalting the one at the expense of the other; of cloaking the spirit of slothfulness beneath an apparently jealous regard for the honour of the Holy Ghost. Is no self-effort to be made to dethrone an unlawful habit, to resist a powerful temptation, to dissolve the spell that binds us to a dangerous enchantment, to unwind the chain that makes us the slave of a wrong inclination? Oh, surely, God deals not with us as we deal with a piece of mechanism--but as reasonable, moral, and accountable beings. I drew you with the hands of a man.

2. And it infinitely transcends the mightiest puttings forth of creative power. If ye through the Spirit do mortify.

1. This He does by making us more sensible of the existence of indwelling sin, by deepening our aspirations after holiness, by shedding abroad the love of God in the heart. But above all, by leading us to the Cross, and showing us that, as Christ died for sin, so we must die to sin, and by the self-same instrument too.

2. The Spirit effects it, but through the instrumentality of the Atonement. There must be a personal contact with Jesus. This only is it that draws forth His grace. (A. Winslow, D.D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 8:12-13. Therefore, brethren — As if he had said, Since we have received such benefits, and expect still more and greater, we are debtors — We are under obligations; not to the flesh — Not to our animal appetites and passions; we have formerly given them more than their due, and we owe our natural corruption no service; to live after the flesh — The desires and inclinations of which we ought not to follow; but we are under an indispensable obligation to be more and more holy. Or, as Dr. Doddridge paraphrases the verse, “Since it is certain the gratifications of the flesh can do nothing for us like that which will be done at the resurrection; and since all present enjoyments are mean and worthless when compared with that; here is a most substantial argument for that mortification and sanctity which the gospel requires. And it necessarily follows that we are debtors to the Spirit, which gives us such exalted hopes, and not unto the flesh, that we should live after the dictates, desires, and appetites thereof.” “To be a debtor,” says Dr. Macknight, “is to be under a constraining obligation, Rom 1:14. The apostle’s meaning is, Since men are under the gracious dispensation of the gospel, which furnishes them with the most powerful assistances for correcting the depravity of their nature, and for performing good actions, they are under no necessity, either moral or physical, to gratify the lusts of the flesh, as they would be, if, in their present weakened state, they had no advantages but what they derived from mere law,” the law of Moses, or law of nature. “Further, we are under no obligation to live according to the flesh, as it offers no pleasures of any consequence to counterbalance the misery which God will inflict on all who live according to it.” For if ye — Though professing Christians, and even eminent for a high and distinguishing profession; live after the flesh — Be governed by your animal appetites, and corrupt nature; (see on Rom 8:4-9;) ye shall die — Shall perish by the sentence of a holy and just God, no less than if you were Jews or heathen. But if ye through the Spirit — Through his enlightening, quickening, and sanctifying influences, and the exercise of those graces which by regeneration he has implanted in your souls; do mortify — Resist, subdue, and destroy; Gr. θανατουτε, make dead; the deeds of the body — Or of the flesh, termed, Gal 5:19, the works of the flesh: and including, not only evil actions, but those carnal affections and inclinations, whence all the corrupt deeds arise, wherein the body or flesh is concerned; ye shall live — The life of faith, love, and obedience, more abundantly here, and the life of glory hereafter. Here we have the fourth motive to holiness: the Spirit of God dwelling in believers, to enable them to mortify their corrupt passions and tempers.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 18

HOLINESS BY THE SPIRIT, AND THE GLORIES THAT SHALL FOLLOW

Rom_8:12-25

Now the Apostle goes on to develop these noble premisses into conclusions. How true to himself, and to his Inspirer, is the line he follows! First come the most practical possible of reminders of duty; then, and in profound connection, the inmost experiences of the regenerate soul in both its joy and its sorrow, and the most radiant and far-reaching prospects of glory to come. We listen still, always remembering that this letter from Corinth to Rome is to reach us too, by way of the City. He who moved His servant to send it to Aquila and Herodion had us too in mind, and has now carried out His purpose. It is open in our hands for our faith, love, hope, life today.

St. Paul begins with Holiness viewed as Duty, as Debt. He has led us through our vast treasury of privilege and possession. What are we to do with it? Shall we treat it as a museum, in which we may occasionally observe the mysteries of New Nature, and with more or less learning discourse upon them? Shall we treat it as the unwatchful King of old treated his splendid stores, making them his personal boast, and so betraying them to the very power which one day was to make them all its spoil? No, we are to live upon our Lords magnificent bounty-to His glory, and in His will. We are rich; but it is for Him. We have His talents; and those talents, in respect of His grace, as distinct from His "gifts," are not one, nor five, nor ten, but ten thousand-for they are Jesus Christ. But we have them all "for Him." We are free from the law of sin and of death; but we are in perpetual and delightful debt to Him who has freed us. And our debt is-to walk with Him.

"So, brethren, we are debtors." Thus our new paragraph begins. For a moment he turns to say what we owe "no" debt to; even "the flesh," the self-life. But it is plain that his main purpose is positive, not negative. He implies in the whole rich context that we are debtors to the Spirit, to the Lord, "to walk Spirit-wise."

What a salutary thought it is! Too often in the Christian Church the great word Holiness has been practically banished to a supposed almost inaccessible background, to the steeps of a spiritual ambition, to a region where a few might with difficulty climb in the quest, men and women who had "leisure to be good," or Who perhaps had exceptional instincts for piety. God be thanked, He has at all times kept many consciences alive to the illusion of such a notion; and in our own day, more and more, His mercy brings it home to His children that "this is His will, even the sanctification"-not of some of them, but of all. Far and wide we are reviving to see, as the fathers of our faith saw before us, that whatever else holiness is, it is a sacred and binding "debt." It is not an ambition; it is a duty. We are bound, every one of us who names the name of Christ, to be holy, to be separate from evil, to walk by the Spirit.

Alas for the misery of indebtedness; when funds fall short! Whether the unhappy debtor examines his affairs, or guiltily ignores their condition, he is-if his conscience is not dead-a haunted man. But when an honourable indebtedness concurs with ample means, then one of the moral pleasures of life is the punctual scrutiny and discharge. "He hath it by him"; and it is his happiness, as it is assuredly his duty, not to "say to his neighbour, Go and come again, and tomorrow I will give". {Pro_3:28}

Christian brother, partaker of Christ, and of the Spirit, we also owe, to Him who owns. But it is an indebtedness of the happy type. Once we owed, and there was worse than nothing in the purse. Now we owe, and we have Christ in us, by the Holy Ghost, wherewithal to pay. The eternal Neighbour comes to us, with no frowning look, and shows us His holy demand; to live today a life of truth, of purity, of confession of His Name, of unselfish serviceableness, of glad forgiveness, of unbroken patience, of practical sympathy, of the love which seeks not her own. What shall we say? That it is a beautiful ideal, which we should like to realise, and may yet some day seriously attempt? That it is admirable, but impossible? Nay; "we are debtors." And He who claims has first immeasurably given. We have His Son for our acceptance and our life. His very Spirit is in us. Are not these good resources for a genuine solvency? "Say not, Go and come again; I will pay Thee-tomorrow. Thou hast it by Thee!"

Holiness is beauty. But it is first duty, practical and present, in Jesus Christ our Lord.

So then, brethren, debtors are we-not to the flesh, with a view to living flesh-wise; but to the Spirit-who is now both our law and our power-with a view to living Spirit-wise. For if you are living flesh-wise, you are on the way to die. But if by the Spirit you are doing to death the practices, the stratagems, the machinations, of the body, you will live. Ah, the body is still there, and is still a seat and vehicle of temptation. "It is for the Lord, and the Lord is for it". {1Co_6:13} It is the temple of the Spirit. Our call is {1Co_6:20} to glorify God in it. But all this, from our point of view, passes from realisation into mere theory, woefully gainsaid by experience, when we let our acceptance in Christ, and our possession in Him of the Almighty Spirit, pass out of use into mere phrase. Say what some men will, we are never for an hour here below exempt from elements and conditions of evil residing not merely around us but within us. There is no stage of life when we can dispense with the power of the Holy Ghost as our victory and deliverance from "the machinations of the body." And the body is no separate and as it were minor personality. If the mans body "machinates," it is the man who is the sinner.

But then, thanks be to God, this fact is not the real burthen of the words here. What St. Paul has to say is that the man who has the indwelling Spirit has with him, in him, a divine and all-effectual Counter Agent to the subtlest of his foes. Let him do what we saw him above {Rom_7:7-25} neglecting to do. Let him with conscious purpose, and firm recollection of his wonderful position and possession (so easily forgotten!) call up the eternal Power which is m-deed not himself, though in himself. Let him do this with "habitual" recollection and simplicity. And he shall be "more than conqueror" where he was so miserably defeated. His path shall be as of one who walks over foes who threatened, but who fell, and who die at his feet. It shall be less a struggle than a march, over a battlefield indeed, yet a field of victory so continuous that it shall be as peace.

"If by the Spirit you are doing them to death." Mark well the words. He says nothing here of things often thought to be of the essence of spiritual remedies; nothing of "will-worship, and humility, and unsparing treatment of the body"; {Col_2:23} nothing even of fast and prayer. Sacred and precious is self-discipline, the watchful care that act and habit are true to that "temperance" which is a vital ingredient in the Spirits "fruit." {Gal_5:22-23} It is the Lords own voice {Mat_26:41} which bids us always "watch and pray"; "praying in the Holy Ghost." {Jud_1:20} Yes, but these true exercises of the believing soul are after all only as the covering fence around that central secret-our use by faith of the presence and power of "the Holy Ghost given unto us." The Christian who neglects to watch and pray will most surely find that he knows not how to use this his great strength, for he will be losing realisation of his oneness with his Lord. But then the man who actually, and in the depth of his being, is "doing to death the practices of the body," is doing so, "immediately," not by discipline, nor by direct effort, but by the believing use of "the Spirit." Filled with Him, he treads upon the power of the enemy. And that fulness is according to surrendering faith.

For as many as are led by Gods Spirit, these are Gods sons; for you did not receive a spirit of slavery, to take you back again to fear; no, you received a Spirit of adoption to sonship, in which Spirit, surrendered to His holy power, we cry, with no bated, hesitating breath, "Abba, our Father." His argument runs thus; "If you would live indeed, you must do sin to death by the Spirit. And this means, in another aspect, that you must yield yourselves to be led along by the Spirit, with that leading which is sure to conduct you always away from self and into the will of God. You must welcome the Indweller to have His holy way with your springs of thought and will. So, and only so, will you truly answer the idea, the description, sons of God-that glorious term, never to be satisfied by the relation of mere creaturehood, or by that of merely exterior sanctification, mere membership in a community of men, though it be the Visible Church itself. But if you so meet sin by the Spirit, if you are so led by the Spirit, you do show yourselves nothing less than Gods own sons. He has called you to nothing lower than sonship; to vital connection with a divine Fathers life, and to the eternal embraces of His love. For when He gave and you received the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of promise, who reveals Christ and joins you to Him, what did that Spirit do, in His heavenly operation? Did He lead you back to the old position, in which you shrunk from God, as from a Master who bound you against your will? No, He showed you that in the Only Son you are nothing less than sons, welcomed into the inmost home of eternal life and love. You found yourselves indescribably near the Fathers heart, because accepted, and new-created, in His Own Beloved. And so you learnt the happy, confident call of the child, Father, O Father; Our Father, Abba."

So it was, and so it is. The living member of Christ is nothing less than the dear child of God. He is other things besides; he is disciple, follower, bondservant. He never ceases to be bondservant, though here he is expressly told that he has received no "spirit of slavery." So far as "slavery" means service forced against the will, he has done with this, in Christ. But so far as it means service rendered by one who is his masters absolute property, he has entered into its depths, forever. Yet all this is exterior as it were to that inmost fact, that he is-in a sense ultimate, and which alone really fulfils the word-the child, the son, of God. He is dearer than he can know to his Father. He is more welcome than he can ever realise to take his Father at His word, and lean upon His heart, and tell Him all.

The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are Gods children, born children. The Holy One, on His part, makes the once cold, reluctant, apprehensive heart "know and believe the love of God." He "sheds abroad Gods love in it." He brings home to consciousness and insight the "sober certainty" of the promises of the Word; that Word through which, above all other means, He speaks. He shows to the man "the things of Christ," the Beloved, in whom he has the adoption and the regeneration; making him see, as souls see, what a paternal welcome there "must" be for those who are "in Him." And then, on the other part, the believer meets Spirit with spirit. He responds to the revealed paternal smile with not merely a subjects loyalty but a sons deep love; deep, reverent, tender, genuine, love. "Doubtless thou art His own child," says the Spirit. "Doubtless He is my Father," says our wondering, believing, seeing spirit in response.

But if children, then also heirs; Gods heirs, Christs co-heirs, possessors in prospect of our Fathers heaven (towards which the whole argument now gravitates), in union of interest and life with our Firstborn Brother, in whom lies our right. From one hand a gift, infinitely merciful and surprising, that unseen bliss will be from another the lawful portion of the lawful child, one with the Beloved of the Father. Such heirs we are, if indeed we share His sufferings, those deep but hallowed pains which will surely come to us as we live in and for Him in a fallen world, that we may also share His glory, for which that path of sorrow is, not indeed the meriting, but the capacitating, preparation.

Amidst the truths of life and love, of the Son, of the Spirit, of the Father, he thus throws in the truth of pain. Let us not forget it. In one form or another, it is for all "the children." Not all are martyrs, not all are exiles or captives, not all are called as a fact to meet open insults in a defiant world of paganism and unbelief. Many are still so called, as many were at first, and as many will be to the end; for "the world" is no more now than it ever was in love with God, and with His children as such. But even for those whose path is-not by themselves but the Lord-most protected-there must be "suffering," somehow, sooner, later, in this present life, if they are really living the life of the Spirit, the life of the child of God, "paying the debt" of daily holiness, even in its humblest and gentlest forms. We must observe, by the way, that it is to such sufferings, and not to sorrows in general, that the reference lies here. The Lords heart is open for all the griefs of His people, and He can use them all for their blessing and for His ends. But the "suffering with Him" must imply a pain due to our union. It must be involved in our being His members, used by the Head for His work. It must be the hurt of His "hand" or "foot" in subserving His sovereign thought. What will the bliss be of the corresponding sequel! "That we may share His glory"; not merely "be glorified," but share His glory; a splendour of life, joy, and power whose eternal law and soul will be, union with Him who died for us and rose again.

Now towards that prospect St. Pauls whole thought sets, as the waters set towards the moon, and the mention of that glory, after suffering, draws him to a sight of the mighty "plurity" of the glory. For I reckon, "I calculate" - word of sublimest prose, more moving here than poetry, because it bids us to handle the hope of glory as a fact-that not worthy of mention are the sufferings of the present season; (he thinks of time not in its length but in its limit), in view of the glory about to be unveiled upon us, unveiled, and then heaped upon us, in its golden fulness. For-he is going to give us a deep reason for his "calculation"; wonderfully characteristic of the Gospel. It is that the final glory of the saints will be a crisis of mysterious blessing for the whole created Universe. In ways absolutely unknown, certainly as regards anything said in this passage, but none the less divinely fit and sure, the ultimate and eternal manifestation of Christ Mystical, the Perfect Head with His perfected members, will be the occasion, and in some sense too the cause, the mediating cause, of the emancipation of "Nature," in its heights and depths, from the cancer of decay, and its entrance on an endless aeon of indissoluble life and splendour. Doubtless that goal shall be reached through long processes and intense crises of strife and death. "Nature," like the saint, may need to pass to glory through a tomb. But the issue will indeed be glory, when He who is the Head at once of "Nature," of the heavenly nations, and of redeemed man, shall bid the vast periods of conflict and dissolution cease, in the hour of eternal purpose, and shall manifestly "be what He is" to the mighty total.

With such a prospect natural philosophy has nothing to do. Its own laws of observation and tabulation forbid it to make a single affirmation of what the Universe shall be, or shall not be, under new and unknown conditions. Revelation, with no arbitrary voice, but as the authorised while reserved messenger of the Maker, and standing by the open Grave of the Resurrection, announces that there are to be profoundly new conditions, and that they bear a relation inscrutable, but necessary to the coming glorification of Christ and His Church. And what we now see and feel as the imperfections and shocks and seeming failures of the Universe, so we learn from this voice, a voice so quiet yet so triumphant, are only as it were the throes of birth, in which "Nature," impersonal indeed but so to speak animated by the thinking of the intelligent orders who are a part of her universal being, preludes her wonderful future.

For the longing outlook of the creation is expecting-the unveiling of the sons of God. For to vanity, to evil, to failure and decay, the creation was subjected not willingly, but because of Him who made it subject; its Lord and Sustainer, who in His inscrutable but holy will bade physical evil correspond to the moral evil of His conscious fallen creatures, angels or men. So that there is a deeper connection than we can yet analyse between sin, the primal and central evil, and everything that is really wreck or pain. But this "subjection," under His fiat, was in hope, because the creation itself shall be liberated from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God, the freedom brought in for it by their eternal liberation from the last relics of the Fall. For we know by observation of natural evil, in the light of the promises, that the whole creation is uttering a common groan of burthen and yearning, and suffering a common birth pang, even till now, when the Gospel has heralded the coming glory. Nor only so, but even the actual possessors of the first fruits of the Spirit, possessors of that presence of the Holy One in them now, which is the sure pledge of His eternal fulness yet to come, even we ourselves, richly blest as we are in our wonderful Spirit-life, yet in ourselves are groaning, burthened still with mortal conditions pregnant of temptation, lying not around us only but deep within, expecting adoption, full instatement into the fruition of the sonship which already is ours, even the redemption of our body.

From the coming glories of the Universe he returns in the consciousness of an inspired but human heart, to the present discipline and burthen of the Christian. Let us observe the noble candour of the words; this "groan" interposed in the midst of such a song of the Spirit and of glory. He has no ambition to pose as the possessor of an impossible experience. He is more than conqueror; but he is conscious of his foes. The Holy Ghost is in him; he does the bodys practices victoriously to death by the Holy Ghost. But the body is there, as the seat and vehicle of manifold temptation. And though there is a joy in victory which can sometimes make even the presence of temptation seem "all joy," {Jam_1:2} he knows that something "far better" is yet to come. His longing is not merely for a personal victory, but for an eternally unhindered service. That will not fully be his till his whole being is actually, as well as in covenant, redeemed. That will not be till not the spirit only but the body is delivered from the last dark traces of the Fall, in the resurrection hour.

For it is as to our hope that we are saved. When the Lord laid hold of us we were indeed saved, but with a salvation which was only in part actual. Its total was not to be realised till the whole being was in actual salvation. Such salvation (see below, 13) was coincident in prospect with "the Hope," "that blessed Hope," the Lords Return and the Resurrection glory. So, to paraphrase this clause, "It was in the sense of the Hope that we are saved." But a hope in sight is not a hope; for, what a man sees, why does he hope for? Hope, in that case, has, in its nature, expired in possession. And our full "salvation" is a hope; it is bound up with a Promise not yet fulfilled; therefore, in its nature, it is still unseen, still unattained. But then, it is certain; it is infinitely valid; it is worth any waiting for. But if, for what we do not see, we do hope, looking on good grounds for the sunrise in the dark East, with patience we expect it. "With patience," literally "through patience." The "patience" is as it were the means, the secret, of the waiting; "patience," that noble word of the New Testament vocabulary, the saints active submission, submissive action, beneath the will of God. It is no nerveless, motionless prostration; it is the going on and upward, step by step, as the man "waits upon the Lord, and walks, and does not faint."

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

Rom 8:12. Ἐσμὲν) we are, we acknowledge and consider ourselves to be. A kind of teaching, which borders on exhortation; (so, we are, is also used in Gal 4:31) and which presupposes men already of their own accord well inclined. A feeling of delight [see ch. Rom 7:22] mitigates the sense of debt. [But what is the condition of carnal men? These are really debtors, and confess themselves to be debtors, as often as they declare that it is not in their power to live spiritually.—V. g.].—οὐ τῇ σαρκι, not to the flesh) add, but to the spirit; but this is elegantly left to be understood.—κατὰ σάρκα, after the flesh) which endeavours to recall us to bondage.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_8:12. Ἄρα οὖν] Draws the inference not merely from Rom_8:11, but from the contents closely in substance bound up together of Rom_8:10-11. Since these blissful consequences are conditioned by the Spirit that dwelleth in us, we are not bound to give service to the flesh. That has not deserved well of us!

οὐ τῇ σαρκὶ … ζῆν] In the lively progress of his argument, Paul leaves the counterpart, ἀλλὰ τῷ πνεύματι, τοῦ κατὰ πνεῦμα ζῆν, without direct expression; but it results self-evidently for every reader from Rom_8:13.

τοῦ κ. ς. ζῆν] in order to live carnally. This would be the aim of our relation of debt to the flesh, if such a relation existed; we should have the carnal mode of life for our task. Fritzsche thinks that it belongs to ὀφ.: Sumus debitores non carni obligati, nempe debitores vitae ex carnis cupiditatibus instituendae; so also Winer, p. 306 [E. T. 410]. But in Gal_5:3 Paul couples it with the simple infinitive; as in Soph. Aj. 587, Eur. Rhes. 965. Since he here says τοῦ ζῆν, that telic view is all the more to be preferred, by which the contents of the obligation (so Hofmann) is brought out as its destination for us. The idea conveyed by κατὰ σάρκα ζῆν is that of being alive (contrast to dying) according to the rule and standard of σάρξ, so that σάρξ is the regulative principle. The more precise and definite idea: carnal bliss (Hofmann), is not expressed. We should note, moreover, τῇ σαρκὶ with the article (personified), and κατὰ σάρκα without it (qualitative), Rom_8:5.

Rom_8:12-17. Accordingly we are bound not to live carnally, for that brings death; whereas the government of the Spirit, on the other hand, brings life, because we, as moved by the Spirit, are children of God, and as such are sure of the future glory.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 8:12 f. The blessed condition and hopes of Christians, as described in these last verses, lay them under obligations: to whom, or to what? Not (Rom 8:12 ) to the flesh, to live according to it: to it they owe nothing. If they live after the flesh they are destined to die the final doom in which there is no hope; but if by the spirit ( i.e. , God’s Spirit) they put to death the doings of the body, they shall live the life against which death is powerless. We might have expected τῆς σαρκὸς instead of τοῦ σώματος , but in the absence of the spirit the body in all it does is only the tool of the flesh: the two are morally equivalent.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12–39. The interpretation of the character and obligations of human life, under the power of the indwelling Spirit, in relation to creation and to GOD.

(12) If then all this is true, that our spirit in its warfare with the flesh is reinforced by GOD’s Spirit, our life intimately dependent upon Christ living in us through that Spirit, then the duty of the Christian is clear; it is a duty not to the flesh but to the spirit, not to live as the flesh dictates, but to live as the spirit dictates, bringing through a fleshly death to a spiritual life all the doings and farings of the body; (14) only so, as always answering to the leading of the Spirit, do we act up to our character as sons of GOD—a character which has replaced that of slaves, which enjoins a free appeal to the Father’s love and answers to the inner testimony of His Spirit acting upon ours—(17) only so, do we claim as children our share of the life of GOD in Christ, a share of present suffering as the means to a share in the future glory. (18) For we cannot disregard this character of fleshly death, of present sufferings: nor should we try to do so: they are the stamp placed upon creation to mark its vanity, its transitory character, its merely preliminary and preparatory quality: corruption in nature and in man is the evidence of a redemption now working through the breaking up of present conditions and one day to be manifested in the establishment of a glorious freedom: (23) our adoption to sonship is inchoate but incomplete, and a strain and trial now of mortal nature: hope is its inspiration: patience and endurance its condition: the joy and glory it points to are incomparably greater than the trials and troubles of the present.

(26) Corresponding to this present condition of our nature is the activity of the Spirit helping our infirmity, by supplementing our ignorant and feeble prayers with His indescribable intercessions known in their fullest meaning only to GOD, (28) to us known only as the incontestable labours of GOD Himself in carrying out His purpose for the creatures of His love, through the whole wonderful progress from the first idea He formed of them as to be sharers in the character of His Son, through His determination, call, justification, to that final consummation, in which He brings them to the full concrete realisation of His glory.

(31) And as our ultimate comfort and joy we reflect that all this unspeakable procedure rests upon the firm foundation of GOD’S love—instanced by His not sparing His own Son: that act shows that He can grudge nothing to us in the fulfilment of His purpose—no voice can be raised against us, no judgment delivered, when His voice and judgment have been declared in Christ, dead or rather risen from death, throned at GOD’S right hand, interceding for us. (35) Christ in His love has passed through all the possibilities of human experience in bodily and spiritual pain: they cannot separate us from Him. He has faced and subjugated all the most tremendous facts and forces and conditions and influences under which man is placed: they cannot separate us from Him. And to say that is to Bay, that nothing can separate us from the love of GOD which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Note the refrain Rom 5:11; Rom 5:21, Rom 6:23, Rom 7:25, Rom 8:11 (alibi), 39. This section sums up the bearing of the whole preceding argument upon the character and relations of human life: and ends in the sublime assertion of the Love of GOD as the spring and root of all GOD’S dealings with man, as revealed in the Gospel. Then out of the very heart of this overwhelming joy springs the tremendous problem of Israel’s rejection of the Love of GOD (cc. 9–11).

12. ἄρα οὖν covers the whole argument from Rom 8:12 and proceeds to conclusions as to Christian conduct; but this purpose is interrupted by the thought of the Spirit and the wide bearings of the relation of sonship to GOD. The subject of Christian conduct is resumed in c. 12. Here the main character of the Christian life is expounded.

ὀφειλέται. Still debtors, but under a new allegiance. Cf. Gal 5:3; Mat 18:21; Luk 7:41.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eighteenth Passage (Rom 8:12-17). Freed from Sin and Death, The Christian becomes Son and Heir.

Victory over sin and death once decided by the reign of the Holy Spirit, condemnation is not only taken away, it is replaced by the benediction which is given to us in all its degrees: in the present, the filial state, adoption; in the future, the divine inheritance.

Vv. 12 and 13 form the transition from the preceding passage to this. The life of the Spirit is not realized in the believer without his concurrence merely from the fact that the Spirit has once been communicated to him. There is needed on man’s part a persevering decision, an active docility in giving himself over to the guidance of the Spirit. For the guidamce of the Spirit tends constantly to the sacrifice of the flesh; and if the believer refuses to follow it on this path, he renounces the life of the Spirit and its glorious privileges.

Vv. 12, 13. “Thus then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh to live after the flesh; for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”

It is not enough to have received the Spirit; it is also necessary to walk according to Him. The thus then refers to the thought of the preceding passage: “Since the Spirit has set you free from the law of sin and death, do not replace yourselves under this curse.” The address: brethren, reappears every time the apostle wishes to bring home to his readers a practical and personal warning.

When saying: we are under obligation, literally debtors, Paul meant to continue in the words: to the Spirit, to live according to Him. As soon as the Spirit comes to dwell in our heart, we owe to Him, ourselves, and a life wholly conformed to His wishes. But the apostle breaks off his sentence to set aside the opposite supposition, one unfortunately which cannot be passed over in silence, and he makes haste to add: not to the flesh. “The natural man,” Hofmann observes, “imagines that he owes it to his flesh to satisfy it.” The care of his person, from the most earthly point of view, appears to him the first and most important of his obligations. Now it is this tendency which is combated by the Spirit as soon as He takes possession of us (Gal 5:17). This is the debt which should neither be acknowledged nor paid. The apostle says why in the following verse.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Romans 8:12-28

Analysis

This section‹36› contains two additional arguments in support of the great theme of the chapter the safety of all who are in Christ. The first is derived from their adoption, Rom_8:12-17, and the second from the fact that they are sustained by hope, and aided by the Spirit, under all their trials; so that everything eventually works together for their good, Rom_8:18-28.

Paul had just shown that believers were distinguished by the indwelling of the Spirit. Hence he infers the obligation to live according, to the Spirit, and to mortify the deeds of the body, Rom_8:12. If they did this, they should live, Rom_8:13. Not only because, as previously argued, the Spirit is the source of life, but also because all who are led by the Spirit are the children of God. This is a new ground of security, Rom_8:14. The reality of their adoption is proved, first, by their own filial feelings; as Gods relations and feelings towards us are always the counterpart of ours towards him, Rom_8:15. Secondly, by the testimony of the Spirit itself with our spirits, Rom_8:16. If children, the inference is plain that believers shall be saved, for they are heirs. Salvation follows adoption, as, among men, heirship does sonship. They are joint heirs with Jesus Christ, Rom_8:17.

It is nowise inconsistent with their filial relation to God, nor with their safety, that believers are allowed to suffer in this world:

1. Because these sufferings are comparatively insignificant, Rom_8:18-23.

2. Because they are sustained by hope.

3. Because the Spirit itself intercedes for them.

In amplifying the first of those considerations, the comparative insignificance of the sufferings of this present state, the apostle presents in contrast the unspeakable blessedness and glory which are in reserve for believers, Rom_8:18. To elevate our conceptions of this glory, he represents;

1. The whole creation as looking and longing for its full manifestation, Rom_8:19, etc.

2. All those who have now a foretaste of this blessedness, or the first fruits of the Spirit, as joining in this sense of present wretchedness, and earnest desire of the future good, Rom_8:23.

These afflictions, then, are not only thus comparatively light in themselves, but they are made still more tolerable by the constant and elevating anticipation of the future inheritance of the saints, Rom_8:24, Rom_8:25. And not only so, but the Spirit also sustains us by his intercessions, thus securing for us all the good we need, Rom_8:26-28. The salvation, then, of believers, is secure, notwithstanding their sufferings, inasmuch as they are children, and are sustained and aided by the Holy Spirit.

Commentary

Rom_8:12

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. We have here an example of what the rhetoricians call meiosis, where less is said than intended. So far from being debtors to the flesh, the very reverse is the case. This passage is an inference from the exhibition of the nature and tendency of the flesh, or the carnal mind, as hostile to God, and destructive to ourselves, Rom_8:5, Rom_8:8. As this is its nature, and believers are no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit, they are under the strongest obligations not to live after the one, but after the other. We are debtors; ὁφειλέται ἐσμέν. We are the debtors, not of the flesh, but, as the implication is, of the Spirit. Of the two controlling principles, the flesh and the Spirit, our obligation is not to the former, but to the latter. To live after the flesh; τοῦ κατὰ σάρκα ζῆν. The genitive is, here, either the genitive of design, in order that we should live after the flesh; or it depends on ὁφειλέται, agreeably to the formula, ὁφειλέτης εἰμί τινί τινος, I am debtor to some one for something. The sense would then be, We do not owe the flesh a carnal life. The former explanation is the simpler and more natural.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

An exhortation to oppress the flesh daily more and more by the virtue of the Spirit of regeneration, because (saith he) you are debtors unto God, forsomuch as you have received so many benefits of him.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh--"Once we were sold under sin (Rom 7:14); but now that we have been set free from that hard master and become servants to Righteousness (Rom 6:22), we owe nothing to the flesh, we disown its unrighteous claims and are deaf to its imperious demands." Glorious sentiment!

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

12. So then, brethren, etc. This is the conclusion of what has been previously said; for if we are to renounce the flesh, we ought not to consent to it; and if the Spirit ought to reign in us, it is inconsistent not to attend to his bidding. Paul’s sentence is here defective, for he omits the other part of the contrast, — that we are debtors to the Spirit; but the meaning is in no way obscure. This conclusion has the force of an exhortation; for he is ever wont to draw exhortations from his doctrine. So in another place, Ephesians 4:30, he exhorts us

“not to grieve the Spirit of God, by whom we have been sealed to the day of redemption:”

he does the same in Galatians 5:25,

“If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

And this is the case, when we renounce carnal lusts, so as to devote ourselves, as those who are bound, to the righteousness of God. Thus indeed we ought to reason, not as some blasphemers are wont to do, who talk idly, and say, — that we must do nothing, because we have no power. But it is as it were to fight against God, when we extinguish the grace offered to us, by contempt and negligence.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(12) We are debtors.—We are under an obligation. Observe that in the lively sequence of thought the second clause of the antithesis is suppressed, “We are under an obligation, not to the flesh (but to the Spirit).”

(12-17) These verses form a hortatory application of the foregoing, with further development of the idea to live after and in the Spirit.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. debtors] An emphatic word in the verse. Q. d., “We are debtors to the Giver of the Spirit; to the flesh we indeed owe nothing, for its result is death.” The first part of this statement is unexpressed, but obviously in point.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors,.... The appellation, "brethren", is not used, because they were so by nation or by blood, though many in the church at Rome were Jews; nor merely in a free familiar way of speaking; but rather on account of church membership, and especially because they were in the same spiritual relation to God and Christ: and the use of it by the apostle, shows his great humility and condescension, and his love and affection for them, and is designed to engage their attention and regard to what he was about to say, to them and of them; as that they were "debtors"; which is to be understood of them not as sinners, who as such had been greatly in debt, and had nothing to pay, and were liable to the prison of hell; for no mere creature could ever have paid off their debts; but Christ has done it for them, and in this sense they were not debtors: but they were so as saints, as men freed from condemnation and death; which doctrine of Christian liberty is no licentious one; it does not exempt from obedience, but the more and greater the favours are which such men enjoy, the more obliged they are to be grateful and obey; they are debtors, or trader obligation,

not to the flesh, to corrupt nature,

to live after the flesh, the dictates of that; nor should they be, both on God's account, since that is enmity to him, and is not subject to his law; and on their own account, because it is an enemy to them, brings reproach on them, and exposes them to death; but though it is not expressed, it is understood, that they are debtors to God; to God the Father, both as the God of nature, and of grace, as their covenant God and Father in Christ, who has blessed them with all spiritual blessings in him; to Christ himself, who has redeemed them by his blood: and to the Spirit of God who is in them, and for what he has been, is, and will be to them.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

Ver. 12. Not to the flesh] We owe the flesh nothing but stripes, nothing but the blue eye that St Paul gave it. It must be mastered and mortified. Drive this Hagar out of doors, when once it grows haughty.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

We are debtors - We owe it as a matter of solemn obligation. This obligation arises,

From the fact that the Spirit dwells in us; Because the design of his indwelling is to purify us; Because we are thus recovered from the death of sin to the life of religion; and he who has imparted life, has a right to require that it be spent in his service.

To the flesh - To the corrupt propensities and passions. We are not bound to indulge them because the end of such indulgence is death and ruin; Rom 7:21-22. But we are bound to live to God, and to follow the leadings of his Spirit, for the end is life and peace; Rom 7:22-23. The reason for this is stated in the following verse.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Therefore; this illative particle sends us to the things before delivered: q.d. Seeing we are not in the flesh, but have the Spirit of God dwelling in us; not only sanctifying and enlivening our souls for the present, but raising and quickening our bodies for the time to come;

therefore we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh; i.e. we are not debtors to sin, or the corrupt and sinful nature that is in us; we owe it no service, there is nothing due to it from believers, but blows, and the blue eye that the apostle gave it. The antithesis is omitted, but it is necessarily implied and understood; and that is, that we are debtors to the Spirit, to live and walk after it.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. Debtors—We owe not to the flesh obedience to its dictates.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 12, 13. So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh; for if ye live after the flesh, ye must (mellete , expressing here a result that must; follow. The Authorized Version has "shall;" not distinguishing the force of the phrase from that of the simple future zhsesye which follows), die; but if by the Spirit ye do mortify (rather, do to death, or make to die, so as to correspond to the die preceding) the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Here "the body" (tou swmatov) must be taken in the same sense as in vers. 10, 11. True, the "deeds" spoken of are, in fact, those of the flesh; but the body is regarded as the organ of the lusts of the flesh, and it is fitly named here in connection with the thought of the preceding verses. The word translated. "deeds" is praxeiv , denoting, not single acts, but rather doings the general outcome in action of fleshly lusts using the body as their organ. Mellete apoyhskein and zhsesye , viewed in connection with zwopoihsei in ver. 11, seem to point ultimately to the result hereafter of the two courses of life denoted: but not, it would seem, exclusively; for our future state is constantly regarded by the apostle as the continuance and sequence of what is begun in us already whether of life in Christ now unto life eternal, or of death in sin now unto death beyond the grave. The general idea may be stated thus: If ye live after the flesh, the power in you to which you give your allegiance and adhesion will involve you in its own doom, death; but if ye live after the Spirit, you identify yourselves with the Spirit of life that is in you, whereby you will be emancipated at last even from these your mortal bodies, whose doings you already slay.

The conclusion is (as has been insisted on all along), that we are bound, as Christians, in our present lives, to live, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Vers. 12-30. The privileges and responsibilities of the children of God.

The apostle in these verses makes a high claim for believers the claim of being children of God. In this eighth chapter he unfolds, as in a panoramic view, the whole plan of salvation. He begins with the idea that those who are in Christ Jesus are delivered from condemnation. But salvation is something more than that. It means sonship also. And step by step, verse by verse, the apostle advances, at each step unfolding some fresh view of the Christian"s privileges, till at last, as he surveys the whole field of sin and sorrow, of joy and suffering, of trials and temptations, of time and eternity, he grows stronger in the confidence of his sonship, and exclaims, "For! am persuaded, that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I THE PRIVILEGES OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD.

1. God is their Father. They can say that in a special and spiritual sense. In one sense all human beings are the offspring of God. We are all the creatures of his hand, and are dependent continually upon his bountiful care. But sin has come in and separated us from him. It has made us prone to disobey rather than to fulfil our Father"s commands. Jesus came into this world that he might bring us back again into the relationship of God"s spiritual children. He became a child of humanity that we might become children of God. He became "sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." All who believe on him are born again. They are by creation God"s children; now they are his by a spiritual birth. Now they receive "the Spirit of adoption, whereby they cry, Abba, Father" (ver. 15). Oh, the greatness of our heavenly Father"s love! He has not cast us off. He has sent his own Son to bring us back, to restore his image in our hearts, and by-and-by to have us sit down with him in his everlasting kingdom.

2. Jesus Christ is their elder Brother. "If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ" (ver. 17). The inheritance which Christ has we have, if by receiving him we become children of God. It is almost too great a privilege to conceive, but it is plainly revealed to us by God. If we are Christ"s, all things are ours; for we are Christ"s, and Christ is God"s. Christ"s own prayer was, "Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am." And then there is a family likeness between the children of God by adoption and their elder Brother. If children of some humble rank were adopted into a noble or royal family, there would be a great dissimilarity between them and the children of that family. There would not be community of feeling. It seems a wonderful thing that we, poor, weak, sinful creatures, should be adopted into the family of God, and made the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. How can there be any likeness between us and him? But God has provided for this. Those are remarkable words, "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the Firstborn among many brethren" (ver. 29). Thus God has provided that as we are to be the brethren of Christ, we shall be like him. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him: for we shall see him as he is." This likeness to Christ is a gradual growth. It is the development of the Christian character. It is not in the infant lying in the cradle that much likeness to its parent can be detected. But as the body matures, as the features become more marked, as the individuality of character begins to show itself, then we see the likeness, and we say, He is his father"s son, She is her mother"s daughter. Those beautiful statues of the Louvre or of Florence, which are the admiration of the world, did not spring by magic from the sculptor"s hands. He had his ideal. He had his plan. With that ideal before him, he took the rough material, and on it he gradually worked out his plans. He first modelled his figure in clay, and then took the rough, shapeless mass of marble, in which no one could see any traces of the future statue"s loveliness or symmetry of form. But the sculptor"s love for his work, the skill of his hand, the patience and perseverance of his mind, the hammer and chisel which he wielded, slowly but surely accomplished his purpose, until at last the statue stood forth in all its beauty. So God has his ideal for the Christian likeness to Christ, the image of his Son. He has his plan, the plan of redemption, of sanctification. With that ideal before him he takes our human nature, and, by the slow and sometimes painful discipline of Christian experience, he develops the Christian character, until at last the believer is found meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light.

3. The Spirit of God is their Helper. There are three ways mentioned by the apostle in which the Spirit helps us.

(1) He shows us the path of duty. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (ver. 14). The Spirit uses the Word of God, and applies it to our conscience and our heart.

(2) He gives us assurance of our sonship. "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (ver. 16). How does he give us that assurance? By producing in us the fruit of the Spirit. "Hereby do we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments". (1Jn_2:3) If our delight is in the Law of the Lord, if we are striving, however imperfectly, to walk in his ways, to follow in the footsteps of Christ, then this is the Spirit"s testimony to us that we are the children of God.

(3) The Spirit also makes intercession for us in prayer. We are more accustomed to think of Jesus as interceding for us. But the Spirit"s work of intercession is here described in very forcible words. "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what to pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, for he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God" (vers. 26, 27). Christ intercedes for us in heaven; the Holy Spirit intercedes in us on earth. We know not what we should pray for aright. But the Holy Spirit reveals to us our need. He helps our infirmities. He creates within us high and holy aspirations; and even when we cannot rightly express our wants, be that searcheth the hearts knows what our desires are; for the Spirit expresses them better than we can. Let us avail ourselves more of this threefold help of the Spirit of God, that we may be guided in the path of duty, that we may receive a stronger and clearer assurance of our relationship as children of God, and that we may be assisted in the prayers we offer at the throne of heavenly grace.

4. Heaven is their home. "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (ver. 18). While enjoying the fellowship of our earthly homes, let us think of the better home on high, the only home that shall never be broken up.

II THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD. They are summed up in the apostle"s brief words, "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh" (ver. 12). "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (ver. 13). We are to remember that we are debtors. We are to reflect how much we owe. We are to realize God"s claims upon us. We are to think of the claims of that heavenly Father who has condescended to adopt us as his children, and who is constantly caring for us. We are to think of the claims of that loving Saviour who gave himself for us. We are to think of the claims of that Spirit who has quickened us from the dead, who has been enlightening our minds, and who is renewing us after the image of God. "All that I am, e"en here on earth, All that I hope to be When Jesus comes, and glory dawns, I owe it, Lord, to thee. C.H.I.

Vers. 12-17. The adoption in Christ.

Is our desire, is our vocation, life? Then we are bound in honour, hound by the necessity of the case, to live, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. But are we even then sure of the destiny of life? We are walking in a way; whither does the way lead? The answer to this question lies in the prevailing characteristic of the life we live now a life that is "led by the Spirit of God:" These are sons! Survey the life: only "sons" could live a life like that. And the life, being of God, is to God; "If children, then heirs." We have, then, to consider sonship, heirship.

I THE SONSHIP. In ver. 15 he leads them back to the commencement of this new life. What was the change which then passed over them? They were in bondage once such bondage as he has described in Ro 7. And this bondage might be said to be of God, for it was the transition to liberty. God showed them the infinite claims of his holy Law, and thereby revealed to them their guilt, their helplessness, their doom. Oh, what bondage was theirs then! The whole purport of that period of their spiritual discipline was "unto fear." Nay, not the whole purport; they were but wounded that they might be made whole. God had prepared some better things for them. "In me dwelleth no good thing:" yes, this they learned. But, in Christ, they "received the Spirit of adoption;" in him they saw their sin forgiven, and in the power of God"s boundless love they mounted upward as on eagles" wings. Accepted in the Beloved!

1. The adoption. An alienation is here implied from the original sonship. Man"s fall; each one"s sin and wicked works. The potential adoption of all in Christ Jesus: hold fast to this great fact. But not this alone: each one"s individuality respected, and hence the actual adoption only of those who voluntarily attach themselves to the new Headship of Christ Jesus. This the blessed concomitant of pardon; and love working by law (Roman custom), that in this also "he might be just.

2. The witness. Each one who unfeignedly believes in Christ Jesus is adopted into the family of God. But may not this blessed adoption be realized? Thank God, it may: "The Spirit witnesseth with our spirit." "All things are of God", (2Co_5:18) and so the whole of the great work of salvation is his work, and when every holy confidence towards himself is inspired in the believer"s mind, it is his inspiration. But he deals with men in harmony with the laws of their own minds, and guides and inspires them through the processes of their own thought. Hence the expression, "witnesseth with our spirit." Our consciousness of God"s forgiveness, our conviction of his love, are produced instrumentally by our apprehension of his purposes and promises in Christ; but in and through the working of our own spirit his Spirit works. We are prompted by our perception of God"s love in Christ to cry, "Abba, Father;" but it is also by him that we thus cry. He works the assurance in and through the working of our thought and feeling: "witnesseth with our spirit." And thus is explained the failure, where there is failure, to realize this assurance. God"s inspiration is not wanting, but the instrumentality is at fault. Perceptions, tone, temperament these constitute the hindrance. And remediable by proper means. Such, then, the sonship which is the secret of the new life: adoption, and the realization of that adoption all of God. His children! His beloved ones! Therefore we love him; therefore we live to him.

II THE HEIRSHIP. But if sonship be the inspiration of this new life, what must its destiny be? We are heirs of God; joint-heirs with Christ.

1. Heirs of God. The idea of fatherhood is the bestowal of all benediction on the child. And "of him every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named". (Eph_3:15) Therefore he himself, and all that he can give, shall constitute our heritage. Now, in this world, God is ours; this is the great possession: his presence, his power, his love. And thus the world itself is transmuted into an inheritance of joy, even sorrows yielding blessing. But we are not yet of age; our manhood then! And oh, the inheritance that shall be! God himself we shall see face to face, knowing even as we are known. And God"s creation shall be made how fair and beautiful to us, who shall say? "In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore". (Psa_16:11) And that "path of life" shall be "shown" us by God.

2. Joint-heirs with Christ. Christ, the Appointed One, the Son of man God has adopted us in him; God has made us heirs in him! And his appropriation of the heritage is our pledge. His life in the world: the Father, the Father"s gifts; yea, even the cross. His risen and ascended life: "the Firstfruits of them that slept;" "whither the Forerunner is for us entered". (1Co_15:20 Heb_6:20) See John 17., where the co-heirship is so set forth.

But meanwhile, "if so be that we suffer with him"! The process of recovery to sonship, heirship. We drink of that cup, we bear that cross; but so we shall wear that crown. T.F.L.

Vers. 12-17. The Spirit of adoption.

In the previous section we have found "Paradise restored," through the Spirit destroying sin and thereby death within us, first in the soul and then in the body. But this experience of spiritual-mindedness is realized on the line of God"s adopting love. The emancipating Spirit is the Spirit of adoption. Let us notice the stages as here presented by the apostle.

I OUR OBLIGATION IS NOW TO THE SPIRIT, AND NOT TO THE FLESH. (Vers. 12, 13) The Spirit of Christ has freed us from every condemnation; he has secured a measure of sanctification, and death is defeated in soul and will be in body. Such a work carries clearly obligation with it. We are his debtors. We realize accordingly:

1. That we are not bound to live after the flesh. To do so would only be to court death. It would be to return to our vomit, like the filthy dog; it would be to wallow once more in the mire, like the once-washed swine.

2. We are bound to mortify the deeds of the body, and so live. Mortification of fleshly desires and lusts is the great duty the Christian owes to the Spirit who condescends to dwell within him. It is a painful process, but passes into a painless one. When we earnestly set about it, it abundantly rewards us. And we find that mortification of the deeds of the body is the very secret of life. It is thus evident that the struggle of the latter part of the seventh chapter is also found in the eighth. Christian progress, as we have seen, is through antagonizing our sinful desires and tendencies, and so largely discharging our obligation to the pure Spirit who condescends to dwell within us (cf. Shedd"s "Commentary," in loc.).

II SONSHIP IS REALIZED IN THIS SUBMISSION TO THE SPIRIT. (Ver. 14.) God"s adopting love is realized within. He can give the family spirit as well as the legal standing as sons. Sonship among men, and especially adoption, may be destitute of the becoming spirit. The children may despise their parents or their foster-parents, and treat them inconsiderately. But in God-given sonship there is as its essence submission to God"s Spirit. The adopted soul abandons himself to the Divine inspiration; the right filial attitude is reached; and life becomes the outcome of inspiration. They only are sons of God who are led by his Spirit.

III ALL GOD"S TRUE CHILDREN PROVE PRAYERFUL. (Ver. 15) The spirit of bondage which leads souls to fear like stricken slaves before God gets cast out by the Spirit of adoption, and there is within us the divinely prompted cry, "Abba, Father." Just as true children love to have fellowship with their earthly parents, so God"s children love to hold fellowship with their heavenly Parent. Prayerfulness is one of the best tests of our relation to God. It is the instinct of an adopted child. In this way the spiritual relationship is realized. Just as fellowship is the essence of family relationship, so is it with the family of God.

IV THE PRAYERFUL CHILDREN RECEIVE THE SPIRIT"S WITNESS TO THEIR SONSHIP. (Ver. 16) The witness of the Spirit is something distinct from the testimony of our own consciousness, as the verse implies. The latter concurs with the former. What is it, then? If we consider Jesus in his baptismal prayer, we shall find that he received not only the gift of the opened heaven, that is, all needful revelation, and the gift of the descending dove, that is, the perfect inspiration, but also the audible assurance of his Sonship, when the voice came from heaven to say, "Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." The Father assures the Son of his ineffable relation. Now, this passage shows that there is something corresponding to this assurance granted to God"s sons. They are enabled to hear the Father"s voice, and are reassured thereby. It is not, of course, an audible voice, as when they said, "It thundered;" yet a voice which speaks home to the spirit within. It comes through God"s Word. Up to a certain point the Bible is a splendid literary treasure; but the Spirit comes, and the Bible becomes a child"s book, with a Father"s voice ringing lovingly through it all. These spiritual tones are found to coincide with experience, and we have the witness within. It is thus that we are enabled to examine ourselves through God"s Word. We begin to read it as children should to whom a father is faithfully speaking, and we are reassured and comforted thereby. ()

V THE PRAYERFUL CHILDREN THROUGH LISTENING TO THE FATHER"S VOICE COME TO REALIZE THAT THEY ARE HEIRS OF GOD, AND JOINT-HEIRS WITH CHRIST. (Ver. 17) Heirship succeeds the sense of sonship, Now, in earthly inheritances the sad condition now is the parent"s death; but it was not so under the ancient law. Then, as in the parable of the prodigal son, the inheritance could be divided in the father"s lifetime, and either enjoyed with the father or away from him. Thus the father says to the elder son, "All that I have is thine;" and the promise to God"s children is clear, "All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ"s; and Christ is God"s". (1Co_3:21-23) When we realize, therefore, that God is to us "all in all," then have we entered into our inheritance with him. And what adds to its preciousness is the fact that it is a joint-inheritance with Christ. It is through him that it has become ours. What he gets we get. He has raised his brothers and sisters through adoption to the platform of his own inheritance.

VI FELLOWSHIP IN SUFFERING IS THE SIGN AND PLEDGE OF FELLOWSHIP IN THE COMING GLORY. (Ver. 17) Now, we must remember that fellowship through suffering is the closest fellowship of all. It is when hearts are together in the fires that they are welded or rather melted into one. Now, life gets sooner or later for the true son of God like Nebuchadnezzar"s fiery furnace, with one like unto the Son of God in the fire along with him. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth". (Heb_11:6, Heb_11:7) It is to this fellowship in his sufferings that we are providentially called, that so we may become in due season conformable unto his death. (Php_3:11) We should reconcile ourselves to our inheritance of suffering, seeing that it is through it we, as a rule, reach our inheritance of wisdom, And as a suffering with Christ is the sign and pledge of being glorified together with him, we should hail it as the birthright mark, and rejoice in hope of the glory. R.M.E.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

We are not debtors to the flesh - We ought not to follow it.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The Spirit of adoption in the Christians:

v. 12. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

v. 13. for if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

v. 14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

v. 15, For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

v. 16. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God;

v. 17. and if children, then heirs; heirs of God and join theirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.

Having pictured the blessed state of the Christians, the apostle now presents an admonition to them in the form of a conclusion: So, then, brethren, debtors we are. All Christians are under a very strong obligation on account of benefits and blessings received. But not to the flesh, to live in accordance with the flesh, as natural man is apt to believe that he owes his flesh the gratification of its desires, that he is obliged to live in accordance with its demands. By this figure of speech the apostle brings out very strongly the implication which he has in mind: We are debtors to the Spirit. For, he argues, if you Christians live in accordance with the flesh, following its dictates and inclinations, then the inevitable consequence, that which is bound to come upon you, is death. The mere fact that a person has embraced the truth in Christ at some time of his life will by no means make him safe for all times. If Christians permit their flesh, their old evil nature, to regain the ascendancy, to govern their life and actions, then there is only one result possible, eternal death. But if the Christians will at all times by the Spirit, through the power of the Holy Ghost in them, put to death the practices, the deceitful doings of the body, as an instrument of evil, then they will live, be preserved for eternal life: holiness, happiness, and everlasting bliss.

This fact, the certainty of the gift of eternal life through the mercy of God, if we remain on the way of righteousness and destroy the deeds of the body, is now proved: For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. Only those that have the Spirit of God are in truth members of Christ. And this Spirit moves, leads, urges the Christians on, all those under this constant and effectual influence of the Spirit being considered sons of God, being made sons of God, in fact, by the work of the Spirit. In and through Christ, whose redemption is imparted to them by the Spirit, they are brought into that intimate relation to God that He is their Father and they are His children by adoption, Gal 3:26. And their state and relation of children is evidenced and proved by the fact that the Spirit is continually leading them in the way of righteousness. This relation to God is also a pleasant relation, one that invites and creates confidence: For not have you received the spirit of bondage again toward fear. Every man by nature leads a life of dread and fear, like that of a slave who fears the anger and punishment of his master. In a measure, the religion of the Old Testament was a religion which stimulated the spirit of bondage, according to which the Jews were always in dread and doubt as to their perfect keeping of the Law. But the Spirit which the believers have received is the Spirit of adoption, that of being made the children of God. The Holy Ghost brings about this relation of the believers toward God, He assures them with the confidence wrought by faith that God has adopted them as His children for the sake of Jesus, and in this confidence they cry out to Him: Abba, Father, the latter word being the translation of the Aramaic word which is in use to this day. It is an earnest cry, a vehement address, full of desire, trust, and faith. Thus the Spirit of God in us, in teaching us to trust in God with simple, childlike faith, gives us a certain, an indubitable witness, a definite proof and certainty, that we are the children of God. It is a conviction which is not found in our own spirit, which no man can have by his own reason and strength, which the Spirit of God alone can and does give. The very fact that this witnessing of the Spirit is entirely independent of our own feelings, of our state of mind at any given time, makes it so certain and reliable that we are dear children of our heavenly Father. But if children, then also heirs. If we are the children of God, then we are also sure of partaking of the inheritance of the saints in light; we are sure of the possession of the inheritance of Christ Himself, with whom we are joint-heirs by the fact of our adoption. As children of God we have a claim to the bliss of heaven, as God has prepared it for His only-begotten Son, for Him that was born out of the fullness of His divine essence. There is only one outward condition which is inevitable: If so be, if only we suffer with Him, in order that we may also be glorified with Him. Christians are partakers of the sufferings of Christ, they are bound to endure afflictions of many kinds for His name’s sake. To attempt to evade these sufferings is equivalent to refusing to bear the cross of Christ, Mar 8:34; Luk 9:23. The bearing of the cross is not an absolute condition, but the inevitable lot of those that are awaiting the glory of eternal bliss, Gal 4:7. And thus the beautiful, comforting doctrine of the adoption of the Christians as children of God, of their inheritance of eternal life, serves to admonish them to die unto the flesh and to live by the Spirit.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, seeing the Holy Spirit dwelleth in us, quickening our souls for the present, and raising our bodies for time to come, furnishing the one with grace here, and fitting the other for glory hereafter; therefore we ought to live unto God and not to the flesh; we are not debtors to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

Where note, That the word flesh is not to be taken in the physical, but in a moral sense; not in a physical sense, for the body of man; every one is a debtor to his own body, he owes it food and clothing, nourishment and provision; the beast must be fed, though not pampered, lest it kick and throw its rider: But flesh is here to be taken in a moral sense for sin, for the unregenerate and unsanctified part in man; and then the sense is, that no man owes anything to the service and satisfaction of his sinful lusts, and inordinate desires; none of us owe sin, Satan, or the world, an hour’s service; these are not warrantable creditors for any of us to be indebted to.

Learn hence, That believers are not indebted, or owe anything to the flesh, but all to the Spirit; the flesh is a cheater, an usurper, an oppressor; what it calls for, it has no right to demand: but the Spirit is a just creditor, and we are greatly indebted to him, as the author and producer of grace in us, and as he is the preserver and increaser of that grace in us which he has begun.

Oh blessed Spirit! we owe all that we are, and all that we have to thee, all that we have in hand, and all that we have in hope; thou hast a right to all, yea, more than all that we can pay thee, so infinitely are we indebted to thee: But for sin and the flesh, we never promised anything to it, we never got anything by it, nothing but shame and sorrow from it, and, therefore, we are not indebted to it.

Lord, keep us from being debtors to the most cruel and severe creditors in the world, sin and Satan; for the more we are to them, the more we run in arrears with thee, to whose justice we must pay the uttermost farthing.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. “Then, therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh :

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12–17. Therefore. Seeing that we are to enjoy such glorious privileges in Christ. These are described in this section. We are debtors. Under obligation. Since the flesh, or carnal nature is death, we are under no obligation to obey its dictates.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

So then

"Because what I have just told you is true"

brothers

Here this means fellow Christians, including both men and women.

we are debtors

Paul is speaking of obedience as if it were paying back a debt. AT: "we need to obey" (See: Metaphor)

but not to the flesh to live according to the flesh

Again Paul speaks of obedience as if it were paying back a debt. You can include the implied word "debtors." AT: "but we are not debtors to the flesh, and we do not have to obey our sinful desires" (See: Ellipsis and Metaphor)

For if you live according to the flesh

"Because if you live only to please your sinful desires"

you are about to die

"you will certainly be separated from God"

but if by the Spirit you put to death the body's actions

Paul speaks of the "old man," crucified with Christ, as the person who is responsible for his sinful desires. AT: "but if by the power of the Holy Spirit you stop obeying your sinful desires" (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

brother

flesh

life

die

Holy Spirit

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

12. Lipsius would unite vv. 12, 13 closely with the foregoing; and no doubt it is true that these verses only contain the conclusion of the previous paragraph thrown into a hortatory form. Still it is usual to mark this transition to exhortation by a new paragraph (as at 6:12); and although a new idea (that of heirship) is introduced at ver. 14, that idea is only subordinate to the main argument, the assurance which the Spirit gives of future life. See also the note on οὖν in 10:14.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.