Why and How to Put Sin to Death

Romans 8:12-15

What do you do when you feel sin rising in your heart – maybe bitterness toward someone, or greed, or lust, or self-righteous pride? What do you do? Do you settle for it? Do you say: “Nobody’s perfect”? Do you justify it? Or do you resist it? Do you battle it?

And if you do seek to resist and battle it, how do you resist it? How do you battle it?

That’s what Paul is talking about in today’s passage – Romans 8:12-15. In this passage Paul starts by answering the question: How should we respond to sin? Look at what Paul says in verse 12:

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

In this context, the flesh doesn’t mean our physical bodies. It means our sinfulness. And since chapter 6 Paul has been saying that that because we are trusting Christ, we have been set free from the flesh – from sin’s authority. So we are no longer debtors to sin.

When you are a debtor to someone, they have authority over you. But Jesus has set us free from the authority sin had over us. So we no longer are in bondage to sin. And the reason we must understand this is given in verse 13.

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

There are many passages in the Bible which contain loving warnings. This is one of them. And notice that this is directed to the church in Rome: to believers.

Paul says to believers that if you live according to the flesh you will die. That can’t just mean that they will die physically, because everyone will die physically, whether they live according to the flesh or not. So Paul is not talking about dying physically. He’s talking about dying eternally in hell.

So feel the weight of this warning. Paul is saying that if we live according to the flesh, we will die eternally.

But this immediately raises a question: Does this mean we can lose our salvation? Does this mean you can genuinely repent of your sin, trust Jesus as your Savior, Lord, and Treasure, be born again as a new creation in Christ – and still end up in hell?

The answer is NO, and we can see that in the very next verse, verse 14:

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

What does it mean to be led by the Spirit of God? Sometimes in the Bible it means being guided by the Spirit in our decisions. And it’s true that the Holy Spirit does beautifully guide us, direct us, counsel us.

But that’s not what Paul is talking about here. When we read verses 13 and 14 together, it’s clear that being led by the Spirit means being led by the Spirit to put sin to death. Read verses 13 and 14 together:

13       For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

14       For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Paul is explaining why it is that if we put to death the deeds of the body we will live forever. It’s because that shows that you are a son of God who will live forever.

We are not born as children of God. But the moment you turn from your sin and trust Jesus as your treasured Savior and Lord, all your sins are forgiven, and God adopts you as his beloved child.

This means that God loves you – passionately and fervently and enthusiastically. All of his promises are true for you. Forever he will be your Father -- loving, strong, good, tender, comforting, correcting, and affectionate Father.

The moment you trust Christ you become an adopted son of God who will live forever. And in v.14 Paul says that you can know you are an adopted son of God because you are led by the Spirit to put sin to death.

It’s not that you become an adopted son of God by putting sin to death. No, we first are saved and become adopted sons by faith in Christ alone. But when God saves us he changes our hearts so we start putting sin to death.

Saved people don’t become sinless until heaven. But every saved person battles sin. No saved person continues to live according to the flesh. That’s one way you know you are a saved son of God – because you have stopped living according to the flesh and started battling sin.

So ask yourself: are you living according to the flesh? Are you letting jealousy live in your heart? Or bitterness? Or love for the things of the world? If so, then you are in a dangerous place spiritually. It’s very possible that you are not saved. Because all saved sons and daughters of God battle sin.

But if that is true, then what is the point of the warning? If all believers do battle sin, why warn us that we must battle sin? It’s because the warnings are one way God keeps us battling sin so we won’t lose our salvation.

See if this illustration helps. I think I learned this from Charles Spurgeon, who preached in London in the 1800’s. Imagine that the road to heaven is a winding, mountain road with sharp turns and steep drop-offs. And you have just come to faith in Christ and are starting up this road toward heaven.

And God in his mercy does two things to make sure you make it. One is to post warnings at the sharp turns which say: “Don’t go past this point, or you will die.” So there is warning after warning after warning on this road.

But that’s not all that God does. When he saved you, he changed your heart so you would pay attention to his warnings. So when you see the warning, you are very careful not to go past that point.

Now let’s apply that to this passage. If you’ve been saved, then when you hear Paul warn “if you are living according to the flesh you must die,” you will pay attention. You will tremble at the warning. And you will stop living according to the flesh, and you start putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit.

Let’s say you just heard that someone at your workplace lied about you to your manager. And you can feel bitterness and anger and frustration growing in your heart. It’s clear that what they did was wrong. You might need to take some steps to deal with that wisely and lovingly.

But what are you doing about your bitterness and anger? Are you justifying it, and holding on to it? Or are you confessing it to the Lord, and seeking to put it to death? When sin rises up in your heart, do you welcome it? Or do you kill it? Do you embrace it? Or do you choke it?

If we are paying heed to God’s warning, we will put it to death. We will kill it. We will choke it. That’s how saved people respond to the warning of v.13. Let’s read it again:

13       For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

And that raises another question: How do we put sin to death by the Spirit? We know we can’t overcome sin by gritting our teeth. If that’s how you try to be patient, or loving, or content – all you get is tired jaws.

But the good news is that in v.13 Paul says that we followers of Christ have a totally different way to put sin to death. We put sin to death by the Spirit. But what does that mean?

To answer that let’s read vv.14 and 15 together:

14       For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

15       For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!"

Notice the word “for” at the beginning of v.15. Verse 15 is explaining how the Spirit leads us to put sin to death. It’s because the spirit we received was not the spirit of slavery to sin which leads us to sin so we fear God’s condemnation. No.

The Spirit we received is the Holy Spirit who is called “the Spirit of adoption.” Every saved person has received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry “Abba! Father!” – and this leads us to put sin to death.

But how? Let me explain it like this. Jan and I adopted both of our children. They are incredible gifts from God. And as they were growing up there were two ways I could show them that I am their father. One is by showing them the court order saying that I am their father.

But there was an even more powerful way I could show them that I am their father. I could pick them up and hold them and tell them that I love them and delight in them and care for them.

The same is true with us. The Bible tells us that the moment we put our trust in Christ, we are adopted by God the Father. And so if you ever doubt that you are adopted by God, you can open up the Bible – like a court order – and read that you are adopted by God. And that is extremely important at those times when you are feeling far from God, or when your trials are making you wonder if God loves you, or when you feel like God has abandoned you.

But there is an even more powerful way that God shows us that he is adopted us. And it’s because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of adoption, which means we will have times in our lives when we are in worship, or seeking his face in prayer and the word, and the Holy Spirit will pour God’s very love into our hearts.

This is not just you believing that God is your loving father, as important as that is. This is where the Holy Spirit enables you to feel and experience God’s love for you. It’s what Paul was talking about back in Romans 5:5:

… and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

This is not just the Bible telling you that God loves you. That’s crucial. But this is God picking you up in his arms and loving you. This is God giving you an experience of his love.

Here’s how John Owen describes this. He says that

[the Holy Spirit] gives a sweet and plentiful evidence and persuasion of the love of God to us, such as the soul is taken, delighted, satiated. (On Communion with God, 240.6)

Or here’s what Charles Spurgeon said:

What is the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father? I can not tell you; but if you have felt it you will know it. It is a sweet compound of faith that knows God to be my Father, love that loves him as my Father; joy that rejoices in him as my Father. (Spurgeon Sermons, 5:107.7)

So as we seek God’s face, praying for more of the Spirit’s work in our hearts, and meditating on Scriptures describing God’s love, we will have times when we move from believing that God loves us, to feeling his very love for us.

With that in mind let’s read verses 14 and 15 again. Remember that in verse 15 Paul is explaining how the Spirit leads us to put sin to death.

14       For all who are led by the Spirit of God [to kill sin] are sons of God.

15       For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!"

The way the Spirit leads us to put sin to death is by pouring God’s love into our hearts so we know by experience that we are God’s children. The Holy Spirit enables us to feel and experience God’s actual love for us in our hearts.

And God’s love is so real, so satisfying, so beautiful, that we cry out “Abba! Father!” “Abba” is the Aramaic word for Pappa, Daddy. It’s an intimate term of joyful affection.

And when the Spirit makes God’s love real in our hearts, we love God, we want more of God, and we don’t want anything to lessen our closeness with him.

But sin does lessen our closeness with him. Which is why when we feel sin rising in our hearts, we seek to put it to death.

So when we are bitter at that person in the office who lied about us, we can feel how that bitterness moves our hearts away from God. And so we seek to put that bitterness to death.

The same is true with lust, jealousy, pride – and all sin. We can feel it moving our hearts away from God. But we have tasted the very love of God – the greatest joy in the universe – and when we feel sin moving our hearts away from God, we hate it. And so we seek to put it to death.

That’s how the Holy Spirit leads us to put sin to death. But that’s also how the Holy Spirit enables us to put sin to death.

Because when the Holy Spirit pours God’s love into your hearts, God’s love will so strengthen you, comfort you, delight you, and satisfy you that sin will be put to death.

Let me show you how that works. Go back to that example of your bitterness against the person who lied about you at work. They have cost you something – your reputation at work, possibly your job security, possibly your career. That’s big. And the pain of that loss stirs bitterness in your heart.

And the way to put that bitterness to death is by the Spirit – by asking God to make his love more real to you by the Spirit. Here are four steps I recommend.

First, confess your sin to the Lord. Be assured that you are completely forgiven. You don’t need to overcome sin before you can be forgiven. First you get assured that you are forgiven, and on that basis you can battle that sin.

Second, ask for more of the Spirit’s work in your heart. You cannot overcome any sin by yourself. You need the Spirit’s work. So earnestly ask God, cry out to God for more of the Spirit’s work. He will gladly give it to you.

Third, study Scriptures describing God’s love for you. The Spirit works through the word. So read and meditate on God’s words in the Bible. The greatest demonstration of God’s love is the Cross, so specially focus on Scriptures describing the cross. Look also at the promises of God that are true for you because he loves you.

Fourth, continue until you see and feel God’s love. Think of what would happen to your bitterness, when you are reminded that God loves you. And when you see in the Scriptures that he loves you so much that he sent his own Son to the cross to save you.

And you see in the Scriptures that his love is sovereign over everything, including that person who spoke lies about you. And that your Father promises to use everything, including what this person did, to bring you even more joy in him.

And then think of what would happen to your bitterness when God pours his love into your heart by the Spirit – and your heart is strengthened and secured and filled.

The gain of God’s love would swallow up the losses caused by what this person did to you. Not because those losses were small. But because God’s love is so big, so precious, so satisfying, so securing, so comforting.

So as you are taking these steps, what would happen to your bitterness? It would die. You’ve put it to death by the Spirit.

So if you are not yet trusting Jesus Christ, see all that you will gain in him, and turn to him now and trust him. And if you are trusting Christ, pay attention to God’s warnings. Stop living according to the flesh. And start putting sin to death by the power of the Spirit.