Put that to death!
The flesh from which believers have been set free has the nasty habit of resurrecting itself. Believers have the authority to remind it and themselves that it has no right to be alive; rather, they are encouraged to reckon it as dead (Rom. 6:11), and if it refuses to listen, it must be forcibly laid to rest again and again and again.
Throughout the process, the Spirit promises to provide the courage, confidence and inner strength to succeed in this activity (8:13). At the same time, the Spirit reminds believers that however loudly the flesh claims to be their lord and master, and to be in control of their lives, it is trespassing on ground claimed by God and inhabited by the Spirit.
The Spirit of life has energy and vitality to vanquish all that is associated with death (Rom. 8:2). He has enabled believers to be what the law could not achieve—that is, justified (8:4). He enables believers to do what they could not achieve—that is, be sanctified (put to death the misdeeds of the body, 8:13).
The resources for victory are immediately available for believers because the Spirit is instantly and directly present. Sin and flesh have been condemned by God (8:3). This conjoined parasite that takes advantage of human weakness to succumb to temptation and brings pain to people is doomed; it exists in a vicious circle of vice and victimisation, but it is destined to be damned.
Believers are provided with the opportunity of participating in its demise by putting it to death with the power of the Spirit, before its final destruction by God. Although this is a battle, it must never be forgotten that the enemy has actually been defeated.
The victory is to be daily established, claimed and proclaimed as much as it is to be achieved. As Lloyd-Jones concludes, ‘The church is not primarily a hospital, it is a barracks … Realise what God has done to you, realise what you are … and march with your heads erect as those who were once “in the flesh”.’8
Paul is not calling for believers to surrender to the Spirit so that he can mortify the flesh on their behalf. He is calling for a robust stand against sin, in partnership with the Spirit. This is a joint declaration of war on the flesh by the Spirit and the believer (Phil. 2:12–13; Col. 3:5–9).
The term Paul uses for put to death (thanatoute) is placed in the present tense in Greek; he thus anticipates an ongoing action of putting the flesh to death continuously rather than a once-only, quick, decisive act. From Romans 12:1 onwards, Paul identifies how one may put into operation his commission to them, as a result of which they will be fulfilling the Spirit’s sanctifying agenda for them, doing ‘what is good and acceptable and perfect’ (12:2, ESV).
Paul identifies such a lifestyle not only as a sacrificial enterprise on the part of the believer, but also one that may be identified best as a’spiritual act of worship’ (12:1).
Elsewhere, he speaks of the implications of not heeding to the practical guidance offered by the Spirit with regard to sanctification (1 Thess. 4:8). There, in the previous seven verses, Paul explores the importance of sexual chastity in the believer’s life. The one who has been given to them is privy to all that happens in a believer’s life. To conduct oneself immorally despite the presence of the Spirit is to disregard him; it is to act as if he is not there, to continue to sin without a care that he is conscious of what is happening.
8 D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Romans: The Sons of God (Banner of Truth, 1974), p. 131.
esv English Standard Version
Warrington, K. (2009). The Message of the Holy Spirit: The Spirit of Encounter (D. Tidball, Ed.; pp. 161–162). Inter-Varsity Press.
