Defining The Relationship (Romans 8:12-17) Series

Defining the Relationship

Romans 8:12-18

This week, I asked several people around me if they knew t what a DTR was. My suspicion was that if you were a college student or young adult, you knew exactly what a DTR was, but that if you were older, you didn’t. And as it turned out, I was right. When I asked a few people around my age what DTR stood for, and I heard “Don’t Trust Russia;” “Don’t Throw Rocks; Donald Trump Rocks; and even Dang Tide Roll—kind of a mashup between WDE and RTR.

But if you ask a twentysomething, they will tell you that the DTR is when you and your significant other sit down and DEFINE THE RELATIONSHIP. Where is this heading? What are we to each other? Are we just hanging out, or are we shopping for rings?

It’s a fair question. As a relationship progresses, it changes. A DTR is necessary so you know where you stand.

I want to suggest that Romans 8:12-17 is God’s DTR with His children. Because of what Jesus has done for us, our relationship with God has changed. We have a new status with Him. A new position.

Join me in prayer, and then we are going to go verse by verse through this passage.

[Prayer]

Now, we are going to be talking about how our relationship has changed, but before we get to that, I want to talk about how our motivation for relationship changes:

Verse 12 starts with the phrase “so then:”

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

This is a conditional clause. It’s like “because of this.” This is a tip off that there has been a change of motivation. We used to do something for one reason; now we do it for a different reason. So then, we have to back up a verse or two and read what the “so then” refers to. Paul says “so then, we are debtors, but not to the flesh.” Well, who are we debtors to? Verse 11 gives the answer:

11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Ok, so then, we are debtors to the Spirit. A debtor is someone who is in debt to someone else. Someone to whom we owe something. For example, Max credit union loaned as money for the renovation of our sanctuary several years ago, and this week we paid off the debt. We finished paying what we owed to Max credit union.

So what has God given us in order to make us obligated to Him? Verse 11 says that God gives life to our mortal bodies through the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, and Who now dwells in us.

That catches us up to verse 12. Because we have life, we have an obligation to God. But it is more than that. God cancelled the debt we had to the flesh—to sin—when He sent His son to die on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. Remember that Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death. Jesus paid that debt for us. And then, when the Spirit of God raised Jesus from the dead, he not only cancelled the debt, but He also gave life—eternal life—to us.

God gives life to our mortal bodies through the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. Because Jesus’ physical body was raised from the dead through the power of God’s Spirit, then we who are in Christ will also have a physical body that will be united with God in Christ forever. We won’t be this disembodied spirit floating around in the clouds.

That’s why Paul goes on in verse 13 to say,

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.

You will live—with a physical body—forever. A physical body that will never grow old or get sick or become weaker.

So Paul says that we are debtors. But wait a minute. Aren’t all our debts paid? Isn’t salvation by grace? Why are we still debtors if Christ paid the debt?

The New International Version makes this a little more clear when it says “we have an obligation, but not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. Our new obligation is to the One who assumed the payments for our debt.

Our obligation is to put to death the deeds of the body. This is what the Puritans called the mortification of the flesh.

Tim Keller says,