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Romans 8.16B
July11th 2022
Okay, so we verged off the verse by verse to indulge in a white board illustration that was aimed at helping us understand how we bear fruits to God by and through Him and His indwelling power and not our own.
We did this in the face of Romans 8:14 which says
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons/daughters of God.
We might ask is Paul “describing” the Christian believer here OR do you think he is prescribing how a Christian believer must be?
In other words, is he saying that we MUST be led by the spirit of God in order to be the Sons and daughters of God OR is he saying that Sons and Daughters of God are orwill be led by the Spirit?
I would suggest that here at this point we stand face to face with a paradox because I think, all things considered (in scripture, in context) he is saying frankly saying . . . both.
Let me explain.
In the context of every believers “identity in Christ,” we know that those who are the sons and daughters of God are led by His Spirit.
The verses that follow verse 14 completely endorses this.
Just listen to them and see if you can hear how Paul is describing how the children of God “are” rather than prescribing how the Children of God must be.
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
15 For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
18 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.
In this sense, the meaning of verse 14 is clearly descriptive – that His children are, in fact, led – it’s a foregone description of all believers and a comforting one at that!
God will work out in us His will.
And in this we walk, and trust, and look to Him (in us) to do the job.
However, if we read verse 13 first and then verse fourteen, I think we are presented with a prescription rather than just a description.
Remember what it said?
Romans 8:13 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.
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
Reading these passages we must admit that believers who choose – “choose” to live by their flesh – to feed it and to keep it alive, pursue it, love it, protect it will die (and, as we said two weeks ago, there is debate as to what type of death this means but I think it means “will experience loss”) but that those who “mortify the deeds of their body through the Spirit will live” . . . because they are willing, from the heart, to be led by the Spirit of God, and this is what makes them sons and daughters of God . . .
These passages present us with the paradox of being saved by grace through faith (after nothing we can do) but then cause us to face the fact (and I am adamant on this being a biblical fact) that those who are His will abide in the vine, will yield to the Spirit, and will ultimate mortify the deeds of the flesh – not must, but want to and will.
There is really no other way around it.
In other words (try this paradox on for size):
“Only those who have been saved to the Kingdom will abide . . . because those saved to the Kingdom choose to abide.”
Oooooh. Wait a minute! Doesn’t this remove us from “His loving care” and “His righteousness” ultimately placing the onus of salvation on our backs and not His?
(beat)
Again . . .
Doesn’t this remove us from “His loving care” and “His Grip, and His righteousness within ” and ultimately place the onus of salvation back on our backs and not on His?
(long beat)
No. It doesn’t. And the key to the statement are the words, WILL ABIDE.
Abiding means to “remain in,” and in the case of all we have read here in Romans, I think it includes our willfully “yielding to.”
Using the Lord’s teaching of the vine and the branch, we recall that there is no effort on the part of a branch to produce fruit – it merely occurs by the branch’s willingness to abide in the vine – in Him and in His control and care – which is by FAITH.
Remember the inner imagery of the white board illustration from last week where he has united with us in the process of maturing our minds.
Remember, “His yoke is easy, His burden is light. “ Remember that He took and paid and reconciled all to the Father – and that as a result those, in peace and rest, will remain open to His ways, yielding to His Spirit, and therefore abiding in Him the vine.
Along the way the deeds of our mortal flesh will die – not by or through resistance or by our going to war with them, but by and through the power of His Spirit overwhelming them because we desire Him and therefore allow Him to work within us.
Listen – it is therefore, it is not salvation and works, it is salvation and . . . yielding. And the central characteristics of constant human yielding before the Lord are loving Him about all other things, humility, contrition, lowliness before Him and others.
This is a very different picture than that of a person who has been saved sweating it out by labors in order to keep themselves attached to the vine.
That is an altogether different picture.
In the Book of Ezekiel the prophet writes about the apparel of the temple priests, mentioned all the way back in Exodus, and there in Ezekiel 44:18 God says:
“They shall have linen bonnets upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon their loins; they shall not gird themselves with any thing that causeth sweat.”
To me, though not to all, this is a picture of the ultimate work of the Royal Priesthood held by virtue of faith.
Branches do not sweat – they abide, are cared for by a good husbandman, and naturally produce fruits of love.
These facts help ameliorate some of the paradoxical edges produced by passages like those found in James where he says that, “faith without works is dead.”
Now, in the face of verse 13 and 14 there are those who misinterpret its meaning and believe that moral perfection (or at least aiming at moral perfection with all one has) is ultimately required of the sons and daughters of God.
So, another reiteration we ought to try and remember:
There is a HUGE difference (LISTEN!) there is a huge between “FAILING to abide and yield” and “REFUSING to abide and yield.”
Let me repeat this – please:
There is a HUGE difference in the life of a Christian between “FAILING to abide and yield” and “REFUSING to abide and yield.”
All human beings, from the most mature Christians down to the biggest babes in Christ have, can, and will “fail to abide and yield” in their walk with the Lord. And yet salvation remains even more abundantly as the Lord is made powerful in our weaknesses. Remember that? This is an irrefutable biblical fact.
Recall Paul’s comments regarding His own person as a believer in chapter seven?
But as we were saved without personally merited righteousness, so will believers live – saved at the beginning and at the end by grace through faith and no other means.
Christianity has NEVER, EVER been about human holiness by and through the flesh – that is what men have made the faith. Instead it is about human “willingness” in the Spirit from the heart to let God reign and work in and through us and remaining humbly reliant on this fact.
Oh try and remember this! So, again –
“Only those who have been saved to the kingdom can abide and only those who choose to abide in the Kingdom (by faith) are saved.”
And those who choose NOT to abide? Who choose NOT to yield to the Spirit?
First of all – let me refer back to Paul’s own words when he says:
“this is NOT you,”
We were not called to such attitudes and I would strongly suggest we would really have to fight against what is within us and appeal to the sin of disbelief to obtain, regain and retain them.
They will rise up on occasion, but in a true believer they will not last – unless someone is determined to keep them alive.
And secondly – remember, remember:
There is a HUGE difference between?? That’s right, “FAILING to abide and yield” and “REFUSING to abide and yield.”
In the first instance, the failure is in the flesh – which is not us – and that is what will go to the grave. But in the case of refusal, that is of the WILL – and in the end that is where we run into the issue.
WILL
It is such a paradox this word for Christian will yield to God and non-Christians will not.
Okay. Let’s move forward as verse 14 brings forth another observation when it says:
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons (and daughters) of God.
At this point in Paul’s letter to the Romans he is introducing all readers to a new thought: adoption by God.
We know this because this is the first time in his letter that he uses the word “Sons” (which represents all genders).
In chapters 1 and then 5 he speaks of God’s Son, Yeshua the Anointed, but now he introduces to us the concept of God’s other children – by adoption.
I do want to emphatically stress the difference between children of God, sons and daughters, children of Light and children of darkness.
Where all have been “saved from,” because of Christ’s finished work of reconciliation, we have not by any means all been “saved to” the Kingdom as this comes only by faith and His indwelling – and the difference between the two are literally day and night – pun intended.
It is interesting that Paul seems to state a fact without explaining how or why:
Those who are led by the Spirit are the sons and daughters of God. Period.
Want to know if you’ve been adopted, if your father is on high whom you can from the heart call, Papa?
Let’s ask ourselves:
Are we conscious that an influence from above has been drawing us away from the corrupting influence and vanity of this world ?
This is the work of the Spirit upon the Children of God.
I ask this because it is important, in our very human but very Christian walk, to recognize that the Holy Spirit IS working in and through us.
To recognize this is a tremendous support in our knowledge that we are truly indeed His children, and as such we know He is cognizant of each of us . . . who are all brothers and sisters in the Kingdom.
Consider 1st John 3:14 which says
“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.”
Most of us understand the love within a family. The bonds can be very strong, protective, generous, forgiving. EVEN moreso, however, does the love of the brethren and sister exist between believers. John goes so far as to say
“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because . . . we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother (and sister) abideth in death.”
This is both a description and a prescription.
And again, this type of love is not always the feeling kind, but is ALWAYS the choosing kind – the first Corinthians 13 kind. The gentle, longsuffering, kind and merciful kind.
Again, I suggest that this love is the kind that is always based on responses to difficulty because . . .
To be patient is a response to frustrating situations.
To be kind is a response to people deserving severity.
To be longsuffering means that there is a cause of suffering to which we are responding.
To be gentle and merciful means there is a reason to be harsh and merciless.
To forgive means there has been a crime committed against us needing forgiveness.
Do you sense His gentle hand leading you to greater and greater acts of this love, greater selflessness, longer spans of patience (listen) “especially among believers?”
These are all manifestations of the Spirit working from within.
Secondly, are we conscious of a desire to yield to this influence (or are we at least aware of a desire to pursue after it?)
This is an evidence of the Holy Spirit working on the Children of God.
Sometimes the Holy Spirit is so over-whelming we are “filled to overflowing” with the fruit of it – it’s like we all become Julie Andrews running across a flower strewn hill-side singing “The Hills are alive with the Sound of Music . . . “
(wouldn’t you just love to see all these burley men in here running across a hill singing like that?)
But at other times we are led to “yield to His influence” which is not overflowing. Each of these experiences reflect the fact that we are the Children of God.
Third, as we mature, do we find ourselves offering less and less resistance to His influences?
In other words, maturation in our walk is evidence that we are the Children of God.
The going from an inward focus on self- growth and development to an external focus on others and their needs? As illustrated by the sprouting triangles that point out and away from us?
There are few things more, I dunno, “perplexing” to me than when I meet people who have been “Christian” for decades upon decades who lack simple basic . . . love (or the desire to love).
I mean, we can totally expect, (even laugh at) new believers who are, like babes, learning how to not act out of their flesh.
They have their occasional fit and tantrum,
but mature Christians who impatiently “condemn” others? You know, as a practice – not just failing in their flesh for the moment, but really being mean and unkind and merciless from the heart?
If this is the case, it would appear, from scripture, that such “a believer” chooses (on more occasions than not) to follow after their flesh rather than yielding to the Spirit.
Some other evidences of being a child of God is to ask . . .
Do we yearn from the heart to know and follow Him?
And then do we progressively discover that our former man or woman withering in the light of the things that are “not of this world?”
And in a similar light . . .
Are we less and less attached to the things of this world, and do we find ourselves “mortifying pride, passions, lust, and anger” and replacing them with love humility, forgiveness, and longsuffering? These are fruits of the Spirit alive and well in the Children of God.
So again, what Paul writes – –
“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons (and daughters) of God.”
Now, if you are sitting there, knowing or believing that you have been saved to the Kingdom, admitting in your heart that Jesus is the I Am, but you are not experiencing the things I just detailed, maybe you are still clinging to the notion that you are in charge of making yourself Holy.
If this is the case, you will not only fail, the result will be that you will live in fear. But in verse 15 Paul, continuing his thought from verse 14, says:
15 For (as evidence). . . ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
How could anyone FEAR who has come to realize that they have not only been reconciled to the most beautiful, loving, kind, loooooooongsuffering King of all things but that they are LITERALLY His Son or daughter by adoption?
Again, Paul has taken us back to our true identity. . . one that includes possessing what he calls, “the Spirit of Adoption.”
I get a passing intrigue when I walk by magazine racks in the supermarket and observe photographs of some “mega-star or another” who has gone to a foreign country and adopted a child or two – and then to see them grow up in the pictoral media.
When they are first adopted they typically reflect their country of origin and the social status from which they came. But as time progresses, they begin to adopt the lifestyles, fashions and attitudes of their wealthy and famous parents. In other words, they fully embrace “the spirit of their adoption.”
So back some two thousand years ago or so, Paul, in his letter to the Romans shares with us the same thought – except it is far more profound.
Have you ever really contemplated upon the fact that you have been adopted by the very eternal God as his child?
And that when He adopts, His children are His Children? Do you KNOW what that means in the immediate and in the eternal?
Don’t nod your heads because you don’t. Nobody does. We have NO idea what this means from an eternal view – but I can tell you this – we ought to recognize that “the Spirit of this adoption” is with us now.
Knowing that “all that is in the world is NOT of our Father,” and that “God is love,” we, as His actual adopted children, have a pretty good initial idea of what it ought to look like to walk as His literal children.
For starters, it means that we refuse to walk in fear, or bondage, or trepidation, or doubt (LISTEN, as Paul says)
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.
Imagine two scenarios. In the first you are a child living in a Kingdom and have no relation to the King. He is known to be strict and stearn and you are throwing a turnip to a friend and break a palace window. Would you not be terrified when you were brought before the king? Of course you would. And for good reason. He has proven to be harsh in times past.
But suppose you are a beloved daughter or son of the same king. You are loved by Him more deeply than can be humanly imagined. He delights in you and adores you as His own and you break the same window. If you respected him, and were a good child, you would approach him with humility. But you would not fear because you know you are His.
A slave is under constant fear and alarm of his master. He lives and acts very carefully, cautiously, fearfully in order to ensure that his master is pleased and not angry with him – his works, his efforts and lifestyle.
But the spirit of adoption is one rife with freedom and confidence that we are His, and as such walk confidently in who we are in Him, having nothing to fear – for if God is for us, who can be against us?
It is interesting that Paul resorts not to a Hebrew word here, nor a Greek or Aramaic word to describe our father – “Abba” is in fact Chaldee and there is no English equivalent in the English.
It means father.
It means papa.
It means daddy.
Dad.
It encompasses all the very best terms we can imagine when it comes to describing the greatest father to ever exist.
Loving.
Tender.
Has all the time in the world.
Patient.
Totally open for conversation.
Gracefilled. Merciful. Understanding.
Generous beyond compare.
Protective.
Creative, fun, inventive, caring, insightful,
prudent, and wise.
He has more power than a billion nuclear bombs detonating at the same time but more peace and love than can be found anywhere on earth.
He is consummate wealth, intuition, genius, and creativity that imagination cannot fathom.
And He has not only adopted any and all who have received His Son, He sees us too, as His . . “Sons and daughters.”
Literally.
Eternally.
Perfectly.
Don’t lose the Spirit of Adoption. Don’t hide it. Humbly put it on display for all to see. But especially in your heart.
Paul continues our message today at verse 16:
16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
Here Paul states yet another fact:
The Holy Spirit bears witness to our spirit that we are the Children of God.
The Holy Spirit furnishes evidence to our minds that we are adopted into the family of God.
2nd Corinthians 1:21-22 says
“Now he which establisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.”
Have you receive this earnest spirit in your heart? If not, see me afterward. I will explain what that means and how it is received. But know this: He is calling, inviting, welcoming you into His family. He is saying:
I want to adopt you as my own. When this earnest of the Spirit is deposited in our heart, it is like a down-payment on a layaway item.
It is the reassurance that we are His.
We are reminded in 1st John 5:10-11 that within ourselves, we know we are His when John wrote:
1st John 5:10-11 He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself . . .
And then in 1st Corinthians 2:12, we are told:
“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
In all these passages Paul and John affirm that those who are His (listen) KNOW they are His.
This is something that the world rejects. Quite frankly, this is something that many Christians reject when they say things like, “we walk by faith, we know nothing.”
I would say that this is true with one exception – this one exception. That anyone who has been adopted by God can know perfectly that they are His.
If we have been legally adopted by a set of parents in this life, having gone to court with them, and we have seen the papers, and we have heard the judge declare us adopted, we can know that we are the children of those parents, right?
People ask, how do we know we have been actually literally adopted by the living God?
I think we can safely say that it is not by any revelation of new truth nor is it by a sudden feeling or emotional release.
To me its
a recognition of a new heart.
The reality of new vision of this world.
A yearning to communicate with Him.
A view of the world through a new lens.
An otherworldly knowledge that we are His who abides within.
The presence of the fruit of the Spirit bearing “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control.”
If adopted, the knowing will, if not immediately, then over time, be as apparent as the grapes on a branch prove the branch is alive in the vine.
And we simultaneously know intimately that those grapes are not there because of our goodness or our abilities – but His – because He has made us His.
In time, and this is important, the adopted by God will bear a striking resemblance to the image of God’s only begotten Son and all that He is and was when He walked the earth.
Humble
Not of this world
Lover of people
Accepting of sinners
Stern with religious deceivers
Generous with widows and orphans
Sacrificial to all in need.
A healer
A teacher
Reliant of His Father.
Beat
The Living God was pleased with His Only begotten Son and the life that He led – how He led and lived His life – and I suggest that we, as His adopted joint heirs, cannot ever forget this.
The world, for some odd reason, mocks the Christ and His life, but think about this – God approved of it, so much He called Him beloved, begotten and had him take a place at His right hand, putting all power and authority under Him.
So we have a model to look to in life. And we have abiding within us His Spirit, His Son and God Himself – working with us to bring us to the place where we too will begin to bear the fruits that His only begotten bore to the world.
Don’t push back against this notion. Receive it. Embrace being Jesus to your family neighbor and enemies.
Walk humbly. Serve and teach and love. Forgive and always do the will of the Father. In these ways we are sons and daughters of the living God.
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