Debtors to God, not to the Flesh (Rom. 8:12-13)

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One of my favorite John Piper books is Future Grace.  It is fantastic and I commend it to you.  I especially appreciate how he shows the role and function of the promises of God in helping us to fight sin.  But I have one problem with it.  One of the things he says in it is that we should beware of the debtor’s ethic, and by this he is referring to people who relate to God as debtors.  And though I appreciate the point he is trying to make – that  we can’t treat salvation from sin as if it were a debt we’re trying to pay off from our own resources (which we can’t) – the language he uses runs counter to the language of Paul right here in Romans 8.  And the strange thing is that he never wrestles with the language of Romans 8:12 in the entire book.  That’s a problem, I think.

It's a problem because in Romans 8:12 Paul says that we are debtors to God.  There is a debtor’s ethic, at least in terms of Romans 8:12, that is Biblical and appropriate.  In fact, this is not the first time Paul has thought of himself as a debtor.  Back at the very beginning of this epistle, he wrote, “I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also” (Rom. 1:14-15).  Paul lived as a debtor, a debtor to Jew and Gentile, and a debtor to God.

He's not the only one.  Many throughout church history have thought of themselves in relation to God in precisely these terms.  Augustus Toplady wrote, for instance,

A debtor to mercy alone,

of covenant mercy I sing.

And then there is the hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” which has these lines that we are all familiar with: 

O to grace how great a debtor

daily I’m constrained to be!

Let that grace now, like a fetter,

bind my wandering heart to thee.

What then does it mean to be a debtor to God?  And how is this consistent with the gospel of grace that says we never merited salvation to begin with, and so can never “pay God back” as if we were paying off some loan from heaven?

To begin with, we can safely say that it does not mean that we are meant to feel pressured to pay God back for what he has done for us and therefore in some sense merit salvation.  For that is impossible.  You cannot pay back an infinite debt.  It also does not mean that I am meant to do something for God out of my own resources.  It doesn’t mean that since God has given grace to me out of the treasures of his infinite goodness, now I’m going to give God something which he didn’t have before.  We simply can’t do that.  Everything we give to God comes from him first.  Any acceptable service can only be done using resources which we get from God in the first place: “whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies – in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 4:11, ESV).  We are only “stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Pet. 4:10, ESV).  

To understand what this means, then, let’s consider another passage here in Romans where this word appears: “I am debtor both to Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise” (Rom. 1:14).  Now Paul does not mean by this that he was trying to pay the Greeks and Barbarians back for something they had done for him (they hadn’t, after all, done anything for Paul!).  Rather, what Paul is saying is that he is under obligation (that is how the ESV translates the word) to the Greeks and barbarians.  The source of this obligation is the grace and commission of God to Paul: “among whom we also have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name” (Rom. 1:5).  In other words, it was the grace of God that made Paul a debtor to the nations.  Now the object of obligation is different in the two passages: in Rom. 1:14, it is the nations; in Rom. 8:12, it is God.  However, the point I want to make here is that the former passage demonstrates that being a debtor to someone doesn’t mean you are trying to pay them back for something they have given you; rather, it means being under an obligation towards that person or persons in some way.

So when Paul says that we are debtors to God on account of what he has done for us, and especially in light of what Christ has done for us on the cross and what he is doing and will do in us through the Spirit, he is saying that the saving acts of God for us and in us bring us under an obligation to God.  It doesn’t mean we are trying to pay him back.  

When Paul said that he was a debtor to the nations, what he was saying was that it was right and fitting for him to bring the gospel to them.  But more than that, he was saying that it would have been entirely wrong and wicked for him not to do so.  And I think it also indicates the weight with which he felt this obligation.  In the Bible, we are warned to get rid of debts quickly, and not to let them ride.  In the same way, Paul is anxious to pay this debt, to fulfill this obligation: “so, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also” (Rom. 1:15).  The obligation on Paul created a readiness in Paul.  In the same way, understanding our obligation to God ought to bring with it a readiness, a willingness, to fulfill it.

So we can summarize the meaning of this phrase, “debtors to God,” in this way: to be a debtor to God means that I feel under an obligation to God, and that I feel the weight of the obligation in such a way that it creates in my heart a readiness and a willingness to fulfill it.  Now I don’t want you to miss the meaning of the word “weight” there.  I don’t mean “burden.”  A burden does not create the kind of readiness that we are talking about here; in fact, it does precisely the opposite.  Rather, this readiness is a delight in the fulfillment of that obligation upon us.

One more thing as we are considering the meaning of this phrase.  The fact that we are debtors to God means that we have been given something from God.  Grace, not legalism, is behind this reality.  Just as grace created the obligation that Paul had toward the nations, even so grace creates the obligation that we have toward God.  Nothing in this verse is meant to distract us from the grace of God.  Rather, it is meant to remind us of it and to incite us to new obedience through it.

Now the way these two verses function is first negatively (12) and then positively (13).  That is, verse 12 tells us what we are not debtors to, that we are not debtors to the flesh.  However, the way he puts that sets us up for the positive statement about debt, and indicates that we are debtors to God and especially in terms of the Spirit of God.  So then in verse 13 he shows us how someone who feels this sense of obligation to God lives that out – he or she does so in terms of the killing of sin in the life.  So that’s what I want to impress upon us in these verses: the debt and the duty – the debt to God and not to the flesh and the duty we have in terms of living out that sense of indebtedness.  But today, I want to focus primarily on the sense of indebtedness that Paul speaks of here in verse 12 and where this sense comes from.

A Debt

So remember how I defined this sense of indebtedness to God.  I’ll repeat it: to be a debtor to God means that I feel under an obligation to God, and that I feel the weight of the obligation in such a way that it creates in my heart a readiness and a willingness to fulfill it.  Now I want to so speak about this debt that we feel something of what Paul felt.  I want us to have the conviction that Paul had.  So to that end, let me first show you why we are not debtors to the flesh – and in those reasons to feel freed of any sense of need to fulfill it, but rather to be disgusted by it – and then to show you why we should feel this obligation to God – an obligation that is not borne as a burden but which springs from delight in him.

Not to the flesh

We are not debtors to the flesh.  What is the flesh?  It is human sinful nature in opposition to God.  And this sinful nature creates sinful thoughts, sinful desires, sinful outlooks, and sinful acts.  This nature takes the appetites of the body and turns them into destructive avenues.  So why should we not see ourselves as debtors to it?  Well, we should not because it only destroys us.  Let’s think about this in terms of the way Paul has already spoken of the flesh in these verses.

First of all, we are not debtors to the flesh because is only brings us into condemnation.  Paul wrote in verse 1 that “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.”  If you walk in the flesh you are condemned.  The flesh is the source of sin against God, and sin is treason against the King of the universe.  The condemnation that it brings is what is owed to people who are guilty of sinning against an infinitely glorious Being – infinite guilt and never-ending punishment.  That’s what the flesh brings.  Why should you want to serve it?

Second, the flesh only cripples our ability to obey God’s commandments.  It hobbles us in the very thing that leads to true and lasting and real blessedness: “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh” (3).  It takes the Spirit of Christ in us to enable us to fulfill the righteousness of the law (4).  Why would you serve that or feel indebted to that which cuts off the very hands by which we lay hold on true happiness?

Third, the flesh opposes the work of the Spirit of God in us.  We saw in verses 4-5 that being in the flesh leads to the mindset of the flesh which leads to walking in the flesh.  But you can’t be like that and be in the Spirit and have the mindset of the Spirit and walk in the Spirit.  The two are mutually exclusive.  You cannot walk in the Spirit and walk in the flesh at the same time.  Paul wrote to the Galatians reminding them of this: “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” (Gal. 5:16-17).  To think that we have some kind of need to fulfill the flesh is like a runner in an Olympic race putting weights around his or her ankles.  Why would you do that?  “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1).

Fourth, the flesh is death.  We see that in verse 6 (“the mind of the flesh is death”) and in verse 9 (“the body is dead because of sin”).  Is not just that it leads to death, as we shall see, but that it is death.  To live for the flesh is to live the life of the living dead.  Dead to God, dead to the life of God, dead to God’s presence and blessing and strength and grace.  It is to live as it were among the tombs.  Why would you feel indebted to that which drives you from God and puts you among the dead?

Fifth, the flesh is hostile to God (7-8).  Now that is just stupid.  You can’t win against God.  The devil who is a thousand times stronger than that strongest human is already a defeated enemy.  He will have his part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.  And so will all who join him in his folly of rebellion against God.

Sixth, the flesh not only is death, but leads to eternal death.  In verse 13, Paul writes, “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.”  Now the apostle is clearly not talking about the physical death here, because even God’s children die in that sense.  Nor is he saying that if you live after the flesh your physical life is going to be cut short – for that also happens to plenty of God’s people as well.  No – it means that those who live in rebellion against God, who serve the mindset and outlook of the flesh and sinful nature, will perish eternally.  This is what the Bible teaches.  Elder Bradley mentioned this text last Sunday, but let me remind you of it: “He that overcometh [the world, the flesh, and the devil] shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.  But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, the whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Rev. 21:7-8).  Why would you feel indebted to that which only puts a millstone around the necks of its servants and plunges their souls into a never-ending cataclysm of judgment and misery and woe?

Imagine a man being dragged by an alligator into a lake, who was then rescued by the timely intervention of a game warden.  Imagine that man refusing to acknowledge the benefit gained from the intervention of the game warden.  But more than that, imagine him wanting to later find that alligator and pet it and feed it.  We would say that this person was probably out of their minds.  But this is very similar to what we are doing when we, who claim to be redeemed from a life of opposition toward God want to go back and feed that very mindset.  It’s crazy.  We are not debtors to the flesh to live after the flesh.

But to God

Note the way Paul says this here.  “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors.”  He does go on to say that we are not debtors to the flesh, but he begins with this positive statement.  And though he does not go on to explicitly say it, the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit that runs throughout this passage indicates that the positive statement is that we are debtors to the Spirit of God.  We are debtors to God.  We have an obligation to him, not to pay him back, but to give a return for all the mercies that he has shown to us.  

For one thing, we are not debtors to the flesh because if we are Christian we have been delivered from it.  Paul says that “we are delivered from the law” (7:6) which is just the same thing as to be delivered from the flesh (7:5).  Or, to put in terms of Romans 6, we have died to sin, we no longer live as believers in that sphere, in the sphere of the flesh.  Yes, we have to battle with it – Rom. 8:13 would be nonsensical otherwise – but it no longer rules over us (Rom. 6:14).  To think that we owe some kind of debt to the flesh would be like thinking we owed taxes to a nation of which we weren’t citizens and in which we had no business.  

Rather, we are in the Spirit and belong to God.  Of course God is the King of every person.  But the difference is that only those who belong to Christ by faith are citizens in his kingdom and heir to all the blessings of the life to come.  Remember what Paul says in verse 9: “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spriit of God dwell in you.  Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”  But, on the other hand, those who have the Spirit of Christ do belong to him, body and soul.  Our obligation should go entirely in the direction of God, not the flesh, the world, or the devil.

But we should also be thinking of the blessings that we have received from him.  These blessings obligate us through a sense of deep gratitude for the blessings which we have received.  For example, we should be thinking of justification before God, and that fact that those who are in Christ are no longer under condemnation (1).  In Christ God’s throne is no longer a throne of judgment but a throne of mercy at which we can find mercy and grace to help in time of need (Heb. 4:12).  I think we really need to recover a sense of amazement here.  Our culture has flipped reality on its head in that it thinks that it can arraign God and put him in the dock.  We want God to justify himself and his ways.  But it is not God who needs to be justified.  It is we who need to be justified.  We are not the judge; God is.  We stand before him to be declared righteous or unrighteous.  And the pronouncement is that we are all unrighteous and sinners before him; all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).  But there is hope; by the sheer grace and mercy of God the promise is that all who embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior can have the righteousness of God put to their account, clothed in his righteousness and forgiven of all their sins.  That is the great message of the book of Romans, isn’t it?  And it is a gift, a gift of grace: we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:24).  Not because of anything that we have done, but solely because of what Christ did on the cross for us.  He absorbed the wrath of God in our place; he is the propitiation through faith in his blood (25).  Those who trust in him will never be put to shame.  There is no greater blessing than that, because it secures every other blessing.  Those who have it have the favor and friendship of God and eternal life.

We should also be thinking of the gift and grace of present sanctification, which, as we have seen, is the point of verses 2-8.  God not only justifies us, not only forgives our sins, but he also begins to make us progressively more and more like Jesus in this world.  “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Tit. 2:11-14).  God is sanctifying us.  That is such a blessing.

Note the language of verse 13: “But if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”  Why did Paul put “through the Spirit” in there?  We are the ones mortifying the sin in the life.  Yes, but we are not alone!  Never alone!  If we feel like that, I’m not saying the feeling isn’t real, but the feeling doesn’t necessarily reflect reality, does it?  Our emotions are sometime like a torch against the mirror by which we see reality.  It warps it and bends the glass and turns it into one of those carnival mirrors.  We need to believe what the apostle is saying here.  God is at work in you to will and to work of his good pleasure so that you can with fear and trembling work out the salvation given to you by God (Phil. 2:12-13).  You need to know that and do the work of killing sin in your life knowing that you are doing it by the grace of God that is constantly at work in your life.  Doesn’t that make you a debtor to God?

And then there is the blessing of future glorification.  This is the point, ultimately, of verses 9-11.  The Spirit who raised Christ from the dead will give life to our mortal bodies by his Spirit who dwells in us.  He will raise us from the dead.  Glorification is coming: “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.  Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them [and all of them!] he also glorified” (Rom. 8:29-30).  So certain is it, that Paul puts it in the past tense.

There is a lot of really bad stuff that we have to deal with in this world.  It is often very painful, both physically and mentally and emotionally.  And we can often – maybe most often – not even see the point of it all.  It can feel overwhelming and unfair.  

Well, you have two options at that point.  You can either become bitter against God and wave your fist in his face and walk away from the faith.  But what are you walking to?  What is there to alleviate the pain or give hope for the future?  There is nothing except your own bitterness to marinate in.  

Or you can embrace the promise of present grace and future glory.  God gives grace in the present that gives strength and enables us to persevere with hope, but he doesn’t just give grace in the present.  He also gives glory in the future.  Think about it: the way the Bible describes the future is not just ongoing existence.  It isn’t even just freedom from pain and grief, although there is that.  But fundamentally, it is described in terms of glory.  Glory is the pinnacle of every good thing.  Glory is the word that over and over again in Scripture is descriptive of the blessedness of God.  Now that doesn’t mean that finite creatures will ever become gods.  No!  That is impossible.  But it does mean that the happiness we seek and long for will be found in the age to come.  There are glimpses of it now, but the fulness of it is certain to come.  And it will come. 

There is a hymn that expresses this beautifully:

Come, you disconsolate, where'er you languish;

come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;

earth has no sorrows that heaven cannot heal.

So because of past justification, present sanctification, and future glorification, we are debtors to the Spirit of God who applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ.  

Given these glorious realities, how can we not feel like debtors to God – not to pay him back, not to serve him in our own strength, but to feel this sense of obligation to him in such a way that we are ready and willing to serve him with all our heart and with every fiber of our being?  Not so much as a duty to be done because we have to but out of the delight of our hearts and out of our love to him because we want to.  And given what the flesh has done and is doing, how could we ever feel like it’s worth it to invest our lives in pursuing the things of the flesh?  “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Gal. 6:7-8).  

Verse 13 is going to tell us what to do with this conviction of indebtedness to God, but the thing that we need to see is that we are not going to do what verse 13 tells us to do – namely, put to death the sin in our lives – unless we feel the reality of verse 12.  Do you?  Do you live as if sin can give you more than God can?  Do you live as if sin has given you more than God has promised?  May it never be, brothers and sisters!  

And we must never forget that our debt to God is not like the loan from a bank to be paid back with interest.  We’ve seen that is impossible in any case.  It comes from the grace of God and the gift of God in Christ.  And it is freely received in Christ by faith.  It is not received by works of any kind.  It is not merited.  It is not deserved.  And it is not kept by works or merit either.  It is the surprising benefit given to those who were once God’s enemies.  Have you received it?  The Bible says, “He [that is Jesus] was in the world [by becoming incarnate], and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:10-13).

My friends, are you a debtor to God in the sense in which Paul is speaking of here?  Have you received this blessing of justification by faith alone in Christ alone?  Are you by the Spirit of Christ being sanctified and made holy and conformed to the image of God’s Son?  Are you one who is going to be raised by the Spirit of God from the dead and glorified in the age to come?  Then thank God for his free gift in Christ!  He gave it to you, drew you to it in the first place, and put it in your hand.  Let the knowledge of that propel you into a life of holiness before God and happiness in God.

What if you don’t care?  Are you a person who doesn’t feel indebted to God – in fact, you think God is indebted to you!  What if you don’t think you need to be justified, or sanctified?  Do you think that you can get to heaven and be glorified on the basis of your good works, that you’re entitled to it?  My friend, such a mindset is, according to the Scripture, the mindset of the flesh.  There is no hope for you if you insist on living your life apart from the gift of salvation in Christ Jesus.  There is no salvation apart from faith in Christ.  God alone gets to set the terms by which we are received into his favor, and the terms are faith and repentance.  There is no other way.  There is no salvation except for those who are debtors to mercy alone in Christ alone.  And so I encourage you, on the basis of Biblical promises, to turn from your sin and turn to Christ, because the promise is that all who do so will never be put to shame.