All, I am eager to go through this scripture with you.  Depending on when you check your email, you should get this Sunday night or Monday morning.  I hope it helps get the week off to a good start.  It’s been a while since my last message, but Romans 8 is difficult to work through.  I am trying to find the balance between bringing out all that I can, and realizing that brevity is needed as some pastors have spent years working through Romans.  It has been very helpful to me in my own study, and I hope it will have the same effect for you.  This passage goes to the heart of our identity in Christ through the gospel, and what is means to live out of that identity.  Specifically, I want us to understand what Paul means when he says we are not “debtors” to the flesh, and I want us better understand what it means for us to have been adopted as sons.

Romans 8:12-16 – “So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.  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.  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  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! and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

By the “flesh” Paul is not referring simply to our physical bodies, but to the entirety of man that is alienated from God.  All through Romans 1-5 Paul is explaining exactly what it means to be “in the flesh” to be incapable and unwilling to submit to God and worship Him.  What Paul is saying is that man’s natural inclination apart from God is to serve his/her evil inclination through sin.  The promise of sin is joy, but we know that is a lie.  There is no joy to be found apart from God.  Only in the presence of God do we find true joy, and joy in its fullest measure.

Psalm 16:11 – “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

An important note here is that Paul here is not talking to non-Christians – This letter was written to the church at Rome and he makes his intended audience even more clear by addressing his hearers here as “brothers”.  Certainly non-Christians would not feel the weight of their sin, nor would they be familiar with the joy of a right relationship with our Lord.

So we are called debtors, meaning we owe something and our debt owner has certain rights over us.  This is true for a non-believer and it is true for a believer.  It’s important to understand the being in debt during Biblical times was different than now.  There was no such thing as bankruptcy, and a debt owner could enslave his debtor or send him to prison.  So the rights of a debtor that Paul is talking about are much greater than what come to mind for us today.   For a non-believer, they are in debt to their flesh.  They obey the lusts and passions of their flesh to pursue joy in whatever way possible apart from the worship of God.  Many today claim that they do not want to trust and follow Christ because they don’t want to be told how to live – this only illustrates how blind they are to their current condition.  They are already obedient every moment of every day to another master – their flesh.  Believers too have a master, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  The difference between the flesh and Jesus could not be greater than it is – they are diametrically opposed.  Where the flesh promises death, judgment, and eternal misery apart from Christ, Jesus promises life, freedom, and infinite, eternal joy in fellowship with Himself.

So then, we true believers, have been ransomed from one master by our new master, Jesus Christ.  He paid the price to for our ransom through His righteous blood on the cross.  We do not owe any allegiance to the flesh any longer – we have a new master, by the grace and mercy of God.  God in His love, however, has much us much greater that mere slaves, but He has called us sons.  God, in His love, has adopted us as sons, co-heirs with Christ.  Now adoption is another area that is not understood very well, so I want to go through that as quickly as possible, looking at a picture of adoption that God gives us from Genesis 48 in the adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh by Jacob, called Israel by God.  I’ve included that text at the bottom of the email if you want to read through it for context.  There are a couple observations I want to highlight about the adoption of Ephraim and Manesseh, as it relates to our adoption as sons to God the Father through Jesus.

1)   In the adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh, they were brought to Jacob by Joseph – they did not come on their own. 

Their adoption was facilitated by Joseph, Jacob’s son, just as our adoption as sons was facilitated by the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

2)  The adoption was sight unseen. 

There was nothing particularly lovely about Ephraim and Manasseh that made Jacob choose them among Josephs other sons.  It was to fulfill the purpose of God to grow the kingdom of God, and to carry his name forward that they were chosen.  There is nothing lovely about each of us that made God want to choose us, it was the mercy of God to choose to adopt us, and it is for His purpose that we were chosen.

3)  The adoption made Ephraim and Manasseh the highest level among Jacob’s sons as it related to the inheritance of Jacob.

When Jacob says to Joseph that Ephraim and Manasseh should be like two of Jacob’s other sons, Reuben and Simeon, he giving them the same level of inheritance as his first born sons. (The highest level).  When God says that we are fellow heirs with Christ, that means that God is granting us the same inheritance that was due his first and only Son, Jesus Christ.  What is the inheritance due Jesus Christ?  A fullness of joy in relationship with the triune Godhead.  We are being grafted into the family of God by the adoption facilitated by Jesus.  This is why when the Bible is talking about our adoption as sons, I want everyone to understand that God isn’t saying that adoption does not extend to daughters as well, but God means all of us to know what our inheritance is through Christ.

4)  The adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh was made without expectation of anything in return. 

Jacob was on his deathbed.  There was nothing that he could have gained by adopting new sons.  In the same way God does not adopt us into his family so that we can “pay him back” with good deeds.  Acts 17:24-25 – “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”  Our good deeds are simply a result of living out who we are through Jesus Christ.  We act as a member of God’s family, because we trust that in Christ we have been ransomed and brought into right fellowship with God.

I’m going to try to land the plane here.  Hopefully some of what we’ve gone through has been helpful to understand what is meant that we are “not debtors to the flesh”, but to the Spirit of God.  Hopefully we have also gained a greater understanding of God’s adoption of us into his family and the inheritance that awaits us through Jesus.  My encouragement is to press these truths into your heart with the result being a desire to live out your calling as sons and daughters of God.  It is a high calling, and your life as a Christian is not about what you do for its own sake, but what you do to make much of the name of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by proclaiming who you are through Him.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

 

Genesis 48:1-16 – “After this, Joseph was told, “Behold, your father is ill.” So he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. And it was told to Jacob, “Your son Joseph has come to you.” Then Israel summoned his strength and sat up in bed.  And Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, and said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make of you a company of peoples and will give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession.’ And now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are. And the children that you fathered after them shall be yours. They shall be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance. As for me, when I came from Paddan, to my sorrow Rachel died in the land of Canaan on the way, when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).”
When Israel saw Joseph’s sons, he said, “Who are these?” Joseph said to his father, “They are my sons, whom God has given me here.” And he said, “Bring them to me, please, that I may bless them.”  Now the eyes of Israel were dim with age, so that he could not see. So Joseph brought them near him, and he kissed them and embraced them.  And Israel said to Joseph, “I never expected to see your face; and behold, God has let me see your offspring also.”  Then Joseph removed them from his knees, and he bowed himself with his face to the earth.  And Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them near him.  And Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, crossing his hands (for Manasseh was the firstborn).  And he blessed Joseph and said,  “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys; and in them let my name be carried on, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”