A debtor (1)

[Romans 8:12-17]

What do you think of when you hear the word “debtor”?  When we think of a “debtor,” we can usually think of a person who has borrowed money and is in a position to pay it back.  As an example, we can take Matthew 18:24.  When a king was accounting with his servants, one “debtor” of ten thousand talents (v. 24) had nothing to pay (v. 25), so he fell on his knees and bowed before the king and said, ‘Be patient with me and I will pay you back everything’ (v. 26).  Then the master of the servant had compassion on him and let him go and forgave the debt (v. 27).  But the servant whose debt of ten thousand talents was forgiven met another servant who owed him a hundred denarius and grabbed him and began to choke him and said “Pay back what you own me! (v. 28).  His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back” (v. 29).  But he refused and instead of forgiving the debt, he put him in prison to pay the debt (v. 30).  At that time, the other servant went to the master and reported everything (v. 31).  The master called the servant whose debt was forgiven and said, ‘You wicked servant, I canceled all that dept of yours because you begged me to.  Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ (vv. 32-33)  In anger, he imprisoned the servant to the prison guards to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed (v. 34).  What is the point of this parable?  The answer is verse 35: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”  Just as God forgave all our sins in Jesus Christ, it is a lesson for us to live a life of forgiveness.

We are debtors.  God forgave (indemnified) all our sins.  Our original sins, past sins, present sins, and future sins have all been forgiven by the precious blood shed on the cross of Jesus Christ.  Therefore, we must live by forgiving those who sin against us, just as God has forgiven us.  But why are we not forgiving?  The reason is that we lack the sense of debtor.  The more we live a life of faith, the more clearly, we must have the sense of debtor.  In other words, the closer we come to the holy God, the more our sins will be exposed, and the more our sins are exposed, the more desperately we will feel the need for the shed blood of Jesus on the cross.  And the more we receive God's forgiveness in repentance, the more we will go deeper into God's grace.  The more this happens, the clearer our sense of debtor will become.  In doing so, we cannot help but praise the hymn “I Know not Why God’s Wondrous Grace”: “I know not why God's wondrous grace To me He hath made Known, Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love Redeemed me for His own.”  The problem is that we cannot enter deeply into this grace, so we lack the sense of being a debtor, and because we lack this sense of being a debtor, we think, ‘I am still of some use.’  It is that God is using useless people with His full grace.  Therefore, we must go deeper and deeper into the grace that God bestows on us in Christ Jesus.  We need to realize more and more how much God has forgiven our debt.  Then we will be able to live like debtors.

We must heed the message of the lesson to live like a debtor.

Look at Romans 8:12 – “Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.”  Here, “we have an obligation” means “a debtor” in the original Greek.  The word “debtor” has two possible meanings, one meaning “one who owes money” and the other meaning “one obligated” that applies to today’s text.  In a word, “the debtor” refers to the “he is under obligation” (Gal. 5:3) as the one who is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).  This word is already used by Paul in Romans 1:14 – “I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish.”  So, as a debtor, Paul wanted to go all the way to Rome to preach the gospel (v. 15) because he was focusing on preaching the gospel, which was his duty.  And he said in 1 Corinthians 9:16-17: “For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.  For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me.”  In today's text, Romans 8:12, Paul gives us a lesson on how to live as Roman saints and as debtors.  As debtors centered on today's text, I would like to first think about one of the two ways we should live.  I hope and pray that we all live like the debtors mentioned in the Scripture.

First, as debtors, we must not live according to the sinful nature.

Look at Romans 8:12 – “Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.”  Here, when we see that Paul said, “it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it,” we can see that he is thinking of the internal or spiritual warfare mentioned in Romans 7.  In other words, as Paul said, “For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members” (7:22-23), he is admonishing against the law of sin following the sinful nature in the spiritual battle, not to live according to the sinful nature.  Why is he saying not to live according to the sinful nature?  The reason is because we will surely die if we live according to the sinful nature (8:13).  As we have already meditated on, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what the nature desires” (v. 5), but the end of the mind of sinful man is “death” (v. 6).  Therefore, Paul is exhorting the saints in Rome not to surrender to the sinful nature and live according to it, because living according to the sinful nature will result in death.  How does ‘living according to the sinful nature’ that the Scripture speaks of live here?  In a word, living according to the sinful nature means living by sinning.  And living if we sin means living while disobeying God's laws (commandments, words).  For example, living according to the sinful nature disobeys the twofold commandment of Jesus, which is God's law, 'Love God and love your neighbor' by not loving God but to love the world and not to love one’s neighbor but to hate one’s neighbor.  This is a life of sinning against God.  How is it?  As we listen to this word, do we have the thought, ‘Ah, I have lost my sinful nature and am living according to the sinful nature’?  Or do we think, ‘I am living my life obeying God’s law by overcoming the sinful nature in my internal battle’?

There are two kinds of laws in us who believe in Jesus.  One is the law of God according to our heart, and the other is the law of sin according to our sinful nature.  In other words, we serve the law of God with our hearts and the law of sin with our sinful nature (7:25).  Now these two laws are fighting within us (vv. 22-23).  But the problem is that these two laws collide within us and fight each other, and we lose to the sinful nature and live according to the sinful nature.  No Christian would ever want to live like this.  If you and I are true saints, no one would ever want to give up on the sinful nature and live according to the sinful nature.  But the question is, why do we sometimes lose to the sinful nature and live according to the sinful nature?  Why do we suffer from guilt after losing the spiritual battle?  Why do we keep fighting against sin and living in a sense of defeat, thinking to ourselves, ‘I will never be able to fight this sin and win’?  What could be the cause?  The reason is that we are not filled with the Holy Spirit.  What is being filled with the Holy Spirit?  Many Christians seem to think of being filled with the Holy Spirit as a gift of the Spirit, a miracle, or a frenzied immersion in prayer, or an experience of ecstasy.  But that is not the fullness of the Holy Spirit.  Being filled with the Holy Spirit refers to the state of being filled with the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Christ.  It refers to the state of being controlled by the Spirit of Christ.  If we are controlled by the Spirit of Christ, we will obey the words (commands) of Christ, and we will live if we are led by the words.  A Christian who is filled with the Holy Spirit lives in complete submission to the Lord.  A life filled with the Holy Spirit is a life of listening to the voice of the Lord in close fellowship with the Lord and fully obeying the word of the Lord.  In this way, the Spirit-filled Christian lives by putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit of Christ (8:13).  What is Paul talking about here?  A Christian who is filled with the Holy Spirit is guided by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God (v. 14), and lives as a servant of God, obeying God's laws (commands).  A Spirit-filled Christian never lives by committing the same sin over and over again, obeying the law of sin as a slave to sin.  Pointing to these Christians, the Scripture says, ‘They are the sons of God’ (v. 14).

The debtors are the sons of God.  And the Son of God is led by the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit.  And Christians who are led by the Holy Spirit never keep on living according to the sinful nature.  Rather, they live by putting to death the misdeeds of the body by the Spirit of Christ.  Let us all live like debtors.