What Does It Mean to ‘Kill Sin by the Spirit’?
Chapters
0:01:34 Mortification of Sin
6:42 How Do We Put to Death the Sin of Greed
7:47 The Mortification of Sin
00:00:00.000 | A podcast listener named Apollo writes in to ask this. This is a follow-up to
00:00:09.700 | episode number 345 in which you asked, "Are you killing sin by the Spirit?" Pastor
00:00:15.160 | John, what does this mean? How do I kill sin by the Spirit? All my thinking and
00:00:21.520 | praying and practicing on this point of killing sin begins with Romans 8 13. If
00:00:28.880 | you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to
00:00:34.560 | death the deeds of the body, there it is, by the Spirit kill, put to death the
00:00:39.240 | deeds of the body you will live. So there it is from the very mouth of God. Put to
00:00:45.040 | death, kill, slay, murder the deeds of the body, meaning the sinful ones. And of
00:00:52.680 | course it doesn't mean just make sure your body doesn't do bad things and
00:00:56.440 | doesn't matter what your heart does. Of course that's not what Paul means. He
00:00:59.200 | knows that bodily deeds that are wrong are rooted in hearts that are wrong, and
00:01:04.320 | so the killing has to begin at the root and not just--or at least it has to
00:01:08.800 | go to the root, not just to the fruit in the body. So kill the deeds of
00:01:15.040 | the body means kill the root of temptation, the root of sin in your heart.
00:01:19.600 | The old word for put to death was "mortify," but it's become so weak in our
00:01:26.160 | day because lots of people think it means just be embarrassed, like, "Oh, I was just so
00:01:30.000 | mortified." Well, that's not what John Owen meant when he wrote The Mortification
00:01:35.280 | of Sin, which is a book I would highly recommend. I just got it out again this
00:01:39.640 | morning. 85 pages in the collected works, 350 years ago, probably the best thing
00:01:44.920 | that's been written on Romans 8:13. 85 pages all in one verse, and it's got that
00:01:50.360 | famous line in it, "Be killing sin or sin will be killing you." So mortification of
00:01:56.080 | sin meant kill it, slay it, put it to death. So here's my answer to
00:02:02.000 | the how question, and I take it straight out of the verse. There is one clue for
00:02:07.280 | the how in verse 13 of Romans 8. It says, "If by the Spirit you put to death the
00:02:13.880 | deeds of the body." So how do you do it? You do it by the Spirit. You act in such
00:02:19.360 | a way that the Spirit is acting. You kill in such a way that it is the Spirit
00:02:24.760 | killing. Now what is that? And that's not a marginal question, like
00:02:30.120 | this is, oh, out here on the periphery and central things in the Christian life or
00:02:34.480 | something else. This is as central as it gets in living the Christian life, because
00:02:39.560 | for Paul, this was the Christian life. You could call it walking by the Spirit, or
00:02:44.440 | bearing the fruit of the Spirit, or being led by the Spirit. He uses all those
00:02:49.520 | terms to talk about how do you act towards holiness and sinfulness in such
00:02:55.720 | a way that the Spirit Himself is acting in and through you. So here's
00:03:01.040 | my answer in two or three steps of how do you do this. Step number one, Ephesians
00:03:08.440 | 617 says that the weapon that the Spirit uses to kill sin is the Word of God. It
00:03:14.280 | says, "Take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." The one piece
00:03:20.880 | of armor in Ephesians 6 that is used for killing is the sword, and it happens to be
00:03:25.840 | the sword of the Spirit, and that happens to be the Word of God. I don't think
00:03:30.680 | that's any accident that when Romans 8 13 says, "Put to death the deeds of
00:03:35.520 | spirity," put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, the Spirit has a
00:03:42.080 | sword, and it's used for killing, and it's the Word of God. So my first clue is
00:03:48.040 | killing by the Spirit means by the Word. Well, next question. What does
00:03:53.840 | that mean? I mean, what do you do with the Word in order for the Spirit to be active
00:03:59.400 | like that in killing sin? And there the clue is Galatians 3 5. "Does he who
00:04:05.160 | supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the
00:04:10.480 | law or by hearing with faith?" So the answer is, by hearing with faith, the
00:04:16.160 | Spirit works miracles among you. By hearing with faith, the Spirit is
00:04:20.600 | supplied to you in your sin-killing work. So how do you put yourself in a position
00:04:30.040 | that the Spirit, wielding his sword of the Word, will kill sin in your life? You
00:04:35.600 | do it by hearing that Word and trusting what you hear. Now, very practically, what
00:04:43.360 | word should we trust? And here I think it's absolutely crucial to say more than
00:04:50.200 | "trust the gospel." That's common today, real common. I think it's crucial to say
00:04:55.260 | more than "trust in your forgiveness" or "trust in your justification." That's
00:05:01.240 | essential because everything is based on that, but that's not the way the New
00:05:05.100 | Testament talks about this. The reason that we must hear more, hear and trust
00:05:11.400 | more, is because the New Testament illustrates sin-killing over and over by
00:05:16.960 | telling us more than "you are forgiven" or "you are accepted" or "you are righteous,"
00:05:23.200 | because forgiveness and justification are the foundation, and then it says all
00:05:28.960 | the promises of God are "yes" in Christ. So because we're forgiven, because we're
00:05:34.000 | justified, all the promises of God, hundreds of promises that are concrete
00:05:38.920 | and practical and relate to specific situations, are all true for you. So we
00:05:43.900 | never leave the gospel, we're standing on the gospel all the time, but we're
00:05:47.540 | preaching specific promises to ourself in order to destroy specific sins. So
00:05:55.180 | let's just end this with one example. Let's take the sin of greed or
00:05:59.620 | covetousness, because here's a verse that shows what the paradigm is for
00:06:06.340 | how the New Testament says to fight the sin in the power of the Holy Spirit. So
00:06:12.060 | here's Hebrews chapter 13, verses 5 and 6. "Keep your life free from the love of
00:06:18.220 | money, and be content with what you have." And here comes the dagger with which
00:06:25.340 | you're gonna kill the love of money, and you're gonna kill greed in your life.
00:06:30.100 | "For God said, 'I will never leave you or forsake you.'" So we can confidently say,
00:06:38.100 | "The Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?" So how do we put
00:06:44.100 | to death the sin of greed when the love of money starts to raise its ugly
00:06:48.740 | head, and all the fear and the pride that goes with it comes? We hear a word.
00:06:55.420 | Well, what word do we hear? We hear the word, "I will never leave you. I will never
00:06:59.820 | forsake you. I'll be your sufficient helper. Man cannot destroy you. He cannot
00:07:05.260 | ruin you. I am for you." You hear those words about this afternoon. I'm talking
00:07:11.620 | about this afternoon, or the rent that can't be paid, or the mortgage that's
00:07:16.420 | overdue, that specific promise. We hear it, we believe it, and God the Spirit,
00:07:22.980 | Almighty, with His sword, kills greed and fear and pride in possessions. So, killing
00:07:31.380 | sin means daily calling to mind and trusting blood-bought specific promises
00:07:39.300 | of God. Amen, excellent. Thank you, Pastor John. And recommended in this podcast was
00:07:45.060 | a book by the Puritan John Owen. The book was titled The Mortification of Sin, but
00:07:49.220 | it may actually be easiest to buy this book as a book titled Overcoming Sin and
00:07:53.780 | Temptation, which was edited by Kelly Coppock and Justin Taylor for Crossway
00:07:57.220 | Books back in 2006. As a bonus, you get two other related books from John Owen on
00:08:02.300 | battling sin in the same book. That's Overcoming Sin and Temptation, edited by
00:08:06.980 | Kelly Coppock and Justin Taylor. Another episode we recorded on killing sin is
00:08:11.580 | episode number 304 in the archive. It's titled Visualizing Christ to Battle Lust.
00:08:17.380 | Tomorrow is Friday and we will close out the week with a question on 2 Timothy
00:08:21.540 | 315, specifically, how does Scripture produce faith? I'm your host Tony Rehnke.
00:08:26.860 | We'll see you tomorrow.
00:08:29.300 | [BLANK_AUDIO]