PP252 Mortification Crash Course

I love these verses.

So then, brothers and sisters, it starts there at verse 12.

It sounds like Paul is now spelling out the implications of everything we've learned in verses 1 to 11.

This is actually the kind of thing we love to pick up on in the podcast.

This is where all this theological teaching in the first part of the chapter has been heading, and now it's coming to bear on the practical stuff of life.

And what is the first implication? It's this, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh.

The CSB has it, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh.

In other words, we don't owe the flesh anything.

Remember what Paul has just said in verse nine to these Christians? He said, you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the spirit of God lives in you.

So every believer has been removed out of the realm of the flesh and has been placed in the realm of the spirit.

We're no longer in the flesh, but that doesn't mean the flesh is no longer in us.

And so Paul encourages us here.

He says, don't live according to the flesh.

You don't owe it any favors.

And again, it's probably helpful to think of God delivering His people from Egypt.

That Exodus theme is so big throughout all the rest of Scripture, actually, and a great analogy for us.

So, the people of God were transferred out of the realm of Egypt into the wilderness.

They were no longer in Egypt.

But you could say, you could see evidence that Egypt was still in them.

And that's why they had those cravings for things back in Egypt.

It's a bit like that with the flesh.

We're not in the flesh anymore.

We've been delivered.

But we do still have the flesh in us.

And it will be in us until we die or until Christ returns.