Slices
Prepare
Our experiences (bad or good) of being ‘fathered’ – by family, friends, mentors, etc – affect how we respond to God as Father. Spend some time reflecting on your experience, noticing how you feel.
Bible passage
9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation – but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
Explore
As in yesterday’s reading, words like ‘controlled by’ or ‘realm’ (v 9) are added by translators. Paul actually uses the word ‘in’: ‘you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit’. To understand this, we need to read verse 15.
Notice how Paul says we ‘receive’ our adoption (as ‘sons’ – that is, we have the same status as God’s Son). This is not something we discover within, nor something we earn. Instead of belonging to sin, now we belong to God’s family. And God gives all his children the Spirit, to enable us to live the family life – however imperfectly – in two ways.
First, ‘mortification’ (v 13) – or ‘putting to death’: we are already set free from condemnation and the penalty of sin, but our ongoing struggle with it shows we are not yet free of sin’s power. Yet God enables his children to resist it: ‘By the Spirit put to death the misdeeds of the body’.
Second, ‘dedication’ (v 14): God’s children are those who are ‘led by the Spirit’. God’s Spirit is at work within us, enabling the (imperfect) obedience we need to follow and live God’s way.
Respond
Christians should not be passive recipients of a gift – God gives his Spirit to enable us to live as his children. How actively do you live by the Spirit in the two ways we have identified today?
Deeper Bible study
‘… no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.’1
It is the Spirit who makes us Christians (v 9). By the Spirit we are enabled to say ‘Jesus is Lord’, which we might call ‘witnessing confession’. By the same Spirit we can say ‘Abba, Father’ (v 15), which we might call ‘worshipping confession’. We worship the Father through the Son and by the Spirit. The Spirit bonds us through Christ to the Father so that we speak of ‘adoption to sonship’ (v 15). We are God’s children now (vs 14,16). To call God ‘Father’ means an intimacy of relationship like Christ’s own knowledge of the Father.2 If Jesus, the Son of God incarnate, shares this relationship with the Father uniquely and from eternity,3 we share in it by adoption. God chooses us to be his children. Christ the Son has made it possible and it becomes real for us by the Spirit.
We are close to the heart of the Christian revelation and to what makes it different from any other religious or spiritual path. We are part of the expanding circle of those who are being gathered into the divine fellowship that we call ‘the Spirit’.
By adoption as children we become heirs of God. Everything that is God’s potentially becomes ours. This is wealth beyond imagination. However, we may in the present be called to share in Christ’s suffering before we share in his future glory (v 17). We continue in our present bodily existence and are mortal, subject to death, but by sharing in Christ we can be confident that as his mortal body was raised into immortality and glory so in the fullness of time will ours be (v 11). This leads to the resolve to live according to the new realm (v 9) into which we have been called. We no longer live according to the flesh but by the Spirit (vs 12,13).
‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’.4
1 1 Cor 12:3 2 Luke 10:21 3 John 17:5 4 Ps 34:8
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Numbers 24,25; Acts 21
Pray for Scripture Union
Pray for Simon Barker, Regional Team Leader in the central region, as he leads the staff team of Steve Hutchinson, Hannah Legge, Matt Farley and Karen Quinney, supports Faith Guides and Local Mission Partners in the central region and prepares for some face-to-face mission later this year.
