Know Your Enemy: Do Not Let Sin Reign in Your Mortal Bodies | Romans 6:8-14

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So, I mentioned last Lord's Day that I was going to preach a sermon of recantations, and that was actually,

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I don't think I explained this, but this comes from an episode in Luther's life, Martin Luther's life, the reformer, the

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German reformer, when he was presented, more like obligated to answer before the

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Diet of Worms to face the emperor.

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And the purpose of that was because the emperor was Roman Catholic, and he wanted a united kingdom, and so Luther was being pressured to basically recant.

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Recant means to take back or to renounce something, and so they were demanding, if you've all seen the

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Luther movies, some are better than others, but a lot of them are pretty good, and they will, there's one part where he's presented, he has to present himself, and the

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Catholic official tells him, hey, will you or will you not recant all your books, your teaching and stuff?

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And so Luther says, hey, give me a time, give me a day, give me some time to think this through, and they give him a day,

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I think, and later on he goes and he says, I cannot and I will not recant, because it is neither right nor safe to go against conscience, right?

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And he says, my conscience is captive to the word of God, and so that's what

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I mean by recantation, recanting something, so I may have to recant something that we will see later on.

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And I want us to start back again in Romans chapter 5 verse 20 to maintain the full context throughout the sermon, we can have that in context, and to address some things that I've also been meaning to clarify some more, okay?

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So start with me here in Romans chapter 5 verse 20, and here

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God's Word says, now the law came in so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. In chapter 6 now, what shall we say then?

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Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be.

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How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

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Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the

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Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this that our old man was crucified with him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.

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For he who has died has been justified, has been set free from sin, from the power or bondage or dominion of sin.

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And just a brief comment here, because we are no longer slaves to sin, because we are now mastered by the

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Spirit rather than by the flesh. That is what I went through last week, and the principles of the laws and the principles that Paul, the

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Apostle Paul was weaving together in these chapters in Romans. And like remember what

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Burkoff said about what the old man is, a very, very good and important definition to keep in mind, that the old man is human nature insofar as it is controlled by sin.

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Romans 6 .6 and Galatians 5 .24. So that's very important. Now continuing in verse 8.

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Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again.

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Death no longer is master over him. Remember, keep in mind that language, master, slave master relationship.

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For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all, like Hebrew says as well.

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But the death that he lives, he lives to God. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

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Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, reign meaning rule or govern, so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness.

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I believe the Greek there is actually weapons of unrighteousness. But present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

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For sin shall not be master, remember again, master over you. For you are not under the law, but under grace.

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Okay, amen. Now, I have a brief, I have a little slight tweak to the sermon title today.

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It's not going to focus so much on the second part of this passage, but the first part.

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So the sermon title is actually, Know Your Enemy, Do Not Let Sin Reign in Your Mortal Bodies.

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Okay, that's the main focus that I want to deal with today. And so, and speaking once again of this mortal body, this mortal body of death that Paul refers to, of sin and death, right?

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Romans 6 .6 and death, Romans 7 .24,

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we need to, I may need to recant something here, because upon more careful consideration,

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I may have misunderstood what John Owen meant in my previous sermons when

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I referred to his explanation of what the body is in the book of Romans.

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Okay, so let's, I want us to take a look at this more carefully. Owen has a reputation for being difficult to read, so maybe

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I can just use that as my excuse. Not really, but nevertheless, he's extremely rewarding.

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Even when you disagree with him, even when he's, even though he may be hard to understand, I highly still recommend and encourage everybody to read

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Owen's works, especially the ones that we're going through on the trilogy of, the

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Sin Trilogy, as it's called, the mortification of sin, on temptation and on indwelling sin.

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So, in fact, by way of admonition here, you should try to first, try to read his original versions of his writings first, with a version that has notes and annotations in it, so that you can have the definitions of difficult or old, older English there.

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Like the Chapel Library version is very good, it's an excellent version, and you can get it for free online from Chapel Library, and you can request a free paperback as well.

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But if you still struggle with the original version, there are other simplified, modernized versions that you can also take a look at, and you can ask me about those recommendations if you want to take a look at those.

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The point is that we still want to read Owen. Owen is still very good, even though I may disagree with him on this part.

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Remember, also, that it is very important to determine when

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Paul, not just Paul, but when other writers and Christians, like Owen, are speaking physically and literally, as opposed to spiritually and figuratively, okay?

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Especially when it comes to the body and the flesh. Very, and really, this is what

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I started to realize upon further reflection, that this is an important lesson for us as believers, who are called to study and to grow in sound doctrine, that we need to be careful not to assume, not to assume or impose our own definitions into the key terms of what we're reading, okay?

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Like the flesh, when reading anyone else, not just Owen, but anyone else, including the

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Bible. That's called eisegesis, if you remember, when you put in your own version or own meaning of the word into the text, rather than extracting the meaning from the text that you are reading.

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This applies to everything, not just scripture, especially because, also, there are different understandings.

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There are divergent, conflicting understandings of what the flesh and what the body is, okay?

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When it's speaking figuratively, that is. So I want to go back, well, if you turn forward to Romans chapter 8, so that we can deal with the passage that I quoted from Owen.

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Romans chapter 8, verse 12. I'm going to read from the LSB. God's word says, so then, brothers, we are under obligation.

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Notice the word, the language again, obligation. Obligation, that means you are bound, not to the flesh, not to the sarks, to live according to the flesh, for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die.

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Remember here, again, the principles that Paul is interlocking. The apostle is interlocking these principles of death and life and bondage and slavery and mastery.

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He's contrasting them, once again. But if by the spirit you are putting to death or mortifying the practices of the body, the soma, you will live.

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So here, when Owen identified the body as the old man and the body of sin,

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I originally thought that he was referring primarily to the physical body, okay?

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And therefore, it's physical members being the seat and instrument, in his words, of that corruption and depravity of our natures, of the flesh, okay?

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But this is what we need to examine a little bit more carefully. Now, I'm going to go ahead and read, once again, from his book on the mortification of sin.

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Owen says, the body, in the close of the verse, is the same with the flesh in the beginning.

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If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die. But if ye mortify the deeds of the body, that is,

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Owen says, the flesh, it is that which the apostle has all along meant by the flesh, which is evident from his focus on the contrast between the spirit and the flesh, before and after.

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The body, then, is taken here for that corruption and depravity of our natures, whereof okay, listen here, whereof the body, this is where I assume that he meant physical body, but we need to look at this more carefully.

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The body, in a great part, is the seat and instrument, the very members of the body being made servants unto unrighteousness by such corruption, okay?

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Romans 6 19. Now, this is where he explains what he means by the body. It is indwelling sin.

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That's what he means. It is indwelling sin, the corrupted flesh or lust.

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It is lust that is intended. Okay, that's what he's saying.

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Paul means by the flesh lust. The body here is the same as the old man and the body of sin, or it may also express the whole person considered as corrupted.

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So, body and spirit as considered corrupted and the seat of lusts and distempered affections or uncontrolled.

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Distempered meaning uncontrolled, lacking temperance or self -control. Okay, so this is really important to clarify because Owen appears to mean that the body of sin is not so much physical as it is primarily internal or mental indwelling sin in the form of lusts and uncontrolled affections or desires.

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Okay, so that is what Owen means. The flesh primarily is. It's the lusts.

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And so, or he says it can also refer to the whole person. Like I mentioned, internal and external spirit and body.

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And later on, Owen also says that the apostle has treated of indwelling lust and sin as the fountain and principle of all sinful actions, thoughts, words, and actions.

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So, that is where Owen is centralizing the source, the primary source, force, and energy of sin, the sins that we commit.

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He says they are situated primarily in lust, lust, and indwelling lust and sin.

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Okay, indwelling sin, he means. Now, okay.

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So, I wanted to really clarify this because I was basically,

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I may have been imposing my definition of the flesh into what I was reading from Owen. So, it's an important lesson, once again, that we need to be careful not to assume or impose our definitions into what we read, especially because also in older works, in older writings, sometimes the meaning of words also change.

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They evolve. They morph into something else, which is why some people get in trouble, especially those who believe that the

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King James Bible is the only good Bible because the King James Version has older English words that don't mean the same thing that they do today.

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Now, so, we need to be careful when reading anyone, again, anyone, especially when there are different or conflicting understandings of the key terms and doctrines like the flesh.

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Now, I may have some defense in my defense, some argument in my defense.

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Okay, so let me present that to you. Later on, however, Owen does say that the intention of the

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Apostle in his prescription of the duty to mortify or to put to death the practices of the body is that the mortification of indwelling sin remaining in our mortal bodies, mortal physical bodies, in other words, is the constant duty of believers so that it may not have life and power to bring forth the works or deeds of the flesh.

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So here, Owen does appear to say that our mortal bodies being physical, and he says that indwelling sin remains where?

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In our mortal physical bodies. So, and he explains further on that when dealing with uncontrolled natural or physical appetites, you know, when there's a lack of temperance or self -control, like alcoholism or gluttony or things like that, pornography, sexual lust, when there are those kinds of appetites that are a struggle that we also need to apply a corresponding natural remedy, such as fasting, in order to, in his words, restrain the natural root of that distemper or that lack of control.

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So, even so, okay, you know, there's, it doesn't appear that Owen primarily means internal mental lust as the flesh, but even so, even though I may have misunderstood

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Owen in the previous quote, it does not change what I've been preaching or my perspective on what the flesh is, okay, as being primarily physical bodies and senses.

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That's still my contention, okay, and we're going to look into this. I'm going to prove it to you, okay, even more so than I already have.

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We're going to prove it, but think with me here now. Do we as believers always sin because of our senses?

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Do we always sin because of our senses? Is that always the case? What about those who are missing some of their senses?

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What about those who cannot see or hear? What about those situations?

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You cannot sin with the senses that you do not have, right, and so do our physical senses limit how much we sin?

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Do they limit how much we sin? But this is an important question that we need to consider because if what

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I'm saying is right, that the flesh is primarily physical and our senses, okay, well then, if we have less of our senses, does that mean that we sin less, right?

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Is that why, in fact, Jesus said what he said in Matthew 5 29 through 30.

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If you turn with me there, let's see what Christ said in light of what the question is that we're asking in the gospel of Matthew chapter 5 verse 29.

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Let's look carefully at what the Lord Jesus says, but if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you.

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For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

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And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you.

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For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be to go into hell.

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Amen. So this really sheds an interesting light on this issue.

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Very interesting because, you know what, why? Why is this? Well, what do we see with?

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We see with our eyes, right? What do we touch with? We touch with our hands.

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Very interesting. Very compelling. Do not fall prey, however.

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Okay. Do not fall prey to the error, errors of lordship salvation here.

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I'm not saying you have to like literally cut your hand off like origin did who castrated himself in order to make himself a eunuch.

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And I'm not saying you literally need to do those things. Okay. The purpose of what Jesus is illustrating here is that we must take sin and our enemy, the flesh, seriously.

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We must take it seriously and deny the flesh and kill the flesh. Okay. This is an illustration of how serious the problem of the flesh is.

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So we must put it to death, but we put it to death by denying it, not necessarily by cutting off limbs or eyes or noses, right?

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And bear in mind this as well, that people who lack certain physical senses often sharpens the senses that they do have.

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So when people are blind, they can typically hear very well. So the body tends to compensate when there is a lack of sense in not like intellectual sense, but I mean, you know, seeing or hearing or, you know, touching or things like that now, but it is true in a way that you cannot sin.

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If you do not sense in a certain way, you know, you can't sin with your eyes.

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If you can't see that's just sort of stating an obvious, that's just an obvious statement, but that doesn't mean, you know, your body, your flesh always finds a way to sin for you.

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Don't worry about that. Don't you worry about that. Going blind, deaf and dumb is not going to save you from the perils of the flesh.

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Your body will find a way to sin. I promise you that. I guarantee you that.

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Okay. So it mainly would change how you sin, but not that necessarily that you would sin less if you had fewer senses.

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Although in a way, you know, there is some truth to that.

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Okay. Now this is why, this is why here you must know your enemy, the primary enemy that we all face and know what the source and seat and instrument of corruption in man is.

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To use Owen's words, the fountain and principle of all sinful actions and the extent influence dominion and power of the flesh, especially in we who believe the gospel and are regenerated as believers.

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What sayeth the scriptures? Okay. What sayeth the word of God?

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The answer lies in verses 12 and on of Romans chapter six and the end of Romans seven.

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My apologies. I just could not pass up the opportunity to address Romans seven, but it is just way.

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It's so important to address, to deal with this here. So let's go back to verse 11 in Romans six.

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Okay. To get a little bit of the context, Romans chapter six, verse 11, God's word says, even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

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There again, the principle of death and life, mastery and slavery. Therefore do not let sin reign where in your mortal body, body of death.

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Okay. So my physical, so that you obey its lusts and do not go on presenting.

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So the lusts come from where, where the body, the lusts come from the mortal body of death and do not go on presenting your members.

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Okay. The Greek there is melos, your members, your physical members to sin as instruments or weapons of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of the righteousness of righteousness of righteousness to God for sin shall not be master again, master slavery over you for you are not under law, but under grace, you are not under the condemnation of the law, but under grace.

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Now, as I've mentioned before, believers now deal with sin as an external problem.

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Okay. However, sin can still tempt and attack our minds primarily through our mortal bodies, bodies, physical bodies.

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The apostle is very clear here. He is very clear what he's referring to our button.

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If you don't worry, I'm going to raise you one. If this isn't clear enough because he gets even clearer, but it is primarily through our mortal bodies, our mortal members of our bodies that what are the members, the members of the body, the body of death, the mortal body.

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Okay. And that's what mortal means. By the way, mortal means death, death, this body of death and our senses because our senses, once again, they are connected to our bodies and our minds.

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That's sort of the bridge that connects us and that connects our bodies to our minds.

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Now, turn with me to Romans chapter seven, verse 18. This is incredibly powerful.

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What the apostle explains in this very chapter. I am really, really excited to present this to you all.

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I think this will be inescapably incontrovertibly clear of what the apostle

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Paul is referring to. Okay. Chapter seven, verse 18. Now, so whereas Owen claims that indwelling lust and sin are the fountain in principle of all sinful actions.

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Okay. My contention is that the fountain in principle for all sinful actions is sin itself or the law of sin, the law of sin that Paul refers to in Romans chapter seven, verse 25, which we will get to shortly that takes hold of our physical bodies and members and senses and minds and tries to enslave us once again, if we do not put it to death to become our master, to become our master.

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Okay. To become our master. Now, in verse 18, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.

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Okay. In my flesh for the willing is present in me, but the working out of the good is not the performing of it is not.

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So in verse 20, now, if I am doing the very thing

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I do not want, I am no longer the one, the one working it out, but sin sin is the one doing it, which dwells within me.

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That is where in my flesh. That's what he just said in verse 18.

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Okay. In my flesh, this brings us now to a very important maxim, a theological principle and maxim that we need to internalize very critically important.

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I refer to it as the law of my mind versus the law of my members, my physical members, the law of my mind versus the law of my members, my body, especially in verse 23 of Roman seven, very important.

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Okay. Now let follow along with me in verse 21, verse 21 of Roman seven.

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Let's walk this out carefully. Let's work it out carefully. I find then the principle that in me, evil is present.

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Be careful with what he means by in me. He is talking about in my flesh, right?

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In me who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the what the inner man, the inner man, which means the mind, the spirit.

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But I see a different law in my what my members, my mellows, my physical members, waging war against the law of my mind.

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Okay. Of my mind. There you see the contrast mind versus body, physical versus internal spirit, mine.

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Very clear how Paul is contrasting the two. Okay. The law of my mind in contrast to our physical bodies, the mind being the noose, the noose, and making me captive to the law of sin, which is in my what my members, my mellows, my physical body, wretched man that I am.

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Doesn't it make sense then that he says this next statement, who will deliver me then from the what the body, the

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Soma of this death. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our

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Lord. So then on the one hand, I myself with my what my mind and serving the law of God.

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But on the other with my what he says with my flesh, the law of sin with my flesh.

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Okay. So what is Paul doing here? This is a parallelism. It is a parallelism because he first earlier contrasted the mind with the members.

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Right. And now he's contrasting the mind with the flesh. The flesh being the sarks in Greek, which parallels with this body of death in verse 24 and with the members of the body in verse 23, the metals.

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Okay. This really only makes sense. If you note the law or the maxim that I just stated, the law of my mind, of our mind versus the law of my members of my body, that is my flesh.

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This is proof positive. Y 'all, you cannot, you cannot. You can't.

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You cannot. There's no other way to make sense of this. It is black and white clear.

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Okay. This is black and white clear. But I think people lose sight of the fact of what

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Paul is saying because he is contrasting body versus mind and then equates or parallels the members, the body with the flesh as opposed to the law of my mind.

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Okay. Man, this is good stuff. Amen. So, okay.

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This is why now you see, now you see, I hope more clearly why

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I've stated this all along. Our enemy, the flesh, consists primarily of our physical bodies and members, which is the seat and instrument of our remaining corruption, but also includes our senses and sensual appetites and lust through our mind, which take place in our mind because our senses connect our bodies to our minds.

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Okay. But no, well, even Owen acknowledges this to some extent because he says remaining indwelling lust remains in our bodies.

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And Calvin himself said, we won't stop sinning until we escape the corruption of our bodies.

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So there is an acknowledgement even in our reformed tradition that yes, our physical bodies are a big problem.

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My contention is that it is the main problem. That is what Paul just said here.

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Okay. No, really no other way to see this very black and white.

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This is why I also said that some commentators have a tendency to overcomplicate what

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Paul means by the terms that relate to the flesh, that like mortal body, body of death, body of sin, members, et cetera.

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But Paul is absolutely inescapably in controversially clear with what he means here.

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And as good as this is, we will definitely flesh this out more when we get to Roman seven formally.

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Okay. I wanted to give you a little sneak peek preview of how important it is to understand this properly.

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Okay. We need to bear in mind what the Bible is teaching us about the flesh.

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That is why everything I've been saying all along, even though it may be going against some of what very good, excellent, renowned and respected theologians like Owen and Rutherford and Edwards and so on.

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These men, as excellent and as good as they are, and as much as we all should be reading them and be familiarizing ourselves with them, because they do in fact help us to understand the word of God better.

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It doesn't change the fact that Paul said what he said in the way that he said it.

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Remember the law of my mind contrasted versus the law of my members, the law of my members, of my body, the body of this death.

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Okay. Now, does this mean that all is hopeless and we are just going to be, you know, like Milton, Satan said in Paradise Lost, Oh, wretched, me miserable.

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And are we just going to wallow around? Well, no, of course not, because we are indeed regenerated.

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That's why Paul in fact says, you know, we're going to get into the issue of what, who is

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Paul describing in Roman seven later on? Is he describing a believer that is wrestling with the desires of the flesh and the flesh?

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Or is he an unbeliever? Is he describing the status of an unbeliever?

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Or is he describing the status of somebody who is prior, being convicted of sin prior to their conversion?

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Okay. We're going to take a look at all of those things carefully. But nevertheless, Paul still says in my inner man, it delights in the law of God.

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My inner man delights in the law of God. And we will see in Romans chapter eight, why

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Paul says there's therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. So yes, he says, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

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There is the realization that sin comes from primarily our bodies.

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It is that principle of sin. Now sin, what is like, what is this law of sin?

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Again, we're going to get to that more. But the law of sin that Paul refers to is primarily that remaining sin in our bodies because our bodies have not been redeemed yet.

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As believers, our spirit, our inner man has been regenerated and redeemed.

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Our inner man is good. Our hearts are good. However, our senses, and that's again why

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I think Jesus said, cut your hand off, cut your hand off and cut your eye out, meaning take your eye out of those temptations.

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Deny yourself those temptations. Don't expose yourself to sin through your senses because that is the primary vehicle by which we still sin as believers.

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We need to mortify the flesh and to put those things to death by denying them, by not exposing ourselves.

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But like the psalm says, I will set no wicked, no worthless thing before my eyes.

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Amen. So then that leaves us with a powerful sense of rejoicing.

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Rejoice with me then, brothers and sisters, because our former slavery to our former master, sin, which was sin in our bodies and in our minds prior to conversion, but now it's primarily in our bodies, which takes up, which takes us captive by the flesh.

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And now we see inescapably clear what Paul means by the flesh, right?

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Primarily our bodies, physical bodies that is now broken.

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Those chains, that bondage is broken by God's regenerating baptism of death to sin and burial, our burial with Christ because Christ nailed our sins to his death on the cross.

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Amen. Rejoice then so you too reckon yourselves dead to sin because you are dead to sin.

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So we must put to death what remains, the sin that remains in our bodies.

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We still need to deal with those things. Okay. Amen. Let us go ahead now and close out with a word of prayer.

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Gracious almighty heavenly father, we thank you lord for your precious and all powerful word, father, which speaks, which is a two -edged sword that just cuts through the very bone, the soul and the marrow of all the matters and the issues of life.

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Lord, we ask that you would bless the preaching of your word and that you would help us to internalize these things and that you would help us to make proper sense of these things in our minds and that you would bless us father and that you would help us to grow and increase in the knowledge and grace of our lord and savior that you would equip us and empower us father by your spirit and by your means lord to grow and to put put to death what is earthly in us what is fleshly in us those physical members that still entice us and tempt us to sin lord our senses help us to identify those problems accordingly those areas of weakness in our lives and to keep our minds pure and clean and free of that temptation in order to resist the temptation of the flesh father help us by your spirit and by your means lord to participate on these lord's days in worship in singing in praising you in in receiving the preaching of the word and the lord's supper father in those means of deliverance father god that you have shown us in your word especially including the word of god your word and wise counsel and all of these other things father including the the all -important necessity to no longer sin and to put it to death the practices of our bodies we thank you father and we ask these things in jesus precious almighty all -powerful name above every name amen thank you for listening to the sermons of thorn crown covenant baptist church where the bible alone and the bible in its entirety has applied to all of faith and life we strive to be biblical reformed historic confessional loving discerning christians who evangelize stand firm in and earnestly contend for the christian faith if you're looking for a church in the el paso texas area or for more information about our church sermons and ministries such as semper reformanda radio and thorn crown network podcasts please contact us at thorn crown ministries .com