How do we put to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13)?

There are four operations there. In the first thirteen verses the Spirit is master of the flesh. The thirteenth verse is, "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." It is not by resolution. Do you understand now? Do you understand the difference between the Spirit of God and resolution? Resolution is the work of your own will. The Spirit of God is God's will. "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." It is not the mortification of the body, but of the deeds of the body. The Spirit in you is master of the flesh.

We have hindrances, — He had none. He was a perfect vessel, and could thus say, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." We have the flesh still within us, and the flesh ever lusteth against the Spirit, and seeks to hinder His blessed power in the soul. We thus read in one of the Scriptures cited, "Always bearing about in the body the dying [or rather, the putting to death] of Jesus;" and in Romans 8, "If we through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body," etc. That is, there needs to be the constant application of death to all that we are, if there is to be the unhindered expression, in any measure, of Christ; and the power for this lies in our possession of the Holy Ghost. For example, suppose, under temptation, I am on the verge of giving way to temper, or of falling into sin of any kind, looking away from myself to Christ, and remembering that I through grace have been associated with Him in His death, I am enabled through the Spirit to refuse the flesh, to reckon myself dead to sin; and in this way Christ retains His sway, and He lives in me, and speaks through me, instead of myself. Hence, too, the exhortation not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God (Eph. 4:30); for if by any allowance of the flesh He is grieved, I not only obscure the expression of Christ through me, but I also lose the power, by grieving the Spirit into silence, to mortify the deeds of the body.

The way of victory in everyday life for the believer is solely by the power of the Spirit, and the first step on the way is, putting to death the deeds of the body. There are evil things to which we naturally incline; it is the pleasure of our old Adam to commit specific bad and sinful deeds. The members of our bodies are the servants of our desires; we have absolutely to refuse and put to death those activities, and the power for this action is the Spirit who dwells in us.

We are not, then, in the flesh, though it is in us; but we are not debtors to it, to live after it. The end of sin, or flesh, is death. It is ever ready, we find, to our sorrow, to act in the body. “But if ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” If our old nature was not still left ready to act, we should not need to mortify the deeds of the body. It is not mortifying the body, but the deeds of the body. The great thing to see, is, that it is through the Spirit. This is fully brought out in Galatians 5:16-25.

Now it is clearly impossible that such injunctions should have been given to those who are born of God and risen with Christ, unless they still have "the flesh," in which is nothing good. Let us turn to another scripture on this point. "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." (Rom. 8:13.) This is spoken to those who are said to be "in Christ." Observe, it is not the body which is to be flagellated, or put to death, but the deeds of the body — those things which the body is capable of doing, which are in opposition to God's mind. Again, notice that the power for this is the Spirit of God; not flesh against flesh, but a new and almighty power given to us, by which we may practically keep in the place of death the workings of "the flesh." Nothing, then, can be more clearly taught in scripture than that the believer is "in Christ," who is his life, and one with Christ by the Holy Ghost; and, at the same time, that "the flesh" is in every believer. He is therefore a compound of two natures; with one, "the mind," he serves God's law; and with the other, "the flesh," sin's law. The indwelling Spirit strengthens the new nature, and keeps us occupied with Christ, our righteousness and strength, so that we may reckon ourselves to have died unto sin, and thus practically hold as dead the buddings forth of "the flesh." May the Lord graciously help us more and more in this!

We expect everything from the Spirit. By Him we are enabled to put to death the deeds of the body, and are glad to do so, for by the Spirit our hearts are kept in the freshness of divine love, and our minds are fixed on the things that God has given to them that love Him; and to allow our wills to give impulse to our bodies would be to subject us afresh to the service of sin, defile our consciences, and rob us of the enjoyment of our portion in Christ. We cannot go on with both flesh and Spirit. It cannot be a little of the flesh here and a little of the Spirit there; a little of the things of the world and a little of the things of Christ. We cannot bring the life of Christ into the things of the flesh, neither can we bring the life of flesh into the things of the Spirit of God. It must be the cross for the flesh, from the beginning of our journey through the world right to the very end of it. The Spirit has not been given to us to help the flesh and to make up for its deficiencies; He is against the flesh, and by His power we are to put to death the deeds of the body and live. This is the way in which He leads us. On the one hand He is the power by which we put to death the deeds of the body, and on the other it is by Him we cry Abba, Father.

In the sight of God, and in our account by faith, we are crucified with Christ — never without Him. His crucifixion was ours. If we endured for ourselves what He on the cross endured for us, it would be eternal condemnation to us. But as to the "members which are upon the earth," they are not said to be crucified. The old mortal body and its members, prone to evil, are yet present, and they have to be subdued. "Mortification," is the process by which they are to be controlled. "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." (Rom. 8:13.) "Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth." To mortify is to put to death. We cannot put to death what is already dead. Mortification, then, is a perpetual killing, if one may so say, of the members and of their deeds.

The believer can say, Because my old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth I might not serve sin, because God, in His infinite grace, has reckoned the death of Christ to my account, and I am in His sight as one who has died to sin — has died with Christ; because of this precious and peace-giving truth, I will with gladness and determination mortify every motion of sin in these members of my body which are yet upon the earth. By the power of the Spirit who dwells in me through God's grace, and who enables me to judge between flesh and Spirit, between good and evil, between the precious and the vile, I will bring the cross of Christ (whereon He died for me) to bear upon everything with which I come in contact, and on all the motives and desires of my heart and of my mind, and "bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," will treat as worthy only of death all the workings of the flesh in my members, whether in thought, or word, or deed.

Power does not lie in new birth or in any other work wrought in us, but in the Holy Spirit of God. He is the power of the new nature, and if we occupy ourselves with the objects which He sets before us in the acceptance of the new place given us in a risen Christ, reckoning ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Him, and go on in constant dependence on God, realizing our own weakness, the victory over sin will most surely be ours.

And by the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the body. We are able now to tread the path marked out for us in chapter 6, we are able to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. We are not now self-occupied, but occupied with God. The law occupied us with the sin which it told us we were not to commit, but instead of this helping us it hindered us greatly, for it directed our attention to that to which we were not to live. The Spirit on the other hand occupies us with Him to whom we are to live, and in this there is real deliverance.

But to proceed with our chapter. The apostle concludes thus exposition of the spiritual life, which gives liberty to the soul, by presenting the Christian as being thus a debtor, not to the flesh, which has now no longer any right over us. Yet he will not say directly that we are debtors to the Spirit. It is indeed our duty to live after the Spirit; but if we said that we are debtors, it would be putting man under a higher law the fulfilment of which would thereby be yet more impossible to him. The Spirit was the strength to live, and that through the affections which He imparts — not the obligation to have them If we live after the flesh, we are going to die; but if by the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live. The evil is there, but strength is there to overcome it. This is the effect according to the nature of God and of the flesh. But there is another side of the subject — the relationship which this presence and operation of the Spirit gives us towards God Instead then of saying "legal debtors to the Spirit," the Spirit Himself is our power, by which we mortify the flesh and thus are sure of living with God; and we are the sons of God, being led of the Spirit. For we have not received a spirit of bondage to be again in fear (that was the condition of the faithful under the law), but a Spirit that answers to our adoption to be sons of God, and this is its power — a Spirit by which we cry, "Abba".