The practical conclusion of the apostle follows. “So, then, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to flesh. For if ye live according to flesh, ye are about to die; but if by [the] Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” (Ver. 12, 13.) The deliverance of the Christian gives him the fullest title against the flesh; and he has the power of the Spirit that he should live according to Christ, not according to flesh. The structure of the phraseology is peculiar, but I believe admirably wise. The sentence looks unfinished and sounds as if another member were wanting to complete it. But God is always right; and no addition is needful or even admissible: if anything were added, it would but detract from the force of the truth as now stated. “We are debtors not to the flesh to live according to flesh.” Used to the schools and forms of man, one waits for some such statement to be added as that we are debtors to the Spirit or to Christ the Lord. This the inspired writer avoids saying. He knows the tendency to legalism, and would cut off excuse first. He would maintain us in liberty, the full liberty with which Christ set us free. But there is no enfeebling of responsibility. On the one hand, “If ye live according to flesh, ye are about to die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live” on the other hand. The former is a natural and necessary consequence; the latter is a gracious and assuring pledge from God.
“For as many as are led by God's Spirit, they are sons of God.” (Ver. 14.) Here we begin to hear of our relationship in contrast with the place of servants or slaves, which Israel had under law. It also paves the way for the introduction of the Spirit as the personal agent, instead of being viewed simply as characterizing our new nature and status in contrast with flesh. But it is not correct to say that υἱὸς θεοὺ differs from τέκνον θ, in implying the higher and more mature and conscious member of God's family. The true distinction is that the former is the less intimate of the two and does not necessarily suppose a proper birth-tie. It need not go beyond public position by adoption, without being really born into the family, but in full contradistinction in every case to the place of a slave. Hence John, who treats of life, never speaks of us as “sons;” for the word is wrongly rendered so in John 1:1212But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: (John 1:12) and in chapter 3:1, 2, of his first epistle. It should be “children,” as being truly born of God. Nor is this at all enfeebled by the fact on the other side that Jesus is never called τέκνον but υἱὸς. It would be derogatory to, and a denial of, His eternal glory to speak of Him as God's τέκνον (child). But He is Son (υἱὸς) in more senses than one. He is Son of God as born in time and viewed on earth in His predicted association with Israel as their Messiah and king. (Psa. 2) He is determined Son of God in power by resurrection from the dead. (Rom. 1) And what is more important than all, and the basis of all, He is Son of God, only-begotten Son in the Father's bosom, entirely apart from the time of His manifestation or the results of His work of redemption, Son of the Father in His own nature and personal relationship in that eternal subsistence which is essential to the Godhead and characteristic of it. For this last we have chiefly to consult the Gospel and Epistles of John. Nothing therefore can be more correct than the language of all the inspired writers; nothing more feeble than its appreciation by theological writers even with the facts and words before their eyes. But the source of their failure is quite intelligible: a sense of Christ's glory as inadequate as of the derived privileges of the Christian.