The believer is transformed by a new power – the power of the Holy Spirit, as He enables him to know his sonship and taste his inheritance. Biblical assurance includes experiencing these great spiritual realities.

Transformed By A New Power – Part 2

Romans 8:14-25

Are you sure that you are saved? Do you have certainty that you have been reconciled to God, your sins are forgiven, and you will spend eternity with God? We call this Assurance of Salvation. Our word “sure” is found right in the middle of that word “assurance”. It’s one thing to believe that a sinner can be saved. It’s quite another to believe that you have been saved, are being saved, and will be saved forever. You may be saved and yet still struggle with doubts about your salvation. On the other hand, you might have a false assurance, and not be saved at all, even though you think you are. Wouldn’t you agree with me, that there are few things in life that could possibly be more important than having a biblical assurance of salvation?

Within Christendom, there are different views of assurance.  The Roman Catholic Church teaches that it is not possible to have an infallible assurance of salvation. In that system, you can be in a state of grace, and then fall from grace by committing a mortal sin. If you do penance for that sin, you can be restored to a state of grace. But since you never know whether you might commit another mortal sin, you can never have assurance of salvation.

Many evangelical Christians approach the subject of assurance very differently. They teach that a person is saved by “accepting Christ as your Savior” (a phrase we never read of in Scripture). They say that if you make a decision for Christ, usually by going up to the front at an altar call, you are saved. Afterward a counselor will tell you that the moment you made your “decision to accept Christ” you were saved, and that you should never doubt it again. The counselor will say that to doubt your salvation is to doubt the Word of God.

With all due respect to my evangelical brothers and sisters who believe in this kind of assurance, I must strongly disagree. According to God’s Word, we don’t receive assurance of salvation from a man – we receive it from the Holy Spirit of God. This morning we are going to be looking at how a person can know that they have been saved.

It is with a twinge of sadness that we come to our last study in our series, The Gospel In Romans. Maybe at some future point, we will study the entire book, verse by verse. So far, we’ve seen our desperate need for the Gospel – all people are sinners without excuse, under the wrath of God, heading towards judgment.  We’ve seen how God accomplished the Gospel – through the righteousness, propitiation, and representation of Jesus Christ.  We’ve seen how God applies the Gospel – according to His sovereign choice, irresistible call, and invincible goal. Finally we have been studying how God transforms us by the Gospel. We’ve seen that He transforms us by a new joy, union, master, husband, and power.

In Romans 8 there are four wonderful things that the Holy Spirit enables us to do:  fulfill God’s law, kill our sin, know our sonship, and taste our inheritance. We looked at the first two last Sunday. We saw that we can only fulfill God’s law and kill our sin as we are living according to the Spirit. Remember the bicycle and the motorcycle? When a person becomes a Christian, he gets off his bicycle (pedalling his way to heaven), and gets on a motorcycle (trusting in Another to get him to heaven). How many of you found yourself this last week pushing your motorcycle home because you ran out of gas, spiritually speaking? Although the Holy Spirit indwells the believer, we don’t always rely upon His power for living the Christian life! Oh, it’s so much better to be filled with the Spirit and the Word so that we can just cruise on down the highway!

Well, we’re going to finish our series today by meditating on the last two things the Spirit enables the believer to do. The Spirit enables us to know our sonship and taste our inheritance.  May the Spirit of God help us to see and savor the preciousness of these two great blessings!

 1.                 The Spirit Enables Us To Know Our Sonship:  8:14-17

One of the great themes running through this passage of Scripture is that believers are sons and daughters of God. Notice 8:14 “sons of God”; 8:15 “adoption as sons”; 8:16 “we are children of God”; 8:17 “if children, heirs also”; 8:19 “the revealing of the sons of God”; 8:21 “the freedom of the glory of the children of God”; 8:23 “waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons”.  Well, how did we become sons and daughters of God? God made us His sons and daughters through regeneration and adoption. In regeneration God works in us. He implants in us His divine nature, creates in us a new heart, makes our souls alive to God, and causes us to bear the family likeness.  However, God also makes us His children through adoption. In adoption God works for us. Adoption is much like justification. Both are legal terms, wrought by God alone. In regeneration God gives us the nature of sons. In adoption God gives us the name of sons. In regeneration we are given the fitness for our inheritance. In adoption we are given the title to our inheritance.

So, what is adoption?  In the first century world, adoption was much different than it is in our day. We tend to adopt babies and small children because they are orphans or their parents can’t take care of them. We consider a person who is adopted as sort of a second class individual, or the one nobody wanted. He’s not a real son, but an adopted son. But if in the ancient Roman world a man didn’t have a natural born son who was worthy to carry on the family name and estate, the father would look outside of the family for an heir. The father would make his choice based on the character and virtue of the individual. An adopted son in the Roman world was not an abandoned waif who got picked up because he had no parents or because his parents had abandoned him. He was adopted because the new father had chosen him to become the heir of His fortune.  When the adoption process was completed, the adopted son’s former life was gone. All his old debts were canceled. He was given a new name. It was as if he had just been born. Further, he lost all rights in his former family. He was entitled to his adopted father’s inheritance when he died. So too, the Lord has adopted us. He sought us out and chose us to receive His fabulous fortune. Our relationship to our formerly life was over. All our sin debt was canceled. We received a new name, a new nature, and were born again. And one day the inheritance of our Heavenly Father will be given to us!

Now, the ministry of the Spirit in the believer’s life is to help him to know his sonship. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of adoption. I know that in the NASB it refers to the “spirit of adoption”, but I believe that a better translation is “the Spirit of adoption”.  So, how does the Holy Spirit enable us to know our sonship?  Well, we’ll look at three different ways that are pointed out in the text.

By Enabling Us To Kill Our Sin (8:14)

 Verse 14 says, “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” What does the Holy Spirit do in every child of God? He leads him. Now I know that when many Christians speak of the “leading of the Spirit” they are speaking in terms of divine guidance. The Holy Spirit “led” them to marry this person, or take that job, or buy that house. But, my friends, that is not what Paul means by the leading of the Spirit. How do I know? Notice that verse 14 begins with the word “for”. The word “for” tells you that verse 14 is a further explanation of verse 13. In verse 13 Paul says, “for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”  What, pray tell, does the Holy Spirit lead us to do? Kill our sin! Put to death the deeds of the body! So, let’s paraphrase verse 14, “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God to put their sins to death, these are sons of God.” How does the Holy Spirit enable us to know we are the sons and daughters of God? Well, the first way is by so working in our hearts that we go after our sins with the intent to kill them. When we see someone who is in blood earnest to kill his sins, you know you’ve found a son or daughter of God. When you see someone who is indulging the flesh and not killing sin, even if they profess to be a Christian, in all likelihood you’ve found a self-deceived individual.

What about you? Do you see evidence that you are a son or daughter of God because the Spirit is leading you to kill your sin? Or are you comfortable remaining in your sin? The unregenerate person is comfortable living in his sins. Are you OK living with that guy even though you are not married to him? Are you OK continuing to get drunk or high? Are you OK continuing to go day after day, month after month, year after year without making any effort to make disciples?  Are you OK using filthy language? Are you OK lashing out at your spouse and children in anger?  If you are a child of God, you can’t. The child of God can never be comfortable in his sins again. The Spirit who indwells him will not allow him to live comfortably with them. He will stir you up to take out your dagger and plunge it into your sins to put them to death. So then, the first way the Spirit enables us to know our sonship is through the process of sanctification. The Spirit Himself leads us to kill sin, thereby giving evidence that we are the true sons and daughters of God.

So, here we have the first way the Holy Spirit grants the believer assurance – he enables him to kill his sins. As the Spirit stirs up the Christian to a holy violence against his sin, putting them to death, the believer becomes convinced that something supernatural is going on within him. Whereas at one time he was quite content to peacefully co-exist with his sin, now he hates his sin, and wants it out of his life. We can say with Paul, “I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).

By Causing Us To Know God as Father (8:15)

 Notice verse 15, “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”  In this text, Paul is contrasting our old life with our new life. In our old life we possessed a spirit of slavery leading to fear.  We thought of God as a cruel taskmaster. As a slave cowers in fear before his master, so we cowered before God in fear. We knew God would judge us, and we knew we had sinned against Him, so we lived in fear and dread of Him. However, now we no longer relate to God out of a servile fear, but out of an intimate love.  Note the contrasts:  slaves – sons; fear – love. We used to possess a spirit of slavery leading to fear. Now we possess a spirit of adoption leading to love.

Paul says that believers cry out to God, “Abba! Father!” The word “Abba” was a word a little child would use for his father. It would be like “dadda” or “papa”. That little word conveys the ideas of intimacy, access, and affection. If God is my “daddy” or my “papa”, I enjoy an intimate relationship with Him, I have access to Him constantly, and I have a true affection for Him.

Now, notice that Paul says in the heart of every child of God a cry of “Abba! Father!”  How does this come to be? Formerly, you would never address God that way. Formerly you had a distant relationship with God, enjoyed no real access to Him, and did not have a true affection for Him? So what happened? You received the Spirit of adoption! The Spirit of God came in to dwell within you. When He came in, He caused you to cry out to God as Papa. Look at how Paul puts this in Galatians 4:6, “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”  Now, who is doing the crying in that text? It’s the Spirit Himself! The Spirit so works in us, that we find ourself crying out to God as our Abba, our Daddy, because the Spirit is crying Abba, Father within us.

Let’s say that you live on a farm, and have a pig. Recently you’ve noticed your pig has been acting very strangely. It’s no longer rolling around in the mud, chowing down the slop in the slop bucket, and making “oink, oink” sounds. Now, it has gone to licking itself and cleaning itself up, moved into the house, chasing mice, purring, and saying “meow”. I would respond, “I believe I know what’s going on. A cat spirit has invaded your pig!” There can be no other answer. Likewise, when a sinner who has lived in separation from God and has always dreaded Him, all of a sudden begins to enjoy an intimate, close, loving relationship with God, you know that he has been invaded by another spirit – the Holy Spirit to be precise. The Spirit of adoption has come into him, making him into a new man, and giving him a completely new relationship with God.

Here we have the second way the Holy Spirit grants us assurance of salvation – He completely changes our relationship to God. At one point we ignored God, neglected God, dreaded God. Now, we love Him, and enjoy intimacy with Him. And all this is the result of The Spirit of God coming into us to make His home in our hearts.

By Bearing Witness With Our Spirit (8:16)

Verse 16 reads, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God”.  Did you notice from this text how assurance comes to the believer? It is not through a man telling you that you are a child of God, and that you should never doubt it again. It is through the Holy Spirit, Himself, who bears witness with your spirit that you are a child of God. Now, what does it mean to “bear witness” or “testify”?  If you are in a court of law, and are called upon to bear witness or testify, you must solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God. That’s what the Spirit does. He solemnly tells our spirit the truth that we are God’s children.  But, how does the Spirit do this?  He does it by indwelling us and causing us to cry out Abba! Father!

Remember what the Holy Spirit does in the believer back in 5:5? He pours out the love of God within our hearts. What is our response to that pouring out of love? We cry out Abba! Father! The Holy Spirit creates in you affections for God. Notice that Paul says we “cry” out. This is not a mere statement. It is a cry. The witness of the Spirit is not that we affirm the doctrine of the fatherhood of God. You can affirm that doctrine and go straight to hell! Doctrinal confessions don’t make people into the children of God. It is not that we make the logical deduction that we must be God’s children because we believe in Christ. No, the witness of the Holy Spirit is not a logical premise from which we deduce we are God’s children. Rather it is a new power and joy and love created within by the Spirit whereby we delight in God as our Father!!

Romans 8:16 points to our Christian experience. I know it is popular in many Christian circles to downplay experience and say that we trust in the Word, not our feelings. And it is true that we should never trust in our feelings. However, if you are truly God’s child you will have some experiences, and the witness of the Spirit is one of those experiences. This crying to God as Abba, Father, is an experience that every saved person has. Have you had it? Has the Spirit enabled you to know God as Father? Do you have a spiritual instinct within to cry to Him, not as a distant Deity, but as your own dear Father who loves you and cares for you?  That is true Christian experience!

2.  The Spirit Enables Us To Taste Our Inheritance:  8:23-25

What Are The First Fruits Of The Spirit?

The first handful of ripened grapes or figs is a pledge of the entire harvest which will follow. So too, the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is a pledge or guarantee that our full inheritance will one day be ours. Notice that the Holy Spirit is likened to fruit. Fruit is something that we eat, that we taste, that we enjoy. Once we have tasted of the Spirit, we long for more. We long for the day when we will enjoy our full inheritance.

Notice vs. 17, “And if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.” Now, what does our inheritance consist of? Well, verse 17 says it consists of “being glorified with Him.” Vs. 18 says it consists of “the glory that is to be revealed to us.” So, we know that our inheritance is going to consist of glory. But whose glory? I believe it is the glory of God.  Why do I think that? Take a look at Joshua 13:33, “But to the tribe of Levi, Moses did not give an inheritance; the Lord, the God of Israel, is their inheritance, as He had promised to them.”  When Joshua led the children of Israel into the promised land, and defeated all their enemies, the Lord gave each tribe of Israel a certain portion of land. However, he didn’t give the Levites a portion of land like the other tribes. Instead, He gave the Levites Himself as their inheritance. The Levites were the tribes from which the priests came. In 1 Peter 2:9 Christians are called a royal priesthood. In 1 Peter 2:5 believers are called a holy priesthood. Revelation 1:6 says that God has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father. So, what is the believer’s inheritance? I believe our primary inheritance is God Himself, enjoying and delighting in the glory of God.

The Holy Spirit has enabled us to taste, in a small measure, the glory of God now. And that work of the Spirit in our hearts right now is just a foretaste of the glory to come. Debbie and I like to go to Panda Express on date night. When we walk up to the counter, the little oriental girl will say to us, “Would you like to sample the shrimp?” As we bite into that little succulent piece of shrimp, it tastes so good, and makes us want a whole bowl full of it! Likewise, when the Spirit begins to work in our hearts to give us a taste of God’s glory, we want more! We want all of it! The work of the Spirit in our hearts now is just a sample, an appetizer, a teaser. It stirs up our spiritual taste buds to long for more.

Did you notice that again, Paul is talking about something the believer actually experiences, not just logically deduces. Now, if you had never tasted ice cream, and I was trying to help you understand what ice cream tastes like, I could try to describe it to you logically. I could say, “Well, it’s cold, and wet, and sweet, very delicious!” But you still wouldn’t really understand ice cream. The only way to really understand ice cream, is to actually taste ice cream. So too, we can explain the work of God in our souls all day long to somebody, but until they have actually experienced that work, they will never really get it. It’s like trying to explain an amazing sunset to a blind man, or explain a symphony to a deaf man. Christianity is not just a bunch of doctrinal propositions. It is also something that is experienced. It is the life of God in the soul of man. David says in Ps.34:8, “O Taste and see that the Lord is good!” Have you actually tasted the glory of God? When you are in prayer, or in worship, or sitting under the preaching of the Word, do you actually feel, and taste the glory of God?

What Do The First Fruits of the Spirit Cause Us To Do?

Groan within ourselves! Interestingly, Paul tells us in 8:18-27, that there are 3 things that are groaning:  The Creation groans (8:22), the Comforter groans (8:26), and the Christian groans (8:23). So, why has the work of the Spirit in our hearts caused us to groan?  Two reasons:  1) We have what we don’t want to have; and 2) We don’t have what we want to have.

We Have What We Don’t Want To Have:  Sin and all its miserable effects. Sin brings sickness, death, bondage, poverty, broken families, pain, suffering, and guilt. We groan because we don’t want this sin in our lives any longer. But as long as we are in these bodies, we will continue to experience sin and its miserable effects. In 6:6 Paul spoke of our “body of sin.”

We Don’t Have What We Want To Have:  Remember when you were a little kid waiting for Christmas. From Thanksgiving on, you always knew how many days away Christmas was. You were counting them down in your head. Why? Because you couldn’t wait for that special day. You didn’t have what you wanted to have. So, what is it that we don’t have that we want to have? A redeemed soul in a redeemed body. Notice the end of verse 23, “waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” Did you see that? We are waiting eagerly for our bodies to be redeemed. Our souls have already been redeemed. That’s why Paul says in vs.15 that we have already received a spirit of adoption as sons. We have already been adopted into God’s family, but verse 23 tells us that we are still waiting for the culmination of our adoption, which is the redemption of our bodies. What is our problem? We have a redeemed soul trapped in an unredeemed body. That’s why we groan! If we had an unredeemed soul in an unredeemed body we wouldn’t groan. If we had a redeemed soul in a redeemed body we wouldn’t groan. But because our souls are redeemed, but our bodies aren’t, it causes groaning. We have what we don’t want – sin. We don’t have what we do want – sinless perfection. This causes groaning!

How Do We Feel About Our Coming Glory?

We can’t wait! We are excited! Paul tells us twice that we “wait eagerly for it” (8:23,25). Why is the Christian excited about the second coming of Jesus Christ? Because of what Paul has said right here – we will taste the glory of God in its fulness, we will shed our bodies of sin and all the miserable effects it brings into our life, we will live in sinless perfection before the Lord. That’s why we are eager for it!

Application:

So, let me ask you again, “Are you sure you are saved?”  We’ve seen from Romans 8 that assurance of salvation arises from:

 1)  The Spirit enabling us to kill our sin

2)  The Spirit causing us to know God as Father

3)  The Spirit bearing witness that we are God’s children

4)  The Spirit giving us a foretaste of God’s glory

So, which of those are you experiencing? Is the Spirit enabling you to kill your sin? Has He enabled you to know God as a loving Father? Does He solemnly affirm that you are God’s child by causing you to cry out to God as your Daddy? Is He giving you a foretaste, a teaser, of the coming glory, when your bodies as well as your souls will be redeemed?  If you are experiencing all of these works of the Spirit, your assurance of salvation will be strong. If you have never experienced these workings of the Spirit, you will lack assurance.

Consider also the importance of having an experimental Christianity. Every one of those four great Biblical realities is something we experience. It’s not just that we logically deduce them. No, we actually experience them in our souls and lives. Don’t be content with a Christianity which is limited only to logic, to your mind. Long to actually experience all that the Spirit of God wants to do in your life!

So, what should you do in light of these great Biblical realities?

 1)  Continue to depend on the power of the Spirit to kill your sin

2)  Continue to cry out to God as your Papa

3)  Continue to groan over indwelling sin

4)  Continue to wait eagerly for the coming of Jesus Christ!

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