Establishing Christ’s Reign in Ourselves and Our World
Romans 8:13 says, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
This is not a suggestion. It is not optional Christianity. It is not a call to heightened spirituality for the especially serious. It is a dividing line.
If you live according to the flesh, you will die. If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
There are only two ways to live because there are only two realms: Adam or Christ. Flesh or Spirit. Rebellion or sonship. Christ or chaos.
And notice that Paul does not say the Spirit puts sin to death instead of you. He says, “If by the Spirit you put to death…” The Spirit is the power. We are the agents. Mortification is Spirit-empowered, but it is not passive.
To put to death, or to mortify the flesh is to subdue it. It is to fight and win. The great puritan John Owen pointed out that in this life this is an ongoing battle. We must actively be killing sin or sin will be killing us. We are in a war.
The question is: How do we actually fight?
The First Battlefield: Your Own Heart
Before we talk about the world, we must talk about the mirror.
When Paul speaks of the “deeds of the body” he has in mind everything tied to the sinful body politic—everything tied to the weak and broken realm of Adam now marked by sin and death. It’s the mindset that’s hostile to God. It’s the heart and the lifestyle that suppresses the Truth in unrighteousness and seeks to worship and serve the creation rather than the Creator. It’s all the sin and evil that mark out this fallen world.
But the deeds of the body are not merely external scandals. They include discontentment, lust, envy, cowardice, bitterness, pride, anxiety, selfish ambition. In fact, all the evil of the Adamic order is rooted in all of these issues because it all starts in the hearts of sinners. So the deeds of the body are all the impulses, behavior, and rotten fruit of the old Adamic order marked by weakness, sin, and death.
So how do we put them to death?
We Fight with the Word by Faith
The Spirit works through means, and chief among them is the Word of God because the Word of God is in fact the Sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17). The Word is our greatest weapon against sin, Satan, and the world. But how do we use it?
Consider Hebrews 13:4–6: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’”
How do you fight lust and sexual immorality? How do you fight covetousness and envy? How do you fight anxiety about provision?
You don’t merely grit your teeth. You confront the lies of sin with the Truth of God’s Word. You remind yourself that God sees and God cares. He is the Judge of all, and He is just and will do right. And then you answer the temptation with a superior promise.
The great doctor turned preacher, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once asked, “Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?” What he meant by that is that each day we’re faced with two choices… We can either listen to ourselves and our ever-changing desires and feelings, or we can talk to ourselves, and in so doing remind ourselves of God’s Word. We can preach to ourselves the unchanging Truth of who God is and what He promises His people.
In Hebrews 13 we see that when we are struggling with lust, envy, and discontentment, we must preach to ourself: “I have Christ. He has promised never to leave me. What more do I need? What can this sin offer me that Christ cannot surpass?”
Discontentment says, “You need more.” The promise says, “You have Jesus and He has you. And Jesus is infinitely better than anything sin, Satan, or the world could give you or take away from you”
Fear says, “What if you lose?” God says, “I am your Helper.”
Immorality whispers, “This will satisfy.” The Spirit replies, “You are united to Christ. You were created for Jesus and only Jesus will truly satisfy you.”
This is not pietistic sentimentality. This is warfare. But this requires a plan.
You must run to the Word. You must read it, study it, and memorize it. You must gather with the saints each Lord’s Day and be washed in the Word as you, with God’s people, renew covenant with God through the reading, praying, singing, preaching, teaching, tasting, and seeing of God’s Word. You must, by the Spirit, beat the promises of God into your head and heart until they become instinctive responses.
God’s Word commanded the kings of ancient Israel: “when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel” (Deuteronomy 17:18–20).
The king was commanded not only to know God’s Word, but to write it out and read it daily, so that he would be humble, faithful, and wise. And if that was true for the king how much more so for us? I can tell you from experience that one of the most impactful things I have done is write out Scripture. This helps me understand it, memorize it, and rightly apply it.
Romans 12:2 tells us not to be conformed to the ways of the world but to be transformed by the renewal of our mind. And the way our minds are renewed and transformed is in and through the Word of God. Like the kings of old, we must have prolonged daily exposure to the Word. If we want to think God’s thoughts after Him, and operate out of a biblical worldview, we must first write God’s Word on our hearts. And a great way to do that is to literally write it out. I would also encourage you to work on intentional Bible memory. There’s a great guide for that found HERE.
The Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit—a weapon to fight with, and a priestly sword that rightly cuts and divides as the priests of old did with sacrifices. And you cannot wield the sword if it stays sheathed on your shelf. Nor can the Sword properly do its wounding and healing work on you, cutting through the lies, cutting out the cancer of sin, and equipping you to be a living sacrifice, if you are not properly coming under its surgical care each Lord’s Day, and in some way every day if you can.
Mortification is sitting under and participating in the ministry of the Word and sacrament each Lord’s Day by faith, and by faith taking God at His Word every day. It’s submitting ourselves to Word and sacrament, and letting the liturgy of the Lord’s Day shape the pattern of our lives every day. Get into the Word, and get the Word into you.
Mortification Is Not Merely Personal
Now we must widen the lens.
The “deeds of the body” are not only your private struggles. They are everything flowing from the old Adamic order—every false claim of autonomy, every institution built in rebellion, every system that pretends neutrality.
There are only two options in history: Rebellious autonomy or Theonomy. Christ or chaos. There is no neutrality.
As Cornelius Van Til once pointed out, the believer has a comprehensive task. His first battlefield is his own heart. But that is not his only battlefield. He must seek to eliminate every evil he can. As R. J. Rushdoony put it: “To be in Adam is to be at war with God. To be in Christ and His Spirit is to be at war against sin and death and at work to establish Christ’s reign in ourselves and our world.”
If you are in Christ, you are enlisted in this work, in this war. You are not only to fight sin and evil in your self, but in every area of life. You are to put to death the deeds of the sinful body politic of Adam wherever you find it in your life.
Typically we think of putting to death the deeds of the body only in terms of resisting doing the wrong thing. And though it certainly isn’t less than that, it is more. We aren’t only to resist doing the wrong things, we are to do and promote the right things.
Think of the kings of old again, copying out God’s Law, reading it, and seeking to apply it daily in and through their lives and their rule and reign. What is God’s Law? There are many technical ways to answer that, but at a basic level, as Joe Boot points out in his excellent book Think Christianly, God’s Law is God’s instruction. And therefore, applying God’s Law means bringing God’s world, in every area and every way we can, in structure (instruction)—in line with God’s good design.
Establishing Christ’s Reign in Ourselves
What does this look like practically?
It means refusing to excuse your anger, refusing to baptize your anxiety, refusing to normalize lust, refusing to indulge self-pity, refusing cowardice in obedience, and the like. It means taking every thought captive. It means daily repentance. It means structuring your life around Word, prayer, worship, sacrament, and the fellowship of the saints. It means killing sin before breakfast, and all day everyday as needed.
And when you fail—you run back to the promises, not away from them. You run to God in repentance, crying, “Abba, Father,” and rise again. You ask for forgiveness, but you don’t make excuses—you make changes. This is not sinless perfectionism, but in and through relentless warfare, it is growth in holiness. We must make war on the indwelling sin in our hearts, and seek to live for Christ.
Establishing Christ’s Reign in the Home
If the first battlefield is the heart, the second is the household. And though the following is focused on Christian families, it applies to all Christian households in one way or another.
The Christian home is not neutral territory. It is either being shaped by the Spirit or by the flesh. Either Christ’s reign is being consciously cultivated there, or Adam’s disorder is creeping in and/or being embraced.
Mortification is not abstract theology. It is visible in kitchens, living rooms, dinner tables, and bedrooms.
1. The Father as First Officer of the Household
In Scripture, the man is called to lead—not as a tyrant, but as a crucified king under Christ. If a father will not put his own sin to death, he will disciple his household in it. If he indulges anger, the home will breathe tension. If he indulges lust, the home will feel instability. If he indulges passivity, the home will drift. If he indulges fear, the home will shrink back from obedience. But in contrast, Proverbs 21:21 says, “Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness, and honor.” Indeed, Proverbs 20:7 says he will lead his house into blessing.
To establish Christ’s reign in the home means the father must be ruthless with his own flesh. He must repent quickly. He must discipline consistently, especially himself first and foremost. After all, we are to put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit, and part of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. Dominion begins with self-government. So he must seek to bring himself and his household rightly in line with God’s Law—in structure with, or in obedience to God’s instruction, and thus in line with God’s good design. He must love sacrificially (treating himself lawfully from the heart, and loving his neighbor—especially his closest neighbors, his family—as himself). He must lead family worship and seek to bring himself and his family under the Sword of the Spirit again and again. He must pursue righteousness and lead his family in the same.
Again, the husband is a crucified king under Christ, and like the kings of old he must seek to write God’s Word on his heart, and seek to be transformed by the renewal of his mind (Romans 12:1). But he also must lead his family in this reality. He must wash his wife in the water of the Word, and raise his children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord—the very culture of the Word (Ephesians 5:26 ; 6:4).
2. The Wife as Strong Helper in the War
The wife is her husband’s helpmate in all of this. She is to be in submission to her husband’s leadership. Biblical submission is not weakness though. It is covenantal strength aligned under God’s order, and thus in line with God’s good design. Think of the word submission broken down: sub is to be under, and in this context the mission she is brought under is the mission of Christ that her husband is seeking to lead her in. A mission that will lead her and her children into covenant blessing and human flourishing. A mission for her good and God’s glory.
A wife who joyfully submits and partners with her husband, refusing bitterness, comparison, anxiety, and resentment is thus making war by the Spirit. A mother who, in partnership with her husband, disciplines faithfully and teaches Scripture diligently is pushing back the curse of Adam. She is not “just raising kids.” She is raising heirs of the Kingdom, and doing great Kingdom work. Psalm 127:4 says, “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth.” Therefore, motherhood is making and sharpening arrows of light to send out into a world of darkness.
The Spirit does not produce fragile femininity. He produces steadfast covenantal strength. And that’s at the heart of biblical womanhood. Being a woman who is not only strong enough to stand with her husband, but to help him in the war God has called them to. Being salt and light, cultivating a culture of light in their home, raising up arrows of light, and having a marriage and a family so full of love and life that everything about it pushes back the darkness and advances the Kingdom of Light.
Recently my wife told me about something she does to help me be more faithful. This was simply something she took upon herself to do in service and love, to make sure the enemy didn’t get a hold of me, leading me to do something stupid. And when she told me that I couldn’t help but thank God for the great gift He has given me in my wife. A true helpmate on this great mission He has given us.
Wives are their husbands helpmates, but both the husband and the wife would do well to consider not only how they can put to death the deeds of their own bodies, but how they can help their spouse do the same. After all, marriage is a one flesh covenantal union. God has joined us together. So may we live like it, and truly love one another by fighting for one another, not against one another.
It used to be commonly said, “Make love, not war.” But true love always makes war. So in the name of love, and as an act of love, go to war for yourself and your spouse. Be the best spouse and/or the best parent you can be, and realize that is indeed an act of war… One that will push back the darkness and advance the Kingdom of Light.
3. Parenting as Anti-Adamic Warfare
The flesh shows up early in children—selfishness, dishonesty, defiance. Children don’t have to be discipled in these things to learn them. Outside of Christ it just comes natural. That is not surprising. They are born in Adam.
But covenant children are also claimed by Christ. So parents must not raise slaves motivated by fear alone. Nor should they raise autonomous little rebels who negotiate authority. They must raise sons and daughters. They must raise covenant children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
If children are arrows, they are arrows that must be shaped and sharpened. That means doing discipline that is firm but hopeful, giving instruction saturated with Scripture, correction tied to identity (You belong to Christ. Live like it.), and cultivating a home culture where repentance is normal and forgiveness is real.
Every act of faithful parenting is an act of mortification—not just of the child’s sin, but of the parent’s impatience, inconsistency, and selfishness. Raise your children in a home where the structure of it, the culture of it, and the mission of it are all in line with God’s good design. From worship to diet, exercise, education, work, and every good endeavor—take all things captive for Christ, seeking to do them in line with God’s Word and for God’s glory. And given that God’s Word leads us in paths of righteousness, life, and love, the home should not feel like a fearful and weighty place, but a joyful and rejuvenating place.
The Christian family ought to cultivate a spirit of thanksgiving and delight in God’s many blessings. When a household honors the Lord, joy naturally takes root there, so that the home becomes one of the happiest places in the world—a place where laughter and song arise easily because God’s grace is known and celebrated. A truly godly home is therefore not grim or joyless but alive with feasting, music, celebration, and glad fellowship under God, serving as a center of life and gladness from which gratitude and joy overflow. And all of that is warfare.
4. Guarding the Gates
The deeds of the body often enter through the ordinary.
What is catechizing you and your family? What fills your screens? What shapes your schedules? What defines success? What governs your conversations?
If Christ is Lord, then entertainment, education, and family rhythms must bow to Him as well.
You cannot establish Christ’s reign publicly while surrendering your living room privately. Remember, there is no neutrality.
5. The Home as a Legacy Building Outpost
We must think generationally. The promise is not merely individual survival until heaven. It is inheritance.
Children are arrows. Households are training grounds. Faithful homes are how Christ extends His reign across generations and the nations.
When a man governs himself, loves his wife, trains his children, worships faithfully, and orders his household according to God’s Word, he is not retreating into pietism. He is advancing the Kingdom.
The war against the flesh in the home is not small. It is strategic. Because if Christ does not reign in your house, you will not establish His reign anywhere else.
Establishing Christ’s Reign in the Church
Now with all of this said, we do not fight alone. And we don’t fight as independent households. Some of you are struggling with particular sins—you’re a mess or your household is a mess—because you aren’t embracing Christianity 101. You either aren’t a committed member of a local church, or if you are you don’t live like it. Ask yourself, how often do you miss church on Sunday? Are you taking advantage of the other ministries of the church (Sunday school, Wednesday Bible study, and the life and fellowship of the saints)? Are you an active member of the church community? Are you faithfully tithing? Are you a faithful member of God’s church? Is your life interwoven into the life of the covenant community?
Mortification is covenantal. It is a fundamental part of discipleship, and discipleship happens in the context of the local church. So we must faithfully participate in and support the ministry of the Word and sacrament, and every aspect of the covenant community. We must be with one another and be open with and to one another. We must support one another. We must warn one another, exhort one another, and discipline when necessary. And Lord willing restore the repentant.
As Van Til has pointed out, we all live in glass houses. So we must never confront proudly. But neither do we retreat into silence. If your brother is walking toward destruction, love compels intervention.
A Spirit-filled church is not soft. It is holy. But holiness comes in and through trusting and obeying. So we must give ourselves to obedient faith. And that starts with being faithful church members.
If you find yourself struggling in certain areas of your life, check and see if you are doing things God’s way, or if your are walking in disobedience. To be sure, we are not promised an easy life, but we are called to bring every area of life under the Lordship of Christ. And that especially means bringing every area of our lives into alignment with God’s Word. And more often than not, when we do things His way we will find that things work much better.
As Proverbs 3:5–8 says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.”
And as I pointed out already, in order to turn away from evil, in order to do things God’s way we must be rightly under God’s Word.
Each Lord’s Day, Christ meets His people through the ministry of Word and sacrament. There He cuts through our self-deception, exposes the cancer of sin, binds up the repentant, and equips us to be living sacrifices. Mortification is not a private, self-directed project; it is covenantal. It is faithfully gathering with Christ’s church, sitting under the preached Word, receiving the sacraments by faith, and allowing the Lord’s Day liturgy to recalibrate your loves and loyalties. Then, strengthened and sharpened, you take up that same Word throughout the week—believing its promises, obeying its commands, and swinging it against the flesh. Faithful Lord’s Day worship is not peripheral to the fight; it is where we are armed for it. And so it is with faithful church membership. We must be a faithful part of the church in order to put to death the sin that remains in ourselves and others.
Don’t forgot that God’s Word commands us to fight sin and pursue holiness by letting the Word dwell in us richly, even singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with grateful and joyful hearts, seeking to do everything for the fame of the name of Christ, even submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ (Colossians 3:12–17; Ephesians 5:15–21. The Christian life is a community project. So we must receive the Word and advance the Word by being an active member of the community of the Word. And every time we do so, every time we sing with God’s people from the bottom of our hearts at the top of our lungs, and the like, we are slowly but surely putting to death the deeds of the body.
Establishing Christ’s Reign in the World
Now we step into the broader field.
The deeds of the body include cultural rebellion: laws that defy God’s moral order, education that catechizes autonomy, economies built on covetousness, political philosophies that deny Christ’s crown rights, and the like.
The fight is not merely against “personal struggles.” It is against sin and death in every sphere.
This does not mean we imagine we can regenerate the world through legislation. The gospel is the power of God for salvation. Only the Spirit gives life. But evil must be eliminated in every area of life, either through repentance, restraint, or removal.
So we must work to see justice honored. We must call magistrates and all our elected officials to account under Christ. We must vote in the right leaders, and vote out the wrong ones. And some of us need to seek to be voted into positions ourselves. And to be sure, many, if not all of us, need to seek to be more involved holistically. Whether that means actually running for office, or simply being better informed, attending City Council meetings, or the like. If evil is going to retreat, righteousness must advance.
We must labor in business, education, and civil life as children of the King, seeking to do all with excellence for His glory.
Why? Because Jesus is not merely the Savior of souls. He is Lord of heaven and earth.
To be led by the Spirit is to live publicly under Christ’s authority. And every time we bring something under Christ’s authority, in public and private, we are putting to death the deeds of the body in that area.
The Confidence of the Fight
In closing let me point out that putting to death the deeds of the body is indeed the language of war. And war is a scary thing. But though this war is real, it is not uncertain. We need not fear because we fight from resurrection ground.
Romans 8:13 does not end in defeat. It ends in glory. “If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
That is a promise. And because Christ has been raised, the old Adamic order is already cracking. The Kingdom is advancing. The inheritance is secure. Indeed, the Spirit has already been given to us as a down payment of our inheritance. We are already new creations in Christ Jesus who have been raised to newness of life.
So take up the Word and wield it by faith. Kill sin in yourself. Build holiness in your home. Strengthen the Church. Labor for justice in the world. Not because victory is fragile. But because victory is certain.
As Paul goes on to say in Romans 8:15, we are sons of God. Because the Spirit has raised Jesus from the dead, and that same Spirit now dwells in us, we have been united to Christ and adopted into the family of God as sons of God. And sons fight like they believe their Father wins. And indeed He does win. As the old hymn says:
This is my Father’s world:
Oh, let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world,
The battle is not done:
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.
May we wage war against the flesh with that victory in our hearts.
In Christ’s service and yours,
Nick Esch