Sanctification in Process

Transcript

GR 2231
02/23/2020
Sanctification in Process
Romans 8:9-11
Gil Rugh

We’ll go to Romans chapter 8, if you would in your bibles. Romans chapter 8 is a great chapter. Some think this is the most important chapter in the bible. I don’t know that I would say that, but it is of great significance and great importance to us as believers. We need to understand this aspect of our salvation which we usually refer to as sanctification. In the first four verses of chapter 8 Paul talked about “…there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That’s the completeness, the power of the salvation that Christ provided, that we who were justly condemned now can be declared to have no condemnation. There’s nothing against us. Nothing to be charged to us. Christ has paid it all and paid it in full. He has set us free. In verse 4, we saw that the Law required righteousness, which is now ours because Christ paid the penalty that the Law required. And righteousness of God is credited to us because Christ paid the penalty that the Law required. In verse 4 you’ll see, “…so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, (note,) who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

We talked about justification. We talk about sanctification. They are not the same thing, but they cannot be separated. Important to understand this. Justification is the aspect of our salvation where God, when we believe in Christ, declares us righteous, credits His righteousness to our account. The righteousness of God is credited to us. Sanctification is that process now of growing and living out the new life. You’ll note, he said at the end of verse 4, those “…who do not walk…” Remember that word “walk” is the word we see used so many times in Paul’s letters to denote that constant step after step pattern that characterizes our life. We use that same kind of expression of walking according to a certain standard. It denotes the character of our life. So, those “…who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Sanctification is the evidence of our justification. People think, well I’ve trusted Christ. You may not see it, but you can’t tell me I didn’t trust Christ. No, but God can tell you what happens when He brings His salvation to a life. It changes. The pattern, the conduct of our life is altered. And that’s what he is saying. That’s what he talks about in verses 5 to 11, and we’ve looked at verses 5 to 8.

The first part of this section really covers verses 5 to 11, talking about why the believer doesn’t walk according to the flesh but he walks according to the Spirit. In verses 5 to 8, he said in verse 5, “…those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh…” and that’s death. But verse 6, “…but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace...” So, if you’re according to the Spirit, the Spirit lives in you. We’ll see this brought out more clearly, and when you live in the Spirit, so to speak, then you have your mind set on the things of the Spirit. And when your mind is set on the things of the Spirit, you have life and peace. Now remember that. You have life and peace. You have peace with God as we saw in chapter 5 of Romans, verse 1. “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” And you have the peace of God as is mentioned like in Philippians 4. Peace because the enmity that characterized our hearts and minds is resolved.

Those who are according to the flesh, they set their mind on the things of the flesh. And he talked about what that meant. The mind set on the flesh is death, it is hostile toward God. It doesn’t subject itself to God’s law, it’s not able to subject itself to God’s law. It cannot please God. Verse 7, “because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” This is an important chapter for us to understand our life here, and the contrast between a true believer and one who is not a believer. If this is not clear, we become susceptible to all kinds of ideas that supposedly will resolve the problems we have even as professing believers. Well, we can’t help the unbeliever. We can’t bring him life and peace if he will not trust Christ so to try to work around that, he’s not able to please God, as we have talked about. So, for him to try to clean up his life, God will be more pleased if you don’t do these things. You can’t do anything to please Him because your heart, your mind is in rebellion against Him. It’s hostile toward God. And for us as believers when we walk according to the Spirit, we have life and peace. That doesn’t mean everything going on around us and in our life is easy and comfortable. But what is going on within us is what enables us to walk in harmony with God. We’re talking about the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. What it means to walk in the Spirit. What it means to be in the Spirit. That’s why I said Romans 8 helps us address a lot of the things that bring confusion in higher life kind of teaching. Whereas, though your justification is a down payment, so to speak, and now it will take something else, a second work of grace. Whatever terminology might be used for you to come into an intimate relationship. What he’s going to show is when you place your faith in Christ it doesn’t get anymore intimate than that. God Himself comes and takes up residence within your life. And you now are living your life in the sphere of fellowship and an ongoing, unbreakable relationship with the living God.

Now there’s growth in that, but that’s what he is setting down beginning in verse 9. What does it mean to be “in the Spirit?” What are the consequences of that? Verse 9, “However, you are not in the flesh…” He said in verses 7 and 8, he was talking about being in the flesh, “…the mind set on the flesh.” Verse 8, “…those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However, you…” and that word “you” as we talked about, isn’t true in other languages, but in Greek you can rearrange the words. And “you” is placed here to get the emphasis in this contrast. “…you (in contrast to those who are in the flesh) are not in the flesh but in the Spirit…” These are the only two realms of existence. I keep talking about the clarity of the word of God. I’ve shared there was a professor in an evangelical school where one of our students was attending. The student was talking to him about some of my teaching on this. And the professor said the problem with Gil Rugh is, he’s too black and white. The world is more complicated than that. As though we want to complicate it, we can make it complicated. We complicate our lives, but the Scripture is clear. “…you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” There are only these two realms. These two means of existence. He doesn’t allow if you’re part way in the flesh and part way in the Spirit. No. If you are in the flesh, you cannot please God. “However, you are not in the flesh…” in the realm of the old fallen man. The old man as chapter 6 referred to it. We sometimes call the old nature, what you are by birth and by choice. That has a heart that is desperately wicked, as we keep referring to in Jeremiah 17, verse 9. That’s the fallen person.

Back in chapter 7, verse 5, “For while we were in the flesh...” We talk about that’s no longer where we are. That’s what he’s been making the point. “For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.” That was the walk we had when we were in the flesh. Even something in and of itself that was good, the Law of Moses which was given to the Jews wasn’t a help. I mean look around. When God says do this and don’t do that, something within us wants to do the opposite. So, “…you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit…” We now live in a new realm. We are a new person, a new man. We have a new heart. We have a new mind. That’s why these renovations and these social programs and all of that, are a denial of what the Scripture clearly teaches. We’re telling people and thinking, if we clean this up and if we change this, then what? We haven’t touched the heart. We’ve transferred again as we’ve mentioned with the communion service to the physical realm, and the real problem is the physical realm and their environment, and the social conditions and the unfairness of what they’ve experienced, or their poverty. And God says how many times do I have to tell you, it’s the heart. This is where Israel continued to drift. And God sent the prophets to say you have to have a circumcised heart. This is just external motion. There’s a place for the conduct, but it has to be driven from a new heart and a new mind. So, “…you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit…” That means now you’re living in this new realm and you’re under the control of the Spirit of God. In these first eleven verses, all the references to Spirit are references to the Holy Spirit. We didn’t see Him playing a prominent part and now He dominates it. And He is the enabling power within us. He has made us new and now He continues to reside within us. That’s the realm in which we live.

Condition here, “…you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” I want you to note something here that will go on and we’ll look at some other verses a little bit. It is a mutual thing. The Spirit of God dwells in me and I dwell in Him. “…you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” You see it’s a mutual indwelling. I am in the Spirit because the Spirit dwells in me. So, both are true. The Spirit dwells in you. “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” You see if this isn’t true, then you’re in the other realm. You’re in the flesh. That’s the realm in which you reside and live and you are controlled by the old man, the flesh, the old nature. And all that’s said about that is true of you. You cannot please God. You do not subject yourself to God. You’re hostile toward God. As soon as we move away from Scripture and think well, we’re being helpful. It’s a complicated world. It’s not so clear. It is clear! We don’t help people by complicating it. I don’t want to go to a medical doctor and hear him say, well, could be any number of things. We’ll try whatever and maybe if you do this, it’ll be ok. Maybe if you don’t do this, it will be ok. I know there’s some things they say work, but let’s just keep trying. No! If he knows something, tell me. Why would we fudge around? You know, well here, take this and that will correct the problem. Well, what are we doing these other things for? Maybe you won’t want to take that, so I thought at least you’ll feel better about things and like me better. That’s what we do spiritually. Just go to the Word. It’s clear.

Verse 9. Do you have that marked? “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” And that’s it. There is no such thing as a believer in Jesus Christ who does not have the Spirit of God in Him. There’s no such thing as a believer in Jesus Christ who has the Spirit of God dwelling in Him, who does not live his life now in the realm of the Spirit. That’s why 1 John talks about that we walk in the Light. Verse 7, “…but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, (referring to God) …the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin”. That’s what happens to us as believers. We live in a new realm. It’s the realm of Light, not the realm of darkness. These same categories. You can make a list of the way they might be talked about, metaphors used, pictures used, but there’s only two realms. If don’t have the Spirit of God, you don’t belong to Him.

We need to go back around. We need to go back to justification. How do you get the Spirit? Well, you have to hear the gospel and then believe it, so you become a partaker. The Spirit moves on your heart and you believe the gospel. Then the Spirit of God brings about that transformation in your heart. You are credited with God’s righteousness and made new. “…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature…” a new creation. Now with that comes sanctification. “…the old things passed away; behold new things have come,” 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17. So, this is the same teaching that permeates as Paul has laid it out in a consistent pattern. “…if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you…” dwells, lives in you. That’s the word. It would be the word live, if you talk about, I live in the house, and give your address. That’s His permanent dwelling place. He resides here. He’s not a visitor.

Paul puts it in a different picture in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19, “…your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you...” Your body is a holy residence. It’s the dwelling of God. We’ve seen it includes the Father and the Son, as well as the Spirit. If anyone doesn’t have, or is without the Spirit, he doesn’t belong to Christ. I’ve written that all believers are in the Spirit, because the Spirit is in all believers. As we saw in verse 4, back in Romans 8, all believers walk according to the Spirit, not according to the flesh. We are those, in the middle of verse 4, “…who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” So, you can put these things together. We are in the Spirit because the Spirit is in us. We walk according to the Spirit not according to the flesh. We set our mind on the things of the Spirit not on the things of flesh. That was verse 5. “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit…” You see these things. My mind is set on the things now that are different. That’s why we’re not to love the world or the things in the world. We have been transformed. We are new within. It’s complete. The Holy Spirit dwells in us. He’s the guarantee of a new life lived here. This is the same as the doctrine of abiding. This is one of those abused, deeper life. Some of you have read some of Andrew Murray’s stuff and he has some commentaries and there’s some good things in them. But for an example, in his book on abiding, he thinks the problem Christians have is they haven’t moved on from their salvation to abiding. That’s another way of talking about it here. The Spirit abides in me; I abide in Him. Christ abides in me; I abide in the Spirit.

We’ll take a moment here and look at a few verses using the word abide before we go on. Come back to John 15. This is a very misunderstood passage. We’re not going to do a detailed exposition of it, but just so you see the pattern using the word abide. Here we have the word that means He lives in us, dwells in us. Another word you could use here would be He abides in us. That’s where He resides. In John 15 Jesus is talking about the vine and the branches. He says in verse 1, “I am the true vine and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” Now the confusion comes from verse 4. “Abide in Me, and I in you.” They say, well see, that’s the second step. It’s not! You could translate that, you must abide in Me and I in you, but as a branch cannot bear fruit in itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you. It’s the same thing that he said in Romans 8, but he didn’t use the word abide. He used the word dwell. And if you dwell in the flesh, you can’t do anything to please God. You can’t bear fruit for God as the end of chapter 6 talked about in Romans.

We now bear fruit for righteousness because we’ve been made new within, resurrected to new life. So, you translate this “…you must abide in Me and I in you.” There’s no other choice. It’s just the same thing we read in Romans 8 using the word what? If the Spirit of Christ does not abide in you, the Holy Spirit doesn’t abide in you, then you’re still in the flesh. That’s what He’s talking about here. You must abide in Me and I in you. It’s a fact you do. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, you can’t do it on your own. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Verse 5, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him…” You see we’re back to the mutual abiding. The mutual living. The Spirit lives in me, dwells in me. I dwell in the Spirit. Christ abides in me. I abide in Him. It’s a mutual abiding. If you don’t have the Spirit dwelling in you, if you don’t have Christ dwelling in you, then you’re in the flesh. It’s mutual. Verse 5, “…he who abides in Me and I abide in him, he bears much fruit…”

Again, we could go back to the end of Romans 6 where now we bear fruit for righteousness. Before we bore fruit for flesh. So, the sanctification, the transformed life is evident. “…for apart from Me you can do nothing.” That would be consistent with what we’re reading in Romans 8, because if you don’t have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in you, and you don’t dwell in Him, you can’t do anything to please God. That’s the point here. You can do nothing. You’re dead! “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch…” It’s terrible! The commentators will say, well, this is a Christian coming under the judgment of God for not. We get confused. If you don’t abide, we’ve already been told, in Romans 8, what? If the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, does not abide in you, you don’t belong to Him. You’re still in the flesh. Well, what makes you think here, if anyone does not abide in Me, that he’s saying the same thing? If the Spirit doesn’t abide in you, you’re still in the flesh. You can’t do anything to please God. If Christ doesn’t abide in you, you can’t do anything, and you’re doomed. That’s the same thing we have in Romans, because if you don’t have the Spirit, you don’t belong to God. You don’t now live in the Spirit. You’re doomed. That’s why he started out with where our sin will take us. That’s what he’s talking about here.

What you have is, you have the prophetic ‘professors’ and you have what we call the ‘possessors.’ In Israel there was the elect nation and then within it, there were the elect people. We’ll get to this in Romans 9. True believers and those who claim to belong to God. Just like you can have in the church. People who are true believers and people who just come and go along. But there’s a separating out. Remember in Matthew 7, verse 22 where Jesus said, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not…”do all these wonderful things…”in Your name…?” And He’ll say, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.” So, this is the division. If anyone does not abide in Me, and note that’s a mutual abiding, from verse 5, “…he who abides in Me and I in him...” Not possible to split this. Well, I believe Christ abides in Me, but I don’t abide in Him, and then we define abiding in some way. What’s He say in verse 7, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you...” Same thing, it’s a mutual thing. You abide in Me, and My words abide in you. That’s the same thing as Him abiding in me. I am functioning in obedience to Him. It’s the Spirit who is directing my life. It’s Christ who is leading me. “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you…” Again, it’s a mutual thing. No matter whether you’re using the word dwell, using the word abide, He’s talking about the same thing. The two realms. “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” Verse 10, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” This is what we’re talking about, this life we have.

Come over to 1 John. Don’t lose the connection. This is what Romans is talking about. I just want to jump from Romans to this because there’s a whole doctrine. Somebody wrote a book a while back. Some of you are familiar with it. And they came to realize that the problem with this church and me, is we never understood the doctrine of abiding. So, when this person really came to understand it, the doctrine of abiding, somehow, they got elevated to a higher life, and then knew what was wrong with everybody else. It’s not a biblical doctrine.

1 John, chapter 2, verse 6, “…the one who says he abides in Him (in Christ) ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.” In other words, if Christ now lives in me, what? I walk in the Spirit, not in the flesh. That's basic biblical truth. Come down to verse 9. “The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness…” You can’t walk in the darkness and claim that you’re in the Light. That’s where he started out in 1 John 1. Look at verse 14, “I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you…” Christ talks about this in John 15, My word abides in you. I abide in you. That means you are living under the directions of God. His word controls me. If I’m going to live as the Spirit directs, I will live according to the word of God. Jump down to verse 28, “Now, little children, abide in Him…” You can take that as a statement. You abide in Him. “Now, little children, you abide in Him…” It’s not telling something they have to do as God’s children. He’s telling them, you “…abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame…”

We get whole doctrines developed out of this, that some Christians are going to be embarrassed and ashamed at the bema seat. You note in the margin what it says here on how you can translate that, “be put to shame from Him,” put away from Him in shame at His coming. I take it, that’s the rejection that unbelievers will experience. We abide in Him so that won’t happen to us. That’s the point. “Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be put away from Him in shame at His coming” (be rejected). That’s the point. You come down into chapter three, verse six, “No one who abides in Him sins...” The present tense there means that’s the life they live.

I taught some graduate students at a seminary extension on the east coast, where I traveled there. One of the projects we did was the Greek exegesis of 1 John. Then I assigned them the responsibility, I want you to write some papers on the significance and importance, since this was a Greek exegesis, of the Greek tenses in 1 John. I got some great papers. I let them know that they became my possession. I still have them, in fact the seminary professor contacted me here in the last year or two to talk about that class. I pulled his paper out, and said, yeah, it’s good to hear from you. I still have your paper. It was good! It’s a present tense. So, “No one who abides in Him sins…” That fits. That’s not the realm in which we live in anymore, lives continually sinning. “…no one who (continually) sins (or lives in the realm of sin) has seen Him or knows Him.” You see how distinct it is. That doesn’t mean you live a sinless life as a believer. But you no longer live your life in the darkness. You no longer live your life under the control of flesh. If that’s where you are living, you do not belong to God. Oh, you can’t see my heart. No, but I can see what’s coming out of your heart! That’s what Jesus said, out of the heart come all kinds of sinful things. Read it in Mark 7 and you can chase it in the other gospels. That’s where sin comes from. That’s why you need to have a new heart, a new mind. When you do, you have a new life. That’s the point.

Verse 9, “No one who is born of God practices sin...” There you have it, “…because His seed abides in him...” That abiding again. It’s where God’s work abides in us. God abides in us. The work of transforming and making us new, so we can be born again and partake of the divine nature, as Peter puts it. We can’t live in sin because we are born of God. It doesn’t say I can’t sin, but that can no longer be my life. You see the beauty of it. It clears things up. It cleans things up, a proper understanding. Come down to verse 24, “The one who keeps His commandments…” He is talking about the New Testament here, the law of Christ, not the Mosaic Law. John uses a different word for the Mosaic Law then the New Covenant commandments. “…abides in Him, and He in him.” You see the difference, it’s the same. There’s no difference in abiding in Him and He in him. That comes out of “This is His commandment that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.”

God abides in us. Now the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit abide in us. The focal point of the one abiding in us is the Holy Spirit in His ministry because they are distinct persons. But you note, it’s a mutual abiding again. And you manifest it by your walk, by seeing His word abides in you. I live my life in obedience to His word. Again, it’s growing. John said back in chapter two of this letter, “…I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father…” It’s not the pattern of the life of a believer, but sad to say, we do as believers, sin. But the pattern of our life has been changed.

Come over to chapter four while we are here. Some of you have taught 1 John. I haven’t done since the 1970’s. I should do that again. 1 John, chapter 4, verse 12, “No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” One of the marks of a believer is you love other believers. “By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” Is that not the same thing we’re saying in Romans 8? So, we don’t want to get off here and get another part of Scripture and say, ‘oh this totally different.’ Then we bring up a whole doctrine of sanctification. I’ve shared with you early in our Christian life my family was part of that. You’ve been saved, and now you need to get sanctified, that’s a second work of grace. We had this battle with lordship salvation. Well, you get saved, but then you need to have Christ become your Lord, discipleship. You became a believer in Christ, but now you have to become a disciple. All these things are a picture of the same thing. The Scripture says no. Nobody is denying there’s not growth. We are to grow in our new life in Christ. That’s going on. We abide in Him and He in us. Verse 13 of chapter 4 of 1 John, “…we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. His Spirit is there in us. The Spirit is the one who manifests the presence of God within us because we see this in different places. Sometimes the Father is emphasized, sometimes the Son is emphasized, sometimes the Spirit. But they all work together in unity as one God, but three distinct persons.

In verse 14 he reminds them, “We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” So, have you come and confessed or agreed with God that Jesus is the Son of God? If you acknowledge that, and have placed your faith in Him, then what? “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” That’s it. It comes to an agreement about Christ, Who He is, what He has done. We broke into this, but there’s a fuller development earlier in the chapter. It’s a mutual abiding. God in us and we’re in God. Verse 16, “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

Come to Romans 8. This is what we’re talking about. This is truth regarding our sanctification. We shouldn’t get confused. We got the whole package. Not that it’s being unfolded. I am growing in my walk with the Lord. Some day it will be brought to fullness and completion with glorification in the final step, if you will. But that’s just the ongoing process now. We give too much latitude saying, well, I think this person trusted Christ. I don’t see much evidence in their life. They don’t have any interest in being with believers. They don’t seem to care much about the study of the Word. They don’t seem to have much peace, joy, and all the fruit of the Spirit, but I think they’re probably saved. Well, sometimes we just ought to stop thinking and look at the word of God. We are to help one another. Not because we’re the ultimate judge. I can’t see a heart. And I understand Jesus talked about wheat and tares. It’s too hard to separate them out. Sometimes I just, as I share, say to a person, I don’t know. I can’t tell you that you’re not saved. You profess you’ve trusted Christ. Your faith is in Him, but I have to tell you just to consider something is not right. By your own testimony, you don’t have joy, you don’t have peace. Where’s the fruit of the Spirit? Sometimes I’ve just gone and walked through those things. They come thinking there’s something else, there’s something different. Now sometimes, we are confused on Scripture. Believers can get confused and then they get all messed up. I’ve been to the altar many times to get re-saved, because they said that’s what I needed to do because I sinned. And when I got sanctified, I’d stop that sinning. So, every time they gave an altar call, I’d go. Because if everybody in the church didn’t go to the altar, that showed how sinful they were because everybody should come. I was confused. But our study of the word ought to “un-confuse” us. And that’s why we want to be careful.

2 Corinthians 13, verse 5, does say, “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!” Paul had reason to be concerned about the Corinthians and about people in the Corinthian church. Remember, he told them early there must be divisions among you so that those who pass the test can become evident. He says some of what’s going on at the Corinthian church is that we’re sifting believer from unbeliever. Why do we keep having these problems? Why do you keep having divisions? Why does this false teaching make its way in here? So, he ends up by telling them, I encourage you to examine yourself to see if you are in the faith. He doesn’t say I can tell you whether you are or not. But he can express his concern. Might as well be honest with yourself before the Lord, because He’s not fooled, and you’re not either.

Come to Romans chapter 8, verse 10. “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin…” that’s his physical body, and it is dead. It’s dying. If the Lord doesn’t come soon, I will die. If He doesn’t come in a little longer, we’ll all die. That’s the aspect of our salvation that hasn’t yet been dealt with. So, “…the body is dead because of sin…” Doesn’t mean it’s controlled by sin here. That’s different than the body of sin earlier in this sanctification, where the body is controlled by sin. Here the body is dead, and Paul realized that. Death is coming. He realized his death, as he moved along, was imminent. Peter said the Lord has shown me that my death is imminent. Physical death is still a reality even though we have life in Christ. But that’s not the final word and that’s where he’s going on here. “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the Spirit…” and I think that should be a capital ‘s’ consistent with all the other uses of spirit here. “…the Spirit is alive...” We have it translated alive, but you’ll note in the margin by verse 10, it’s literally “life.” “…the Spirit is alive because of righteousness.”

We live in this mortal body. He talked about that back in chapter 7, in verse 4. Maybe we ought to read it because it pertains to this. “Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.” You see Christ died. His physical body hung to the cross. So that then we could have life. We were raised with Him to new life, changed on the inside. But then we come back to Romans 8 here, “…the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Because as we saw earlier, we have met the requirement of the Law, up in verse 4 of chapter 8. God requiring, demanding righteousness. Well, His righteousness has my righteousness. So, “…the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Because the Spirit has brought new life. He’s identified me with Christ. With His death, burial, and resurrection to new life. And if any man be in Christ, he’s a new creation and the righteousness of God is credited to Him.

Verse 11, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you…” You see he’s going to explain what it means. Even though this physical body is dying, yet the Spirit is a life-giving Spirit. He is life for us because of righteousness. So, verse 11, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” The Spirit who dwells in me. We don’t have time to go to Ephesians chapter 1, where Paul says the Holy Spirit is God’s seal and guarantee, His down payment that He’ll complete the process. The glorification of our body, that’s what he’s talking about here. He’ll give life to our mortal bodies through the Spirit who dwells in us. The work of our salvation is not complete. It won’t be complete until our bodies are transformed, glorified like the body Christ had when He was raised from the dead. The same Spirit who gave life to Christ, verse 11, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal body.” The one who brought spiritual life to me by identifying me with Christ, chapter 6, will complete that process by giving me a physical body that conforms to the resurrected body.

I’ve experienced the spiritual resurrection. I will also have a spiritual transformation to complete the process. So that’s how this all goes for our walk. You see how he ties it all together. This is amazing, what God has done for us! You know we plod along. How are you doing? Well, I’m trying to get through the day. The Spirit of God dwells in me. I belong to the living God. This is God’s day for me as we saw in Ecclesiastes. Now we get unfolded some more of the details of the beautiful truth. So, the week before us, how great I’m going to walk every moment of every day through this coming week with God dwelling in me! He will not leave, and He will guide and direct me as I submit to Him. Sometimes I’m not sure. God, I want Your Spirit to guide and direct me. Give me wisdom here. And in light of Your word, I sometimes have to make a decision. Lord, for what I know and what is consistent with Your word, I’m going to go this direction. But if for any reason You have something else for me, make that clear, turn me around, whatever. We don’t sit paralyzed till I hear a voice. His word abides in us. That’s why we want to be saturated with it. That’s the first thing that comes to mind. Well, the word of God says this, so I know what to do. If the word of God says don’t do this, I pretty know what not to do. And this is consistent even though the Word doesn’t address it. This would be consistent. So, I think I proceed here. We are blessed beyond measure!

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the riches of Your word, so great a salvation. Lord, it will take eternity to unfold the greatness, the wonder of what You have done for us in Christ. Lord, our desire, our commitment, our resolve is to live the new life You have given us in Christ. How pathetic, how sad that we would live in any other way. We want every day to be a day that honors You. We want every day to be a day we experience all that You have for us. Everything you have planned for us, in the way that You would have us walk and honor You. So, bless the days of the week before us. May we live with expectancy and live looking for the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.