A Study of Romans 8:1-11
Welcome back, everyone. We are coming back to our exploration of Romans 8. In this chapter, the apostle Paul provides an amazing list of the operation of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the followers of Christ.
The Christian life is not normal. We are not ordinary people on this planet. We are no longer merely natural people. We have the whiff of the supernatural about us. We carry around the fragrance of another world. As Paul put it, we are not to live as “mere humans.” In 1 Corinthians 3:1-4, he rebuked the Corinthians because they were behaving “like mere men” (or, as some versions put it, “like ordinary people”). The world can no longer explain us because it no longer quite understands us.
We cling to what we once rejected. We love what we once despised. We resist what we once pursued, and we pursue what we once ignored. We find our greatest joy in this world by setting our minds on another world. We are strongest when we surrender, richest when we give, and freest when we obey.
As the apostle John said, “We know that we are children of God, and the whole world is under the influence of the evil one.” We possess a joy words cannot express, a peace circumstances cannot steal, a hope death cannot extinguish, and a Savior whose coming divided history itself.
We are far from perfect, yet near to God. We are sustained by grace, filled with hope, and determined to turn the world upside down because the Spirit of Christ lives within us. Our future is better than our past, and our greatest aspirations come to pass after we die.
The moment we trust Jesus Christ as our Savior, the Holy Spirit enters us, body and soul, and we become supernatural people—people who no longer live in the realm of the flesh but in the realm of the Spirit. That is the essence of Romans 8.
By way of review, let me read the first paragraph or two from this chapter and recap the main points.
1. The Holy Spirit Awakens Your Dead Soul
First, the Holy Spirit awakens our dead souls. Verses 1 and 2 say: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life….
The Holy Spirit is the agent within the Trinity who takes the essence of life from Almighty God and transmits it into something dead, causing it to suddenly experience the dynamic of life. It was the Holy Spirit who animated the form of clay that became the living man, Adam; that swept over Ezekiel’s Valley of Dry Bones until they stood on their feet as a mighty army, as we’ll see shortly; that resurrected the lifeless corpse of Jesus of Nazareth in the Garden Tomb; and that will bring our own dead bodies back to life on the day of Resurrection. And the same Holy Spirit is the One who, at the moment of our conversion, strikes us with so much divine energy that we begin to live on the inside. We are no longer dead in sin or dead to God. We become living people who now live in a dead and dying world.
In Ezekiel 37:14, God said, “I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live.”
In 2 Corinthians 3:6, Paul wrote, “The Spirit gives life.”
Titus 3:4-6 (NLT) said, “But—When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior.”
2. The Holy Spirit Unshackles You from Sin and Death
Second, the Holy Spirit unshackles us from sin and death. Let’s continue in Romans 8: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
And Paul goes on to recapitulate the Gospel, telling us God sent His Son to be a sin offering, so that the righteous requirements of the Law may be met by Him in our lives. And that leads to the third thing.
3. The Holy Spirit Changes Your Lifestyle
The Holy Spirit changes our lifestyle. In verse 4, Paul says that we are now alive in Christ, and we do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. The idea is that our priorities, purposes, and patterns of life begin to dramatically shift when the Holy Spirit enters our lives.
Years ago I had a speaking engagement, and I believe it was in the Pacific Northwest. My host picked me up at the airport and took me for lunch. Over our meal, he opened his billfold and showed me a picture of a man. He asked if I recognized him. I did not. The man was in rough shape and looked like someone who had been dragged around by horses. “Who is he?” I asked. The man said, “That’s a picture of me before I met Jesus Christ.”
This man’s entire life—and lifestyle—was changed when he met Christ. That represents the operation of the Holy Spirit.
4. The Holy Spirit Infuses a New Set of Desires into Your Personality
In fact, Paul goes on to say that the Holy Spirit infuses a new set of desires into our personalities, Look at verse 5: Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
What does the Holy Spirit desire? He desires what the Father and the Son desire. He desires truth and wisdom and peace and kindness and holiness—all the attitudes and behaviors recommended in the Word of God. And somehow, we find we begin to desire those things too. Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
5. The Holy Spirit Wants to Govern Your Mind
That leads naturally to the fifth thing. The Holy Spirit wants to govern our minds. Verse 6 says: The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. That’s why the believer is always hungry for the Scripture. A woman said to me the other day, “I’m a nerd for the Word.” And so am I. I can’t get enough of it. The more I study the Bible, the more I realize how supernatural is its origin, composition, contents, impact, preservation, propagation, and personal impact on those who treasure it.
6. The Holy Spirit Represents the Presence of Christ Within Your Life.
Sixth, the Holy Spirit represents the presence of Christ within your life. The Bible says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” But how can Christ be inside of us? He took on a human body and we cannot swallow Him or somehow accommodate His physical presence in our physical frames.
In the book of John, Jesus explained this in advance to His disciples, saying, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you…. (John 14:16-17).
Now with that in mind, look at our primary text in Romans 8:7-10: The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.
There is a fascinating progression in Paul’s terminology here. He uses three phrases: The Spirit of God lives in you… [You have] the Spirit of Christ… Christ is in you.
The Spirit of God is in you, the Spirit of Christ is in you, Christ is in you. Jesus takes up residence in our lives by His indwelling Holy Spirit.
Elsewhere Paul wrote, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
7. The Holy Spirit Will Raise Your Body Imperishable in the Last Day
That leads to the seventh operation of the Holy Spirit in our lives. He will resurrect and glorify our bodies when Jesus returns. Verse 11 says: And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
The apostle Paul goes into greater detail about this in Philippians 3, 1 Thessalonians 4, and 1 Corinthians 15. But the most vivid picture of this is in Ezekiel 37, and I want to read it for you.
The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath [the Hebrew word for breath, wind, and spirit are all the same]; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel.
In Ezekiel’s vision, the Lord was showing him that the nation of Israel would at some point in the future reconstitute itself as a political entity—a nation on the world scene. And they would eventually become true, living servants of Yahweh and receive their Messiah. This is not a theology of the resurrection body, per se. But what we see in this vision is the reversal of death. This is what will happen to all of us in the flash of a single instant. When Jesus comes to rapture His church, He knows in His infinite omniscience where every bit of dust, every trace of DNA, every molecule of your bodily remains can be found. And your body will be instantly reassembled, brought to life, resurrected to glory. The power of the Holy Spirit will do this effortlessly and instantly.
Your new body will be recognizable and will have many of the same functions as the old body. But I believe it will have a supernatural luminescence about it, and supranatural qualities, and it will be indestructible, imperishable, and eternal. No aging. No cancer. No illness. No pain. No sinful tendencies. No termination point. There will be no hospitals in New Jerusalem. No assisted living facilities. No nursing homes. No funeral homes. No graveyards. You’ll have the energy to do whatever you want, and all the time needed to learn to do it.
Philippians 3 says, “Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (verses 20-21).
This is very important for us to contemplate! Later here in Romans 8, Paul is going to draw out an implication of this. He is going to come back to this theme, and verse 18 says, “For I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us.”
These are some of the stunning operations of the Holy Spirit within us. We’ll look at more next week as we continue our study, but let me end with this simple illustration. When I was a child my parents took me to California and we stayed in the home of friends who had a very nice patio and they had a series of large bowls surrounded by foliage and water ran from one bowl to another and created a beautiful fountain and small pond. I was mesmerized by that fountain. And now if you come to my home, I have several fountains that I will show you.
The one on the verandah off the kitchen is made from granite, and it is extremely heavy. I found it in Atlanta, Georgia, and getting it home was quite a challenge because of its weight. It is a solid block of rock with a scooped out basin and an arm that rises up and forms a sort of trough, which lets the water trickle back down into the basin. It only holds about two gallons of water, but it has the most wonderful sound.
There is something about the sound of water that is so tranquilizing and soothing, isn’t there? I like my little fountain very much. I’ve had it for years. The only thing is, during the course of the day most of the water splashes out. Some of the water also evaporates. It runs dry in about 36 hours, so I have to fill up that fountain every day. One of my chores each morning is to take the watering can and replenish the water in my fountain. I have to fill it up every day, and sometimes as I’m doing so I look up to the Lord and say, “Me too! Lord, I need to be filled up every day too. I need to be filled with Your Spirit, afresh, anew, daily, continually, and forever.”
That’s an important prayer to learn to offer. Let’s learn to pray every morning: “Lord, may Your Holy Spirit who is so involved in my life have total control, and may I be filled with Him, living in His power every moment of every hour today.”