The Indwelling Spirit

Romans 8:5:

“Those who live according to” the flesh or “the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by” the flesh or “the sinful nature cannot please God.

“You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 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 through his Spirit, who lives in you.”

Amen.

Father, help us now, as we turn to your Holy Word, to be able to concentrate. Free us from distractions, and turn our gaze to Christ. For it’s in his name we pray. Amen.

Well, we continue our studies in Romans chapter 8, and there is quite a shift between verse 8, where we were last Sunday evening, and verse 9, where we find ourselves this morning. There is a grammatical shift, insofar as Paul now moves from addressing his readers in the third person—so, in verse 8, “Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God”—to addressing his readers in the second person: “You, however, are different.” And he is making this move; he’s addressing those who read directly and emphatically.

And the distinction is not simply grammatical, but it is theological; it is absolutely foundational. And he is moving from the statement that he has made in verse 8: “Those controlled by” the flesh or by “the sinful nature cannot please God.” And in verse 7 he has pointed out that the underlying feature here is that “the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.”

This does not mean that every attempt by people to do nice and good things is wrong or incapacitated, but it means that at the very core of humanity there is an anti-God bias. And that anti-God bias is as a result of sin and infects us at the level of our understanding and the level of our intellect. When we think in terms of the impact of sin, if we even are prepared to have a category for it―and some of us may want to debate that―we tend to think of it in terms of actions: what we’re doing or what we’re failing to do. But it is a far more endemic situation than that.

And what the Bible actually says is that no area of our lives is left intact by sin—it affects our emotions, our affections, our minds, and our wills—and that by our very nature, because this is true, our human thought, our processes and our presuppositions, our assumptions and our development of human logic, is all ultimately hostile to God.

Now, I didn’t plan on reemphasizing this in beginning this morning until, in the last few days, I have, along with some of you, been reading the excerpts from the new book by Stephen Hawking, the physicist from Cambridge University―the severely physically disabled and intellectually brilliant character who is the professor there in Cambridge. And he, along with one of his friends, has once again written to suggest that there is no need for a God in the universe, that the laws of physics and the laws of aerodynamics―indeed, all the natural laws in the universe—exist fine and on their own, and there is no need for us to think in those terms. And that is why I’ve directed you in the way that I’ve done in the first of these two areas this morning.

Because the reason for that kind of expression is given to us here in Romans 8:7–8. The notion that will be abroad as you discuss this with your friends is that everyone who has a certain amount of gray matter, everyone who is of a certain intellectual capacity, will then concur with the intellectual capacity of Hawking, and thereby, every other person who’s really incapacitated when it comes to intellect and the mind will be left to plow around and meander around in the sort of Neanderthal view that says, “There really was a Creator who made the universe” and so on.

And so, you may find yourself this morning, having read that article in yesterday’s weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, saying to yourself, “I wonder why I am the way I am? I wonder why I haven’t just… I got up yesterday morning, I got the newspaper, I read it. Why didn’t I just go and just take all the Bibles out of my study and just throw them in the bin? Phone up somebody from the elder board and say, ‘I’m done! I’m finished! Apparently, there is no God. I don’t know what I’m doing. And there’s no reason for me to come back to Parkside and talk about the Bible. After all, there is no God in the universe. We’re at sea.’”

Well, why didn’t I do that? Because I don’t believe that! Why don’t I believe that? Why don’t you believe that? The answer is miraculous! The reason you don’t believe it―if you don’t believe it―is because of what Paul goes on to say in verse 9: because you are a believer in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And you didn’t come to that as a result of intellectual deduction. You and I came to that by grace through faith. And in Christ we understand why [Anselm] said that Christianity is “faith seeking understanding.”[1] The believer is not somebody who has the answer to every question but is somebody who at the very base level of our human existence has had a completely mind-altering encounter with the living God, and it has shifted, it has changed, it has recalibrated the way in which we view absolutely everything.

And it is to these individuals that Paul writes in verse 9: “You, however,” he says, “you are not like those that I’ve just described for you in verses 7 and 8. You are not like those who are in the flesh, who cannot please God, because you are in the Spirit.” And he uses language here that is interwoven: “in the Spirit,” “the Spirit in you,” “the Spirit of God,” “the Spirit of Christ.” Don’t be unsettled by the variations in his language. Don’t allow it to become the basis for debate or the origin of confusion. Simply recognize that what he’s pointing out there is the interplay of the work of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are inseparable in their activity in the life of a Christian. And they are eternally distinct in terms of their mode of being, but they are united in the work of redemption.

And what he is now describing is the reality of the Spirit’s presence in the life of a believer: “You, however”―verse 9, ESV―“are not in the flesh but in the Spirit.” What God the Father has planned from all of eternity, God the Son has accomplished in the cross, in time, and what God the Son has accomplished in the cross, in time, God the Spirit has applied to the lives of those who believe. And that is why we are Trinitarian―God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. They are not separate in their actions, insofar as the eternal counsel and purpose of God is achieved in and through each member of the Trinity.

The believer is not somebody who has the answer to every question but is somebody who at the very base level of our human existence has had a completely mind-altering encounter with the living God.

Now, it is important for us to grasp this if we’re not to go wrong. Despite all that I’ve said about the mind, genuine Christianity is not simply a new set of beliefs, nor is genuine Christianity a new pattern of behavior―although a genuine Christian has a new set of beliefs and engages in a new pattern of behavior. But we recognize that it would be possible for us simply to view Christianity in terms of virtually a mathematical or theological paradigm that we adopt cerebrally without it having any impact at all viscerally in the very core of our being.

In the same way, it is possible for people to adopt a form of Christianity, a form of godliness―an external, outward way of life—that is absent any internal power or conviction. And Paul actually speaks of those, elsewhere, who are like that. No, genuine Christianity―if I am a true believer, in a phrase, “I belong to Christ.” See that at the end of verse 9? Belonging to Christ. It’s stated negatively there, but we’ll turn it on its head. God looks upon us and he says, “Sinner, you now belong to me. You now belong to me.”

There are all kinds of metaphors in the Bible of a relationship between the believer and the Lord Jesus Christ―the believer as part of the body of Christ, with Christ as the husband and the Bridegroom and the church as the bride. And in the same way as when you were married, you arrived at the front of the church as a single person, and you went away belonging to someone else. And forever your life has been altered. You no longer belong to yourself. You belong to someone else.

If you ever signed up for the army, if you were ever conscripted into the forces, you know that suddenly, everything changed, because you were no longer your own. My father used to tell me of how, the day that he had followed up on the conscription papers that had been delivered to his family home when he was only, I think, eighteen years of age and had shown up at the barracks in Glasgow―the Maryhill Barracks—after he’d been gone through the process and kitted out with his uniform, he decided that he would go home and see his mom and get a cup of tea. And as he was trying to get his way out of the front gate, the sergeant at the gate said, “Soldier, where are you going?” And apparently my dad said, “I was just going home to see my mother.” And the sergeant said, “Not anymore you’re not! Because you belong to us. We’ll tell you where you’re going, and we’ll tell you when you’re going.” Everything had been radically altered.

That is the life of the Christian. The Christian now has been put in an entirely different relationship to God, and the Spirit of God has come to live within this person’s life.

Paul puts it, in [1] Corinthians, very clearly. He says, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body, with your body.”[2] And he’s going to go on to come back to this again and to remind his readers of the responsibilities that flow from this reality.

I think the best of our hymnody reinforces these truths. A couple of the songs this morning have helped us in this area of reminding ourselves—and it’s good on the first day of the week to come and have our minds constrained by these truths—about what it means to belong to Christ. Because you finish a week where just about everything else has buffeted your thinking; all of the angles that have come to you from outside have called in question your convictions, have challenged you, and so on. And if you neglect the means of grace―of the gathering of God’s people, of the study of his Word, of the celebration of Communion, of the reading of your Bible, of the exercise of prayer, of sharing your faith―then you will find that very quickly, much of the light that is in you will be snuffed out; it will be down to a peep of light. But if you receive the means of grace that are provided by dint of this and the other elements that are on offer to you at Parkside, then your light will shine brightly.

And you will be reminding yourself all the time—of, for example, the old hymn writer’s words that begin,

Jesus, my Lord, will love me forever;
From him no pow’r of evil can sever;
He gave his life to ransom my soul,
[And] now I belong to him.

Now I belong to Jesus,
Jesus belongs to me,
Not for the years of time alone,
But for eternity.[3]

So that this is the distinguishing feature.

You know, people say, “Well, what’s up with you? Well, why are you the way you are?” “Well, I belong to Christ!” “What?” Not “I go to Parkside.” Not “I read my Bible.” ’Course you do! But you belong to Christ! That’s why you are as weird as you are! Just tell people, “The Spirit of God has come to live in me. It’s just truly amazing! There’s no one more surprised than I am.”

You are the sinner’s friend,
So, I your friendship claim,
A sinner saved by grace,
When your sweet message came.

Mine! mine! mine!
I know thou art mine;
Savior, dear Savior,
I know thou art mine.[4]

This is the life of the believer. If this is not your life, the chances are you’re not a Christian. The chances are you’re trying to stick things on from the outside. The chances are you’re trying to amend your way of thinking by thinking religious thoughts or “God thoughts” rather than bad thoughts. You can do that. Get a self-help book and try it. Or you’re trying simply to change: “I used to go down this place. Now, I go to this place.” You can do that as well by yourself. You don’t need grace to do that. But you cannot make yourself a child of God by yourself. You cannot be indwelt by the Spirit of God. You cannot belong to God except that he comes and invades you and changes you.

And Paul says that: “You,” he says, “you, however, are not like those whose mind is hostile to God, who can’t submit to God’s law, who are controlled by the flesh and cannot please God. No, you are radically different.” In other words, he’s describing the reality of the presence of God within the life of the child of God. I think it’s an old book: The Life of God in the Soul of Man. The Life of God in the Soul of Man.

And what Paul says here in Romans 8 is, of course, what he just says elsewhere. In Ephesians 5, he reminds his readers, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of [the] light.”[5] In Colossians 1, he says the same thing: “You’ve been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, from the kingdom that is ruled by the prince of the power of the air into the kingdom of his dear Son, whom he loves.”[6] You know, you’re no longer playing on the team you used to play on.

I don’t know when the NBA thing starts again. I never watch it till the very end in any case. It’s just down the end, down the end, down the end, down the end. It’s a complete waste of time; you only need to see five minutes of it. And it’s a worthless exercise, from my humble estimation, until it really matters. But I can guarantee you this: there ain’t no LeBron showing up in a Cavalier uniform, right? No. ’Cause he’s gone! He’s transferred. He will now appear in different colors: Miami Heat. He will no longer submit to the coach in Cleveland. He will submit to the coach in Miami. His circumstances have been radically and irrevocably altered. He is no longer what he once was: a Cavalier. He is now a member of an entirely different team.

That’s what Paul is saying here. That’s how radical it is being a Christian. That’s what the Bible talks about when it speaks in terms of Christianity. It’s speaking about that kind of radical distinction that is brought about by God himself. Look at what he says: you are in the Spirit “if the Spirit of God lives in you.” You have a new identity. You have a new mentality. You have a new destiny.

And he puts it negatively in the second half of the verse: “Anyone [who] does not have the Spirit of Christ … does not belong to [him].” This is not a distinction between two different kinds of believers, as some have taught. This is a distinction between those who are regenerate, made alive by the Spirit of God, and those who are unregenerate, not made alive by the Spirit of God; those who are dead in their trespasses and sins―unregenerate―and those who are regenerated by the work of God in their life, changing their desires, changing their direction, changing their destiny, changing their thinking, and changing their very identity.

Now, I wonder, does that describe you this morning? The believer birthright as provided in the reality of the Spirit’s presence.

Now, having done that, he then, in verses 10 and 11, gives to us some indication of the results of the Spirit’s presence in the life. If Christianity involves the reality of the Spirit’s presence, what then will the work of the Spirit within the life of a real Christian look like? And verses 10 and 11 address that: “If Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, [but] your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 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.” “To your mortal bodies.”

In other words, this body that is ours, which is the dwelling place of our soul, of the real you and me, matters. And our mortal bodies, our physical bodies, are increasingly dilapidated. That’s what he’s saying in verse 10: “Your body is dead because of sin.” Remember, in the garden of Eden, God says to Adam and to Eve, “You can enjoy the whole place. I’ve made it for you. But I don’t want you to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good or evil, because if you eat that, then, in the day that you eat that, you will surely die.”[7] Well, they didn’t die, did they? They were still hanging around. They had children. What was God speaking about? He’s speaking about the fact of spiritual death and the reality of physical death. They did not die instantaneously, but they died. And the fact of humanity is partly the fact of our mortality.

And what Paul is pointing out here is what he’s going to reference when he writes to the Corinthians: that outwardly, as believers, we’re wasting away.[8] We’re no different from unbelievers. If you doubt the dilapidation of your body, get a mirror, or get a wife, or just get somebody to tell you the truth. Okay? And it’s not like, “Oh, I’m a Christian. I’m not dilapidated.” Yes, you are a dilapidated Christian! Your friend is a dilapidated non-Christian, but you share in the mortality of our physical frame.

If you want a cross-reference at home, read Ecclesiastes 12 and the wonderfully poetic description of the sort of collapsing and disintegration of the human frame. If you want verification of it apart from the Bible, just be honest and acknowledge that, depending on your age, there were certain aisles in the pharmacy that used to be completely off-limits; they were alien to you. I mean, I used to walk in and go, “I wonder what people do with that stuff? I wonder… What do you do with this?” Now I’m up there, looking: “Do you have the such and such? I’m looking for… It’s got the… ” I used to look at those things that people put on their elbows or their knees―those bandages―I thought, “Oh, that. I’ll never do that! That is terrible!” Now I’m in the house, I’ve got one of them on here and so on. Why? ’Cause I’m dilapidated!

Seve Ballesteros is, by his own acknowledgment, facing his end. Recently, in the press, he spoke for more than himself when he made this reflection: “For everything in life, there is always a beginning and … an end. This is the tough part, the most difficult thing, when you see that [the end is] coming.”[9]

Now, the Christian doesn’t stand up and say, “No, no, no, we don’t believe that.” No, the Christian says, “We understand that. Not only do we understand that to be a reality, but we know why it is a reality: because sin has entered into the world as a result of one man, and through sin has come death.” And our bodies are “dead because of sin,” but our spirits are “alive because of righteousness.” What does that mean? It means that the redemption that God has accomplished for us by Christ and in Christ is applied by the Spirit of Christ to us. And as a result, our view of mortality ought not to be one of morbidity, but it ought to be one of reality.

A reminder―and with this we need to begin to wrap it up―but a reminder that as Christians, we don’t believe simply in the immortality of the soul, but we believe in the resurrection of the body. The same bodies which we possess will be made alive at the resurrection. There’s going to be a qualitative difference. God’s promise is that we’re going to be better than we were when we were at our best―whatever your best was! And we’ll be better then. You say, “Well, how do you know?” Because God has promised. Does it seem highly unlikely? Well, I would guess, when I look at things as they crumble before me, apart from God.

I spoke with someone this week, and the lady told me that she had lost two children, a little boy and a little girl, to Zellweger syndrome. Her boy lived 180 days. Her little girl lived 199 days. There was no possibility of them living beyond a year. No one ever has with this syndrome. A Christian lady, Christian husband. All of the pain and the devastation that is wrapped up in that. No one is going to deny the fact of mortality, are they?

As Christians, we don’t believe simply in the immortality of the soul, but we believe in the resurrection of the body.

So what are we to do? Embrace the anti-God bias of atheism and nihilism? Or bow down before God, who in his grace and mercy has made himself known in the wonders of the universe, in the truths of his Word, in the person of his Son, and ask him to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves?

One day, one day, everything that life has stolen from us―everything that life has stolen from us―God will restore. There’s not one bit of you that’s going to end up in the trash bin of the universe—except your sin, which you don’t want in any case!

Does this describe you? I mean, would you go out from here and say… Somebody says to you, “So, what is it about? I noticed you… I saw you coming out of the parking lot at Parkside. What are you doing over there? Why do you go over there?”

You say, “Well, I belong to Christ.”

They say, “What?”

“Yeah!”

They say, “How does that happen?”

You say, “Well, I’ll tell you what, I never thought it could happen. It’s a miracle!”

“You believe in miracles?”

“Yeah.”

Do you? Are you? And if not, why not?

Father, thank you for the Bible. Thank you for the depth of your love for us, that although we by our very nature have minds that are turned away from you, turned in upon ourselves―we think about ourselves in ways that are not true: that we’re going to live forever; that we have the capacity to handle everything and anything; that our minds can solve the puzzles and the problems. Forgive us for that. And grant that we might come as children to you, acknowledging how willing you are to bless our lives and to keep us in your will.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be the abiding portion of all who believe, today and forevermore. Amen.

---

[1] Anselm of Canterbury, preface to Proslogion.

[2] 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (paraphrased).

[3] Norman J. Clayton, “Now I Belong to Jesus” (1938).

[4] Anna Hudson, “Mine” (1905). Language modernized.

[5] Ephesians 5:8 (NIV 1984).

[6] Colossians 1:13 (paraphrased). See also Ephesians 2:2.

[7] Genesis 2:16‒17 (paraphrased).

[8] See 2 Corinthians 4:16.

[9] Seve Ballesteros, “Seve’s Final Interview: ‘It Is Tough When You See That the End Is Coming,’” interview by Oliver Brown, Telegraph, May 7, 2020, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/golf/2020/05/07/seves-final-interview-tough-see-end-coming.