Romans 9

Chapter 9. Sanctification Through the SpiritThose controlled by 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. (Romans 8:8-9)We now come to the third section of the apostle’s treatise on sanctification, in which he shows that sanctification is not through the flesh, but through the Spirit. These verses which we have just quoted contrast the two lives—the flesh and the Spirit—and declare their irreconcilable and eternal antagonism. The Flesh It is very important at the outset that we understand exactly what is meant by the terms flesh and Spirit. The flesh just means our whole natural life. It is not our body, nor even our carnal nature, but the whole old man, including all that was born of Adam, spirit, soul and body. “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:6). Everything born of the flesh is flesh. Some teachers seem to leave the impression that only the material part and the soulish part of our nature are essentially wrong, and that the spiritual part is somehow higher and better; and so men have been trying to get rid of matter and soul, and get into spirit. But this is all a mistake. The natural spirit of man is just as evil as his soul, and needs just as much to be crucified and superseded by the Spirit of God. The whole of our Adam life is fleshly and must be laid down, and brought, through the death of Christ, into the resurrection life—not only the evil things in us, but those which we have accounted good. “The grass withers and the flowers fall; because the breath of the Lord blows on them” (Isaiah 40:7). Not only must the corrupt flesh of Noah’s time be destroyed by the flood, but even the natural affection of Abraham for his Isaac must be crucified, and then come forth, after the scene on Mount Moriah, as a resurrection love, by a new affection that had passed through the fire, and henceforth loved its object not for its own sake, or even for the sake of the object, but in and for God alone. The Spirit What is meant by the Spirit? It means not our human spirit, but the Holy Spirit. It should be spelled with a capital “S” all through. The meaning is made very plain by the words, “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature [the flesh] but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you” (Romans 8:9). A spiritual man, then, is a man who has the Holy Spirit. There is a great difference between this and our own converted spirit. There must come a distinct epoch in every sanctified life when the converted spirit becomes the abode of the divine Spirit, and the Holy Spirit comes to reside and abide as the source of all our life and strength. There are two sides to this abiding. In one sense the Spirit is in us, in another we are in the Spirit. It is like a great ocean into which we plunge until it is all around us and becomes the very element in which we live, but as we come into the ocean, the ocean comes into us, and fills us and overflows until it encompasses us on every side, and becomes the very element of our being. Now, we note in this passage a very remarkable variety in the terms in which the Holy Spirit is spoken of. First, He is spoken of as the Spirit of God, then as the Spirit of Christ, and then as Christ. This is all most suggestive. The Spirit of God represents His true deity as He was revealed in the Old Testament. The Spirit of Christ represents the New Testament revelation of the Holy Spirit, as we see Him in the person of Jesus, and His deity is softened, humanized and brought nearer to us by His residence in Jesus Christ. The Spirit of Christ He is the Spirit who lived in Him, and by whom all His works were done. Jesus did not go forth to His ministry until He received the Holy Spirit, nor are we better able to go forth to any service for God without His enduing wisdom, power and love. It is delightful to know that when we receive Him, we receive the One who inspired the whole ministry of our blessed Lord, and He comes to us with a tenderness and almost a humanness which the Old Testament revelation could never bring. But more than this: He is not only the Spirit of Christ, but He is called Christ Himself. He comes to reveal Christ and to bring His personal presence into our heart and life. Like a divine painter He stands in the background and draws upon the canvas the face of another, even the face of Christ, and we do not see the hand that draws the picture, but only the face that He reveals. Like a perfect telescope, He brings to us the revelation of the heavenly worlds, and as we look through the reflector, or the tube, we do not see the instrument, but only the object which it brings to us. Therefore the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us is practically the indwelling of Christ, and the most direct consciousness of the heart in which the Spirit dwells is of the person of Jesus rather than of the person of the Holy Spirit, although both are known to us, and it is right to commune with either or with both. It is a life in the Spirit, and it is at the same time a life in Christ. It is abiding in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, and yet Christ speaks of it as abiding in Him. Now these two lives are very vividly contrasted in this chapter:

Section I: The Life of the Flesh

Section I—The Life of the Flesh1. Weak It is weak: “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature” (Romans 8:3). Our natural life is weak in all spiritual and natural directions. It has many high aspirations, but it is unable to accomplish them. The poetry, philosophy and even the fine art of past ages are full of high ideals, but men have never been able to realize them. Seneca, Cicero and Marcus Aurelius could tell us of deep longings for “the true, the beautiful and the good”; Plato and Zeno could unfold many of the principles of higher ethics, but they could not reach these patterns themselves. The marble statue, the painted canvas, the poetic dream, could idealize virtue, but the marble statues were better than the men who molded them, their poems were higher than their authors, their philosophy was purer than their lives; and they fell back from the momentary dream into the slimy depths of corruption and shame. The worst of men often have better thoughts and resolve to break their chains, but like the Laocoon in ancient story, they sink at last, crushed in the folds of the hideous serpent that they resist in vain. “The flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). 2. Wicked But it is not only weak, it is wicked. “The sinful mind is hostile [enmity] to God” (Romans 8:7). It is not merely an enemy of God, but it is embodied, intense, unmitigated enmity. Everything in it and about it is hostile to God. It hates His law, His will, His ways, and even His plan of salvation and mercy through Jesus Christ. “It is evil, and only evil,” and there is nothing really good about it. It may have much benevolence and apparent virtue, but when it comes to direct relations with God, it always shows its malignity and its utter depravity. 3. Hateful The flesh is not only at enmity with God, but it is hateful to God. “Those controlled by the sinful nature [the flesh] cannot please God” (Romans 8:8). God takes no pleasure in any part of the natural man. The whole Adam race, as well as the Adamic earth, is under a curse. Cain may bring his brightest offerings, the fairest flowers and the richest fruits, to the altar of Jehovah, but they will be rejected with the worshiper. They are fleshly things, born of the sin-cursed earth, and with Cain they must be rejected. The flesh may be as beautiful as the daughter of Jairus, as she lay in her loveliness a moment after death, or as hideous as the body of Lazarus, corrupting in the grave. It matters not whether it presents itself in robes of fashion in the heated ballroom or in the ecclesiastical millinery of the ritualistic altar. It matters not whether it comes to the march of the music of the carnival of revelry and the lewd songs of the drunkard and debauched, or in the splendid choruses of the opera, oratorio or religious quartette. It is equally displeasing to God. Its beautiful music, its eloquent sermons, its elaborate good works, its costly benevolence, as well as its filthy excesses and brutal lusts, are alike offensive and accursed in the holy eyes of Him who has sworn, “I am going to put an end to all people” (Genesis 6:13). 4. Incurably Bad The flesh is incurably bad. “It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so” (Romans 8:7). It never can be any better. It is no use trying to improve the flesh. You may educate it all you please. You may train it by the most approved methods, you may set before it the brightest examples, you may pipe to it or mourn to it, treat it with encouragement or severity; its nature will always be incorrigibly the same. Like the wild hawk which the little child captures in its infancy and tries to train in the habits of the dove, before you are aware, it will fasten its cruel beak upon the gentle fingers that would caress it, and show the old wild spirit of fear and ferocity. It is a hawk by nature, and it can never be made a dove. “The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so” (Romans 8:7). The only remedy for human nature is to destroy it, and receive instead the divine nature. God does not improve man. He crucifies the natural life with Christ, and then He imparts the resurrection life of Christ and educates the new man into all the maturity of the life divine. The strongest argument I know for eternal punishment is—eternal sin. When a lost soul gets out into the liberty of eternal sin, it will reach possibilities of wickedness that we can scarcely conceive today, and will sin enough in a single hour to condemn it for a million years. No, if the hallowed influences of Christianity and the Holy Spirit do not bring men to God, the atmosphere of perdition will certainly accomplish less. The wretched soul will grow more miserable and more malignant through the everlasting ages, and “evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13).

Section II: The Life of the Spirit

Section II—The Life of the SpiritIn contrast with the flesh, this chapter unfolds the fruits of the indwelling Spirit in the believer’s life.

1. No Condemnation There is no condemnation: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). This is essential to progress in holiness. We must keep in the light of God’s love and the full assurance of His acceptance if we would grow in grace; but it is not until we receive the Holy Spirit and come into this deeper union with Christ, expressed by the phrase “unto Christ,” that we pass out of condemnation and begin to live in the perpetual light of His countenance. The unsanctified soul is always getting into condemnation; it is ever sinning and repenting and trying to come out from under the shadow of God’s displeasure. But when we receive the indwelling Spirit, the first effect is to lift us into a life of perpetual peace and the unbroken consciousness of God’s acceptance, approval and love. Henceforth it is true of us, “The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory” (Isaiah 60:19). “So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again” (Isaiah 54:9).
2. Deliverance There is deliverance from the power of indwelling sin: “Because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). Two laws are mentioned here. The first is the law of sin and death. It is that principle in our fallen nature which operates with the power and uniformity of a law and leads us to sin and death. We are unable to resist this law through the mere force of our human will. But we put the natural law under its opposite, viz.: the spiritual life in Christ Jesus. That is the life of Jesus Christ brought into our heart by the Holy Spirit and operating there as a new law of divine strength and vitality, and counteracting, overcoming and lifting us above the old law of sin and death. Let me illustrate these two laws by a simple comparison. Sitting at my desk by the law of gravitation my hand naturally falls upon the desk, attracted downward by the natural law which makes heavy bodies fall to the earth. But there is a stronger law than the law of gravitation—my own life and will. So through the operation of this higher law—the law of my vitality—I defy the law of gravitation, and lift my hand and hold it above its former resting place and move it at my will. The law of vitality has made me free from the law of gravitation. Precisely so the indwelling life of Christ Jesus, operating with the power of the law, lifts me above and counteracts the power of sin in my fallen nature. This is the secret of sanctification. It is not so much the expulsion of sin, as the incoming of the Holy Spirit, which has broken the control which sin formerly exercised, lifting me into an entirely new sphere of holy life and victory.
3. Practical Righteousness There is practical righteousness: “in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:4). Sanctification is not a mere sentiment or interior experience, but it leads to practical righteousness, or fulfillment of the law in our heart and life, so that we walk according to the Spirit and fulfill the righteousness of the law. The difference between this and the Old Testament morality is that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us first, and then by us in practical obedience.
4. Habitual Obedience There is habitual obedience: “Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on [do mind] what the Spirit desires” (Romans 8:5). We can all remember the time when our mother used to say to us, “Now, mind what I say. Mind your work, mind my words and orders.” That meant, of course, that we were to set our mind upon it, to give diligent heed to it, and carefully to obey her wishes in everything. So in our spiritual life we are to mind the Holy Spirit, our true mother—and to hearken and obey in all things.
5. Life and Peace This indwelling life of the Spirit brings us life and peace: “The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6). This literally means, “the minding of the Spirit is life and peace.” This life in the Holy Spirit brings us divine peace and an overflowing life, full of the deep consciousness of God’s approval, presence and blessing. It is, indeed, a sweet and happy life, where we “come in and go out, and find pasture” (John 10:9), and our Shepherd makes us lie down in green pastures and leads us beside the waters of rest, anointing our head with oil and making our cup overflow (Psalms 23:2, Psalms 23:5).
6. Physical Healing It brings us physical healing and quickening: “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 [quicken] your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you” (Romans 8:11). There is no doubt that this passage refers to the life of the Spirit in our body. It is the mortal body that is here spoken of and it means the present body, liable to death, and cannot mean the dead body at the time of the resurrection. It is the Spirit who now dwells in us that quickens us while He dwells, and the quickening here described is not the raising from the dead of the lifeless corpse; the word literally means the exhilarating and reviving of the life that is not extinct, but exhausted and waning. It is applied to Abraham in the fourth chapter, referring to the quickening of his exhausted energy, in order that Isaac might be begotten when he himself was past age. Now, this divine quickening of our mortal frame is one of the privileges of our life in the Spirit. It is only for those in whom the Spirit dwells, not as an occasional visitor, but as an abiding Guest. There may be many a poor home that you often visit, but when you come to live in a house and make it your home, you are very likely to repair what needs repairing to make it clean and comfortable, renewing the broken windows and leaking roof, and regarding it as your healthful and happy home. Now while the Holy Spirit only visits you at times, He will not undertake to alter the dwelling, but if you give Him the keys and make it His home, He will make it a home worthy of Himself and of you. He will make it a blessed home, and bring His retinue of heavenly beings to make it a little picture of heaven.
7. Mortification It brings the mortifying of our members: “If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13). The Holy Spirit is the only One who can kill us and keep us dead. Many Christians try to do this disagreeable work themselves, and are going through a continual crucifixion, but they can never accomplish the work permanently. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, and when you really yield yourself to the death, it is delightful to find how sweetly He can slay you. Some modern legislatures have adopted electricity as the mode of capital punishment, and by the touch of the dynamic spark, they tell us, life is extinguished almost without a quiver of pain. But however this may be in natural things, we know the Holy Spirit can touch with celestial fire the surrendered thing and slay it in a moment, after it is really yielded up to the sentence of death. That is our business, and it is God’s business to execute that sentence and to keep it constantly operative. Let us not live in the ways of perpetual and ineffectual suicide, but reckoning ourselves dead indeed, let us leave ourselves in the hands of the blessed Holy Spirit, and He will slay whatever rises in opposition to His will, and keep us true to our heavenly reckoning and filled with His resurrection life.
8. Divine Guidance Divine guidance is the next privilege of our life in the Spirit: “Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:14). He guides us, counsels us, points out our way and sweetly leads us in it.
9. Sonship Another privilege is the witness of our sonship. “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father’” (Romans 8:15). The Holy Spirit brings us into a more intimate and childlike consciousness of our sonship. The word “Abba, Father” is the same as our “Papa,” and expresses a very tender filial affection. The indwelling life of the Holy Spirit brings us out of the distance and the dread of our old life into the very bosom of the Father, and enables us to cry instinctively, with the simplicity of a child, “Abba, Father!” Many Christians are living as servants, rather than as sons, and in the Old Testament, rather than the New; but it is the mission of the Holy Spirit so to unite us to Jesus and bring Him into our hearts that we become identical with Him in His sonship and look up to the Father with the same love and trust that He feels—His Father and our Father, His God and our God.
10. Spirit of Hope The next effect of the Holy Spirit is, to awaken in us the Spirit of hope: I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:18-25) This splendid passage unfolds the attitude which we, along with the “whole creation,” sustain toward the coming of our Lord. We “wait in eager expectation” and a mighty hope, and with groanings and travailings of Spirit, for the redemption of our body and of the whole creation from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God. And this mighty hope enables us not only to endure “our present sufferings” but to triumph over them, and regard them as “not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Such a hope must be born of the Holy Spirit, and when He comes in His fullness into the consecrated heart, this is one of His most blessed operations. Then it becomes not a theory, not a doctrine of the Lord’s coming, but a personal hope of unspeakable sweetness and power, influencing and controlling all our life, and lifting us above our trials and our fears.
11. Firstfruits The Holy Spirit prepares us for the coming of the Lord and to be among “the firstfruits” at His appearing. There is a remarkable expression here which has a deeper meaning than appears on the surface: “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit” (Romans 8:23). It means that the Holy Spirit is preparing a first company of holy and consecrated hearts for the coming of the Lord and the gathering of His saints, and that these will be followed later by the larger company of all the saved. There is a first resurrection, in which the blessed and holy shall have part, and for this He is preparing all who are willing to receive Him in His fullness. This is the happy privilege of those who receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit, that they are called and qualified for the marriage of the Lamb, and trained to form part of His Bride. Transcendent honor! Unspeakable privilege! May God enable us to have a part in this blessed hope!
12. Ministry of Prayer The Holy Spirit helps us in the ministry of prayer: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will” (Romans 8:26-27). The Holy Spirit becomes to the consecrated heart the Spirit of intercession. We have two advocates. We have an Advocate with the Father, who prays for us at God’s right hand; but the Holy Spirit is the Advocate within, who prays in us, inspiring our petitions and presenting them, through Christ, to God. We need this Advocate. We know not what to pray for, and we know not how to pray as we ought, but He breathes in the holy heart the desires that we may not always understand and the groanings which we could not ourselves utter nor comprehend. But God understands, and He, with a loving Father’s heart, is always searching our hearts to find the Spirit’s prayer, and to answer it in blessing. He does not wait until the prayer is formally presented, but He searches the heart and finds many a prayer there that we have not discovered, and answers many a cry that we never understood. And when we reach our home and read the records of life, we shall better know and appreciate the infinite love of that divine Friend, who has watched within as the Spirit of prayer, and breathed out our every need to the heart of God, and of that Heavenly Father who, waiting to be gracious, has so often fulfilled His own great promise, “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24). Such are some of the steps in the life we may live in the Holy Spirit. It is indeed a glorious life, and it is the privilege of all who will cease from themselves and receive the Holy Spirit and the blessed Christ He brings to abide in them and live out His own blessed life in their mortal bodies. Let us receive the Holy Spirit. Let us mind Him. Let us obey Him. Let us be led by Him, and let us follow on in all His perfect will until we reach the fullness of our spiritual maturity and are prepared for the coming dispensation, with its larger developments and grander prospects and possibilities.