Coming now to Romans 8, we may summarize the argument of our second section of the letter from ch 5:12 to ch 8:3 in two phrases, each containing a contrast and each marking an aspect of Christian experience. They are Romans 5:12 to 6:23 ‘In Adam’ and ‘in Christ’.
Romans 7:1 to 8:3 ‘In the flesh’ and ‘in the Spirit’. We need to understand the relationship of these four things. Scripture makes it clear that the first two give us only a part of the picture and that the second two are required to complete it. We think it enough to be in Christ, but we learn now that we must also walk in the Spirit (Romans 8:9).
The Flesh and the Spirit
The flesh is linked with Adam; the Spirit with Christ. Leaving aside now as settled the question of whether we are in Adam or in Christ, the time has come to ask ourselves ‘Am I living in the flesh or in the Spirit?’ Living in the Spirit means that I trust the Holy Spirit to do in me what I cannot do myself. This life is completely different from the life I would naturally live of myself. Each time I am faced with a new demand from the Lord, I look to Him to do in me what He requires of me. It is not a case of trying but of trusting; not struggling but of resting in Him. If I have a hasty temper, impure thoughts, a quick tongue, or a critical spirit, I shall not set out with a determined effort to change myself, but instead, reckoning myself dead in Christ to these things, I shall look to the Spirit of God to produce in me the needed purity or humility or meekness, confident that He will do so. This is what it means to ‘stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah, which He will work for you.’ (Exo 14:13). When the Holy Spirit takes things in hand, there is no need for strain on our part. Where there is real victory, it is not fleshly effort that carries us through, but the Lord.
Satan’s temptations are not designed primarily to make us do something particularly sinful, but merely to cause us to act in our energy; and, as soon as we step out of our hiding place to do something on that basis, he has gained the victory over us. But if we do not move, if we do not come out of the cover of Christ into the realm of the flesh, then he cannot get us. The divine way of victory does not therefore permit us to do anything at all – anything, that is to say, outside of Christ. Our victory lies in hiding in Christ, and in counting in simple trust upon His Holy Spirit within us to overcome our fleshly lusts with His own new desires. The Cross has been given to procure salvation for us; the Spirit has been given to produce salvation in us. Christ risen and ascended is the basis of our salvation; Christ in our hearts by the Spirit is its power.
Christ Our Life
The discovery that Paul made at the conclusion of Chapter 7 of Romans is this – that the life we live is the life of Christ alone. We think of the Christian life as a changed life but it is not that. What God offers us is an exchanged life, a substituted life, and Christ is our Substitute within. ‘I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me.’ This life is not something which we ourselves have to produce. It is Christ’s own life reproduced in us.
God will not give me humility or patience or holiness or love as separate gifts of His grace. He is not a retailer dispensing grace to us in packets, measuring out some patience to the impatient, some love to the unloving, some meekness to the proud, in quantities that we take and work on as a kind of capital. He has given only one gift to meet all our need – His Son Christ Jesus. It is a blessed thing to discover the difference between Christian graces and Christ – to know the difference between meekness and Christ, between patience and Christ, between love and Christ.
The common conception of sanctification is that every item of the life should be holy; but this is not holiness, it is the fruit of holiness. Holiness is Christ. It is the Lord Jesus being made over to us to be that. So you can put in anything there – love, humility, power, self-control. Today there is a call for patience – He is our patience. Tomorrow the call may be for purity – He is our purity. He is the answer to every need. That is why Paul speaks of the fruit of the Spirit as one (Galatians 5:22) and not of fruits as separate items. God has given us His Holy Spirit and it does not matter what our personal deficiency, God has always one sufficient answer, His Son Jesus Christ, and He is the answer to every human need.
The Law of the Spirit of Life
God delivers us from one law by introducing another law. The law of sin and death is there all the time but God has put another law into operation – the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and that law is strong enough to deliver us from the law of sin and death. It is a law of life in Christ in the resurrection life that in Him has met death in all its forms and triumphed over it (Ephesians 1:20). The Lord Jesus dwells in our hearts in the person of His Holy Spirit, and if, committing ourselves to Him, we let Him have a clear way, we shall find His new law of life superseding that old law. We shall learn what it is to be kept, not by our own insufficient strength, but by the power of God (1 Peter 1:5).
The Manifestation of the Law of Life
If we let go of our own will and trust Him, we shall not fall to the ground and break, but we shall enter into a different law, the law of the Spirit of life. For God has given us not only life but a law of life. There is a new law in us which gives us a hunger for God’s Word. Then half an hour can be more profitable than five hours of forced reading. And it is the same with giving, with preaching, with testimony. If we will let ourselves live in the new law, we shall be less conscious of the old. It is still there, but it is no longer governing and we are no longer in its grip.”
“What does it mean to walk after the Spirit? It means two things. First, it is not a work; it is a walk. Praise God, the burdensome and fruitless effort I involved myself in when I sought in the flesh to please God gives place to a quiet and restful dependence on His working, which worketh in me mightily (Colossians 1:29). That is why Paul contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit. Second, to walk after implies subjection. Walking after the flesh means that I yield to the dictates of the flesh, and the following verses in Romans 8:5-8 make clear where that leads me. It only brings me into conflict with God. To walk after the Spirit is to be subject to the Spirit. There is one thing that the man who walks after the Spirit cannot do, and that is be independent of Him. I must be subject to the Holy Spirit. The initiative of my life must be with Him. Only as I yield myself to obey Him shall I find the law of the Spirit of life in full operation and the ordinance of the law (all that I have been trying to do to please God) being fulfilled – no longer by me but in me. ‘As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God’ (Romans 8:14). The words in 2 Corinthians 13:14 ‘the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.’ The love of God is the source of all spiritual blessing, the grace of the Lord Jesus has made it possible for that spiritual wealth to become ours, and the communion of the Holy Ghost is the means whereby it is imparted to us. Love is something hidden in the heart of God; grace is that love expressed and made available in the Son, communion is the impartation of that grace by the Spirit. What the Father has devised concerning us the Son has accomplished for us, and now the Holy Spirit communicates it to us.
The Holy Spirit has come for that very purpose – that He may make real in us all that is ours through the finished work of Christ. We have learned in China, that when leading a soul to Christ, we must be very thorough, for there is no certainty when he will again have the helps of other Christians. We always seek to make it clear to a new believer that, when he has asked the Lord to forgive his sins and to come into his life, his heart has become the residence of a living Person. The Holy Spirit of God is now within him, to open to him the Scriptures that he may find Christ there, to direct his prayer, to govern his life, and to reproduce in him the character of his Lord.
Many of us know that Christ is our life. We believe that the Spirit of God is resident in us, but this fact has little effect upon our behavior. The question is, do we know Him as a living Person, and do we know Him as Boss?”