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Scripture Reading: Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-11, 29
Romans 8 concerns the all-inclusive Spirit giving life to our three parts for the goal of conforming us to the image of the firstborn Son of God. The sole function of the all-inclusive Spirit is to impart zoe, the divine life, into us. We are not born with the divine life. By birth we have only bios, the outward physical life, in our bodies, and psuche, the inward soul-life, in our souls. According to Romans 8, the divine life is dispensed into our spirit, mind, and body (vv. 10, 6, 11). God’s way is to spread from within to without. God came into our spirit as life at the time of our regeneration. From our spirit He spreads into our mind, the leading part of our soul. Then through our mind He spreads into our physical body.
Today nearly no one knows that in addition to our body and our soul, we have another organ, our human spirit. However, the Bible reveals that man is a trichotomy. Some say that the soul and the spirit are synonyms, but in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 Paul writes, “May your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In God’s Plan of Redemption Mary E. McDonough uses three concentric circles to illustrate man’s spirit, soul, and body. It is quite meaningful that God is triune and that we human beings are tripartite. Only the tripartite man can match the Triune God. Our spirit is the inmost part of our being. Romans 8:6 says that our mind is life, and verse 10 says that the spirit is life. The context of verse 10 indicates that the spirit here refers not to the Holy Spirit but to our human spirit. First Peter 3:4 says that there is a hidden man in our heart. The hidden man of our heart is our human spirit. In John 4:24 the Lord said, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.” We must worship God, who is Spirit, with our spirit. Only spirit can worship Spirit.
Romans 8 also reveals that the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God is the all-inclusive Spirit as the Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of the resurrecting One (vv. 2, 9, 11). The all-inclusive Spirit brings the divine life into us, just as the current of electricity brings electricity into a building. The current of electricity is electricity itself, for the current of electricity and electricity are inseparable. Likewise, the Spirit of God is God Himself, the Spirit of Christ is Christ Himself, the Spirit of the resurrecting One is resurrection itself, and the Spirit of life is life itself. The current of electricity may also be defined as electricity in motion. Similarly, the all-inclusive Spirit is the Triune God in motion. Traditional theology does not define the Trinity in these terms, but after studying the Bible and experiencing the Spirit for over fifty years, I have the full assurance and the boldness to say that the Spirit is God in motion. When God moves to reach us, He is the Spirit. Just as electricity moves as a current from the power plant to a building and is applied to the building for all its needs, our God is in motion, reaching and energizing each of us as the all-inclusive Spirit.
The Spirit carries and transmits the divine life into us. Many Christians today emphasize spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, but the greatest gift is the Triune God as life. Some Christians are concerned mainly with spiritual power. However, nothing is more capable or powerful than life. When a tiny carnation seed is sown into the earth, it grows and blossoms into a beautiful flower. The life of a bird has the power to fly. Thus, life is more excellent than gifts or power.
Romans 8 concerns zoe, the highest life. The account in Genesis 1 and 2 mentions every form of life from lowest to highest. God first created the lowest life, the plant life (1:11). Next, He created the animals — first the fish, then the birds, and last the cattle and land animals (vv. 20-21, 24-25). After creating all the animal lives, God created the human life (vv. 26-27). Then Genesis 2:9 mentions the tree of life, signifying zoe, the divine life. We were created with the human life, and we are reborn with the divine life. Thus, all believers possess the two highest kinds of life — the human life and the divine life.
Through regeneration we have received God’s life (John 1:12-13; 3:3, 5-6). We have the life of God but not the Godhead, just as a child has the father’s life but not the father’s position. Although we do not have God’s position, we can boldly declare that we have His divine life. According to God’s economy, the believers have two statuses and two lives. We were created as humans with the human life, and we were reborn as children of God with the divine life. We are descendants of man and of God. God is our Father and our origin because we have been born of God.
By the time we were born of God, He was no longer the same as He was in Genesis 1:1. We were born of the God who created the universe, was incarnated, lived on the earth as a man for thirty-three and a half years, passed through an all-inclusive death in which He took care of all the problems in the universe, overcame death to enter into resurrection and release the divine life, and was glorified and enthroned in ascension. Because God had accomplished everything before we were born of Him, all His processes are the qualifications of our status. We were born of the processed God.
The term the processed God may be new to some of us. Some may point out that this term does not occur in traditional theology, which is based on the early Christian creeds. However, after studying and experiencing the truth in the Bible for over fifty years, I must testify that traditional theology and the early creeds are inadequate. I have experienced much more of the Triune God than the creeds afford. I am not teaching anything heretical but only the truths according to the pure and complete divine revelation in the Bible. Romans 8 unveils to us that God has passed through many processes — His work of creation, incarnation, human living, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and ascension. After all these processes He reached us and entered into us as the all-inclusive, consummated Spirit, referred to in the New Testament as the Spirit (John 7:39; Rev. 2:7). Genesis 1:2 mentions the Spirit of God. However, Revelation 22:17 says, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come!” Thus, the Bible begins with the Spirit of God, and it ends with the Spirit. The Spirit is the all-inclusive, ultimate consummation of the Triune God. After all His processes the Triune God is now the Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17). The Spirit is revealed in Romans 8 as the all-inclusive Spirit — the Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of the resurrecting One.
The all-inclusive Spirit is the ultimate expression of the Triune God, and He is waiting for man to receive Him. The way to receive the Spirit is to believe in Christ. As soon as we call on the Lord and accept Him as our Redeemer and Savior, the all-inclusive Spirit enters into us, indwells our spirit, becomes one with our spirit, and imparts the divine life into our spirit. Then from our spirit He spreads into our mind to make our mind life. Through our mind He will spread into our body, saturating every part of our body with the divine life. Thus, we will become persons of the divine life.
Romans 8:2 says, “The law of the Spirit of life has freed me in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death.” In the original Greek text it is difficult to discern whether the phrase in Christ Jesus modifies the law of the Spirit of life or has freed me. Actually, the law of the Spirit of life and the freeing are both in Christ Jesus. Only in Christ Jesus is there such a law and such a freeing. We may also say that in Christ Jesus modifies life. The divine life is in Christ Jesus (cf. John 1:4; 1 John 5:12).
We need to see what it means to say that life is in Christ Jesus. The title Jesus refers to mainly the Lord’s human life of thirty-three and a half years on the earth. Jesus was a wonderful man because within Him was the divine life. When He was twelve, He went up to Jerusalem with His parents at the time of the feast (Luke 2:42). Afterward, His parents could not find Him and began to look for Him. Luke 2:46-47 says, “They found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both hearing them and questioning them. And all those who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers.” As a young boy, Jesus amazed those who heard Him, because the divine life was in Him. The biography of the Lord in the four Gospels depicts an excellent life full of human virtues.
Only Jesus could have such a wonderful living because the divine life was only in Him. From the creation of Adam until the time of Jesus’ life on the earth, through four thousand years of human history, there was no other man who had the divine life. Jesus was the first man who possessed the divine life. Today we too have the divine life within us. Although we have the same life that was in the Lord, we do not always live an excellent life full of human virtues as the Lord did. When we were young, we may have been quite naughty. Then one day we were saved, and the divine life entered into our spirit. Although we began to live a more excellent, virtuous life at the time of our salvation, we still express our old defects and sinfulness quite often. When we live by the divine life that was in Jesus, we live an excellent life full of human virtues.
The title Jesus refers to the Lord in incarnation, and the title Christ refers to the Lord in resurrection. In Romans 8:2 Paul lists Christ before Jesus because the Lord is no longer living as a man on the earth but is in resurrection as the Christ, possessing both the human life and the divine life. Hymns, #505 says, “There’s a Man in the glory.” This is Christ. In Christ’s death everything natural was terminated, and He is now living in resurrection to germinate all the believers with the divine life. Christ Jesus is both human and divine. His life is full of human virtues and divine glory.
The all-inclusive Spirit is imparting the life that is in Christ Jesus into the three parts of our being. To have the real experience of Romans 8 is to live a life full of human virtues and the divine glory in resurrection. This is much better than ethics. Ethics may be compared to copper, but the life that is in Christ Jesus is like gold, which is brighter and more valuable than copper. Because we now possess the life in Christ Jesus, we do not need ethics, religion, or culture. Our standard is the divine life, which is much higher than ethics, culture, or religion.
As believers, we have the divine life of God. God’s desire is that we live as human beings by the divine life. Many Christians think that God wants us to be perfect human beings. Therefore, they think that we need to improve ourselves, and because we cannot make it, we need to seek God’s help through prayer. They believe that in order to keep the teaching in Ephesians 5:24-25, husbands must trust in God to enable them to love their wives, and wives must pray and trust in God to help them submit to their husbands. However, the fact is that God does not work in this way. God does not want us to live as angels or perfect human beings but to live as humans by the divine life. Many Christians misinterpret the words eternal life in the Bible to mean a condition of living eternally in a physical paradise. However, eternal life is actually the divine life of God. Although we are human beings, God imparts His life into us that we may live as human beings by the divine life.
As a young man in China, I heard Christian missionaries say that the Bible teaches the same thing as Confucius teaches. They pointed out that the Bible and Confucius both teach submission. When I heard this, I wondered to myself, “We Chinese have had Confucius’s teachings for centuries. If the Bible teaches the same thing as Confucius, why do we need the Bible?” I was disappointed, stumbled, and left the denomination in which I had been born and raised. Then by the Lord’s mercy I was saved and began to realize that there is a great difference between the teachings of Confucius and the Bible. The virtues taught by Confucius are produced entirely by the human life, but the virtues taught by the Bible are produced by the divine life. For instance, the context of Ephesians 5:24-25 reveals that the submission and love taught in these verses are not to be carried out by our natural human life. Verse 18 says, “Be filled in spirit.” When we are filled with the Lord, we spontaneously submit and love in the Lord. Such submission and love are by the divine life. Romans 8 reveals that the divine life that is in Christ Jesus is now being transmitted and transfused into us.
Perhaps some are still not clear about the difference between being virtuous by the human life and living by the divine life. Life is abstract, but it can be discerned by its manifestations. Whatever we are able to do by our human life makes us proud, and pride kills others spiritually. Even if we are quite virtuous, as long as we are proud, we cannot build, minister life, or supply anything of the Lord to others. If a brother and his wife are taught to love and submit to one another, they may accept the teaching and pray for the Lord to help them to obey the teaching. However, if they are successful by their own self-effort, they will become proud and self-exalted. When we touch them, we will sense not that we are meeting God but that we are meeting proud, self-exalted people. This is the manifestation of being virtuous by our human life. On the other hand, the husband and wife may realize that they cannot love and submit to one another by their own life and that God actually wants them to live a human life as a husband and wife by the divine life. As a result, they may pray, humble themselves, deny their human ability and energy, and live not by themselves but by the Lord as the indwelling Spirit. Then spontaneously, unconsciously, and unintentionally they will love and submit to one another, yet they will not realize that they are being virtuous. Instead, they will feel that they are short in living Christ and expressing His excellent virtues. When we contact such ones, we sense that they are full of Christ. Even if they do not say anything to us, what they are will minister life to us. When we contact such ones, we are nourished, strengthened, edified, and built up. Furthermore, we are spontaneously influenced to live the same kind of life, expressing excellent virtues as human beings living by the divine life, which is in Christ Jesus and is imparted into us by the all-inclusive indwelling Spirit.
It is not sufficient to forsake ethics and religion. We must see that the life in Christ Jesus is higher and better than these things and that the all-inclusive indwelling Spirit is transmitting such a life into us. God’s desire and goal is that we live by this life and minister this life to others for the building up of the church. What the church life needs is for us to live as human beings by the divine life. If we live by our natural human life, even if we are proper and virtuous, we will damage the church life by our pride. God wants a group of people who live as human beings by the life of God, which is in Christ Jesus. This life is far better than ethics, religion, or anything else, because it is Christ lived out in our human life. The church life should not be a social life by the human life but a Body life, the life of the Body of Christ, by the divine life. We must live as human beings yet not by our human life but by the divine life. This life is in Christ Jesus, and it is the life of the law of the Spirit of life. The all-inclusive indwelling Spirit is constantly transmitting this life into each one of us. The transmission of the divine life into us will build up the church, edify the saints, and minister the riches of Christ to everyone who contacts us.
