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Scripture Reading: Rom. 8:2, 4-6, 9, 11-13
Because the book of Romans is mysterious and abstract, through the years many Bible teachers have not touched it adequately. Without the real experience of what is revealed in Romans 8, it is impossible to understand this chapter. However, we need to realize that with regard to life, whatever is the most mysterious and abstract is the most precious. For instance, what we can see of a human being, that which is physical, is not precious. The preciousness of a human being is not physical, visible, or material but something invisible within our physical body called life. If we do not have life, we become a mere material object, like a chair, which is not precious. We are precious because we have a life. We can speak, listen, and function because we have a life. The life mentioned in Romans 8 is the divine, eternal life of God, which is higher than our physical life. The higher the life is, the more mysterious it is. The plant life, which is not very high, is not difficult to understand. However, the human life, which is higher than the plant life, is more mysterious. The divine life is much more mysterious than our human life; therefore, it is more precious.
We need to realize that according to God’s economy and eternal purpose, what God wants to do in His salvation is to work Himself into us, His redeemed people, as our life. God’s desire to work Himself into us as our life is the focus of the Bible, yet because it is mysterious and abstract, it is nearly altogether missed by Christians today. When most Christians think of God’s salvation, they mainly consider it to be a matter of the forgiveness of sins and salvation from hell. Our conscience is touched when we first receive the gospel, and we are enlightened and convicted, realizing that we are sinful. Because we become conscious of our sins and transgressions, we want our sins to be forgiven and washed away. The Lord shed His blood and died on the cross to take away our sins. Because of Christ’s redemptive death, God forgives us of our sins, and we are saved from eternal perdition. The forgiveness of sins and salvation from hell are great and necessary parts of God’s salvation, yet they are not the central concern of God’s salvation. The central focus of God’s salvation is God working Himself into us as our life.
We thank the Lord that our sins are forgiven and that we are saved from eternal perdition. However, we should not be satisfied merely with knowledge of these facts. Romans 8 does not concern the forgiveness of sins or going to heaven but the law of the Spirit of life, which frees us from the law of sin and of death (v. 2). The law of the Spirit of life is precious. The life mentioned in verse 2 is not our physical life but the divine life. The Greek word for physical life is bios, which is the root of the English word biology. However, the word for life in Romans 8 is zoe, which is a higher life, the life of God.
Our sins have been taken away by Christ’s death on the cross, but the law of sin is still in us. Although we hate to lose our temper, it may seem that we have no control over our temper when it rises up. This is because sin is a natural law, like the law of gravity, which causes things to happen spontaneously and automatically. Gravity is quite strong — billions of people are kept on every side of the globe by the power of gravity. Only the law of aerodynamics can overcome gravity by lifting people off the ground in an airplane. Similarly, only the law of the Spirit of life can free us from the law of sin and of death. Verse 2 says, “The law of the Spirit of life has freed me in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death.” Regrettably, many genuine Christians do not realize that within them is the powerful law of the Spirit of life. In order to overcome the law of sin and of death, we need the law of the Spirit of life, which has been installed in every believer. This law is like a great sum of money that has been deposited into our bank account.
In addition to the Spirit of life, Romans 8 mentions the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead. Verse 9 says, “You are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him.” Verse 11 says, “If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.” Thus, the Spirit revealed in Romans 8 is an all-inclusive Spirit who comes not merely to visit us but to indwell us. The Spirit of God is God Himself. Likewise, the Spirit of Christ is Christ Himself, and the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead is the resurrecting One. The all-inclusive Spirit is the ultimate consummation and application of the Triune God — the Triune God reaching us. We need to see that as believers we have within us the law of the Spirit of life and the all-inclusive Spirit.
Romans 8 reveals that the law of the Spirit of life and the all-inclusive Spirit reside in our spirit. We need to see a vision of the scenery in Romans 8. There are at least four peaks in Romans 8 — the law of the Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of the resurrecting One. We also need to see the way by which we can reach the peaks. This way is in verse 4, which says, “That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit.” This verse does not say that we will observe or keep the law but indicates that the law will be spontaneously fulfilled in us when we walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. We can reach the peaks in Romans 8 by walking according to the spirit.
In a sense, it is difficult to walk according to the spirit, because the spirit is mysterious and abstract. Like electricity, the spirit is real yet invisible and mysterious. Although it may be difficult to know what is the spirit, it is easy to know what is the flesh. The spirit is abstract, but the flesh is concrete. Everything that we do is either according to the flesh or according to the spirit. Therefore, as long as we are not walking according to the flesh, we are walking according to the spirit. In this way we can know the spirit by knowing the flesh. We can walk according to the spirit simply by not walking according to the flesh.
Verse 5 says, “Those who are according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but those who are according to the spirit, the things of the Spirit.” Whereas verse 4 indicates that we need to walk according to the spirit, verse 5 says that we need to be according to the spirit. To be implies more than to walk. We may walk according to the spirit occasionally, but to be according to the spirit indicates a daily living. Paul’s intention is to help us to enter into a daily, continual practice.
If we do not exercise our spirit in our daily life at home, school, and work but only when we come to the meetings, this is not a daily practice or walk but a performance. No matter whether we are in a meeting or at home, in every place and at every time, we need to exercise our spirit. Exercising and releasing our spirit should not be an accident but our daily practice. We should live a life of exercising and releasing the spirit. Everything that we do and say should be done and said by exercising and releasing our spirit.
Exercising the spirit is like turning on a light switch when we need light. To exercise our spirit is simply to “switch on.” If we are in physical darkness in a house or building, it is only because we have not turned on the proper switch. Similarly, the reason we may lose our temper is that we are not exercising our spirit. Once electricity has been installed in a building, there is no need to petition the power plant to mercifully send light; this does not work. For light to appear when the proper switch is turned on is not miraculous but normal and even automatic. Many Christians today pray somewhat ignorantly, begging God to have mercy and send the help that they need. We can “switch on” anytime simply by exercising our spirit. The law of the Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the resurrecting Spirit have been installed in every believer. In order to receive His supply, we need only to exercise our spirit.
The devil is afraid whenever we exercise our spirit, for he knows that he will be defeated. We are often bothered by our troublesome mind. Although our situation may not be very difficult, soon after we wake in the morning, thoughts come in that cause us to be anxious. Such thoughts, which may concern our job, family, or safety, come from Satan through our troublesome, unbridled mind. The way to deal with such thoughts is to recognize where they come from and then choose to exercise our spirit. This frightens Satan. From early morning we need to guard ourselves by exercising the spirit. However, we do not often do this. Usually, when one dark thought comes in, we accept it, and another soon follows. As a result, we do not have peace. After washing up and dressing, we may speak to our spouse loosely and in a natural way, neglecting our spirit. Soon we may become impatient and even lose our temper. This is not to walk according to the spirit. From the moment we wake up, we need to gird our spirit to guard ourselves. Before we accept any thought, we should exercise our spirit by calling on the Lord and worshipping, thanking, praising, and exalting Him. Doing this will drive away all the dark thoughts and gird our spirit to guard our entire being. If we practice this, we will not be loose, natural, or short-tempered, because our spirit will be on the alert.
If we exercise our spirit from the very beginning of the day, we will live this way all day long. As a result, when we exercise and release our spirit in the meetings, it will not be a performance but a continuation of our normal daily practice. If we practice this every day, after a few months we will have built up a spiritual habit. Because we have old habits, which have been built up for years, we often live in a loose, natural way. We sometimes live as if we do not have the law of the Spirit of life or the all-inclusive Spirit within us until we come to a meeting. We may not exercise our spirit even while we are driving to the meeting and parking our car. If we do not exercise our spirit or release our spirit until we step through the door of the meeting hall, this will be a kind of performance. We need to live a daily life with a spiritual habit to continually exercise and release our spirit so that we become a person who walks according to the spirit and is according to the spirit.
When we walk and are according to the spirit, we will mind the things of the Spirit (v. 5). To mind the things of the Spirit is to set our mind on the things of the Spirit, that is, to always have our mind occupied with the things of the Spirit, which are the things concerning Christ. From the beginning of the day, our mind should be fully occupied with the things concerning Christ, such as His incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection to become a life-giving Spirit who now indwells us. When certain persons take a vacation, their mind is still fully occupied with their business. They care only for that business; to them their business is everything. Our mind should be occupied with and set on Christ in this way. Our mind should even be addicted to Christ. In the Song of Songs the seeker was sick with love for the Lord (2:5; 5:8). Within her mind there was nothing but the Lord. We need to have such a mind.
Though we love the Lord to some extent, our mind may be mainly occupied by things other than Christ. As long as our mind is set on other things, we are not according to the spirit. If our mind is occupied with things other than Christ, it will be easy for us to lose our temper. If we are a person according to the spirit, our mind will be fully occupied by the Lord. In this way our mind is made spiritual. The natural mind is very troublesome and hard to control, but we can make our mind a spiritual mind, a mind of the spirit. We can cause our spirit to spread into our mind, making our mind the mind of the spirit. The expression translated “the mind set on the spirit” in Romans 8:6 is literally “the mind of the spirit.” Philippians 2:5 says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” First Corinthians 2:16 says, “We have the mind of Christ.” The mind of Christ is a mind that is filled, occupied, and saturated with Christ. Such a mind helps us to continually walk and be according to the spirit.
We need to realize that because we have the law of the Spirit of life and the all-inclusive Spirit in us, we do not have to be in the flesh or do things according to the flesh. The law of the Spirit of life and the all-inclusive Spirit are like a great deposit in our spiritual bank account, which causes us to be rich and short of nothing. Thus, Romans 8:12 says, “So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh.” Before we were saved, we were debtors to the flesh. However, because we have a great deposit — the law of the Spirit of life and the all-inclusive Spirit — within us, we now owe nothing to the flesh. Furthermore, we have a heart to follow the Lord, we have seen the vision, and we daily practice to exercise and release our spirit to be persons according to the spirit. As such persons, we are no longer debtors to the flesh.
Romans 8:13 says, “If you live according to the flesh, you must die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live.” To put the practices of the body to death means to kill our old habits, which is to no longer do anything according to our old habits. We are all habitual; our daily living is ninety percent according to our habit. Although we love the Lord, are in the church, and do not commit gross sins, we may still live, walk, behave, and have our being mostly according to habit. It does not take long to build up a habit. Our habits are built up by our nature, culture, and ethical and religious teachings. We may be a slow or quick person by nature. Perhaps we excuse our slowness or quickness, saying that there is nothing we can do about it, because we were born that way. Hence, we act slowly or quickly according to habits that have been built up by our nature. Our habit is also built up by our culture, whether it is American, Chinese, or another culture. Furthermore, regardless of culture, all people are taught to be ethical. Therefore, our habits are spontaneously built up with ethics. Finally, everyone is influenced by religion. No matter how we live, we all live a habitual life, a life altogether according to habit.
To live according to our old habits is altogether versus the revelation in Romans 8 that the law of the Spirit of life is operating within us and that the all-inclusive Spirit is within us as our life and our person. We should live by Him, be filled and saturated with Him, and walk and be according to Him. To live according to our old habits is versus God’s economy, which is to work Himself into our being and become one with us so that we may take Him as our life and our person, walk according to Him, and be absolutely according to Him. Now that we have seen this vision, what we need is the daily, continual practice of the vision. If we practice in this way daily and continually, we will kill our habits, which are the practices of our mortal body, and be persons fully according to the spirit.
