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Romans 8:9-11 presents Christ as the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ is Christ Himself whom we can experience and enjoy. If Christ did not become the Spirit after His death and resurrection, He could not be experienced by us. If Christ were not the Spirit, He could never enter into us. It is impossible for Christ in the flesh to enter into us; it is only as the Spirit that He can enter into us.
This is fully revealed in John 14. In verse 17 the Lord Jesus spoke to the disciples regarding the Spirit of reality: “He abides with you and shall be in you.” In verse 18 the Lord went on to tell them, “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you.” The very “He” who is the Spirit of reality in verse 17 becomes the “I” who is the Lord Himself in verse 18. This means that the Christ who was in the flesh went through death and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ (1 Cor. 15:45). John 14:17 also reveals that the Spirit abides with and in the believers; it is by being the Spirit that the Lord enters into us and abides in us. In this verse we find the first mention of the Spirit’s indwelling. It is fulfilled and fully developed in the Epistles (1 Cor. 6:19; Rom. 8:9-11).
Moreover, in John 14:28 the Lord Jesus said to the disciples, “I am going away and I am coming to you.” This means that He would go to the cross as a man in the flesh, that is, as the last Adam, but He would come back to the disciples as one who is transfigured, transformed, from the flesh into the Spirit, the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). John 20:22 indicates that when Christ in His resurrection came back to the disciples, He came to them as the pneumatic Christ, the Christ who is the Spirit, and breathed Himself as the Spirit into them. Apart from His being the life-giving Spirit, that is, the Spirit of Christ, it is impossible for Christ to enter into us in order to become our experience for our enjoyment.
We must minister the truth that Christ is the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, regardless of whether Christianity accepts or opposes us on account of this truth. If Martin Luther had cared for whether the Catholic Church would accept or oppose his preaching of justification by faith, he would not have been used by God to recover that particular truth. The Lord has commissioned us with the truth that Christ is the life-giving Spirit. We can testify from our experience that apart from Christ being the Spirit we cannot enjoy Him. Conversely, when we turn to our spirit and declare that Christ is now the life-giving Spirit, we are beside ourselves with our enjoyment of Christ. The following chorus of one of our hymns speaks of our enjoyment of Christ’s being the Spirit.
O Lord, Thou art the Spirit!
How dear and near to me!
How I admire Thy marvelous
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Hymns, #539
Today there is need of the recovery of the truth that Christ is the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit of Christ.
In Romans 8:9 Paul 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.” This verse indicates that the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of God who dwells in us that we may be in the spirit. The Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ are not two Spirits but one. Paul used these titles interchangeably, indicating that the indwelling Spirit of life in verse 2 is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit of the entire Triune God. God, the Spirit, and Christ — the three of the Godhead — are all mentioned in verse 9. However, there are not three in us; there is only one, the triune Spirit of the Triune God (John 4:24; 2 Cor. 3:17; Rom. 8:11). The Spirit of God implies that this Spirit is of the One who was from eternity past, who created the universe and is the origin of all things. The Spirit of Christ implies that this Spirit is the embodiment and reality of Christ, the incarnated One. This Christ accomplished everything necessary to fulfill God’s plan. He includes not only divinity, which He possessed from eternity, but also humanity, which He obtained through incarnation. He also includes human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. This is the Spirit of Christ in resurrection, that is, Christ Himself dwelling in our spirit (v. 10) to impart Himself, the embodiment of the processed Triune God, into us as resurrection life and power to deal with the death that is in our nature (v. 2). Thus, we may live today in Christ’s resurrection, in Christ Himself, by living in the mingled spirit.
Romans 8:10 reveals that the Spirit of Christ is Christ in us to make our spirit life: “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.” In this verse the Spirit is not mentioned, for here the emphasis is that Christ today is the Spirit and that the Spirit of Christ is the very Christ in us. According to the fact, it is Christ; according to experience, it is the Spirit. In our experience of Him, He is the Spirit; in our worshipping of Him, calling on Him, and speaking of Him, He is Christ. We receive Him as our Savior and Redeemer, but He enters into us as the Spirit. As the Redeemer, He has the title Christ; as the Indweller, He has the title the Spirit. These are not two who dwell in us but one Dweller in two aspects.
“Christ...in you” is the crucial point of the book of Romans. In chapter 3 Christ is on the cross, shedding His blood for our redemption; in chapter 4 He is in resurrection; in chapter 6 we are in Him; now, in chapter 8 He is the Spirit in us.
Before we believed in the Lord, our spirit was dead. Now that we have Christ in us, our spirit is life because of righteousness. In our spirit is Christ the Spirit as righteousness, resulting in life. Moreover, we need to see that our spirit has not only been regenerated and made living; our spirit has become life. When we believed in Christ, He as the Spirit of life came into our spirit and mingled Himself with it; the two spirits thereby have become one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). Now our spirit is not merely living but is life.
The Spirit of Christ is also the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from among the dead, dwelling in us to give life to our mortal body. “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” (Rom. 8:11). In this verse we have three matters. First, we have the entire Triune God — the One who raised Jesus from the dead, Christ Jesus, and His Spirit who indwells you. Second, we have the process required for His dispensing, as implied in the words Jesus (emphasizing incarnation), Christ (emphasizing crucifixion and resurrection), and raised (emphasizing resurrection). Third, we have His dispensing of Himself into the believers, as shown by the phrase give life to your mortal bodies, which indicates that the dispensing not only occurs at the center of our being but also reaches to the circumference, to our whole being.
The phrase give life to your mortal bodies does not refer to divine healing but to the result of our allowing the Spirit of God to make His home in us and saturate our entire being with the divine life (Eph. 3:16-19). In this way He gives His life to our mortal, dying body, not only to heal it but also that it may be enlivened to carry out His will.
Romans 8:9b says, “Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him.” This verse indicates that having the Spirit of Christ, we are of Christ. In other words, because we have the Spirit of Christ in us, we are of Christ. This shows that our being of Christ depends on His Spirit. If there were no Spirit of Christ, or if Christ were not the Spirit, there would be no way for us to be joined to Him and to belong to Him. However, Christ is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), and He is in our spirit and is one spirit with us (2 Tim. 4:22). Thus, 1 Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” This verse reveals not only that the Lord, the resurrected Christ, is the Spirit but that a believer who is joined to the Lord is also a spirit. In our organic union with Christ, what He is, we are.
That we are of Christ refers to the unchangeable source and position rather than to the changeable condition and experience. We have the Spirit of Christ according to the source, the new birth; hence, we are of Christ and belong to Him. In our present experience and spiritual condition, however, we need to be not only of Him but also in Him.
Romans 8:17 goes on to say, “If children, heirs also; on the one hand, heirs of God; on the other, joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him that we may also be glorified with Him.” This verse reveals that Christ is the Heir of God. It also unveils that we too are the heirs of God, for we are the joint heirs with Christ to inherit God Himself in His glory as our inheritance.
Christ was designated as the legal Heir to inherit all things in God’s economy (Heb. 1:2). He, as Isaac, the son of Abraham, will inherit the earth (Psa. 2:8), the kingdom (Dan. 7:13-14), the throne (Luke 1:32), and all things (Matt. 11:27). Since He is the Heir of God, even the legal Heir of God, all that God the Father is and has is for His possession (John 16:15). Christ, the firstborn Son of God, is the appointed Heir of God, and we, the many sons of God, have been saved to be joint heirs with Christ.
Romans 8:17 shows that there is a condition for us to be heirs. It is not that we are heirs simply because we are children of God. Rather, after being born as children, we must grow in life to become sons, and then we must pass through suffering that we may be glorified to become legal heirs. If we suffer with Him, we will be glorified with Him. Genuine growth in the divine life requires suffering. The more we suffer with Christ, the more we grow and the faster we are matured to be joint heirs with Christ.
Romans 8:29 continues, “Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.” In this verse we see Christ as the Firstborn of God. Most Christians have heard of Christ being the only Begotten of God, but very few have heard of Christ being the Firstborn of God. Today a vast majority of Christians enjoy Christ as the only begotten Son of God, but only a few truly enjoy Christ as the firstborn Son of God. However, Romans 8 stresses that Christ is the Firstborn of God.
Christ was the only begotten Son of God from eternity (John 1:18). When He was sent by God into the world, He was still the only begotten Son of God (1 John 4:9; John 1:14; 3:16). By His passing through death and entering into resurrection, His humanity was uplifted into His divinity. Thus, in His divinity and with His humanity that passed through death and resurrection, He was born in resurrection as God’s firstborn Son (Acts 13:33). At the same time, all His believers were raised together with Him in His resurrection and were begotten together with Him as the many sons of God (1 Pet. 1:3). Thus, they became His many brothers to constitute His Body and to be God’s corporate expression in Him.
From eternity to eternity, Christ in His divinity is the only begotten Son of God. After He became a man with humanity in His incarnation, He, as the Son of Man, was born to be the firstborn Son of God in His resurrection. His resurrection was a great delivery in which Christ was begotten to be the firstborn Son of God, and we His believers were all born with Him to be the many sons of God (v. 3). This was the greatest corporate delivery. Because through His resurrection the disciples of Christ were regenerated with the divine life to be the many sons of God, after His resurrection He began to call them His brothers (John 20:17; Matt. 28:10). Hebrews 2:11-12 confirms this: “For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of One, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, ‘I will declare Your name to My brothers; in the midst of the church I will sing hymns of praise to You.’” These verses indicate that after Christ resurrected from the dead, He came back to His disciples and called them brothers. He also considered them the church, indicating that the church is a corporate composition of the many brothers of the firstborn Son of God.
As the only begotten Son of God, Christ had divinity but not humanity; He was self-existing and ever-existing, as God is. His being the firstborn Son of God, having both divinity and humanity, began with His resurrection. With His firstborn Son as the base, pattern, element, and means, God is producing many sons, and the many sons who are produced are the many believers who believe into God’s firstborn Son and are joined to Him as one. They are exactly like Him in life and nature, and, like Him, they have both humanity and divinity. They are His increase and expression in order that they may express the eternal Triune God for eternity. The church today is a miniature of this expression (Eph. 1:23), and the New Jerusalem in eternity will be the ultimate manifestation of this expression (Rev. 21:11).
According to Romans 8:29, we have been predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ, the Firstborn of God. God has predestinated us not simply that we may be sanctified, spiritual, and victorious but that we may be fully conformed to the image of His Son. This is our destiny, determined by God in eternity past. Conformation is the end result of transformation. It includes the changing of our inward essence and nature, and it also includes the changing of our outward form, that we may match the glorified image of Christ, the God-man. He is the prototype, and we are the mass reproduction. Both the inward and the outward changes in us, the product, are the result of the operation of the law of the Spirit of life in our being (v. 2).
The purpose of God’s foreknowledge, predestination, and calling is to prepare and produce many brothers for His firstborn Son that, on the one hand, they, together with God’s firstborn Son, may be the many sons of God with the divine life and nature for the expression of God, and that, on the other hand, they may be the many members who constitute the Body of God’s firstborn Son as the corporate expression of God in His firstborn Son, which is the fullness of God’s firstborn Son, that is, the fullness of God in His firstborn Son (Eph. 1:23; 3:19).
Many believers know that in incarnation Christ was born of Mary, the virgin, to be the Son of Man, but very few believers know that in resurrection Christ was born again to be the firstborn Son of God. It is as the firstborn Son of God that Christ is our prototype. Today we can experience and enjoy Him as our prototype, for He is the firstborn Son of God who is not only God with divinity but also a man possessing humanity. Formerly, we as men had only humanity, but when we believed into Christ and received Him, we received His divinity. Now we are the same as Christ, our unique prototype. He is the prototype, and we are His mass reproduction. He is the firstborn Son of God, and we are the many sons of God.
Romans 8:32-39 presents Christ as the One who makes us more than conquerors.
Romans 8:32 says, “Indeed, He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?” This verse shows that God freely gives us all things with Christ.
Romans 8:34 goes on to say, “Who is he who condemns? It is Christ Jesus who died and, rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” This verse tells us that Christ died for us and that after being raised, He is interceding for us at the right hand of God. This verse states that Christ today is at the right hand of God in the heavens; verse 10, however, states that He is now in us, in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). As the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), He is omnipresent, being both at the right hand of God and in our spirit, both in heaven and on earth.
In Romans 8:34 it is Christ who intercedes for us, yet in verse 26 it is the Spirit who intercedes for us. These are not two Intercessors but one, the Lord Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18). He is interceding for us at two ends. At one end it is the Spirit in us, probably initiating the intercession for us; at the other end it is the Lord Christ at the right hand of God, probably completing the intercession for us, which must be mainly that we will be conformed to His image and brought into His glory.
Romans 8:35 continues, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?” No suffering including tribulation, anguish, persecution, famine, nakedness, and peril shall separate us from the love of Christ.
In Romans 8:37 Paul tells us that in all the sufferings we more than conquer through Christ who loved us. Because of God’s unchanging love for us and the fact that Christ has accomplished everything on our behalf, neither tribulation nor persecution can suppress or defeat us; rather, in all these things we more than overcome and conquer through Him who loved us.
In Romans 8:38-39 Paul declares, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The love of God is the source of His eternal salvation. This love is in Christ and has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit (5:5). Nothing can separate us from this love of God. In God’s salvation this love to us has become the love of Christ, which does many marvelous things for us through the grace of Christ until God’s complete salvation is accomplished in us. These marvelous things provoke God’s enemy to attack us with all kinds of sufferings and calamities (vv. 35-36). However, because of our response to the love of God in Christ, these attacks have become benefits to us (v. 28). Hence, we more than conquer in all our afflictions and calamities (v. 37).
We are God’s beloved ones, and nothing can separate us from His love. Once God loves us, He loves us forever with an eternal, inseparable love. Therefore, God’s salvation is secured by His love. This means that our eternal security is the love of God. We may be assured that nothing will separate us from the love of God, because this love does not derive from us or depend on us but is derived from God and depends on Him. This love was initiated by God in eternity.
In Romans 8:39 Paul points out that the inseparable love of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord. If the love of God were shown apart from Christ, there would be problems, for apart from Christ, even a sin such as losing our temper would separate us from the love of God. However, the love of God is not only the love of God itself but the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Because the love of God is in Christ Jesus, we may be assured that nothing can separate us from it.
God’s salvation in Christ has saved us to the extent that, on the one hand, we are in God’s acceptance enjoying the source of this salvation, which is God’s love in Christ, from which we cannot be separated by any person, matter, or thing; and, on the other hand, we are in God’s life being conformed by the Lord Spirit to reach the ultimate goal of this salvation, that is, to enter into the incomparable divine glory and be glorified together with God (vv. 18, 30).
The first eight chapters of Romans reveal that Christ has divinity and eternal deity, and that the divine person of Christ is in the Godhead. These chapters also show that this Christ who has the Godhead became a man as the seed of David, that He passed through the processes of human living, death, and resurrection, thereby accomplishing God’s redemption and entering into God’s glory, and that through these processes He was eventually consummated to become the Spirit of Christ, who is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of life, and the reality, the essence, of this wonderful Christ. It is as the Spirit of Christ that He can, and does, enter into His believers to be their life, their life supply, and their everything. In summary, Christ as God was incarnated to be a man, and Christ in His humanity with flesh passed through the processes of death and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit in order to be one spirit with us that we might be a part of His being as members of His wonderful Body.
