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Scripture Reading: Rom. 8:2, 6, 10, 11, 13
In this chapter I will review the major points of the previous chapters on the experience and growth in life.
Life is God Himself, life is Christ, and life is the Spirit, but simply to say this is not adequate. Life is the processed Triune God. The God who is life to us is the processed Triune God. If God had never been processed in His trinity, He would be life to Himself, but He could never be life to us. In order for God to be life to us, He had to be triune — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
As the Triune God, He was processed through several steps: incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Without each of these steps the Triune God could not be life to us. Incarnation is for the Father, with all His divine fullness, to be embodied in the Son (Col. 2:9) and through the Spirit (Luke 1:35) that He might have humanity added to His divinity. In incarnation the Son is the Father’s embodiment, and the Spirit is the divine essence of the Son’s incarnation. The Son is the embodiment of the Triune God with the Spirit as the essence.
The Son then went to the cross with the Father and through the Spirit. His going to die on the cross was not the Father’s crucifixion nor the Spirit’s crucifixion. It was the Son’s crucifixion, yet the Son was not alone. He was crucified with the Father and through the Spirit. On the cross Christ offered Himself to God through the eternal Spirit (Heb. 9:14). The process of crucifixion is of the Son with the Father through the Spirit.
Resurrection is the Son’s resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). In resurrection the Son became the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). The Son, the last Adam, became a life-giving Spirit in resurrection. The Son who died through the cross resurrected in the Spirit and as the Spirit.
These are the processes the Triune God passed through in order to be life to us. This life is the processed Triune God, the Son as the embodiment of the Father and the consummated Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God. Such a life is now embodied in the word. When the word reaches us, it is spirit and life (John 6:63). Now we have life. We have the Father, embodied in the Son, consummated as the Spirit, and embodied in the word, reaching us to be our life.
The five crucial verses concerning life in Romans 8, verses 2, 10, 6, 11, and 13, unveil to us five crucial points, in the order of their significance, as follows.
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 this verse the phrase the law of the Spirit of life is composed of three elements. The order of these elements according to their significance is the Spirit, life, and the law. Without the Spirit you cannot have life. Without life the law is absent. The law comes out of life, and life is of the Spirit. In Romans 8 Paul does not say the Holy Spirit because “the Spirit” is understood to be the consummated Spirit. The Spirit in the New Testament denotes not only the Spirit of God and the Holy Spirit but also the consummated Spirit. The word consummated implies a process. Before something is consummated or processed, it may be raw. When food is uncooked, it remains raw, but once it is cooked, processed, or consummated, it is ready to be served at the dining table for people to eat. In the same way the Triune God has been consummated. The Spirit who is life to us is the consummated Spirit, the consummation of the processed Triune God.
The Spirit is the crucial element of the phrase the law of the Spirit of life. The Spirit of life means that the Spirit is life and that life is the Spirit. The Spirit being the consummated God means that the Spirit is of God. God Himself is also Spirit (John 4:24). The Spirit is the essence of God, and He is also the consummation of God.
The law of the Spirit of life is not a law in letters, like the Ten Commandments, regulating us concerning good and evil. The law of the Spirit of life is like a natural law in physics. If you throw something into the air, it will drop to the ground. This is the law of gravity. The law of gravity is not a commandment in letters but a natural force, a natural law, that operates according to a principle. Romans 8:2-3 has two kinds of laws. The first law in verse 2 is the natural law. The second law in verse 3 is the written law, the law of Moses. Because of the weakness of our flesh, the written law had no possibility of doing anything for us, but the law of the Spirit of life as a natural law is just the divine life.
The vegetable life, the animal life, and the human life all have their own law. A life does not only have a law; a life is a law. When a tree is small, it may be hard to discern what kind of tree it is. As a tree grows, the kind of tree that it is becomes manifest. The almond tree will bring forth almonds, and the peach tree will bring forth peaches. The growth, shape, and fruit of each of these two trees is regulated by its own law. The almond life or peach life is the law.
The Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God is a law. He is life, so He also is a law. In verse 2 the Spirit is first in significance, life is second, and the law is last. However, in Romans 8 when life is applied, the law is first. In Romans 8:2 the law is the subject of the sentence, and has freed is the predicate. The law of the Spirit of life has freed us from the law of sin and of death. This is not the law of Moses but the strongest natural law. It is the strongest law because it is not merely God but the processed Triune God.
Before His process in eternity past (John 1:1), God was “raw,” having only divinity. Through incarnation, the first step of His process, humanity was added to Him. After incarnation He is of two elements, divinity and humanity. Then He went to the cross and went through an all-inclusive death. The element of His death was then added to Him. Three days after His crucifixion He entered into resurrection; thus, another element, resurrection, was also added to Him. Divinity, humanity, crucifixion, and resurrection all are the elements of the processed Triune God. As the “raw God,” He was life only to Himself, but as the processed God, the “cooked God,” He can be life to us. In resurrection He is the consummated Spirit, the consummation of the processed God to be life to us. This Spirit is called the Spirit of life. As the Spirit of life, He does not only have a law; He is a law. Today it is this law that works in us.
The next crucial verse in Romans 8 is verse 10, which says, “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.” In this verse Christ is mentioned instead of the Spirit because the consummated Spirit is actually Christ Himself. When this Christ who is the life-giving Spirit is in us, our spirit becomes life.
In the initial stage of salvation the inmost part of our being, our spirit, is made life. The other parts of our being are not yet life. Romans 8:6, another crucial verse, says, “The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.” From our spirit, the Spirit who is life spreads into our mind whenever our mind is set on the spirit. Our daily condition should be that our mind is on the spirit. We must be such a people who always have our mind on nothing but the spirit. In order to live, we must have our mind on something. Our mind on the spirit is life. This is transformation.
The fourth crucial verse is Romans 8:11, which 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.” In this long verse all three of the Divine Trinity — the Father embodied in the Son in incarnation, the crucified Son, and the Spirit in resurrection — are applied. When the Divine Trinity is indwelling us, this One gives life to our mortal bodies. Eventually, this will consummate in the transfiguration, redemption, and glorification of our bodies (vv. 23, 30; Phil. 3:21).
Romans 8 unveils God’s salvation in three steps. The first step enlivens our spirit (v. 10). The second step enlivens our mind (v. 6), the main part of our soul. The last step enlivens our dying body (v. 11). This makes our entire being — spirit, soul, and body — life.
The last crucial verse shows the application of this salvation. 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.” This is the conclusion. The processed Triune God is now ready. All that is needed for us to do is to “come and dine.” To come and dine is to apply this salvation. The way to apply this salvation is not to have our being according to the flesh but to live according to the spirit. The spirit mentioned in verse 13 refers to the mingled spirit; therefore, it should not be capitalized. This spirit is the human spirit mingled and saturated with the consummated divine Spirit. We should live according to such a spirit.
In verses 5 and 6 there are two important things, the flesh and the spirit. The crucial point in our application of God’s provision is to live according to the spirit. If we live according to the flesh, we must die, but if we live according to the mingled spirit, we will live. The unbelievers have only the negative provision of the flesh. We Christians, however, have both the negative provision of our flesh and the positive provision of the mingled spirit. The negative provision came from our fall, and the positive provision came from God’s salvation. We are now in the middle, and the outcome of our life depends upon our choice. If we live according to the flesh, we die. If we live according to the spirit, we live. This means that our entire being — our spirit, soul, and body — lives.
Question: Since the Lord Jesus said in John 11:25 that He is the resurrection, what does it mean that the element of resurrection was added to the Triune God? What is the difference between His being resurrection and the element of resurrection being added into the Triune God in resurrection?
Answer: In the human mind there is the element of time. We always ask what is first, second, or last, but in the divine realm there is no element of time. A circle is often used to illustrate eternity or eternal things because it has no beginning point or ending point. If we were to mark two points on the circumference of the circle indicating Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, it would be difficult to say which occurred before the other. According to Revelation 13:8, Christ was crucified from the foundation of the world. This means that at the time the world was founded, Christ was crucified, but according to our mind, the crucifixion of Christ occurred a long time after the foundation of the world. This is the way our mind considers because of the element of time.
According to the divine concept, there is no element of time; there are only facts. When the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection occurred in time makes no difference in the divine realm, which is outside of time.
Question: What is it to set our mind on the spirit?
Answer: First, it should not be a matter of setting our mind on the spirit; it should be a matter of our mind being on the spirit. Second, we must have a clear view that we are fallen people who have been saved; therefore, we have two kinds of provisions. The first is the negative provision of the old man, and the other is the positive provision of the new man, the mingled spirit. The old man is signified and represented by the flesh. The new man is signified and represented by the spirit. If we live and have our being according to the flesh, the mind is on the flesh. If we live according to the spirit, our mind is on the spirit. If we try to set our mind on the spirit, this indicates that we are not living according to the spirit. If you are living according to the spirit, your mind is spontaneously on the spirit. In this kind of condition, you are living. If you are not in this condition, you are about to die.
Question: What does it mean to be according to the flesh or according to the spirit?
Answer: To analyze or to explain what it means to live according to the spirit is hard. We may not be so clear that we are living according to the spirit, but we know for certain when we are living according to the flesh. As long as we know that we are living according to the flesh, we know that we are not living according to the spirit.
If you receive a clear vision of life from Romans 8, you are in the experience and growth in life. When I was a young Christian, I read the Bible many times, and I tried to discover how to grow in life. Eventually, I realized that the answer is implied in all the different items of the divine theology in the New Testament. This is the reason I have presented the experience of life and the growth in life as I have done in these messages. Our need is to see a vision of the experience of Christ. As you read these items of the divine theology again and again, one day you will be enlightened to see clearly how to experience Christ. We may have learned the theology of the recovery, but our need is for this theology to become our vision. When you have a vision, there is no need to merely recite these things; rather, you can just point out to people what you see of the divine scenery according to the divine view.
To give a message on the matter of life is very, very hard because life is a spontaneous thing. Suppose there is a little tree growing in front of me. If I do not touch it, it really grows, but when I touch it, the growth is bothered. It may be better not to touch it. It is the same when I fellowship with you concerning the experience of life. When I encourage you to experience life, you may not experience life. To experience life is like switching on electricity which has been installed in a building. When you need electricity to go to a lamp, you simply go to the switch, turn it on, and the light comes on. When you turn the switch off, the electricity stops, and the lamp no longer has any light. Your experience of life is the same. When you sense that the light has been turned off, you need to pray, but your prayer may also be a problem. If you pray, “Lord, set my mind on the spirit,” this prayer may not work. You should pray by allowing the interceding Spirit within you to pray by groaning (v. 26). By this kind of prayer the switch is turned on again.
Before we came into the Lord’s recovery, we might not have had any knowledge concerning the switch of the mingled spirit. Sometimes we accidently turned the switch on and just as quickly turned it off again. Today, however, in the Lord’s recovery we are not in that much darkness. We have realized that Christ is the Spirit in our spirit and that this Christ is the consummated Spirit. When He is here, life is here. Now we have to live according to this life. Just to know this much will turn the switch on. Our problem is that we do not remain here. We need to come back and pray. In our prayer it is better not to say too much. We should simply groan. Soon the switch is turned on again, and we are also happy again.
Romans 8 shows us a heavenly vision with view after view. Nearly every verse is a view. Verse 2 is a view to show you how the consummated Triune God today is life to you, and this life is a law. Verse 10 shows you another view of the consummated Triune God as Christ in your spirit. Now your spirit is life. Verse 6 presents another view concerning the mind on the spirit. Then verse 11 presents the view that the Spirit of life as the processed Triune God indwells you to give life to your body. You then become a person of life. You are life in your spirit, you are life in your mind, your soul, and you are life in your body. Once you see all these views, you then need to apply them. Whether you are about to die or live depends upon whether you live according to the flesh or according to the spirit. We must learn not to live according to the old man, the flesh, but to live according to the spirit, the new man.
