Prayer: Lord, we thank You again for this gathering. How we worship You for Your speaking! Lord, we thank You that You are the speaking God. And even, Lord, we thank You that You are the very Word, the Word You have given to us. Now we do have Your Word within us, and we thank You for Your present-day speaking. How we thank You for all the churches with so many seeking saints coming together often to be Your oracle for Your speaking. Lord, we do worship You for this speaking. Lord, do speak to us tonight. Lord, we believe that we are one spirit with You. Lord, in our speaking, just be one spirit with us. We have no trust in our understanding, in our utterance. Lord, we like to have You to be our understanding and to be our utterance. Lord, we need You. We need You in Your Word. We need Yourself, Lord, to fill up the definition of Your Word. Lord, thank You, even though the age is dark, yet Your Word is shining among us. What a miracle! What a mercy! Lord, week after week we can come here to be Your oracle. Thank You, Lord, that today on this earth You have such an oracle for Your speaking. Lord, what a privilege that we can listen to Your speaking! Thank You, Lord; Your speaking is Your real, gracious visitation. And Lord, our listening is a real mercy and a grace. We trust in You in this verse, Romans 8:10. Lord, You know that this is deep, and this is profound; this is mysterious, and this is rich. Lord, we need Your vision; we need Your enlightenment. Lord, do utter Yourself out of this verse and into every one of us. Lord, thank You that we all are trainees. Lord, we believe that You will touch everyone. You will speak a special word to everyone. We bring all the dear seekers to You. Do meet every need tonight. Lord, we thank You that You have accomplished everything, and now You are in us. You are in us! We thank You, Lord, that You are the indwelling Christ, so subjective to us. Lord, do sustain us; be our speaking, and cover everyone and anoint everyone. Anoint every understanding and even every corner of this meeting. Bind Your enemy, Lord! Even we bind him. We bind the strong man in Your mighty name, under Your precious blood! So prevailing! We praise You, and we thank You!
In this chapter we will spend our entire time on one verse, Romans 8:10. It says, “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.” I believe we all can see that in this verse three facts are covered: number one, Christ is in us; number two, the body is dead because of sin; number three, the spirit is life because of righteousness. These are the three facts, and this verse shows that these three facts transpire within us at the same time. The word if also means “since” or “when.” So the verse could read, “Since Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness,” or “When Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.” These three facts transpire in us at the same time. But the problem is that among so many Christians, their experiences have not been like this.
Later on, we will see that the Christian experiences are many times of two layers. Of course, we know that nearly everything is of two layers. It seems that nothing can exist by one layer. This is why we often speak of something being on the surface and something else being on the bottom. Or we may say that the surface looks a certain way, but the bottom is not like that. We may consider the surface as the first layer and the bottom as the layer that is beneath the surface. Even with your skin there is the outside layer, and there is the inside layer. In the same principle, the Christian experience has two layers. One layer is more superficial, and the other layer is deeper and more genuine. According to the superficial experience of Christians, Romans 8:10 has not yet been fulfilled. But actually, this verse has been fulfilled with every genuine Christian. On the surface this verse seems not to have been fulfilled in nearly all the Christians. But according to the genuine experience, the experience at the bottom of your Christian experience, this verse actually has been fulfilled quite often. It is not a matter of fulfillment once for all; it is a continual daily fulfillment.
Let me explain. When we were saved, we probably at that time had no knowledge that Christ came into us. I must declare that my conversion was very thorough. I was converted and began and even continued to seek after the Lord and to love the study of His Word. But for some time I did not have the knowledge that Christ was in me. I read the Bible, but the impression that Christ was in me did not enter into me because this kind of understanding is altogether absent from our natural understanding. In our natural understanding, we pick up the thought that we need to honor our parents and love our neighbors. We all have this kind of understanding. So when we come to the Bible, these are the things that we pick up. We see the word that says we should honor the parents and love the neighbors and submit to the husbands and so forth. It is easy for these things to get into our understanding. But the matter of Christ being in us is altogether foreign to our natural understanding. As a young Christian, I was taught many things from the Bible, but I was not taught concerning Christ being in me. So I did not have the knowledge of this matter.
But even though we did not have such a knowledge, right after we were saved, we began to discover that within us there was a conflict. As a young Christian, I was taught that this conflict is a war between our two natures. I was taught that after we are saved, we have a new nature, and this new nature is altogether different from the old nature. The old nature is altogether against the new nature. So there is a war, a conflict, within us. Although this is right, to say this is somewhat superficial. You have to realize that this conflict is not only a war. Right after you got saved, you began to discover that in your being there is a part that is not so good. You began to discover that something within you was all the time against your desire. You desired to do this and to do that for the glory of God, but something within you would not allow you to do it. You did not know what that was. You have to remember that before you were saved, your sensation was at least somewhat different. Before you were saved, your sensation probably was that you were good and that you could do whatever you wanted to do. You might even have boasted in what you could do. But after you were saved, that boasting began to shake or to be weak. Although sometimes you might still boast outwardly, yet within, you felt that you did not have the assurance concerning your boasting. I believe that we all have had this kind of discovery. Even after we were saved, we discovered that it was easy to fall back into our old condition. After you were saved, you probably made up your mind not to do certain sinful things. But we know that that kind of making up of the mind cannot last very long. Then you found yourself going back to those sinful things. But while you were falling back to your old condition again, you made another discovery: something within that was so vigorous, so strong, and so protesting was standing against you. Did you not have this kind of discovery? After you were saved, did you not discover that in your being some part was not so good and at the same time also that something within you was vigorous, something was unquenchable, something was so strong, standing unshakable?
The tragedy is that we were born spiritually of some who never educated us concerning these things, so we did not know what was happening. I do know a number of saved saints who went back to gambling or to some other sin. They all testified that while they were there sinning, something within them was still loving the Lord Jesus. They felt that they had no peace; they felt that they had no standing to talk about the Lord, yet deep within them they still had the sensation that they loved the Lord Jesus. Even while they were involved in something sinful, they would testify that deep within them they still loved the Lord Jesus. Because of this kind of experience, some of them would begin to doubt whether or not they were really saved. A number of times I strengthened them by telling them that even though they were fallen, the fact that they still loved the Lord Jesus and even had doubts of whether or not they had been saved was strong proof that they had been saved.
Such a situation would cause you to discover two aspects. One is negative, and the other is positive. What is the negative side? That the body is dead. What is the positive side? That the spirit is life. After you were saved and when you slid back into your sin, you experienced two things: your body is dead, and your spirit is life.
We may use the example of a husband and wife. Sooner or later, every married couple would argue. Have you not argued? And while you are arguing and doing these kinds of defeated things, do you not have a kind of sensation within you that it is a shame for you to say that you love the Lord? It seems that you do not love the Lord, but if this were really the fact, why do you have the feeling that it is a shame for you to say that you love the Lord? This means that you have a desire, an aspiration, within you to love the Lord. But you feel that you are not qualified to love the Lord. While you were fighting with your wife or your husband, you were still aspiring to love the Lord. While you were being so bad, you were still aspiring to love the Lord. But at the same time you discovered that you were unable to do so. Dear saints, this is a real fulfillment of Romans 8:10. When Christ is in you, your body is dead. Probably you have never realized that your body is a corpse. Before you were saved, you probably considered that your body was wonderful, not a corpse. You may even have admired yourself in the mirror. But then you got saved. In a sense to get saved means to get into trouble. You began to realize that something in some part of your being was not that good. In the beginning you could not designate it, but later on you realized that it was your body. Eventually, you would begin to hate your body. Nearly all the Christian troubles come from our dead body. Soon after you were saved, you discovered two things: your body is dead, and your spirit is life. The longer you are a Christian, the more you will discover that your body is a corpse, a dead thing. Death is the topmost weakness. When you become weak to the uttermost, you die. The longer you are a Christian, the more you find out that you are weak and ugly and even stinking. And the more you discover that you are such a carcass, the more you want to love the Lord. And the more you want to love the Lord, the more you cannot make it. In other words the more you like to love the Lord, the more you become a carcass.
Then you would become disappointed and say that you cannot make it. I must tell you the truth that I cannot make it either. Recently, I had a talk with a dear saint who said he was discouraged and disappointed. I told him that he needed the discouragement and disappointment. Actually, on the negative side the Christian life is always a discouraging life. Before you were saved, you may not have been in so much discouragement. But eventually you were saved, and you came into the church life. Let me tell you that the church life is just a discouraging life. Yet the more you become discouraged, the more you want the church life. But the more you have the church life, the more you get discouraged. The church-life honeymoon could never last very long. But the strange thing is that the more the church-life honeymoon tries to stop, the more you endeavor to keep it. You want to keep your church-life honeymoon for eternity. All these experiences are related to the one discovery that when Christ is in you, your body is dead, and your spirit is life. Underneath the surface, in the depth of our Christian experience, our Christian life and our church life are really according to what is described in Romans 8:10.
When Christ is in you, your body is dead, and your spirit is life. I use and instead of yet because these three facts are transpiring at the same time. Whenever we love the Lord, we discover that our body is dead and that our spirit is life. We Christians all have Christ in us, but sometimes according to our feeling and according to our defeated experience, Christ is not in us. When, experientially speaking, Christ is not in you, you do not feel that your body is dead. You feel that your body is very smart and very strong. And you do not feel that you have a spirit that is life within you. These also are three facts: Christ not being in you, your body not being dead, and your spirit not being life. Perhaps this was your experience yesterday. But today in your experience Christ comes back. When Christ comes back, the other two things also come back. When Christ comes back, the fact that the body is dead and the fact that the spirit is life also come back. These three always go together as companions. Now I believe that you can see that Romans 8:10 has been fulfilled in you.
Let us study something further. Two of these three facts have factors. The body being dead has a factor, and the spirit being life also has a factor. There is a reason that the body is dead, and there is a reason that the spirit is life. The body is dead because of sin, and the spirit is life because of righteousness. There are two things here: sin and righteousness. Sin is the factor of our body being dead, and righteousness is the factor of our spirit being life. One verse in the New Testament, 2 Corinthians 5:21, covers sin and righteousness clearly, definitely, correctly, and accurately. It says, “Him who did not know sin He made sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Christ was made sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness. This means that God made Christ sin on our behalf, that we might become God’s righteousness in Him, that is, in Christ. This verse covers two crucial things—sin and righteousness—and if we would experience Romans 8:10, we must get into this verse. Our body is dead because of sin, and our spirit is life because of righteousness. And Christ was made by God to be the sin which is the factor of our body being dead. And we become the righteousness which is the factor of our spirit being life. This is not easy to apprehend.
What is sin? And what is righteousness? Although we cannot cover these two matters thoroughly at this time, still I would tell you that sin is Satan, and righteousness is God. We have to realize that sin is the embodiment of Satan. When sin is personified, it is Satan, because sin is the very embodiment of Satan, the totality of Satan. In the same principle, righteousness is just the totality of God. When righteousness is personified, it is God. Jeremiah 23:6 speaks of “Jehovah our righteousness.” This means that Jehovah Himself, not just some kind of virtue in His divine nature, is our righteousness. In the New Testament, especially in 1 Corinthians 1:30, we are told that Christ today is our righteousness. Righteousness is a person, a unique person—God Himself. It is not an angel that is righteousness, and it is not a man who is righteousness. Righteousness is a person; so sin must also be a person.
We are captives either of God or of Satan. You have to realize that when Satan seduced man and entered into man, he became sin. What is sin? Sin is the very rebel of God who seduced man and entered into man. This is sin. Now we need to read Romans 7:17 and 18: “Now then it is no longer I that work it out but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but to work out the good is not.” By reading these two verses in Romans 7, we can see that sin must be a person because it can deceive me, it can kill me, and it dwells in me. No doubt, this sin, this person, is Satan. Of course, we have already pointed out that righteousness is the very divine person of God. God Himself is our righteousness. When man got fallen, sin, or Satan, entered into him, into his body. This is why Romans 7:23 speaks of the sin in the members of our body. Because sin is in our body, sin corrupts our body, making our body no more a pure body but flesh. God never created a flesh. God created a body. But sin has made our God-created body a fallen flesh.
But now we have gotten saved, and God has entered into us. When God entered into us, God became our righteousness. Into what part did God enter? Into our spirit. Sin entered into our body, and sin brought in death, or issued in death. According to Romans 5:12, sin entered into the world, and death followed. Sin brought in death. In the same principle, when righteousness entered into our spirit, righteousness brought in life. So both Romans 5:17 and 21 speak of righteousness issuing in life. This righteousness is just God Himself. We all have to realize that we have one person in our body, who is termed sin, and we have another person in our spirit, who is called righteousness. Sin in our body makes our body dead. Righteousness in our spirit makes our spirit life. It is not only living but even the source of being living, that is, life.
According to your Christian discovery, have you not realized that in your body there is nothing good, that in your flesh there is nothing good? All the things there are bad. Also in your Christian discovery, have you not seen that in your spirit there is life? Not only are many good things there, but life is there. Even while you were doing something sinful, within there was a part that was vigorous. Nothing can quench it, and nothing can put it down. Even if you try to put it down, it still jumps up. Something vital and something vigorous is in your being, and that is your spirit being life through righteousness. And this righteousness is just God.
Still you may ask concerning the definition of sin and concerning the definition of righteousness. It is not so easy to give a satisfactory definition of these two things. According to my experience, righteousness means to be right with God. Why is telling a lie sin? And why is telling the truth righteousness? It is because telling the truth is right with God, and telling a lie is rebellion against God. What is righteousness? It is to be right with God. What is sin? It is to rebel against God. Even if you give a gift to a person, if that is against God, it is sin. You may tell the truth to someone, yet if that telling of the truth is against God, it is sin. Sin is rebellion against God. Righteousness is to be right with God. In the whole universe the standard is not any kind of regulation or law; the standard is God Himself. When you are right with Him, that is righteousness. When you are against Him, that is sin. Do you realize that even a good thing such as the preaching of the gospel could be sin? Your preaching of the gospel might be something not according to God’s will. It might be according to your preference and your choice. This would mean that it is not right with God. Instead of being righteousness, it would be rebellion against God.
We have to realize that in our flesh, in our body, there is nothing but just the totality of rebellion against God. Not only when your body does bad things, but even when your body does good things, it is still in rebellion against God. It is not right with God. What is right with God is in your spirit. What is in your spirit is always right with God; even that is God Himself, because God Himself is in your spirit. As long as you have God, as long as you live God, and as long as you go along with God, you are right with God. So you have the righteousness of God, and this righteousness is the factor causing your spirit to be life.
