In this chapter we come to Romans 8:10 once again: “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.” According to what we covered in the last chapter, this verse has three facts: Christ is in us, our body is dead, and our spirit is life. You have to realize that these three facts are too great, too profound, too all-inclusive. Regardless of what the scientists and scholars have found out scientifically concerning man, they are much inferior to Paul because they do not know the things of man as Paul did. This phrase the things of man comes from 1 Corinthians 2:11, where Paul points out that no one among men can know the things of man, except the spirit of man which is in him. Paul knew the things of man because he exercised his spirit.
Recently, I pointed out to some that in the Far East Confucius was and still is considered a very wise man. His writings became a kind of controlling factor or influence over all the Far East people. His writings in the Far East are like the Bible in the Western world. The Western world has been kept ethically and morally mainly because of the influence of the Bible. Although he was wise humanly speaking, according to Paul’s words, Confucius did not know the things of man. For example, in his writings Confucius indicates that if you offend God, you have no way to be forgiven. But Paul not only tells you how you can be forgiven but how you can be justified and sanctified and even how your body can be redeemed in the future. Paul points out so many of the things of man in the first two chapters of 1 Corinthians, and then he says that you have to exercise your spirit to know these things (2:11). Confucius says that if you offend the heavens, you have no way to be forgiven; this indicates that he did not really know the real things of man. He did not know man’s position, man’s source, and man’s destiny. The real things of man are not the daily necessities, such as a wife or a husband or children or parents or a house or a car. The real things of man are your source, where you came from, and your position, your standing before God. Furthermore, the real things of man are your destiny and your destination, the meaning of your life.
If you are going to know the things of man, you have to come to the Bible. But although many Christians do have the Bible, many of them do not know the things of man because they do not exercise their spirit. They only exercise their mentality. After they were born, they were taught by their parents and by their teachers to exercise their mentality. Actually, they were not taught the things of man. Only the Bible teaches the real things of man, telling your source, your condition, your position, your standing, your future, your destiny, your destination, and the meaning of your life. The Bible tells us these things, but when many Christians come to the Bible, they do not pick up these things. Rather, they bring a lot of things into the Bible. They rewrite the Bible according to their concept. What is really in the Bible, they do not have the eyes to see because they do not use their spirit.
The Corinthians were too philosophical. They knew many things, but Paul says that they did not know the things of man. Paul indicates that only by the spirit of man can we know the things of man. What Paul wrote to them did not need their Greek mentality and their philosophical mind with their philosophizing wisdom; it needed their spirit. They needed to exercise their spirit. Only the spirit of man knows the things of man. What a pity that today even among some Christian teachers there is a kind of school called the school of dichotomy, which says that man is of two parts. They say that the human spirit is just the human soul. So they simply exercise their mind, neglecting their spirit. This is a big mistake made by many Christians today. They consider that the human spirit is the human soul, that the human soul is the human heart, that the human heart is the human mind. So as long as they exercise their mind, they feel that they are right. That was exactly what the Corinthians practiced. They exercised their mind. This is why in 1 Corinthians 1:10 Paul was trying to attune them to the same opinion, to the same mind. Then in chapter 2 he encourages them to take care of their spirit by asking them, “Who among men knows the things of man, except the spirit of man which is in him?” In 4:21 Paul asks whether they wanted him to come to them with a rod or in love and a spirit of meekness. Paul was one really living in the human spirit.
Furthermore, in chapter 5 Paul even attended their meeting by his spirit. Verse 3 says, “I, on my part, though being absent in the body but present in the spirit, have already judged, as if being present, him who has thus done this.” In chapter 6 Paul points out that he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. He does not say “one mind” but “one spirit.” Finally, in 16:18 Paul says that some brothers refreshed his spirit and others’. He says that you have to acknowledge, that is, to regard and respect, such a one. From these verses you can see that the wonderful book of 1 Corinthians is a book very much on the spirit of man.
In order for you to know the things of man mentioned in Romans 8:10, I would encourage you to exercise your spirit and even to trust in the Spirit of God. This one verse nearly covers all the things of man and all the things of God. I would not say that it covers entirely the things of man and the things of God, but I would say that it nearly covers all the things of man and all the things of God. Two things are here: flesh and spirit. The flesh is death, and the spirit is life. Of course, these two matters are the things of man. Few people today really know what is the flesh and what is the spirit. They do not know because they do not use their spirit. Quite often in the past we have pointed out that to know certain things you have to use certain organs. It does not work to exercise your nose to hear a voice. Nor does it work to exercise your ears to smell garlic. In like manner to know the real things of man, the organ we must exercise is our spirit. Even the fact that man was made in the image of God and according to the likeness of God is a thing of man. Based upon the real knowledge, man is according to God’s kind. Genesis 1 speaks of every creature being according to its kind. The donkeys and horses are according to their kind; an apple is according to its kind. But man is not according to his kind but according to God’s kind. Man was made in the image of God and according to the likeness of God. You need to learn to know these things concerning man by exercising your spirit.
In Romans 8:10 there are two things: man’s flesh and man’s spirit. Do you realize that there is a big history related to the human flesh and a big history related to the human spirit? You have two histories: the history of your flesh and the history of your spirit. The first historical fact related to our flesh is that of creation. Your personal history begins with Genesis 1:26, where you were created by God. But you have to realize that God at that time did not create a flesh but a body. It was only in Genesis 3 after the fall that man’s body became a flesh. So the first historical fact of our flesh’s history is the fall. The fall means that Satan came into man’s body. When man ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that fruit did not enter into man’s mind or soul or into man’s spirit but into his body. And you have to realize that that tree denotes Satan because God warned Adam that if he ate of that tree, he would die. Death is the issue of touching that tree. Hebrews 2:14 tells us that Satan is the one who has the might of death. So that tree must denote Satan, just as the tree of life signifies God Himself.
Satan, at the fall of man, got into man’s body. Romans 7 proves this. Romans 7:23 says that in man’s members, that is, in the parts of man’s body, is the law of sin. The first historical fact of your flesh is man’s fall. Through man’s fall, Satan got into man’s body, causing man’s body to become an evil thing. The body was corrupted and ruined, becoming the flesh. So the God-created body, after being ruined and corrupted, became a Satan-occupied flesh. Thus, the story of the flesh here in Romans 8:10 is not that simple. In man’s flesh there is God’s adversary whose name is Satan. His name also is sin. Satan, of course, means a kind of enemy and adversary. But it is difficult to give a definition of sin. According to the Hebrew language, Satan means an enemy who is not an outside opponent but an inside one. But what is sin? Although you may read many definitions, most of these have never touched the real meaning of sin. You have to realize that sin is just Satan. As God’s adversary, the devil is Satan, but as the one ruining and corrupting man, Satan is sin. On the one hand, Satan is opposing and attacking God, and on the other hand, sin is ruining and corrupting man. This sin is Satan himself. The first historical fact of our flesh is that Satan entered into our flesh, and the second main point of the history of our flesh is that sin is in our flesh. The sin that opposes God and attacks God and that ruins and corrupts man is in the flesh. This is why Paul, in Romans 7:18, says he knew that in him, that is, in his flesh, nothing good was dwelling. In his flesh was just something attacking God and ruining man. And the issue is death. This is the third main point of the history of our flesh. Satan entered into the flesh, sin is in the flesh, and death is the issue of sin in the flesh. So there is Satan and sin and death.
Now we come to the history of our spirit. Of course, man’s spirit was also first created by God, yet after man’s fall, his spirit became deadened and lost its spiritual function toward God. One crucial hint in the Bible concerning the human spirit has been missed by nearly all the Christians. If you read the Bible carefully with your experience of the spiritual life, you could realize that even after the fall of man, God preserved man’s spirit. Man’s spirit was not only created by God, but also it has been preserved by God. It was influenced by man’s fall so that it became deadened and lost its function, but it was not invaded by God’s enemy. It seems that God drew a line of separation around man’s spirit. This is based upon the teaching of Job. Job was attacked by Satan, but his life was preserved by God. Job speaks about the human spirit in a strong way. Job 32:8 says, “There is a spirit in man, / And the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding.”
You have to realize that human life actually is the human spirit. We may say that human life is in the human body because there we have a kind of physical life. Temporarily you can say that. The Greek word bios is the root for what medical doctors refer to as biological life. But it is difficult even for the medical doctors to tell you what is life in the human body. Actually, when man’s spirit goes away from his body, the life is gone. And that life is not the physical bios. That is the real life of man, and according to God’s creation in Genesis 2:7, man’s spirit came from the breath of God. That breath is man’s spirit. We know this from Proverbs 20:27, which says, “The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah, / Searching all the innermost parts of the inner being.”
That breath is also man’s life, because Genesis 2:7 indicates that when the breath of God came into the nostrils of man, man became a living soul. You cannot divide or separate the human life from the human spirit. Actually, the human spirit is the life of man. This is hard to understand because life is altogether a mystery. But anyhow you do have this hint in the Bible that the human spirit is the human life. When God preserved Job’s life, it means that God preserved Job’s spirit. Satan touched Job’s body, and he touched Job’s mind, but he never touched Job’s life, his spirit. His spirit was preserved by God.
Even a fallen sinner, an unbeliever, has a spirit that has been preserved by God. When you were doing sinful things before you got saved, deep within you, a part was different. You would say that that was your conscience. This is right. The conscience is the leading part of your spirit. With even the most fallen person, the spirit is preserved. If a fallen person would take care of his conscience, he would never rob a bank; he would not steal; he would not go to sinful places. All the sinful things are against the conscience, and the conscience is the leading part of the spirit. You have to realize that your conscience has never sinned, even before you were saved. This means that even before you were saved, your spirit was preserved. Do you know what the genuine and real gospel preaching is? It is to touch the human conscience. This is because the human spirit is preserved by God.
The history of our spirit is that it was first created by God and then preserved by God. Third, our spirit was regenerated by God. Satan never came into our spirit, and sin has never been in our spirit. Only vacancy was in our spirit. Before we were regenerated, our spirit was vacant. One day the very Creator, the source of life who is even life, came into our spirit. Right away we were regenerated. The Redeemer, the Savior, came into our spirit. When we believed on Him and called on His name, receiving Him as our Savior, He came into our spirit.
The strange thing is this: we receive Him as our Savior, but He comes in as the Spirit. We can see this from Romans 8:10-11: “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. And 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.” Verse 10 says that Christ is in you, and verse 11 says that the Spirit dwells in you. Christ, of course, refers to the Savior, the Redeemer. The Spirit refers to the Indweller. When the Indweller was there redeeming you, His title was Christ. When the Redeemer entered into you, His title was the Spirit. How foolish to oppose the matter of Christ being the Spirit! If Christ is not the Spirit, how can these two verses be reconciled? Christ is in you, and the Spirit dwells in you. These are not two Dwellers but one Dweller in two senses. In the sense of redemption, our Dweller is Christ, and in the sense of indwelling, our Dweller is the Spirit. Christ is the Spirit.
Now we come to another point of the history of the spirit. When Christ as the Spirit enters into your spirit, He comes in as righteousness. When He comes in, righteousness comes in. Righteousness means to be right with God. It is just the opposite of sin. Sin is opposing God, and righteousness is to be right with God. Sin ruins man, and righteousness reconstitutes man. There is a restitution. When Satan entered your flesh, he became sin, and the sin in your flesh day after day just corrupts you. But when Christ as the Spirit enters into your spirit, righteousness is within you all the time making you so right with God and all the time restituting you. This righteousness is not ruining you; it is remodeling and rearranging you. He is reconstituting you. This is a real restitution. I believe you all can testify that since you received the Lord Jesus, you have experienced a lot of restitution. Before I got saved, as a young man I was under the worsening of Satan. The sin that was dwelling in me was causing me to be worse and ruining me all the day. But one day I received Christ in a kind of gospel-preaching meeting, and afterward, while I was walking on the street, I gave myself to God. From that moment restitution began, and even today this restitution work is still going on. This is righteousness, making you right with God. When you are right with God, you will be right with everyone. You will have no problem with anyone. This is righteousness.
What then is the issue of righteousness? The issue of sin is death, and the issue of righteousness is life. So in our spirit we have three things: Christ the Spirit, righteousness, and life. In our flesh are also three things: Satan, sin, and death. You have to realize that this is your history. These are the real things of man. This is your genealogy, but since you became a Christian, you probably have never paid attention to these matters. Rather, you considered other matters, such as knowing the Bible, improving yourself, or going to the mission field. You have to pay attention to your genealogy and your history. Chapter 1 of your history shows that Satan entered your flesh, and sin followed it and is still here. And death is still here. But the second chapter is that Christ came into your spirit, righteousness followed, and life was the result.
You need to forget about everything else and just take care of this kind of spiritual history. You have to know yourself. You have to know your flesh, and you have to know your spirit. Paul says that if Christ is in you, your flesh, or your body, is dead, and your spirit is life. If we would get into this verse, we must know our history. We must know the history of our flesh and the history of our spirit; then we would know ourselves. If you know these matters in an adequate way, not only are they a kind of revelation, but they are also a kind of salvation. The knowing is the salvation. You would jump and dance and praise and shout and even mock Satan: “Satan, now I know where you are. You are in my flesh. Do you know that in my spirit is the One you hate? The One you hate so much is right next door to you. You are in my flesh, but He is deeper, in my spirit. Satan, let me tell you, this is bad news to you. I will never remain with you in the flesh. I will always stay with the One you hate, who is in my spirit.”
Believe me, if you would shout in such a way and tell Satan these things, it would be much better than your prayer to overcome your temper and your weakness. We all can testify that those kinds of prayers were rarely answered. But when we shout and praise and sing, we would enjoy our spiritual history and genealogy. Satan would be under our feet.
