In chapter 8 of Romans several things are quite crucial to our experience. The first crucial thing as far as our experience is concerned is the matter of walking according to the spirit. This is in verse 4. Verses 1, 2, and 3 do not touch the matter of experience. The experience is mentioned first in verse 4. But you have to realize that walking is not the first point of the experience, although it is mentioned here first.
In Romans 8 the experience is not of some work that you do. Nor is it the experience of gifts such as healing. Rather, Paul’s concentration is on the inner life. In the experience of life the first point covered in Romans 8 is concerning walking. Verse 4 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.” We have mentioned previously that spirit in this verse is not capitalized, indicating that it refers to the mingled spirit. It is not merely our human spirit nor merely the Holy Spirit but the two spirits mingled together as one.
The second point concerning the life experience is in verse 6: “The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.” Here is the matter of setting your mind on the spirit.
Which of these two matters, the walking according to the spirit or the setting of the mind on the spirit, comes first? Probably the setting of the mind on the spirit comes first; first the mind is set on the spirit, and then you walk according to the spirit.
The third point concerning the experience of life in Romans 8 is the residing of the Spirit. It is His residing, but He resides in you. This is not merely His experience but His experience in you. His experience involves you. The residing experience of the Spirit of God involves you because He resides in you. It is not a kind of objective experience of the Holy Spirit apart from you or beyond you. He resides in you.
While the Spirit is residing in you, the One who raised Jesus from the dead gives life to your dying body. He not only gives life to our spirit and to our mind, the leading part of our soul, but He also gives life to our mortal body. In our entire being there is a part that is dying. Even to this dying part, this mortal part, the One who raised Jesus from the dead gives life. But He does not give life directly; He gives life through the indwelling Spirit, through the Spirit who resides in you. The giving life is also a kind of experience, but it is not your experience. It is the experience of the One who did the raising up of Jesus from the dead.
The fifth crucial point is the matter of the putting to death in verse 13. Although the putting to death is your experience, you do it through the same agent, through the Spirit or by the Spirit. In the first thirteen verses of Romans 8 there are at least five points concerning experience. Of these five points three are your experiences. You set your mind on the spirit, you walk according to the spirit, and you put to death the practices of your body by the Spirit. Then there is the experience of the residing Spirit and the experience of the One who raised Jesus from the dead. By covering all these points in the first thirteen verses, we are able to come to verse 14.
Verse 14 says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” Apparently, verse 14 is very simple. But at the beginning of this verse there is the small word for. This word for gives you a continuation with reasons, explanations, and definitions. This means that whatever is mentioned in verse 14 is a continuation and reason and explanation of what has been mentioned before. This indicates that whatever is mentioned in this verse is a result of all the foregoing, preceding experiences. It is a result of the walking according to the spirit, of the setting of the mind on the spirit, of the putting to death, of the residing of the Spirit, and of the giving life. Without these five points of experiences, there is no way to have the leading mentioned in verse 14.
The crucial point we need to pick up in verse 14 is the leading. For many years I did not pay much attention to this matter of the leading in verse 14. In the past years I have given very few messages on the leading of God. In the past I considered that the leading was somewhat common and somewhat general. But today we have to realize that the leading of the Spirit is crucial. It is important, first of all, because it is in Romans 8; whatever is in this chapter must be crucial. Second, this leading of the Spirit is a strong evidence that you are a son of God, so surely this is not a small matter.
The leading of the Spirit is very crucial because it may be considered as the totality of the experiences mentioned in verses 10 through 13. The leading of the Spirit is the totality of the experience of the residing plus the life giving plus the putting to death. Of these three things, one belongs to God—life giving. One belongs to the Spirit—residing. And one belongs to us—putting to death. Both God’s giving life and our putting to death are through the Spirit or by the Spirit.
While the Spirit of God is residing in you, He is not dormant or sleepy or silent or passive. He is very active, not in exercising some gift or in doing a miracle but in living. He is active in living. Residing actually means “living.” His residing in you actually means His living in you. The residing Spirit is not in us for doing a work or for speaking in tongues or for doing miracles. The residing Spirit is a Spirit for living. In chapter 8 there is no thought about tongue-speaking or miracle-working; there is no thought about doing a work. The thought is residing, and residing is for living.
This residing One is living in us. Within us He is very active in living. This is why God gives life. Life is mainly for living, not for working. Even humanly speaking, of the twenty-four hours in a day, only eight are used for working. The rest are for simply living. God gives life through this residing Spirit, while we do the killing. The Spirit does the residing and God gives life and we kill the practices of our body.
The more you put to death the practices of your body, the more life you will get. If you would like to have a long life, you must learn to kill the practices of your body. To put to death the practices of the body is not to commit suicide. You do not need to commit suicide all the day long. But according to the New Testament, especially Romans 8 and 2 Corinthians 4, the putting to death is not something that is once for all. It lasts all the day long. If you would be healthy, you must learn to kill the practices of your body all the time. By the practices of the body many people are committing a slow suicide. By what they eat and drink, they are committing a slow suicide. If you would practice killing the practices of your body, you would be much healthier.
Instead of talking so much, you need to pick up the habit of praising more, putting to death the practice of your body. To talk a lot is a practice of the body that needs to be put to death. Although you may say that you cannot put to death the practices of your body, still you must. You have to do it not by yourself but by the Spirit. Do not forget that the Spirit is the residing One. He resides in you, and He is involved with the Life-giver. While He is residing in you, One gives life, and you must do the putting to death.
The matter of the leading of the Spirit is so important in this chapter because it is the addition of three things: the residing, the life giving, and the putting to death. In 1949 I gave sixty lessons on the basic truths of the Bible. Among those sixty lessons, one was concerning the leading of God. In that lesson I pointed out mainly three things. I said that if you want God’s leading, you need to take care of the anointing and the inner sense. Second, you have to check with the Word, the Bible. Third, you have to take care of the circumstances. Today I would not say that was wrong, but I would say that the matter of the leading of the Spirit in Romans 8 is much deeper than this.
The matter of the leading in Romans 8 is so crucial because it is composed of the Spirit’s residing, God’s life giving, and our putting to death. As long as you experience these three things, you are being led by the Spirit of God. As long as you take care of these three matters, you are clear about everything, whether it is what kind of car you should buy, whom you should marry, or what kind of shoes you should buy. If you have the residing of the Spirit in you plus God’s giving life plus your putting to death, you will be clear in everything. You will have the leading in everything. This is the meaning of being led by the Spirit of God.
To interpret the Bible, especially a chapter like Romans 8, is not so easy. It depends upon the extent of your spiritual experience. Your understanding can never exceed your experience. Rather, your experience always leads your understanding of the Word. Only through experience could we realize that the leading of the Spirit of God in verse 14 is the totality of the Spirit’s residing within us, God’s life giving through Him, and our putting to death through Him.
In the matter of putting to death the practices of the body, do not consider whether something is good or bad. As long as it is a practice of the body, you have to put that to death. Even if it is a good practice, you have to put it to death. Unbelievers cannot understand what we are talking about. If they put to death the practices of the body, they would really be dead. They do not have another life; they do not have another One residing in them. The more we put the practices of our body to death, the more we live because within you and me there is another person, Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit.
The Christian life is not a story of a single person. The Christian life is a story of two persons living together. This is marvelous! These two live not only by coexistence but by coinherence. The three of the Godhead coexist and coinhere. They exist simultaneously, and each is in the other. When the Lord Jesus said, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?” (John 14:10), He indicated the coinherence of the Father and the Son. The preposition in indicates the coinherence.
Even with the believers and the Lord Jesus there is the coinherence. In John 15:4 the Lord Jesus said, “Abide in Me and I in you.” This is coinherence. The Christian life is a wonderful story. But this wonderful story has been neglected by today’s Christians. Very few Christians apprehend this matter of the coinherence of God and man. Of course, some do not even believe in the coinherence of the three of the Godhead—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
We must see this matter of coinherence for the sake of the Lord’s recovery today. We are in a time that is very crucial to the Lord, and the crucial point of this time is not related to outward activities, such as a big work or miracles. It is altogether related to the matter of life within us, and this has very much to do with our apprehension of this matter of the coinherence of the believers and the Lord Jesus. The story of a proper Christian life is just a story of coinherence. Once we are saved, we are not merely one person. We coinhere with the divine One. He lives in us, and we live in Him, and we two live together.
We must see that the leading of the Spirit of God is His residing and God’s giving life and your putting to death of the practices of the body. When this is your experience, it is at that time that you are evidenced as a son of God. Your life will evidence that you are a son of God. You will not need to designate yourself or wear a nametag. You will have a life of leading, which will evidence the fact that you are a son of God.
This kind of seeing, this kind of vision, will help you to set your mind on the spirit and to walk according to the spirit. When you have the leading of the Spirit, then you would set your mind on the spirit. When you have the leading of the Spirit, then you would walk according to the spirit. But the leading is not initiated by you. Are led is in the passive voice. The leading is initiated by the Spirit, yet the setting of your mind on the spirit and the walking according to the spirit are initiated by you. First, you put to death, and then you have the leading of the Spirit. Then you will set your mind on the spirit and walk according to the spirit. This sequence is according to our fine experience. Without the leading of the Spirit it might be very difficult for you to set your mind on the spirit and even more difficult for you to walk according to the spirit.
As a person who has been regenerated and saved, you have the Spirit of God residing in you. This is basic. If you do not have this residing Spirit, you have not been regenerated yet. But if you have believed in Him and called upon His name, your sins have been forgiven, and your spirit has been regenerated. You have the Spirit of God residing in you. This residing is the factor, the base, and the source of God giving life to your mortal body. Even the matter of giving life to your mortal body is an issue of the giving life into our spirit and the giving life into our mind. The giving life to our mortal body includes the giving life to our spirit and our mind. This means that God is giving life to our entire being, not only to the spirit and not only to our mind but also to our body. God is giving life; He is supplying you with the life essence into your entire being.
What then is our responsibility? Our responsibility is just to cooperate by putting to death the practices of our body. To put to death the practices of the body means to put our natural living to death. A person who has been regenerated and who has the residing Spirit within him giving life should not live any longer in a natural way. The way to put the practices of the body to death is simply not to live in a natural way. If naturally you like to talk, put that to death. If naturally you like to eat a lot of dessert, put that to death. If naturally you love sports, put that to death. To put to death all the natural living is to put to death the practices of the body.
When you have the residing of the Spirit, the life giving of God, and your putting to death, you will have the leading of the Spirit. At that time it will be so easy for you to set your mind on the spirit and to walk according to the spirit. Within, you will have a lot of life supply; without, you will have the righteousness of the law. When you walk according to the spirit, the righteousness of God will be fulfilled in you. You do not need to fulfill it; it will be fulfilled in you. Within, you have the life supply, and without, you have the life expression. The life supply within you is the Spirit, and the life expression without is righteousness. According to 2 Corinthians 3:6 and 9, this is the ministry that ministers the Spirit and righteousness to people, so it is the ministry of the Spirit as well as of righteousness. This is the new testament ministry. This is the new covenant ministry, ministering the Spirit within and righteousness without. Within, you will be filled with life supply, and without, you will have a full expression of righteousness.
