In this chapter we need once more to look into the first fourteen verses of Romans 8. As we have pointed out in the past, verse 14 is a conclusion of this portion of the Word. It is the result of the preceding thirteen verses. We know that this concluding verse is mainly on one matter, that is, the leading by the Spirit of God. The matter of leading is the crucial point in this concluding verse.
Now we have to see all the points in these verses, both on the negative side and on the positive side. Every point is a component of the leading. The leading by the Spirit is composed with all these points. Some are negative, and some are positive. Whether they are negative or positive, all are components for the composition of the leading by the Spirit. Although a number of messages have been given on this verse, still we need to see all the components, all the composing items, of this matter of leading.
Romans 8:1 says that “there is now then no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” This is the opening verse. In the concluding verse, verse 14, the crucial point is leading, and in the opening verse the crucial point is condemnation. If you have the leading, that means, practically speaking, you are out of condemnation. Although you may consider that verse 1 stands by itself, you cannot isolate it. You have to connect it to the following verses. Do not think that as long as you are in Christ, there is no condemnation. It is a conditional matter. It is not an unconditional fact that there is no condemnation. What are the conditions? The conditions are in the following verses. If the following verses are not fulfilled in you, the condemnation is still there. If verses 2 through 14 are not being fulfilled in you, you are not in Romans 8. You are in Romans 7.
Romans 7:24 says, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” Then Paul gives the answer in verse 25: “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin.” Are you going to get out of the condemnation? Then you must be in Christ. This kind of being in Christ is not the initial stage. The initial stage of being in Christ is for salvation. It is not for a kind of victorious deliverance such as what Paul needed in Romans 7.
Romans 5:10 tells us that through His death we were reconciled to God, but after that, we are being saved in His life. So Romans 8 indicates a kind of being in Christ conditionally. This is not the first stage, the initial stage, of being in Christ. This is the continuous stage of being in Christ.
To be in Christ is a positional matter. Positionally speaking, every believer who has been redeemed by the blood of Christ and who has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit is in Christ. This is a matter of position. But you still may be defeated and sinful, even as that sinful brother was in 1 Corinthians 5. He was a brother, and he was in Christ, but at that time he was in Christ only positionally. Experientially and actually he was out of Christ. Surely he was not living in Christ.
But Romans 8:1 does not refer to that kind of being in Christ. It does not refer to the initial stage of being in Christ. Romans 8:1 refers to the following stage of being in Christ, which is modified by verses 2 through 13. If you have all the following verses fulfilled, then you are in Romans 8:1. Spontaneously, you also are in Romans 8:14. As long as you are under the leading by the Spirit of God, there is no condemnation to you. But if you are not under the leading by the Spirit of God, you are still under condemnation. You have to cry that you are still a wretched man.
Verse 2 begins with the word for to tell us why there is no condemnation in Christ. It is because of the law of the Spirit of life. Here you have three components: the law, the Spirit, and life. These three words may be considered as the first three letters of the alphabet used to compose the word leading. Here we may consider that the law is A, that the Spirit is B, and that the life is C. The following verses contain the rest of the letters.
In the latter part of verse 2 there are three negative letters of the alphabet: the law, sin, and death. Now we have three positive letters and three negative letters. In verse 3 there is a fourth letter of the negative alphabet, the flesh.
The fourth positive letter of the alphabet is in verse 4: “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.” In this verse we have to pick up the word spirit with a small letter s. This is our spirit with the Spirit added to it. This is the mingled spirit.
Verse 5 also begins with the word for: “For those who are according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but those who are according to the spirit, the things of the Spirit.” In this verse first we have to pick up the things. Here it mentions not only the flesh but the things of the flesh. This is the negative E in our alphabet. In this same verse we need to pick up also the positive E in our alphabet: the things of the Spirit.
In verse 6 is another component, another letter of the alphabet, the mind. Is this positive or negative? It depends upon where it is set. If the mind is set on the flesh, this is a negative mind. But if the mind is set on the spirit, this is a positive mind. So we can add the mind set on the flesh to our list of negative letters of the alphabet, and we can add the mind set on the spirit to our list of positive letters. Then there is the matter of life and peace. So we may add peace to our alphabet on the positive side.
Verse 7 speaks of the mind set on the flesh being enmity against God. Enmity becomes another letter of the negative alphabet. Enmity is something against God. In verse 9 there is another component, another letter, of the alphabet, the Spirit of God. Notice that the Spirit of life in verse 2 is a letter and that the Spirit of God in this verse is another letter. In other words, now you have God. In verse 2 you have life only, the Spirit of life. But now you have God. Of course, this is another positive letter. Verse 9 gives us another component, the Spirit of Christ. You have both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ.
In verse 10 is another negative letter of the alphabet: “The body is dead.” Here the body is negative because it is a dead body. Because of sin it is dead. In verse 11 is the One who raised Jesus from the dead. This is another positive component. It is not a small thing for Paul to speak of the One who raised Jesus from the dead. Even if Paul had simply said that the Spirit of God dwells in you, there would have been no fault. But he speaks in a more complicated way, a more significant way: “The Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead.” The One is a positive component, and the word dead is another negative item. The Lord Jesus was raised from the dead.
Verse 12 says that we are debtors. Debtors are not neutral. Surely debtors are on the negative side. In verse 13 there are the practices of the body, another negative item. Finally, in verse 14 there are the sons of God. Of course, this is a positive item. If you mean business to know and to realize what the leading of the Spirit is, you must get into these twenty-two items. First, try to get into the negative items. In the Bible night comes first, and then the day follows. For example, in Genesis 1 there is evening first, and then there is morning (vv. 5, 8). That is one day. So first get into the evening, into the night, that is, the negative items. Then get into the day, that is, the positive items.
If you will get into these negative items and even pray-read these negative items, you will see who you were and perhaps still are. You will see in what condition and situation you were and still are. You will realize and you will see your real being. Of these eleven negative letters, two tell us who we were and perhaps who we still are: dead persons and debtors. Then the rest of the nine negative letters tell us something of our condition and our situation. As long as you are even a little bit involved with these nine items of your natural situation, you are not under the leading by the Spirit. The leading by the Spirit is altogether outside the sphere of these eleven negative items.
By this you can see how mistaken Christians have been in their talk about the leading of God. They have thought that they have the leading of God, yet they are still under sin, under the sinful law, even under a kind of spiritual death. They do not have peace with God; rather, they have a kind of enmity with God. Their mind is not on the spirit but rather on the flesh. They have a lot of practices of the mortal body. Yet they think that they are under the leading of God. No! Regardless of how much you think or feel that you are under the leading of God, you are actually outside of it. You are actually far beyond the leading of God, because the leading of the Spirit is altogether something far beyond these eleven items.
You say that you have the leading of God, but are you a living person or a dead person? You say that you have the Lord’s leading to do this or to do that, but when you do that, are you a debtor, or are you a released person? Forty to fifty years ago I had many experiences of this kind of thing. At that time I could even tell people boldly that I had the leading of the Lord, yet truthfully, I felt I was dead. On the one hand, I thought I was under the leading of God. But on the other hand, I had the sensation that I was dead, that I was a debtor, that I was not free. I did not have the peace with God; there was a kind of enmity within me.
We need to remember all these eleven items of negative letters in Romans 8. This will help us to realize whether or not the leading we have is by the Spirit. If the leading is by the Spirit, it surely does not have any of these eleven items. Too many times what we thought was the leading by the Spirit actually was not. Actually, it was composed with some other letters.
On the positive side there are eleven letters to spell out the leading of the Spirit. These are such positive components. There is the law of life, there is the Spirit of life, and there is the life of God. There is also the mingled spirit. This is our human spirit mingled with the life-giving Spirit. Then there are the things of such a mingled spirit. There is the mind set on such a spirit. Then follows the peace. Then comes God, the Spirit of God. This means that the Spirit and God, God and the Spirit, are just one. The Spirit of God means that God is the Spirit. In the same way the Spirit of Christ means that Christ is the Spirit. There is the One, the resurrecting One, who raised Jesus from the dead. So the Triune God is here. The Spirit of life is the Spirit Himself. The Spirit of God is God the Father as the Spirit. And the Spirit of Christ is God the Son as the Spirit. All three are here as the One who raised Jesus from the dead.
Have you noticed that the New Testament tells us three aspects concerning Christ’s resurrection? First, the New Testament tells us that God, that is, God the Father, raised Him up (Acts 2:24, 32). In this case Christ was not active; He was passive because He was raised up by God the Father. But other verses in the New Testament tell us that Christ Himself rose up (1 Thes. 4:14; 1 Cor. 15:12). This is not the passive voice but the active voice. Third, the New Testament also tells us that God raised Jesus by the power of the Spirit (Rom. 8:11). These three aspects show us that in the resurrection of Christ, the three of the Godhead were all involved.
Finally, there is the matter of the sons of God. We were debtors; we were dead persons. But now we are sons of God. To be a son of God means that we are full of life, that we are in maturity, that we are full of liberty, with no bondage, no debt. We are sons, mature sons of God, sons in the full sonship.
The leading by the Spirit is the vocabulary composed with these eleven letters. If you put all these eleven positive items together, you have the leading. Is the law of life in you? Is the Spirit of life in you? Is the divine life, the life of God of which the Spirit is, in you? Do you have a spirit mingled with the Spirit of God? In a sense you do not need to go further. You can just linger here with these four items: the law of life, the Spirit of life, the divine life, and your regenerated human spirit mingled with God the Spirit. As long as you have these four items, you have the leading by the Spirit. Spend some time to pray-read all these items, and they will become your check points.
Whenever you say that you have the leading of the Spirit, you have to check about the law of life, the Spirit of life, the divine life, and your spirit mingled with God’s Spirit of life. Just check with these four points. If the leading is genuine, you would have these four points. If the leading is not genuine, you could not get through these four points.
Then you can go on to the things of the Spirit and the mind set on the mingled spirit. Then comes the peace. After these comes the Triune God: the Father as the Spirit, Christ the Son as the Spirit, and the Triune God as the resurrecting One. If you could really get through all these check points, you can be assured that you have the leading by the Spirit.
For years we considered that the way to know the leading of the Lord is by checking the inner sense, by checking the Word of God, and by checking with the circumstances. But now the Lord has shown us a better way. You just need to check with the law of life, with the Spirit of life, with the divine life, with your mingled spirit, with the things of your mingled spirit, with the mind set on this mingled spirit, with peace, with God the Father as the Spirit, with God the Son as the Spirit, with the Triune God as the resurrecting One. In a sense you do not need to check concerning the matter of the sons of God. If you can get through the first ten items, you are surely a son of God.
You must be able to get through all these eleven items. If you cannot, you are not under the leading by the Spirit. This is very clear, and it is accurate.
