Romans 8:5-11 “More Spirit Business”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁵For those being according to flesh mind the things of the flesh, but those according to the Spirit the things of the Spirit, ⁶for the mind of the flesh [is] death, but the mind of the Spirit [is] life and peace, ⁷because the mind of the flesh [is] an enemy into God, for it is not being obedient to the law of God, for it is not even able, ⁸but the one being in flesh is not being able to please God, ⁹but you (pl.) are not in flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God is dwelling in you (pl.), but if someone is not having the Spirit of Christ, that person is not His, ¹⁰but, if Christ is in you (pl.), the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is alive because of righteousness, ¹¹but if the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus out of dead ones is dwelling in you (pl.), the One who raised Christ out of dead ones will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit dwelling in you (pl.).

After studying this passage for some time, I believe it is far more profound than I have ever realized before. It is easy to read these words and then either 1) find them almost cliché (thinking, “Of course I know that!”), or 2) being threatened by the “ifs,” and perhaps secretly glad to just read on. Instead, I believe these words ought to blast like a cannon through our natural thoughts and lead us into those thoughts of God which He describes when He says, “For, as the heavens are high above the earth, so are My thoughts above your thoughts and My ways above your ways” (Isa. 55:9).

What do I mean? We humans seem to automatically assume any discussion about God or religion comes down to a basic question of whether or not you keep the laws. Good people try to keep the Ten Commandments and bad people don’t. Good Christians keep the Law, but others don’t. If you want God to like you, you have to follow the rules. God loves people who keep the Law and everyone else is in big trouble. That’s what a relationship with God is all about – being a good rule-keeper. And it’s not just Christians. Basically, that’s what every religion in the world is about; they just each have their own variety of rules to keep.

Look again at this passage. Is that the issue this passage presents? Please read it in your own Bible, then ask yourself, “What is this passage teaching us is the essential question? What is it that makes the difference whether I have a relationship with God or not?” Is worship a matter of whether or not we do a good job of keeping whatever is our group’s set of rules? What does it say?

The real question comes down to this business of flesh vs. the Spirit. Do you or do you not have the Spirit of God living in you? If you do not, then you are “in the flesh” and, as it says in vv. 6-8, “The mind of the flesh is death…the mind of the flesh is enmity with God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God.” If that is true of someone, what is the solution? They need the Holy Spirit. The solution is not that they need to be better rule-keepers.

I think what this all comes down to is that this business of “religion” or, more specifically, of knowing God is spiritual business. It is not the external, observable business of exactly what rules you keep and how well you keep them. I would even suggest that, in itself, is a religion of the flesh, even if it calls itself Christianity and is the true religion of entire church groups. No. Jesus didn’t say it for nothing: “God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth…the Father seeks such to worship Him.”

“They that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

A relationship with God is something infinitely deeper than our petty rule-keeping. It is something that goes on first of all inside of us, in our hearts, and there we must confront the truth of who we really are and who God is to us. “If anyone does not have the Spirit of God, he is none of His” (v.9). Then do we or don’t we?

I will wander so far as to say we also have to apply these things to those around us who claim to be Christians. It is not our place to judge other people, but Jesus was the one who said, “By their fruits you shall know them.” I can’t say how many million times over the years I have known and dealt with people whom I was supposed to believe were Christians, yet there was absolutely nothing spiritual or Christlike about them. They may have been champion rule-keepers but there was nothing of the spirit of Christ about them.

That has been very confusing and very discouraging to me. However, I believe Romans 8 would free us from that confusion and discouragement. It tells us that no matter what great rule-keepers they are, no matter how high they may have risen (even to be pastors and missionaries and deacons and Sunday School teachers), if they don’t have the spirit of Christ about them, “they are none of His.” Those who are truly born-again are those who “walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (v.4). When someone’s walk possesses nothing of the fruit of the Spirit, the real truth is, “they are none of His.” I can still love them. I don’t need to be judgmental or critical. I just don’t have to be telling myself, “They just need to grow.” No. They need to be saved. For real. They need the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and that hasn’t happened yet. Yet.

All of this so far, I would suggest, is utterly profound and would transform Christianity overnight if we all actually believed and recognized it. However, going back to the passage, I think there is far more to be gleaned.

Given everything I’ve observed so far, it would be nice if we could simply conclude that people “in the flesh” are the unsaved and those “with the Spirit” are the saved. It would be nice if, the minute I received the Spirit, I could be done with sin, done with the flesh. Positionally it is true – if I am in Christ, I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, the 3^rd Person of the Trinity. Positionally, that is true. The problem is that practically I still have the battle to fight. My flesh is still quite alive. As Paul says in Galatians, “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish” (5:17). Paul has just, in Romans 7, related the struggle he himself faced, “O wretched man that I am!”

So, even those who have definitely received Christ, who have embraced a very real and personal relationship with God, though they are literally “in the Spirit,” yet the Spirit/flesh battle goes on. The battle goes on but, and this is so important to recognize, I must aggressively refuse to reduce it all once again to a question of rule-keeping. My salvation was first and foremost a spiritual business, an inward change in my heart of hearts. The changes it wrought in the externals of my life, in my behaviors and attitudes, were very real, but they grew out of those inward, spiritual changes. It was Spirit business. Now, as I would live my life, I must see that it is still Spirit business. What matters most is still not what goes on externally, but what is going on inside of me. It still needs to be “spirit and truth.”

I can’t help but remember once again Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to His teaching. Her busy sister Martha was put out that Mary didn’t join her in her busy-ness, but Jesus told her, “Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken from her.” What was going on? Mary understood what really mattered, and I believe we can say without a doubt, when Mary finally did stand up and get back to whatever it was she needed to do, she would never be the same. She was changed from the inside out.  She tended to the Spirit business and we can all be quite sure the fruit of the Spirit blossomed in her life.

As Paul relates in v.11, “And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who dwells in you.” As we read back in v.2, “…through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” It is the Spirit’s business to give life and that is exactly what He does do for you and me. In Him, we can rise above our flesh, above our sins, and above the death that is sin’s portion.

But we must realize – it is Spirit business.

 

Romans 8:1-4 “Spirit Business”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹Therefore, [there is] now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, the ones walking not according to flesh, but according to spirit. ²For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus set me free from the law of the sin and the death, ³for [what was] the impossibility of law, in which it was being weak through the flesh, God condemned the sin in the flesh, sending His own Son in [the] likeness of flesh of sin and concerning sin, ⁴in order that the righteous act[s] of the law might be fulfilled in us, the ones walking not according to flesh but according to spirit.

Well, here we are. Romans chapter 8. This chapter has been called “the pinnacle of the Bible.” It doesn’t get any better than this. I would happily agree. Not to be cynical or negative, but the simple fact is life is really hard. “Brutal” might be a more fitting epitaph. For me, just to stay sane, we need some kind of hope that rises far above anything this world has to offer. This eighth chapter of the book of Romans is exactly that otherworldly hope my own heart craves.

Interestingly, the Greek word for spirit (here usually Holy Spirit) appears twenty times in this chapter. It only appeared four times in chapters 1-7 and it will only occur another four times in 9-16. Nowhere else in all the Bible is there so much emphasis on spirit, and particularly the Holy Spirit. It is no coincidence that the greatest chapter of hope in the entire Bible is also literally inhabited by the Holy Spirit!

As I lamented earlier, it doesn’t seem to me that the power and/or presence of the Holy Spirit has been what it ought to be. I’m looking forward to studying this chapter for just that reason. If somehow I’m not embracing Him or somehow I’m not availing myself of that power and presence, I certainly want to do whatever I can to remedy that problem. Obviously, along with the Son Jesus and His saving work on the Cross, the Holy Spirit is the best gift we can receive from God. I want to make sure I’m enjoying that gift as much as I possibly can!

So here would be my thoughts from these first four verses: This, of course, is quite a statement to start with, “There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” I would say most of us, if we’re born-again believers, can easily shout, “Hallelujah!” We make much of the fact that we’ve been saved, that heaven is our eternal home, and that we have been forever delivered from the condemnation and judgment of our sins! And we should.

However, I would suggest there is far more hope in these words than perhaps they are often afforded. Paul’s problem in chapter 7 was not that he was struggling under the penalty of sin. That would have been struggling with what we would call the question of justification. “What must I do to be saved?” No, it was not the penalty of sin that he was addressing, it was the power of sin. The earlier chapters of Romans have clearly established the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The problem for Paul (and us) is that, though we may now know we’ve been justified, yet sin still seems to possess an almost overwhelming power in our lives. “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out…Oh, wretched man that I am!”

This statement, “There is, therefore, no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus,” is not just about our justification; it also concerns our sanctification!  It is not just referring to the guilt of our sins, it is also referring to their power. It’s not just about whether or not we’ll go to heaven, it’s about our daily lives. “There is no condemnation…” If we ponder that thought, I’m guessing most of us would feel we need to respond with something like, “But, but, but…my sins are still really, really bad!” I would suggest we all need to ask ourselves, “Can I really step out into the light of God’s love and say of myself, ‘There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus’”?

God goes on in verse 2 to tell us that “through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” Then in verse 3, He specifically heads back to the source of our problem. It is “the Law.” He knew right where we would all run, when it came to this matter of “condemnation.” The Law. The rules. We have to keep the rules, right? Yes, I’m saved, but now my main job is to “keep the rules.” The problem, of course, is that just lands us back in chapter 7: “…the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing!” No, no, no. A thousand times no. The Law will not save us. Rule-keeping is not the answer.

Consider vv. 3,4 together: “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Ah, we see we’ve circled back to the Spirit. Once again, our hope is not in being better rule-keepers. It is somehow tied up in the Spirit!

Jesus clearly said, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23,24). And what do we learn later in Galatians? “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

Against such things, there is no law. And why not? Because rules will never create love in people’s hearts…or joy or peace or patience.” Those things must come from our hearts. And, once again, therein is the problem. It’s my heart. It has always amused me just a little when the woman at the well told Jesus, “But the well is deep and you have nothing to draw with!” In fact, she had no idea just how deep the well was! And she certainly didn’t realize the infinite power of Jesus to draw for her the water of life! Yes, my heart is a very deep well. It’s much too deep for me. Way down there somewhere is this sad reality that it is “desperately wicked and deceitful above all things.” Only this indwelling of the very Holy Spirit of God can rescue me.

I for one certainly want to know more of this freedom God has given me. I hope as I continue to study through this chapter in Romans that the Lord will in fact open my eyes to whatever I may be missing.

 “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!”

 

Daniel 6:28 “Like Daniel”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²⁸And this Daniel prospered in the kingdom of Darius and in the kingdom of Cyrus the Persian.

This verse concludes what some call the historical portion of the book of Daniel. The rest of the book will be records of various visions which the prophet saw, with some more accounts of how it all affected Daniel. I’m really looking forward to studying through those final chapters. Up to now, we’ve basically observed Daniel and how he dealt with life in this world. In chapters 7-12, we’ll get an extensive display of our friend interacting with the spirit world. As I get older, I am finding more and more the realization that this world in which we live is only a small bubble in an ocean of the spirit world which, though we cannot see it, surrounds us and engulfs our very being. I suspect that world has far more bearing on our lives than this world. The spiritual battles which are raging around us are probably the real battles which matter. I long to have eyes that see that world, to be driven by those far greater concerns.

All that said, however, here we are: Daniel 6:28 and this simple little verse, “And this Daniel prospered in the kingdom of Darius and in the kingdom of Cyrus.” We first met our friend as a young man, probably but a teenager, and, for myself, as I have studied these first six chapters and tried to learn from him, he has definitely become my hero. Speaking of the spirit world, I am amazed at how Daniel was very specifically created to be who he was. He was born just in time to be that young man right when Nebuchadnezzar, the head of gold, arose to power and carried off young Jewish men to serve in his court. Daniel’s life then spanned the seventy years of the Babylonian Captivity. By the end of his life, he has lived through the reigns of several Babylonian kings until finally the “Arms and Chest of Silver” displaced the Head of Gold, and now the second great kingdom, the Persians, are in control. By now, Cyrus has issued his decree that the Jewish people may return to Judea, and our Daniel is at the end of his life, easily an 80-year old man in that ancient world.

Like Esther, the Lord obviously raised him up specifically for “such a time as this.” His entire reason for existence was to be the Lord’s representative in the very highest offices of these worldly kingdoms. No doubt this access gave him considerable opportunities to provide for and protect the exiled Jews, but it also definitely gave him and his friends enormous opportunities to bring glory to God! No more were the Jewish people and their God just stories people heard about those people who lived in Canaan. The Babylonian Captivity brought those people right into the very palace of the king of Babylon—the very epicenter of evil in this world—and there, the Lord displayed His glory for all the world to see.

Wow. On the one hand, I’m sure Daniel would have rather lived out his life there in Israel. He’d rather have lived with his family there, probably married one of his cute Jewish girlfriends, had a family, lived out his life and died there. Instead, the Lord had an extremely important assignment for him—to go and be His representative in that epicenter of evil. This is where seeing the spirit world is so important. We’d all like to write the story of our lives and make sure it includes all the parts and pieces just the way we’d like them. I know for myself, and I suspect it’s true of everyone, very little of my life has turned out like I thought it would. In so many ways, I wish I could go back and re-write the story, but of course I cannot. We don’t get to write it beforehand and we don’t get to re-write it either.

It is what it is. I find my only sanity is to believe that the Lord has been carefully, meticulously controlling even my bad decisions, to produce in the end some beautiful tapestry which my eyes have yet to see. As has been often said, we all have to realize we are looking up at the underside of that tapestry. All we can see are the snarls of thread and splotches of colors. It will only be at the end, and probably from heaven itself, that we will get to look down and see the beauty of our lives as the Lord wove them to be. Certainly, we see that here in the life of Daniel.

His life was very, very different than what he could have possibly imagined (or wished) as a young man. Yet here he is. Through all the pain, all the heartaches, all the disappointments, yet because he was the Lord’s servant, he goes down through history as a great prophet and a man to be admired 2,600 years later! Even in his own world, the description of the end of his life is our verse, “And this Daniel prospered in the kingdom of Darius and in the kingdom of Cyrus.” The word translated “prospered” is a nice word that could be translated, “he did well,” “he was successful,” “life went well for him.” Probably what it means is that he got to end his life being respected and appreciated. I have read somewhere that there was even a ”Tomb of Daniel” in Susa of Persia—that apparently he was so greatly respected and appreciated that a great tomb was provided for him in his death. That would be so not unlike the Lord—after all the trials and pain, to allow Daniel to finish out his life in quiet honor.

Drawing things to a close, I think it also very encouraging to note what it said in verse 23, “And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.” There you have it, the “secret” to it all. What made Daniel different? What made him “successful”? What enabled him to be a man of sterling integrity and godliness in the very epicenter of evil? “He had trusted in his God.” Trusting God was the engine that made Daniel who he was, and that simple little epitaph can be true of you and me too. Our stories are still being written. What will make the difference whether they are, in the end, worth reading? The question will be, “Did we or did we not trust our God?” It really is that simple.

As I sit here typing, I can only pray over and over, “Lord, make me like Daniel.” I don’t get to write the story of my life either, but if day by day and minute by minute I can just hang on to this simple plan, “Trust God,” then I can hope that somehow the Lord really is weaving it all into something eternally grand and beautiful—just like He did for Daniel.