The Indwelling Spirit 120603

Romans 8:8-11, “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

This passage begins with a confident statement, “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” — but we are not in the flesh. Of course, we are in our physical bodies but as believers we are in the spirit. That's our identity! Life will be much easier for us if we live according to our identity. Paul wants us know that we now live under a new law, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, rather than under the old law of sin and death. As believers we have passed from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. We are new creatures in Christ Jesus and as such we have a new nature along with the habits of the past. Being "in the spirit", describes our state, or condition; it is the exact opposite of being "in the flesh".

Last Sunday I handed out in the adult class a list of Scriptures that reveal our true identity. I'm going to read for you the descriptive phrases but not all the Scripture references. If you want a copy see me after church. According to the Scriptures, if you have received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior — if you have confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord while believing in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, these statements are true about you no matter how you feel. Please listen to who you are in Christ Jesus.

I am a child of God. I am a part of the true vine, a channel (branch) of His Life. I am Christ's friend. I am chosen and appointed by Christ to bear His fruit. The Father loves me. I am a personal witness of Christ for Christ. I have been justified and redeemed. I have been justified (completely forgiven and made righteous) and am at peace with God. I died with Christ and died to the power of sin's rule in my life. I have been freed from sin's power over me. I am a slave of righteousness. I am enslaved to God. I am forever free from condemnation. I am a son of God (God is literally my "papa". I am an heir of God and fellow heir with Christ. I am holy. Christ has accepted me. I have been sanctified. I have been placed in Christ by God's doing; Christ is now my wisdom from God, my righteousness, my sanctification and my redemption. I have received the Spirit of God into my life that I might know the things freely given to me by God. I have been given the mind of Christ. I am a temple (home) of God; His Spirit (His Life) dwells in me. I am joined to the Lord and am one Spirit with Him. I have been bought with a price; I am not my own; I belong to God. I am a member of Christ's body. I have been established in Christ and anointed by God. He always leads me in His triumph in Christ. I have liberty because of Christ. Since I have died, I no longer live for myself, but for Christ. I am a new creation. I am reconciled to God and am a minister of reconciliation. I am the righteousness of God in Christ. I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; the life I am now living is Christ's life. I am a child of God and one in Christ. I am a child of God and an heir through God. I am a saint. I am blessed with every spiritual blessing. I was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blame before Him. I have been redeemed, forgiven and am a recipient of His lavish grace. I have been made alive together with Christ. I have been raised up and seated with Christ in heaven. I am God's workmanship, created in Christ to do His work that He planned beforehand that I should do. I have been brought near to God. I have direct access to God through the Spirit. I am a fellow citizen with the saints and a member of God's household.I am a fellow heir, a fellow member of the body and a fellow partaker of the promise in Christ Jesus. I may approach God with boldness and confidence. I am righteous and holy. I am a citizen of heaven. His peace guards my heart and my mind. God will supply all my needs. I have been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the Kingdom of Christ. I have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins; the debt against me has been canceled. Christ Himself is in me. I have been firmly rooted in Christ and am now being built up and established in Him. I have been made complete in Christ. I have been spiritually circumcised; my old, unregenerate nature has been removed. I have been buried, raised and made alive with Christ and totally forgiven. I have been raised up with Christ. I have died and my life is now hidden with Christ in God. Christ is now my Life. I am chosen of God, holy and dearly loved. I am a child of light and not of darkness. I have been given a spirit of power, love and discipline. I have been saved and called (set apart) according to God's purpose and grace. Because I am sanctified and am one with Christ, He is not ashamed to call me His. I am a holy partaker of a heavenly calling. I am a partaker of Christ. I may come boldly before the throne of God to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. I have been sanctified by His will. I am one of God's living stones and am being built up as a spiritual house. I am a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God's own possession. I am an alien and stranger to this world where I live temporarily. I am an enemy of the devil; he is my adversary. I have been given His precious and magnificent promises by which I am a partaker of the divine nature. God has bestowed a great love on me and called me His child.

This list was compiled by Annabel Gillam and is part of what we've been using in the adult class on Sunday morning.

We are not in the flesh but in the Spirit.

The flesh is our inheritance from Adam. Look at Romans 5:12, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” I remind you again, as I often have before, we are born spiritually DOA. This is what we inherited from our father Adam. We were separated from God at birth. The minute we arrived in Earth's atmosphere we began the process of trying to have our needs met. Our greatest need is love. That need was planted in us by the Living God whose very nature is love. We arrive with a ton of needs designed by our Father who wants us to know how much we need him. The flesh tries to meet those needs apart from God.

The new birth gives us a new inheritance. Listen as we read what John said. John 1:12-13, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Receiving Christ Jesus as Lord changes our condition. We have a new standing before God. Once we were born sons and daughters of Adam and Eve now we are born children of God. That doesn't mean that we cannot sin it just means that we no longer live in bondage to sin. We have a new inheritance with a new family. We are now "in the Spirit" and amazingly, the Spirit is in us.

We become a dwelling place for God. Look at Ephesians 2:19-22, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” We are no longer strangers and aliens we are fellow citizens with the saints. We are members of God's household! You see from this passage that the Spirit is in us for a purpose. So that we can be built together into a dwelling place for God by his Spirit. We are reminded by Paul in First Corinthians that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. We are not our own we have been bought with a price. He has come to live in us. He makes of us a permanent dwelling. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Praise God, if you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ you are his. As such, nothing can take us out of his hand.

The body is dead. Verse 10, “But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”

Not flesh, the physical body. The command was given by God not to eat of the tree of life in the garden of Eden. We find the story in Genesis 3:1-5, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When Eve was deceived, and Adam volunteered, sin came into the world and death through sin. There were two kinds of death there that day. The first was immediate — spiritual death! Fellowship with God was broken! Mankind, who was designed to walk and talk with God forever, lost spiritual life. The second death was more gradual — physical death. This second death is what the apostle is talking about here. Physical death was brought on because of sin. So far as we can tell from Scripture Adam and Eve were incorruptible until they sinned and then corruption came into the world. When sin came into the world death came in through Sin. That death passed down to all Adam's descendents. It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment. The body is dead because of sin.

Because of the power of sin. Turn to Romans 7:5, “For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.” The physical body, because of the power of sin, is in the process of dying all the time. Physically, no one will live forever. The power of sin has come into our lives, inherited from our father Adam, and all of us are doomed to die physically. Sin is the culprit used by the enemy against us.

The body will be brought to life. Look at 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body” if you don't understand the resurrection of the physical body you are in good company. There are many things in Scripture I don't fully understand. There may be many that I will never understand. The Bible gives us the truth. It has never been disproven by anyone who has seriously studied it. The Bible says that this perishable body will be raised imperishable. This natural body will be raised a spiritual body. The enemy will throw many questions and doubts into your mind. What about the body that's completely burned up in a fire? What about the body lost at sea? And now, with the advent of spaceflight, what about the body lost in space? The same God that created the universe can call back any portion of it any time he chooses for any reason he chooses. If he needs some part of our mortal body in order to constitute our spiritual body. He can do it!

In contrast to the body, which is dead, the spirit is life.

Not Holy Spirit but human spirit. Most translations of the Bible captialize the word "Spirit". However, here Paul is clearly not talking about the Holy Spirit. Otherwise the structure of the passage would make no sense. You cannot contrast the human body with the Holy Spirit. On the other hand you can contrast the human body with the human spirit. In the same way that the seed of death is in the body the seed of life is in the spirit of the Christian. Look at Ephesians 2:4-5 it tells us, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved”. The man who was born dead in trespasses sins has been infused with life in regeneration. We don't have to wait till after physical death. We were dead in our trespasses and sins but God has made us alive together with Christ. Of course, the Holy Spirit brings that life. At the moment of salvation the Christian's spirit is made alive. The life that it is imbued with is eternal life. It's eternal because it is God's life. The life that indwells us is the life that dwelt with the Father before the creation of the universe. It's not our life stretched out into eternity. That would be miserable! It's the new life that God has placed in us that will go on forever. There is no second death for the man who has been regenerated. The Christian's body is dead because of sin but his spirit is alive because of righteousness.

Because of righteousness. Look at 2 Corinthians 5:21 this is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. Miss Bertha Smith used to say that this was the dirtiest verse in her Bible. Miss Bertha served as a missionary in China for forty years. As such she learned to follow Chinese customs. The Chinese customarily ran their finger, or a pointer, along the text that they were reading. So you could soon see the favorite passages because of the soil and oil from the fingers transferred to the page as they read. Let's read the passage, “For our sake he (God) made him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Righteousness is not only imputed to us it is imparted to us. Remember, Paul said, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” Romans 7:18 Note he didn't say that nothing good dwells in him (us) that would not be true. Not just "something" good dwells in all believers but God, in Christ, through His Spirit dwells in all believers. So Paul qualified it by saying, "in my flesh". There is nothing good in our inherited human nature. All our righteousness is filthy rags. Therefore God has imbued us with His righteousness. In making us his children he has given us life — life that is abundant and free.

The Holy Spirit gives life. Turn to, 2 Corinthians 3:4-6, "Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."

The letter is the law and the spirit is the Holy Spirit. The power of sin comes alongside the law and produces all kinds of sinfulness in us. In the same way the power of the Holy Spirit comes in to produce a new birth, to make us part of a new family, to give us a new heart, to give us a new spirit, in short, taking away the death we were born with he replaces that death with life. Jesus explained it this way, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

The flesh is no help at all because it is the Spirit who gives life. We need to live everyday aware of the indwelling Spirit that God has placed in our life. Our body is dead because of sin but our spirit is alive because of the work of God in justification and sanctification. As Jesus said, and I repeat, the flesh is no help at all. He wasn't talking about the physical body he was talking about all the ways mankind strives to meet the needs of his life without God. Only God's Holy Spirit gives life. And when we are born again that Spirit comes to live in our life. We struggle because the old habits — flesh patterns — we have built up all the years of our life resist the work of the Spirit in us. Remember, no matter how you feel God's Spirit lives in you if you are a child of God. I pray that each of you have confessed that he is your Lord!
All Scripture quotes are from The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.