Romans No.16 Under the Spirit's control

And not that it's our verse for this evening, but right at the end or virtually at the conclusion of the whole chapter, you get that glorious verse. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. And if Romans 8 can be summed up in one word, it's probably that word conquest.

For here we're told how to be on the victory side as soldiers of our Lord Jesus, members of his body living in a hostile world in which the general spirit is one of enmity to God. Well, let's read through the first 11 verses, shall we? Romans 8. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do, in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

And so he condemns sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their mind set on what that nature desires. But those who live in accordance with the spirit have their mind set on what the spirit desires.

The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace. The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.

Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature, but by the spirit, if the spirit of God lives in you. And if any one does not have the spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

But if Christ is in you, your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit, who lives in you. If you're very familiar with Romans chapter 7, then you cannot but breathe a breath of thank goodness when you get to the end and discover that the eighth chapter follows, which really is one of light following the gloom.

I think sometimes of Romans 7 as illustrated by the struggle that Jacob had in Old Testament days. You remember as he wrestled with the Lord, and then after that holy encounter, you read that he went off into the light of a new day and he had the mark of God upon him, and also the empowering of God in his life. And here is the Apostle Paul, not exactly the same situation, but nonetheless he takes us through the dark shadows of the seventh chapter into the light of the eighth chapter.

Sometimes, in some circles, a toast is absent friends. And it seems to me that if one dares to use such a colloquial expression, one might summarise Romans chapter 7 in those terms. Absent friends.

Well, perhaps not friends plural, but friends singular, because missing in Romans 7 is any reference to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and to the power of the Holy Spirit. What you have in Romans 7 is a man trying to cope with the demands of the law of God as a result of his own ability, his own ingenuity, and he comes to the end of his own strength. He cannot cope.

He cannot keep what the law demands. And the law, though good, becomes a taskmaster to him, becomes something that puts such strain on the individual that he cries out, you remember, in great anguish, O wretched man that I am! The good that I would, I do not. The evil that I would not, that I do.

Here's the law. I know it's good. Anybody with sense knows that the law of God is good, but my problem is this.

I don't have the ability to meet up with the requirements of the law. And so, in almost the last verse, he says, who will rescue me from this body of death? Verse 24 of Romans 7. Now, when you're driven to that point of anguish, and assuming you have a faith relationship with God through Jesus Christ, as Paul did, there must be an answer to that request. In the same way as when Peter was walking on the water towards Jesus and he took his eyes off the Saviour and looked at the waves and heard the wind, he cried out, save me, for I perish, our Lord was quick at hand to open his arms and to prevent Peter having a watery grave.

Well, here's Paul. Who can come to my rescue? Who can save me? And the answer is, well, God can, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And not only, not only through Jesus Christ, our Lord, but through the Holy Spirit of God, who has been sent into this world by our Lord Jesus when he was returned to heaven.

So, if Absent Friend was the depressing toast of the seventh chapter, here is a tremendous welcome to someone who is so required in our Christian life, who pervades almost every verse of Romans chapter 8, the Holy Spirit. We could almost say, maintaining my metaphor, be upstanding for the Holy Ghost. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

That is the opening comment of the apostle as he comes to a realisation that despite his sinfulness, he nonetheless does not have to look forward to penal servitude. Although he's guilty of sin, there's going to be no penalty. There's nothing in the future that he has to be afraid of in terms of his eternal destiny.

Well, because of the Lord Jesus. That's the reason, if you put up the question why. And that verse, of course, is the one that gave great stimulus to Charles Wesley as he gave us that tremendous hymn, And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour's blood? Remember how he goes on to talk about no condemnation that he or any other Christian needs to fear because of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, there is nothing for us to be afraid of who are in Christ Jesus, middle part of the first verse. And what Paul really means there, you need to perhaps have Ephesians 1.13 to flesh it out, to expand it. Because in Ephesians 1.13, Paul refers to those who are included in Christ Jesus.

Sometimes you might say if a friend is wanting to maybe organise an outing or to take you to spring harvest or on one of the church holidays, include me in. In other words, when you think of the bunch that are going to be along, I want to be in that number. And here says the Apostle Paul, through Christ Jesus, we have been included in to those who identify themselves with him, the body of Christ, the church, the army of the Lord.

So many ways in which scripture uses to describe those who follow Jesus Christ. There's no condemnation to those who are included in Christ because through Christ Jesus, the law of the spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. What does the Apostle mean? Well, he's going to tell you a little further.

If you go on to the third verse, he'll expand his comment and he'll nail the point quite clearly. What the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. So here's the law that you've broken and that I've broken.

And here's the penalty that you and I should pay because of breach of the Ten Commandments. But here is the Lord Jesus who goes to the cross of Calvary, not for everybody in the sense that not everyone by application of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ is saved, but those people are saved who admit to their desire to live no longer after the law of sin and death, but rather after the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Again, you'll see what Paul means if you continue in the reading a little bit.

God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemns sin in sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the spirit. You see what he's trying to say? Here you were, absolutely baffled because the law asked you to do something that you couldn't do.

And so Jesus comes along and he pays a penalty for your sin. And you're in the category of people who now don't want to live any longer according to the sinful nature, but according to the spirit. That's the last part of verse four, isn't it? According to whose spirit? According to the spirit of the Lord Jesus.

You see, this is why the Holy Ghost has to come into the argument at this point. You've probably been taught since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, those of you who were brought up in Christian families or who went to Sunday school, that one of the best verses in the Bible is John 3.16. And that's true. God so loved the world, he gave from the Godhead, proceeded the Lord Jesus.

Why did he come into this world? Well, the apostles made it very clear. He came in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. But that is not the only thing that the Godhead has done in terms of securing our salvation.

Jesus proceeded from the Father and also from the Godhead proceeds the Holy Spirit. We'll be back to that point in a moment because Paul is going to take it up in verse five and make it even more clear. But let's go back just for a moment or two to what God has done in the first procession, in the first sending forth of heaven's ambassador into this world.

He sends the Lord Jesus, his own son, halfway through verse three, note the exact words, in the likeness of sinful man. Now the apostle's got a problem. What he wants to do is to show you that Jesus and you have a common identity.

But what he also wants to do is to show you that there's an infinite distinction between you and Jesus. There's got to be. What's your common identity? Well, you were born into this world in the same way as our Lord Jesus was born.

Not so. After all, there was nothing remarkable about the sort of gynaecological process in his birth. You're saying there was, in as much as, well, the seed was planted by the Holy Spirit.

But that's not the point. That's not what I'm getting at. The actual birth process for our Lord Jesus was the same as your birth process.

The origination of that process may have been different, but he came as you come. He was born as you are born. He has in his own character the same traits as you do in some degree.

He hungers. You hunger. He sleeps when he's tired.

You sleep. There are moments when he needs companionship. There are moments when he feels that everybody has left him.

He has in one sense his highs, the ecstasy of the Spirit. He has in another sense his lows. Father, take this cup from me.

You see, he's human. And Paul wants to identify Jesus with yourself because you're human. And yet you could not say that Jesus is all that you are because there's something very special about the Lord Jesus that there isn't, alas, about you and me.

And that is, he's sinless. So the apostle has to say, God sends his own son in the likeness of sinful man. He is concerned to put in the word likeness as a sort of qualification.

He's like in degree, but not absolutely. And in the likeness of sinful man, not sinful himself, he goes to the cross of Calvary to be a sin offering. Now that would stagger the Jews.

They understand what a sin offering is. I mean, there's been thousands of them, haven't there? Tens of thousands of sin offerings. Times when the priest has brought the unwilling dumb animal and slaughtered it.

But here is our Lord Jesus and he becomes on the cross of Calvary a sin offering for men and women. And as he gives his body up for death, theologically, biblically, as far as your eternal salvation is concerned, you can say at that moment, he condemned sin in sinful man. Not in himself, because he wasn't a sinner.

But as far as you're concerned, he got his red pencil, if you like, and just wrote right across your sinful heart, clean. He condemns your sin. He takes your sin into himself in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the spirit.

You see, there's a difference with Christian people and non-Christian people. There's a difference – and Paul will enlarge on this in a moment or two – there's a difference in terms of desire. Now, Paul does desire to live a Christian life, even in the seventh chapter when he has great problems and thank God he tells us about them.

He nonetheless desires to live righteously. His problem was his sinful nature. But here he is, assuring himself that the very sin in his nature has been dealt with on the cross of our Lord Jesus.

And when he looks to the future, he does not look to serve a time in purgatory, or worse, years in hell before he's sprung from that dreadful condition. There's no condemnation. And the reason is, well, this first procession from the Godhead, Jesus has come into the world in the likeness of sinful man, and he has dealt with the greatest problem that confronts you and me.

But let's proceed, because in the fifth verse he's going to take up the contrast between those who are Christian and those who are not Christian, and he's going to bring more into the forefront the person whose ministry chapter eight of Romans celebrates. There are those, says the apostle, who live according to the sinful nature. And there are, he goes on to say in the latter part of verse five, those who live in accordance with the Spirit.

Now, as far as Paul is concerned, this is the only apartheid that there is in the world. And it's an apartheid that he doesn't want to exist at all. There aren't black and white, there aren't rich and poor, there aren't educated and uneducated.

There are two classes of people, those who have a mindset on their sinful nature, and those who live in accordance with the Spirit of God. You're either included in Christ, you see, or you're not included in Christ. And so here is Paul doing this contrast, in which I discover that there are three different aspects of these two categories of people.

They have a goal that is different, don't they? Look at verse five, their minds are set on what their nature desires. But as far as those who live in the Spirit are concerned, they have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. All the difference in the world, you see.

The Christian is someone who has come under the management of the Spirit. His goal is different. His mindset, the way that he controls and his thought life is different.

The mind of the sinful man, verse six, is death. But the mind controlled by the Spirit is life. The man who is an unbeliever ultimately will die.

Now that wouldn't be such a tragic thing, but Paul isn't thinking of physical death. If he was thinking of physical death, then he would soften the argument completely, and he wouldn't inflict any terror into the mind of the unbeliever. What Paul is thinking of here is death eternally in terms of existence apart from the knowledge, the presence of God.

But those who are Christian people, well, for them it's a different ballgame, isn't it? Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. So you've got a mindset that's completely different.

Life, eternal life, ultimately, and peace, peace of mind right now. Now that's a great gift, isn't it, to have at this very moment, particularly in the world in which we find ourselves. The Christian has an optimism that is not the optimism of a non-thinking person, but the Christian has worked through that his ultimate destiny has been sealed by the Lord Jesus on the cross, and the Lord Jesus has changed his whole lifestyle.

He's got a different goal, he's got a different mindset, and what's more, he's got a different stimulus. What do I mean by a different stimulus? Well, look at verse 7, will you? The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.

Verse 8, those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. But if you go back to the fifth verse, the mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life. Did you know that a person who is not a Christian is really an enemy of God? It's a very strong comment, that, isn't it? I once remember RT Kendall say that, and I thought, well, that's a bit heavy, but I forgave him because he was American.

And then I discovered that actually he got biblical right for saying that. If you are not a believer, whether you're prepared to admit it or not, the Bible says, the stimulus behind your life is hostility to God. If you are a Christian, the stimulus behind your life is the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit.

So let's try and summarise some of the things that we've been saying, and you can work them through in your notes later on this evening or on another more convenient occasion if you please. The apostle is so grateful when he moves into the chapter to realise that coming alongside him is none other than the representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. God sent the Son into the world, and the Son sent the Spirit into the world.

Let's just check that up to make sure that you really understand, and you have biblical proof that this is the case. Let's go to John's Gospel, shall we, John's Gospel and chapter 14. And there in the 26th verse, we'll start to read from the 25th to give us the context.

The Lord Jesus is trying to calm his disciples. Why does he need to be calming them? Well, because he's talked about him going away, and he's given them a conundrum which is worse than a clue in the Daily Telegraph. He said to them, look, chaps, I'm going away.

It will be better for you that I go away, and if I go away, actually, I won't have gone away at all, full stop. Now that does take a little bit of working out, doesn't it? And they haven't read the last chapter in the Bible, because it hasn't been read like you have. So if you're thinking a little that you're smarter than they are, do remember that you've got all the advantages that they didn't have.

Verse 25, all this I have spoken while still with you, but the counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. So when the Lord Jesus returns to heaven, the Father sends at the request of the Son, the Holy Spirit. So let's go back to the chap in the seventh chapter, shall we? And let's forget it's Paul.

Let's identify you with this individual, because I reckon you've done that many and many a time. What's the difference now between the man in the seventh chapter and the man in the eighth chapter? Well, in the seventh chapter, it was the individual trying to cope with the law and making a heck of a mess. In the eighth chapter, it's the individual plus the Holy Spirit coping with the law and discovering increasing success.

So you see, how important is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, but not just important at an academic level? In one sense, I'm not really too worried whether you understand the doctrine of the Trinity or not. In fact, if you understand the doctrine of the Trinity, come and tell me, because I don't. I mean, I accept it, but I don't understand it.

What I do think is very important, however, is an experimental understanding that besides the Father and the Son, there is the Holy Spirit. Now, not an academic understanding, I say, that has a degree of importance, but an experimental understanding. You see, it's no use coming to the man in the seventh chapter with a theological argument.

He doesn't want an argument. He wants an experience. He wants to be toughened up.

He wants to know how it is to cope with the demands that the law places upon his life. And he also wants to be reminded that when he's fallen foul of that law, as Christians alas do from time to time, there's still no condemnation hanging over him, hovering over him. And when he moves into the eighth chapter, then I say, not only is he fielding an argument about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, but he is by implication indicating that he has had an experience of the Holy Spirit.

God sent the Son. He also sent the Spirit into the world. The Son to condemn sin in his flesh and to take away our condemnation.

The Spirit to grant to us the ability to live lives in such a fashion that we are conquering more than being defeated in terms of the temptations and the tempestuous situations that come across us in life. Now, you may say, that's not my position. And indeed it may not be.

Or maybe you're like me. You live sort of in a twilight world between Romans 7 and Romans 8. Occasionally it's your condition in Romans 8. Occasionally it's not. Well, whatever your spiritual assessment of yourself is, the bottom line from Romans 8 is this, that there is the potential made available to you through the Holy Ghost to do a jolly sight better than you've been doing at the moment.

There really is. Verse 5, those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on one that nature desires. But those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

As the deer pants for the water brook, so my soul pants for you. Paul would have sung that chorus, especially as it was biblical, and took as its inspiration the desires of David. So, here is a lovely little comment from those few verses, verses 5 through to 8. What we are governs how we think.

And how we think governs how we behave. And how we behave governs our relationship to God, death or life. What we are, what are we? We're sons of God.

How do we think? We think positively, as those who have known something of the indwelling Spirit. And because we think positively, then how we behave governs our relationship to God. And ultimately, we enter into eternal life.

Ah, but you say, I already have eternal life. Indeed you do. But you don't have all that there is at this moment, in terms of the full inheritance of eternal life.

So, Paul, in verse 9, starts some stupendous reasoning, and he's talking to you. He makes it very plain by the way that he emphasises you. You, however, you Christian people, you who are included in Christ, no longer is he doing the contrast between verses 5 and 8, between the unbeliever and the believer.

The spotlight is on you. You are controlled, not by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. So, let's say this, as a sort of sub-conclusion, that you can't be a Christian unless the Spirit of God is in you.

That doesn't mean to say that being a Christian you have all of the Spirit of God that there is for you to know. But you can't be a Christian unless the Spirit of God is in you. And because the Spirit of God is in you, you've got a great plus in being able to cope with the demands of the law.

If the Spirit of God lives in you, you're not controlled by the sinful nature. Tell yourself that. Tell yourself that when tempting situations come your way.

I am not controlled by the desire of my Adamic nature. I am controlled by the Spirit of God. If anyone does not have the Spirit, says the Apostle, as you continue into that ninth verse, well, he does not belong to Christ.

He's not included in Christ. You see, it's very vital that you realise that reception to Christianity means the reception of Jesus into your heart and also the Holy Spirit into your personality. And, says the Apostle Paul, if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.

What does that mean? Well, if Christ is in you, then you have the Spirit of God living in you, which means that eternal life is part and parcel of your possession. But what about your body being dead? And what about the Apostle in the eleventh verse saying, if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies. Well, this is where we have to take up the point that though we're saved, we're not as saved as ultimately we will be.

If you are satisfied with your body, then I dismiss you right at this moment to leave this room because I've got no further teaching that can help you in terms of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. But if you're looking for an improvement in your body, stay around, I've got news for you. If you want to be rejuvenated and be 33 years of age for the whole of eternity, then I can demonstrate to you how this will come about.

You see, your spirit has been cleansed of sinfulness and eternal life has been granted to you. But your body is still showing signs of decay, not so? Have a look in a mirror, friend, have a look in a mirror. But when Jesus was raised from the dead, he was raised by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Verse 10 of verse 11, if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who lives in you. In other words, this body which has got the seeds of death in it will one day be quickened as was the glorious body of our Lord Jesus. The Apostle is going to tell us more about that in the 18th through to the 21st verse, but we'll leave that little goody until we come to it.

Let's try to make an application and then close down. What's the Apostle been telling us here? Well, he's been saying that there's no condemnation that awaits those who are in Christ Jesus. Why not? Well, because the demands of the law have been satisfied through our Lord Jesus.

But don't think of heaven, just sending the Lord Jesus into the world. Certainly that was done and that's a marvellous thing. But besides the Lord Jesus coming into the world, the Holy Spirit has come not just to the world in general, but into our hearts in particular.

And as a result of that, we're under new management. In the 6th chapter and 7th chapter, Paul talks about being mastered by sin. But in the 8th chapter, the mastery that is ours ideally is the mastery of the Holy Spirit.

It's the submission of our lives completely to his control. Now, you may not have reached that point absolutely, but you should be working with the aid of the Spirit towards it. So? So what? So recognise, brothers and sisters, who you are.

You are the sons of God, twice precious. Christ indwells you by his Spirit who came to empower you. Honour your body, because you're going to have the old body around with you in a rejuvenated state for a mighty time.

Remember, mighty long time. Remember your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. And as the oak tree is in the acorn, so there is that of your body now which will continue throughout eternity.

But it's going to be much improved. This corruption will put on incorruption. This mortal will put on immortality.

I will be satisfied, says the psalmist, when I wake in your likeness. If you want it in the language of John, beloved, it does not now appear what we shall be, but when he shall appear, we shall be like him. Remember who you are, who lives in your heart, and as you appreciate that you're under complete new management, may God in his grace give you the empowering that's necessary for you to conduct your affairs in this life, so to glorify the Father who gave the Son, the Son who came into the world, and the Holy Spirit who lives in you.

Because the 11th verse is fully Trinitarian as it spells out the work of the Godhead in our salvation. More of that next week. Let's just pray for a moment.

Father, we thank you for that lovely verse, no condemnation now I dread. We praise you that Jesus has bled and died. We thank you that the Holy Spirit is available to us.

But Lord, we want to know more of him, more power, Lord, more of your fullness, more of the overflow of divine love, so that every part of us tingles with the Holy Ghost, so that our tongues and our speech organs and our mental faculties are under his control. Lord, we want to be more than conquerors. Help us to yield to him.

Lord, some of us are afraid of the very idea of the experience of the Spirit. We want it all cerebral, we want it all to be intellectual and theological. Lord, help us to take from you what you want to give us, so that there may be that deep refining in our personalities, that personal Pentecost, that surrender of all our faculties to you.

Lord, we believe that you want us to live lives that are more than conquerors. We want, Lord, not to be failures, but to be successors. Help us, Father God, as we offer ourselves increasingly to you now as a church family.

Some of us for too long have struggled to have mastery over sin and not being victors. Some of us have wanted more courage, Lord, to be able to declare the good news of the Gospel. You shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you.

Lord, in balance is not that we've received the Spirit. In balance is that we have not all received the full potential that's available to us in Christ Jesus. Holy Spirit, come.

We're upstanding for you. We want to be empowered by you. Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.