Both Rich Mullins and Third Day sang a song entitled “Creed,” that began like this: “I believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Maker of Earth; and in Jesus Christ His only begotten Son our Lord.” This song was based on one of the early Church creeds, called the Nicene Creed.(1) In reference to the Holy Spirit this Creed says, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.”(2) In the Nicene Creed the Holy Spirit is called “the Lord and Giver of Life.” This is a truth about the Spirit that the early church recognized and a truth which I hope we will discover today – that the Holy Spirit is One who gives life – as we look at “Life in the Spirit.”
The Spirit Abolished Condemnation by the Law (vv. 1-2)
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
We read here that there is no more condemnation for those who know Jesus, and walk according to the Spirit; and those who walk in the Spirit of life are free of the “law of sin and death.” The key word here is “law.” Sin leads to death (Romans 6:23), but only because conviction of sin is brought about by the law (Romans 3:20, 4:15, 5:13). The law leads to conviction, judgment, and thus condemnation. The law is not bad in and of itself, for the law was a tutor that taught us about Jesus and led us to Him (Galatians 3:24). In Romans 7:7 Paul stated, “Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law.”
The law becomes bad when we use it in an attempt justify our own righteousness, or when we try to earn our way into heaven by working hard at keeping the precepts of the law. A works-based belief system cannot attain the desired result of righteousness by the law. Why? Well, James said in James 2:10-11, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.” “According to a third century rabbi, Moses gave 365 prohibitions and 248 positive commands”(3) – 613 total. There are just too many commands for one person to keep, and if we mess up one time then we are unrighteous before God and unworthy to come into His presence. We cannot be saved from sin and death by keeping the law (Ephesians 2:8-9).
The Holy Spirit abolished condemnation by the law, and the condemnation that arises from legalism. In 2 Corinthians 3:15-16, Paul said, “Even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Some of us who already know Jesus act as though our hearts are veiled and cannot see the freedom we have in Christ. We walk around as though we are judged, for we allow the criticism and condemnation of other people to rule us and determine our life’s course; however the “life course” that is set by the world does not lead to true life. We are free, however, if we choose to lay hold of our freedom and walk in it daily. Jesus said, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed!” (John 8:36).
In Romans 7:6 Paul told us, “But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.” We have newness of life (Romans 6:4), and freedom in life by the Holy Spirit! If you are a believer then you need to embrace your freedom!
The Savior Fulfilled the Requirement of the Law (vv. 3-4)
3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 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.
We just read that the Holy Spirit has set us free from sin, death, and condemnation; and here we are shown how all of this took place. God sent His Son Jesus into the world, in the form of man, or the form of human flesh. In Hebrews 4:15, we read that Jesus “was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus endured the entire human experience, and He was confronted with the temptation to sin, yet He overcame. He was even obedient to God in the face of death, for Philippians 2:8 states, “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” Jesus overcame sin in life and death.
Jesus went to the cross in human flesh to condemn sin in the flesh. He became human to take our place as a human being. All human beings sin (Romans 3:23) and the penalty for sin is spiritual death (Romans 6:23), but Jesus took our place in death. He died for us. That’s what the cross was all about. Jesus was God in the flesh, which made Him perfect; therefore He became the perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins. Jesus defeated sin on the cross; and He defeated death when He rose from the grave!
All this took place by the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit was working through Jesus. Further down in our main passage, we read in verse 11 about the Holy Spirit that He is “the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead.” We are told in 1 Timothy 3:16, that “God was manifested in the flesh, [and] justified in the Spirit,” and Romans 1:4 tells us Jesus was “declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” The Holy Spirit led Jesus to satisfy the requirement of the law through His death. The Holy Spirit was the catalyst for His resurrection! If we walk according to the Spirit, then we too will satisfy the law and be raised into newness of life because of what Jesus did.
The Spirit Provides Believers Life and Peace (vv. 5-8)
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
We read here that if we truly “live according to the Spirit” that we are to set our minds on “the things of the Spirit” (v. 5). I’m going to take some time to focus on this expression “the things of the Spirit.” Paul gave some indication as to what the things of the Spirit could consist. In Ephesians 3:15-19, he prayed that the Father “would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
In Ephesians, Paul mentioned 1.) strengthening, or growing, in our inner man; 2.) having faith; 3.) being grounded in love; 4.) knowing, or growing, in the love of Christ; and 5.) being filled with the fullness of God. These are “things of the Spirit” and they can be found in what is called the “Fruit of the Spirit.” A little later in Ephesians, Paul said, “For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth” (Ephesians 5:9); and in Galatians 5:22-23 and 25 Paul declared, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control. Against such there is no law . . . If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”
In our verses from Romans, Paul equated “living in the Spirit” with pursuing “the things of the Spirit,” and in Galatians “living in the Spirit” is said to be evident in our lives by having the “Fruit of the Spirit,” so it seems safe to say that the fruit of the Spirit are some of the “things of the Spirit” that we should pursue. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could say of our lives that we have such things as love, joy, and peace? These are things that many of us would equate with abundant life. Let me assure you, we can have them through the Holy Spirit!
In verse 6, we see the result of setting our minds on the things of the Spirit and being spiritually minded – it is life and peace. In Romans 14:17, we read, “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” – some of the fruits of the Spirit. The Spirit, and the things of the Spirit, give us peace and joy, and ultimately life! In John 6:63 Jesus said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” Did you catch that? – “It is the Spirit who gives life.” If you desire true abundant life then take your mind off “the things of the flesh” (v. 5), or the things of this earth, and pursue the things of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit Raised Jesus and Will Raise Us Too (vv. 9-11)
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
All the wonderful life-giving benefits given by the Spirit are ours “if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in [us],” as we read in verse 9. We also read, “Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His” (v. 9). You could turn this around to say, “If anyone does not know the Lord Jesus, then he does not have the Holy Spirit.” 1 John 4:2-3 says, “By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit [or person] that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit [or person] that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.” Does the Spirit of God dwell in you? Have you confessed Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord? If you will confess your belief that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2), and believe that He died for your sins on the cross, and then rose again victorious over sin and death, you will be saved (Romans 10:9-10); and then the Holy Spirit will come to abide within.
In the account of Nicodemus, Jesus called this being “born again” (John 3:3). When Nicodemus questioned Jesus how one could go back into his mother’s womb and be born all over again, Jesus replied, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:4-6). There are two kinds of births: One is the physical birth where we are born from the water of our mother’s womb; the other is the spiritual birth through Christ and the Holy Spirit; and we receive the Holy Spirit at the moment of this new birth.
Nicodemus continued to question Jesus, and so Jesus explained how one receives this new life. Jesus told him, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Believe in Jesus, confess Him as Savior and Lord, and you will receive this new life in the Holy Spirit. Once we confess Jesus as Savior and receive the Holy Spirit, something amazing happens: “He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (v. 11). On the day that we pass away we will be raised from death into life – that is eternal life.
Verse 10 states, “And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin.” Right now, during this lifetime, we must consider our body as dead because of our sinful nature. Our former life of living in sin is to be no more. In the words of Paul, we must symbolically crucify our former life (Galatians 2:20, 5:24). Why? Because the sinful nature of the flesh is always warring against the Spirit (Romans 7:23). If we put away the flesh then the Holy Spirit has free reign in our lives to bring us life each and every day. Through the Spirit we have eternal life, but we also have life amidst our daily struggles, for the very same resurrection power that brought Jesus up from the grave will also transform those life-sucking circumstances that work to bring us down.
We need to put away our sinful passions and seek a life of righteousness, for “the Spirit is life because of righteousness” (v. 10). In Romans chapter 6, Paul explains this in more detail. He declared, “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him . . . For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:5-8, 10-11).
Let us die to the flesh daily to make room for the Spirit of life to fill us and fulfill us, and bring life to these dry and thirsty souls; and if you have accepted Jesus for the very first time, rest assured that the Spirit will raise you into eternal life in Christ.
Time of Reflection
Life is a journey. We often call it our daily walk. Here we are told to “walk according to the Spirit” (v. 1). Paul emphasized this in Galatians 5:25, when he declared, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Let us confess Christ as Savior, put aside the sinful nature, and live for Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit! Let us lay hold of the many blessings that arise from being indwelled by the Spirit! We will gain eternal life; freedom from working for righteousness, and freedom from condemnation; we will gain joy and peace; and we will see a transformation in our daily circumstances through the resurrection power of Jesus Christ.
If you will confess Jesus as Savior and Lord and receive the Holy Spirit into your heart for the very first time, you will also gain a strong assurance that you forever belong to Jesus. 2 Corinthians 1:21 tells us, “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” By the Spirit we are guaranteed that our salvation was completed on the cross. Come and receive Jesus as Savior and Lord today, and you will be able to leave this place with an assurance that you have eternal life, and abundant life!
NOTES
(1) In A. D. 312, Emperor Constantine received a vision from the Lord and established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire; and in A. D. 325 he called and presided over the Council of Nicaea, from which the “Nicene Creed” emerged.
(2) “The Nicene Creed,” taken from the Internet in July of 2007 at http://www.creeds.net/ ancient/nicene.htm.
(3) “Law,” taken from the Internet in July of 2007 at http://www.sermonillustrations.com.
