Romans 8:9, commentary and pictures

To be not in the flesh but in the Spirit means the Spirit of God dwells within and governs the person instead of fallen nature ruling, and those who live to gratify the flesh show they are not Christ's whatever they profess. Having the Spirit of Christ dwelling within is the essential mark and test of belonging to Christ, and without His Spirit a person is none of His, alienated from God and under sin. The indwelling is a taking possession of the whole person — heart, mind, speech and powers — by faith, bringing cleansing, new birth, pardon and full dependence on God. Those in whom He dwells are changed to resemble Him, molded after His goodness, meekness, patience, love and courtesy, and made obedient from the heart, loving God supremely and neighbor as self. Every true possessor of His Spirit has a missionary spirit that seeks to bring others to the Saviour, while absence of the Spirit is revealed in strife, selfishness and harshness and calls for immediate repentance, confession and conversion to receive the Comforter.

Flesh Spirit and Indwelling

To be not in the flesh but in the Spirit means the Spirit of God dwells within and governs the person instead of fallen human nature ruling, so that daily control by God's Spirit is the dividing line between Christ's rule and Satan's control. Those who live to gratify the flesh show they are not Christ's whatever they profess, directing work, thoughts and pleasures toward lower things rather than higher things. A spirit of variance, contention and strife is inconsistent with true godliness and forfeits its special advantages, revealing that the flesh still governs. Where the Spirit dwells the life is cleansed, renewed and sanctified and made in character like Christ, revealing Christ's character rather than self-will.

The Spirit of God dwelling in a person is the Spirit of Christ dwelling in a person, and without that indwelling a person is none of His. As many as are led by the Spirit of God are the sons and children of God, and a spirit of peace and a holy life show their connection with heaven and reveal their character as His children. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty, and those worked by the Holy Spirit find the lessons of Christ divinely significant, complete and in harmony with His mission of love. The Spirit abiding within makes a person one with Christ and a partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world through lust, with the heart melted to tenderness, imbued with the Master's Spirit, quick to discern the work for souls and to manifest pitying tenderness in word and work, revealing the wealth of love underlying all His teachings and dealings.

The indwelling is a taking possession of the whole person — the organs of speech and the mental, physical and moral powers — received by faith as Christ dwells in the heart. The Spirit applies the truth about Jesus to the understanding, bringing the soul cleansing and peace, and its teaching is light for those only half converted when Romans 8 is read with earnest longing. Fixing the mind on Christ and studying His life and character helps a person receive His Word as the bread of life, giving sight of the power of the world to come and bringing new life in Christ. Knowing Him as Saviour includes personally experiencing pardon for sin and the new birth, giving life and power as blood circulating through the body, renewing in holiness and producing fruit to God's glory, with a full sense of dependence on God and light and wisdom from the Word. Every true, earnest, self-sacrificing and self-denying soul in whom the Spirit abides understands more and more of the mystery of godliness as a co-laborer with Christ to whom the Saviour reveals the mystery, overcoming surface work that leaves character imperfect, dwarfed, feeble and sickly and growing in true grace that recognizes mercy in reproof, restrains evil, brings to light the purposes of the heart, and works by love to purify the soul.

Those in whom the Spirit dwells seek God's glory in all that is done, willing to do His will and keeping His commandments with consecrated hearts, continuing in devoted service and learning to do everything to His glory. The indwelling Spirit leads them to see that the law of God is holy, just and good, to delight in the law, to love its requirements and to obey them from the heart. Through the love of God shed abroad in the heart they love God supremely and their neighbor as themselves, cleansed in the soul temple from malice, hatred, jealousy and selfishness and filled with kindness, patience, longsuffering, benevolence and love, so that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them. That obedience is proved by keeping the first four commandments issuing in obedience to the last six, manifesting duty to fellow men in tender, pitying love toward everyone for whom Christ died.

Belonging to Christ

The indwelling of the Spirit of Christ is the essential mark and test of belonging to Christ, for whoever does not have His Spirit is none of His. Without that Spirit a person is alienated from God, under the dominion of sin and Satan, and fitted for eternal separation from Him, and will not join the redeemed in His kingdom. This is a searching test of relationship to Him, seen in a life shaped by Christ's mind and works, including unselfish service and care for others, patient resistance to evil, and a home made a place of peace and rest. Even learning, wealth, and talent cannot supply the lack or make a person truly useful, and one who lacks His Spirit is found wanting and cannot teach others how to be saved, however much is professed. To refuse to welcome Jesus after His self-sacrifice, suffering, rejection, and crucifixion have been clearly set forth is great sin, and repentance toward God and faith in Jesus are not to be put off to a more convenient time.

Mere profession counts for nothing, and having a name on the church books, bearing His name, or possessing learning, wealth, talent, or worldly recognition does not make a person Christ's without the transforming work of divine grace. Where religion does not transform and sanctify, the person does not belong to Christ, for belonging is proved by the indwelling Spirit producing true sanctification through communion with Him. Those who are His are closely united to Christ, share the divine nature, and are made new creatures, transformed by His love to become meek and lowly like Jesus in disposition and character. That change is practical, making men and women better in all the relations of life as living representatives of Christ, walking as He walked and purifying the soul from defilement so as to present the all-sufficiency of Jesus to others. Having His Spirit, which is of far greater consequence than worldly recognition, is shown by working just as Christ worked without grafting one's own way and disposition into the work, loving the brethren, and constantly seeking unity and harmony through humility, self-denial, self-sacrifice, and devotion to serving others.

Belonging comes through vital connection with Christ by living faith, which brings contact with His saving power in supreme preference, complete reliance, and full consecration. That faith works through love, purifies the soul, and produces obedience to God's commandments and love for others, giving life and power as blood circulating through the body when Christ dwells in the heart by faith. Fixing the mind on Christ and studying His life and character helps a person receive His Word as the bread of life, and feeding on that Word gives sight of the power of the world to come, brings new life in Christ, renews in holiness, and produces fruit to God's glory. Knowing Him as Saviour includes personally experiencing pardon for sin and the new birth, and those unacquainted with the Spirit of God must seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near, coming with a broken heart and contrite spirit and putting away vanity, pride, levity, unbecoming behavior, and unholy passion. The Spirit applies the truth about Jesus to the understanding to bring cleansing and peace, Christ must abide in the heart with a Spirit-led life revealing His character rather than self-will, and Romans 8 is to be read with earnest longing as light for those who are only half converted.

Those who are truly His are His own peculiar people, chosen from the foundation of the world, wedded to Christ, redeemed from among men, and kept in communion with Him in devoted service. They willingly do whatever He tells them, separated from worldlings and come out from the world to keep close beside Christ, learning to do everything to the glory of God, and as His disciples remain like docile children hearing words of truth and obeying them because they are truth, ever learning from Him and made good and cultured by the impartation of His grace. The Spirit of Christ abiding within makes a person one with Christ and a partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world through lust, with the heart melted into tenderness, imbued with the Master's Spirit, discerning the great work for souls, manifesting pitying tenderness in word and work, and revealing the wealth of love underlying all His teachings and dealings. Every true, earnest, self-sacrificing, self-denying soul understands more and more of the mystery of godliness because the Spirit abides in him and he has become a co-laborer with Christ, overcoming surface work that leaves character imperfect, dwarfed, feeble, and sickly and growing in true grace and godliness that recognizes mercy in reproof, restrains evil, and shows a faith that works by love and purifies the soul. Through the indwelling Spirit continually teaching and influencing them, believers see that God's law is holy, just, and good, delight in it, love its requirements and obey from the heart, loving God supremely and neighbor as self, cleansed in the soul temple from malice, hatred, jealousy, and selfishness and filled with kindness, patience, longsuffering, benevolence, and love so that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them. Christ dwelling in the heart by faith renews the image of God, redeems from all iniquity, purifies a peculiar people zealous of good works, and joins each one as a branch grafted into the true Vine, making him individually Christ's own and bringing him back to loyalty to God's law.

Christ's Spirit must live within for a person truly to confess Christ before the world, since no one can communicate what is not possessed and words and profession alone are not enough. When the heart is sanctified, submissive, and humble, its inner grace and truth become visible in words and conduct, and these fruits confess Christ. The Spirit's presence can be recognized in conduct and manner, distinguishing such a person from one moved by an opposing power. That indwelling means religion practiced and not merely professed, the love of Jesus dwelling in the heart, earnest belief in the truth, co-laboring with the self-denying Saviour, and a course of action that elevates faith and glorifies God, with the deepest suffering of mind and anguish of soul over the condition of God's cause. Where that Spirit is absent and the love of Jesus does not dwell, the people are not converted and are none of His however much they profess, the proof being readiness to dissect character, suspicion, jealousy, insubordination, and disrespect toward God's servants.

Transformed Christlike Character

Communion with Christ changes the person to resemble Him in character and to be transformed into His image by studying Him and copying His holy ways rather than copying defective human beings. That conformity can be seen by others even when the Christian is unaware of it. The closer the resemblance to Christ, the humbler the person becomes, giving Christ the highest place with lowliness in His service and high regard for Him, needing sanctifying grace rather than pride and self-exaltation. To be a Christian is to be Christlike, taking up His way of thinking, walking in His footsteps and working as He worked, presenting truth with meekness and fervor so that likeness to Jesus is visible, and in thus representing Christ believers represent God the Father to the world.

Having His Spirit molds character after His character in goodness, meekness, gentleness, patience, love, mercy, courtesy and grace, leading from bondage to holiness and enabling true worship and communion with God. It softens whatever is harsh and rough in the temper and smooths off whatever is rugged or sharp in the manners. It flows forth in kind words, pleasant looks, a cheerful countenance, gentle speech, condescending demeanor even to those in the humblest walks of life, refinement of manners, and forgetfulness of self in bestowing light and peace and comfort on others. The truth received into the heart works with hidden power as sanctifier and refiner to transform the receiver, writing Bible rules on the heart and carrying them into everyday life, so that external change testifies of internal change. The Spirit of Christ is not selfish, forbidding, discourteous, or loveless, but leads to practicing Christ's ways and revealing His love in word and action, shaping decisions and councils by mercy, compassion and love instead of self-interest, harsh criticism and hard-hearted judgment. To have Him dwelling within is to reveal meekness, kindness and Christian courtesy always in spirit and character and in words and actions, not only when things go according to one's own ideas and plans, walking humbly and softly before God with conversation and conduct as a real and visible expression of grace and truth within, with pomposity and self-esteem cut away and daily converting power sanctifying soul, spirit and body. A blustering, fault-finding, overbearing person continually jealous of dignity, or one rough and sour and unkind in words and deportment, has not learned of Jesus; if meekness, kindness and Christian courtesy are not revealed, His Spirit does not abide in the soul.

To have the Spirit of Christ is to be imbued with love for Jesus, and the soul without that love is none of His. That love cannot be hidden but will be seen and felt and exerts a wondrous power. It makes the timid bold, the slothful diligent, the ignorant wise, makes the stammering tongue eloquent and rouses the dormant intellect into new life and vigor, and makes the desponding hopeful and the gloomy joyous. It leads its possessor to accept responsibilities for Christ's sake and to bear them in His strength, becoming visible in courageous, diligent, wise, hopeful, joyful service. It is not dismayed by tribulation nor turned aside from duty by reproaches, but bears tribulation and reproach for Christ's sake.

The Spirit's presence is shown in a spirit of peace and a holy life, revealing connection with heaven and character as God's child and as one led by God. It is shown in a Christlike character including patient resistance to evil and a home life marked by peace and rest. Religious life is measured by the home life, and God requires whole sanctification there, not a religion kept for certain places and occasions and laid aside at home. Christ's grace can make the home a place of peace and rest, and whatever makes character lovely in the home makes it lovely in the heavenly mansions.

Having His Spirit is shown in loving one another as Christ loved, refusing to create alienation and strife and standing together in oneness. Those who share one God and one Saviour live in harmony and treat one another kindly, being kind, courteous and tender-hearted and cherishing a faith that works by love and purifies the soul. Against believers united in that love the powers of darkness stand a poor chance. It puts away discord, selfishness, passions, dissensions and strife, joining them closely to God and bringing happiness to families and society through a life of service to others in use of abilities to help others after Christ's pattern. It is shown by working just as Christ worked, not grafting one's own way and disposition into the work, loving the brethren, and constantly seeking unity and harmony through humility, self-denial, self-sacrifice and devotion to serving others, able to assimilate and cooperate with fellow laborers without insisting on one's own way. Unless His Spirit fills a person, that person will not show Christ's kindness and courtesy, and instead despondency and harshness can harm others.

Missionary Life and Unity

To belong to Christ is to have His Spirit, and every true Christian who has that Spirit is Christlike and therefore has a missionary spirit. The renewed heart is moved to bring others to the Saviour, using its abilities to help others, putting away discord, selfishness and strife, and joining closely to God. That love is shown in conduct, especially in earnest efforts to save others through sympathy for the poor and oppressed after the pattern of Christ's self-sacrifice to reach and understand them. Everyone with that Spirit consecrates himself to be a laborer together with God, deriving zeal and energy from Christ the Chief Missionary. The Spirit taking possession of the heart gives deep piety and wholeness to God and makes a person a missionary for God, while whatever interposes between the professed Christian and wholehearted service takes the form of idolatry. The indwelling Spirit also equips a person to serve as a gospel worker, presenting Christ's word to others and directing minds to the special truths for the time.

Lack of desire to bring others to the Saviour is evidence of lost first love and calls for self-examination, a fresh baptism of the Spirit of Christ, and a deeper understanding of Christ's love in coming to save the perishing. Those who have His Spirit work as He worked, take up His way of thinking and His ideas, and show His character in how they live and present the truth. They present truth with meekness and fervor, keep the worth of souls before them, and live so that their lives agree with what they profess and others can recognize their likeness to Jesus. Their message, carried in Christ's love, can lead even people of the world to recognize His likeness in them. Ministers who serve under Christ the Chief Shepherd will therefore be meek and lowly and will care for others, while lives ruled by worldly ambition and vainglory lack this Christlike character whatever they profess.

The Spirit of Christ must be in workers to direct their labor, and their efforts can then meet God's mind. Belonging to Christ depends on having that Spirit dwelling within, which means dropping out self and doing His work with more of God and less of man. In Sabbath school and college work this requires leaving mere mechanical order and human judgment and device and exercising diligence, perseverance and zeal with devotion, piety and simplicity of godliness under the Spirit of the Lord. Workers for God are only His agents, and all their works and means are of little account unless imbued with the Spirit of Christ. Having that Spirit requires submerging self in Jesus, keeping self out of sight and lifting up Jesus, with the fire of God's love burning upon the altar of the heart to melt down barriers and make every possible advance in saving souls.

Work to correct wrongs must be done with the Spirit of Christ and the mind of Christ. That means maintaining a high standard while patiently correcting sin, firmly rebuking it, and continuing to offer hope. This same Spirit should shape decisions and councils, replacing self-interest, harsh criticism and hard-hearted judgment with Christ's mercy, compassion and love. Yielding to the Spirit of Christ is connected with learning to yield one's will to God. Children taught to submit to parental discipline are more readily able to submit to the Spirit's control in their religious experience.

Unfitness and Call to Repentance

Absence of the Spirit is exposed in the temper and conduct, for variance, contention and strife are inconsistent with true godliness and forfeit its special advantages. An unmerciful spirit shows rejection of pardoning love and proves the person is not sharing in divine grace, alienated from God and fitted for eternal separation from Him. Egotism, wicked jealousy, evil thinking and evil speaking against brethren, and bitter animosity must be put away, and medical and health reform work must be done in harmony with given light and with the mind and spirit of Christ. Careless disregard of the Word, backsliding, unbelief, dishonesty, murmuring and discouraging words show the absence of the Spirit and prove a person does not belong to Christ and cannot discern spiritual things. Fault-finding in careless words and actions shows a person is not living under the Spirit's influence but acting on the enemy's ground and needing a purified heart. One who despises those purchased with His blood shows a spirit unlike Christ's and remains under sin and Satan, since the Spirit's presence transforms the soul.

Those without the Spirit cut themselves loose from God by failing to meet conditions plainly marked out in the Word, prove unfit to serve their Master's interests, dishonor Christ while professing Christianity, do the works of Satan so that God cannot cooperate with them or entrust responsibilities and His work to them, grow constantly worse in defects of character, and cannot be safe guides, leaders and teachers where eternal vigilance and faithful character building are required. Such persons follow an independent will rather than a meek and lowly spirit, and a worldly controlling spirit that may be expected in the world is among professed followers an offense to God and a shame, excluding from heaven and purging from the church unless there is reform. They cannot rightly teach others how to be saved, even when they attempt it, for belonging to Christ is evidenced only by having His Spirit. The true teacher made humble, well-balanced and gentle by that Spirit does not speak unadvisedly to stir opposition or deepen enmity, but holds aloft the banner of truth, trusts revealed truth, moves in the footsteps of Jesus, drops self out of sight, and uses caution in expression so that inexperienced believers are not led to copy harsh, denunciatory and severe manners by unguarded public statements by voice or in print.

The verse is a searching test of personal religion requiring spiritual eyesight to discern what manner of spirit prompts action, whether Christ abides in the heart, and whether the life reveals Christ's character rather than self-will. To be a Christian is to be Christ-like, with Bible rules written on the heart and carried into everyday life, softening harsh temper and smoothing rugged manners into kind words, pleasant looks, cheerful countenance, gentle speech, condescending demeanor even to the humblest, meekness, gentleness, refinement and forgetfulness of self in bestowing light, peace and comfort. External change testifies to internal change, for truth received works with hidden power as sanctifier and refiner. A blustering, fault-finding, overbearing, rough, sour and unkind professor, continually jealous of dignity, has not learned of Jesus but shows servitude to the wicked one. Lack of a missionary spirit likewise evidences lost first love and calls for self-examination, a fresh baptism of the Spirit, and deeper understanding of Christ's love in coming to save the perishing, since the renewed heart is moved to bring others to the Saviour and unselfish service and care belong to a life shaped by His mind and works.

Those found wanting must not delay repentance toward God and faith in Jesus, for refusing to welcome Him after His self-sacrifice, suffering, rejection and crucifixion have been clearly presented is great sin. There must be humiliation of soul before God, confession of sins and restitution, seeking the Lord while He may be found with broken and contrite heart, putting away vanity, pride, levity, unbecoming behavior and unholy passion. The overbearing and superior in manner, revealing the spirit of the world rather than Christ, need conversion and conformity to the truth before being trusted with responsibility, and lack the qualifications of true physicians and workers whose influence would otherwise harm the work. Weary, deceived souls satisfied with human inventions, plans and philosophizing, enduring an atmosphere without the bright beams of righteousness and dragging others down, must cry out for the Comforter instead of putting confidence in men and making human power their strength. When received, the Spirit cleanses, renews, sanctifies and makes like Christ in character, with consecrated hearts seeking God's glory, willing to do His will and keeping His commandments.

Those willing to be molded are guided by the great Leader, receive the Holy Spirit as Counsellor, and are sanctified in soul, body and spirit. By impartation of grace they are made good and cultured, remaining as docile children ever learning words of truth and obeying them because they are truth. Every worker cooperating with God has this Spirit and is successful, showing fruit in daily actions with the grace and peace of Christ, moral perception and living principles abiding together. The union supplies moral and spiritual power unattainable alone to overcome evil, producing fruits of righteousness that bless others and glorify God. The heart melts into tenderness, is imbued with the Master's Spirit, discerns the great work for souls, manifests pitying tenderness in word and work, reveals the wealth of love underlying His teachings, grows past dwarfed, feeble surface work into true grace that recognizes mercy in reproof, restrains evil, and shows simplicity of truth working by love and purifying the soul.