Be Ruled by the Spirit
Romans 8
1So now, those who are in Christ Jesus are not judged guilty. 2Through Christ
Jesus the law of the Spirit that brings life made me free from the law that brings
sin and death. 3The law was without power, because the law was made weak by
our sinful selves. But God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son to
earth with the same human life that others use for sin. By sending his Son to be
an offering to pay for sin, God used a human life to destroy sin. 4He did this so
that we could be the kind of people the law correctly wants us to be. Now we do
not live following our sinful selves, but we live following the Spirit.
5Those who live following their sinful selves think only about things that
their sinful selves want. But those who live following the Spirit are thinking
about the things the Spirit wants them to do. 6If people’s thinking is controlled by
the sinful self, there is death. But if their thinking is controlled by the Spirit, there
is life and peace. 7When people’s thinking is controlled by the sinful self, they
are against God, because they refuse to obey God’s law and really are not even
able to obey God’s law. 8Those people who are ruled by their sinful selves cannot
please God.
9But you are not ruled by your sinful selves. You are ruled by the Spirit, if
that Spirit of God really lives in you. But the person who does not have the Spirit
of Christ does not belong to Christ. 10Your body will always be dead because of
sin. But if Christ is in you, then the Spirit gives you life, because Christ made
you right with God. 11God raised Jesus from the dead, and if God’s Spirit is
living in you, he will also give life to your bodies that die. God is the One who
raised Christ from the dead, and he will give life through his Spirit that lives in
you.
12So, my brothers and sisters, we must not be ruled by our sinful selves or live
the way our sinful selves want. 13If you use your lives to do the wrong things
your sinful selves want, you will die spiritually. But if you use the Spirit’s help to
stop doing the wrong things you do with your body, you will have true life.
14The true children of God are those who let God’s Spirit lead them. 15The
Spirit we received does not make us slaves again to fear; it makes us children of
God. With that Spirit we cry out, “Father.” 16And the Spirit himself joins with
our spirits to say we are God’s children. 17If we are God’s children, we will
receive blessings from God together with Christ. But we must suffer as Christ
suffered so that we will have glory as Christ has glory.
Our Future Glory
18The sufferings we have now are nothing compared to the great glory that
will be shown to us. 19Everything God made is waiting with excitement for God
to show his children’s glory completely. 20Everything God made was changed to
become useless, not by its own wish but because God wanted it and because all
along there was this hope: 21that everything God made would be set free from
ruin to have the freedom and glory that belong to God’s children.
22We know that everything God made has been waiting until now in pain, like
a woman ready to give birth. 23Not only the world, but we also have been waiting
with pain inside us. We have the Spirit as the first part of God’s promise. So we
are waiting for God to finish making us his own children, which means our
bodies will be made free. 24We were saved, and we have this hope. If we see
what we are waiting for, that is not really hope. People do not hope for something
they already have. 25But we are hoping for something we do not have yet, and we
are waiting for it patiently.
26Also, the Spirit helps us with our weakness. We do not know how to pray as
we should. But the Spirit himself speaks to God for us, even begs God for us with
deep feelings that words cannot explain. 27God can see what is in people’s hearts.
And he knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit speaks to God
for his people in the way God wants.
28We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him.
They are the people he called, because that was his plan. 29God knew them before
he made the world, and he decided that they would be like his Son so that Jesus
would be the firstborn of many brothers. 30God planned for them to be like his
Son; and those he planned to be like his Son, he also called; and those he called,
he also made right with him; and those he made right, he also glorified.
God’s Love in Christ Jesus
31So what should we say about this? If God is with us, no one can defeat us.
32He did not spare his own Son but gave him for us all. So with Jesus, God will
surely give us all things. 33Who can accuse the people God has chosen? No one,
because God is the One who makes them right. 34Who can say God’s people are
guilty? No one, because Christ Jesus died, but he was also raised from the dead,
and now he is on God’s right side, begging God for us. 35Can anything separate
us from the love Christ has for us? Can troubles or problems or sufferings or
hunger or nakedness or danger or violent death? 36As it is written in the
Scriptures:
“For you we are in danger of death all the time.
People think we are worth no more than sheep to be killed.”
Psalm 44:22
37But in all these things we have full victory through God who showed his
love for us. 38Yes, I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruling
spirits, nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, 39nothing above us,
nothing below us, nor anything else in the whole world will ever be able to
separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version
No Condemnation to Those Who Are in Christ
Jesus (Romans 8:1-39)
A. The Reason for This (Romans 8:1-4)
The arguments presented in the previous chapters are summed up in these
verses, and we are introduced into the glorious results received. We have a
picture of what multitudes of people experience through seeking to perfect or
improve the old nature through the works of the flesh. This has been true in every
period of the Church when Christian people fail to learn the lesson that it is
through faith that God justifies, sanctifies and glorifies. We cannot crucify
ourselves. We may succeed to a degree, make some marks of mutilation to show
the world by our feeble efforts how religious we are. The only thing we can do to
know victory is to accept Him by whom our old nature was crucified. The old
nature will always be lusting to destroy the new, but we can have absolute peace
with God by allowing the new nature, the Christ Spirit, to have full control over
us, thus giving us constant triumph in His victory. No Christian need to live in
defeat.
B. The Spiritual Life Now Leading Us (Romans 8:5-15)
Christ’s Spirit now in us, we are under the control of the nature of Christ.
That our minds are renewed for the indwelling of God’s Spirit is given as the
evidence that we are pleasing God. “Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of
Christ, he is not His.” This is really the principle of life.
C. The Holy Spirit and the New Nature Witness Together
(Romans 8:16-25)
The Holy Spirit is a personal agent of the new nature of the believer. The
highest summit of the epistle has been reached. In Christ Jesus: no condemnation;
free from the law of sin and death; indwelt by the Spirit of God; led by the Holy
Spirit; children of God; heirs of God; joint heirs with Christ. These are blessed
truths of the Word of God. The remainder of Romans 8 has to do with the future.
A wonderful glory is in store for the children of God. When Christ, the head of
creation, is manifested we shall also be manifested with Him in glory. We groan
and travail now, waiting and looking forward to that coming day when the
creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty
of the glory of the children of God. The only hope of a ruined creation is the
coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Creator of all things and Redeemer. Our
full and blessed inheritance will be complete in the redemption of the body. We
wait patiently for it.
D. The Holy Spirit’s Power in Us as to Our Walk (Romans
8:26-27)
Prayer is mentioned here. It is the Holy Spirit, as the helper of our infirmities,
who makes the desires of our hearts known to God. There is an utterance of
supplication that makes no sound. The Holy Spirit makes intercession for the
saints according to the will of God. The believer is hedged about and made
secure as he walks in the Spirit, and peace and joy will be his daily portion.
E. No Separation from Christ (Romans 8:28-39)
To those who love God all things work together for good, to those who are
called according to His purpose. We can rest in God and commit everything to
Him, knowing that He will work things out in our lives. God has a plan and
purpose for His own. From His foreknowledge of us in the past to the blessed
glory of the future, His purpose is that Christ His Son should be a first-born
among many brethren. The chain of blessing from this is in the foreknowledge of
God: predestinated, called, justified and glorified. God has not predestinated a
part of the human race to be lost, for He would have “all men to be saved and to
come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4). All are not saved because
they do not believe. God, as all-knowing, knows those who would believe, and it
is the believer who is predestinated, called, justified and will be glorified. God’s
eternal purpose will not fail, and all who are in Christ will be conformed to the
image of His Son. This is the hope of the calling of God. He never violates His
Word. God never robs a man of the responsibility of free-will and choice. He
wants him to love and serve Him by choosing to love and serve Him.
The ending of the doctrinal section of this great epistle is most precious and
glorious. “What then shall we say to these things?” Our response must be in
worship and adoration of the God who loved us so in giving His only begotten
Son, “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
(John 3:16). God reached down to us in our misery and shame, and has lifted us
so high that the believer sits with Christ in heavenly places. God is for us, who
can be against us? The proof—“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered
Him up for us all.” With Christ He has freely given us all things. Christ died, He
rose again, He is at the right hand of God the Father making intercession for us.
Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ and the love of God which is in
Christ Jesus. God’s provision: no condemnation; no separation; no more wrath,
but eternal glory. This is the salvation of God. How can one who claims to be a
Christian live a shifty, careless, unfaithful life? Because of God’s great love and
provision, you just want to get closer and closer and closer to the One who loves
you so much.
Title: Explorers Bible Study: New Testament Epistles & Revelation,
Workbook
Author: Constance, N.E.
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