Romans 8: Belonging to Christ
Romans 8:9-11; Acts 2:1-4
“However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But 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.”
Romans 8:9-11 NASB1995
First a disclaimer, since there have been a few more readers of Heaven on Wheels recently: I am not a pastor, certainly not a Biblical “expert”, nor have I had formal training in Christian theology. I am a lowly but eternally blessed recipient of God’s love and forgiveness through Christ and I returned to faith 15 years ago after a pointless and painful and long journey through skepticism and unbelief. My mind is the logical and mathematical mind of a trained engineer, so how I learn about something is to read, explore, study and write about it, so that I can put aside doubt and uncertainty and build my faith. Hopefully, everyone who reads what I write can learn at the same time; I welcome comments and corrections and your perspectives as believers!
Now, back to Romans 8. Paul is telling us in these next verses that if we are in the Spirit, the Spirit of Christ dwells in us and our spirit is alive, though our bodies are dead through sin; the Spirit will give life to our mortal bodies. How do we know if it is true that we have the Spirit? This is a question I’ve asked many times in my faith journey and I never got a satisfactory answer at the mainstream church we attended for almost 13 years. When you receive the Holy Spirit, are there fireworks that go off in your head? Do you feel immediately changed in a profound way? Sadly, at that church, I got a lot of blank looks and shrugs. New believers often look at the experiences the Apostles had in Acts 2:1-4 as the supposed baseline for “transformation”:
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.”
Acts 2:1-4 NASB1995
Having the Spirit of Christ in you happens when you give your life to Christ. It’s a work in process for our mortal lives and is “like the wind” in that you can start to see its effects without ever seeing it, like you see leaves and paper blow in the wind as evidence of that wind. I found a marvelous ten-point list about knowing the Spirit through one of the many resources for Romans 8 listed in Precept Austin. This link in the Precept Austin reference is to Bible.org and it excerpts a sermon by Seven J. Cole, who was pastor at Flagstaff Christian Fellowship for many years. Here is that ten-point list from his sermon for knowing that the Holy Spirit does indeed dwell in you from the moment you were born again:
Speaking in tongues is not a way to tell if the Holy Spirit dwells in you. Some who have the Spirit now cannot speak in tongues (remember, we all have different spiritual gifts). The tongues must also be translatable language, not babbling.
If the Spirit dwells in you, you have experienced the new birth. You have become a God lover and not a God hater.
If the Spirit dwells in you, you are drawn to Jesus Christ and you desire to know and honor Him.
If the Spirit dwells in you, you have been flooded with God’s love so that you have hope in Him.
If the Spirit dwells in you, you regard Scripture as His word of truth and you are growing to understand it.
If the Spirit dwells in you, His fruit is growing in your life and the deeds of the flesh are diminishing.
If the Spirit dwells in you, you will have a growing hatred of sin and love of holiness.
If the Spirit dwells in you, you will be growing in praise, joy and thankfulness towards God.
If the Spirit dwells in you, you will be growing in prayer.
If the Spirit dwells in you, you will want to others about Jesus.
The question is answered!! The Holy Spirit does indeed dwell in me and the fruits are growing! It wasn’t a bolt of lightning, but it is present and growing! Our new church has done a much better job helping us to understand this spiritual journey. An interesting anecdote to end this devotional:
On a recent RV trip, we were at the Promontory Historical Site in Utah for the re-creation of the Golden Spike ceremony completing the transcontinental railroad. Steve played a part as a Reverend blessing the event. A woman came up to him afterwards and asked if he was a preacher in real life. She and her husband were fellow Christians and she told us that she could see the light of the Holy Spirit in our faces! Since I have one of those “resting faces” that you hear about, that was marvelous news! It’s still a long journey, but God is with me!
My next Romans 8 devotional will examine Romans 8:12-13 - Killing Sin.
The sermon by Steven J. Cole is copyrighted 2011, Bible.org all rights reserved.