THOUGHTS ON THE SPIRIT IN ROMANS
D. B. Robertson
I have been thinking a good deal, beloved brethren, of the immense value of the teaching of Romans and its foundational character, and the necessity of it. I think the thought in the foundations that are secured in Romans in the believer is that you carry these foundations with you. That is, you are introduced into something foundationally in your soul, and it has in mind that we progress from that into the great things God has in mind for us. Some years ago, we had a good deal of conversation, perhaps adjustment as to Romans 7 for instance. You cannot shortcut that; every soul must go through it. Thank God we can go through it with the Spirit and be helped. Going through it with the Spirit means that we arrive at clarity in the inwards. It is a most important matter in the believer’s history to arrive at clarity in the inwards, and be able to discern what is of the flesh and what is of God. That is how you really come to an understanding of your personality according to God.
The early chapters are most interesting, dealing with the exposure of every kind of man; the Jew and the Greek and even the heathen. Then the glory of Christ’s work in chapter 3, showing how our guilt and sinfulness is dealt with according to God’s righteousness. The reference to faith in His blood is an indication of the absoluteness of death. The Lord went into death and in doing so He removed from God’s eye the man that could never have part in the divine system. In chapter 4 God shows us the way into it. There cannot be any progress or understanding of Christianity on the ground of man’s mentality. It requires God to enter into your history morally and also it requires the gift of faith. And so chapter 4 brings in the great thought of the righteousness of faith, and having that we begin to appropriate what God
has done and appreciate it. Then we come on to the wonderful chapter 5, bringing to light the administration of the dispensation of grace; the greatest administration that has ever existed in this world’s history. There is nothing to compare with it. Everything there is through Jesus Christ, it is administered through that Man. God has removed every other man from His sight, and really brought out the glory of the One Man, Jesus Christ. Everything in God’s operation and administration is through that Man, through Jesus Christ. Chapter 6 shows us how we get clear of the power of the world, and there it is a question of Christ Jesus. We are not taken out of the world, Romans has not that in mind, but it has in mind the adjustment of every relationship that the believer stands in with respect to the will of God. I say this for the help of the younger brethren. Jesus Christ is an operational title in the sense of the work that had to be done; in Christ Jesus is the result of that work. Chapter 7 is a most important chapter, it brings us into touch with the New Husband, and I trust we are all married in that sense, to the New Husband. He is our deliverer, not only as it says elsewhere from the coming wrath (1
Thessalonians 1: 10), but He is the deliverer from the struggle that we find in ourselves, setting us free so that at the end of the chapter there is an outlook Godward, as it says “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord ...”, Romans 7: 25.
A brother speaking to me before the address referred to Romans 8, and I was thankful for it, having this in mind, and reminded me that the Spirit is mentioned eighteen times in Romans 8. That is not without significance; it is the Spirit’s chapter. There is no progress in Christianity apart from the Spirit. Young men and young women, if you want to progress spiritually you must have the Spirit. Romans 8 involves a new state, “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8: 1), that involves your conscience, you have been so completely liberated and freed that your conscience has been freed, what a fine sense it is to have that. You know, even in the quietness of your own
moments, thoughts can arise and you wonder about certain things and you arrive at this point where everything is cleared between yourself and God, what a wonderful thing. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death” (Romans 8: 2), now that is Paul saying that experimentally. It does not say ‘it has set us free’, but it
“has set me free”. Paul could say that, but then we have to learn to say it too. True liberty is in this wonderful verse, “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh”, Romans 8: 3.
You might say ‘what does that mean’? It means that God has condemned sin in the flesh in me and you. That is something that we have to take account of, as believers, so that it has no place with us, and we are not hampered by it in our relationships with God (James Taylor New Series Vol. 24, p.85). You have power now to disregard it as you accept that God has condemned sin in the flesh. I know it has a wider bearing but nevertheless you must accept that He has condemned sin in the flesh in you. I leave that with you to think and pray about.
Then the word says, “in order that the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us” (Romans 8: 4), that is you have power now to do something. It is not merely the law of Sinai, it is the law of God. It is the obligation to live according to God down here. That is something that every believer must take to heart, that you have an obligation to live in relation to the will of God. Mr Darby said a very simple thing; he said ‘Christian responsibility is the responsibility of being a Christian’ (Collected Writings Vol. 17, p.315).
That is if you have been brought onto the ground of Christianity, you are taking on responsibility to walk and act and speak in a way that pleases God. The wonder of the whole thing is that God has supplied the power that is needed to do that. As it says here, “who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit”, Romans 8: 4. God has condemned sin in the flesh and you have to learn to do that in your history, you have to learn to apply the death of Christ in its moral teaching in your soul history. It involves a new state for the believer, “according to Spirit”. I trust all of us are conscious that the Holy Spirit indwells us, for it is a power that God has given us to live according to that new state.
I have selected out of the short passage that I read, three references to the Spirit. Firstly, “But ye are not in flesh but in Spirit, if indeed God’s Spirit dwell in you”, I want to speak about that. Then it goes on to say—“but if any one has not the Spirit of Christ he is not of him”. I would like to speak, secondly, of that. Then, further down, it says—“for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption”. These are the three things that I wish to speak to you briefly about. It has been pointed out in the good teaching that while there is one reference “God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts” (Galatians 4: 6), the place that the Spirit takes really is in the body of the believer; Christ has a place through faith in your heart, but the indwelling of the Spirit involves the Spirit in your body. That should have a great moral impact on your life. Where are you going to take Him, what are you going to do; the Spirit of God is dwelling in you. God has a great result in mind in the Spirit of God dwelling in you. I have to learn to give room to the Holy Spirit for Him to operate. I link it in my mind with the oracle in 1 Kings 6: 20. The oracle was quite a large place; it was twenty cubits by twenty cubits by twenty cubits—quite a large place. You might say what is the significance of it? Well, it was to give room for God to speak.
That principle comes into the believer’s history; you have to learn to make room for the Holy Spirit, He is dwelling in you. You have to give Him room to operate and, as you give Him room to operate, there is a great foundational idea. I think what God has in mind, while it is not in the Roman epistle, is that you are going to have part in the house of God. When the Spirit of God came it involved the setting up of the house of God. You see the great foundational idea in Romans, how far it reaches. The Spirit of God dwelling in you; God has in mind that you should have part in His house, where He is known and where He is represented. That is a thing, beloved brethren, that we should be exercised about, that we might represent God rightly and that can only be by the Spirit of God dwelling in us. The human mind could not represent God rightly, however intelligent it may be, however well taught it may be, it could never represent God rightly. God is represented because the Spirit of God is dwelling in His people. I leave that thought with you. What I am trying to say is that there is something happening foundationally here in the operation of the Spirit that has great things in mind—there are so many thoughts that I could bring in.
For instance, in the first chapter you read about “according to the Spirit of holiness” (Romans 1: 4), that is like a moral thread that is going to be woven right through in the fibre of the believer. So that in chapter 12, you yield your body up a living sacrifice; it is a holy matter.
You see how the matter runs through and it goes on beyond that, it goes into the other epistles as well. I could also bring to your notice what Paul says later on, “But I know that, coming to you, I shall come in the fulness of the blessing of Christ”, Romans 15: 29. The teaching of the fulness of the blessing of Christ is not opened up in Romans exactly, it is opened up elsewhere, but what is being laid foundationally is that you might reach on to the great end that God has in mind. What is the fulness of the blessing of the Christ? I think it is sonship.
That is God’s great end that man might be before Him in sonship for His own satisfaction.
Now, the next thing I want to speak about is “if indeed God’s Spirit dwell in you; but if any one has not the Spirit of Christ he is not of him”. That again is a great characteristic fact. As having the Spirit of Christ, I think it is the Spirit of the anointed Man, the Spirit of the Man that God delights in. The Spirit of God dwelling in us is rather an objective thought, but the Spirit of Christ is subjective, it is the Spirit of a Man; not exactly the Spirit of God, although it is the same Person, but it is the Spirit of a Man and what a Man! One would seek to attract you to it, beloved brethren. What a Man! It is God’s thought that you should be characterised by the Spirit of Christ, the anointed Man; the Man who was here in perfect obedience to the will of God whose every act, whose every action, whose every motive was delightful to God. It is the Spirit of that kind of Man. You might say, Where is it all going to lead to? I think it leads to the body of Christ. The Spirit of God leads to the house of God, and having the Spirit of Christ leads you on to having part in the body of Christ. See how God works? Beginning in the believer and then it expands, the foundation carries you forward, and you carry the foundation forward, and you have part in the body of Christ. The house of God represents God; the body of Christ expresses Christ. It is a wonderful thing to have part in the body of Christ. A great deal could be said about that, but I leave the thought with you. I believe you can see how God is operating foundationally in a believer, securing each one of us and leading us on to have our part in the fulness of His own thoughts.
Then it says, “for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”. We are led by the Spirit here in the wilderness. We sometimes sing of it as a ‘trackless wild’ (Hymn 271). We were arrested in the reading by the thought of walking in the truth, and we can only do that in the power of the Holy Spirit as we are led by the Holy Spirit. Then it goes on to say, “For ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”. What you get there is the Spirit available to promote capacity in the believer. There is nothing in you naturally that pleases God, there is no power to do it, nature has no power to do it. However fine it may be, it has no power to do it. I am not speaking now of sinfulness, I am just speaking of what we are naturally. Do you share that thought with me? Do you feel the emptiness of that? Do you feel the impossibility? No matter how fine you may appear naturally, and there may be very fine features in you, there is no capacity to please God, no capacity to respond to God.
We need the Holy Spirit, beloved brethren, we need the Spirit of adoption to give capacity to cry “Abba, Father”. How precious that is! I trust we use that title, it is a precious one, “but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”. I think it involves the inwards of the believer responding to God in holy joy. You see the path that I have set out; you are representing God, you are expressing Christ, and the great end that God has in view is that you might reach God Himself. If the believer has reached God here, it can only be in the power of the Holy Spirit. It goes on to Ephesians 3 particularly, where there is a vessel that is “filled even to all the fulness of God”, Ephesians 3: 19. What wonderful capacity there is in that vessel; “to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages, Amen”, Ephesians 3: 21. It is a divinely formed vessel, and then there is that in the believer that is divinely formed, so that we might have part, we may say, in the great aggregate. The glory of God’s work is in securing what His own heart delights in. I leave that word with us, beloved brethren. I feel it has been very feeble, perhaps not well expressed, but it is in my heart. The Spirit is mentioned eighteen times, I have only selected three. What glory if we could go through all eighteen of them, but there it is, it is for you to pursue it.
I recommend you to read Romans and before you begin to read it, pray about it. That is how you make progress. It is not mystical, it is not magical. You do not get it by waving a wand.
You have to work at it, but if your desire is right God Himself will help you, the Spirit of God will help you. Now I just leave these three thoughts with you. God is working to bring us through to have part in His house where we can represent Him; that is testimony. The important thing about the gospel is that it proceeds from the house of God.
That is important ministry; it was attacked violently in 1905 or 1906 in Chicago. Some said that we preach the gospel to build the house. The house was formed when the Spirit came, and from there it says they spoke the word (Acts 4: 31). That is the glory of it. You see it in a wonderful way, that the gospel is going out from an area where God is known, and because He is known He can be represented. If you do not know God, you cannot represent Him. God is to be known in His house, and Christ is expressed in His body. The Spirit of God leads us, and the Spirit of adoption gives us capacity to cry “Abba, Father”, and then we go on to have part in a vessel that involves full capacity to contain the whole glory of the fulness of the revelation of God in Christ; it is “filled even to all the fulness of God”, Ephesians 3: 19. The whole scope of the revelation of God involves the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It is all there; that vessel filled, not with it, but even to it. There is still all the glory around, it is like the basket in the ocean, the ocean is all around, but the basket is full with it (see J.T. Vol. 55, p164; J.T. Vol. 59, p77). May we be stimulated, beloved brethren, to make room for the Spirit. That is my appeal—make room for the Spirit. There is no progress in Christianity apart from the Holy Spirit. May the Lord bless the word.
Address at Grimsby
10 October 2009