Read the whole book for yourself, Romans is said to be the best book to understand the true Gospel of Christ. I do not disagree, but you should read it all for yourself and see what is to be found in it to know what it looks like to come to 1.) A knowledge of your sinfulness and complete wretchedness when you are apart from God, rejecting the knowledge of him 2.) to be totally and completely justified by grace through faith 3.) what it means to be justified and born again by grace, or regenerated through the death and then resurrection of Christ... then so on.
Romans 8 is certainly one of my favorite books and I think the heart of it gets looked over by many of us, but it almost exclusively talks about what it means to have the Spirit of God and what it looks like. Starting with verse 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."
Some translations may not have the end of that verse, but I think thats a shame as it simply puts what the next 20 verses or so back up. For what its worth, the majority of Greek transcripts have it. Anyways, its interesting how we can read the first part of this verse and then not read what the condition is or how that actually plays out in real life. "Who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit". So, you have no condemnation if you are in Christ, for those who are in Christ walk according to the Spirit... and backing this up: "So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (vs. 8). "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. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness." (vs 9, 10)... There are several if statements as if Paul is questioning us, is the Spirit of God in you? He is not letting us just simply say we are in Christ, but rather is he really in us? Because if the Spirit of God is really in you, there is a difference...
Verse 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." So if we have been truly saved, we have life through His Spirit. If we have come to true repentance, we no longer are slaves to our sins in this mortal body. There is a profound difference between the unregenerate, unsaved heart and the regenerate, saved, Holy Ghost filled heart. If you do not see it in your heart, what assurance do you have? "For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God." (1 John 3:20, 21). This is not about works or about doing things just to have assurance, but way more profound than that. Is your heart enraptured and captured by Christ? Is it your goal in life to grow in the knowledge (way more than just head knowledge) of Christ and God? John 17:3 says "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." The word 'know' used in the greek here can mean to be interwoven with... I like to think of it as Ser vs. Conocer used in Spanish... Ser being to know someone personally and conocer to just know about someone. We must know God in a very real sense. Do you love the Lord God with all your heart, mind and soul? This is the very first and greatest commandment of Christ, if we do not know God, how can we love God? There is so much to be said about this, but read the Book, read it for yourself.
To go on in Romans 8:12-13, "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors- not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." Is this a reality in your life? Are you overcoming the deeds of the body, are you putting to death sin in your life by the grace of God in the power of the Spirit within you? This is a very serious question as Paul explicitly says that those who "live according to the flesh... will die"... Meaning will not see eternal life. One of my favorite sayings about salvation comes from, I believe, Leonard Ravenhill: "So your saved? Saved from what? Lust, greed, idolatry, and so on." If you are by the grace of God, one of the "sons of God" led by the Spirit as vs. 14 goes on to say, then you will overcome some sin in your life in this present age. If you are not overcoming some sin that was present in your life before you were said to have been saved, how can you say that you were saved according to this passage? How can you say that the power of an Almighty God can not work some form of redemption to righteousness in your present body? If by grace, His Spirit is given to you in this mortal body, He does not give it to us in vain. His intention is to bring us to a right reflection of His holiness (2 Cor. 3:18)... And since when, especially if you hold to the doctrines of Grace and some form of Calvinisim, has God's will been suddenly undone in this generation of 'saved' saints? How have we lost this notion?
So I am very tired of writing now, but I do not think this is even the tip of the iceberg on this. Anyways, here are some sermons if you want to look at this further and then go, read the Bible for yourself. The true knowledge of God is usually found in the secret place: "...pray to your Father who is in the secret places" (Matthew 6:6). The Lord is Spirit and he is everywhere, but often only when you get alone, away from distractions can you really focus your whole heart on Him.
One of my favorites:
Hello brother,
ReplyDeleteI'm friends with your sister, Megan, and found your blog through your fb profile. Amen to your blog post. Praise God for what He is teaching you from His Word.
Thank you especially for the link to the Paris Reidhead sermonette. That is a powerful clip from that message. The timing of watching it was of the Lord.
God bless you, keep pressing on in the race that is set before you!
My sis has told me all about you, haha. What a blessing for her to have a sister in the Lord walking with her!
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