But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of the One 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 indwells you.
– Romans 8:10, 11
In preceding portions of this series, we have talked about the deep significance of John 7, culminating in verse 39. How the divine human living of Jesus, who was taken bodily into heaven in His ascension, was compounded into the Life-giving Spirit before the Spirit’s being dispensed into man. This concept is made all the more clear by 1 Corinthians 15:45b, where the scriptures tell us that “the Last Adam [Jesus Christ] was made a life-giving spirit.” Once again, the reference is to His divine humanity—as the first Adam was certainly a man.
Now we continue considering Romans 8:10 and 11.
Here we see, once again, the while the scriptures declare this it is, indeed, the Christ of God who is dispensed into us (with the Father and as the Spirit), the emphasis returns saying, “the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus [emphasis on His humanity] from the dead wells in you” and gives you “life… through His Spirit.”
The Triune God and tripartite man
Before one “believes into” the Lord Jesus Christ (John 7:38), one’s spirit remains darkened and he remains “dead in [his] trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). However, when the unbeliever calls upon the Name of the Lord, his spirit is made alive and by this organ His contact with God is restored for “God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit” (John 4:24).
Believing is not simple a mental assent to some religious postulates. Real faith is a movement out of one realm and into another—”out of the [realm of the] authority of darkness” and “into the kingdom of the Son of [God’s] love” (Col. 1:13).
This joining “into” God is the receiving of the very life of God by the Holy Spirit into our human spirit. By this we join “the kingdom of God.” (There are the “animal kingdom,” the “plant kingdom,” and the “God kingdom,” each representing a distinction in life and in nature. We can talk more about this matter another time.) In this regard, Jesus employs a powerful image—the vine-tree.
The life of the vine
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman,” Jesus told his disciples (John 15:1). The secret for the believer is found in verse 4: “Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.”
Once we are joined to the Triune God (God the Father in Christ Jesus as the Spirit dispensed into our human spirit), we are like the vine branch abiding in the vine tree. The life of Jesus Christ, flowing by the Spirit in our spirit, is a constant supply of life to us as long as we remain connected and open to that flow.
As Romans 8:10 and 11 tell us, then, “Christ is [flowing] in you” through this life-giving connection. And, even though our flesh (our body) is still in deadness “because of sin,” yet our “spirit is life because of righteousness” (in this case, God’s righteousness to fulfill His promise to all those who call upon His Name).
“And, if the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus [in His divine humanity] from the dead [that is, the Father God] dwells in you, [then] He who raised Christ [the anointed one for this purpose] will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.”
So, we see then, brethren, that the goal of the Triune God is the dispensing of the Holy Spirit, who brings life—both the divine life and Jesus’ divine human living—into us as His believers. This makes us truly “the children of God”—having the very life and nature of our heavenly Father—and not just “adopted children” as traditional Christian thinking would have us believe.
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