Introduction
Romans 8:1-11
Holy Spirit- Romans 8 Introduction
Romans 8:1-11, 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. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the [c]carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 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. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead
because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 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.
Romans’ 8th chapter is where the Holy Spirit's ministry comes into clear focus. This chapter moves to an unequalled crescendo on the pages of Scripture, which is familiar to us from verses 28 to 39. But the rest of the chapter is equally rich in its fullness.
No one can be the same after they have internalized and meditated on these truths as they were before. This is one of the truly life-changing chapters in the Scriptures. It is a chapter that every believer must understand.
The Holy Spirit is the main person in this chapter. He is mentioned 20 Times. Apostle Paul unfolds the wonderful reality of salvation and redemption, the Holy Spirit bursts on the scene with great magnitude in this chapter.
It is the Holy Spirit's chapter.
It is a chapter about life in the Spirit. We introduce this chapter to introduce to you the Holy Spirit, so that we will all understand who He is. There are few subjects more important to the Christian than the one concerning the Holy Spirit.
It is the eternal Spirit who is a member of the Trinity. It is the eternal Spirit who is the source of the Christian's spiritual life, both as to its origin and its continuation. The Holy Spirit is to our spiritual lives what the Creator is to the universe. Without God as Creator, the universe would never have come into existence. Without God as the continuing, sustaining, preserving power, the universe would crash out of existence.
- Similarly, without the Spirit of God, the Christian would never have been born again, never have come into existence.
- Without the Spirit's ever-present, sanctifying influence, the spiritual life of the Christian would drop back into spiritual deadness from which it came.
We have heard much about God the Father. We have heard much about Christ the Son. Now we will learn about the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.
One of the marks of loving God is that you feel the pain when His name is being dishonoured. You should feel the same pain in the dishonouring of the Holy Spirit.
Psalms 69:9, Because zeal for Your house has eaten me up, And the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me. Misrepresentation of the Holy Spirit has done to damage the church, to completely confuse people about what Christianity. Holy Spirit is the most abused, dishonoured, misrepresented and misquoted by Christians. By the power of the Holy Spirit God created everything.
Psalms 33:6, By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
The Holy Spirit is the power of God acting from creation to consummation and everything in between. He is fully God. He has all the attributes of God in the fullness that belongs to God. There is no sense in which He is God diminished.
✓ He participates fully in all God’s works. ✓ He is as holy as the Father and as gracious as the Son. ✓ He is as powerful as the Father and merciful as the Son. ✓ He is as sovereign as the Father and loving as the Son. ✓ He is divine perfection in its fullness.
✓ He is to be worshiped as fully as the Father and as fully as the Son.
2 Corinthians 13:14, The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Over the last hundred years, the evangelical church has faced strong attacks on God the Father through the effects of higher criticism.
When God was assaulted in the openness theology and His omniscience was called into question, His sovereign control of the future, His ability to even know the future, there was a mass of literature that came back to answer the horrors of the heresy of openness. We amassed some of our finest minds and we laid the enemy to rest.
Over the last hundred years, we have faced attacks on God the Son, massive attacks against His deity. We have fought that battle for the deity of Jesus Christ.
Recent years we had a formidable attack on His atonement. Undermining the nature of the atoning work of Jesus Christ, has called forth brought many books to lay that enemy level. Gospel Coalition was born and the Reform movement boomed.
Reform movement literature focuses on the work of Christ on the cross. The Seeker movement, which has dominated the church, have a general indifference to the Holy Spirit because they can do the work of the ministry by their own technique.
They are clever enough to get people converted without the Holy Spirit. Innovation will do it. There are the rock star churches, designed to appeal to worldly tastes. They don’t want to talk a whole lot about the Holy Spirit in that kind of environment because they are trying to get the people in the church to live as close to the world as they possibly can. Not consistent with what the Holy Spirit wants to do.
The reformers said that we don’t want to say that miracles can’t happen, we don’t want to say that tongues aren’t legitimate, we don’t want to say that this apostolic phenomenon, has ceased.
So, they leave people susceptible even in Reformed circles to supposed visions to listening to the voice of God. They open the door for subjective feeling, impressions, misconstrued as revelation. They weaken objective standards for authority in discerning the truth.
Over the last 100 years the Pentecostal movement was born out Azusa Street revival. Which was taken by storm and brought in emotional feelings rather than truth based on the word of God. The attack on the Holy Spirit from the Pentecostal Charismatic movement is pervasive and it is highly successful.
The Pentecostal Charismatic movement ignores the truth with reckless license and no restraint. This movement constantly attributes to the Holy Spirit words and experiences that He has nothing to do with and would have nothing to do with.
Visions, revelations, gibberish, false prophecies, false miracles, all kinds of crazy physical behaviours that have nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. This movement has demanded acceptance for its myriad of unbiblical ideas, deceptions, confusions, and lies. It has
corrupted the church in a thousand ways by blunting its will to discern and expose error. The Father initiated salvation. The Son validated salvation and then demonstrated it. The Spirit activates it. The two great works of the Spirit are, 1. Sanctification.
2. Secure for Glorification. The Spirit of God is conforming you to the image of Christ and is holding you until your final glory. All that the Father planned, All that the Son provided is produced by the Holy Spirit. The Father planned your salvation.
The Son provided for your salvation. But the Holy Spirit produces your salvation. Think about it. One day you and you came to the conviction of sin, why?
John 16:8-9, And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me;
The reason that one day you saw your sin so differently, the one day that you began to see a dramatic difference in how you viewed the wretchedness of your own heart, was the work of the Holy Spirit. ➢ Light in your darkness, ➢ Life in your deadness.
Holy Spirit gave you life. You must be born of the Spirit. You must be born from above.
John 3:6, That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Mastering and understanding of this chapter with all its profound gracious realities will elevate your love for and worship of God the Holy Spirit.
We will draw from this chapter in unparalleled knowledge of the kindness of God through Christ by the Spirit as He has granted us all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies.
This study will prevent us from all the bizarre and dishonourable things that are heaped upon the Holy Spirit by false teachers who take His holy name in vain with their folly. But more than just protecting us from that, it will give us cause for worship and gratitude and love and joy in the light of the work of the Spirit secured for us by grace.
Who is the Holy Spirit, and how are we to understand Him? The Holy Spirit is not some impersonal force. The Holy Spirit is not some influence or some energy that somehow emanates from the presence of God. The Holy Spirit is the third member of the Godhead, is a person possessing a complete entity and personality of His own, just like the God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son.
The Holy Spirit should never be referred to as it, but as He. That's the way He is always referred to in Scripture. If you need some proof that the Holy Spirit is, in fact, a person, you need only to study the Scripture and find out that the Scripture ascribes to Him intellect, emotion, and will.
The intellect of the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 2:10-11, But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things
of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. The intellect of the Holy Spirit is such that He can plumb the depths of the knowledge of the eternal God.
The emotion of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 5:5, Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of
God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. The fact that He can be quenched. He can be grieved. Holy Spirit makes decisions.
1 Corinthians 12:11, But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. He renders to every person certain spiritual gifts according to His will. This Being with intellect, emotion, and will then manifests all the essential ingredients of personhood. Holy Spirit is revealed as one who speaks. Act 13:2, As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
Revelation 2:7, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.” ’ Holy Spirit prays.
Romans 8:26-27, Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Holy Spirit teaches.
John 14:26, But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Holy Spirit guides us.
John 16:13, However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. Holy Spirit commands.
Acts 16:6-7, Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to
preach the word in Asia. 7 After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. Holy Spirit communes or fellowships.
2 Corinthians 13:14, The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Holy Spirit may be grieved.
Ephesians 4:30, And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Holy Spirit may be lied to.
Acts 5:3, But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? Holy Spirit may be tested.
Acts 5:9, Then Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” Holy Spirit may be vexed.
Isaiah 63:10, But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit; So He turned Himself against them as an enemy, And He fought against them.
Holy Spirit may be resisted.
Acts 7:51, “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Holy Spirit may be blasphemed. Mark 3 and Matthew 12.
The person of the Holy Spirit is also God. There can be no doubt about the deity of the Holy Spirit. He is God and always has been.
This is made plain in three ways
✓ His attributes, ✓ His works, and ✓ His titles. In the Bible the attribute of the Holy Spirit tells us that he is eternal. ✓ He is omniscient. ✓ He is omnipotent. ✓ He is omnipresent. ✓ He is holy. ✓ He is glorious. All those are attributes of God.
The titles of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God. Therefore, he is given the title God. Holy Spirit is called Lord.
2 Corinthians 3:18, But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord. He is called “His Spirit,” that is associating Him with God.
The Spirit of Yahweh
Judges 3:10, The Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel. He went out to war, and the Lord delivered Cushan-Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand; and his hand prevailed over Cushan-Rishathaim.
The Spirit of the Lord God
Isaiah 61:11, For as the earth brings forth its bud, As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.
The Spirit of the Father.
Matthew 10:20, for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.
The Spirit of the Living God.
2 Corinthians 3:3, clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. In relation to the Son, He is also called the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Christ.
The Spirit of His Son.
Galatians 4:6, And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”
The Spirit of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 1:19, For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, He is “another comforter” just like Jesus Christ.
John 14:16, And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— Titles of deity, titles showing a relationship of equality with the Father, and a relationship of equality with the Son. Therefore, by attribute and by title, He is clearly God.
Furthermore, if you are to study the works of the Holy Spirit, you find, again, evidence of deity. Genesis 1 makes it clear that He did the creation. "The Spirit of God moved upon the waters” you remember, in creation."It is the Spirit who works by indwelling certain people.
In the Old Testament, the Spirit of God came upon them, and they speak mightily on behalf of God. It is the Spirit who enables men and women to serve God, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. It is the Spirit who energizes, by means of inspiration the writers of Scripture, to pen exactly the inerrant Word of God.
During the life of Christ, ✓ The Spirit was the agent of Christ's birth, Christ's baptism. ✓ The Spirit was there strengthening in His temptation. ✓ The Spirit was there anointing Him for ministry. ✓ The Spirit was behind His teaching, so that what He taught, He taught as the Spirit gave Him to teach.
✓ The Spirit was the power behind His miracles, so that blaspheming His miracles was blaspheming the Spirit. ✓ The Spirit was even participating in His death, burial, and resurrection.
When it comes to the world, the ministry of the Spirit continues in dramatically powerful and divine ways as ➢ He convicts, ➢ He calls, ➢ He witnesses to Christ, ➢ He regenerates the believer, ➢ He glorifies Christ as He indwells, ➢ He imparts the fruit of the Spirit, ➢ He imparts the gifts of the Spirit, ➢ He seals, ➢ He communes, ➢ He fellowships, ➢ He teaches, ➢ He prays, ➢ He wars with the flesh, ➢ He comforts, ➢ He sanctifies, ➢ He empowers for service.
Regarding the church collectively,
- He forms the body of Christ,
- He appoints offices,
- He gives guidance to the church.
Get acquaint with the blessed person of the Holy Spirit, who is the main feature and main person of this great chapter.
In the epistle to the Romans, Paul’ major theme is justification by grace through faith based on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The only way for men to be right with God is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is God's plan of salvation.
As we come to chapter 8 is still talking on this same theme. Paul began to introduce to us salvation by grace through faith in chapter 3, he followed that introduction in 3 and 4 with a series of results of justification by faith.
In chapters 5, 6 and 7, various things that resulted from our being made righteous in Christ. ➢ Peace with God, ➢ Eternal security, ➢ Freedom from the law, ➢ Service to God, ➢ Fruitfulness to God. All these elements that are results of justification have been outlined for us.
Chapter 8, about the results of justification.
Overview of Chapter 8 Verse 1, Holy Spirit guards us in a no-condemnation status. Verses 2-3, He frees us from sin and death. Verse 4, He enables us to fulfil the Law. Verses 5-11, He changes our nature. Verses 12-13, He empowers us for victory over sin.
Verses 14-17, He confirms our adoption. Verses 18-25, He guarantees our glory. Verses 26-27, He aids our prayers. Verses 28-39, The result of understanding the work of the Spirit is the incredible Doxology. Romans chapter 1- 3 are all about condemnation.
The wrath of God, which is described Romans 1:18- 3:30. There is very careful unfolding of the wrath of God. The terrifying damnation that's going to fall from God upon sinners. The wrath of God upon the wicked is as intense as God's love is to His saints. The intensity of that wrath is unfolded in the early part of Romans.
At the very outset of the book of Romans, there is a great sense of fear upon the reader as he is exposed to this wrath of God which will result in eternal damnation, suffering through all of eternity the just judgment of God.
Then Paul presents the gospel. Romans’ chapters 3 -7, showed us how Christ provided that no- condemnation status. Chapter 8 identifies it and goes on to demonstrate how the Holy Spirit secures that status. We are threatened in the early chapters with damnation.
We are delivered from damnation from chapters 3 to 7 in the gospel. We are then told at the beginning of chapter 8 that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ who have been justified by grace through faith. This chapter 8 begins to unfold how the Holy Spirit secures our eternal redemption.
How can we escape the just wrath of God and be delivered from condemnation or damnation? By the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit. It is then because of our life in the Spirit that we are secured forever.
This is the greatest chapter in all the Bible on the security of the believer. Security is true because of the ongoing intercessory work of the Holy Spirit on our behalf. The Holy Spirit guards us in a no-condemnation status until we reach glory by doing these things.