Q. Rom. 8:9, 109But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. 10And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Romans 8:9‑10). What is the special teaching of this part of the epistle? Could Old Testament saints be said to be not in the flesh but in the Spirit? If not, why not? What is the meaning of “the Spirit of Christ?” and why the different forms of describing the Spirit here? What is the force of “he is none of his?” Why is it οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτοῦ; rather than αὐτῷ? Does it mean merely a sheep of Christ, or one born of God, or what more? Again, why is it body (σῶμα) here and not the flesh (σὰρξ)? and what is the distinct connection of “because of sin,” and “because of righteousness?” X. Y.
A. As regards the first query, the intelligence of the passage supposes a clear apprehension of the Christian's individual position before God, and is the expression of that position in, if I may so speak, its dissected characters. It does not speak simply of full and perfect forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ and of a righteousness of God manifested therein (that is found in the end of chap. 3), but unfolds the elements of the position of the believer before God as reckoning himself dead to sin, baptized to Christ's death and alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, as having discovered not that we had sinned, and come short of the glory of God (that again is found in chap. iii.), but that in him, that is in his flesh, dwelleth no good thing. He has learned not what he has done merely, but what he is. Hence the simple fullness of grace is more largely stated in chapter v., which closes that first part at verse 11—God's love to the sinner, so that we joy in Him, knowing His love. It is God towards the sinner and so known. Chapter 8 is the believer before God, his privileges fuller, but grace and divine love in itself not so absolutely stated, One is God Himself to the sinner, the other the believer's standing with God. In chapter 3 Christ has died for our sins when we were sinners; now is added, we have been baptized to His death and are to reckon ourselves dead, the bearing of which, moreover, on the law and our experience under it is reasoned out by the Spirit in chapter 7.
Having prefaced this, which will make the answers more intelligible, or at least lay the ground for them if apprehended, reply, Old Testament saints could not be described as not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. The Spirit is the seal of our new position in Christ, promised in the prophets and by the Lord, and received by Him for us after His ascension (Acts 2:3333Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. (Acts 2:33)), and given as the Spirit of adoption, and uniting us to Him ascended. The distinction of flesh and Spirit is founded on the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, and the possession of the Spirit promised by Christ, and the present fruit of His redemption work. In His time on earth John could say, The Holy Ghost was not yet because Jesus was not glorified. And lust was working in the Old Testament saints, but now the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and freedom by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death is known only to those who have the Spirit given consequent on an accomplished redemption. It is clear they could not be in the Spirit if the Spirit was not given, and scripture is as clear on this as words can make it. The gift of the Spirit was such and so dependent on Christ's going away, that it was expedient for them He should do so. I have said above “if apprehended,” because it cannot be but by experience. Forgiveness I can understand in a certain way, if I have it not, for men are forgiven their faults by parents, &c., and the burden of debt being removed is also intelligible. But being dead and reckoning myself dead when I feel myself alive is not so easy oven to understand, till divine grace, teaching me to submit to God's righteousness, has set me free in the consciousness of a new position in which alive in Christ I treat the flesh as dead. It is called “the Spirit of Christ,” because it is that which forms us in living likeness to Him. It is Christ in us in the power of life. This was perfectly displayed in His life in itself. In us it is realized in the measure in which we walk in the Spirit as we live in the Spirit.
Some further remarks will dear this point. The enquirer may remark that it is called “the Spirit of God,” “the Spirit of Christ,” and “the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus.” I need not say that it is the same Spirit. But in the first, it is in contrast with the flesh (see Gal. 5:1717For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. (Galatians 5:17)). In the second it is that form of life in which its own qualities are displayed as in Christ Himself. In the third; it is the pledge of final deliverance and glorifying of the body itself into the likeness of Christ glorified, here spoken of however not farther than the quickening of the body by reason of it; but it goes on to the quickening of the mortal body itself.
As regards οὐκ ἔστίν αὐτοῦ all here is spoken of the Christian as such, subjectively perfect as to 'his Christian state. He who has not Christ’s Spirit is not His. It is not a question of what he may be afterward or whether he is a sheep or, so to speak, αὐτῷ; but even if God be working in him to led him to, Christ, be is not yet His in fact until he has His Spirit. Redemption and assurance of faith have been so set aside in evangelical teaching (though not at the Reformation—assurance was insisted on then as alone justifying faith) that many persons who have the Spirit of Christ, which is that of liberty and adoption, are afraid to be free and to Say they are children, and yet they have the Spirit of adoption. Such are surely His; but none can be said to be His (αὐτοῦ) till they have His Spirit. All men are Christ's in a certain sense; all the sheep are His own in another: but none can be said to be His when they have not His Spirit.
The σὰρξ is never dead; σὰρξ would not do at all here; when the σῶμα is alive, active in will, it is σὰρξ, and there is sin. Hence if Christ be in you (not simply, if I am bolt of God, which a man is in Rom. 7); but, if Christ be in me I reckon myself dead; I am, in the trite Christian estimate, dead. (Compare Col. 3) The body is dead because its only produce, if alive, is sin. It is for the Christian a mere lifeless instrument of the new man, of the Spirit that dwells in me. It is to be remarked here, that in this part of the chapter the Spirit is looked at as the source of life, though as dwelling in us. It is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus afterward. It is looked at personally as acting in us; hence it is said, the Spirit is life. I own and recognize only the Spirit that dwells in me as the source and spring of life in me, because righteousness is what I seek, and its fruit in contrast with flesh, a contrast fully made previously.
Πνεῦμα act is surely the Spirit of God, but dwelling in us, and the source of and characterizing life. 'The Old Testament saints could not be said to be of Christ thus, as is apparent from what has been said. The saint really under law, in the Romans 7 state, could not either be said to be αὐτοῦ. But we must remember that many are practically under law by false teachers keeping them there, who are not really, but in secret look to God as their Father.