18. " If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." (Rom. 8:10,-1110And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Romans 8:10).)
What blessed consolation and comfort is here! Having in the seventh chapter traced the practical effect upon the mind, and its thought of regeneration as in a Jew, so regenerated, considering the question of law, and then shown how sorrow and depression were the result, here we find the apostle presenting, as it were, the same individual, with the question of law disposed of, in the blissful meditation upon the work of redemption wrought for us by Christ. The question of regeneration had turned his thought inward, and then the question of the spiritual character of the law had scared him: redemption lifts up his mind from self to Christ, to all accomplished by Him, and no Condemnation established-and more than this, it meets the very thoughts awakened about the body of sin, and death in us proves that our bodies are so, or Christ need not have died; and throws the mind therefore not upon anything in self, but upon the faithfulness of God, who, having delivered Christ for our sins raised Him again, and will quicken into newness of life all those who make that death the ground of their acceptance before God. And thus, believer, as thou well knowest, is described both thine experience and thy hope as to thy body-it is dead because of sin; but it shall be quickened because the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead dwells in thee.