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Biblion Bible Commentary

Read the introduction to Romans · About this commentary

The Spirit Who Raised Jesus

Romans 8:9-11

9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. · WEB

The believer's address is stated as fact, the one test of belonging is named, and the indwelling Spirit is the pledge of the body's resurrection.

But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you.

The address is declared, not assigned as homework. After the audit of the flesh's incapacity Romans 8:8, the readers are simply told where they live — in the Spirit — with one condition attached, and the condition is the definition of a Christian in this letter: if any man doesn't have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his Romans 8:9.

The test deserves its full weight. Belonging to Christ is defined by indwelling, not by attainment, maturity, or victory in the war chapter 7 described. There are not two classes of believer — ordinary ones and Spirit-possessing ones; having the Spirit is what being his is. And the titles interchange within one verse — Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, then Christ is in you — the indwelling of the Spirit and the indwelling of Christ described as one residence.

Verse 10 states the believer's present condition with unsentimental honesty: if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness.

The body still dies — indwelling does not exempt anyone from the mortality that entered with Adam Romans 5:12; the aches and the aging continue and end where they always did. But the person is alive Godward, because of righteousness — the credited righteousness the letter has argued since chapter 3 Romans 3:22. The believer lives, for now, as a living spirit in a dying body.

And verse 11 gives that condition its horizon: but if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

The logic runs on residence. The Spirit indwelling the believer is the same Spirit who was operative in the tomb outside Jerusalem  — the resurrection power is not merely promised to believers; its agent is already in residence. What he did for the head he will do for the members: give life to your mortal bodies. Not release from the body — the letter's hope is never escape Romans 8:23 — but the body itself made alive, the mortality swallowed. The pledge of Easter is a tenant.

settled What this mark means