Excerpts from the CNT:

Romans 8:9-11 presents Christ as the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ is Christ Himself whom we can experience and enjoy. If Christ did not become the Spirit after His death and resurrection, He could not be experienced by us. If Christ were not the Spirit, He could never enter into us. It is impossible for Christ in the flesh to enter into us; it is only as the Spirit that He can enter into us.

This is fully revealed in John 14. In verse 17 the Lord Jesus spoke to the disciples regarding the Spirit of reality: “He abides with you and shall be in you.” In verse 18 the Lord went on to tell them, “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you.” The very “He” who is the Spirit of reality in verse 17 becomes the “I” who is the Lord Himself in verse 18. This means that the Christ who was in the flesh went through death and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ (1 Cor. 15:45). John 14:17 also reveals that the Spirit abides with and in the believers; it is by being the Spirit that the Lord enters into us and abides in us. In this verse we find the first mention of the Spirit’s indwelling. It is fulfilled and fully developed in the Epistles (1 Cor. 6:19; Rom. 8:9-11).

Moreover, in John 14:28 the Lord Jesus said to the disciples, “I am going away and I am coming to you.” This means that He would go to the cross as a man in the flesh, that is, as the last Adam, but He would come back to the disciples as one who is transfigured, transformed, from the flesh into the [3076] Spirit, the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). John 20:22 indicates that when Christ in His resurrection came back to the disciples, He came to them as the pneumatic Christ, the Christ who is the Spirit, and breathed Himself as the Spirit into them. Apart from His being the life-giving Spirit, that is, the Spirit of Christ, it is impossible for Christ to enter into us in order to become our experience for our enjoyment.

We must minister the truth that Christ is the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, regardless of whether Christianity accepts or opposes us on account of this truth. If Martin Luther had cared for whether the Catholic Church would accept or oppose his preaching of justification by faith, he would not have been used by God to recover that particular truth. The Lord has commissioned us with the truth that Christ is the life-giving Spirit. We can testify from our experience that apart from Christ being the Spirit we cannot enjoy Him. Conversely, when we turn to our spirit and declare that Christ is now the life-giving Spirit, we are beside ourselves with our enjoyment of Christ. The following chorus of one of our hymns speaks of our enjoyment of Christ’s being the Spirit.

O Lord, Thou art the Spirit!

How dear and near to me!

How I admire Thy marvelous

Availability!

Hymns, #539

Today there is need of the recovery of the truth that Christ is the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit of Christ.

a. Being the Spirit of God Who Dwells in Us That We May Be in the Spirit

In Romans 8:9 Paul says, “You are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him.” This verse indicates that the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of God who dwells in us that we may be in the spirit. The Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ are not two Spirits but one. Paul used these titles interchangeably, indicating that the [3077] indwelling Spirit of life in verse 2 is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit of the entire Triune God. God, the Spirit, and Christ—the three of the Godhead—are all mentioned in verse 9. However, there are not three in us; there is only one, the triune Spirit of the Triune God (John 4:24; 2 Cor. 3:17; Rom. 8:11). The Spirit of God implies that this Spirit is of the One who was from eternity past, who created the universe and is the origin of all things. The Spirit of Christ implies that this Spirit is the embodiment and reality of Christ, the incarnated One. This Christ accomplished everything necessary to fulfill God’s plan. He includes not only divinity, which He possessed from eternity, but also humanity, which He obtained through incarnation. He also includes human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. This is the Spirit of Christ in resurrection, that is, Christ Himself dwelling in our spirit (v. 10) to impart Himself, the embodiment of the processed Triune God, into us as resurrection life and power to deal with the death that is in our nature (v. 2). Thus, we may live today in Christ’s resurrection, in Christ Himself, by living in the mingled spirit.

b. Being Christ in Us to Make Our Spirit Life

Romans 8:10 reveals that the Spirit of Christ is Christ in us to make our spirit life: “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.” In this verse the Spirit is not mentioned, for here the emphasis is that Christ today is the Spirit and that the Spirit of Christ is the very Christ in us. According to the fact, it is Christ; according to experience, it is the Spirit. In our experience of Him, He is the Spirit; in our worshipping of Him, calling on Him, and speaking of Him, He is Christ. We receive Him as our Savior and Redeemer, but He enters into us as the Spirit. As the Redeemer, He has the title Christ; as the Indweller, He has the title the Spirit. These are not two who dwell in us but one Dweller in two aspects.

“Christ…in you” is the crucial point of the book of Romans. In chapter 3 Christ is on the cross, shedding His blood for our redemption; in chapter 4 He is in resurrection; in chapter 6 we are in Him; now, in chapter 8 He is the Spirit in us. [3078]

Before we believed in the Lord, our spirit was dead. Now that we have Christ in us, our spirit is life because of righteousness. In our spirit is Christ the Spirit as righteousness, resulting in life. Moreover, we need to see that our spirit has not only been regenerated and made living; our spirit has become life. When we believed in Christ, He as the Spirit of life came into our spirit and mingled Himself with it; the two spirits thereby have become one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). Now our spirit is not merely living but is life.

c. Being the Spirit of the One Who Raised Jesus from among the Dead Dwelling in Us to Give Life to Our Mortal Body

The Spirit of Christ is also the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from among the dead, dwelling in us to give life to our mortal body. “If the Spirit of the One 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 indwells you” (Rom. 8:11). In this verse we have three matters. First, we have the entire Triune God—the One who raised Jesus from the dead, Christ Jesus, and His Spirit who indwells you. Second, we have the process required for His dispensing, as implied in the words Jesus (emphasizing incarnation), Christ (emphasizing crucifixion and resurrection), and raised (emphasizing resurrection). Third, we have His dispensing of Himself into the believers, as shown by the phrase give life to your mortal bodies, which indicates that the dispensing not only occurs at the center of our being but also reaches to the circumference, to our whole being.

The phrase give life to your mortal bodies does not refer to divine healing but to the result of our allowing the Spirit of God to make His home in us and saturate our entire being with the divine life (Eph. 3:16-19). In this way He gives His life to our mortal, dying body, not only to heal it but also that it may be enlivened to carry out His will.

d. Having This Spirit of Christ, That We May Be of Him

Romans 8:9b says, “Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit [3079] of Christ, he is not of Him.” This verse indicates that having the Spirit of Christ, we are of Christ. In other words, because we have the Spirit of Christ in us, we are of Christ. This shows that our being of Christ depends on His Spirit. If there were no Spirit of Christ, or if Christ were not the Spirit, there would be no way for us to be joined to Him and to belong to Him. However, Christ is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), and He is in our spirit and is one spirit with us (2 Tim. 4:22). Thus, 1 Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” This verse reveals not only that the Lord, the resurrected Christ, is the Spirit but that a believer who is joined to the Lord is also a spirit. In our organic union with Christ, what He is, we are.

That we are of Christ refers to the unchangeable source and position rather than to the changeable condition and experience. We have the Spirit of Christ according to the source, the new birth; hence, we are of Christ and belong to Him. In our present experience and spiritual condition, however, we need to be not only of Him but also in Him.