If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you...

Romans 8:9-25 (NASB) from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

⁹ However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. ¹⁰ If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. ¹¹ But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

¹² So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— ¹³ for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴ For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

¹⁸ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²² For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. ²³ And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. ²⁴ For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

In these verses Paul writes of the benefits we have through the in dwelling Holy Spirit, when we are in Christ. Because of the Spirit we are no longer obligated, subject to the desires and weakness of the flesh or our old human nature. We still have a daily struggle with those things, as Paul wrote earlier in his letter,

Romans 7:15-25 -  For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. ¹⁷ So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. ¹⁹ For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. ²⁰ But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

²¹ I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. ²² For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, ²³ but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

What we, as believers need to remember and understand is that those who do not have Christ also do not have the Holy Spirit. There are many spirits and so many voices that people can hear and follow. But the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, which dwells in us as believers gives us more than a blind faith. Unbelievers cannot understand or comprehend how and why we believe what we believe. They have nothing to compare it to, no point of reference. They trust, hope and believe in things that they know, things they have seen or hope blindly in things that they want to be. Our faith is different.

 Hebrews 11:1 says: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  Our faith, what we believe is based on an assurance that we have through the Spirit. This too is where our convictions are rooted, in the assurance of the truth we have through the Holy Spirit. It’s no wonder then that the world, those who do not believe in Christ and so do not have the in dwelling Holy Spirit, cannot comprehend why we believe what we believe.

Paul says it in 1 Corinthians 2:10-16:     these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. ¹¹ For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³ This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.  ¹⁴ The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. ¹⁵ The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, ¹⁶ for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord  so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

Verse 14 tells us why no amount of human reasoning or debate can convince an unbeliever of the things we know.  The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.  There is no point to arguing, debating or otherwise trying to prove what we know as truth, because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

Verse 11 of the text does though give us something we can take and present to the world. It says:  But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us. The Spirit and the power of resurrection dwells in us. We need to understand and comprehend all that it means to have the Spirit and the power of resurrection in us. Jesus says:  Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.(John 14:12) The works that Jesus did and greater works because Jesus went to the Father and has given us the Holy Spirit, the Spirit and power of resurrection.  We need to know, understand and believe the power and authority we have, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. We need also to not take that power and authority lightly. We need to remember the power our words have. Proverbs 18:21 says: Death and life are in the power of the tongue.    Jesus says: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."

We need to speak words of life and resurrection, not words of death and condemnation. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us. Our words carry the power of that Spirit. If we do Jesus tells us what the result will be in Mark 16:15-18:

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel (declaring the good news and speaking words of resurrection and life) to all creation. ¹⁶ He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. ¹⁷ These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; ¹⁸ they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Amen