Continuing our thought from last time, it often seems like it’s not that easy to live consistently in the Spirit. The first step is to remember what we’ve already seen in chapter 8 and that is that there is no condemnation, we are free from the law of sin and death, and that the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us through His Spirit.
We have seen that those who have the Spirit of God dwelling in them are in the Spirit, not the flesh and therefore shouldn’t live as though they were in the flesh.
Verse 10 reminds us of why all of this is very powerfully effective. Though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life and since the Spirit dwells in us, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal body through the Spirit that already dwells in us.
What this is saying to me is that as a Christian, my spirit is alive because of Christ’s indwelling presence in my life. That means that even though my body is dead or dying and the flesh is still present, the seed of life is there in all its reality. The result will be that this body will also be raised some day because of and through the Spirit that already is alive inside of me. So even though the battle sometimes seems hopeless, it isn’t. As Christians, we have God the Spirit living in us. He is called the down payment which God has given us promising that the rest will be forthcoming. He sums this up in Romans 8:23 where he says, “we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.” The redemption of the body is coming, but it’s not here yet.
Because of the fact that the Spirit is in us, we are no longer debtors to live according to the flesh. Remember when a bully wanted to pick on you? If you were alone, you were vulnerable and were sort of forced into doing what he said. But if your big brother or a bigger stronger friend was with you, the bully could not get the upper hand. To me this illustrates what Paul is describing here. Because God lives in us, we don’t have to do what the flesh wants. We are not debtors to live the way it wants us to live and to cave in to the temptations that it wants us to give in to.
As Paul often does, he puts a warning along with this great truth and that is that if we live according to the flesh, we will die. However, if we use the power of the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the flesh we will live. And then he makes this amazing statement. It is those who are led by the Spirit that are the sons of God.
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