Although the Holy Spirit does not speak from Himself, as the source of His revelations, He does speak of Himself, so that we might understand His functions and activities in relation to the revelation of God and His ways with men. In preparing the earth for man's habitation, the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep; for the construction of the tabernacle, Bezaleel was filled with the Spirit of God (Ex. 31:3), and to give us the Scriptures, "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1:21). In the Epistle to the Romans truth regarding the Holy Spirit is given to us that is not found in other Scriptures, and it will be profitable for us to consider it.
Holiness is often exhorted in the Scriptures, and God deals with us in chastening that we might be partakers of His holiness; but holiness in Manhood was seen in its perfection in Jesus here. In all His ways He was marked by the Spirit of holiness, and in the Gospel He is declared to be the "Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead" (Rom. 1:4).
The power and state in which Jesus walked was that by which He acted in all the great manifestations of divine power in His miraculous signs. These great manifestations of divine power which culminated in the resurrection of Lazarus, and His own resurrection, evinced the Spirit of holiness that characterised His whole life, His walk, His ways and His words. This holy life is in marked contrast to that of him "whose coming is after the working of Satan" that will be marked "with all power and signs and lying wonders" (2 Thess. 2:9). Jesus lived and acted by the Spirit of holiness; the man of sin will be marked by "the spirit of error," by falsehood and corruption.
At the beginning of Romans 5 some of the rich blessings of the Gospel are brought before us. We are justified by faith, we have peace with God, we have access into the favour of God in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Then we have the gift of the Holy Spirit, who sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God.
In verse 8 of this chapter we have the manifestation of God's love in the death of Christ; and it is through faith in this that we have been brought into divine blessing. But we not only believe in the divine love, so perfectly and fully told out in God giving His Son to die for us; we also know that love in the consciousness of our souls by the Holy Spirit shedding it abroad in our hearts. It is this divine action by the Spirit that has driven from our hearts all fear, and all the enmity that was once there towards God. Much more than this is involved in the gift of the Spirit to us, but the special mark of the Spirit's presence here is the giving to us in present consciousness and joy the knowledge of the love of God.
Life was manifested in this world in Him in whom life was essentially, and the life was the light of men. But wicked men crucified and slew the Originator of life, who allowed them to carry out their evil designs; and having come out of death He took His place on high. From the ascended Christ the Spirit of life has come, so that all who belong to Him might be linked up with Him as risen from the dead. The link that binds us to Christ is the life that He has communicated to us, His own life, and this we have in the power of an indwelling Spirit.
The principle of life that binds us to the risen Christ is that which frees us from the principle of sin that leads to death (Rom. 8:2). Every child of Adam by nature is under the control of sin, and the end of a life of sin is death as the judgment of God; but the Christian has died to sin in Christ's death, and now reckons himself to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God; and the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is the power that enables us to live practically unto God, and therefore free from the bondage of sin.
Those under law were unable to meet its righteous demands; they had not the power in the nature received from Adam. In Christ's death the principle of sin that is in man's nature has been condemned by God; and the believer in Christ, freed from sin's dominion, and having the Spirit of life, fulfils in the expression of the life of Christ the righteous requirements of the law.
Man naturally can only be occupied with the things of the flesh, that is with the whole range of things that belong to human nature; but those who have the Spirit of life have the capacity to be occupied with an entirely new order of things set forth in the life of Jesus. Death, spiritual death, marks all connected with nature, and death will mark the end of all who only know the life of Adam. The mind of the Spirit, which belongs to the Spirit of life, brings life and peace to all who are Christ's.
It is impossible for man in the flesh to please God, or all that springs from his fallen nature, his thoughts, his feelings, his desires are opposed to God and His will. The thinking faculty of fallen nature is enmity with God, and is not, and cannot be, subject to God's law. Although the Christian has the flesh in him, he is not in the flesh; he is no longer viewed by God as belonging to that order brought to an end in divine judgment in the cross of Christ.
God's Spirit indwelling the believer is the witness that he is not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Rom. 8:9). The Spirit within every believer is the seal that he belongs to God, that he has God's nature, that he is in Christ, and that he is in the Spirit. Once we were in the flesh, marked by nothing else but the flesh; now, although the flesh within us often manifests itself, it is not the principle of our life, but a nature that has been vitiated by sin, condemned by God, and that has to be kept in the place of death the cross has given it. The Spirit of God is God's own Spirit by which we know the things of God, and by which we live for God in the divine nature.
When the Lord Jesus, in resurrection, breathed into His disciples and said, "Receive Holy Spirit," He communicated to them His own Spirit, His own life. As having received the gift of the Holy Spirit, we also have the Spirit in this character, enabling us to manifest the character of Christ. Those who do not possess the Spirit which belongs to the last Adam, the risen Christ, do not belong to His race, to the new and heavenly order of manhood of which Christ is Head (Rom. 8:9).
Here, it is not a matter of our expressing the character of Christ, but of possessing the Spirit that enables us to exhibit that character. Everyone who has the Spirit of Christ will in some degree or other express what Christ is, but no one could in the very least manifest Christ's character without having His Spirit. It was the supply of "the Spirit of Jesus Christ" that Paul desired, along with the prayers of the saints, for his appearing before Nero (Phil. 1:19). He wanted to appear before the Emperor at Rome in the same character as his Master had appeared before Pilate.
In Romans 8:10 it is written, "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." Christ is in everyone who has the Spirit of Christ; and if Christ is in us every member of our bodies is to be at His disposal, and dead in regard to sin. But the Spirit that God has given us to indwell us, and which unites us to the Last Adam, is the power that will enable us to live for Christ. Practical righteousness cannot be attained in the flesh, but the Spirit within us enables us to live righteously for the will and pleasure of God.
"The Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead" (Rom. 8:11), is the Spirit of power. In the resurrection of Jesus the power of God was manifested in its exceeding greatness; and it is this Spirit of power that indwells every believer in the Lord Jesus. Jesus personally was raised to signify God's pleasure in all that He had done for Him, and as answering the prophecy of Psalm 16, "Thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol, neither wilt Thou allow Thy Holy One to see corruption."
But Jesus, as God's Christ, was raised for the accomplishment of all His will, and this involved the bringing of all the saints to glory with Christ. The body of every believer has been indwelt by God's Spirit, and so claimed by God for Himself. God will never relinquish the claim He has made; the bodies of the saints that sleep will be raised at the coming of Jesus; and the bodies of the living saints will be quickened because they are "the temple of the Holy Spirit."
There are two ways in which we may view the leading of the Spirit. First, there is the leading exemplified by the Lord Himself, as it is recorded in Luke 4:1, "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness." This is the practical and experimental leading of the Holy Spirit, and for this we have Jesus as the example. At all times we should seek to walk in simple faith before God, obedient to His will as found in His word, and as led by the Spirit of God.
Secondly, there is the leadership of the Spirit under which all true believers have come, that is, the Holy Spirit is our Leader as we take our way through the wilderness of this world onward to the Rest of God. All who are under the leadership of the Holy Spirit are the sons of God (Rom. 8:14). This is one of the distinguishing marks of the Christian company, of those who have been brought into this near and favoured relationship with God. It is also one of the functions of the Spirit of God to lead us on to the glory of God.
Those under law had a spirit of bondage, but those who have been brought to God through the death of Christ, and are His sons by faith in Christ Jesus, have received the Spirit of sonship. It is the Spirit of a new relationship into which God has brought us, so that we may enjoy the blessedness of the nearness and intimacy of the relationship (Rom. 8:15). Only those in such a relationship can cry, Abba, Father. By the Spirit of sonship we have the consciousness of our nearness to the Father, as the cry of Abba expresses.
Sonship is a new relationship for us, one into which we have been brought by adoption; but the birth tie, the new birth, has made us God's children; and the Holy Spirit also gives us the sense in our spirits that we are dear to God as His children; He is the witness within us that God Himself has begotten us, and brought us in this way into His family.
As God's children we are His heirs, joint-heirs with Christ of the inheritance that soon will be brought into view when Christ comes out in His glory. The whole creation under Adam fell with him, and groans, waiting for the relief that will come at the revelation of the sons of God. We also groan with the groaning creation, even although the Holy Spirit as the firstfruits of all that we shall share with Christ has been given to us.
The Spirit is the firstfruits of the inheritance that we are about to enter into; the firstfruits of the glory that is to be revealed to us; the firstfruits of the new order that God will bring in with Christ in the day of His glory. How sweet the firstfruits should be to us, as we now taste by the Spirit the blessedness of our portion with Christ. Our place of nearness to Christ in the coming day, our place in the affections of God then, can now be enjoyed because we have the Spirit as the firstfruits (Rom. 8:23).
Soon we shall have bodies of glory like Christ's, and the days of weakness will be over; and the day for praying will be past. Here, in a world of trouble and groaning, in our present condition of infirmity, we often do not know how to express our desires intelligently before God. But we can get into the presence of God and groan before Him because of the burden which troubles us. In this state we can rely on the help of the Holy Spirit. He will groan with us, but not unintelligently, as entering sympathetically into our troubles.
The groans of the Spirit are intelligible to the Searcher of hearts, who knows what is the mind of the Spirit. In this way, what cannot be expressed properly by us is expressed to God by the Spirit. Nor is it only that our groans are properly interpreted to God, but there is intercession for us to God by the Spirit. This intercession is perfect, it is according to God, that which He delights in, and finds pleasure in answering (Rom. 8:26-27).
Paul very deeply felt the guilt of Israel in their refusal of Christ, and, like Moses, would have offered himself for judgment in their room and stead (Ex. 32:32). The statement, "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh" (Rom. 9:3), was a most solemn one, and to emphasise that it was not lightly made the Apostle says, "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit." He is not speaking as a man of the world would speak, but as conscious that the Holy Spirit, who indwelt him, and was the power for his ministry, knew that he spoke with a perfect conscience on this matter.
God's kingdom, into which Christians have been brought, does not consist in such matters as eating and drinking. Therefore these things should not greatly occupy those who have better things to engage them. Practical righteousness, walking in peace before God and men, and joy proceeding from the Holy Spirit within us, should engage us, for these are the marks of the kingdom of God, the things in which it practically consists (Rom. 14:17).
The exhortations of chapter 15 are based on Christ not pleasing Himself (Rom. 15:3), and on our having "the God of patience and consolation" (Rom. 15:5), and "the God of hope" (Rom. 15:13) to encourage us. There are many exercises that trouble the saints, and through them God desires us to grow more like Himself; but one of the functions of the Holy Spirit that He has given to us is to make us "abound in hope." Amidst all the difficulties, the power that is in the Spirit of God would lift us above the present circumstances, into the good and joy of all that is on before.
As minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, the Apostle carried out his mission as a sacrificial service to God. He rejoiced to be as an offering priest, presenting to God the fruit of his labours, those who from among the Gentiles had received the testimony that he had brought to them. It was like a meat-offering of first fruits, green ears of corn with oil upon them (Lev. 2:14-15), but there was no frankincense, for that Meat Offering spoke of Christ Personally. Here, in Romans 15:16, the oil is present, for Paul's offering is "sanctified by the Holy Spirit."
Paul's testimony was remarkable, both in its scope and in the blessing it brought to men, but he attributes all to the Holy Spirit and to Christ who wrought by him (Rom. 15:18-19). Labour in the service of the Lord would be in vain apart from the Spirit's working, whether the "mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God" in Paul, or in simple preaching by God's servants in this the closing period of the present testimony.
In contemplating his purposed visit to Jerusalem, the Apostle is apprehensive when he considers the attitude of the opposers of Christ there (Rom. 15:31); but he desires the prayers of the saints, beseeching them "for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit." The servant and those in Christ he serves are bound up together in bonds of divine love, love known in the heart, and love produced by the Holy Spirit. An appeal to such love would not be in vain.