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 lives in you.
Romans 8:11
I grappled with several related verses before settling in on Paul’s
astounding epiphany in Romans 8:11. We experience much struggle
in fully coming to an appreciation of the audacious claims of this
amazing verse. The reality of the persisting power of our first Adam
identity is all too alive and present in which “I do not do the good
that I want” (Rom 7:16). Despite the best of intentions, at least for
me, the old man of despair, skepticism, fear, and sense of inability
to change in any substantial way keeps on breaking into my life in
thought, attitude and action. That is, the first Adam is present,
despite the profusion of promises of the gospel hope of new
resurrection in this life as well as in the life to come to which I cling
with all my heart, mind, strength, and soul in the more perceptive
moments of my life.
In Romans 7 Paul says that, “it is no longer I” who embodies this
first Adam identity, “but sin that dwells within me” (Rom 7:17).
The very struggle for this “I” is a core component of my faith walk in
which daily dying to self is the essential precondition “to putting on
the Lord Jesus Christ” in which the real “I” begins to surface. The
new creation reality to which Christ calls us is the central focus of
Romans 8. By contrast, the old man within seeks a settled world
where nothing profoundly new breaks in. The old man may seem
comfortable, but it does not lead to new life which requires a going
beyond oneself, in which for me there is much holding back, which
takes many forms. Simply put, do I, in faith, take risks of new, but
costly ventures, or not—costly in terms of time, in terms of risk of
rejection or failure, in terms of fear of closing old doors, however
little they are open in any event?
When Paul discusses the struggle between the flesh and the spirit,
he is referring to the totality of life in which the hoped for
resurrection entails a cross in matters large and small. It is with
this totality of the struggle in mind that Paul is referencing in the
first 11 verses of Ch 8 of Romans, and from that pivot point toward
the final crescendo in verse 38 in which “neither death nor life, nor
angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height nor depth, nor anything else will be able to separate us
from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Let us, then, seek to
make “every thought captive to obey Christ” by laying low the First
Adam through the small still voice of the Holy Spirit. Let us
embrace new creation through the same power given to us that God,
through the Spirit, bestowed upon Christ in raising him from the
dead. We know that your Spirit is good news in which you are ever
calling us into new life. In our perpetual journey from Old to New
Adam let us come to an ever fuller realization of the gift of that
same Spirit which raised your Son from the dead which has been
given to us to embrace new life in you to the fullest.
Lord, help us rise up to the level of faithful and glorious
living to come into the full realization that the very Spirit
that raised your Son from the dead is in us too; that same
Spirit, calling us to new life in your kingdom on earth as it is
in heaven. Amen.
