Bible Studies for Life: June 19

Indwelt by the Spirit • Romans 8:9-17

By Clay Anthony

It is almost muscadine time. If you know what that means you are my kind of people. Those juicy wild grapes are cultivated in my backyard. I am quite certain that the feast of the Lamb will include my mother’s biscuits and homemade muscadine jelly. When the process begins, those grapes need to be pressed to extract their juice. There is zero expectation that when the process is over that I will making plum jelly. When a fruit is squeezed you expect what is inside of that fruit to come out. Grape jelly cannot come from strawberries. 

The same is said for a Christian. When we are squeezed, there is a solid expectation that what comes out of us is not the same as would be found in a non-believer. When joy or pain strikes our lives, those around us should expect nothing less that pure Holy Spirit to come from within us. That is what it means to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit. This is the message Paul is sharing with the Roman Christians. Christians are to understand that by having the Holy Spirt indwell  them, they belong to something much grander than themselves (9) and that belonging affirms our relationship to God in three ways. 

Vitality – 10-11
We have been given life but it is a life outside of ourselves. Eph 2:1 drives the point home that prior to our salvation, we were dead in our sins. Dead people can normally do but one thing without help and that is attract flies. Yet, Paul says that the Spirit is life. Not that He represents life or is the goal of life but that indeed without the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, we have no hope in eternal life. How powerful is this life-giving Spirit? Paul points his readers back to the Easter account of an empty tomb. The power that brought Christ back to life is the exact same power working within you. We must be honest in dealing with all people in realizing that everyone, be they believers or not, will indeed live forever. Our goal is for all who come into contact with us to live forever with Christ in heaven and nowhere else. 

Immorality – 12-14
Our physical bodies having all the trappings of illness and breakdown. Our spirits are bent towards sin. It would seem that either way, we are in dire needs of help and we cannot help ourselves. For the believer, the body may very well break down but thanks be to the work of the Holy Spirit the same cannot be said of our eternal souls. Whenever I have found myself up against the harshness of life, I will remind myself that if God can get me out of hell, He can get me out of this. Truth is along with faith in Christ comes the assurance that the believer will never die. Of course, no one physically lives this life forever, but we know there is more to the story. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit serves as a place holder in our hearts to remind us that we are with Christ already but the fullness of that story has yet to happen. If we trust that God indeed brought Jesus back to life then we have a guarantee that the same will occur for us (13). 

Acceptability – 14-17
If the Spirit indwells you, you have a new parent. There are simply no orphans in God’s household. Likewise, there are no slaves beholden to a master either. As we noted above, in our Christian walk, in our present place of life, in our future dwelling with God – no matter our station – we belong. We are members of God’s family fulfilling the role of His children. You know well that “Abba” is the closest word that the Greek language gives us for our word “daddy”. If you were blessed to have a Godly earthly father, you know the importance of this term. What could possible harm you or separate you or cause your daddy to not love you? Now multiply that fact by an infinite number and you arrive at what it means to be accepted by God. The Holy Spirit testifies to this truth and He being of the Godhead cannot lie to us. 

Anthony is director of the Collaborative Missionary Network, Oxford/Holly Springs.