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Romans 8: 5-15.
Flesh and Bondage. Spirit and Sonship.
A | Flesh 5: spirit (5-8).
a1 | Flesh. Its mind.
b1 | Spirit. Its mind.
a2 | Flesh and its mind is death.
b2 | Spirit and its mind is life and peace.
a3 | Flesh and its mind is enmity against God and cannot please Him
B | The IF of the indwelling spirit (9-13)
c | IF spirit indwell: not in flesh.
d | IF any man have not the spirit of Christ.
e | IF Christ be in you; body dead; spirit life.
e | IF spirit dwell in you; body quickened.
d | IF live after the flesh; die.
c | IF mortify by the spirit; live.
A | Slave 5: sons (14, 15).
a | Sons of God are led by the Spirit of God.
b | Spirit of slavery and fear.
The closing verses of Rom. 7: have already acquainted us with what the apostle
calls the "law of my mind", which is in conflict with the law of sin in the members. The
renewed child of God allies himself with this new mind:--
"So then with the mind I MYSELF serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of
sin" (Rom. 7: 25).
"If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it
is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me" (Rom. 7: 16, 17).
"Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me"
(Rom. 7: 20).
"I delight in the law of God after the inward man" (Rom. 7: 22).
The reader will have observed that in both chapter 7: and chapter 8:, we have
references to some thing or some power "indwelling". If we accept the reading of the
Vatican MS we shall find that the words enoikeo en ("indwell in") occur in 7: 17 and
8: 11, and oikeo followed by en in 7: 18, 20 and 8: 9, 11:--
"It is no more I that do it, but sin that indwells in me" (Rom. 7: 17).
"He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His
spirit that indwelleth in you" (Rom. 8: 11).
These, then, are the two "indwellers": sin in the flesh, as the active agent dominating
life and all its outgoings, and the spirit of Him Who raised up Christ from the dead
indwelling in us. We are "in the spirit", if it can be said of us that the spirit of God
dwells in us:--
"Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you"
(Rom. 8: 9).