The Indwelling Holy Spirit

November 25th, 2024
by Dr. D. Lance Waldie

Romans 8:9-11 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 But 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 dwells in you.

Jews believed in the coming Holy Spirit, in conjunction with the coming of Messiah. God said, “I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants (Isa. 44:3; cf. Joel 2:28)... As for Me, this is my covenant with them: ‘My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring… from this time forth and forevermore’ ” (Isa. 59:21). Notably, God’s Spirit is intricately connected with His word (cf. 2 Peter 1:20-21). God spoke through Ezekiel 150 years later, saying, “I will not hide My face anymore from them, when I pour out My Spirit upon the house of Israel” (39:29). So, if Christ’s life, words, death, and resurrection proved He was the Messiah, then God’s indwelling Spirit has indeed arrived!

Addressing the church in Rome, Paul spoke to the believers reminding them that, as Christians, they were no longer “in the flesh” (v. 9) but were “in the Spirit” having trusted in Jesus as the Messiah. Only faith in Jesus as the Messiah could bring about the Spirit’s indwelling of those who receive Him as the Christ. Note how believing in Jesus is so closely and crucially connected with receiving the Holy Spirit. Note also the synonymous way in which Paul uses various names of the Spirit: “Spirit of God” and “Spirit of Christ.” This not only reveals Jesus’ deity but also the deity of the Spirit (cf. 2 Cor. 3:17). The very sobering and straightforward statement in v. 9 is that those who do not possess the Spirit of Christ do not even belong to God. What is the Spirit of Christ but the words and doctrines of Christ? So, one must possess and be ruled by the words of Jesus Christ in order to claim that they are indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

Now in v. 10, both the NIV and NASB say that “the spirit is alive,” referring to the inner part of man—his “spirit.” But the KJV and ESV translate this phrase as “the Spirit is life.” In the former, though believers’ physical bodies dying, their spirits are currently enjoying life because of what the Holy Spirit has done for them, granting eternal life. In the latter, “the Spirit is life” contrasts the death of the body because of sin. Both are correct, though the grammar is fuzzy. Bottom line is that while the human body continues toward its ultimate day of death, the indwelling Spirit will ultimately resurrect the bodies of those who trust in Christ (8:11). This is “because of righteousness” stemming from faith (3:21-30; 4:5) which means that the indwelling Spirit of God is a guarantee of future resurrection through the faith of the believer.

Although the Jews believed God would one day raise the dead (Dan. 12:1-2), Paul claimed that God had already raised Jesus, ensuring the resurrection of all believers one day (2 Cor. 4:14; cf. 1 Cor. 6:14; 1 Thess. 4:14). God grants life through His Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, and He will do the same for believers in Christ who live in mortal bodies bound for death. As Jesus told Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). Man is born spiritually dead, and only God’s Holy Spirit can produce spiritual life. Hence, man must be born again (John 3:3, 5) to spiritual life.

Food for Thought

How can you know God’s Holy Spirit indwells you? You know it by what you love and what you hate. If you glory in His creation, love Christ and His inspired truths in Scripture, and strive to obey Christ’s teachings, then you have the Spirit of Christ! But if you ignore, hate, or devalue what God has given to us in His word, then you are most certainly devoid of the Spirit. And no one devoid of the Spirit belongs to God, for those without the Spirit cannot please God.