In this sermon, Dr. Sproul investigates the use of the word spirit—the relationship of the human spirit to the body and its relationship to the soul. He discusses the following four categories of people when it comes to salvation: not saved and know it; saved and know it; saved and not sure; and not saved but sure they are saved.

We are continuing our study of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, and we have been working in chapter 8. I was not able to finish the entire passage that I read the last time, and so I will pick it up again this evening at verse 9 and read through verse 17, so we will read Romans 8:9–17. I will ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God:

But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

Dear friends, you have just heard not the opinion of a first-century Jewish scholar but the veritable Word of God, that Word that brings to us life itself. Please be seated. Let us pray.

Our Father, we look to You as our helper in understanding the depths and riches of those things that You have set forth in Your Word. As we wrestle tonight with questions about our own assurance of salvation and our own standing before You as Your adopted children, we pray that the Spirit of grace will stoop to minister to our frailty and weaknesses. For we ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Safe from Wrath

Several years ago, I read a stunning novel that was then made into a major motion picture by Hollywood, starring Dustin Hoffman. The name of the book and, consequently, the movie was Marathon Man. It involved great intrigue from a person trying to escape the clutches of a secret Nazi war criminal who was living in the United States. On every occasion when the hero met with his friends in the underground, he would ask this question: “Is it safe?” That was the theme of the movie—over and over again the inquiry came: “Is it safe?”

When we come to the eighth chapter of Romans, the unifying theme of this entire section of the epistle addresses the question, “Is it safe?” to those who are wondering if they are safe from the wrath of God. Can we be assured that indeed, as the eighth chapter begins, for us there is now no condemnation because we are in Christ Jesus?

In the previous sermon, we looked at the distinction the Apostle makes between the carnal life of the fallen flesh and the spiritual life that marks the life of the Christian. We came to that place in verse 8 where we read, “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Those who remain unconverted, those who are still defined by the corrupt nature that is referred to by this word sarx, or flesh, they are in such a state that nothing they can do can please God.

Something that may surprise or startle you is that even the prayers of the unbeliever are displeasing to God because those prayers do not come from the heart. They come from fear of danger or some other peril that they face in this world. Scripture warns us that the worship of the ungodly becomes a stench in the nostril of God because while we remain in the flesh, there is nothing we can do that will please Him.

“But,” the Apostle says, “you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Last time, I labored the point that what marks the life of the true believer is not that he has the fullness of the Spirit—the baptism or filling of the Spirit—but that he is indwelt by the Holy Ghost, and every single person indwelt by God the Holy Spirit is safe. Every person indwelt by God the Holy Spirit is a new creature in Christ, is regenerate, and enjoys all the fruits that flow from our justification, which Paul has set forth in this epistle.

Paul once again speaks of the contrast: “Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.” Your safety in the kingdom of God is not determined by your church membership or whatever good deeds you have managed to perform in this world. Rather, your safety consists of being in Christ and Christ in you. If you have all the labors of your hands to offer before God, if you have been a member of a church all of your life, and if have perfect attendance in Sunday school, but the Spirit of Christ does not dwell in you, you do not belong to Him.

We have looked on many occasions at what I think is the most terrifying warning ever found in the New Testament from the lips of Jesus, which comes to us as the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount. He reaches that conclusion by essentially saying, “Many will come to Me on the last day saying, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we do this in your name? Didn’t we do that in your name?’” Jesus said: “I will say to those people, ‘Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity; I never knew you. I don’t know who you are. You are not Mine. I do not dwell in you; you do not dwell in Me.’” That is the scariest thing anyone could ever hear from the lips of Jesus. Paul reminds us that if we do not have the Spirit of Christ, then we do not belong to Christ, but “if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”

Body and Spirit

Manifestly there is a little difficulty in this text, a conundrum of interpretation. It is a close call that the translators are dealing with because, as we have seen repeatedly in this section of the epistle, Paul sets forth a contrast between the spirit and the flesh. I mentioned to you before that whenever we see that conflict between spirit and flesh, the flesh refers to the fallen, corrupt nature that we inherit from Adam, and the spirit refers to the new man, the person who has been reborn by the Holy Spirit.

So often in Scripture when the word spirit occurs it is modified by the adjective holy. Whenever the Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit, there is no doubt as to who is in view in the text; it refers to the third person of the Trinity.

When the word spirit or pneuma occurs by itself without the adjective holy, we are left to ask, of what spirit is the Bible speaking? Is it speaking of the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Christ? Paul has just talked about having the Spirit of Christ in us. Or is it referring simply to the human spirit? The Bible teaches that we as human beings also have a human spirit or soul, as it is sometimes called. That is the problem of interpretation in this text.

“And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin.” Here the distinction is between body and spirit and the results of Christ’s being in you. I do not know what your translation looks like, but the one I am reading from reads as this: “If Christ is in you, the body”—that is, your body—“is dead because of sin, but the Spirit”—notice that word “Spirit” in the text—“is life because of righteousness.”

In my Bible, the word “Spirit” is capitalized here. How many of you have that capitalized in your Bible? Most of you. That means that when the translators came to this portion of the text, they became convinced that the spirit mentioned here must be the Holy Spirit. They might be right. But the only way you can tell between the reference to the Holy Spirit, if the word holy is not there, and the human spirit is by the context. This is one of those few times where I personally disagree with the translators. The contrast here is between the body and the spirit. We are talking about the human body, which is being contrasted here with the human spirit. So, I am going to take that approach in seeking to understand the text.

“If Christ is in you,” what is the result of that? Well, “the body,” your body, is still “dead because of sin.” You are still going to die. “But the spirit,” your human spirit, which is now indwelt by the Holy Spirit, “is life because of righteousness,” the righteousness that is ours in Jesus Christ. The difference in this interpretation does not amount to much, ultimately. In the final analysis, it still means the same thing, that if our human spirit is going to go to a different destiny than our bodies, it is only because the divine Spirit is dwelling within us.

Paul goes on to say, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” We are safe in the first instance because we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

The Assurance of Salvation

All through this text, the question of safety is connected to the question of the assurance of salvation. This is such a burning question in the life of the Christian: Am I really in a state of grace? How can I know for sure that I am saved and not one of those who will hear those dreadful words from the lips of Jesus on the last day, “Depart from Me; you confess Me with your lips, but I don’t know who you are’? How can we know that we are in a state of salvation?

I have talked to you about this struggle that Christians go through and which I have gone through in my own life. I have mentioned that there are four kinds of people in the world with respect to the assurance of salvation. I once heard a man say there are three kinds of people in the world—those who can count and those who cannot. But with respect to the question of assurance, there are four different possibilities. Let me go over that again so that you will catch it for sure.

There are those people who are not saved. They are not in a state of grace. They are unbelievers, unregenerate, unsaved, and they know that they are not saved. There is no difficulty with that category. Then there are those who are saved in a state of redemption, who have the full assurance of their state. They are saved, and they know that they are saved. So again, the first group is those who are not saved and know they are not saved. The second group is those who are saved and know that they are saved.

The third group is those who are saved—they are in a state of salvation—but they are not sure of their state. Their souls are still restless. They have not reached assurance of their salvation. The first three are simple: (1) not saved, know they are not saved; (2) saved, know they are saved; (3) saved, but do not know yet that they are saved.

False Assurance

It is easy for us to understand the first three categories; it is the fourth one that muddies the water. That is this group: those people who are not saved, but who know that they are saved. They have the assurance of salvation, a salvation they most assuredly do not possess. Their assurance is a false assurance. I have gone over this with you before, but let me quickly recapitulate.

There are two basic reasons why people can have a false sense of assurance of salvation. The most common reason is that they have a false understanding of what is necessary for salvation. If people are told that everybody goes to heaven when they die, the reasoning of the unbeliever can be very simple: If everybody is saved, I am a body, therefore, I am saved. The premise that is false is the first premise—namely, that everybody who dies goes to heaven. Another false kind of assurance is where people say: “I believe that people who live a good life will most assuredly go to heaven when they die. I have tried to live a good life, ergo, I can be sure that I’m going to heaven.” That contains another false premise because it is a false understanding of what is required for salvation.

The second category of false assurance has to do with the evaluation of ourselves. We may have a correct understanding of what is required to go to heaven. We understand that to be saved requires personal trust in Christ and Christ alone for our salvation, as the Apostle has been laboring through this epistle. But we may deceive ourselves with respect to the profession of faith that we think that we have. In other words, we may think that we profess true faith when, in fact, we do not. We may think that we believe in justification by faith alone because we understand the doctrine intellectually and can pass a test on it in theology class, but in our hearts and souls we are not trusting in Christ and Christ alone for our salvation. We deceive ourselves concerning our state of grace.

This is why chapters 7 and 8 of Romans are so important. Paul is showing us the picture of what a believer who is truly redeemed looks like. He is not one whose life is controlled by the flesh. He is a person who is indwelt by the Spirit of God. If you are indwelt by the Spirit of God, that has to make a difference in how you live. Therein comes the consternation.

Put Sin to Death

I say that on September 13, 1957, eleven o’clock at night, I became a Christian. That was when I was overwhelmed by the gospel and had the profound experience of forgiveness of my sins that turned my life upside down. But one of the most deeply difficult things, as Paul expresses in chapter 7, was that after my conversion, though my life was turned upside down, there was still sin there. Now, these many years later, I still battle with various sins.

Sometimes I ask myself, “How can I have the Spirit of Christ in my soul and still struggle this way after all these years?” But that is the plaintive cry of every Christian. We know that being converted and in a state of grace does not guarantee the end of temptation or falling into momentary lapses of disobedience. We have been through all of that.

In this section of the letter, Paul is giving us pastoral counsel. He is giving us information from divine revelation that should calm our spirits and increase our confidence of the state of grace to which we have been called. We need to listen very carefully to what he says.

Verse 12: “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh.” We do not owe the old man anything. We are not under any obligation to fulfill the lusts of our fallen nature. But we are debtors to live to the spirit. Let me read it as Paul says it: “We are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh”—that is, as we mentioned before, the overarching guiding principle of your life remains the old man and the flesh—“you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

So far, that is not very good news. If the only way I can be sure I am saved is to put to death all the sinful acts of the flesh in my life, then I would have precious little reason to be sure of my salvation. But fortunately for us, the Apostle does not stop there.

Led by the Spirit

Now listen to this: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Do you want to know if you are in state of grace? Do you want to know if you are a child of God? One of the answers we receive here in Scripture is, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God.” The first test we have as to whether we are children of God is the test of whether we are led by the Spirit.

How I wish that were easy to explain. If there is any biblical concept that has been thoroughly muddled in our day, it is this concept of what it means to be led by the Spirit. One dangerous thing that can happen in our fellowships in the Christian community is that we devise and begin to use certain Christian jargon, and that jargon becomes the norm that defines our theology rather than a close examination of the Word of God. The way in which our jargon functions, in many instances, often has little relationship to how the same words are used in Scripture.

With the enormous impact of the charismatic movement in the last century, a concept that has received a large acceptance in the jargon or the currency of Christian language is this idea of being led by the Spirit. What do you think of when someone says, “So and so is led by the Spirit” or, “I am led by the Spirit” or, “The Spirit of God led me to do this or to do that”? The usual connotation of that idea is to be guided or directed by the Holy Ghost to go here, there, or over there; to take this job or not; to make this decision or not. In other words, we use the language of being led by the Spirit of God for concrete, specific guidance from God in His providence, in which He opens doors for us to walk through or closes them. There is nothing wrong with the idea that God leads His people where He wants them to go and into those experiences that He wants them to experience. But that is not the primary meaning of being led be the Spirit in the Bible.

The question I hear more often than any other question from Christians, the theological burden that they come to me with, is this: “R.C., how can I know the will of God for my life?” How would you answer that question? We must distinguish in the Bible among various ideas of the will of God. On the one hand, there is the sovereign, efficacious will of God, which we sometimes refer to as the hidden will of God. Here, God ultimately has in view His plan for your life and your destiny.

Let me tell you about people coming to me and saying, “How can I know that will of my life?” I say: “You can’t. Quit worrying about it, because it’s none of your business. If it were your business, it wouldn’t be in the hidden will of God.” God has not been pleased to reveal all these things. I do not know where I am going to be a year from now, let alone a week from now. In fact, I am told that I am not to say, “Next week, I’ll be in Alaska.” I have to put that in brackets. I have to say, “Next week, God willing, I’ll be in Alaska.” But I do not know tonight for sure where I am going to be one day from now, let alone a week from now.

When the Bible speaks of the will of God for our lives, what is the biblical reference which is so different from Christian jargon? Let me quote it to you: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thess. 4:3). If we would spend less time worrying about whether we should marry Jane, Mabel, or Ellen, and more time trying to apply the biblical revelation of what God wants from His people, we would be much happier and much more fruitful as Christians.

The Bible is not magic. It is not a crystal ball wherein we ask the Spirit to guide us into the hidden places. No, where the Spirit guides His people is in righteousness, the path of righteousness into holiness. That is what this is about.

Sons of God

When the Apostle Paul says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God,” or children of God. That refers to those whose lives are being directed towards the righteousness of God. If your life is directed by the Spirit of God who dwells within you, then that is a sure and certain sign you are a child of God, because that is what the indwelling Spirit does. He inclines your heart. He gives you a hunger and thirst for obedience to Christ. He gives you an affection by which you respond to Jesus’ statement, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

I might ask myself, Do I have any disposition or inclination in my heart to follow the Spirit’s leading to obedience to Jesus? It is not hard for me to answer that question. But what if I frame it a different way and ask, Is my heart fully, totally, and absolutely inclined and disposed toward following the Spirit into holiness? The only answer I can give to that is no. That is not true of me. But if I state it yet another way: Is there any sense in which my human spirit is directed to the things of Christ, any at all? That guarantees me that I am indwelt by the Spirit of God. The flesh is never inclined—indeed, it cannot be inclined whatsoever—to the things of God. There is where our theology is so important in terms of getting the assurance. If I know the state of a person who is not born of the Spirit and the state of a person who is born of the Spirit, and I can then discern the difference in the pattern, then I can know that I have been born of God the Holy Spirit.

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” Sonship is defined over and over again in Scripture in terms of whose lead you follow.

Do you remember when Jesus talked about the Spirit of God giving liberty to those who were in bondage and how offended the Pharisees were at that teaching? They said, “We are in bondage to no man”? How did the Pharisees know they were in bondage to no one? “We are Abraham’s descendants” (John 8:33). In other words, they were saying: “We know that we are in the kingdom, Jesus, because we can show you our birth certificates. We can go to our genealogy and trace it biologically all the way back to Abraham. We are descendants of Abraham. We’re in bondage to no man. We don’t need the Holy Spirit to rescue us from bondage.”

Jesus did not accept the Pharisees’ claim of being children of Abraham. He said: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do” (John 8:44). In other words, Jesus was saying: “You are the children of Him whom you obey. You are children of Satan.” Do you see how Jesus said that? It is not a question of biology; it is a question of obedience. You are a child of the one whom you obey. If you are obeying the lusts of the flesh, if you are obeying the inclinations of Satan, then you are a child of the devil, not of Abraham and not of God.

That is why Paul is saying, “As many as are led”—whose lives are directed—“by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God,” because they are following and obeying the One who is leading them in the way of God.

Adoption into God’s Family

“For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’” See the contrast here between two kinds of spirits. One is the spirit of bondage. That is the spirit that is produced by the flesh. That is the spirit of the unregenerate, unconverted person. That person remains in prison, incarcerated to his old nature, a slave to the sinful impulses of his own recalcitrant heart. But if you have the Spirit within you, you no longer have the spirit of bondage. You no longer are shaking and quaking in servile fear before the Lord God, but now you have the Spirit of adoption.

The concept of adoption is generally not found among Jewish theologians of antiquity. It is a Roman idea. Paul, speaking to the Romans, uses this metaphor to describe their relationship to God. We do not think that is a big deal in this day and age, because we have been told, as a result of nineteenth century comparative religion theology, that all roads go to heaven and we are all the children of God, which is as far away from the biblical view as you can get.

In the Bible, God has one child, the monogenēs, the only begotten, Jesus Christ. All the rest of His children are not naturally born children but adopted children. The way you get into the family of God is not by biological birth; the only way you enter into the family of God is if God adopts you. The only way you are adopted into the family of God is if you are united by the Holy Spirit to the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Paul has been spelling out for us the benefits and the consequences of our justification. Being justified, we are at peace with God and have access into His presence. We have looked at all these things. But one of the great consequences of justification is that all who are justified are immediately adopted into the family of God and, with Jesus, have the unspeakable privilege of addressing God as Father. It is by the Holy Ghost shed abroad in our hearts that we now have the authority to cry, “Abba, Father.”

Abba, Father

You might have heard someone tell you that the word abba is the common familial term of endearment that could be translated “daddy.” There is truth in that, but it is a dangerous truth. The truth of the phrase abba that we are invited to use with respect to God is that in our adoption, we enter into the inner circle of the family of God. There is no closer relationship, and we can use this familiar term, this personal term of intimacy with God, “Abba, Father,” in which we are saying something like “Daddy.” That is true. You may experience the use of that term in your own life, in your own house. When my daughter really wants something badly from me, she does not address me as “Dad.” It is “Daddy.” I know what is coming next. She wants something because she uses that more intimate term of endearment with me.

I do not want to disparage the idea that we have the privilege of using this close term of affection with our heavenly Father. But the other side of it, the downside of it is that the term daddy can be used in a childish way, in a frivolous way. The fact that we can address God now as Father and say “Abba” to Him does not give us the right to enter into His presence presumptuously or arrogantly.

I have mentioned on other occasions the research of a German scholar toward the end of the twentieth century, Joachim Jeremias, who studied the use of the term Father for God in Jewish history. He concluded in his research that even though there were scores of approved forms of address that the Jewish people were encouraged to use in their prayers to God, the idea of directing prayer to God as Father immediately and directly was unknown and, in a sense, abhorrent to them. Jeremias said that the first occurrence of a Jewish prayer addressing God directly as Father was in the tenth century AD in Italy, and even then, it manifested a Christian influence.

One of the most radical things we find in Jesus is the claim He made repeatedly during His earthly ministry of the special intimacy He had with the Father: “I do nothing on My own authority, but only what the Father tells Me to do. All that the Father has given Me to do, that is what I do. All of those whom the Father has given to Me come to Me.” Again and again, Jesus referred to God as His Father.

That enraged the Pharisees. They took Jesus to be claiming equality with God: “This man calls God Father as if He were equal with God.” In every recorded prayer of Jesus in the New Testament except one, Jesus addressed God directly as Father. That is so common to us that we read over it and miss its significance. We miss how radical it was in Jesus’ day for any Jewish person to pray and address God as “Father.” But Jesus did it almost every time He prayed.

When Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray, what did He say? “When you pray, pray like this: ‘Our Father.’ The unique privilege that I alone in all of history have to address the God of heaven and earth as My Father, I’m giving it to you. When you pray, you can call God Father too, because He is now our Father, because I’m adopting you into this family.” It is an unbelievable privilege we should never take for granted that we have the authority to address God as our Father. That was not something taken for granted by Jesus whatsoever.

Yet if you go to a prayer meeting and listen to people pray one at a time, if ten people pray in your presence, nine of them at least will begin their prayers by saying “Father” or “Our heavenly Father” or “Our dear Father.” That is so integral to the life of Christian prayer that we would not think of addressing God without coming to Him and using this term Father. But it is a privilege given only to those who are adopted and who have received that Spirit of adoption by which we can cry out, “Abba, Father.”

The Witness of the Holy Spirit

Finally in this section, Paul explains that the deepest and highest level of assurance of salvation we can achieve is this: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit.” Here again you see the word “spirit” referring on the one hand to the Holy Spirit and then in the second use of it directing it to our spirit. There is a spiritual conversation here. There is a spiritual communication that comes from the Holy Spirit to the human spirit. What does that communication indicate?

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” In the final analysis, my assurance of salvation is not a logical deduction from my theology, though that helps. It is certainly not based on a careful analysis of my behavior. My final assurance comes by the testimony of God the Holy Spirit Himself, who bears witness with and through my spirit that I am a child of God.

This is wonderful—but also dangerous. Paul is not falling into some kind of Gnostic mysticism here such that we get special revelation or a special pipeline of our own where the Holy Ghost talks to us and no one else and gives us private revelation. He is talking about how the Spirit of the Lord confirms with our human spirit a truth.

But how does God do that? It is not that when you are driving your car down the highway, the Holy Ghost comes and whispers into your ear, “Oh relax, R.C., you’re one of Mine; I’ve adopted you.” No, beloved, if we learn anything tonight, we need to understand that when the Spirit communicates to God’s people, He communicates to them by the Word, with the Word, through the Word, and never, ever against the Word.

There are millions of people out there claiming to be led by the Spirit into sin. They claim divine guidance into disobedience: “I don’t have to what Scripture says because I prayed and God gave me peace in my disobedience.” Run for your life from those kinds of people.

Do you want to know if you are hearing the testimony of the Holy Spirit? Let me tell you when it comes and where it comes: in and through the Word. That is vitally important for us to understand. If you are lacking in assurance and you want your heart to be at peace, you go to the Word, and the Spirit will confirm His truth to you in and through the Word. That is how He works. That is how He does it.

If you want to be led by the Spirit of God, immerse yourself into the Spirit-inspired Word. We are called to test the spirits to make sure that the spirit leading us is the Holy Spirit. The only test that we can apply is the test of the Word itself.

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs,” because all of God’s children participate in His estate. They are all His promised beneficiaries. If we are children, we are heirs of God, “joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” This last portion of this verse represents a transition to what Paul brings us in our next time. I will stop here, and we will pick it up again, God willing, the next time at verse 17. Let us pray.

Father, confirm with our hearts, our souls, our spirits by Your Spirit that we are Your children, that we are safe, that we are His, that we belong to Christ, body and soul, and that we look forward to the inheritance that has been saved up for us in heaven. We long, O God, to hear those words: “Come, My beloved, inherit the kingdom that My Father has prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Thank You for adopting us and giving us the Spirit by which we can call you Abba, Father. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.