Resurrection Of The Body

Romans – A Treatise
Chapter Eight
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY

Scripture Reading: verses 11-14 (Darby translation)

BUT IF THE SPIRIT OF HIM THAT HAS RAISED UP JESUS FROM AMONG [THE] DEAD DWELL IN YOU, HE THAT HAS RAISED UP CHRIST FROM AMONG [THE] DEAD SHALL QUICKEN YOUR MORTAL BODIES ALSO ON ACCOUNT OF HIS SPIRIT WHICH DWELLS IN YOU. SO THEN, BRETHREN, WE ARE DEBTORS, NOT TO THE FLESH, TO LIVE ACCORDING TO FLESH; FOR IF YE LIVE ACCORDING TO FLESH, YE ARE ABOUT TO DIE; BUT IF, BY THE SPIRIT, YE PUT TO DEATH THE DEEDS OF THE BODY, YE SHALL LIVE: FOR AS MANY AS ARE LED BY [THE] SPIRIT OF GOD, THESE ARE SONS OF GOD.

Some great truths are implicated in these verses, ranging from our physical resurrection to perhaps the highest truth in the New Testament, the glorious truth of sonship.

Traveling through these verses we must keep in mind that Paul is distinctly holding before our attention the complex being who is the pardoned sinner, the believer on the Lord Jesus Christ. He is focusing our attention on our identity with the man after the flesh, of which we are so forcefully reminded in the deeds of the body that is by nature dominated by sin. The second identity is that which we have in Christ according to the new regulating principle of life, which we have now in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, who indwells true believers.

Paul has been indicating so distinctly that the dominating principle of evil is still resident in our mortal flesh pertaining to the life which we live in the body, that he now guards against our thinking the body itself is necessarily evil; so he brings in the grand truth that this body is going to be resurrected in the power of the risen Christ.

In verse 11, Paul reverts to the truth that Jesus Himself was raised from among the dead, and that resurrection was performed by the Spirit of God.¹ This same Holy Spirit now dwells in the true believer’s mortal body, and God vouchsafes the promise that just as the Holy Spirit raised up Jesus from the dead, so He that raised up Christ from among the dead shall also quicken the Christian’s mortal body because of His Spirit which dwells within. Notice in this verse both names of our blessed Lord in relation to the resurrection. First it is the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from among the dead, then it is He that raised up Christ shall quicken your mortal bodies. The use of the two names of our Lord is both interesting and significant. The name Jesus is the personal name of our Lord, and it is used boldly by itself here so that we might clearly have in mind that it was the personal body of our Lord that was raised from the tomb. It is not one Person who walked the lanes by Galilee and another Person who made a grand exit from the tomb.

It is the same Jesus who died and who rose again. It is the same body that went into the tomb and came out of it. We am not asserting there were not differences in the body of our Lord, but rather insisting it was the same body. Down through the years many have come forward with ethereal ideas concerning the new Christ, as if the One who rose from the dead was in some way a different Person from the One who died on the Cross. It is not so. The Spirit of God raised Jesus from among the dead. It is His personal name, the same name that was given to Him as a baby in Bethlehem: “Thou shalt call His name Jesus.” Here is the insistence by God’s Holy Spirit of the personal resurrection of our beloved Lord.

Then in the second half of the verse, the word Christ is used because here the Lord Jesus stands in association with those who love Him, those who are also indwelt by the Spirit, and who are going to be raised when the Lord Jesus comes to call them from the tomb. The name Christ is used because that is uniquely the title of our Lord in resurrection glory. “This same Jesus whom ye have crucified, God has raised up and made Him both Lord and Christ.” Christ means “the anointed One,” the great Administrator of the blessing of God to mankind – what marvelous truth is implied in this. It reminds us that just as it was the body of Jesus that went into the tomb and the body of Jesus that rose from the dead (all done by the operating power of the Spirit of God), so it will be in our resurrection.

Unless the Lord Jesus comes while we are still alive, this mortal body will go into the tomb and will rise from the dead. Of course, it goes into the tomb a body of humiliation; it comes out a body of glory, but it is the same body that goes in that comes out. “It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power,” but the word “it” refers to our body, a direct assertion of the personal, physical resurrection of the Lord’s people at the coming of Christ. The whole man, spirit, soul, and body, in the power of the Spirit of God who dwells in us, belongs to God in a very real sense. So the conclusion is found in verse 12:

So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to flesh; for if ye live according to flesh, ye are about to die; but if, by the Spirit, ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live.²

We must carefully trace these truths lest we wander into thinking that God is threatening true believers with eternal death. The one who has been born again and belongs to Christ can rest assured the Lord Jesus will never perish, but will live forever. Our spirits and souls belong to Him, and since the Spirit of God dwells within Christians, we may be sure our mortal bodies will be raised in resurrection might by the same power that raised our beloved Lord. The conclusion is that we owe nothing to the man after the flesh. The sin dominated man should be kept in the place of death, keeping in mind that to live after that order leads toward death. “If ye live after the flesh, ye are about to die.” The Scripture does not say if ye live after the flesh you will go to a lost eternity. Eternity is not in view. It is living after the flesh here in this world, gratifying the lusts of the flesh, that leads to death. If we sow to the flesh we shall reap corruption. If we sow to the spirit we shall reap life everlasting.

This is illustrated in Corinth, where many believers on Christ were living according to flesh, and in the eleventh chapter of First Corinthians it is sadly recorded: “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many have fallen asleep.” They had died; gone to their graves. They were not lost eternally, but the Lord had taken them out of the race of faith; they lost the privilege of living according to the Spirit here in this world. “If we through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body we shall live, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are sons of God.”

Footnotes:
¹ “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” In the preceding verse, Paul mentioned the body’s being sentenced to death, due to that portion of the primeval sentence being still operative, even upon Christians; but even the death of the body is at last to be nullified by the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. Such a nullification will take place when the “dead in Christ” rise to meet the Lord in the air. In this verse, the resurrection itself is made to depend upon the indwelling of the Spirit, for it is promised, “If the Spirit ... dwelleth in you.” The resurrection of Christ appears here as a pledge of a similar resurrection of Christians, a resurrection of their “mortal bodies,” just as Christ’s mortal body was raised and recognized by his disciples. Thus salvation is more than merely saving the soul, although that is likewise glorious; but this teaches that body and soul alike will participate in the ultimate glory of eternal life. The great connective between the resurrection of Christ and the ultimate resurrection of His disciples is the blessed ministry of the Holy Spirit in Christian hearts, and thus appears the absolute necessity of the Spirit’s residence in Christian hearts. This place, along with Romans 8:9 compels the conclusion that if one does not have the Spirit of God in his soul, he is not a Christian, not in Christ, not saved, and is not in any sense Christ’s.
² “So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh: for if ye live after the flesh, we must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” The first clause here is a figure of speech called meiosis, a vast understatement for the sake of emphasis. “Not debtors to the flesh” – no; they are debtors to the Spirit and are charged with the responsibility of even putting the flesh to death, in a figure. These verses form an exhortation regarding the two ways to live, the consequences of which Paul had already fully outlined. To live after the flesh is death; to live after the Spirit is eternal life. “Ye must die” has reference to more than physical death, for Paul had already noted in Romans 8:10 that Christians are not exempt from that; therefore, it is of eternal consequences that he spoke here. R.C.H. Lenski was impressed with the contrast between the words “live” and “die.” In his book, The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, p. 517, he wrote: “Men ever think that they are really living when they give way to the flesh, whereas in reality they are heading straight for eternal death.” Significantly, there is no relaxation of moral requirements for those who are in Christ. Believing and obeying the Gospel, receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, and thereby rejoicing in the grace of God, do not for a moment cause sin to be any less sin for the Christian. Mortification of the deeds of the body is the daily task of the soul in Christ. In his book, Beacon Bible Commentary, p. 174, William M. Greathouse wrote: “It is important that we try to grasp just what Paul means here. He is most certainly not advocating ascetic mortification, which is based upon the idea that the body is a weight upon the soul. Paul is not positing any Hellenistic body-soul dualism. As we have seen, the body [Greek: soma] is the soul expressed concretely. What the believer is obligated to do, if we may borrow Oswald Chambers’ happy expression, is to sacrifice the natural for the sake of the spiritual. By the Spirit, we are to reckon that the members of our body are dead to sin and that we are alive unto God (Rom. 6:11-13)”