Romans 8:9, go back to Romans 8:9, but consider the way Paul meant it, but if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. The Spirit is the mark of belonging, not your church attendance, not your knowledge, not your family background, not how you feel on your best day, the Spirit of Christ dwelling in you, that is what makes a person his. How do you know the Spirit is in you? Because here is the thing about Romans 8:9, it sounds like a test and a test can be terrifying. If the Spirit is the mark of belonging and you cannot see the Spirit and you cannot measure the Spirit, then how are you supposed to know? And what if you do not feel spiritual enough? What if you keep sinning? What if you have doubted whether you even have him?
Sit with that, because this is exactly where most people get stuck on Romans 8:9, they read, “he is not his” and they start auditing their own lives, did I feel something at that worship service, did I pray enough this week, did I have there right experience. And Paul’s answer to that fear is not what you would expect, he does not tell them to look inward and find a feeling, he tells them to look at what the Spirit does, because the Spirit of Christ does not arrive silently and then sit idle, he makes himself known, and the first way he makes himself known is the most intimate thing in the whole chapter of Romans 8, Romans 8:15, the Spirit of adoption and the cry abba, Father.
That word abba is the word a small child used for his father in the Aramaic of Jesus’ day, it is the word of a child who knows whose lap he can climb into. Consider a child wakes in the dark afraid and instead of lying there alone, he cries out one word and the father’s arms are there before the word is finished leaving his mouth. That is what the Spirit produces in you, not a Spirit that makes you wonder if you are about to be thrown out, a Spirit that makes you cry out to God as Father. And Paul doubles down on it, Romans 8:16, the Spirit testifies with our spirit, not against it, with it. There is a witness inside you that you belong and it is not manufactured by your own effort, it is the Spirit’s work, Paul connects that same cry to the name he used in Romans 8:9.
Sit with that, because this is exactly where most people get stuck on Romans 8:9, they read, “he is not his” and they start auditing their own lives, did I feel something at that worship service, did I pray enough this week, did I have there right experience. And Paul’s answer to that fear is not what you would expect, he does not tell them to look inward and find a feeling, he tells them to look at what the Spirit does, because the Spirit of Christ does not arrive silently and then sit idle, he makes himself known, and the first way he makes himself known is the most intimate thing in the whole chapter of Romans 8, Romans 8:15, the Spirit of adoption and the cry abba, Father.
That word abba is the word a small child used for his father in the Aramaic of Jesus’ day, it is the word of a child who knows whose lap he can climb into. Consider a child wakes in the dark afraid and instead of lying there alone, he cries out one word and the father’s arms are there before the word is finished leaving his mouth. That is what the Spirit produces in you, not a Spirit that makes you wonder if you are about to be thrown out, a Spirit that makes you cry out to God as Father. And Paul doubles down on it, Romans 8:16, the Spirit testifies with our spirit, not against it, with it. There is a witness inside you that you belong and it is not manufactured by your own effort, it is the Spirit’s work, Paul connects that same cry to the name he used in Romans 8:9.
