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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Romans 8:10 - 8:10
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If Christ be in you, that is by his Holy Spirit, the body is dead, that is, still subject to death, because of sin, which will never cease to be in us till we die; but the Spirit is life, that is, will give life to it again, because of righteousness, or of that justification which is unto life.
Learn hence, That Christ in believers is a sure pledge and earnest to them of eternal life, both in body and soul; Christ is in believers two ways,
1. Objectively, as the object is in the faculty, or the things we think of, love and delight in, are in our hearts and minds: Thus Christ is said to dwell in our hearts by faith.
2. Effectively, so Christ is in believers by his Spirit, whose gracious influences produce life in them, and likeness unto him.
Learn, 2. That the bodies of believers, in whom Christ dwells, are subject to death as well as other men's, and that because of sin, both original and actual: Sin brought mortality into their natures, death entered the world by sin, and sin goes out of the world by death; true, they are by Christ delivered from the sting, but not from the stroke of death; Their bodies are dead because of sin.
Learn, 3. That believers, though mortal, and subject to death in regard of their bodies, yet they live, and are in a state of immortality, in regard of their souls: The Spirit is life; that is, the spirit of the believer is immortal, yet not exclusively, but emphatically; not as if other men's souls did not live after death, but it is a life worse than death; it is a special immortality that the believer is a partaker of.
Learn, 4. The Spirit is life because of righteousness. If we understand it of Christ's righteousness, that gives us a right and title to salvation; if of our own inherent righteousness, that is a qualification to fit and prepare us for eternal life and salvation; take it in either sense, it teaches us, that without righteousness there can be no hope of eternal life and happiness; we can be neither fit for the employment of heaven, nor for the enjoyment of heaven without it, Col_1:12.