Recently, I posted about how Romans 1:4 refers to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of holiness, and the powerful implications this ought to have on our ideas about sanctification.

I’d like to follow up with some further findings on the work of the Holy Spirit in Romans.

What follows is in no way systematic. It’s just scribblings, as it were.

First, let’s look at some verses in Romans 6. Only I’m going to capitalize some words that you won’t see capitalized in your translations. I’m doing this to make a point, which I’ll explain shortly.

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to Sin. For one who has died has been set free from Sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to Sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to Sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Let not Sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to Sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from Death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For Sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
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Romans 6:6-14 ESV

Now, the first thing you might say is: But these verses don’t mention the Holy Spirit! Hold on, we’ll come back to that later.

Did you notice the words I capitalized in a few places? Sin and Death.

Here’s what I’m wanting you to see. In these verses, St. Paul is personifying sin as a Queen with a domain. The dominion of Sin and Death.

Paul is doing something here that we see in Proverbs, with Dame Folly who leads men astray into her kingdom, where death and hell await:

The woman Folly is loud; she is seductive and knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house; she takes a seat on the highest places of the town, calling to those who pass by, who are going straight on their way, “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” And to him who lacks sense she says, “Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” But he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.
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Proverbs‬ ‭9:13-18‬ ‭ESV‬‬

So if we see St. Paul doing the same kind of thing in Romans 6, what he’s telling us is this:

When you came to Christ, God crucified you with him. God killed you!

Now, crucifixion is a long, slow, painful death. Your old Adam, your sinful flesh, will continue to struggle and fight for every last breath he can get. That’s why, even though you have been crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20), you must still take up your cross and die again daily (Luke 9:23). This is sanctification. More and more we die to ourselves, while the Spirit of holiness (Romans 1:4) lives and moves in us. More on that later.

But for now, this much is verified in v22-23 of Romans 6:

But now that you have been set free from Sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of Sin is Death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

ESV

Even though crucifixion is a long, slow, painful death—it’ll last the rest of your life, as your old Adam continues to reassert himself—God’s execution of you along with Christ removes you from the domain of Queen Sin, and its wages—Big-D Death. What Revelation 20:6, 14 calls the second death, the lake of fire. Your participation in Christ’s death—through faith, and in baptism—rescues you from this Big-D Death. Now your little-d death is the gateway into eternal life.

Notice that St. Paul says this is sanctification and its end, eternal life. Our sanctification is only complete and perfected once we are resurrected. Then we will be immortal, imperishable, and incorruptible—that is unable to sin (1 Corinthians 15:53-55). Then we will be transformed into the likeness of Christ’s glorified resurrection body (Philippians 3:20-21; 1 Corinthians 15:47-49).

And this marvelous transformation—this work of sanctification made perfect in our resurrection—is the work of the life-giving, resurrecting Holy Spirit (Romans 1:4; 8:11): But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians‬ ‭3:18‬ ‭KJV‬‬)

God’s rod and staff are comfort to His sheep (Psalm 23:4), for they protect and guide us through the Valley of Death. But Sin and Death are Satan’s rod and staff. He entices us into Sin, and then terrifies us with the reality of Death. It is Law—not grace—that rules in the domain of Sin and Death—and the Law can only condemn sinners.

This is what God has done in Christ: He has put us to death with His Son, so that we may be rescued from the hellish domain of Sin and Death.

The work of the Spirit is implied in all of this in Romans 6, as I’ve shown. But it’s made explicit in Romans 8:

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 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.
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Romans‬ ‭8:3-11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Pay especially close attention to v10: But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Our mortal bodies—these frail, fallen Adams of dust—are dead because of our sin. They will wear out and die. We will live and die as fallen creatures in a fallen world. But the Holy Spirit—God’s Spirit, the Spirit of Christ in us (Romans 8:9), the Spirit of holiness (Romans 1:4), the sanctifying and resurrecting Spirit—is life for us and in us and to us. The Spirit will perfect His sanctifying work in us in resurrection.

Our bodies will die, but we will not face the Big-D Death. We will be raised like Christ. We will be resurrected perfectly conformed to His image. With Spiritual bodies (1 Corinthians 15:42-46) that are immortal, imperishable, and incorruptible.

St. Paul is telling this same story in two ways in Romans 6 and 8. In Romans 6, he focuses on how God kills the old Adam in Christ, so that we might be delivered from the domain of Sin and death, and be given sanctification and eternal life. In Romans 8, he zeroes in on the Spirit’s pervasive role in this work, as the one who sanctifies us, and perfects His sanctifying work in resurrection.

Incidentally, understanding how Romans 6 and 8 fit together like this is very helpful in establishing the traditional understanding of Romans 7, particularly when Paul says:

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
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Romans‬ ‭7:15-19‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Many more recent readings of Romans bend over backwards to try and assert that Paul was not actually speaking of himself in the present tense in these verses, although this is the most natural way to read it.

Recent interpreters have argued that these verses are a speech in character, and St. Paul was speaking as Adam, as the average Israelite, or as a Gentile under conviction by the Law of God.

But when we understand Romans 6 and 8 describing the ordinary Christian life as one of an ongoing struggle with sin as our old Adam fights and claws against his crucifixion; but with the assurance that the Spirit will complete our sanctification in resurrection—Romans 7 is a powerful source of pastoral encouragement from the Apostle.

He is showing us from his own ongoing experience that the daily struggle against sin in our flesh—a battle we lose more often than not, by his own account—is absolutely normal for the Christian life!

Isn’t that liberating?

That’s why St. Paul tells us:

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
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Romans 7:24 — 8:2 ESV

Paul is telling us that we are indeed wretched creatures, but in Christ, through the Spirit, we are rescued from the hellish kingdom of Sin and Death. Even though, in this life—with fallen bodies in a fallen world—our renewed minds that love God’s law are horrified to find our flesh still serving sin—in Christ we do not fear condemnation. Because Christ has already taken our condemnation in His cross (Romans 8:3-4).

The recent interpreters who have stolen the words from St. Paul’s mouth in Romans 7 and made them about someone else; are actually stealing a precious example of pastoral empathy and Gospel assurance from struggling Christians.

They’re stealing bread from the mouths of children hungry and thirsty for righteousness; and replacing them with stones of perfectionism, triumphalism, and toxic positivity. And anyone who’s being fed those stones is going to break their teeth—or choke.

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