17. The Spirit of Life

Covering Romans 7:7 to 8:17:

We now understand Romans, how it is all one flowing Word. After his introduction, Paul establishes the core of his thesis in 1:16. – The gospel is the power of God carrying into salvation all who are actively believing. – The Salvation into which we are being carried is Romans 8:18-30, the Core of the Gospel, a reality fully unknown inside Nicene Christianity.

Here is what we must understand. The Salvation into which we are being carried is INCONCEIVABLE by all human thought in this world. Christians do not know it, including those believing Judeans in Paul’s day who knew the meaning of the Scriptures and who believed in Jesus, even Peter and John at that time. The Salvation into which we are being carried is “out of this world!”

Getting Us Ready. Paul KNOWS that he is about to bring forth something that has never before entered into the minds of humans. From 1:18 to 7:6, Paul lays an immense foundation for his blast-off, in setting forth the full meaning of the Jesus who carries us.

First, God declares us to be justly innocent, without any disconnection from Him, through faith in the propitiation of Jesus, joining us with God. We are then brought into the knowledge of God with us, that is, Salvation, through the life of Christ inside of us. Our entrance into age-unfolding life, that is, knowing God, happens because God placed us into Jesus, joining us together with Jesus in every step of the Atonement. This is our passage through the Tabernacle, from our entrance through the Gate to our entrance through the Veil.

Into a Higher Plane. Having brought us into the full meaning of our union with Christ that connects us utterly to God inside of All-Salvation, Paul senses inside that it’s not enough. Knowing our Union with Christ is not yet enough for being caught into the Unveiling of Christ through us. Thus Paul is determined to raise every quality of our Union with Christ into a far higher plane, so that when he unleashes what is NOT known into human thought, he might succeed.

In order to accomplish that task, Paul takes us back through despair once again, for it is only through this passage that we can begin to see the elements of our Redemption, the HOWS of God, Jesus carrying us through, at the level they must be. This is the whole purpose of Romans 7:7 to 8:17.

Where Paul Loses Most. (Chapter 7) • 7 What then shall we say? Is the law sin? It cannot happen! • You see, I could not have known sin, I could not have known my disconnection from God, except through law. Indeed, I would not have known what coveting might be, if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

To our great sorrow, we know that this is where Paul loses most Christians who do not follow his purpose. And in not staying with Paul, Christians lose also his meaning up until now, and thus switch “saved by grace” to the false definition. I can see now that in this passage Paul is defining the human, how God created us to be and how it does not work separate from our Union with Christ. But to define the human attempting to “do” God without God, Paul must first define the law. The law gives only the knowledge of sin.

How We Must Live. Ruling Verse 5: “I have been crucified with Christ. I live, however, but no longer I. Christ lives inside of all that is me.” – Having established a finished Cross and our full union with Christ, Paul writes only out from this absolute. Paul is taking us back through the confusion of separation from Jesus in order to demonstrate that God did not design us to live in any other way than inside a full joining together with Jesus.

Definition: The law gives the knowledge of sin, the knowledge of right and wrong, of good and evil. But the law CANNOT give Life, that is, the knowledge of God (see John 17:3). We define the law specifically as word that is itself True inside of God, but that we can receive only on the outside of ourselves, separate from Jesus, that we might FAIL to connect with God by SELF.

The Law of Sin and Death. 13 Has that which is good, then, become death to me? That cannot happen! Sin and falling short, however, produced its death through that which is good, • so that it might be seen by me as disconnection from God, so that sin might appear exceedingly sinful to me through the commandment. 14 We are aware that the law is spiritual; but I am fleshly, having been sold under all falling short. 15 Indeed, I do not know what I produce. I do not perform what I want, but I perform what I hate. 16 And if I perform what I do not choose, I agree together with the law that it is good.

Definition: The law as the knowledge of good and evil is NOT meant for humans. It is GOOD, of itself inside of God, but God made us weak intentionally, to be filled with Himself as the One who does. God did not give us the ability to do.

A Stone of Stumbling. 17 I am no longer the one producing the performance but the falling short which dwells inside of me. • 18 Indeed, I know that [apart from Christ] nothing good dwells inside of me, inside of my flesh [separate from God]. The desire for good is present with me but the ability to produce good is not. 19 For the good that I want to do, I don’t; but what I don’t want to do, this evil I keep on doing. 20 If, then, I do what I do not want to do, it’s not me doing it, but sin, that is, disconnection from God, dwelling inside of me.

Covenant: God’s Covenant with us REQUIRES no sufficiency in self and all-sufficiency in God. The purpose of Romans 7:18 is not to erase Galatians 2:20, which Paul reaffirmed in Romans 7:4-6, but to make it clear that we NEED Jesus. There is NO connection with God out of ourselves.

Ongoing “Sinfulness.” Definition: God created us out from the soil of the earth. And in doing so, He formed us to be perfectly compatible to Himself as He is, that we might be His image, the revelation of God as Love through our humanity. When we try to “do” God without God, having our backs turned against Jesus sustaining us, then all we can produce is lawlessness.

21 So I find this principle, that, in spite of my desiring to do good, evil is right there alongside of me [the tree of the knowledge of good AND evil]. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward person. 23 But I see another practice inside my members, warring against the intentions of my mind, and making me captive as a prisoner of war to the practice of sin and falling short existing in my members.

The Body of this Death. • 24 Oh me, oh my, I am a wretched man! Who will draw me [to Himself] out from this body of death? [g] • 25 Grace and thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So, then, I myself with the mind serve God’s law, but flesh serves the practice of falling short.

Oh dear God, the preachers have used this to convince us that we must “do” God without God before God will receive us.

g. “The body of this death” is a Greek idiom, referencing the practice of binding the corpse of the murdered victim onto the back of the murderer. And Christians actually believe this is what God has done with us, leaving us strapped down by our own evil. That way of thinking is God’s definition of hades, a very Christian Hell! This is “where Jesus remains!”

“You will Not Leave My Soul in Hades.” For David says concerning Him: ‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in hades, nor will You allow Your Devoted One to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence’ (Acts 2:25-28).

The ONLY Way out of our psychotic delusions, our lostness, is if Jesus shares soul with us, that is, that His story of self and our story of self might become fully intertwined inside of sweet fellowship. This is the intimacy of Union with Christ. IF Jesus enters into union with us first, in spite of our sin and our shame, does that mean God left Jesus in hades?

Negating Galatians 2:20. Paul meant Romans 7:18 to convince us that we need Jesus as our living Scapegoat, having already carried us into God through His Blood. Yet the spell-castor has turned Romans 7:18 into the means by which Christians obliterate from their minds all thought of such a Jesus sharing all with us. Romans 7:18 negates Galatians 2:20 in Nicene theology.

I have heard entire sermons preached as if Romans 7:7-24 defines the Christian life. God does use the despair engendered by such preaching to invite some to turn to Jesus. Yet the truth is, ALL Nicene Christianity uses these verses as the absolute and only description of the Christian. And this is why I have never heard anyone, arriving at verse 25, which they sometimes read, that does not scoff. – What is that supposed to mean? They don’t know; it does not fit!

The Eucharist. “Thanks be to God” is the Eucharist, our return to the Father through Jesus. We were more impacted by Paul bringing us to despair in Romans 1-3. Here we agree fully with Paul. Yes, let’s get right back into God where we belong.

Ruling Verse 5: We do NOT carry a body of death (see Romans 6:5-11). Such a delusion exists only in those who try to connect with God through self-doing. Jesus shares flesh and Spirit with us, His Soul intertwines with ours.

Ruling Verse 6: Jesus is our living Sacrifice, “our Scapegoat,” carrying even ongoing sinfulness in His empty grave, having already placed us entirely inside of God our Father.

Speak Christ:“Thanks be to God” is the Eucharist, our return to the Father through Jesus. We stay with Paul, quickly fleeing the horrors of a separated life back into our Father.

The True and Greater Law. (Chapter 8) • 1 There is now NO condemnation, no down judgment, to those who are inside of Christ Jesus. • 2 For the law of the Spirit of life inside of Christ Jesus has made you free far away from the law of sin and death. • 3 For, in contrast to this powerless law, that is, something that has no ability to produce life, in that it was weak through the flesh, God Himself sent His Son in the likeness of fleshy falling short, and encompassing sin all the way around, He brought His entire judgment upon sin in the flesh, that is, He neutralized and eliminated it.

I want to place verse 1 as Ruling Verse 10, inside of Jesus, yet it is also Ruling Verse 6, no consciousness of sins. Then verse 3 is Ruling Verse 6, that is, the meaning of Propitiation. But what do we do with verse 2? Verse 2 is another HUGE verse.

The Spirit of Life. It is in the Law of the Spirit of Life inside of Christ Jesus wherein Paul is now taking everything of our Redemption to that final level we must know before we TURN AROUND! Here’s the thing, through Galatians, from 2:20 on, Paul throws into the mix the meaning and role of the Spirit. But thus far in Romans, that focus is less; rather, Paul has been establishing the meaning of our Redemption.

Here is what Paul says in Galatians 3, verses 5 & 14. The One who continuously and lavishly supplies the Spirit to you, who continuously and actively energeoes power inside of and among you. – That we might receive the PROMISE of Spirit into ourselves all the way through our faith. And Paul said about the Spirit, in 1 Corinthians 2 and 12, that the Spirit causes us to know God, and the Spirit energeoes all.

Understanding LIFE. Paul is saying that Life, inside the Tree of Life – Christ Jesus – John 14:20, that Life is something entirely different.

The category of “Life,” which includes all, gives us the widest scope for “the Law of the Spirit of Life.” Yet this is also essential to Ruling Verse 3, the Spirit flowing through. The law of sin and death was carved in stone and shattered. The Spirit of Life is a living, energeoing FLOW! I will return the word “lawlessness,” instead of “iniquity,” for I now know what it means and will insert its meaning throughout. To live by the law of sin and death, that is, to live as if Romans 7:7-24 is “the Christian life,” is LAWLESSNESS, for it negates absolutely the Law of the Spirit of Life, which is the Gospel.

I want God to give me a greater understanding of the Law of the Spirit of Life. I continue in expectation that He will.

Life inside of Jesus. Ruling Verse 10: Paul is now placing the believer absolutely into the Tree of Life, John 14:20, “KNOW that I am inside of the Father and you inside of Me and I inside of you.”

Ruling Verse 6: Inside of Christ Jesus, inside of LIFE, we walk with NO consciousness of sins nor any separation from God.

Life: It is the Spirit that gives Life, human doing cannot mimic God (see John 6:63). The Spirit of Life is the living, energeoing FLOW of Rivers (Ruling Verse 3).

Ruling Verse 4: The spell-caster has used Romans 7:7-24 successfully to eliminate Paul’s Gospel in Nicene Christian thinking. We break him off for the sake of our brethren.

Ruling Verse 6: The propitiation of Jesus, His Blood, surrounds all that is sin and ELIMINATES it.

Life Versus Death. • 4 So that the pronounced just innocence of the law should be made complete and full inside of us, not according to fleshy walking, that is, not by outward human performance, but according to the finest details of Spirit. 5 Indeed, those who exist according to flesh, think about and out from the flesh; those however who exist according to Spirit think out from the Spirit. • 6 For death is the heart-gut thought of the flesh, but life and peace are the heart-gut thought of the Spirit. 7 Because the thinking of the flesh, that is, the thinking of separation from God, is hostility against God; it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be. 8 More than that, those who exist in flesh, that is, those who rely on themselves, are not able to please God.

Paul is absolutely going back to the Garden, Genesis 1-3. And I now know how to frame this whole thing.

Two Minds. Definition: “Flesh” in the negative sense is NOT human weakness, and it is not “doing fleshy things.” Flesh in the negative sense is self-reliance, being “responsible for one’s self before God,” and it is found in “hear and obey,” which no one ever actually does. Remember that the Galatians were not “doing fleshy things.” They had turned from Jesus in order to “obey” God, that is, to get their “flesh” under control. They had turned to death.

Life: God did NOT place good versus evil before humans, He placed LIFE versus death. The two trees ARE two minds, two opposing ways of thinking. One mind sees outward appearance and cries, “God is a liar.” The other mind sees God and knows that LIFE swallows up death. “Life and peace” are found ONLY in union with Jesus by Spirit.

Inside of Spirit. • 9 BUT YOU DO NOT exist inside of flesh, that is, inside of fake human performance, but INSIDE OF Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells inside of you. And if anyone does not possess the Spirit of Christ, he is not His anyway. • 10 But if Christ is inside of you, then, although the body is subject to death through [your former] falling short; in complete contrast, the Spirit is life through the declaration of just innocence out from just approval.

Paul is preparing now to make his very rapid TURN. No one will be making that turn with him except for those who KNOW the full meaning of Galatians 2:20 and John 14:20. Paul is also including a reference to 2 Corinthians 4:18, 5:17, and Romans 4:20. This time, however, he is giving us the REAL meaning of the contention of Faith.

Life inside of God. Ruling Verse 6: You live inside of God, inside of His Spirit. You live nowhere else. See God all around you in everything, see God alone. Jesus has already brought you into God, into all that is Life. Let that which is gone be GONE in all your knowing, in all your story of self. You ARE inside of Spirit.

Life: Life is knowing God inside of Spirit. Salvation is sharing Life with God. Grace is God giving Himself through Jesus, making it all happen. And faith? Faith is you and me looking straight at God in every Gospel Word and calling Him TRUE! My God, my God, sin has nothing to do with you, death has nothing to do with you. Paul is about to TURN YOU AROUND, for God is pouring through you now into your world, setting creation free.

To escape the false doctrine of flesh is to escape incredible evil.

Preparing for the Shock! • 11 More than that, if the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus out from the dead dwells inside of you, then the One who raised Christ out from the dead will also continuously and actively give life to your dying bodies through His Spirit dwelling inside of you.

It is not possible to sustain the SHOCK of Romans 8:18 without being fully immersed into the meaning of Romans 8:11, which is part of the Law of the Spirit of Life. Here is the shock of Romans 8:18. – “Master, who sinned, this man or his parents that he should be born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made visible inside of him” (John 9:2-3). – NOT one moment or particulate of your life inside of a dying body is about sin, BUT ABOUT God!

Life Flowing through Us. Part of what Romans 8:11 teaches us is that we walk in all that Resurrection Life is and means, through the expectation of faith, even inside of bodies that presently appear to be dying. Even though Abraham was fully aware of his body already dying, he looked straight into the Promise that is Spirit. The key of Romans 8:11, however, is that when Paul does turn us around, we will see that this Flow of LIFE is for others. Our bodies swallowed up by life are the side effect, not the goal.

Ruling Verse 3: God our Father raised Jesus out from the dead by His Spirit; then, He gave that same Spirit to us, now one with our own spirit (see 1 Corinthians 6:17). Our bodies might appear to be dying right now, but the Spirit of Life, now flowing through us, is giving Resurrection Life to our dying bodies. We walk in LIFE before outward resurrection.

Many Sermons Preached. 12 So then, brothers and sisters, we owe nothing to the flesh, to live according to flesh [either subduing it or pursuing it, either way]. • 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you are about to die, [about to return to living separated from Christ in your imagination]; if by the Spirit, however, you put to death [one sacrifice for sins – symmorphosed with His death] the actions and functions of the physical body, you will live.

I have heard many whole sermons on Romans 8:13 that cemented me absolutely into death, into full separation from Jesus loving me, and into my own total inability to achieve. You see, they do NOT preach anything real out from Romans 8:18-30. Instead, they place Romans 8:13, void of Christ Jesus, as the entire conclusion of Paul’s argument and gospel. I cannot know these words in that wicked way, thus the big brackets.

Choose You This Day! This is God’s doing, for it is He who places the tree of death right next to that last final step before the Tree of Life. You do not have to go into the explosion that is Salvation, you are free to stop and to find your refuge here in a Romans 8:13 separated entirely from Galatians 2:20 by Romans 7:7-24.

The contest here is fierce, however, for the stakes are very high. If the spell-caster loses any Christian here, if any Christian escapes his game to RUN into Romans 8:18-30, the accuser is gone forever. Do you know what! This is Ruling Verse 4. This is the fight; this is the overthrow. Choose you this day whom you will serve, for why would you die? Galatians 2:20 is complete; faith is complete. Run into God.

Fully into God. You know what, this is so important for the sake of all Christians, I must bring Romans 8:13 fully into God.

Ruling Verse 4: We stand absolutely inside of and upon the Blood of the Lamb. We speak Christ our only life, that our flesh belongs only to Jesus, that His speaking describes us. Yet we do not do these things just for ourselves, for our eyes are upon the entire Church. We see the accuser, casting his spell upon so many, that they would trust in self performance and not in the Covenant that is Jesus alone. This is the one who teaches so many to look at their flesh and to cry, “God, You lie!” Inside of Jesus, symmorphosed with His death (see Philippians 3:10), we give ourselves utterly to our Father for the sake of our brothers and sisters. Claiming nothing for ourselves, but for Father’s sake, we cast down the accuser.

Fully Prepared. • 14 For those who are led and carried by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. • 15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery again into fear, but you have received the Spirit of placement and setting forth as sons, inside of whom we cry, “My Daddy, the Father!” • 16 The Spirit personally shares witness together with our spirit, that we are children born out from God. • 17 And if children, then also heirs, heirs indeed of God, and joint-heirs shared together with Christ; if indeed we share together with Him in His suffering that we might also share together with Him in His glory.

In making Romans 8:13 a key companion to Ruling Verse 4, 8:14-16 is the obvious next line. Paul is giving us everything we need to be fully prepared for the TURN AROUND just ahead. This is the final pre-statement of Ruling Verse 1.

God Always Leads Me. Look at verse 15. Paul defines the spell-caster of Galatians 3:1 that has enclothed Nicene Christian thought – the spirit of slavery into fear. “The spirit of slavery into fear” is an exact description of what came on me from the spring of 1990, when I believed that I must be “at war with God,” until the spring of 1998 when I gave up on myself. And YES – the false definition of Romans 8:13 was at the heart of that fear.

Then look at the huge words – FOR YOU HAVE NOT!!! BUT – you have received the Spirit of placement as sons, inside of whom we cry, “My Daddy, the Father!” For me to be able to say, “My Daddy, the Father,” is the True answer to every longing or desire I have ever known. God ALWAYS leads and carries me by His Spirit.


The Day of Atonement. I am a child born out from God. This is what the Spirit of God, now part of my own spirit, tells me all the time. The Spirit always leads me; the Spirit causes me to know that God is my Father; the Spirit shares with me that I am a son birthed out from God.

Then look at verse 17. You can see the mouthful it is creating for Paul in tying us together with Jesus in every way, but without having the best word to say such a wondrous thing. A new “sym” word has already begun to press against his mind.

The turn around is the Day of Atonement, a church who now sees that Jesus has already accomplished all. – It is finished. We no longer need anything from God for ourselves, for we live inside of All. – Even as we share suffering with Jesus, so also we share GLORY, many, many, many gathered unto Him.

Sharing Everything with Jesus. Ruling Verse 7: The Spirit always leads you; the Spirit causes you to know that God is your Father; the Spirit shares with you that you are a son birthed out from God. Speak Christ. Speak that God is your Father, sharing all with you.

Definition: Preachers who claim that “God left you with a sin nature weighing you down” place a spirit of slavery into fear upon God’s precious people. You have NOT received such an evil spirit. You are a son birthed out from God, the Spirit you have received cries in you, “My Daddy, the Father.”

Ruling Verse 1: We share everything with Jesus, everything He is and everything we are. And we inherit, with Jesus, all that is God, all of God’s thoughts concerning us forever. Yet there is something pressing to turn us around, as on the Day of Atonement, for as we share form with Jesus’ suffering, so we share form with His GLORY. – What does that mean?

What Do You Want? A final note: God through Paul, in Romans 7:7 to 8:16, has placed again the choice between two before all Bible readers.

God said, “Behold, the man has become like one who knows good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24 – corrected).

Those who know Romans 8:13 by Galatians 2:20 eat of the Tree of Life. Those who place Romans 7:18 upon Romans 8:13, knowing good and evil, sin and death, “till the ground.” That is, like “Sisyphus,” they struggle ever over sin in the flesh, blinded to any existence of LIFE. – What do you want?

Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is titled “The Gospel Core.” It covers Romans 8:18-39. This passage contains two of the Ruling Verses, however. More than that, the other verses are themselves very significant. I do want to share from this lesson in the next Zoom meeting. My present thought is to write the whole lesson and to send the whole thing in the next Christ Our Life letter. Then, I will bring just the part from 18-27, Ruling Verse 9 and being made intercession, into the Zoom meeting.

I see clearly now that my thoughts on “Becoming Intercession” were not big enough for God’s intentions. I suspect that as soon as I have finished the first part of “The Gospel Core,” I will be released to write the letter “Becoming Intercession” for Being a Witness of Christ.

Let’s Pray Together. The Day of Atonement is the turning of the Church, from in-part to absolute Completion now. The first Day of the Feast of Tabernacles is God filling His Church with the knowledge of His Glory. It matters not what we ourselves might be. What matters is the Church. Clothe her with the Lord Jesus Christ.

“God, our Father, we belong to You; we devote our lives to You that we might be Your Intercession now for the sake of Your Church. Everything we have ever been, every failure and every triumph, every agony and every joy, every loss and every gain, it’s all Yours, Father. Be what You are now through us for all of our brothers and sisters in every land on earth. God, You are inside of us, personally and together, reconciling the world to Yourself, beginning with those whom You have given to Jesus in this hour.

“God, we are little, and we have no reach, but Your Spirit is mighty and flows out from us as Rivers. And this precious Flow of Gospel Word that you have given to us is Value beyond all Value, Glory beyond all Glory. We ask You, Father, that this same wondrous Flow of Gospel Word would go out into all our Christian brethren across the earth, even into hundreds of millions, right now, Oh God. Let this Word penetrate, let it overthrow all the darkness of the spell-caster, all the darkness of Nicene thinking. And let it establish YOU, Oh God, as Love into Your Church.

“Father, we keep ourselves ever inside of Jesus inside of You, that we would be that Authority of Your Christ that opens the Door for You to pour as Salvation into this world. Father, You hear and answer us. It is so.”