Living by Faith - Romans

Our Praxis in the Spirit

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 30-64

Genre: Talk

Track: 030

Dictation Name: RR311P30

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Thus saith the high and lofty one who inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite. If Thou shalt seek the Lord thy God thou shalt find Him, if thou seek Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.”

Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, we thank Thee that Jesus Christ our Lord has come, is king over the universe, is our Lord and savior, and has declared that all things shall bend their knee unto Him. Give us grace oh Lord to be more and more a part of His glorious victory; grant that we yield ourselves daily unto Thee, that we bring every area of life and thought that we have any part of under the dominion of Jesus Christ. Bless us now as we give ourselves to the study of Thy word, and grant that we might ever grow in Thy grace and in the knowledge of Thee. In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture is from Romans 8:9-15, our subject: Our Praxis in the Spirit, praxis, P R A X I S. Romans 8:9-15.

“9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”

Paul in these verses has much to say again concerning the flesh and the spirit. As we have seen in our studies thus far in Romans, the flesh refers to the old humanity of Adam, and the spirit to the Holy Spirit, and our membership in the new humanity in Jesus Christ. The flesh is the realm of weakness, of sin and death, of the world of failure, because it is the world of Adam, our life in Adam, and our participation in his rebellion against God and the certainty of defeat in that membership. The Spirit refers of course to the power of God, the third person of the Trinity, working in us and in the world.

Now one of the things we must realize is that our idea of Spirit and spirituality is very, very false. It partakes too much of the Hellenic, the ancient Greek ideas, whereby those who were in the realm of the spirit, that is the ghosts of those who had died, were weak and pale because they were separated from the world of the body, and therefore the only way you could get ghosts to talk to you if you tried to communicate with them, was to sacrifice animals and pour out their blood in a pool, and ghosts would come and drink of it, and have enough strength for a little while to talk to you. Spirituality was weak, it was frail. And that idea is prevalent among too many Christians. Their idea of a spiritual man is a man who is mousy, who is not a strong and a powerful force; and too often men are chosen for leadership in churches who are essentially zeroes, they are mousy; they are not capable of doing anything much wrong or much good. And this is the image that is preferred.

However, the two great men of the spirit in the Old Testament are Moses and Elijah. All the prophets, all the great men of God come forth and announce their works saying: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” and in the power of the Spirit they accomplish great things.

But, they are not mousy men. Certainly Moses and Elijah are men of power, of force, of energy, of vitality; they were the two who were chosen by God to meet with our Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration, so that as Christ was prepared for the horror of the trial and crucifixion, these two saints of the Old Testament met with Him. Men of force, men of perhaps more faults than you and I have, but also greater strength.

Spirituality in the Bible means power, the flesh means weakness and death. Hence Paul summons us from the realm of impotence and death to the kingdom of spirituality, life, and power.

In verse 9 he tells us: “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”

First of all, we must recognize that when he is talking about flesh here and throughout, not only this passage but all of Romans, he is not talking about your body; he is talking about the body of humanity in Adam. So to personalize it is to destroy its meaning. It means our membership in Adam; we are not in the flesh, we are not in Adam, but in the Spirit now. “If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.” It is not verbal profession of faith that marks the Christian, but the indwelling Spirit of God.

Thus, as Paul speaks of the Spirit he speaks of Him as the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. Paul does not know a Christ who is localized in heaven, He is God the Son, and like God the Spirit and God the Father, he is everywhere in the universe, omnipresent, and His power can be felt at all points.

If we have the true baptism in Christ, we have been clothed with permanent power. But the gain in power is not the primary focus of our life in Christ, but the reign of Christ in us, over us, and through us. The contrast Paul is making is between the dominion or reign of the old humanity, verses the dominion or reign of Christ in us, over us, and through us. This is why some of the great commentators of previous centuries would paraphrase this by using the word ‘dominion.’

The Holy Spirit is spoken of as the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. Both expressions designate the Holy Ghost. There is no subordinationism here, God the Father and God the Son, from both the Holy Spirit emanates.

Moreover, when the Spirit works in us, the power of God is known in the world through our works. Works are always the result of salvation, and to this end salvation presses, always. Works without faith, we are told by both James and Paul, are dead.

Then in verse 10 Paul continues: “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”

Our old humanity is condemned to death, and therefore it requires the death of our body which we inherit in Adam. So Paul tells us, the body is dead, it must die. Death is already in it; so that our physical bodies, so to speak, are now dead. They belong to the realm of death, they are going to die; because we have been regenerated, we have been made a new creation, but our bodies are still the old body which we inherited by birth from the humanity of Adam.

However, there is another power at work in our lives. The Spirit is life, because of righteousness. The Spirit regenerates us, it sanctifies us, and Paul says: “In due time it will resurrect our bodies.” And this is what he tells us in verse 11: “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

Our present possession of the Holy Spirit is assurance that even in the body, life will triumph over death. The Holy Spirit has a permanent claim on us, in all our being the Holy Spirit now says: “This is my property.” And He will resurrect our bodies from the grave. The power of death and of sin has been broken by Christ in every realm save one, our bodies. Death is going to claim them. But, Paul tells us, that even as the Holy Spirit raised up Jesus from the dead, He shall raise us also.

In other words, Paul tells us the Holy Spirit is eternally associated with us, because we are Christ’s.

Then Paul says in verse 12: “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.”

The word ‘debtor’ in the Greek means to owe money, and metaphorically a person who is under obligation. We are no longer under obligation to the old humanity of Adam, to act in terms of its nature; we are rather now debtors to the Holy Spirit, to serve the living God. And as a result we face a necessary and inevitable conflict. To be in Christ and His Spirit is to be at war against sin and death, and at work to establish Christ’s reign in ourselves and in our world.

Now, Neo-Platonism which has infected the church goes through Romans and says: “This battle between the Spirit and the flesh is something that happens in us.” As though from the time you are converted to the time you die you are just a perpetual battle ground. That is not what the Bible is talking about. The battle between the Spirit and the flesh is not our spirit, but the Holy Spirit, and the flesh is the old humanity. And now we as instruments of the Spirit, are instruments of God in that war against the old humanity. We work to convert those who belong to that old humanity, we work to undermine the work of that old humanity in every area of life and thought; in the area of religion, in the area of politics, the arts, the sciences, the vocations we have, in every area we work for the dominion of Christ, we work, because now we are members of Christ, and the Holy Spirit is forever associated with all our being, and we have a calling. We are at war, and we are Christ’s army.

The Bible sees this conflict as between two humanities, the first and the last Adam, two kingdoms, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man, and it requires us to serve our Lord. We must remember, Paul always is very precise with his language. He was after all, trained in the law, trained in Biblical law; and no one was more precise in their use of language than the scribes, the lawyers, the Pharisees. They knew how to use language accurately. While their purposes may have been wrong, their legal training was superb. So when Paul makes this contrast he is not talking about our personal bodies.

Then in verse 13, Paul says: “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”

If you live after the hold humanity with Adam, if you are a member of it, if you continue your association with it, you shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify, put to death the deeds of the body, the deeds of the old humanity, ye shall live.

Now the word ‘deeds’ is ‘praxis’ is the Greek, PRAXIS. Praxis means an action in progress. If you start building a house, that is a praxis, it is an action in progress. If you are in the kitchen baking something, that is a praxis, it is an action I progress. Our lives here are a praxis, an action in progress, for the Lord; to do His will, to establish His rule wherever we are, so that we have a task, a life long task, Christ’s work.

You see the difference. If you read this Neo-Platonically and say: “The battle is between our spirit and our bodies” then your body, your life is the battlefield, and you are going to spend all your life in vain spiritual struggles for nothing, because you separated yourself from the work of the Lord, the work of the Spirit. But if you see it as a battleground between two humanities, the humanity of Christ and the humanity of the old Adam, then it is a praxis, then it is a work in progress on both sides.

The Praxis of the flesh is to build the kingdom of man. That is what Soviet peoples are doing in the Soviet Union. That is what the humanists are doing in Washington; they have a plan, they have a praxis, a work in action, in progress, towards an appointed goal, to build a humanistic world order. And if we are not in Christ, we are a part of the praxis of the flesh, or very literally, it is the praxis of the body of the old humanity. The body of Adam, of a world, the body of humanity we say, that is dedicated to an anti Christian order.

Thus there is an action in progress, the mortification, the destruction of the city of man, of the body or world of Adam. Our Lord commanded, Luke 19:13 “Occupy till I come.” That is a praxis; occupy till I come, move in and take over, every area of life and thought. Our praxis, our work in progress, is to destroy the praxis, the work in progress, of fallen man. It is to destroy the world of the tempter, Genesis 3:5 Ye shall be as Gods, every man his own God, knowing, determining for yourself what is good and evil, creating your own laws, being your own Gods. That is our praxis, to destroy that world; to say with Christ: “Lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do Thy will oh God.” That is our work in progress.

Then in verse 14 Paul says: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”

All who are a part of this praxis, this work in progress, are led by the Spirit and are sons of God, there is a likeness. You can tell who is related by looking at father and son, mother and daughter, and our likeness is revealed in this, we do the work of our Father in heaven. When we do His work the likeness manifests itself. Moreover, as Cranfield so aptly said, and I quote: “The life which God promises is not a mere not-dying, it is to be a son of God, to live as a son of God, both now and hereafter.”

Think about that. The life which God promises is not a mere not-dying, it is to be a son of God, to live as a son of God, both now and hereafter.

Then Paul says: “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”

We are delivered from the spirit of bondage, of slavery, from being fearful and servile peoples. We now have the spirit of adoption, of freedom, of joy, and we gratefully cry out: “Abba, Father.”

Paul has here in mind the Lord’s prayer as a pattern, but also as he goes on to say a little later in this chapter in the 26th verse, he has in mind the fact that the Holy Spirit who now owns us, works with us, is forever associated with us even to our bodies, which He will resurrect, also prays within us. The Spirit leads us to look to the source of our glorious liberty in Christ, to rejoice in God the Father, and to rejoice in our son-ship, and to seek strength in the Spirit, that we might in our praxis, in our work in progress, glorify God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we give thanks unto Thee that our Lord and savior Jesus Christ has begun a work in us, a praxis, and will not rest until it is brought to its completion. We thank Thee our Father that there is a work in progress in all creation, that all things will be made new, and that in the new creation we shall forever rejoice in Him who is our Lord. Make us joyful, make us obedient and faithful, make us ever zealous in our work in progress, that we might ever be mindful that we are a work of Jesus Christ, which He has begun, and which He and the Spirit will bring to full fruition. How great and marvelous are Thy words oh Lord, and we praise Thee. In Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all about our lesson? Yes?

[Otto Scott] I just wanted to comment, according to this then, the flesh is materialism?

[Rushdoony] It is the whole world of unregenerate materialism. It is the whole world of the kingdom of man, trying to build a life in independence from God. Yes?

[Audience Member] Um, Genesis 11:5

[Rushdoony] Genesis 11:5?

[Audience Member] Well, when you were speaking of God being everywhere, and yet it says here: “And the Lord came down to see the city,” I thought maybe you could explain that.

[Rushdoony] Yes, God is omnipresent, but what this says, so to speak, is God gave particular attention to the city in the tower which the children of men builded, to the Tower of Babel. So what it indicates is, that while God was totally aware at all times, it is a way of saying: ‘Now, God comes to give this particular attention, in order to bring judgement upon them.”

[Audience Member] In other words, this was a very particular thing in history that He had to deal with, that is why it is expressed this way.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

Any other questions or comments?

Well, if not, let us bow our heads now for the benediction.

Oh Lord our God, we praise Thee for Thy so great salvation, for the assurance that underneath all the experiences of life are Thy everlasting arms. We thank Thee that moment by moment, day by day, we can always say that Thou art ever near, that Thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us, so that we may boldly say: “The Lord is my helper, I shall not fear what man may do unto me.” Fill our hearts with the joy of salvation, give us grace to know how strong and powerful we are Thy Spirit, to the end that we may serve Thee with a holy boldness, and with victory.

And now go in peace, God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.