1 Corinthians 3.16, know ye not, when he asked that question,
this is one of 10 times he says this in the book of 1 Corinthians,
know ye not. And when he says, know ye not,
he is saying you're behaving yourself as if you don't know
this. That's what is meant by that,
know you not? And then he makes this staggering claim. This is to every believer without
exception. Know you not that you are the
temple of God? and that the spirit of God dwells
in you. He lives in you. Now, if I would come up to the
average person and say, God lives in me, they may look at it in
some way, well, it lives in everybody. In him we live and move and have
our being. Or they would think, you're crazy. You're saying that
the creator, the God of glory, him who is omnipotent, dwells
in you? That he actually lives in you? He's on your inside? The one
whom the heavens cannot contain dwells in you? Now, if the Lord has saved Us,
and we believe the gospel as the old Testament temple was
the omnipresent God's special dwelling place. He promised his
presence there. You are the temple of the living God. That's a staggering
claim and it's true of every believer. You are the temple
of the living God. The Spirit of God dwells in you. The third person of the Trinity
literally, not figuratively, literally dwells in you. That's hard to get hold of, isn't
it? Now this is the first of 10 times
Paul says in this epistle, no, you're not. And like I said,
when he says, no, you're not, he's saying you're behaving as
if you didn't know this. No, you're not a little leaven,
leaven's the whole lump. Do you not know that the saints
shall judge the world? This is way infinitely beyond
the Supreme Court. Know ye not that you shall judge
angels? Know ye not that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Know ye not that your bodies
are the members of Christ. Know ye not that he that is joined
to a harlot is one body? Do you not know that they which
minister about the holy things live of the things of the temple? Know ye not that they which run
in a race run all but one? receiveth the prize. And twice
he says, know ye not that you are the temple of God. Just meditate on that. Chew on it. You are the temple
of God. This is not figurative language.
You really are God's temple. And the spirit of the living
God, the one who created the universe. The third person of the blessed
Trinity resides in your body. And I believe he resides in the
new heart in which he has given you. What a staggering claim. In this passage of scripture,
he does not say much about the meaning, but states it as a fact. You are the temple of God and
the infinite omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient spirit of the living
God dwells in you. He is in you. right now. Turn back to Romans chapter 8
for just a moment. Verse 9, Paul expounds on this in this
first half of Romans chapter 8. He says in verse 9 though, but
you are not in the flesh But in the spirit, if so be that
the spirit of God dwell in you. That's what he said in 1 Corinthians
3, isn't it? You're 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's none of his. If God by his
spirit is not dwelling in me. I don't belong to Christ. Now let's look at this, uh, first
part of Romans chapter eight. It's so important. He says in verse one, there is
therefore now right now while I'm speaking. Present tense right now, there
is no condemnation to them, which are in Christ Jesus who walked
not after the flesh, but after the spirit. Now here we have
the promise of the gospel. There's no condemnation. When
I stand before God on judgment day, I'm not going to be condemned.
I'm going to be justified. I'm going to enter in, not with
my head hanging down, but justified. One who has never sinned. One who deserves to be there.
Knowing the only reason I deserve to be there is because Christ
Jesus saved me. It is that simple. There is no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Now, what does
it mean to be in Christ Jesus? I believe the most simple illustration
of what it means to be in Christ Jesus is found in the ordinance
of baptism. What am I saying? When I'm baptized,
I'm saying that when Jesus Christ lived, I was in him. And he kept
the law. And when he kept the law, I did
because I was in him. When you go under the water,
you're signifying when Jesus Christ died, I was in him. My sin was put away. My sin was
punished. I was in him when he lived and
kept the law. There's my life. There's my righteousness.
I was in him when he died. I was in him. The sins he was
dying for, they were mine, counted his, and I was in him. And when
he's raised from the dead, you go under the water, you come
back up. It's so simple. You go under the water, you come
back up. When I come back up, I say, when
he was raised from the dead, I was in him. lay in that tomb for three days,
dead. What all was going on during
that three days, nobody knows. The Lord hadn't seen fit to let
us know. But I know this, I was in Him. And when He opened His eyes,
and His blood started pumping, and He started breathing, and
He was alive, I was in him. And you know, this is so true
that Ephesians chapter two, verse six says, we're seated together
in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Right now, as Jesus Christ is
in heaven, I am just as much there as he is because I am in
him. Now this is only known by faith,
but it's the truth. I'm in him. There is therefore
now no condemnation. to them that are in Christ Jesus.
And look how they're described in verse one, who walk not after
the flesh, but after the spirit, who walk not according to the
flesh, but who walk according to the spirit of God in them. Now understand when he speaks
of Walking not after the flesh, but after the spirit. He's not
talking about one day you're walking after the flesh, another
day you're walking after the spirit. You kind of go in and
out. No, you are either walking after the flesh, According to
the way a natural man thinks, lost man thinks, believe what
he does, you're either walking after the flesh or you're walking
after the spirit, the spirit of God who has birthed you into
his kingdom. This thing about being born again,
isn't it mysterious? Isn't it glorious? God birthed
me. into his kingdom by his spirit
and the spirit of God dwells in me. And I walk according to
the spirit, not according to the flesh. Now look what he says
in verse two for the law. Don't miss that word law for
the law of the spirit of life in Christ. Jesus has made me
free. from the law of sin and death. Now, consider this use of the
word law. The law of the spirit of life
in Christ Jesus. Now, if you're physically alive,
you're acting according to the laws of physical life. If you're
physically alive, guess what you're doing? You're breathing.
taking oxygen into your air, it's going into your lungs, the
blood picks it up, brings it to the rest of the body, you
breathe, your blood pumps, you have the laws of life going on
and if those things are not going on, you're not alive. Now in
spiritual life, The law, I love the language of this, the law
of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. If you're alive physically,
there's certain laws you must obey. And if you're alive spiritually,
you have the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. This
law of spiritual life. It is your nature to believe the gospel. It is your nature to practice
continual repentance before God. It's your nature to love God. That's not in your old nature. You don't buy in your old man,
love God, but in your new man, you love him. You love holiness. You love the holiness of God. Here's an example. The Lord declared
who a believer is. He said, blessed are the poor
in spirit. It's your nature to be poor in
spirit, to have nothing but Christ. You can't bring anything into
God's presence. It's your nature to mourn over your sins. You hate your sin and you mourn
before God over your sin. It's your nature to be meek before
God and to know whatever he does is right. It's your nature to
hunger and thirst after righteousness. Purity of heart, that's the new
heart he gives. Pure in heart. It's your nature
to be merciful. And that's your great desire,
is to practice a merciful, merciful spirit, to preach the mercy of
God, to treat men and women mercifully, whether they're believers or
unbelievers. You want to be a merciful individual. Oh, you're a peacemaker. You're not, you hate contention
and anything that's contrary to the gospel. You love the gospel
of peace. That's your nature. That's what he's talking about
when he's talking about the law of the spirit of life in Christ
Jesus. It's your nature, going back to being poor. That's because
you know, in and of yourself, you're nothing but sin. You know
that. And it's your nature to be poor
before God. Now this is what he's talking
about when he's talking about the law. of the spirit of life
in Christ Jesus. That's just like the law of,
if you're breathing, you're alive. If your blood's pumping, you're
alive. You're practicing the law of
life. Well, this is the law of spiritual
life. And that's the language he uses. He says for the law of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus has made me free. from the law of sin
and death. Now, that's an interesting way
that God the Holy Spirit inspires Paul to talk about the
law. I mean, we love God's law. We
delight in the law of God after the inward man. I love the Ten
Commandments. I love them. I really do. They're
so glorious. But Paul calls the law, the law
of sin and the law of death. All this holy law that we love. And the only way you can love
God's law is if you've kept it and you don't have to fear it.
And in Christ, I've kept the law. I'm a law keeper. I'm not
a law breaker. I'm a law keeper. That's what justification is.
Now the law, is nothing more than it exposes sin and brings
about death, spiritual death, condemnation. Now, how is it
that I'm free from the law of sin and death? I'm not under
the law. Look back a page to Romans chapter
six, verse 14. For sin shall not have dominion
over you. And that word dominion, it's
a word that means lordship. Lordship. Sin shall not have lordship over
you, for you are not under the law. That's the only reason. But that's a good reason, isn't
it? Sin shall not have lordship over you because you're not under
law, you're under grace. Now when a man is not born again
sin has complete lordship over him. He may not know it, he thinks
oh I can keep the law, I can be good, I can whatever it might
be. And all he demonstrates by that
is he's under the complete dominion and domination of sin. Sin has
absolute lordship over him. But when he's given the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus, he is no longer under that law. The law has been satisfied. He
is under grace. Don't you love being under grace?
What a blessed place to be. Back to chapter eight, verse three, for what the law,
this is talking about the law of sin and death, God's holy
law. There's nothing disrespectful
being said about God's law. We wouldn't dare do that, but
this is the language of the Holy spirit for what the law could
not do. What could it not do? Couldn't
save me. Couldn't sanctify me. What the
law could not do, and here's where the problem is, in that
it was weak through the flesh. The problem is the flesh. The
problem is my natural sinful nature. The law can't do anything
for anybody if all they are is in the flesh. It's just a law
of sin. All it does is expose sin. You
know, if I thought that the law still demanded something out
of me and Christ wasn't enough. I wouldn't love Christ. I wouldn't
love God. I'd be resentful. I'd be upset. I would be thinking he's being
too hard on me. I know what I'd be thinking.
Law never produces love. But oh, the love that grace produces. What the law could not do in
that it was weak through the flesh, we were the problem. God
sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. He wasn't sinful
flesh. He is perfect flesh, perfect
obedience. God sending his son in the likeness
of sinful flesh and for sin on account of sin condemned sin
in the flesh. That's what was going on in the
cross. Sin, the sins of the elect were being condemned in the flesh
that the righteousness, verse four, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the
flesh. Here we have that language again,
fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the
spirit. Now, once again, the law has been fulfilled in
me through what the Lord Jesus Christ
did for me. It's actually fulfilled. Four, verse three, but the person
that's in, they walk after the flesh and not after the spirit.
Now he's going to expound on that. Verse five, four, they that are
after the flesh. do mind the things of the flesh,
but they that are after the spirit, they mind the things of the spirit. Now to be after the flesh is
to be the way you were when you were born. To think the way you
thought before God saved you. To have the same view that you
did before God saved you. You were dead in sins. If you
walk after the flesh, that means you walk and care for what a
man dead in sin thinks and cares for. And this is not only speaking
of the love of sin, which is obviously there, but this is
talking about salvation by works. It's as natural to believe in
salvation by works as it is to breathe. For they that are after
the flesh, what do they do? They mind the things of the flesh.
That's what they're concerned about. That's the way they think,
but they are after the spirit. The things of the spirit, those
who have been born of the spirit, they mind the things of the spirit. They're following their nature. Born of God. What a concept. To as many as
received him, to them gave he the right to become the sons
of God, even to them which would believe on his name, which were
born, which were birthed, which were fathered by God. Not of
blood, not because your mom and dad were saved, not because of
the will of man, because a bunch of men got together to pray for
you, not because of the will of the flesh, not because of
an act of your will. It's not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God. born of God. And that is why he dwells in
your heart. They that are after the spirit,
they bind the things of the spirit. You look to Christ only, you
don't have anything else. You know what that is? That's
the mind of the spirit. That's the mind of the spirit of God
in you. Verse six, four. To be carnally
minded is death. If I live according and if I
think according to the way a natural man thinks, I'm going to end
up in hell. It's death. But to be spiritually
minded is life, you have spiritual life, you have the law of the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and you have the peace that comes
from what the spiritual man does. He relies only on Jesus Christ. And what peace there is there.
To know that all God requires of me, I have in Christ Jesus. What peace? The joy and the peace of believing. Because he says in verse seven,
the carnal mind look at is it's an italics. It was supplied there by the
translators, but this tells us the depth of the sinfulness of
the natural man, the carnal mind enmity against God. That's all
it is. And the cross is the proof of
that. When men were allowed to do what they wanted to do, they
nailed the Son of God to a cross. And you and I are involved in
that. We were involved in Adam's transgression. When he sinned, we sinned. When
they nailed him to the cross, we did. It's enmity against God. And
in these next two statements, he talks about the depravity
and the inability of the flesh. It's not subject to the law of
God. That's total depravity, unable and neither indeed can be. That's
the inability of the flesh. And here's the, the, um, conclusion
from all that. So then verse eight, so then
they that are in the flesh. cannot please God. If God doesn't give me a new
man, if God doesn't birth me from above, if I'm not born of
the spirit, if I don't have the law of the spirit of life in
Christ Jesus, if I'm not a new man, I cannot please God under
any circumstance. You believe that? Well, it's
so because it's what the Bible teaches. Now let's go on reading. But you are not in the flesh,
but in the spirit. If so be that the spirit of God
dwell in you. Now that's flesh. I still have my body. I've got
the same body I was born with. Well, I guess maybe all the cells
are gone. I got new ones or however that works. I don't know the
medical stuff, but I'm still in this body, but I'm not in
the flesh. I'm in the spirit. That's what
faith in Christ is. It's in the spirit. That's what
love to God is. It's in the spirit. That's what
love to the brethren is. It's in the spirit. If God has
birthed you into his kingdom, you're not in the flesh, but
in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you,
he lives in you and he's there for good. Now, if any man have
not the spirit of Christ, he's none of his. You see everybody
that belongs to Christ, they have the spirit of Christ. They
have God the Holy Spirit birthing them into the kingdom. They're
spiritually minded. They're not carnally minded.
They're spiritually minded. This is not something you go
in and out of. If you're a believer, you're
always spiritually minded. You know what that means? You
always know that Christ is the only hope you have. That's called
being spiritually minded. A carnally minded man, that thought
never crosses their mind. They have no understanding of
that. Verse 10, Romans chapter 8, and
if Christ be in you, if God, the Holy Spirit's in you, Christ
is in you. Christ in you, the hope of glory, great is the mystery.
Christ in you, the hope of glory. If Christ be in you, the body
is dead. That body you're living in, it's
dead because of sin. But the spirit is life because
of righteousness. Now, obviously this body isn't
dead yet as far as this physical body, but he's talking about
that body is still dead in sins. The old man, he's still dead
in sins. If Christ be in you, the body's
dead because of sin. And this is speaking of that
old man, turn back to Romans chapter seven, just back one
page. Verse 21, I find in a law that
when I would do good, evil is present with me for I delight
in the law of God after the inward man, that new man, that spiritual
man. But I see another law in my members. That dead in sin body I have
warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin, which is in my members. Oh, wretched man
that I am who should deliver me from the body of this death.
And that's what he's talking about when he says the body's
dead. Same thing here. Who should deliver me from the
body of this death and back to Romans eight. If Christ be in you, the body's
dead because of sin, but the spirit is life, the life of God
in your soul, the spirit of God dwelling in you. The spirit is
life because of righteousness. You see, you have the very righteousness
of Christ. That's why you have all this.
You have the righteousness of Christ. But verse 11. If the Spirit of Him that raised
up Jesus from the dead, it was God the Holy Spirit who raised
up the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. 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. You see, one of these days,
what is that song? waiting for my body that'll never
see it. That's what that's a reference
to. We're going to be quick in one of these days. I'm not going
to be a sinner in my experience anymore. He who raised the Lord
from the dead will raise me up. Verse 12, therefore brethren,
we are debtors, not to the flesh. to live after the flesh. We're debtors, not to this sinful,
natural man that we have. We're not debtors to him. We're
debtors though, but not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
Four, verse 13. If you live after the flesh,
you shall die. But if you through the Spirit
do mortify, the deeds of the body, you shall live. Now, if we live after the flesh,
that means we do not have the spirit of God dwelling in us
and we're not walking after the spirit and we will die and spend
eternity in hell, if that's the case. But, he says, if you through the spirit do
mortify the deeds of the body. And that's talking about that
sinful body. You shall live. Now, what's that mean? It means
two things, both of which are important. Primarily, it means
put to death being saved by the deeds of your body. Just put
it to death. Mortify it. Give up. It's not going to work. It's
wrong. Put that kind of thinking to
death, stab it. And it'll wake up tomorrow, stab
it again. And it'll wake up the day after tomorrow, stab it again.
Put to death any hoax of you being saved by anything you do. Put to death, mortify the deeds
of the body. But you know, we have still these
deeds of the body. And this is very important. We
have these deeds of the body and I thought of a couple of
illustrations. The Lord said on the Sermon on
the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, whoso looketh upon a woman
to lust after her in his heart hath committed adultery already. It's not just as if you committed
adultery, you committed adultery. Now, do I say, well, since I
did, I might as well go ahead and act on it? No. Put that to
death. Let's say you get angry with
somebody and you want to kill them. You ever got to imagine
somebody said, I can kill them? Of course you have. Well, maybe
some people haven't, but I have. You're so angry, you say, well,
according to the Lord, I committed murder by doing that. I committed
murder in my heart. Well, since I committed it, do
I go ahead and act it out and kill him? No, no. You put that to death. That's part of what Paul is talking
about when he's saying the flesh lusts against the spirit and
the spirit. And I don't believe here he's
referring to the Holy spirit, but that which is born of the
spirit, God, the Holy spirit, even contending with somebody
and having a fight, not able to win. This is talking about
the new man. Um, uh, the flesh lusts against
the spirit and you find that in yourself right now. And the
spirit lusts, wars against the flesh, and these are contrary
one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you
would." Now, this is life in the spirit. The spirit is in
this body of death that is to be fought and stabbed and put
to death. Somebody says, well, you know,
if you think it, you might as well do it. No, no, not by any
means. As a matter of fact, 1 John 2,
1, I love this. These things write unto you that
you sin not. How many different ways are there
to take that? You can't ever say, well, it's
God's will for me to sin, or I committed it in my heart, I
might as well go ahead and do it in the flesh. No, these things
are written that you sin not. And then John says, when you
do, we have an advocate with the Father. Oh, Jesus Christ,
the righteous. And one of the glorious things
about our advocate, I love thinking about this. He doesn't try to
get us off the hook and say, I didn't do it and plead innocent.
He makes us all plead guilty. And yet he causes every one of
us to be just before the law of God. What an advocate we have
before the father. Now, if you live after the flesh,
you shall die. But if you through the spirit
do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. For as many as
are led By the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Now, if I have the Spirit of
God, if I'm walking according to the Spirit, I'm one of his
children. I'm a son. I'm a son of God. Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us
not." They don't get it, but we believe it. We, I suppose,
don't get it in a way either. We just believe it because it's
like to say that God dwells in you. Who can understand that?
You just believe it because it's what the Bible says. The Spirit
of God dwells in you. For as many as are led by the
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received
the spirit of bondage again to fear. Now that is when you're
thinking God's going to get me if I don't measure up. He's going
to whack me. He's going to bring trouble into
my life. I'm going to get sick. I'm going
to wreck my car. I'm going to lose everything.
My family's going to get busted up. If I don't live the way I
should, I'm afraid. That's the spirit of bondage.
That's all it is. When I think I'm going to be
punished, that's the spirit of bondage. It's not the spirit
of love. It's not the spirit of a son. It's the spirit of
bondage. For you have not received the
spirit of bondage again to fear. Your perfect love casts out fear.
That's not talking about our perfect love. That's talking
about his perfect love to us. His perfect love to me, to where
he can't love me any more than he does, that I'm perfect in
his sight, that I'm beautiful in his sight. As he is, so are
we in the world. Perfect love casts out this slavish
fear of bondage, the fear of a slave, the fear of mistrust. We've not received the spirit
of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit
of adoption. whereby we cry Abba Father."
Now, I'm a son. I'm a son because He adopted
me to be a son. And I'm a son by birth. Birth
into the kingdom of God. The Spirit crying Abba Father. He's my Father. We pray our Father. He's my Father. This is my father's world. We cry, Abba, father. And I've
heard people, uh, even say that means you're saying daddy. No,
no, but we cry father. He's my father. I'm his son through
the Lord. Jesus Christ. The spirit. Verse 16, itself beareth witness
with our spirit that we are the children of God. You know when
that happens? When I'm hearing the gospel and
I know I'm saved. I believe that message. That's
how I'm saved. That's God the Holy Spirit bearing
witness to my spirit that I'm his child. And if children, Then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Whatever Christ
has coming, I have coming. If so be that we suffer with
him. And we did that we may be also glorified together. Oh, may the Lord keep this on
our heart. Think about it. Meditate on it
because of Christ. You are the temple of God. What a awesome, humbling thing. You are the temple of God and
the spirit of God dwells in you. Let's pray. Lord, we are so amazed that by your grace, you've taken residence in us
by your spirit. And that by your spirit, we don't
walk after the flesh, but after the spirit. Lord, may
this be realized in each one of us by your grace. In Christ's
name we pray, amen.