Romans 8 is mysterious and abstract, yet it is a crucial chapter in the Bible, for it reveals the focal point of God’s economy. The highlight of God’s salvation is that He wants to be one with His redeemed people. God’s desire to be one with man is not accidental or temporary but eternal. Ephesians 1:3-5 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ...even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love, predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” These verses reveal that in eternity past God had a heart’s desire and purposed to fulfill this desire. In order to fulfill His desire, God planned to work Himself into a group of human beings. In other words, in eternity past God purposed to enter into His redeemed people so that He could be their life and so that they could be His corporate expression. This is the focus of God’s economy.
According to God’s purpose, He created the heavens, the earth, and millions of items with human beings as the center. Man is the center of God’s creation because God’s intention is to be expressed through man. Man can become God’s expression only by God entering into man to be man’s life and content and to make man one with Him so that man may live by Him and even live Him out. In this way God is expressed from within man.
Zechariah 12:1 indicates that the heavens are for the earth, the earth is for man, and God created man with a spirit so that man can receive God. The crucial part in a transistor radio is the receiver, which receives the radio waves from the air. Without a receiver, a radio does not work. Although there are many radio waves in the air, only a radio with a receiver can substantiate the radio waves. God created man with a spirit as such a receiver to substantiate and receive God.
We human beings are different from animals because we have a spirit as a wonderful receiver. No animal ever built a shrine to worship something. Animals have no thought about God, but throughout history and regardless of race, people have always worshipped. Although what they worship may be wrong, their desire to worship is right. Atheists say that there is no God, yet deep in their being is a desire to worship something. Within man there is a subconscious need to worship God, because man has a spirit. Just as we hunger for food because we have a stomach, we hunger for God because He created a spirit in us.
The Lord said, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness” (John 4:24). We cannot worship God with our physical body. We should not try to physically feel, see, smell, or hear God. We must use the proper organ. Just as we must exercise our ears to substantiate sound, we must exercise our spirit to substantiate God. Although radio waves are everywhere in the air, the proper receiver must be used to prove that they are real. God is real, but we need to exercise the proper organ—our human spirit—to know Him. People often come to a point in their lives when it seems that nothing can satisfy them. Although we may have a good family, education, job, and financial situation, we will come to a point when we realize that there is still a hunger and thirst within that is not satisfied. This hunger and thirst are in our spirit. Man was created with a spirit to seek after God.
God planned, purposed, and created the heavens, the earth, and millions of items for man to exist (Gen. 1). After everything was prepared, God created man with a spirit that man could receive God. However, instead of receiving God, man fell. Then in the New Testament God came in the person of the Son. In His incarnation He became a man. He was conceived in a virgin’s womb and grew there for nine months (Matt. 1:23). Then He was born with a physical body and raised in a poor carpenter’s family in Nazareth, a despised city. Isaiah 9:6 says, “A child is born to us... / And His name will be called... / Mighty God.” The little child born in a manger was the Mighty God. The man Jesus who lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years was God. It is a great thing that God Himself became a man to live a genuine human life on the earth among men.
God was incarnated and lived as a man in order to accomplish something. When the Lord was thirty years old, He came out to minister, preach, and teach. Actually, His ministering was to sow Himself as the seed of life into mankind. However, no one around Him realized what He was doing. Even the Lord’s disciples, who were with Him day and night for three and a half years, did not realize the real significance of His earthly ministry while they were with Him. According to Matthew 13:3, the Lord came as a sower to sow Himself as the seed of life into the soil of man’s heart to grow there. Of all the great historical figures, only Jesus has sown Himself as a seed into other human beings. Jesus was incarnated, lived a human life among men, and eventually sowed Himself into His believers.
In John 6:48-51 the Lord said, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died...I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread which I will give is My flesh, given for the life of the world.” Verse 52 says, “The Jews then contended with one another, saying, How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” The Lord continued in verses 55 through 56, “My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him.” Verse 60 says, “Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard this, said, This word is hard; who can hear it?” They did not understand how Jesus, a Nazarene, could be the bread of life for them to eat. The Lord died as the Lamb of God not only to take away our sins and redeem us but also to feed us.
Christ gave Himself to us through death and resurrection. Through death He accomplished redemption, and after His death He entered into resurrection. First Corinthians 15 is a chapter on resurrection. Verse 45 says, “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” In and by resurrection Christ became a life-giving Spirit. First, He died on the cross, sacrificing His flesh and blood to accomplish redemption for us. Then He entered into the tomb and Hades, and after three days He rose from the dead and entered into resurrection. In resurrection He became the Spirit to give life to us. Thus, Christ is our Redeemer, Savior, Lord, and life. Once we believe in Him and call on His name, He enters into our spirit as the life-giving Spirit. Our sins are forgiven because He died on the cross to accomplish redemption and shed His blood to wash away our sins. He solved the problem of sin and sins by His death, and now as the life-giving Spirit, He is in our spirit to be our life.