The book of Romans is a sketch of the Christian life and the church life. Also, God's full salvation is made very clear in this book. Yet something in this book which is extremely vital has been greatly neglected by Christianity. In this chapter we want to see what this vital thing is.
We have seen that Romans 9 tells us that we are vessels to contain God. Now we need to see something from chapters eight and ten of Romans. Romans 8 deals mainly with the Spirit. Verse 9 says that we have the Spirit of God dwelling in us, and this Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ. Then verse 10 says that Christ is in us. This shows that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and Christ are synonyms. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ is Christ Himself. This wonderful Spirit today is in us.
Verse 16 shows that this wonderful Spirit is in our spirit. This verse says that the Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit, not with our mind or with our heart. So in this one simple verse there are these two spirits. The wonderful Spirit with a capital S bears witness with our spirit with a small s. The Divine Spirit witnesses with our human spirit, and these two spirits mingle together as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17).
Ezekiel 36 reveals that the Spirit of God is in our spirit (vv. 26-27). John 3:6 tells us the Spirit begets the spirit—"that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Then John 4:24 tells us that God is Spirit, and we worship Him in our spirit. Our spirit worships God the Spirit. Also, Romans 8:16 tells us that the Holy Spirit, the Divine Spirit, is with our spirit. The wonderful Spirit today is with our spirit. That means Christ is in our spirit. This is the revelation in Romans 8.
Following this Romans 9 tells us that we are vessels containing Christ. Christ is the wonderful Spirit, and we are the vessels to contain Him. But how can we take Christ into us? The way is in chapter ten. In chapter eight we see Christ as the wonderful Spirit; in chapter nine we are the vessels to contain Christ; in chapter ten there is the way to take Christ in. In other words, in chapter eight is the content; in chapter nine are the vessels, the containers; in chapter ten is the way for the containers to take in the content.