In chapter eight of Romans, several things are quite crucial to our experience. The first crucial thing as far as our experience is concerned is the matter of walking according to spirit. This is in verse 4. Verses 1, 2, and 3 do not touch the matter of experience. The experience is mentioned first in verse 4. But you have to realize that walking is not the first point of the experience, although it is mentioned here first.
In Romans 8 the experience is not of some work that you do. Nor is it the experience of gifts such as healing. Rather, Paul’s concentration is on the inner life. In the experience of life the first point covered in Romans 8 is concerning walking. Verse 4 says, “That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh, but according to spirit.” We have mentioned previously that spirit in this verse is not capitalized, indicating that it refers to the mingled spirit. It is not merely our human spirit nor merely the Holy Spirit, but the two spirits mingled together as one.
The second point concerning the life experience is in verse 6: “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.” Here is the matter of setting your mind upon the spirit.
Which of these two matters, the walking according to spirit or the setting of the mind on the spirit, comes first? Probably the setting of the mind on the spirit comes first; firstly the mind is set upon the spirit, and then you walk according to the spirit.
The third point concerning the experience of life in Romans 8 is the residing of the Spirit. It is His residing, but He resides in you. This is not merely His experience, but His experience in you. His experience involves you. The residing experience of the Spirit of God involves you because He resides in you. It is not a kind of objective experience of the Holy Spirit apart from you or beyond you. He resides in you.
While the Spirit is residing in you, the One who raised Jesus from among the dead gives life to your dying body. He not only gives life to our spirit and to our mind, the leading part of our soul, but He also gives life to our mortal body. In our entire being there is a part which is dying. Even to this dying part, this mortal part, the One who raised Jesus from among the dead gives life. But He does not give life directly; He gives life through the indwelling Spirit, through the Spirit who resides in you. The giving life is also a kind of experience, but it is not your experience. It is the experience of the One who did the raising up of Jesus from among the dead.
The fifth crucial point is the matter of the putting to death in verse 13. Although the putting to death is your experience, you do it through the same agent, through the Spirit or by the Spirit. In the first thirteen verses of Romans 8 there are at least five points concerning experience. Of these five points three are your experiences. You set your mind on the spirit, you walk according to spirit, and you put to death the practices of your body by the Spirit. Then there is the experience of the residing Spirit and the experience of the One who raised up Jesus from among the dead. By covering all these points in the first thirteen verses, we are able to come to verse 14.
Verse 14 reads: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” Apparently verse 14 is very simple. But at the beginning of this verse there is the small word “for.” This word “for” gives you a continuation with reasons, explanations, and definitions. This means that whatever is mentioned in verse 14 is a continuation and reason and explanation of what has been mentioned before. This indicates that whatever is mentioned in this verse is a result of all the foregoing, preceding experiences. It is a result of the walking according to spirit, of the setting of the mind upon the spirit, of the putting to death, of the residing of the Spirit, and of the giving life. Without these five points of experiences, there is no way to have the leading mentioned in verse 14.
The crucial point we need to pick up in verse 14 is the leading. For many years I didn’t pay much attention to this matter of the leading in verse 14. In the past years, I have given very few messages on the leading of God. In the past I considered that the leading was somewhat common and somewhat general. But today we have to realize that the leading of the Spirit is crucial. It is important, first of all, because it is in Romans 8; whatever is in this chapter must be crucial! Secondly, this leading of the Spirit is a strong evidence that you are a son of God, so surely this is not a small matter.
The leading of the Spirit is very crucial because it may be considered as the totality of the experiences mentioned in verses 10 through 13. The leading of the Spirit is the totality of the experience of the residing plus the life giving plus the putting to death. Of these three things, one belongs to God—life giving. One belongs to the Spirit—residing. And one belongs to us—putting to death. Both God’s giving life and our putting to death are through the Spirit or by the Spirit.