The conscience is the leading part of the believers’ spirit. When they come to serve and worship God, they need to have a pure conscience, a conscience purified from dead works or from any kind of offense. To worship in dead religion, in our mind, or to serve any dead thing rather than God does not require our conscience to be purified. However, the God whom we desire to serve is righteous, holy, and living. He comes to our spirit (John 4:24) always by touching our conscience. Thus, our defiled conscience needs to be purified by the blood of Christ so that we may depart from dead works to serve and worship the living God in a living way.
In the eyes of God we were dead (Eph. 2:1; Col. 2:13); thus, whatever we did, bad or good, was dead works in the sight of the living God (Heb. 9:14). Now, in order to touch this living God, we need to exercise our spirit and to have a blood-purified conscience. The blood of Christ was shed for the forgiveness of sins (Matt. 26:28). On the cross Christ offered Himself to God in a human body through the eternal Spirit (Heb. 9:14). Therefore, His blood has an eternal efficacy. Moreover, this blood has accomplished an eternal redemption for us (v. 12; Eph. 1:7; 1 Pet. 1:18-19), washed us from all our sins (1 John 1:7), and purified our conscience so that we may serve and worship the living God.
The believers serve and worship God in their spirit in the gospel of His Son (Rom. 1:9). The word serve in this verse means to “serve in worship” of God, as used in Matthew 4:10, 2 Timothy 1:3, Philippians 3:3, and Luke 2:37. Thus, if we would serve God and worship Him, we must do so in our spirit for the preaching of the gospel of God’s Son. New Testament service and worship are carried out in the preaching of the gospel. Therefore, our preaching of the gospel is not merely a work; it is our worship and service to God.
In the New Testament the gospel is the all-inclusive Christ Himself (Acts 5:42). The gospel in the first four books of the New Testament—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—concerns Christ in the flesh as He lived among His disciples before His death and resurrection, that is, the Christ outside of us. The gospel in Romans concerns Christ as the Spirit, that is, the Christ within us. Now the Spirit of life who indwells us is simply Christ Himself, who is in us (8:2). This Christ is deeper and more subjective than the Christ in the four Gospels. He is the subjective Savior in His believers.
The gospel includes forgiveness and salvation, but these are not the central point. The central point of the gospel is Christ, the Son of God. The gospel is not a doctrine or a teaching or a religion. The gospel is a wonderful person—Jesus Christ, the Son of God with His divinity and His humanity. God desires to transform sinners in the flesh into sons of God in the spirit by dispensing Himself through Christ into them. If we would serve God in the gospel, we should make this same matter our goal. We preach the gospel not simply that people may be saved or be forgiven of their sins or become spiritual but so that they may become sons of God.
If we would serve God in the proper way, we need to serve Him in the gospel. Therefore, in addition to knowing the central point of the gospel, we need to learn to serve in our spirit. Only in Romans did Paul say that he served God in his spirit, because in Romans he is arguing with religious people who invariably serve in something other than the spirit—in letters, forms, or doctrines. Whatever we do toward God must be done in our spirit; whatever we are and have must also be in our spirit. Preaching the gospel is absolutely a matter of using our spirit. Paul repeatedly refers to being in spirit. He says that the genuine people of God must be in spirit and that true circumcision is in the spirit (2:29), that we should serve God in newness of spirit (7:6), and that we must be burning in spirit, serving the Lord (12:11).
To serve and worship God in spirit is to learn how to minister the gospel to others, that is, how to function as priests in ministering the gospel of God (15:16). Whenever we contact anyone, whether a believer or an unbeliever, we need to know his need as far as the gospel is concerned so that we can help him to be clear concerning salvation and even joyful in God’s salvation. In this way we can serve others properly with the gospel. The crucial point in serving God in our spirit in the gospel of His Son is that we minister Christ to others in the gospel. For this, we need to learn the elements and details of the gospel, we need to experience the full content of the gospel, and we need to exercise our spirit.