About Jesus  -  Steve Sweetman

The Spirit Of  Christ In You

The Apostle Paul made an important point in the last half of Romans 8:9.  After telling the Roman believers that they had the Spirit of God living within them, he said that "if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he does not belong to God."

The first thing to note here is that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, is also the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Jesus.  This speaks to the Trinitarian nature of God.  At the moment, Jesus sits at the right hand of God, but His Spirit lives in the bodies of the true believer.  This is vitally important because Paul said that if the Spirit of Christ does not live in you, you are not of God.  You are not a real Christian. 

As Paul said in Ephesians 1:13 and 4:30, it is the Holy Spirit that seals a person, making him a true believer.  The word "seal" here should not be thought of in terms of glue, but rather in terms of a lawyer's seal of approval.  It is the Holy Spirit living inside a person that guarantees that person to be a Christian.  The Holy Spirit is the evidence of salvation in one's life.  Without Him, there is no salvation.    

Let's never minimize the meaning of who a Christian is.  He is one who has left his own way of life, handed his life over to Jesus in a trusting relationship, and, has received the Holy Spirit into the core of his being.