From Lost to Loved: A 30-Day Study of Romans 8නියැදිය

The Passion of the Christ was released during my university studies in Jerusalem. I’ll never forget the night a fellow student invited me to their dorm to watch the movie. He wasn’t a believer, so I hoped it might create space for conversations about faith.

I was stunned when the movie cut to the credits immediately after Jesus’s crucifixion. No resurrection… no empty tomb. Just a dark screen, silence, and a glitchy jump to the credits. When I asked where he got the DVD, he told me he purchased it from a vendor in the Muslim quarter of the Old City. Apparently his purchase was deliberately altered by the distributor so it wouldn’t declare Christ’s ultimate victory. It was my joy to share with him the rest of the story.

Romans 8:10 affirms the hard truth that our bodies are wasting away. But verse 11 refuses to let death have the final word. The resurrection of Christ is reiterated twice, and both times Paul credits the miracle to the Holy Spirit. And if that weren’t enough, Paul also underscores that the same Spirit who raised Jesus now dwells in us.

John Calvin once wrote, “We must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from Him, all that He has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless.”[1] What good is resurrection power if it stays at a distance?

Many Christians live out an edited Gospel existence. They believe Jesus died for them. They believe He will return in glory… but they miss the miracle of the present: the Spirit of God lives in us now. It’s like watching that altered DVD in my friend’s dorm room: crucifixion, then credits. A Savior who died but doesn’t dwell.

Romans 8:11 refuses to let the Gospel stop at the cross or settle into blood-soaked silence. It lifts our gaze to the great miracle that is unfolding right now: the very Spirit who raised Jesus from the grave lives in those who belong to Christ.

This is not a promise reserved for your future. It’s a present-tense invasion. The God who hovered over the waters of creation, who split the sea and shook the earth beneath Egypt’s armies, who thundered at Sinai and shattered the grip of death now lives in you.

REFLECT:
How has the enemy tried to limit you to an edited Gospel void of the Spirit’s power?

[1]John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1960), 3.1.1.