Chapter 8

Romans 8:1-4

Now at the beginning of this chapter, Paul gives us a solution to a problem that we cannot solve on our own. Because of Jesus Christ and him taking captivity captive and allowing us the gift of life after his resurrection, the solution is to walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh. In Christ Jesus there is the law fulfilled which is the law of the Spirit. And when you confess that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, and try to be like him, the righteousness that is in Jesus, because of your faith in him, will activate and you will be able to be free from the law of sin and death. Since we could not uphold the law, God sent his son Jesus Christ in the form of sinful flesh, to perform the law and become a sacrifice, condemning sin in the flesh. This is like putting Sin inside of a container and smashing it into pieces. Amen. The reason for this is that we who are born as sinners can be able to perform the righteousness of the law when we walk in the Spirit. Righteousness is the work that you do. You serve righteousness, you are rewarded with holiness. You work your faith; you are rewarded with grace. It is a transaction that you are making when you put your faith in Christ.

Romans 8:5-8

Another distinction between death and life is that those who follow the law of sin, in their bodies, that they continually obey, are after the flesh. And those who follow the righteousness that is in Jesus Christ (and obey him), being the whole law of God already fulfilled in him, are after the things of the Spirit. Remember that the law is spiritual. To be able to explain what Apostle Paul is saying in verse six, ‘to be carnally minded is death’, let me ask you a question. Have you ever met a person who is a habitual liar? It is like they do not realize how much they lie. Even if the lie is not probable and you’re looking at them with so much confusion and disappointment, they are not aware of how much they lie whether it’s a compelling lie or an obvious lie. What I am trying to explain is that they are absent minded of actual reality. And it doesn’t need further explanation that if you are absent-minded, you’re not really living life as you should be. Like a junkie on a street, or a senior citizen suffering from dementia. Remember that a reprobated mind is a mind that cannot be recovered. Here is a deep revelation to whoever receives this: you have three parts to you, the mind, the soul, and the heart. (There are three domains, Heaven, the Earth, and under the Earth.) Your mind acts as an antenna in which the spirit interacts with us on a personal level. That’s why God gave Jacob a dream, Jospeh a dream and the ability to interpret those dreams and communicated with Solomon in a dream more than once. The scripture says that God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. When you have a sound mind, you can pick up the motions of God’s word by tuning into his signal that he is sending out. And that is because your mind does not pick up other signals. Thanks to Celestial the prophetess, I understand this better now. Your soul is your life. In Leviticus, it says in the law that we should not eat or drink blood, because the life of a creature is in the blood. Your soul is the blood inside you which is tainted and dirty because of sin. This is the reason why people were upset when Jesus Christ told them they would have to eat his flesh and drink his blood to gain eternal life. They didn’t understand that what he was referring to the Holy Bible and the Holy Spirit, because Jesus is the embodiment of the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit that raised Him up is the blood that flows throughout the Body of Christ, which is the church. Also, Jesus Christ’s blood is pure, and his body is Holy because he lived a manly life of no sin. Your heart is like a garden, (it can also be alluded to a treasure chest). When you place something inside your heart it grows into your mind. Now, the thing about the heart is that your heart is the catalyst for where the blood pumps throughout the entire body keeping it operational. So, whatever is in your heart affects everything within your bodily system. If you have it in your heart to murder somebody, you will eventually carry out that plan sooner or later. The origin of a man’s plans starts from the heart. That is also the reason why Jesus said a good man’s heart gives out good things, and an evil man’s heart gives out evil things. Your heart is also a representation of eternity because it operates day and night without rest or ceasing. So, when you plant something in your heart, like a root consumes water for it’s tree, it will affect the entire system of the body, and you will continue to carry out whatever you planned inside your heart. The mind helps you conceive of the plan by using man’s intelligence and manly wisdom to formulate and appropriate the idea you placed inside your heart. The soul is what encapsulates that plan by making it alive because of how you feel and the decisions and words you use to carry out the plan of murder. This revelation helps us to understand that being carnally minded is death, because when you entertain fleshly things in your mind, heart, and soul, you will eventually die, because the flesh is corruptible and temporary. But to be spiritually minded is life, because the Lord of Spirits is YAHWEH, and YAH lives forever. If you set your mind, heart, and soul on spiritual things of YAH, it brings you more life. Apostle Paul wants us to understand the reason why to be carnal minded is death and that is because it is an enmity (against) the ways and laws of the Heavenly Father. God is not pleased with those who do not obey him. I can’t make it simpler than that.

Romans 8:9-13

In verse nine through ten of this chapter, the distinction that we need to continue to make in our daily lives is that the body and the spirit, although co-existing together, are separate in its wants, needs, and desires. Those who are after the Spirit are going to do, think, and say spiritual things and vice versa. If the Holy Spirit dwells inside of you, then you are one of Christ’s people, and being one of his people, you are now a new person on the inside, but the body that you inhabit while still on Earth, is dead because of sin. Meaning that the flesh now should be operating in the service of righteousness and not unrighteousness. When you continue to deny yourself the pleasures of this world and life, and keep chasing after the things of the Spirit, you will be able to conquer the flesh until the first death where you are no longer operating in a body that was born into sin. Verse ten tells us that even though the body is dead because of sin, our spirits is alive unto Christ when we believe in him and have faith in him and the Heavenly Father. Verse eleven explains what the benefits of the Holy Spirit dwelling within you do for you. We know without a doubt (for those who believe and are righteous) that Jesus Christ rose up from being dead after three days of his crucifixion. I remember having a dream as I was taking a nap. I was laying down on my back and I saw myself from another perspective. I saw a cloud hovering over me and then it descended into my chest and when I woke up, I sprang up as if I had come back to life. Verse twelve and thirteen helps us understand that we are not living for sin anymore once the Holy Spirit inhabits you, but we are now living for the Spirit of God by denying the desires of the flesh and not adhering to the lusts of the flesh that we had prior to the Holy Spirit living in us. And when we do this, we are guaranteed life.

Romans 8:14-17

When we talk about the sons of God, we are referring to the Holy Angels that occupy the kingdom of Heaven. Verse fifteen tells us that we are no longer under the submission (bondage) again to fear what the Spirit is. It is like when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, and they were too scared to approach Mount Sinai because of God’s entrance. But when we do accept and receive the Holy Spirit, we are now sons of God through adoption and we now have the permission to say Abba, Father. When we are true children of God, the Spirit will recognize us for who we are in the Spirit and mark us as such. Verse seventeen explains that those who are the children of God that are adopted into his Heavenly family, are now heirs of God. That means we have now inherited God’s promises and joint heirs with Christ. The Parable of the Ten Virgins explains this verse if you read it carefully. The amount of faith we have in him gives us the ability to endure until his return. And our light is the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. If we don’t store up enough faith, the Holy Spirit won’t agree to transact His supernatural power to keep the darkness away from us and keep us clean and pure to be bought together with Christ. Another revelation to share is that the wedding supper that Christians like to talk about a lot is how Jesus’ chosen people will hang unto him like ornaments on a tree and eventually will become like Jesus (read the Book of Enoch). When a man marries a woman, she bares his last name. And just like that, those who are now children of God, become like Jesus.

Romans 8:18-21

Apostle Paul is helping us build our faith by giving us hope of a promise that is set for the true children of God. He tells us that the trials and tribulations that we are suffering through in our present time are not compared to the glory that is inside of us that will be shown at the appointed time, if we endure. There are some out there who are waiting for the sons of God to be shown throughout the earth. People are waiting to see miracles and wonders performed by the sheep that hears the Lord’s voice. The creature, stated in verse twenty, is subject to vanity, and vanity is having vain glory or glorifying your own works. The creature is waiting to be delivered from the bondage of corruption, which is this body that was born into sin and now dies. And the creature is waiting for the children of God to give them this freedom from the bondage of corruption through the power of God from the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:22-25

Apostle Paul begins to help the reader understand one of the foundations of faith, which is hope. He first lets us know that the whole creation, which is the earth and its inhabitants that are made of God, are in a state of groaning and travailing, like a woman in birth. Verse twenty-three tells us why we have hope, both the creature and the chosen, in the return of the Lord. We who believe and work our faith are just as much groaning for us to be separated from the bondage of corruption to be given a new body rewarded to us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Just like the Heavenly Father has his holy angels in Heaven, Jesus Christ will have his people when He returns, which is what Apostle Paul is trying to get us to understand. Jesus’ inheritance is this earth, and when he comes back, this will be his domain forever and ever. When we talk about glory, we are talking about the result of a Godly work or creation. The creation groans because the glory is being stripped away from its own vanity, which is excessive pride in your own work. The work of faith is rewarded with glory, but not of yourself, but of the Spirit that comes from God and the righteousness that is in Jesus. A light bulb gives off light, not from the material it is created of, but it comes from the energy that produces the light. The candle or lamp doesn’t light up on its own, it is the conjunction of the oil, the wick, and the other material to hold the light in place and make it burn when fire is added to it. It is the same for the children of God in this world. We are the candle, and the oil that we collect from hearing the Word of God and believing in the Word of God is stored up for us so when the Holy Spirit comes with his power (fire), the fire (power) can be in place and remain there. The Holy Spirit (fire in this example) comes from God. The wine comes from grapes; the grapes were born on a tree, the seed of the tree was planted in the ground, and the seed came from the Sower. The creator is the Sower who planted the seed which produced the grapes and also crushed the grapes to receive the wine. The wine is put inside a new bottle and then served to those who enjoy the wine as well. Amen. In verse twenty-four and twenty-five, we see how hope works. Hope is not what you see, because if you see something in the distance then you’ll be impatient before you reach it. The reason why that doesn’t work is because impatience brings contempt and laziness. In the Parable of the Talents, it shows that the Master in the story called the servant who had one talent ‘wicked and slothful’, indicating that Jesus hates a lazy person, when it was revealed that the servant hid his talent in the ground. But having true hope is in the waiting of something that you cannot see yet. In the Gospels it says that no one, not even Jesus knows the time or date when he returns, only the Father in Heaven knows.

Romans 8:26-29

The word infirmity means ‘physical or mental weakness.’ In verse twenty-six, Apostle Paul wants the reader to know what the benefits of the Holy Spirit inhabiting you are. We see that because of our shortcomings due to being in this body that dies, when we have the Holy Spirit with us, he steps in to make intercession with us in areas we are lacking. Prayer, for example, is something that we are not always proficient in. Because of our flesh, we are not able to give a proper prayer for our needs and wants. The Holy Spirit steps in to strengthen our prayers and even make it so strong that we start praying in tongues. The Holy Spirit enters into your heart and searches the mind. And whatever knowledge that you have available to you, the Holy Spirit uses that knowledge in order to help you to take the necessary steps to build your faith. There are certain people who are called by God to do the works of God, and even in persecution or a struggle, all the things that happen to the person who loves God works the goodness of God in their lives according to God’s purpose for them. Verse twenty-nine and thirty tells us that not all people are true children of God. There are some people here on earth who are predestinated to be created and shaped into the image of Jesus Christ. That he might be the firstborn among many people that they will lead to Jesus to be saved. Those who are predestinated are called. Those who are called are already justified before YAH. And those who are justified before YAH are glorified through Jesus.

Romans 8:31-39

Paul famously states in verse thirty-one, ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’ Which is a great rhetorical question. Unfortunately, though, this does not include everyone. This is only to the elect; the few who are predestinated to serve Jesus Christ in his kingdom. Verse thirty-three tells us that the elect is justified by God and Him alone. If anyone tries to accuse the elect of doing anything, God will step in personally to see that the elect is justified. How is this possible? Well, Paul asks the reader a question. Who is he that condemns? Paul answers that Jesus sits at the right hand of God who makes intercession for us. Jesus Christ speaks to his father and vouches for the elect. Just like when Moses spoke up for the Israelites who turned against God by worshipping a golden calf when Moses was with the Lord God in Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights. Moses made intercession for the Israelites when God was wroth (extremely angry) for them turning their backs against Him. It is the same thing Jesus does for those who are the elect. I may be wrong in saying this, but I don’t believe that Jesus is an Intercessor for all living. There are some people that Elohim chooses to ignore, knowing that they can never be redeemed. Does Jesus want to save all mankind, for none of us who are born of Adam and Eve to perish? Yes, I am pretty sure that is what he desires. But even Jesus knows in his infinite wisdom that, because of people’s many choices and words and especially their hearts, some people can never be redeemed. In verse thirty-five, we see all the terrible things that life has to offer, and none of those things can separate the elect, the predestinated ones, from the love of Christ. This is why Jesus states that ‘My sheep know my voice and they follow me, and a stranger they follow not.’ Jesus also explains how his father in heaven gave him his sheep and how nothing and no one can pluck them out of his hand. Paul then doubles down on all the terrible things that life on earth has to offer and he said that he is fully persuaded that none of those terrible things can separate God’s called and elect to be separated from God. Amen.