No Dreams

Romans – A Treatise
Chapter Eight
NO DREAMS

Scripture Reading: verses 15-17

Previously, we suggested that Romans 8:15-17 should give eternal assurance to true believers in Christ. In the gift of His beloved Son, God has come out in His matchless love, reconciling us to Himself by the Lord Jesus through His death on the Cross. Now we are regarded in Christ and there is no condemnation for those who are in Him. All true believers come under this category. The eighth chapter of Romans begins with that premise, and here in this passage Paul introduces a subject of primary impor-tance – the liberty of God’s children.

We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but we have received the spirit of adoption or sonship, whereby we cry “Abba, Father.” We have been taken out of the bondage of sin, liberated by the resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ, and now we have been brought into a realm of liberty and affection. As the Psalmist said, “God has delivered me from all my fears.” In view of this, is it not strange that so many Christians continue more or less in the realm of doubt and fear? Settled assurance is not their enjoyed portion and the reason for this is that they are constantly looking within themselves to see if their feelings match the Word of God. How much better it would be for all of us to take God at His Word and know what the Lord says concerning us is true, no matter how we feel about it.

“We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear.” God has not delivered us from the power of Satan to bring us into a realm of uncertainty wherein we should doubt our eternal existence with Him. There are many Christian people who are constantly beset by fear that in the end they will not be good enough, and therefore come under God’s condemnation. How different is God’s Holy Word. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” A true believer in Christ is in Christ Jesus, and God has promised that one in Christ will not come into condemnation. The Lord’s thought for us is that we should not have the spirit of bondage so that we are constantly in fear and dread, but He has given us the Spirit of adoption or sonship so that we might address Him as Father. We have been inducted into His family, and the love of God as Father is on us, changeless, unfathomable, vouchsafed to us in certainty through the gift of His beloved Son.

How good if everyone of us would rest there and not try to match the truth of God with our changeable feelings from day to day. In this way the Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit that we are God’s children. The fact that our hearts go out to God as our Father is a witness we are His children. There is a consciousness in the heart of every true believer in Christ that God loves him. He has learned this at the Cross of Calvary by accepting and obeying the Gospel of our Lord Jesus, the Son of the Father, our Savior. That sense of the love of God in his soul is truly the witness of the Spirit that he is one of God’s children.¹ A great deal has been said and written about the witness of the Spirit in us, as if it were some kind of emotional upheaval for which we watch. Some people teach it is some supernatural intervention on the part of God, given to us in order that we might be able to trust Him from then on. The story is told of a man who for many years said he heard voices in the night and constantly told people that was the witness of the Spirit in him. His daughter had difficulty in believing her husband was a true Christian because he had never heard any such witness of the Spirit. If we have to hear voices in the night, or have some special dreams or visions in order to believe the Word of God, then we could not possibly have much respect for the Bible – God’s Holy Word. God has already spoken to us in His Word. He has told us the truth in relation to our acceptance before Him, and all the voices in the night would only add confusion to what the Word of God says. We enter into the idea of dreams, visions, or hearing strange voices, only to mention that many of us have fertile imaginations, and it is easy for Satan to tempt us in order to get our attention away from God’s imperishable Word and fix it on some outside evidence. The witness of the Spirit of God here is that the true child of God can stand in the presence of God and say, “Abba, Father.”

In other words, we have been brought into eternal relationship with God as our Father and we are at liberty in His presence. There was a time when we ran away from God. Now that we are sheltered through the Lord Jesus Christ we no longer run away; we are at home in His presence. We bow before Him. We thank Him for His matchless love. We commit our soul to His keeping. We accept every good and perfect gift from His hand. In a word, we call Him “Father.” And the Spirit’s witness with our spirit is that we are God’s children. It is not dreams or fanciful visions which are subject to all kinds of speculation; it is the evidence of the imperishable Word of God.

This passage goes on to say, “If children, then heirs.” If we are God’s children, the future is absolutely secure. If we have accepted Christ as Savior and have obeyed the Gospel by being inducted into God’s family through the new birth, there is nothing surer in all the universe than the fact that we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. The mark of destiny is upon the children of God. God has marked them out for eternal blessing, and nothing will change that. Someone might interject, “But what if I sin?” If you do, and you are a true child of God, you will have a contrite heart, along with a miserable time, and God will use your contrite heart and misery to bring you back, restoring you to Himself. However disobedient a child may be in any family, he never ceases to be a child. No power can change the relationship. So it is with one of God’s children. We may be obedient children, and we should be, but, if we are disobedient, we are still children.2 And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. Here’s a further truth: “If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.” We are forever linked with the Lord Jesus Christ and nothing can separate us from our God and Father.

Footnotes:
¹ “The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him.” “If so be that we suffer with him” – Here again the great provisional is hurled into the consideration of the Christian’s inheritance. “If'” the child of God is faithful, even to the point of suffering with Christ, then, but not otherwise, shall he truly inherit eternal life. Dr. William Harrison wrote: “We are still only adopted; we have not yet taken over the inheritance. We have been appointed heirs apparent of eternal life and its fulfillment, but we do not yet enjoy it. We have the full assurance of future glory, but we are not yet out of the life where there is suffering and fighting. Indeed, a definite suffering actually belongs to true discipleship. Whoever does not take up his cross and follow Him, cannot be His disciple (Matt. 16:24f). He who does not want to suffer with Christ cannot share in His glory either. The way of the Christian is not a path on the heights but down below. The way on the heights is in heaven, not on earth.” Notice the contrast between the use of “sons of God” (Rom. 8:14) and “children of God” here. The latter terminology emphasizes the dependence of the redeemed upon their Savior. They are not full grown, but are children; they cannot make it “on their own.” Moreover, they are adopted, not heirs in their own right; and further, it is not as heirs SOLE, but as joint-heirs with Christ that they shall inherit, their ultimate inheritance being conditioned absolutely upon their identification with Christ, as being “in him” now and “found in him” at the last day. “The witness of the Spirit” brought into view in these verses has occasioned some extravagant language by commentators. Thus, in Sermons, Vol. I, pp. 115-116, John Wesley said: “(The witness of the Holy Spirit) is an inward impression on my soul, whereby the Spirit of God directly witnesses to my spirit, that I am a child of God; that Jesus Christ hath loved me, and given himself for me; and that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God.” A further study of what the Word of the Lord teaches on this subject is warranted. THE WITNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT: Nothing associated with the Christian faith has been the occasion of more uncertainty, confusion, and misinformation, than has the function of the Holy Spirit as a witness. None can deny that the Holy Spirit does indeed witness with believers, for this is the plain affirmation of the verse before us. It is not of the fact, but of the manner of the witness, that we are concerned here. John Wesley (as cited above) and countless others have understood the witnessing as an inner and subjective experience; and in that view of what this verse means, all kinds of subjective impressions, experiences, and even dreams have been received as valid bona fide witnessing of the Holy Spirit. Once a man struck himself on the breast and said, “I would not give what I feel right here for all the Bibles on earth.” He interpreted that “feeling” as the direct testimony of the Holy Spirit to him that he was a redeemed child of God, despite the fact that he was a known sinner in that community, who had never confessed the Lord, had never been baptized, and did not honor a church of any name with his membership. It is possible that such notions of the Spirit’s witness still exist; and, in the interest of providing true and accurate information on this subject, the following is presented. The New Testament gives certain examples of the Holy Spirit’s witnessing, and those inspired examples demand our attention. The author of Hebrews wrote: “And the Holy Spirit beareth witness to us; for after he hath said, This is the covenant that I shall make with them ... then saith he, Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” (10:15-17). Here is an authentic case of the Holy Spirit’s witnessing to the author of the book of Hebrews. Let it be noted that the Spirit did not witness “in” him but “to” him, and that the content of that witness had nothing whatever to do with any inward “feelings” of the author. The witness did not consist of anything that he either felt or thought but was composed of what the Holy Spirit SAID. He said, “This is the covenant, etc.” (Jer. 31:33f); and the prophet Jeremiah was the mortal author of the passage here said to be the witness of the Holy Spirit. This, of course, had been written in the sacred Scriptures many centuries before the author of Hebrews wrote his epistle; and that author learned what that witness was, either by reading it himself, or through hearing others read it. As Griffith Thomas noted on p. 128 in his book, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: “This is the true witness of the Holy Spirit, not something dependent upon our own variable emotions, but that which is objective to us, and fixed, the word of God.” Take another example. Paul wrote: “The Holy Spirit testifieth to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me” (Acts 20:23). Here again the witness of the Holy Spirit consisted of a message in words spoken. Paul did not (in that passage) name the speakers through whom the message was delivered in each of the cities where such witnessing occurred; but a graphic revelation of how it was done in one city was recorded for our benefit by the Holy Spirit, through the author of Acts of Apostles. This occurred at Caesarea, thus: “And as we tarried there some days, there came down from Judea a certain prophet, named Agabus. And coming to us and taking Paul’s girdle, he bound his own feet and hands, and said, Thus saith the Holy Spirit. So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles” (Acts 21:10,11). Here again, the Holy Spirit did not witness “in” Paul but “to” him, and not by any such things as subjective feelings, dreams, impressions, or premonitions. The Holy Spirit’s witness came to him through words intelligibly spoken, dramatically illustrated, and plainly identified as being, not the words of Agabus, but the words of the Holy Spirit. That is the only kind of witness of the Holy Spirit that is worth the attention of the child of God. These two New Testament examples of the Spirit’s witnessing to people justify the conclusion that such witness is accomplished in two ways: (1) through the words of a living prophet, known to be true and authentic, and (2) through the words of the Bible, authored by the true and authentic prophets and inspired people of previous ages. In view of this, how does the Holy Spirit bear witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, the same being the affirmation of the verses before us? The Holy Spirit is the author of the commandments in the Bible, and of the promise of salvation connected with and related to those commandments, as for example when the Holy Spirit said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” The witness of the Holy Spirit, in one particular, is that verse in the New Testament (Mark 16:16). Now, when the spirit of a man has accepted heaven’s offer by believing and obeying such a command, then the spirit of such a person is also a witness that he has believed and obeyed God, and is therefore saved. Thus it comes about that the Holy Spirit bears witness, not “to” our spirit, merely, but “with our spirit” that we are children of God. Regarding such marvelous truths to the effect that God loves us, Christ loves us, He gave Himself for us, he has forgiven our sins, etc. – such are indeed witnessings borne unto the sons of people by the Holy Spirit, but certainly not in such a subjective fashion as that fancied by Wesley. No. Witnessings such as these do not depend upon the fallible and variable emotions and feelings of mortals but are grounded solidly in the Word that liveth and abideth forever. One cannot resist the conclusion that Wesley received the things he mentioned, at least some of them, from the New Testament, and not from any independent testimony within himself. At least, that is where we at StudyJesus.com receive testimony from the Holy Spirit. Thus, it is plain that the convert may properly say that the Holy Spirit bears witness to him in the New Testament, as indeed He does to all people, inviting people to accept salvation and revealing the conditions upon which they may have it; but the Spirit never bears witness “with” such a person until he accepts and obeys the Gospel. Upon that event, the Spirit then bears witness “with” his spirit that he is a child of God. The Spirit witnesses as to the terms of salvation; the saved person’s spirit witnesses to the fact that he has complied with the terms; and, in that instance, there are two witnesses to the man’s salvation. The witness of the Holy Spirit is available to all people who are able either to hear or read the Word of the Lord. If one wishes to know what the witness of the Holy Spirit is with reference to the question who is or is not a child of God, let him read there what is written. There is the true witness of the Holy Spirit. Paul’s subject in these verses (Rom. 8:14-16) was not how to become a Christian, but how to remain so. It is a misuse of this passage for one to declare that “Since I feel that I am led by God’s Spirit, I know I am a Christian.” Before the blessed Spirit will enter and dwell in any heart, its possessor must already be a Christian. No man who is not “in Jesus Christ” can possibly be host to God’s Spirit. It is “because ye are sons” that God sent his Spirit into people’s hearts (Gal. 4:6).
²For more on this subject see God’s Salvation section on contents page of this website